Get out of my mind

Pop music, it’s dumb right?

Not all of it. A lot of it very intelligently made and well put together. There are those out there though that abuse it’s magic and only concoct the worst of the worst to make a cheap buck. Pop music is the house of the lazy songwriter. It has committed more crimes then I’d care to mention (I’m looking at you, ‘Boys of Summer’ by DJ Sammy).

I have recently been re-listening to ‘This Year’s Model’ by Elvis Costello and the Attractions, a lovely bouncy set of new wave poppy rocky songs from 1978. It features two stellar singles; (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea’, a sentiment I think we all share, and the ludicrously good ‘Pump it Up’. Costello is reported to have written the song on a fire escape during a stop in Newcastle of all places. What if he wrote it on my fire escape? Wait, I don’t have a fire escape.

The song ‘Pump it Up’ was later sampled by a sack of arse called Rogue Traders. In classic lazy pop fashion they took some bint they could find (in this case the Australian actress Natalie Bassingthwaite – she used to be in Neighbours because of course she did, she’s from Australia), got her to knock out some half-based vocals and called it ‘Voodoo Child’.

Rogue Traders – Voodoo Child (Video) – YouTube

It features lyrics so banal if you closed your eyes and pointed to random words in a dictionary you would come up with a better one. Would you like an example? Take a sweet glance at the chorus:

“Baby baby baby
You are my voodoo child, my voodoo child
Don’t say maybe maybe
It’s supernatural, I’m coming undone.”

Awful, yes. Catchy, yes. I do believe it has more to do with Elvis Costello and the Attractions more than anything else. If you took away the pounding organs and guitars you’d be left with an empty pickle of a song, a limp biscuit if you will. I only mention this because my brain, in its infinite wisdom, continues to remind me of things like this rather than remembering useful things. When the aliens come and take us all away I will be filed on a shelf of knowledge called ‘Why bother?’ and only called up when they need a particularly spicy pub quiz question.

Whenever I hear ‘Pump it Up’ there is the quiet unsightly ghost of Rogue Traders hiding in the background.

Absolute bastards.

Shoe

Oxford Circus late at night
Crowds of wankers, lights shine bright
Down below the crowds that mill
Sits a sneaker calm and still

Who would drop you in this place?
Who has joined the unshod race?
Who would think their grand night out
Is better with one bare foot out?
I see you, shoe, and I see beyond
I see how great you’d be if donned
I see potential through the grime
I see the reason and the rhyme

Oxford Circus late at night
One lone trainer shining bright
The key to one foot’s endless roam
I envy the toes that take you home.

The Doctor will see you now

What do you mean you didn’t know I was a doctor?

What do you mean you didn’t know I spent seven years plus training? Do you mean all those times I was prescribing medication you weren’t paying attention?

Are you saying that every single time I swore the Hippocratic oath you didn’t listen? Every time I tore off someone’s leg and saved their life you didn’t notice?

Do you people even know anything about me?

Clennel

Every day I drive to work.

Shocking I know, right? When I’m driving I use my eyes to see things like a lot of other drivers. I tend to use my regular eyes instead of all the other pairs that I have lying around. They only have a finite lifespan after all and who am I to liberally chunter off an expensive set of peepers for my own benefit?

There is always one thing that sticks out when I drive to work and that is this:

Everything else looks and behaves fine. If there’s a zebra crossing it behaves like a zebra crossing. The roundabouts are standard, the kind that you would see anywhere else. See that junction over there? It’s functions as a junction. It’s a functional junctional. The clennel though, I’m not buying it.

Firstly it’s not a word. I’ve tried looking it up and there’s nothing there. It’s definitely not a name or a surname. It’s as though someone misspelt the word ‘kennel’ and nobody bothered to correct it. I’m pretty sure it’s not a breed of dog or a type of salmon or the spoon on the table when you go out for a fancy meal that you never use. It’s not an illness; you can’t be off work with a spot of clennel. It’s not a film by Federico Fellini. It’s not a perfume or aftershave by Jean Paul Gautier.

What were they thinking? Does anyone else know about this and can they see it? It’s a clear indication that something isn’t right and I am convinced that there’s something or someone hiding down Clennel Avenue, a hidden thing that might be sinister and otherworldly like a sock that can tell the time or a bee that hums French fancies. I want to know the secrets hiding in plain sight and yet I know that some things man was not supposed to know. It eats away at me, day after day, the chewing on my elbows is unbearable. Don’t listen to your gut. Don’t go down the Clennel. Leave it alone and you’ll be fine. Wipe the sweat from your brow and go back to thinking about whistle pops and candy whistles.

There it stands as a monument to things that do exist but probably shouldn’t. I hope to God that I never find out the truth.

Sheriff Rockingham raises the stakes

I see that Ian is trying to start a new rap battle, maybe to make up for the fact that he lost the last one.

That’s fine. I’ll take him on any time, ready to fire my sick beats and dope rhymes his way. Like Kev, I’m gold on the floor and gold on the mic. But unlike Ian, I have nothing to prove.

In the couple of years that have passed since we last duelled, I haven’t felt the need to go showboating around with my rap skills. In fact Sheriff Rockingham has been putting his time into something far more wholesome.

I decided it’s time rappers did something more to help the environment. To stand up for the little creatures out there who are just hustling for a seed here, a seed there, trying to make it through the winter. That’s why I’ve been investing my rap riches in the bird table biz.

That’s right. It’s easy to assemble. You heard, the wood is from well managed forests. It’s even got a carry handle, fool. The grounds of Rockingham Palace are stuffed with these things and the birds love them. Time to get yourself in on the action before you get left behind.

Peace.

Chris and Ian’s Rap Battle – Round 2

So here we have it.

Three years have passed since the world was shook by the resonating words of these titans of industry, these monoliths of maniacal word mastery. Ian “I was eating pie” McBugle and Sheriff Rockingham aka Chris Marshall, both ex members of pioneering genre-bending super group ‘The Rapples’, are back for another scintillating slice of lyrical suppositories.

But the real question is are they still up to scratch? Can you still expect the old and beardy to reach the dizzying heights of previous years? What can you expect from two almost middle aged men who spend their evenings sitting down and nothing more? Can they, in the eternal words of Kevindo Menendez, still mack it?

Of course they can, you fools!

Tickets have been sold out for ages but you lucky, lucky people get to hear the whole thing as it happens right here on Beans FM.

With a phat new stack of material, Chris is a seasoned pro and ready to take the stage once again. He’s got horses and a drinks cabinet full of dazzling wordplay and witty observations in his corner. He’s never been both fresher and on the fashions. McBugle, however, loves to play with people’s expectations. He’s slumped, unshaved, walking like the weight of the world is hanging on his shoulders only to shrug off his coat and flash a smile that could blind a box full of puppies.

Take a seat, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be a bumpy ride. Over to you, boys…

My new hobby

Last week I was having a nose around a shop full of old bits and pieces when this absolute gem of a book caught my eye. And it was only a fiver! I couldn’t believe nobody had snapped it up.

I’ve never been particularly fashionable, but believe me I am now. My new all-knitted wardrobe of highly fashionable black clothes with brightly coloured puffed up armbands and collars is turning heads wherever I go.

If you’d like me to knit you something beautiful to wear, just say the word and I’ll pick you a pattern out of the book.

‘Ion Fury’ – mini review

‘Ion Fury’ is the best old new old game I have played in a while.

What do you mean you don’t know what an old new old game is? Isn’t it obvious? Okay grandad, let me explain.

Back in the day, a series of first person shooters were built on an engine called Build. This Build engine powered many a successful game such as ‘Duke Nukem 3D’, ‘Exhumed’ and ‘Blood’. After a while people were looking for fancy shizz that had polygonal roundness and curvy sumptuousness that Build couldn’t handle so it quietly disappeared into the background. Cut to 2019 and a new game using the same engine was released called ‘Ion Fury’. It was a prequel to a game called ‘Bombshell’ nobody could remember because it was bollocks. Thankfully ‘Ion Fury’ was actually pretty good and garnered much better reviews and a smidgen of success as a result.

Now, two years later, I have been playing through it and it’s a spicy meatball of a game. If you still need me to explain the old new old thing I’m going to need some slides and a hammer.

You played as Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison (ahhhh, ahhhh, see why? Ahhhh!). What’s the plot? Is there really one to begin with? You an ass-kicker and you have to pick up some guns and kick some ass; that’s all you really need to know. If you’ve played any of the aforementioned PC games then you’ll know exactly what to expect: chunky graphics, over the top weapons and more explosions than a Michael Bay boxset on fire. It plays incredibly well, smooth and fast, the developers knew what they were doing and squeezed everything they could out of a fairly familiar and well-trodden scenario. The settings are somewhat similar to Duke’s first 3D outing taking in city streets, skyscrapers and malls with alien bits scattered around for good measure. What really sets it apart though is the difficulty.

This game is hard. I played through it on the second easiest difficulty and even then it was an uphill struggle. You cannot gleefully blast your way through the campaign. You will be saving often and you will need to think about the order in which you do things. At times it was more like a tactical RPG where you carefully plan where you move to, what gun to use and when to retreat back to hide behind that soda machine. The enemies are smart and often they are placed in the position that is most likely to blow your face off in that they have the freedom of a large area with a grenade launcher pointed in your general direction and a fuck ton of body armour and you, even with your strongest weapon, will feel like wet cheese slapping them on their elbow.

It does require a lot of patience because sometimes even the silliest error would make you lose half of your health within a matter of seconds. Thankfully there are numerous checkpoints and you can save at any time.

After playing for fifteen hours I was convinced I was near to the end and they practically slapped a huge NOPE across my forehead because I wasn’t. It was a slog towards the end. I would recommend playing in short bursts, kind of like my company; too much is bad for your health. To put it into context I blasted my way through ‘Doom 64’ in-between playing ‘Ion Fury’ and finished that before I’d even gotten two thirds of the way through this. You certainly get your money’s worth.

‘Ion Fury’ is available for PS4, X-Box One, Nintendo Switch and Steam (steam!).