Paperjam

If only Rover had thought of this, maybe they would still be making cars at Longbridge. Yes, we are really going to attempt to drive this around Europe next week. Painting the car involved the following meticulously planned and executed steps:
1. Heated artistic conversations on what was going to look good splattered across a burgundy Rover 620 bonnet in the cheap gloss section of Do It All.
2. Trying to put down wafer thin plastic sheeting in a force ten gale - at one point Ray did a fairly good impression of Laura Palmer.
3. Freezing our collective tits off covering all the vulnerable bits of the car in a chaotic mix of masking tape and old newspaper.
4. Me throwing paint all over the car, my shoes, my trousers and, in a final act of punk nihilism, my hair - the others daubed in a thoughtful and all together more sensible manner.
5. Running away like kids when anyone turned up in the rather private looking car park where the operation was carried out. The CCTV tape will be hilarious.

Once the second snow storm began we retreated to the warmth of the pub, but not before I enjoyed a happy half hour in the shower, scrubbing my head with fairy liquid - I got some funny looks later, probably people who work in kitchens.

Returning to the scene of the crime several hours/pints later, we were amazed at our artistic prowess. Returning to the scene of our amazement the next morning I was impressed at how much of a crime we had committed.

Get yourselves over to http://www.justgiving.com/nickjimrayinarover if you haven't already.

I only ever saw Spiritualized in 1997, or possibly 1998 at the Que Club in brum (before it got shut down - it's back now). They were touring at what was probably their absolute apex following the release of the amazing, seminal, landmark and played repeatedly in my bedroom Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.

I went with my mate Clare who was really, really, really into the single Electricity at the time. The gig was great, but the three things I remember most clearly are:

- The support band, Acetone, who I really wanted to see hadn't been let into the country

- The whole place was full of a dense smog of spliff smoke

- Clare dragged me out to get the last train as Cop shoot Cop was hitting the twenty minute mark.

Skipping forward at least 10 years, J Spaceman has recently cheated death, toured acoustically, helped out the lovely Samantha Morton and got a new album together.

The first thing off it is Soul On Fire which you may have heard via the acoustic mainlines tour, the recorded version was played on Zane Lowe's show the other night and helpfully copied onto the internet by all sorts of people.

If pushed for a proper description I would say that it mixes some of the drone guitar noise of early Spiritualized over some of the epic song-writing of Let It Come Down with a huge grand-standing chorus that Noel Gallagher would sell his cock to have come up with.

Otherwise I would just say: It's ace. The following album "Songs In A&E" is out late May. I've got tickets for the gig at Koko, the whereabouts of which I am starting to get very concerned about, secure mail - oh fucking yes.

You may well be aware that we will be driving around Europe in the near future as part of the Coyote Rally. The route takes in Paris, Munich, Prague, Amsterdam and probably some of the continent's most scenic lay-bys and prison cells.

The rules state that we can't spend more than 500 notes on our car - so far we have purchased one wheel (for a fiver off a bloke in the pub) which Nick has been rolling up and down the street like some kind of tartrizined up eight year old.

The rest of the car should be following shortly - and could possibly be a bit like a burgundy mid-90's rover...

Oh yeah, we are also hoping that you will all sponsor us in aid of the Alzheimers Society - a worthy cause I'm sure you will all agree. So get yourselves over to http://www.justgiving.com/nickjimrayinarover and cut loose with the spare change.

I must be about the last person to see “Death Proof”. It was waiting on the door mat when I got in late on Saturday, so after I grabbed some fish and chips, I bunged it on. And I was a bit bored.

By far the best thing about it (apart from the heartstoppingly lovely Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rosario Dawson - pervy moment over, thanks) was having actress/stuntwoman Zoe Ball do her own stunts.

To see her balancing act on the front of the Dodge Challenger and to know that's her, no computer graphics or nothing, was thrilling, in the same way that when you watch “Bullitt” and the Mustang spins out at one point, you see that it is McQueen himself putting his arm out on the window and whacking it into reverse.

In fact, dammit - that's the only thing that's impressive these days about special effects in films - if the film that can somehow convince you that it's all done in camera and that Industrial Light and Magic have been nowhere near it, I'm vastly more impressed.

I know that computer graphics have got better, but you really can tell - in the dogshit-tastic “Spiderman 3”, when he puts his mask up, all of a sudden his movement becomes eerily fluid and bouncy in a way that humans really aren't. To see Rosario Dawson looking horrified, and then really excited in the passenger seat while watching Zoe Bell on the bonnet of the Challenger was really engaging.

But the film, the plot... all the characters all spoke in Tarantino-ese, it seemed massively overlong at 114 minutes, and Tarantino could only be arsed to keep up the scratchy film effect until the beginning of the second half.

Also the idea of using soundtracks from other films was just a bit rubbish, I wish he'd give it up - during the chase, I said to myself: “eh up, that sounds like Franco Micalizzi” and that took me completely out of the situation. “Jackie Brown” is still his best film by a thousand miles.

Saw a brief write up for this while on the train back from Art Brut the other week, a black comedy about a nasty A&R man at the tail end of the Britpop years. What’s not to like about that?

Some routine library enquiries revealed that they didn’t have it so I strolled into Leamington Waterstones the other Friday to make the triumvirate of ladies behind the counter very happy by asking if they had a copy. “It’s got a rude word on the cover”, one giggled. “Is it ‘motherfucker?’” I whispered, they all giggled. The conversation continued, James shook his head in the background and muttered something about the effect that counters seem to have on me.

After such a good start it is disappointing to report that Kill Your Friends is a bit of a let down. There are some good jokes at the expense of various no-mark indie bands (quite a few of which I actually liked) and the absolute disgust that the author holds the music industry in comes through very clearly.

Thing is, it seems like a low-calorie version of Brett Easton Ellis, there is a hateful central anti hero who is out for himself to such an extent that a spot of murder fits in nicely with his career path, everyone is snorting coke all the time, all his co-workers are hateful yuppies and every woman is described as some kind of spunk-gargling street walker. Every chapter starts with a wry state of the industry summary usually involving Ultrasound or Gene.

So effectively American Psycho crossed with the NME. It certainly isn’t terrible and I reckon it would have made a cracking short story, but at over 300 pages it does drag on a bit too long.

One interesting point is the opening quote from the late, great Hunter S Thompson, who in just 32 words efficiently sums up the entire novel that follows and makes you laugh out loud:

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side."

1. It only comes in small bags, nudge nudge.

2. It comes from Yorkshire, the home of hemp, as you know.

3. It is shockingly pricey, even by the standards of the thoroughly creepy health food shop in Warwick where they wear white coats and act like a bunch of pervy doctors.

4. No, you can’t get high off the steam while it is cooking, but it will clear your pores out beautifully.

5. It is slightly courser than normal pasta.

6. It tastes quite nice, subtly herby.

7. It is very good for you, although probably not after drowning it in homemade sauce feauturing three different types of meat and more garlic than you would find in a French vampire hunter’s travelling bag.

8. It probably won't give you the munchies, but if it does, you are already eating.

It's our first time in the Hare and Hounds, sister to the Bulls Head in Moseley, and we're impressed - it's a lovely Victorian pub. Lots of original looking tiles, a smattering of 60s retro furniture, plenty of decent beer on tap (although I'm on lime and soda tonight), and the bar has that array of leaded windows above it that screams “you are stepping back in time”. Two gulps of a pint and we're already hatching plans to move here.

Up the deadly, narrow stairs - thankfully I'm not wearing heels, tonight - to the 7inch cinema, which tonight is thrown over to annual lo-fi film competition Straight8.

The idea is that you send them £70, they send you a 3 minute Super-8mm film cartridge. You shoot your film, and send it back to them, unprocessed, along with a soundtrack. They do the processing, and if all goes well, the first you'll see of your film is when you turn up at the premiere night at a cinema, possibly at Cannes if you're lucky.

So - there's no editing in post. No post-processing. No bleedin' big-eyed cartoony computer generated furry models neither. Just 3 minutes 20 seconds (or thereabouts) of scratchy, flickering film, with all the edits and effects done in camera, which generally means plenty of under/overcranking and stop-frame animation. One clever-clogs managed a split-screen effect.

And admittedly this is a best-of, but it's really good fun. Our favourite is probably the filthy Flying Lizards-esque pop-video Stick and Balls by Jacqueline Wright and Alice Lowe. I know paper-jam Jim will appreciate Jour de Glories, performed by a brave man with plenty of room for all that beer.

If you fancy giving it a go yourself - the closing date for entries for Straight8 '08 is March 26th, and there's plenty more films over at Straight8's website.