Paperjam

Every so often we pop over to Digbeth to have our retinas boiled by the boys and girls from 7 inch cinema showing odd films from the archives and crazy new shorts.

It's always blummin good fun, and we'd hug them all drunkenly if we weren't so uptight and damned heterosexual.

Last time we were treated to a performance by classic British eccentrics the ZX Spectrum Orchestra, whose "Red Square" animation apparently took one of the Clives 9 months to complete ("You could've had a baby" piped up someone in the crowd at the Rainbow). Have a gander at all that sort of thing over at Youtube.

With that in mind, we can fully recommend popping to see them at the ICA in Larrhndahhhhn on the 8th January, where ZX Spectrum Orchestra and evil noisy types Black Galaxy will also be caning the eardrums of you soft southerners. We're just hoping that they all don't fuck off to London permanently.

Next up for us provincial Midland types, the Flatpack festival runs between 1st - 4th Feb next year, across arts venues in Birmingham, with lots of films and happenings. Hope there's nothing good on in the Sunflower Lounge, we're not allowed in there for some reason, probably 'cos we're too nice.

Also, in the final thing to be pinched from their newsletter - we can fully recommend the inaugural 7 inch DVD, full of fun stuff, including the hardcore 8-bit action of "Red Square" and the painfully great "Butterface": that's a still from it above. Makes us well up just thinking about it.

Update: Tuesday 8th Jan

Whups : 7 inch cinema is actually Ian and Pip, rather than just a bunch of sweaty blokes. There's some photos of the event, including ZX Spectrum Orchestra pushing buttons and one out of Black Galaxy skilfully relaxing by the bar over at Flickr.

There was precisely fuck-all special about most of the Christmas telly schedule, but my frightening and vengeful God, we were looking forward to political satire-thing The Thick Of It.

Brutal. It's the only word for it really. It's possibly the only programme on telly (apart from Channel 5's "The Girl's Guide to Sex", which would merely be revision, anyway) that makes paper-jam Jim wish that the aerial socket in his flat wasn't just connected to a pigeon's arse on the roof.

If you haven't seen the two, oddly short series 1 and 2 (3 episodes each, both out on DVD this spring) - it's from the twisted mind of Armando Iannucci, who has described it as "Yes Minister meets Goodfellas". Which is spot on. Except there's more swearing-per-square second than "Goodfellas", or almost anything. And it's quality swearing.

Don't let anyone, including my parents, tell you that there is too much swearing in it. That's titwank.

Chris Langham who plays/played the slightly rubbish junior minister is, ahem, away on gardening leave while they work out what exactly he's been up to in his spare time with those photographs and some children.

This episode was meant to focus more on the opposition, but as ever, it's all about the brilliant, scheming evil Malcolm Tucker, played by Peter Capaldi. Tucker won't use one swearword where twelve will do, and he relishes every single one of them.

In this episode it's actually Jamie, his Scots assistant, that's even more harsh, asking Peter Mannion (Roger Allam, on form) "were you the forced abortion, or the lovechild? Or the guy that asphixiated himself with a kiwi?". He also excels himself with a particularly graphic description of the unusually forceful method he would use to play a colleagues' iPod.

Everyone is either a colossal shit or twisted out of shape by the bullying and general brutality. There's a surprise ending, and hopefully it'll lead to a quick full third series (um, with 6 episodes this time, please?) including the opposition, especially Roger Allam, who plays a wonderfully confused shadow minister.

It's repeated Wednesday 10th Jan at 10pm on BBC4, and Late Review presenter person Mark Lawson interviews Iannucci afterwards.

More info over at ye old BBC, and some naughty (shh) clips of previous series over at Youtube.

"Cousin D’Alsace"

"The Lazy Turkish Bathers"

"Our Franc"

"Polish Friend On The Payroll"

"Irish Blood, English Heart, Italian Boyfriend"

"The French National Front Discotheque"

Trailer for the new Danny Boyle/Alex Garland/Cillian Murphy collaboration has appeared on the internet somehow, via a russian web site or something. You can check it out here. The music is from Clint Mansell's soundtrack for Requiem For A Dream, I think so anyway.

Seeing as it is about the sun dying I didn't think it was going to be a knockabout comedy and the trailer seems to support my suspicions. The shockingly lazy generalisation that I am going for is : 2001 meets Event Horizon meets The Towering Inferno. Still 28 Days Later was really good so hopefully this will be too.

There's a web site with shedloads of info at www.sunshinedna.com.

As part of the weekends Flatpack festival I went to the Sunday night screening of Science of Sleep (which was well worth going to) and was lucky enough to also catch Everything Will Be OK, a short animated film by Don Hertzfeldt. This was 17 minutes of a stickman called Bill pondering the seeming meaningless of his life as he gradually sinks into somekind of mental illness. It was great; quirky and funny at the start before becoming disquieting and disturbing (but still a bit funny) as it progressed.

Knowing nothing about Don Hertzfeldt or his company Bitter Films, I got on the internet at work today and had a bit of a dig round. Looks like Everything Will Be OK could be up for an Oscar. You can get hold of a load of Don's films via a DVD that you can order from the Bitter films web site. If you want a taster, check out Rejected (which you can watch here although it is a touch shonky), an earlier film documenting the problems he encountered while trying to fulfill some commercial commissions and the chaos that his breakdown brought upon his creations. Funny, technically brilliant and very pointed indeed.

I can't think why I've never been to the Electric Cinema before.

Well, I can actually - years back it used to have dummies strapped to the windows high up on the front of the building - which made it look like a rather diseased fleapit.

Anyway, it's a rather lovely old fashioned cinema, with two screens. The most important bit is that you can take beer into the auditorium with you, important for the Flatpack shindig last Friday, Hocus Focus.

First up was hairy man Andy Votel playing a fabulous selection of blasting funk from the non-English speaking world. We've love a playlist, it was outrageously good, and happened to fit in nicely with the random visuals, including Serge Gainsbourg creeping around some young lady, as per.

Now then, now then. I can't speak for Jim, particularly as now it's likely he's ponced off to model for Storm given some of the recent photos he's been taking of himself, but this half of paper-jam likes stuff that straddles the art/pop divide. Voice of the Seven Woods take on soundtracking Armenian film "The Colour of Pomegranates" came down on the art side, and felt heavy going. It didn't help that the film was heavily chopped up, so it made possibly less sense than it might've - although the patina of the film and the photography was lovely.

Talking of perfect art/pop, Broadcast were on next, and blipped and blooped their way through their DJ set with a radiophonic selection, including Delia Derbyshire's tapelooped alien chantathon "Zi-weh zi-weh zi-weh oo-oo". Trust me, it's a space-drone-pop winner.

The final thing on the bill was "Valerie and her week of wonders", the tale of a rather lovely young girl who has her first period, which then leads to a surreal world of sex, adventure, vampires, getting burned at the stake, magic earrings, yknow - the usual stuff.

Again, it looked great, the soundtrack was great in parts (could see why Broadcast had been inspired by it), but even at only 73 minutes long it dragged, and had us lost in parts. Particularly the lesbian scene with the "married" woman, what happened there? Afterwards we found out that the actress that played Valerie in the film was in fact fourteen at the time, which made me feel rather dirty.

All in all, we'd have to stick our necks out and admit it was hard going at times, but we wouldn't change 7 inch cinema's aesthetic for the world, we need them around.

We watched the trailer for "Hot Fuzz" just the other day, and I really hope they've saved all the jokes for the film. 'Cos the trailer was a bit dull.

Not like the "The Simpsons Movie" trailer, which had me still crying with laughter five minutes later. It's trailer number 2 you want, by the way...

There would be photos, but all you would see is the backs of freakishly tall people's heads. I was stood behind a six foot four lizard who must've had the dance bone removed from his body at birth. I'm convinced people don't dance in Nottingham.

So we were really, really packed into the Rescue Rooms for the return of CSS. They had their first gig in Europe over in Stealth, and now they're back before they go on the upcoming and predictably badly-named (but sold out) NME New Rave tour with the Klaxons and the New Young Pony Club.

On they came with black capes over their heads to ye olde "No limits" by 2unlimited (presumably in reference to the New Rave tour), which segued into an exuburent version of "CSS Suxxx".

Because we're such bloody rebels, we eschew basic journalistic skills like research beyond what we can type in the Google search box, I'd not heard the album beyond a few random tracks. Everyone's favourite single "Let's make love and listen Death from Above" was just ok, "I love alcohol" was a bit of drunken pub singalong cobblers, but "This month day 10" was a cracker.

Lovefoxxx makes for a great lead singer, no studied posing, dressed in a leotard like a dance instructor, hair going in all directions, random comments and audience rabble rousing inbetween songs, but no crowd surfing this time.

Flickr type DannyNorth got some shots last time they were at Stealth, gives a good idea of the intensity of CSS live. They're in London in April, and in Brighton and Manchester in May - check their dates....

I'd love there to be a busy and successful electronic music scene in Coventry, so I was as chuffed as I could be to hear about our favourite cafe bar thing Browns putting on an electronic night as a flipside to their regular Dirt nights.

But. And there's always a but. I didn't like it.

Sorry lads. Really, I tried. And so did my compatriots on that night, who are both called Jim, for legal reasons.

I did want to like your eardrum-raping drill and bass, but I remember the likes of Jega and u-ziq from oooh, about ten years ago, and I much preferred that.

Also I tried to like your smooth drum and brass, but couldn't get over the feeling that this might be how the Last of the Summer Wine will be soundtracked in 2047.

Your slow-mo post-rock stuff just... well let's leave it there. It's not my thing.

We didn't make it to the last act because of work on Monday, but I fervently hope they were fresh and forward looking, rather the oddly 90s retro sounds of the previous acts.

Despite all this, we're looking forward to Clean 2, scheduled for some time in April. You can get more info at the usual Myspace page, and see a couple of the acts at 93 Feet East in London on Monday 19th Feb.

I had a chance to go and see this crazy looking anime flick during the flatpack festival in Birmingham. Being in a period of moping at the time, I didn't bother and now I'm gutted as I have no idea when it is going to be properly released in the UK (if at all).

The plot concerns a newly invented device that allows psychotherapists to enter their patients dreams to sort out any unpleasantness. One of the devices is stolen for nefarious reasons and, if the trailer is any indication, everything goes completely postal. The images on display include salarymen jumping off skyscrapers, speeding mermaids, giant dolls being blown up and all sorts of reality warping strangeness and nastiness, seemingly has the potential to make the fairy tale-on-mushrooms Spirited Away look like a particularly dull episode of Heartbeat.

More details on the web site, but no release dates for the UK. Sony Pictures Classic: Sort it out, you cocks.

You know that bit near the start of Taxi Driver, where Travis bemoans having to sometimes wipe the blood and cum off the seats of his cab? That is a bit like the daily experience of deleting all the spam comments that get left on this web site. Now and again someone leaves something interesting, angry or at least not mentioning cock size, free prescription drugs or crazy hardcore milf action.

The other day the best comment ever appeared and made my day, if not my week. Hank Starrs, of the legendary Animals That Swim (easily the most underrated band of all time) left a message that provided probably the only exclusive bit of music news that we will ever get our hands on. At the invitation of Eddie Argos he has done a bit of singing on the new Art Brut album, not only that but the experience just might be the catlyst for an ATS gig of some sort. This is big news in my world and if you've got an ounce of humanity, style or taste it should be big news in your world too.

More on the completely ace Animals That Swim on this very site: Firstly, why they are so great and secondly the greatest hits album that came out a few years back.

Plus there is an interview with Eddie Argos about the forthcoming Art Brut album It's A Bit Complicated on Pitchfork. They are touring supporting Maximo Park fairly shortly, but we here are already looking to get tickets for when they return to the Birmingham Academy on their own in June.

My relationship with the NME is a bit like the one you have with a scab, you know you should leave it alone to heal and fall away naturally, but you end up picking at it out of some kind of morbid curiosity. It gets ripped off too early; you are left with a bleeding knee and end up with another scab.

We’ve pointed out on several occasions previously just what an unpleasant sixth form fanzine the NME has become and mocked the level of journalism/musical eclecticism on display, but I have to take at least a bit of the vitriol back as they did a fine job of recommending the album Turn The Lights Out by The Ponys.

Admittedly the sub editor had slapped the pun-tatstic “Hot To Trot” across the top of the review in a final attempt to put me off, but I was quickly able to discern the words “lethargic”, “Sonic Youth”, “Malkmus” and “Pixies-esque” in what seemed to be an overtly favourable write up.

I decided to give it a go and I’m glad that I did. Turn The Lights Out has got some fucking great songs on it that distill art/drone/slacker/alt rock into a compact and tuneful form.

Special mention should go to the twangy 1209 Seminary, belting opener Double Vision and the pounding Harakiri. Best thing on it though is Kingdom Of Hearts which effectively summarises the shoe-gazing movement inside two minutes and three seconds of plodding magnificence. Reminds me of Six By Seven and that’s a good thing.

Check some tracks at The Ponys Myspace page.

In deepest darkest August 2005, The Psychotic Reaction were kind enough to send us a copy of their album Rumble. I was most taken by it’s tuneful, DIY, lo-fi charms, you can read more here - The Medway Crab Fishermen is a totally ace song.

Which makes it all the more painful to have to report that on their new double A side A Moment Of Clarity/Overdraft Blues TPR have eschewed their homely charms for a grander design.

From the opening orchestral refrain I was unsure, then when the children’s choir kicked in I was reaching for a bucket. It’s a mid tempo plodding effort with lyrics that would be at home on the next Snow Patrol album. The big grand-standing chorus is purely designed for middle-aged couples to hug each other to at weddings and the mid-song dual-harp solo is just repugnant.

Only joking. It’s business as usual, first track makes me think of The Pixies at the start and is an organ driven stomper par-excellence. “A Moment Of Clarity” is still one of my favourite phrases of all time, along with “The Philosophy Of Futility” and “Ok, go on, I can skive off work tomorrow”.

Fellow A-side , the instrumental Overdraft Blues is blessed with a cool title and sounds like it should be the soundtrack to the greatest two and a half minute long silent film ever made.

These tracks are released on 17th April, you can download them for free at the following location or have a listen on TPR’s MySpace page. In exciting audio-visual news there should be some videos appearing on You Tube as well.

Albums being leaked early; mixed feelings. On the one hand it’d be nice to wait for the proper thing to come out. On the other hand no-one would have known any of LCD Soundsystem’s new stuff at the recent gig if the odd dodgy copy hadn’t changed hands previously. Steve held forth on the matter at the time.

So I morally debated with myself for all of twenty seconds before downloading the five leaked tracks from Art Brut’s forthcoming second album, It’s A Bit Complicated, and although I might have over-listened to it by the time it comes out (in June I think), I’m glad I did.

You’ve already heard the crashing Nag Nag Nag Nag, but there are four other tracks, which show that Eddie Argos is still the best lyricist around at the moment and that Art Brut are sticking to noisy punk-ish pop music. The edges are a bit more smoothed away than previously, but Pump Up The Volume and Direct Hit are still crunchy and catchy as anything. Post Soothing Out is sad and funny all at once, while also containing a quick critique of the work of Ike and Tina Turner. Honestly.

The great thing about Art Brut is that they make you feel about 18, probably because they have songs about pausing while snogging to say “Listen to this song it’s great” and they make you want to jump about like a fool, it all appeals to my juvenile side. Anyhow, I reckon the best thing available on this sampler is Late Sunday, which is so bouncy that it would get Stephen Hawkings pogoing. It goes really Britpop by the end, which doesn’t bother me at all, but I realise that I could well be in a minority there.

On this showing It’s A Bit Complicated could be the album of the summer, Art Brut are touring in June, get your tickets early.

Modern communications technology is growing at an astounding, almost exponential rate and the effect it is having on society is both profound and exciting:

• The incredible take-up of digital TV means extra choice for viewers. It is estimated that every 28 seconds a new channel is launched featuring people who failed to get on Big Brother fronting for premium rate phone competition lines.
• High speed broadband advancements means that a broader and better defined amount of hard-core pornography is instantly available to anyone who wants it. The state of the nations hedgerows has improved immeasurably.
• Social networking web sites are bringing people of all ages, racial and religious backgrounds together in unity to trash house parties on a scale that was previously thought unworkable.
• The abstract and depersonalised nature of E-mail, SMS and IM mean that people who have historically found it hard to develop relationships (such as animal fiddlers, nonces and sexual harassers) are now able to express themselves freely and without fear of society's ridicule.
• Multimedia phone messaging allows the immediate expression of ideas and news, such as me finding out that my constant procrastination regarding going on the big cool slides at the Tate modern has finally meant that they have taken the fucking things down before I got to have a go. Shit.

It's a bit off our manor but there is a fair chance a paper-jam delegation could be heading down to Cardiff for the inaugural outing of this urban festival being staged at two venues in the Welsh capital.

There is a dance-centric Tantrum Arena staging the likes of 808 State and Dreadzone Soundsystem while the more guitarred-up Sub Arena is headlined by Ozric Tentacles and features amongst others the magnificently named Captain Paranoid & The Delusions. The flyer also promises "Real Live Russian Roullette" which makes the £12 charge for a ticket seem all the more reasonable. More at the Blowout festival web site and at their MySpace page.

The internet flash games that are ruining the world economy one extended lunch hour at a time seem to fit into a number of fairly standard categories:

• The horribly, horribly addictive yeti sports games, our office shut for about a week when someone sent round the first one.
• Pervy hentai stuff from Japan involving cartoon alien schoolgirls, in pants.
• Games where you eviscerate large numbers of little stickmen in increasingly gory ways.
• Scatological efforts involving pissing, shitting, farting or spunking with a certain amount of timing or accuracy.

Whilst flipping through Edge (which, rather like the NME I have no idea why I keep buying), I came across mention of the deeply fantastic Boomshine, a flash game involving little coloured balls, bouncing around at random that you need to explode by starting a chain reaction.

All you do is click the mouse once to kick things off and then sit and watch while chaos theory in microcosm kicks in and hopefully a large number of the balls explode, albeit in an aesthetically pleasing manner and with pleasant little pings. Think Missile Command re-written by The Orb.

Easy to start with, success at the later points of Boomshine seem to be down to extreme cleverness, some sort of zen mastery or extreme luck. I’ve no idea but you do seem to have more success when a little, ahem, worse for wear, one way or the other. You can play it by clicking on this link right here. Take my advice and turn the music off.

There is always something to appreciate in a skilfully written opening line, something that grabs your interest and indicates exactly what it is you are getting yourself into. For my money you can’t really go wrong with Raoul Duke’s, “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold”, or maybe even Shaun Ryder’s, “Son, I’m thirty, I only went with your mother ‘cause she’s dirty”.

However absolutely the greatest opening line to anything ever is “In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake, but I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil.”

If you haven’t heard it, the Armageddon soundclip is one of the funniest things ever, both in terms of the subject matter and in terms of the radio announcer totally pissing himself laughing as he tries to read the news report out. If you are feeling even slightly fed-up I recommend it whole-heartedly, it would cheer up Thom Yorke (probably). Be warned it may not be suitable for the office, having said that it gets played where I work roughly once every 2.4 hours.

I was almost ridiculously overjoyed when I discovered that (greatest band of their generation) Super Furry Animals are going to be headlining the free Godiva Festival in Coventry on July 14th. I immediately told or texted everyone that I thought might be interested, the highlights of the answers that I got were: "Errr, right", "cool" and "Feh".

I couldn't care less, I'm as excited as a six year-old on a kia-ora binge. It'll be great and will hopefully preceed a number of album releases from the great SFA to follow up the lovely Lovekraft (of which a poor and ill advised, even for me, review can be read here). Saw them the other year at the academy and it was great, but for some reason this web site is fucked and I can't link to it (was quality though, honest).

Batman Begins was really good wasn't it? A comic book film that includes nasty drug induced hallucinations, scary Cillian Murphy and a Dawn Of The Dead homage has to have something going for it. Well with the sequel, The Dark Knight, it looks like they are setting the dark-o-meter to the most disturbing setting.

This is supposed to be a picture of Heath Ledger as The Joker, doesn't look all that amused does he? Check the scars. Oooh, nasty. This may not be genuine but it was revealed by some sort of viral marketing web site that I am not quite sad enough to have visited (or understand). If it is genuine then it looks like Christopher Nolan is taking the Batman films in a direction that you would have to describe as "unpleasant".

I've also read that a major reference for the Joker in this film for the director and actor is Alex from A Clockwork Orange. If so, I think it is fair to expect a slightly more menacing and rounded character than Arnie's portrayal of that criminal mastermind with a flair for side-splitting puns, Mr Freeze; "You are not sending me to de cooler!", how we laughed!

Super Furry Animals/Notting Hill offshoot The Peth have been teasing us all with the marvellous Lets Go Fucking Mental for a while. I have to admit that I thought it was cheekily entitled Lets Go Fucking Men... for a while due to MySpace's love of brevity. Oh well.

The new track is called Sunset Veranda and it has a soul diva singing Ice Hockey Hair atmosphere (with a bit of an orgasm in the middle) going on. They have an album sorted, but when/where it will appear I have no idea at all.

Check out The Peth at their MySpace page, Skin Up For Jesus is worth a go for comedy value.

While we're talking about bands beginning with "The", there's been ever such a fuss about the new stuff from Cornish techno type Brian Tregaskin, recording as The Tuss.

A EP called "Confederation Trough" appeared on Rephlex a while back, and everyone (no, really - everyone) who listened to it went, hmmm, that sounds quite a lot like Aphex Twin in general, and the recent acid-splattered Analord series to be specific. And you say this chap is Cornish? And it's out on Rephlex, where all those lovely AFX tracks have come from the in past? Could it be that The Tuss is Richard D James?

Wait there, Sherlock. The battle has opened up on the Myspace front, with a load of sites springing up: Karen Tregaskin, Patrick Tregaskin, and the apparent ringleader Brian Tregaskin, who in one short but bitter blog post had a go at the Guardian's Louis Pattison, who wrote a lovey-dovey article about the whole affair ("Dancing in the dark"), calling him a "twat" and demanding a retraction.

So now I'm writing about it, and the two of you reading about this now know about it, and there's been oh-so-very-much discussion on the internet in various forums, as you might expect, and it's all cleverly building up to the release of the 6-track LP, coming out later this month. Ah, they got me, the clever marketing bastards.

It's a bit childish, but it's got lots of people talking, and it's a bit mysterious and pop-starr-y. RDJ seems like an enigma, he doesn't do much in the way of interviews, and when he does, he doesn't really give much away, unlike all the identikit indie-pop types.

So what about the music? Oh, that old thing.

Well "Confederation Trough" is ok - "GX1 Solo", named after the amazingly rare and massive Yamaha synthesiser that Abba used on "Lay all your love on me", is a bunch of wanky bollocks, if you can ear-visualise that, but "Alspacka" and "Fredugolon 6" are rather better bits of spannered analogue electronic fun, packed full of ideas, like a entire series of "Why don't you?". Having said that, they doesn't reach the emotional heights of the "Analord" series ("Home made polysynth", "Pissed up in SE1", "Crying in your face", "I'm self employed").

Back in Myspace-land Brian Tregaskin has denounced the recent leak of the upcoming "Rushup Edge" as a fake, claiming that the track on the Myspace player, "Teddy Oggle" is really from the album. I hope so - it's great, really warm and wonky - as if your little sister has been misusing the belt from your dad's record player to bind together her collection of scary dolls, like some sort of glamorous plastic miniature death camp. To me, it sounds like A**** T*** at his best, conjuring up a dense atmosphere and emotion from the control voltages.

Whatever - even if The Tuss doesn't turn out to be that same bloke that made "Didgeridoo" it's another chapter added to the myth.

Every year we pop along to the festival in Coventry's Memorial Park, and even if we don't get to see much in the way of bands because of tents stuffed full of people and ah, we're a bit lazy, it's always enjoyable.

This years line-up has been announced, finally, along with the sponsor: PSA Peugeot Citroën.

Not entirely sure if this is out of guilt, or just taking the piss.

Anyway, Jim has already mentioned that Super Furry Animals are playing the main stage on Saturday night, along with inevitable appearances from The Ripps and The Enemy.

I'm looking forward to the daft local "your mum smells of Nuneaton" hiphop battles and KRS-One making like the sound of the poh-leeece in the Spotlight Tent on Saturday, plus the Human League strapping on their zimmer frames for a dash through their 80s electro-pop hits (although please god, not "Lebanon" or bloody "Human") and maybe a bit of their 70s pre-fame weirdness (go on, play "Circus of death", and "Path of least resistance... please?).

Stumbled upon this earlier on Glumbert and was both bemused and amused. The decisive Real Madrid game last week gets the most over excited commentary I've ever heard from a taciturn American and an insane Geordie, who you know just has to be related to Sid Waddell.

Key quote "Braver than a matador in high heels in a pink tutu".

You can view this masterclass in sporting hyperbole here. I would embed it on this page - but lets be honest I'm a total dunce and I don't know how.

A Storm in Heaven by Verve (before they added the The) was a really cool record; Epic, spacey, messed up and a bit shoe-gazey. It was just the sort of thing for moody 18 year olds to sulk in their bedrooms to.

A Northern Soul was a fucking amazing record; Huge, angry and soulful. Born out of what was reported as being a particularly “difficult” recording process involving drugs, mental illness, a number of fights and some wrecked cars. It was just the sort of thing for cynical, lovelorn students to play too loudly in their bedrooms.

A Northern Soul scraped the charts, the next single, the superb History stated on the cover “All farewells should be sudden”. That was that, The Verve had broken up.

They re-surfaced a while later with the soon to be ubiquitous Bitter Sweet Symphony, followed by the album Urban Hymns. It was ok and had a couple of good tracks on but generally was a diluted version of what had come before. It was just the thing for middle managers to play at dinner parties and inspire a whole generation of deeply insipid bands.

The Verve disintegrated nastily once more and Richard Ashcroft went his own way to produce a load of fairly listenable but fairly bland music much in the same vein as the mellower parts of Urban Hymns. On the plus side, he did inspire one of the greatest albums ever made by nicking one J Spaceman’s girlfriend.

Now it appears that The Verve are back at it in their original line up, stuff is being recorded, an album is planned for release and some dates are going on sale this week. I’ll definitely go and see them, but if new developments follow the trajectory described above it might all end up a bit close to Snow Patrol territory. Lets hope not, although the last-minute decision I made to not get “Too busy staying alive” tattooed on my arm will look even wiser.

No, really, I'm done, it's a school night, thank-you. Is it your round, really? Oh well, I suppose I could sink a swift one.

Now, Paper-jam doesn't usually do beer reviews. We have zero technical know-how of beer, beyond our near-encyclopedic knowledge of where to buy the stuff. And we can't reach the near orgasmic verbal heights of a Jilly Goolden or an Oz Clarke (yes, we know that's wine) - but as I manfully dredge through the end of my sister's very thoughtful (and jealously guarded) birthday present of 30 bottles of ale, felt I should stand up and shout for an American beer.

Those last words feel like a strange thing to write, but that's only because of the ubiquity of the global piss known as Budweiser. As I was growing up - imagine fields, roads going in circles, West Midlands buses, and the quavering buzz of my tiny Casio keyboard - well, beer wasn't really an option. I was a kid. Come on, this isn't France for God's sake.

Well what I meant to say there that after a brief dalliance with Hofmeister - purely 'cos it was a pound a can in Silvers, I graduated to bitter, and became an old fart, before my time.

Cutting a rather dull story short, involving steam cider, beer festivals, the inevitable John Fucking Smiths, and more recently to weissbier, and the evil of Belgian Trappist beer (those monks? no need for a vow of silence after one too many bottles of Judas, speech is barely physically possible), we arrive at the wonder of Brooklyn Lager.

Calling it a lager rather sullies it, to my mind. Lager I associate with tasteless pints of nothing, designed to give the average John Bull type a big head about how many they can sink of an evening, the dull "session" pint. Brooklyn (5.2%), apparently a Vienna-style beer according to the ever-unreliable internet, reminds me of another US tipple, Goose Island IPA - a fruity, dense pale ale that can't be drunk in vast quantities. Goose Island seems rather unpopular with the locals round here - a manager of a nearby hostelry once offered me a case of the stuff, claiming that I was the only one who was drinking it.

Brooklyn seems easier going than Goose Island, more floral, and rather easier to sink - better for the summer, I'd venture - rather than the more autumnal flavour of the pale ale from the windy city. I'd love to bang on about the hue and nose of Brooklyn, but it never touched the side of a glass - it was thrown down in a hurry, just before I chomped through a homemade feast of noodles and chicken.

Where can you buy Brooklyn Lager? Well, I saw a couple of bottle lurking in the 70s aisles of Cannon Park Tescos earlier, and I'm sure you could bag a brace at Alexander Wines in Earlsdon - or if by some quirk of fate, you don't actually live in Coventry, I'm sure your local boozer could be persuaded.

Hmmm, been a bit quiet round here lately hasn’t it? Well much as I’d like to tell you that we have taken some sort of holiday or sabbatical the truth is much more mundane; no one has been bothered.

Steve has been more interested in trying to create the exact snare drum sound off an old Broadcast B-side that was never actually recorded or even released to the public. Vanessa has been stalking Dave Grohl (no, really) and Nick’s just had to do 150 hours community service after he was caught doing a Cool Hand Luke on the new parking meters in Leamington. Personally I’ve been practising my new hobby of shaving and honing some mad skillz on my old hobby of being in a mood.

Anyway following an on-line campaign and receipt of a petition signed by world-renowned paper-jam fans as diverse as:

Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad, that Nazi Pope, Ant (but not Dec it seems - twat), Sir Alex Ferguson, Bernard Manning (last thing he did apparently), Paris Hilton, Axl Rose, Victor Kiam, that roadie that used to shove the drugs up Stevie Nicks’ arse, Tom Henderson, the collective victims of Hurricane Katrina, some remaining members of the Glitter Band, the Brazilian ladies beach volleyball squad and Satan – the great deceiver.

…we felt compelled to get off our collective arse and do something.

Unfortunately prior to any new material going on we are going to have to spend a bit of time removing all the spam off the comments sections. So while I wade knee deep through a sewer of stuff about cheap pills to give me the girth of a horse, real amateur bukkake dwarves and all sorts of Polish milf action, here is a quick update on things that may have appeared here recently, if we had been arsed.

The Transformers film: Total shite and about a day too long but actually very entertaining, especially when you consider that it is preceded by the words “A Michael Bay film… In association with Hasbro”.

The Great British Beer Festival: There will be something about this in due course, but I can already reveal that having an alka-seltzer before you go to bed is a great hangover prevention measure.

The Simpsons Movie: Well, I thought it was funny and another chance to sample the charms of the charming electric cinema with its squeaky leather sofas, bijou bar and slightly stale donuts.

Super Furry Animals at the Godiva Festival: Ace as expected despite a bit of a dodgy sound system. Being a free festival in the middle of Cov it was all a bit Barter Town from Mad Max 3 by the time we left.

The V Festival: We might be hearing more about this from various sources, I didn’t go this year due to a prior engagement with some furniture and a van full of total shit.

Buying a Nintendo Wii: Can the needless purchase of pointless consumer entertainment items force morbid thoughts of loneliness, existential dread and financial woe out of your mind? Too fucking right they can. Wii Sports Tennis may, I speculate, be the reason that electricity was invented.

For decades, students of psychology have strived to produce subtle yet exacting tests to pinpoint the nature of an individual’s personality. You can’t even get a temping job doing data entry without doing some deeply cunning multiple choice test asking you if in your spare time do you prefer to:
a) Spend time with your family
b) Socialise with friends/play sports
c) Enjoy your own company with a book/some music
d) Self harm, smoke crack and torture kittens

Well, the likes of Belbin and Myers-Briggs have all struggled in vain as far as I can tell, because today I was sent an e-mail containing a link to the most accurate personality evaluation tool that I can imagine the human mind will ever assemble. I refer to the “Which Sports Car Are You??” multiple choice quiz.

This frighteningly sophisticated psychological tool (now in its refined second version) uses a deceptively small number of seemingly vacuous yes/no questions to determine the precise nature of your “inner vehicle”. Honestly it is like someone shining a spotlight into your soul.

In the interests of science I submitted to the test and got the following results:

Anyone who knows me will tell you that this is a devastatingly accurate assessment (as long as you stop reading after the first eight words). But to be fair I have been hanging round in a desert at dusk a lot lately, right near a stylish rocky outcrop. It just feels right.

Found this via Tom Coates - the idea is that if you've set yourself up with Last.fm recording your listening habits through their iTunes plugin, you can graph your listening habits over a period of time.

Predictably mine is lots of AFX, Scientist and Broadcast, and also an awful lot of tiny lines which are just one track. I listen to iTunes on shuffle an awful lot. If you want to check out the rest of my graph, for some unearthly reason, go over here.

Sorry to hear this, from Coventry bar Tin Angel's website:

> ...the loss of our entertainment licence at the Tin Angel in the summer has brought the situation to the brink of failure for both venues...

I can't understand why they've lost their licence - ye olde Medieval Spon Street might once have been reasonably quiet and old-fashioned, but that changed forever when the council approved the Skydome, which has brought hundreds of lager-vomiting kids bowling down the road to cheesy superclub-styled Diva, or whatever the fuck it's called this week.

Stopping the Tin putting on a never-ending selection of fey strumming singer-songwriter types ain't going to help the local residents a jot.

Anyway, the gents behind the Tin Angel (and the sister venue Taylor John's over in the Canal Basin) are thinking creatively and looking at re-organising to become a non-profit organisation to access arts and council grants.

Personally I feel a pang of guilt because I've never actually been to Taylor John's, but it's in a difficult spot which has never really taken off previously, just outside the ring road in the Canal Basin, and they lean heavily towards acoustic-y Americana, lots of country and folk, and that's really not my thing. Really, really not my thing.

I really hope they get it sorted, however they do it. And we'll be popping down to the Tin more often in future...

To kind-of paraphrase Kevin Spacey at the end of Se7en, “Only in a world this sick could you say that 2007 has been a good year for films”. There has been the occasional gem here and there, I enjoyed Sunshine, laughed at The Simpsons, German stasi drama The Lives Of Others was rather good and The Family Friend was exceptional.

Generally it’s been a load of old tat; The big summer films were mostly dull with Spiderman 3 deserving special mention for being particularly awful. There have also been a few real disappointments like Knocked Up, which was just really dull and Hot Fuzz which despite having a few good bits paled badly in comparison to Shaun Of The Dead. Then there have been the real dogs like Superbad (left the cinema with about 20 minutes left), Rocky Balboa (just shit in virtually every way) and The Kingdom (dreary, corny and a terribly simplistic attempt at some kind of political message).

Still things might be looking up over the next few months as this lot wings its promising way to UK (well, London) cinema screens:

No Country For Old Men First up, the latest film from the Coen brothers, probably the film I am most eager to go and see. Looks to be harking back to their brutal early classic Blood Simple. A hunter absconds with a load of money left at the scene of a drug deal gone very bad and is hunted by a completely psycho Javier Bardem who decides on whether to kill by flipping coins. Looks Ace. Trailer plus there are also some more clips

The Darjeeling Limited The new Wes Anderson film. It is being previewed at the London Film Festival. I would probably sleep with (or alternatively promise not to sleep with) anyone who can get me a ticket. Looks to be as quirky and slightly un-real as usual. Trailer

Thirty Days Of Night Vampire, survivalist nastiness including that bird who used to be in Home and Away. Looks a bit on the visceral side. Trailer

The Last Winter More snowbound horror with this Thing-esque thriller. Does look quite unsettling. Trailer

Be Kind, Rewind Jack Black and Mos Def have to make zero-budget versions of famous films when they blank all the tapes at the video rental store where they work. Latest from Gallic genius Michel Gondry. Trailer

Southland Tales Second film from the bloke who made Donnie Darko, got slated in a really long version at Cannes and is reported to be as mad as a box of frogs. Bit apocalyptic, again. Is that the Joy Zipper cover of the Pixies in the trailer? Trailer

Margot At The Wedding Have you seen The Squid And The Whale? if not you should do. This has the same sense of cynicism about people and how they relate to each other. Jack Black turns up again but seems fairly restrained. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh are in charge. Trailer

I’m Not There Got very little idea about this but it seems to be getting a lot of coverage at film festivals, a whole bunch of actors play Bob Dylan in different eras. Apparently the best one is Cate Blanchette. Trailer

There Will Be Blood Historical oil rights drama from PT Anderson and starring a brooding and bitter Daniel Day Lewis. Cutting to the chase: Looks fucking intense. Trailer

Black Box Recorder seemed to have packed things up as far as I could tell, Luke Haines has put out a suitably misanthropic solo record fairly recently. While Sarah Nixey has also been making a solo go of it, cue a bundle of reviews and articles with the inevitable strict headmistress fantasy overtones.

Was alerted earlier to the following written on the Wikipedia entry for BBR:

"There are rumours that Black Box Recorder have been working on new material, prompted by the 35th anniversary of the Black September massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics"

...which, to be honest, does sound sort of feasible. A new album would be an exciting, if troubling prospect. Especially if it has anything on it approaching the genuinely unsettling nature of their cover of Uptown Top Ranking off England Made Me. Lets hope they tour so that we can all go and feel a bit err, funny again.

Also mentioned in despatches is some kind of Christmassy collaboration with the mighty Art Brut. After this and the Hank Starrs collaboration on Direct Hit I'm now fairly convinced that Eddie Argos will be summoning up the Vessel/Mr Solo, formerly of David Devant and His Spirit Wife for some kind of spectaular hat-trick. Let's hope so.

Black Box Recorder seemed to have packed things up as far as I could tell, Luke Haines has put out a suitably misanthropic solo record fairly recently. While Sarah Nixey has also been making a solo go of it, cue a bundle of reviews and articles with the inevitable strict headmistress fantasy overtones.

Was alerted earlier to the following written on the Wikipedia entry for BBR:

There are rumours that Black Box Recorder have been working on new material, prompted by the 35th anniversary of the Black September massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics

...which, to be honest, does sound sort of feasible. A new album would be an exciting, if troubling prospect. Especially if it has anything on it approaching the genuinely unsettling nature of their cover of Uptown Top Ranking off England Made Me. Lets hope they tour so that we can all go and feel a bit err, funny again.

Also mentioned in despatches is some kind of Christmassy collaboration with the mighty Art Brut. After this and the Hank Starrs collaboration on Direct Hit I'm now fairly convinced that Eddie Argos will be summoning up the Vessel/Mr Solo, formerly of David Devant and His Spirit Wife for some kind of spectaular hat-trick. Let's hope so.

The latest in the Unilever series of big art installations at the Tate Modern (which has also included the amazing - yet fucking hippy behaviour inducing Weather Project, the spooky Raw Materials and the big slides that I never got to have a go on) is Shibboleth by the Columbian artist Doris Salcedo.

It is a big crack that runs the length of the mighty turbine hall and as far as I can tell does two things:

1) Creates a imperfect and slightly disturbing flaw in what is a huge and imposing formal space. A reminder that anything no matter how big or grand is subject to physical laws of stress and decay.

2) Provides an area for kids to trip over and fall partially into, while their parents say things like "Tarquin! Wilhemina! don't do that" while making no attempt to stop them at all.

From checking up on the Tate web site the work is actually about "the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built" which you can sort of see. However it is also said to address and comment on issues of racism, which I must admit I am struggling to get my head around.

Still, it is quite interesting and worth dashing in to see if you are knocking around the south bank in the next six months. Not nearly as affecting as some of the previous entries in the series though. The dozen irish blokes who turned up with a crate of Guinness and an accordian player looked particularly confused.

Congratulations to the crew behind Taylor John's House at the Canal Basin in Coventry - winners of best live performance venue in Coventry and Warwickshire at this years' Godiva Awards.

It could be particularly timely because after the loss of the sister venue Tin Angel's entertainment licence in summer (apparently due to a noise complaint, in Spon Street of all places...), they're now in financial trouble. The current plan is to turn Taylor John's House into a non-profit community arts centre. Hopefully this award will throw some light on their situation and generate some further investment.

I think it's a real shame they couldn't run it as a profit-making business, but their focus is specialist and their audience is limited in Coventry. More info at their Save the Tin Angel and Taylor John's House campaign page.

Anyway, I'll be there at the Circus event tomorrow for the rampaging beast that is Jim and Invitation to Love.

In simple terms: It is a poster of a very French looking man (who might be belgian actually) wearing modern clothes running away from an army of spear carrying warriors, pulling a face that can only be described as "pained". He is also carrying a cafetiere.

In actual fact this is probably the greatest film poster of all time, at once totally shit and utterly brilliant. My french is so bad that I could probably start a limited nuclear exchange just by mis-ordering some wine - yet I was fairly prepared to go and watch this en francais without any more info at all.

Also even when you are cold and wet in Paris, unsure as to exactly where your hotel has run off to, catching a glimpse of this poster will make even the most miserable person crack a smile, while someone else shouts "Do the face! Do the face!"

Our man Jim Bogue, the musical visionary, barbers nightmare and iron-hard ruler of Coventry's Invitation to Love, went to All Tomorrows Parties at Minehead last weekend. I got a text on Sunday saying proclaiming verily: it was good, and by the looks of these Youtube videos, I'd say too.

• Mystic
• Machine Gun
• Peaches

And there's a bunch more over at the usual place.

You might think I need a better camera, and some actual camera skills might be nice too, but Zombie-Zombie don't actually show up very well on (digital) film you see.

I'm blaming the fact that they are undead, and this knowledge of the Other Place enables them to draw on terrifying experiences and shoot that out all over the equally zombie like audience (bless you all, of course) at Taylor John's House. I'll include myself there, I'd driven over and I was terribly sober, and like most English people I need two pints inside me before I get rhythmic.

And they were great - a disco-horror soundtrack, clearly influenced by John Carpenter and Giorgio Moroder and Goblin. Plenty of throbbing bass, furious drumming and dubbed-out shrieks through the ancient Space Echo, and a stone-cold tune in the form of "Psychic Harmonia", much rougher than their recorded version.

There's a single out right now, "Driving this road until death sets you free", which you hear on ze Myspace, and they're off around the rest of the UK this month, and they did a horror-y mix for Allez-Allez. Oddly the first track of the mix, Spectrum & Silver Apples, was recorded at the Cabin Studios in Coventry.