Sdtrk: ‘State laughter’ by Death in June

It’s 19 July again, peoples! That means ‘Shouting to hear the echoes’ has been operational for two years. Two godforsaken years. I find that nearly impossible — and almost frightening — to comprehend.
Much in the same fashion as last year’s anniversary post, I will now trot out the List of All The Taglines That Have Appeared Beneath The Title for Fifty-Two Weeks Running. And we’re off!

+ Fantasy for three Crystal Palaces, two Jasons, and an Albis
These were the names given to some of the types of tone generators that the BBC Radiophonic Workshop used

+ I’M VERY EXCITED ABOUT WHAT IT IS BUT I’M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT IT’S LIKE

+ Whither Richey Preacher?
How long has he been missing? A little over a decade? Yeah, I’m thinking at this point, he’s probably dead

+ ‘I pulled the trigger on rock and roll’
That’s my interpretation of a line from Ministry’s ‘Supermanic soul’. I’ve no idea what Al is actually saying in real life

+ Hamster.. as Master?
One of the titles to one of the many mixtapes I’d made during the Nineties

+ ‘Of course I over-romanticise everything! I wouldn’t leave the house otherwise!’
That’s another quote one of mine, naturally

+ Pessimism is Realism with a sneer, and Nihilism is Pessimism with a gun
Yet another Davecat quote. That one’s old! I think I came up with that in the Nineties..

+ Hello Kitty, last of the hatchet murderers
It takes quite a bit of effort to kill someone with a hatchet; more than you’d think, really. On the plus side, it’s a great way to burn off a lot of calories

+ ‘And remember: if you turn your stereo speakers on their sides, you’ll have a strange taste in music’
attributed to Booga, from Tank girl (the comic series, not the hateful movie)

+ ‘The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo’
from ‘Alice’s adventures in Wonderland’, of course

+ Performing unspeakable acts with the severed head of Jayne Mansfield
What? What??

+ ‘You have to do things that normal people don’t understand, because those are the important things’
Andy Warhol, speaking what could possibly be defined as the greatest quote of his life – at least as far as I’m concerned

+ Attack ships on fire
‘…off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears.. in.. rain.’ No points guessing what fillum that phrase origiBLADE RUNNER

+ Synthesiser guidebook on fire
Despite the fact that I really don’t like Boredoms (partially cos when I say I’m into Japanese Noise, people — if they have any vague grasp of what the concept entails — usually respond with ‘Oh. Like the Boredoms?’ That’s not Noise; that’s noise-rock, bunky, and it’s not a patch on Merzbow), I always thought they had a couple of fab song titles. This is one of them

+ New sidereal extrahere
I’ve always loved this phrase; it was made when I stuck a couple of cool-sounding words together. ‘Extrahere’ is apparently Latin for ‘to draw out’, which is where we get the word ‘extract’, but I didn’t know that up until a few months ago. Be careful what words you choose, I think, is the lesson learned today

+ ‘As with most such perversions, Giger did it better’
a comment someone posted whilst on one of those crazy imageboards I frequent

+ ‘I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving / England is mine, it owes me a living’
‘And if you must go to work tomorrow / Well if I were you, I wouldn’t bother / For there are brighter sights to life and I should know because I’ve seen them / But not very often’
The Smiths, ‘Still ill’

+ Anecdotes from the darkest pits of Hell. Or, if I haven’t eaten yet, the darkest pits of my stomach
No lies there

+ Signal to silence, siren to synapse
Another mixtape title. Sounds like summat Coil would’ve come up with

+ Giggling nervously in the face of oncoming traffic

+ ‘The body is turned over.. ANTS.. ANTS..’
from an episode of ‘Sprockets’. O, that Dieter

+ ‘I don’t want a Tripper tripping in my kitchen!’
Attributed to Dean Travers, who was the dean at the culinary school Jack Tripper was attending.
People simply don’t believe me when I say that ‘Three’s Company’ oozed pure Comedy Gold

+ Midgard Welcomes Careful Drivers
Just don’t do anything crazy, like piss off Jörmungandr, otherwise we’re all so very doomed

+ ‘GO GO GO GO SPACE CHANNEL 5 / SPACE DANCING SPACE SHOOTING SEXY GIRL YAY!’
one of the chants that the ‘Cheer Gals’ in Space channel 5 part 2 sing, in order to cheer Ulala on. It works for me!

+ ‘Some people look down on me / I hope they like what they see’
entirely appropos lyric, cribbed from ‘Truth’, off New order’s ‘Movement’ release

+ Simply Fuss Free!
found in the inside disk tray for Pulp’s ‘Different class’ Cd

+ The perfect fusion of Brevity and Verbosity
that would be Me

+ ‘There are two kinds of people in the world: those who say, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who say there are two kinds of people in the world, and the other kind,” and those who don’t say. Well, and then there’s me.’
Attributed to J. R. “Bob” Dobbs, the craven (?) idol (??) of the Church of the SubGenius. Try not to think about it too hard, as it might cause headaches

+ ‘A fox fighting an eel, suspended in aspic. It was like a Nine Inch Nails video.’
from a guest instalment of Bobbins / Scary go round‘s John Allison, as drawn by Achewood‘s Chris Onstad. I’d look for a link, but I am le tired

+ The futuristic curmudgeon
Again, that would be me. I prefer things from the Sixties, yet I love futuristic technology. Such a quandary!

+ ‘He’d never cried before. At first he’d thought someone had shot him in the eyeballs.’
from ‘Tank girl: The Odyssey’ by Hewlett and Martin. It was the lads’ mashup version of both Homer’s and James Joyce’s The Odyssey, crossed with a satirical look at how shite their experience with Hollywood and That Movie was. At one point in the story, there’s a flashback detailing how a Mafia don gains a healthy respect for all animals; he had never seen a circus as a boy, but a couple of years previous, he attended one, and was saddened by how the animals were being mistreated. The sights made him weep, which resulted in the bit of narrative text that I’d nicked here. He then gunned down all the clowns. Well done!

+ DJARUM: Our logo is a golf pencil driven through a Cert.
Tell me I’m wrong! I should pick up a pack tomorrow, for lack of anything sensible to do with my money. I really like the way Djarum Specials taste, though — that rich clove aroma, blended with discrete amounts of sugar and honey, certainly makes for an exceptional taste experience. It’s a unique cigarette — sorry, kretek — for unique people. Why not try a pack of Djarums today? Available in Special, Super, Black, Bali Hai, and Continental.
*endorsement paid for by the Djarum Consortium, Indonesia

+ ‘When you scratch the surface of a cynic, what you find underneath is a disappointed idealist’
attributed to George Carlin, and extraordinarily true

+ ‘Turn the beat around / Love to eat percussion’
a wee joke amongst my circle of friends. ‘Turn the Beat Around’ (Vicki Sue Robinson, 1976) has a catchy opening line, but none of us remember what the rest of the song’s lyrics are. Now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the song in its entirety.. But for some reason, it stayed with us, only we’d sing it at completely random and sometimes inappropriate intervals as ‘Turn the beat around / Something something something’. This went on for a little over a year, until one day, whilst we were hanging out at Jeff’s, a.k.a Zip Gun’s place, after hearing it for probably the seventieth time that month, he immediately hopped online and looked up the actual lyrics. ‘Turn the beat around,’ he explained, ‘Love to hear the percussion. Turn it upside down’, he continued, ‘Love to hear the percussion.’ We were aghast. ‘Love to hear the percussion’? That’s got like an extra unnecessary syllable! That ‘the’ doesn’t need to really be in there! For one, it kinda throws the rhythm off when you’re reading the lyrics without music, but it sounds like she’s singing ‘Love to hear percussion’, which is six syllables, and has an undeniable cadence to it. Now if she was singing it ‘Love to hear / the / per-cus-sion’, that would make sense, but as anyone who’s ever heard the song knows, it’s ‘Love / to hear / per-cus-sion’. O, sorry, ‘love / to hear / the percussion’. Pfft. ‘Love to hear the percussion’?? That can’t be right.
So with this grim knowledge, we’d moved on. We’d learned that it’s ‘Love to hear the percussion’ instead of ‘Something something something’. But it was universally agreed that our version was funnier! It all turned out alright in the end, as collectively, we couldn’t really remember the new and proper lyrics, and we simply replaced it with ‘Love to eat percussion’. Six syllables, contains Humour, and it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it, so it fits the bill perfectly

+ I smell Florence Henderson

+ Mice, and what they like

+ ‘He once stopped a madman from launching a pit pony into the heart of the sun’
I misremembered this’un; it’s from an episode of Bobbins (yes, again with the Bobbins). The original is here!
I like my version better

+ Let’s go to Sears and try things on and not buy anything

+ ‘I’m tired of picking up your tabs at the Bunny Club’
an excerpted sample from the song ‘Dear Mr Salesman’ by Shibuya-kei stylists Fantastic plastic machine. Why isn’t their new stuff (re.anything after the ‘Beautiful’ album) as good as the old stuff (re.the ‘Luxury’ release)? Hm?

+ Live twice the life, in half the time!
This was on a poster by a designer named Shawn Wolfe, who once had a studio/project called BeatKit. It was very post-modern, y’know — if I recall correctly, as BeatKit was a statement on planned obsolescence, it was only supposed to exist up until the year 2000 — but thankfully, his work overall was actually pretty ace

+ Star of Stage, Screen and Trampoline
Back in 1986, Morrissey had posted an envelope to a journalist who lived in Hyde who had written an article that ran afoul with the Smiths as a whole. The envelope was addressed to ‘STAR OF STAGE, SCREEN AND TRAMPOLINE’; it contained a label for ‘Big mouth strikes again’, and featured AND SO SAY ALL OF US written on the reverse. How very Wilde

+ If I have to shake one more ceramic bunny, I’m gonna puke
This was an actual line from some semi-serious cop show on telly, wherein one of the cops was with her partner in some sort of knick-knack shop, looking for concealed illegal drugs that were theoretically being smuggled in the porcelain wares. They had no idea exactly where they were, so they had to go through the contents of all of the shelves, shaking each piece to see if it was one they were looking for. As far as out-of-context phrases go, it’s pretty unbeatable

+ I find it highly ironic that the first three letters in ‘mania’ are M. A. N.
Hmmm.

+ ¯\(º_O)/¯
Self-explanatory, really

+ Start your day with a migraine, just like the pros do!

+ All of my Armored Cores are named after Merzbow releases
It’s True! I have Surfactant, from the Cd ‘Mercurated‘; ‘Amlux’; Oersted (coloured in a lurid shade of magenta, just like the cover); Age of 369, Springharp, from the ‘Last of analog sessions‘ box set; and Ananga-ranga, from ‘Venereology‘.
Hrm. Shi-chan and I desperately need to get back into the Armored core loop — we’re rusty

+ analoguemusikmaschine

+ Now Entering Carpal Tunnel

+ ‘If you hear beautiful music coming from a toilet, it’s probably a trap’
from Tristan Farnon’s brilliant Leisuretown. It’s Sound Advice, you know

+ Gerbils with sheepdogs, terriers with geese / These are a few of my favourite crossbreeds
‘When the door bites / When the bee sings / When I’m feeling sad / I simply remember my fav’rite crossbreeds / And then’
And that’s where the song ends. It was rejected for the current version of ‘My favourite things’ that we all know and ‘love’ today. Personally, I think they missed a trick with not keeping the original

+ Hello Kitty has no mouth, and she must belch
Aww, Kitty’s gassy. So cute!

+ That’s the last time I drop acid at Tesco’s
I.. I have no explanation for this, as I’ve never dropped acid, and I’ve never been to a Tesco’s

Yep, another year of appropriated, yet inappropriate, taglines! O, and some other mad ramblings seem to be bringing the property value down on the blog as well.
Once again, thank you all for reading, and I hope you’re enjoying the ride so far. 🙂

Sdtrk: ‘Black ships ate the sky’ by Current 93

Winkin’ blinkin’ Lincoln.. linkin’:

+ Tokyoflash has got some rather innovative watches that you’d have to sell a baby to purchase. Not that I’m opposed to selling babies, but where would I acquire one? You may recall me blathering about the Morse code one they had for sale, but one of their recent watches caught and held my eye (ew):

Eye Test by EleeNo

Have you ever had an eye test that looks like this watch? In Japan when you take your drivers test, or an eye exam, this is what you see. You are suppose to say, TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT as the circle gets smaller and smaller. Well now, you too can test your eyes every day, while wearing your new Eye Test, by EleeNo.

The minutes are shown by the center ring, and the floating dot indicates the time. Different but not too different, and easy to tell the time.

Quite fab, but I’ll only pay the $70 they want for this timepiece if I can shout ‘BIG O! SHOWTIME!!‘ into it, and have a large Megadeus appear when I do so

+ When the living hell is Panzer elite Action due out? I would really like to Sturmgeschutz IV my way through life, and ‘2006’ is not specific enough of an answer.
And speaking of hysterical historical fighting, the domestic release of Samurai warriors 2 has been pushed back to September. Why do you do this to me? Why do you hate freedom? However, I’ve learned that another game I’m salivating over, Okami, is due out that month as well. Which is nice, cos for a while there, a few of my mates and I thought it would never actually come out in the States..
It’s kinda fortunate that they have September dates, as my recent purchases of The Nightmare before Christmas, Otogi 2 and Burnout: Revenge are all jockeying for my full attention right now

+ Using fantastical laser-based technology, the people at Ikemen offer 3D mask/wall-relief things of various Japanese idols – the first one in the series is Yuko Ogura. Wouldn’t it be something to cover an entire wall with those?

Yeah, it would be something, alright..

+ Y’know what I despise doing? Double-dipping for DVDs. A&E/Carlton have finally released The Prisoner series in a thinpack, which also includes a whole passel of extras; there’s a new two-disk R2 edition of Quadrophenia in August; and the rumour mill has it that there’s supposed to be a new edition of A clockwork orange with Malcolm McDowell’s commentary baked right in, as well as an R1 version of The Super Inframan that comes with the extremely lysergic English dub, both due out sometime this year. Yes, I already have these fillums, but the shiny new extras compel me to buy the feckers again. Gah. So, who wants to buy my copies of Quadrophenia, A clockwork orange, The Super Inframan and that oversized Prisoner boxset?
Amazon.com has informed me that my *coughmorallyspuriouscough* copy of Ultraman vol.1 is on its way. At least I didn’t double-dip for that (not counting that VHS tape that came out in the Nineties)..

+ Tell me, friend; is your very existence plagued with despicable Thetans that you wish to exorcise, yet you’re not overflowing with sums of money to donate to L.Ron Hubbard’s noble cause? Friend, your troubles are over, as now, thanks to this site, you can build your own E-meter, and audit yourself! Due to copyright restrictions, the DiY-er behind this has called it a ‘C-meter’, but it provides the same results, at a fraction of a fraction of the price!
Don’t live your life paying for Xenu’s sins! Build yourself a C-meter TODAY!

+ July finds the always-lovely Penda being published again, in issue no.36 of a publication called Black Petals. Yes, again! Where will it end with her?? I cannot say

+ Finally, I bring you: Kitty Pistol.

bang bang, mew mew

Thank you WAKAchan, for teaching us how to laugh again

Sdtrk: ‘Reel around the fountain (The Troy Tate sessions version)’ by the Smiths

It’s about feckin’ time — hopefully this will be worth the wait. From the July newsletter for NewOrderOnline.com:

Control

Sure to excite (or enrage) many a disaffected, morose fan, filming for Control, the long-awaited movie about Joy Division’s late frontman, Ian Curtis, began this week. Directed by veteran music video director and photographer Anton Corbijn, the film focuses on the tumultuous last years of Curtis’ life before he committed suicide in 1980, at the age of 23 and shortly before the band was to depart for its first American tour.

Control deals with Curtis’ romantic conflicts with his wife, Deborah, and his mistress, Annik Honore, his increasingly debilitating epileptic seizures, and his performances with Joy Division. Filming will take place in the English towns of Nottingham and Macclesfield (where Curtis lived and is now buried). The film will be released in the UK by Momentum Pictures sometime in 2007.

The film is based upon and expands on the 1995 book Touching From a Distance written by Curtis’ widow as a personal account of her life with the singer. Deborah Curtis serves as a co-producer on the film as well, along with Factory Records founder Tony Wilson. Matt Greenhalgh wrote the script for Control, talking to those closest to Curtis, including Honore, who previously remained silent on her relationship with him.

Sam Riley, who played Mark E. Smith in 24 Hour Party People, stars as Curtis, Academy Award-nominated actress Samantha Morton plays Deborah Curtis, Alexandra Maria Lara is Honore, James Anthony Pearson is Joy Division/New Order guitarist Bernard Sumner, Joe Anderson is bassist Peter Hook, Harry Treadaway is drummer Stephen Morris, Toby Kebbell is Factory Records partner and Joy Division manager Rob Gretton, and Craig Parkinson is Wilson.

Longtime fan Corbijn has his own history with Joy Division. In 1979, he moved from Holland to the UK to photograph the band, resulting in this now-familiar image. He directed the posthumous video for “Atmosphere” in 1998. In a press release, Corbijn said, “If I only ever make one movie, CONTROL would have to be that. I simply feel that as Joy Division and Ian Curtis played a big part in my life, I cannot think of a better combination of subject and director.”

But what’s a film like this without a killer soundtrack? Not to worry, that will be more than taken care of. The soundtrack will include original tracks recorded by Warsaw (the band’s previous incarnation before becoming Joy Division) and Joy Division from the late 1970s and early 80s. New Order will compose the score for the film. Other featured acts on the soundtrack are David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, Lou Reed, and the Buzzcocks.

With Corbijn directing this, at the very least, it’ll look ace — after he worked with Joy division, he was also heavily involved with raincoated Scouse groovemasters Echo and the Bunnymen back in their Eighties heyday.
Also, I find it interesting that they managed to get Annik Honore to break her silence, as she’d kept stumm for years. I don’t want to say she’s approached this with dollar signs in her eyes — well, euros, or whatever currency they use wherever she’s currently residing, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

If I’m not mistaken, there’s supposed to be another film based on the history of Joy division in the works too, as well as a pair of documentaries. Certainly something(s) to look out for

Sdtrk: ‘Kinky boots’ by Patrick Macnee & Honor Blackman

Speaking of Dolls — cos let’s face it, when am I not speaking of Dolls? — it seems that the Good People at 4woods have just released two new heads for their delicious A.I.NEO series. I approve!

Left, Sayoko; right, Chris

Both the Sayoko-chan and Chris models are just under 5’2″, weigh 66 lbs, and boast 34.24.35 as their measurements. Yum yum. Upon reflection, ‘delicious’ is too simple of an assesment…

It looks like 1st Personal Companion have come up with a new head to choose from as well..

Looks a bit like Rose Tyler, don’t you think?

This head type is called Kay. Or Tracy. I’m not entirely sure. Whatever her name is, I’m likin’ what I’m seein’, and she’s a pretty attractive collection to the other head types that 1st-PC already has available..

Also, the current fate of SynthCreations, makers of the gorgeous Mecadoll, is that they’ve undergone a couple of corporate changes, and is now My Party Doll.

She counted sitting and staring amongst her many hobbies

I’ll wait and see what manifests before I add them to the sidebar list of manufacturers, but it’s good to see they’re still afloat! More companies = more sexy silicone diversity, which is always ace.

Back to Japan, A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS!! in the form of Honey Dolls, by Axis Japan. Hopefully not related to Haman Karn‘s Axis from Gundam, but I digress. I literally just saw these as I was writing this up, but at a cursory glance, they certainly attract. Especially the Honey3 model, pictured below. Mmm.

She seems… distracted

This company is definitely one to watch. (I’ve added these cats to the sidebar, as they have an actual finished website.) Apart from the swap-out-capable heads, the under 70 lb weight, and the tactile sensors embedded in each breast, what really gets my attention is the fact that these are the first Japanese-made Synthetiks since Chestnut co. Limited’s Rare-Borgs that feature mouths that you can open. I’m excited. Are you excited?

And finally, regarding Cruyff, makers of the Erie series of Synthetik companions: I once mentioned that the name sounds like a light and flaky pastry, but could they be possibly named after legendary Seventies-era Dutch footballer Johan Cruijff? After all, what’s another name for a love doll? That’s right… a Dutch wife

Random similar posts, for more timewasting:

An alternate-universe ‘CSI’: supplemental on September 19th, 2008

A quick one before we go on December 28th, 2008