BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

NOTE - the best thing I heard all summer was three Paraguayan women banging out some Guarani battle hymn on a large drum in Kaiserslautern Station. In lieu of having to actually bother writing about the World Cup after all, here's a load of half-arsed music reviews. Just to break it down ; went to Germany ; got my bag searched at Heathrow for having a Clash T-shirt with a gun on it (no, that's not a joke); got very pissed ; cheered on a drunk Scouser as he pumped the contents of 4 fire extinguishers all over the tents in the 'Fan Kamp' ; watched Trinidad's "Soca Warriors" promise to party all night, win or lose, only for them to slink off, miserable and dejected, when Paraguay whacked them 2-0...what rubbish fans!! Especially the ones with blonde hair and German accents ; upset a Gordon Ramsey lookalike ; missed the Angola v Iran game and accompanying neo-nazi protest rally against both teams' presence in Leipzig, due to friend's inability to master the concept of being ONE HOUR ahead of Britain - the trains can't be blamed, they really do run on time (((as it happened, don't think any of the nazis turned up anyway, nor the Angolans. As for the Iranians, not a peep, but did meet some Preston North End supporters who tried to persuade us to go to some dodgy bar with a load of schlampen shuffling around in the nip to Joan Jett's I Love Rock And Roll - but instead we went to ask where we could buy some bratwurst, only every German we met thought we were saying breakfast, and boomed, "HO HO! BREAKFAST IS NOT FOR DIE NEXT EIGHT HOUR!". Incidentally, do you know what a currywurst is?? It's a bratwurst with a dab of English mustard. This is kind of like the German equivalent of a vindaloo - a tasteless banger and a smear of Colemans. You should also try asking for hundwurst, it doesn't go down well at all. They really love animals over there))) ; and tried to steal a Lufthansa mat in the shape of a football pitch - and failed DISMALLY. Like most of these fucking records I'm about to 'review', in fact :

GNARLS BARKLEY - "Smiling Happy People", or whatever it's called
The worst summer record since ATB's "9pm (Til I Come)". Sounds like a demo recorded down the church hall. Smiling happy people befucked ; sweating, violent dickwits throwing themselves under trains on the Victoria Line, more like. Speaking of which, I was on a stalled train at Euston Square cos the BTP were trying to arrest a bunch of hooligans on one of the other carriages, when the driver asked if any members of the public could go and assist! I did temporarily consider wading in on their behalf to apprehend the juveniles, and to get my head thoroughly perforated while the hapless plod cowered in a corner - but a pregnant blind woman beat me to it. Smiling happy people? Gnarls Barkley are a blight on the face of humanity. THIS IS SHIT.

DJ RUPTURE - Low Income Tomorrowland
Do you remember how you used to slag off MIA? Listen to the remixed version of "Pull Up the People" on Track 2 on this mix and feel very small indeed. I don't have the track listing with me today - because I am typing this from work!! (which, I suppose, means I'm technically a 'paid blogger' - so fuck Yasmin Alibhai Brown - the mutton-faced doughball) - but it rocks like a bastard, the whole thing.

QUINTESSENCE - "Self" LP (from 1971!!)
Matt Woebot thinks this is a pile of shit, I think it's fucking abysmal, the only people who like it are currently living in a squat just round the corner from Powys Square in 1971 ((you can ask them, via wormhole)), growing their own dope in cracked plantpots and discussing a Hare Krishna uprising against capitalism while some hippie woman bellydances around the dog pee-soaked sofa and begs her dropout economics student-boyfriend for "bread" so she can pay off her faredodging fines. It's just the most ridiculous hippie cliche' of an LP ever, and I half-wanted to find it amusing cos of that, but the music's rancid. This abomination should therefore be played, at high volume, on every tube carriage during rush hour until Gnarls Barkley records are outlawed.

V/A - "Semaphore" CD
A load of people messing about with radar equipment and the like on a boat in Dunkirk. Somebody needs to do some potted history of "maritime electronics" when they have a couple of spare days, as this is actually quite good. It's what Nurse With Wound's "Shipwreck Radio Vol 1" might have sounded like if Steve Stapleton hadn't become a self-satisfied goat farmer ; far too many beats and rhythms to become a tedious 'experimental' drone, and genuinely more interesting than any micro-house / power electronics recordings I've heard in yonks. See, Gnarls Barkley dress up like naval officers, but they can't bloody sound like them to save their lives.
Incidentally, have you ever been to the disco on a ferry crossing? Dutch women trying to prise open the Klix machines, drunken seasick blokes projectile vomiting all over themselves as they puke into the wind on deck - and occasionally, some great ultra-obscure hi-NRG records. Until, of course, a colossal squid snatches up and crushes the paltry vessel, flinging your mangled corpses to the seabed.