Posts from May, 2007

There are two main things separating the first Maximo Park album from Our Earthly Pleasures, Maximo Park's newest album.

Firstly, their debut saw the Maximo Park singer cover up what we suspect to be a nasty case of male pattern baldness with a weird Adolf Hitler haircut, whereas for Our Earthly Pleasures he's wisely decided to employ a hat. Secondly, Our Earthly Pleasures is basically the sound of Maximo Park screaming "MAKE US FAMOUS IN AMERICA" a million times louder than on A Certain Trigger. This new attitude can be seen on songs like new single Books From Boxes. Books From Boxes is the sort of mid-tempo semi-anthem that only exist to try and convince people that the person who wrote it is clever and deep and emotionally mature. Sadly, we're none of these things, so we're not that fond of Books From Boxes - a fact that Maximo Park have already noticed and will try to remedy on their next album, the tentatively-titled Barry Done A Big Guff In The Shop And Some Went Up My Nose And I Cried - but here's the Books From Boxes video for you to make up your own mind, anyway.

The Teletubbies have proved to be remarkable educators of children around the world over the years; without them, kids wouldn't be able to mispronounce the word 'custard' or call a hoover a 'noo noo' even though it's obviously a sodding hoover.

But if the Polish government are to be believed, the Teletubbies also harbour a ghastly secret lesson - the lesson about how to be gay. The Polish government-appointed children's TV watchdog Ewa Sowinska is asking psychologists to analyse the behaviour of Tinky Winky - the purple Teletubby - because she's concerned that Tinky Winky walking about with a handbag might make him a homosexual, heightening fears that all Teletubbies-watching Polish children will grow up to be gay. In related news, another Polish watchdog has launched an investigation into the possibility of Teletubbies turning all Polish children into fat, field-dwelling monsters who can't enunciate, have television sets surgically implanted into their abdomens and worship giggling God-babies that live in the sun. 

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It's that time of year again. Come Wednesday evening, nothing - nothing - will seem more important to the great British public than watching a bunch of semi-literate dullards take their clothes off and fight every now and then.

Big Brother 8 is coming.

As is tradition by now - well, tradition in that we did it last year, and are probably going to continue doing it through the 70,000 remaining seasons of the bastard thing - hecklerspray has dug deep into our culturally-clued-up, media-savvy well and emerged with a set of sparkling predictions as to what will take place in the House O' Idiocy this time around.

We already know that there's a skate ramp in the back garden - officially the most exciting news in the history of the known universe. But what else will be happening in Big Brother this year? Let's take a look into our crystal ball…

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Season eight of Big Brother starts tomorrow night, and we literally couldn't be more excited. Sorry, that was a typo - we literally couldn't be excited is what we meant to say first time.

By tomorrow we'll have realised that all the traditional pre-Big Brother tabloid froth about bisexual nymphomaniacs will be traditionally wrong, and the actual Big Brother housemates will be the same group of emotionally-backwards nobsacks that they always are. Also, we'll have realised that, try as we might, we'll end up getting sucked into the whole bloody thing even though staring at gravel is usually a more fulfilling pursuit. But anyway, here's our almost-last batch of pre-series Big Brother betting odds. Enjoy, for the idiots enter the house soon.

Here are the Big Brother betting odds for a foreign exchange, with help from Paddy Power…

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Lotta music this week.

Folded:

• Zodiac (but you’ve gotta really love David Fincher)

• Sophie Ellis-Bextor in her Me and My Imagination video (the beguiling alien waif looks fit, but she can’t dance with those giant oversized limbs of hers to save her life. Cheer-you-up comical)

• Commodore gaming PCs (just because most of the cool kids had one back in the day)

• Tiga (infectious retro beats actually worth turning your stereo up for. They don’t go shit)

• A History of Violence on DVD (another old one we’ve caught up on. If you love David Cronenberg you will adore this. If you don’t love Cronenberg get yourself a copy of Scanners sharpish)

Creased:

• “Yes, Sir Alan” (we know he is ‘Sir Alan’ and that The Apprentice contestants are probably advised to address him in this way, but it doesn’t diminish the cringe factor every time they do so)

• Mark Ronson (the still-buzzing hysteria over this pleb is bewildering)

• That new Booty Luv song everyone keeps banging on about (just sounds like a less soulful version of Stonebridge’s Freak On. Really don’t know what all the jizzing is about)

• Ruth Badger (by [un]popular demand. Makes lesbianism look about as enticing as actual badger sex)

• Camping (just when it seems like a good idea it pours with rain and you want to fuck off to a hotel)

Often, when people come across a band - or in this case a multi-instrumentalist - who they’ve never heard of before, they tend to ignore what is written about them. But why is this? Hecklerspray can only assume it’s down to people not having the bottle to explore something potentially fresh and exciting. Instead they’d rather be fed the same recycled crap again and again.

Prime examples include the cover of the NME every week. Once a flagship for exposing music, now all it contains is dire indie filth. How many times can it put Pete Doherty on the cover? Not enough evidently. Sketches For Albinos is an artist we already have a great amount of time for. After filtering out the rubbish in our MySpace Trawl feature, we were fortunate enough to discover this particular artist. Once we dug a little further into Matthew Collings aka Sketches For Albinos' discography, we discovered a great wealth of music that was waiting to be heard. Released on the Ropeadope label, this digital-only release has been ringing in our ears for a good few weeks now. Instead of listening to the album once and drawing our opinions from it, we found that each time we skipped back and forth through the nine-track record entitled …That City Is A Liar, we'd find something else that our ears previously hadn’t picked up. Many layers of beautifully woven melodies come creeping in and out at various points of the record, always making you want to listen that little bit closer to see if any more nuggets of joy can be found. 

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We've all been there - those awkward situations where you've blurted out an offensive remark, then had a fight about it, then almost got the sack, then bewilderingly gone to rehab because everyone thinks you're a tit.

When we said 'all' we pretty much just meant Isaiah Washington from Grey's Anatomy, who learnt the hard way that you can't go round screaming the word 'faggot' at gay people when you work on a vaguely whimsical television drama about hospitals. Isaiah Washington's road to recovery has been long and hard, and now it's time for Isaiah Washington to display what lessons he's gained in a series of television commercials that will preach tolerance to the masses. The first one, entitled 'A Man Who Hates Gay People Patronises You So He Can Keep His Job' was premiered last night.

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As semi-regular as clockwork comes our feature - which has properly been copied by other websites/ magazines - that attempts to pinpoint music that basically kicks arse in its own unique way. We aim to push some of the shit music in your brain out of your head and allow the good stuff in.

While we can’t perform miracles, like Christ, and make you totally musically hip, we’ll try our best. Today we focus on a genre of music that we have never reviewed. No, it's not one of our more bizarre genres that could possibly involve an octopus, a phone book and a violin. Instead, it’s something you’ve all properly heard an annoying neighbour play very loud at 3am, the day before you take that important exam. Everyone secretly loves Drum & Bass, they just need prodding in the right direction. So we’ll proud you in the direction of Melly. 

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Courtney Love has spent over a decade trying to gradually edge out of Kurt Cobain's shadow, but that was hardly likely to happen when all the while Kurt Cobain was prancing about on a cloud in heaven in a pair of lovely Doc Martens, was it?

A set of adverts featuring an image of Kurt Cobain looking a bit glum in heaven wearing Doc Martens has enraged his widow Courtney Love, who is understandably upset that there are pictures around of her husband flogging overrated goth shoes. But, after a monumental PR snafu, Doc Martens has backed down and withdrawn all the adverts from circulation. It wasn't so much that nobody asked for her approval, Courtney Love says, more that the picture in the advert is inaccurate - after all, if Kurt Cobain did go to heaven his face would be blown apart with a shotgun wound, not all intact like the advert says it would be.

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