Avatar Wisdom of the 1970s

Yes, I know, the 1970s are now the often-maligned decade that brought us dodgy celebrities and brown corduroy flares. It is hard to forgive such things. But one thing the 70s did know a thing or two about is sunstroke. How do you keep the sun off your overheating head? The 70s know. The 70s have it all figured out, and it has nothing to do with expensive sun cream or buying an overpriced straw hat from an itinerant beach salesman.

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Avatar Things You Didn’t Know About 10 Owls

Anyone can write an article about “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Owls”, in fact you’re probably bored stiff of reading them they’re so common these days. You can hardly visit your favourite corner of the web without having five different variations of “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Owls” rammed down your vision pipes, well not here…

Here on PouringBeans™ we like to do things differently. This is no ordinary “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Owls” article, this one is special, this one is “Things You Didn’t Know About 10 Owls”!!!

Lets get straight to it…

 

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Avatar Lost treasures

I’ve been having a clear out this weekend and I found this 20-year-old NOW album:

Now 1994

Nearly 20 years ago I got it for Christmas, along with an Alba mini hi-fi system that had a tape deck, CD player and AM/FM radio. Those were the days. Here’s a selection of the great hits from this double-tape compilation:

  • Ace of Base – I Saw the Sign
  • Whigfield – Saturday Night
  • Corona – Rhythm of the Night
  • D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better
  • East 17 – It’s Alright (The Guvnor Mix)
  • Aswad – Shine
  • Reel 2 Real – I Like To Move It
  • Doop – Doop

Unfortunately when I opened the box, tape 2 was missing, so while you can still listen to Come Baby Come by K7 and Swamp Thing by the Grid, everything that was on the second tape – from Searching by China Black to The Perfect Year by Dina Carroll to Return to Innocence by Enigma – is now gone.

But we all know that tape 1 side 1 was always the best part of the album and the rest was mostly tracks you’d skip.

Avatar B R E A K F A S T

Or as I like to call it, B to the R to the E-A KFAST.

As it is considered to be the most important meal of the day I can understand why some people would think and possibly overthink the process. They may take time picking out what they were planning to eat or there is a particular routine which must be seen through from start to finish before moving on.

There are some though that take it a step too far. One of these people is my sister. This is the sort of marvel that has to be seen to be believed but I will do my best to convey the absurdity of it all. It is a ten step program so let’s begin:

1. Take two different packets of cereal, in this case bitesize Shredded Wheat and obnoxious granola.
2. Line the bottom of your bowl with a layer of bitesize Shredded Wheats, about 7 or 8.
3. Pick them up and individually snap them in two.
4. Worry that you’ve taken too much.
5. Convince yourself that you’ve got the right amount.
6. Pour in the obnoxious granola.
7. Be sure to take out the raisins (we wouldn’t want any taste in there, right?).
8. Smear, not pour, smear half a pot of plain Activia yoghurt over the cereal collection.
9. Fold in the yoghurt so that all or most of the cereal is smothered.
10. Eat and enjoy?

Note that the bitesize Shredded Wheat will be a lot more resistant to the yoghurt that the granola will be and take this into consideration. Please also be aware that should some raisins be left in the mix this is acceptable as they cannot kill.

I hope that this inspires people to be less fussy about their eating habits. I know that it won’t though and the world will carry on spinning with the same amount of spanners who make everyone’s lives that little bit more interesting yet annoying.

I think that it would also make a good poster so any budding artists who want to take a punt please be my guest.

Avatar Your New Favourite Band: tUnE-yArDs

In the second post of what disappointingly appears to be a regular series, where we find out about the people behind one of the top modern bands in the pop charts, we look at the popular beat combo tUnE-yArDs.

tUnE-yArDs

Brooklyn-based team Tune-Yards (usually stylised as “tUnE-yArDs”) come from Brooklyn, an area of New York, and started their career playing music in Brooklyn USA. They were founded by Prunella Squitzelberger (pictured above) who performs lead vocals and effects a sort of improvised skiffle percussion using bubble gum. The band’s first album was a particularly sparse affair, featuring only the sound of chewing, inflating and popping, interspersed with spoken word recitals of Squitzelberger’s own abstract poetry, but with the addition of Dupe Kingsnorth on bass and cello the act has become much more lively.

The band’s current album, “Nikki Nack”, is their third, and to date their most successful, quickly outselling 2006’s “Chewniverse” and 2010’s impenetrable effort “Doctor McCluskey’s Casebook”. It has gained plenty of airplay on radio stations across the Brooklyn, NY area, where the band is from, and has all the signs of being part of the elusive “Brooklyn Sound” that is proving so popular there.

The power behind the throne is, of course, DJ and producer Nizzle, whose cool electronic beats and occasional rhythm-free blasts of overpowering white noise lend the latest album a cool chic and an unmistakeable now-ness.

Avatar Review: Monty Python Live

Last week I went to see Monty Python Live, on one of their ten final ever dates. It was an exciting night for many reasons but I left feeling very let down.

photo

The first problem was not the fault of Monty Python themselves but was to do with the venue. On arriving at the O2, instead of finding the incredible, expansive white domed tent I had been led to expect by the O2’s promotional material, I found instead a very underwhelming brick-built theatre tucked away on a back street in Soho. It was an extremely long walk from North Greenwich tube station and not at all well placed for river boat services.

On entering the venue the staff were very rude and insisted that my ticket was not valid. It was only by kicking up a considerable stink and threatening to call the police that I was finally admitted to the auditorium. Inside the seat numbers made no sense when compared to the seat number on my ticket so I had to choose my own seat.

The show itself was baffling, principally because it was very difficult to tell who was who. All five of the Monty Python performers were so heavily made-up and disguised in costumes that they were literally unrecognisable. This, and the absence of any material I had seen before or recognised, meant that the whole show was rather strange. The sketches appeared to flow together extremely closely in a single flow of consciousness to the point that it almost resembled a normal theatrical performance, and there was a consistent theme of a murder mystery running through it.

There were very few laughs, and when I attempted to whip the crowd up a bit by shouting “albatross!” or “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” I was shushed by other audience members. At one point a steward threatened to eject me if I didn’t stop chanting “spam” through what appeared to be a particularly dull scene involving a police officer interviewing somebody.

After the show I inspected the merchandise, but without much hope, and found it all as abstract and obtuse as the show had been. All of it had the slogan “Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap” which I don’t remember being one of their better lines and which didn’t seem to have been shouted at any point during the show.

All in all, I would vote to give it a miss as I found it extremely disappointing.

I vote it three stars out of five.

Avatar The manliest night of my life

A couple of weeks ago I had a whole new experience. Ian, long-haired co-conspirator here on the Beans, accompanied me to a pub where football was showing. Together we drank beer and looked at a small part of the TV screen that was visible where we were sitting, and talked about football and women. At times we said swear words. It was easily the manliest thing I’ve ever done.

After we left the pub, we accidentally sat on some slugs on a wet bench and recorded a moving musical tribute to the missing third member of The Beans.

Here it is, in full.