Quench - Issue 74

MOUNTA IN ADVENTUR ES SWN F E S T I VA L ART ON YOUR D OOR S T E P

Noel Fielding ...REVE ALS TH E FUTURE OF TH E

BOOSH

: s t n e t n o c Issue 74

RY OF BEST MAGAZINE IN NOMINATED FOR THE CATEGO AWARDS 2008!

THE GUARDIAN STUDENT MEDIA

VOYEUR RANT HUW FASHION INTERVIEWS BLIND DATE FEATURES GAY FOOD TRAVEL GOING OUT

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David Beckham’s face has become a 21st century super-virus, infecting every possible medium

ARTS BOOKS

The Rant, p. 6

DIGITAL MUSIC

COVER IMAGE: NATHAN HUGHES COVER DESIGN: HAZEL PLUSH

FILM

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Editor Hazel Plush Executive Editor Ben Bryant Assistant to the Editors Elaine Morgan Arts Kate Budd, Lisa Evans Blind Date Emma Chapman, Sarah George Books Aisling Tempany Digital Liam Charalambous, Tom Baker Fashion Meme Sgroi, Nicole Briggs Features Gillian Couch, Louise Cook Film Adam Woodward, Francesca Jarvis, Sim Eckstein Food Jenny Edwards, Jen Entecott Gay James Moore Going Out Alex Gwilliam, Kirstin Knight Huw Huw Davies Interviews Ben Marshall, Leah Eynon Music Guy Ferneyhough, Kyle Ellison, Phil Guy The Rant Andy Swidenbank Travel Andy Tweddle, Simon Lucey Head of Photography Natalia Popova Creative Consultant Sophie Pycroft Proof Readers Aisling Tempany, Elaine Morgan, Katherine Davies, Hannah Pearce

printed on recycled paper. PLEASE RECYCLE.

voyeur

I

{Voyeur}

committed another social faux pas at the weekend: whipping out a tuna sandwich on the Megabus. It was the first thing I'd grabbed on my way to the coach stop, but as soon as I unleashed its fishy fumes on my fellow passengers I could sense the beams of hatred coming from all directions. It was the public transport equivalent of dropping a silent-but-deadly in a lift: unavoidable (I was starving), and any potential enjoyment was completely overridden by my guilty imagining of everyone else's disgust.

Anyway, all this got me thinking about smells. I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure there are some damn complicated mechanics behind the big conk on your face.

What gets me, though, is the sheer emotional reaction a little waft of smell particles (I told you I'm no scientist!) can incur.

I grew up in the countryside, and I can clearly remember the stink of cow dung during muck spreading. Now, whenever I get a whiff of manure I'm transported back to my childhood – not the most romantic of associations I'm sure, but a powerful one nonetheless.

Cow pats aside, the smell of people can be just as poignant. There are few things more emotionally confusing than dating a guy who has the same aftershave as an ex, and I'm sure it's the same on the other side of the gender fence.

The imminent arrival of Christmas is also an olfactory-entangled minefield. All those bottles of Britney Spears-scented perfume flying off the shelves are just waiting to fly off the shelves, only to land underneath your Christmas tree. Do you wear it? Do you give it back to them next year? Oxfam must be drowning in a sea of David Beckham toilette every January.

Yeah, this smelling lark can feel like a bit of a duff deal, but be glad that you actually can. If you were anosmic you'd certainly be devoid of scent-related baggage and be free to date a string of Hugo Boss addicts, but you'd be entering a whole new minefield of probs. You see, I used to have a dog with no nose. "How did he smell?", you ask. Awful, that's how. *Groan*.

HP

04 / voyeur@gairrhydd.com

IN

OUT

Regular Pets

Chicken Nugget Pets

Dull, predictable and, quite frankly, common.

Get them out of the freezer and let them run wild!

e-shopper

embracing consumerist filth

Divine Interventions: Spiritual Dildos Now you can whack the gash with your favourite religious icon!

Discover the 'Diving Nun', with suction pads to stick to your convent wall, 'The Devil' (stick him where the sun don't shine), and an alarmingly well-endowed 'Buddha'.

Jesus was a carpenter, now he's a powertool.

Whoever knew self abuse could be so... spiritual? www.divine-interventions.com

.

Amber Duval

......

voyeur

Ms Duval invites you to A decadent soiree of gaiety and folly

Monday 1 December, 7.30pm.

Dress: inappropriate

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Ah, it's party time! My annual evening of erudite frivolity is nearly upon us and, naturally, the lucky attendees are girding their loins in anticipation…

But, as a Quench exclusive I've decided to divulge my plans for the highlight of the season's party calendar. Yes – half the fun is in the anticipation, and a girl certainly needs a little fun on these lonely winter nights! You lucky muff ferrets!

I have, of course, only invited my nearest and dearest, but I'm lucky to count some very high profile names as my bosom buddies. Ex Spice Girl Mel B will be there by my side, as she is on most social occasions. To be truthful, she's an embarrassment at times with her incessant throaty expletives and northern gusto, but she's always a lively conversationalist. Fred Durst has often been a regular house guest – since the demise of Limp Bizkit he's sheltered from the haters in my bosomy warmths on many occasions. He's always a bit of a drag at dinner parties though – the balding ruffian nurtures a merciless lactose intolerance which rules out the cream cheese canapés – no wonder he's always been so angsty!

Anyhoo, I've also invited Charlotte Church in the hope that she'll bring along hunky Gav – he makes my love zones quiver whenever he's near! Charlotte's 2005 album Tissues and Issues holds a lot of sensitive private memories for me, for that was the year that my late Ernie died in his unfortunate accident. I serenade him with 'Love Casualty' whenever I visit his grave- too many of these little blue pills and his poor old ticker sent him right off to casualty for good…

In the meantime, my pretties, farewell – until text time!

Amber x

“

But it's party time – I mustn't get upset! I'm hoping for a game of 'Hide the Mole' with Enrique Iglesias, and I've got Ben Adams and the rest of 90's pop band A1 as butlers in the buff… I can't wait for those party frolics to begin!

voyeur@gairrhydd.com / 05

the rant

The Rant: The Beautiful Game?

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an automatic decision of where to direct their racism, fists, bottles and knives.

Violence in football is rife, unlike most other sport. Different teams’ crazed supporters, even though segregated at opposite ends of the pitch, attempt to maim each other with anything they can find, to deafen their rivals with unbelievably stupid air-horns and to blind them with ridiculously moronic outfits and execrable face-painting.

Or even worse than this, by wearing the team’s rip-off strip that

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it's like a primal circus enactment of evolution. In reverse

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F

ootball is an international pandemic: a punishment of the extent to which God is usually responsible, giving those with a monumental intelligence deficit millions of pounds and the eyes and ears of the world’s media. All so they can meander around a fake field, aimlessly kicking a reconstituted pig’s bladder back and forth. And occasionally fall over, grasping a random body part and crying when they themselves find the near-suicidal tedium too much to bear.

Pro-football propaganda seeps from the media’s every pore; a putrid capitalist wound on society, dredging up everything from WAGs to WKD. Brainwashed into boys as the standard of masculinity, football is relentlessly inflicted upon Britain’s youth. At school. On TV. On the radio. On billboards. On the inside of their eyelids…

David Beckham’s face, for instance, has become a 21st century super-virus, infecting every possible medium. He’s appeared in adverts for Gillette, Pepsi, Armani, Adidas, Police sunglasses, Brylcreem, M&S, Vodafone, Motorola, Sharpie… and stooped to new lows by attempting to promote his airhead wife’s fragrance. Not bad for someone whose IQ is barely out of single figures.

Like commercial gigolos, players are bought and sold between teams for extortionate values; up to £44,000,000, simply emphasising how business has overtaken sport (and common sense) in football. You could build a hospital for £44 million for God’s sake!

Worse than this, however, is the type of primeval creature that actually 'supports' a football team. Either picking their local team out of a kind of regional loyalty or the more fickle animal that just chooses whoever’s top of the league. By deciding which team to let ravage their bank account, supporters have also made

makes the supporters poor, the team rich and keeps half the Third World in sweatshops; the strip that changes every time the team thinks their supporters won’t notice them delving deeper into their wallets.

All so 'Rayne Wooney' can afford to buy his wife so many expensive clothes that she won’t notice he has more in common with houmous than humans.

In light of fans’ past behaviour, no wonder glass bottles are now illegal at matches. Surely though it would be much better to ban The Bloodthirsty Game completely? Or to lock all the fans in the stadiums for the benefit of those who don’t appreciate being stabbed by fat, balding, middle aged alcoholics from Dudley. So dementedly uncontrollable is the football supporting popula-

This week Chris Lloy , d blows the whistle on Football.. . tion that it has sent numerous death threats to referees, and supporters and stewards alike have been trampled to death by rampaging UK rioters worldwide. Not content with this rampant carnage, pitch invasions, streakers and scuffles between players themselves further tarnish the tainted reputation of the sport, making it appear more like a primal circus enactment of evolution.

In reverse.

What’s most depressing though, is the deplorable, desperate way supporters talk about “we” and “us” when players, who happen to be on the team they happen to support, score a goal. Or if “their” team wins.

As though it’s an achievement on their behalf.

How completely devoid of anything worthwhile must people’s lives be when they count a random person kicking a ball between two white posts as their own achievement?

Why don’t they put that beer down, get off their fat arse and play football if they want to score a goal? Or, better still, find something productive to do with their lives…

To misquote Karl Marx, football is the opium of the masses. It might make people feel temporarily satiated, but like opium it slowly rots away at society, making people poorer and unhappier but helplessly addicted to it.

Rooney: Commun icat only way he know ing the s how.

h L

huw

? uw

he thinks stuff

ights. Camera. And...cue Cicero. "Times are bad.

Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book." It may sound like a tiresomely pithy Oscar Wilde saying, but Cicero's not to blame for an effeminate fop clogging up all the quote bibles centuries later. Anyway, I know how he feels.

If you're now expecting me to launch into a Daily Express rant about kids today disrespecting their elders, don't worry – it's the second part of Cicero’s observation that I keep thinking of at the moment. "Everyone is writing a book." It's true, and it's enough to give a lazy bastard like me an inferiority complex (which is natural if you live with someone who has played Glastonbury. But it's OK because I can beat him at Mario Kart).

Several of my friends are writing novels in their spare time. I know someone whose novel has just been published, someone else who wrote theirs in a month and another who's currently writing her third (and she's a bloody medical student). If it isn't novels it's screenplays, sitcoms, short stories or poetry, or they're off shooting independent films to be shown to massive acclaim by arts societies. For these people, ambition isn't a word – it's a blood type.

My first reaction, and maybe yours too, is to ask what's wrong with these people. Don't they have a social life? Sure, everyone needs a hobby, and for many people it's writing. I'm in no position to talk; if you

added all the vaguely journalistic words I've ever written – in columns, opinion pieces, reviews, features and blogs – you would be a very sad person, clearly, but you would also reach a word count roughly equivalent to that of the Old Testament. But the dedication it takes to construct a novel, with its story arcs, character backgrounds, plot devices, structure...

It's enough to give a lazy bastard like me an inferiority complex... do these people ever leave the house?

But actually, they're all pretty cool people, not desperately lonely shut-ins. They just happen to spend their spare time doing something that enriches their own lives and potentially the lives of others. The bastards.

If you are going to write a novel, I suppose it makes sense to do it at university. When else will you have the time? The big bad world of work eats away at your life as well as your soul, so if you want to do something as time-consuming as writing a novel, you have to take that opportunity when you're a student. You have the chance to try something new. The chance to convert your dream into reality.

The chance to use your plentiful spare time doing something you

won't have time to do when you're older. But that's why I started drinking.

There's a strong argument to be made for drinking over writing a novel, or at least doing both. Better ideas, for a start. Archimedes may have been sober when he discovered the principle of hydrostatics (although he did run down the road naked, which suggests he’d had a few), but all the best novels were born when the author was either drunk or stoned off his tits. I mean, have you read Lord Of The Rings? Orcs and tree-people and shit? What the hell is going on there?

Then there are the memories. Admittedly, student novelwriters will have more to show for their efforts: a book, a sense of achievement and perhaps a publishing contract instead of a Guitar Hero top score, debt and cirrhosis of the liver. But where were they that time Phil crapped in a bin?

OK, so maybe it is possible to do a university course, write a novel and have a social life. And again, it's a better idea than becoming one of those people who thinks it's funny to snap off car aerials, or who loses all sense of direction in life and starts playing Warhammer. You may call me a snob, you may call me a twat, but you can’t accuse me of ever having painted miniature figurines.

And that's a feeling I can take to the grave with pride.

In conclusion...I'm going to write a novel.

huw@gairrhydd.com / 07

fashion

a Seq af

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fashion

quinned ffair... a GLITZY COMBINATION OF LUXE TEXTURES, RICH COLOURS aND PLaYFUL EMBELLISHMENTS CREaTE a SCaNDaLOUSLY SINFUL UNIFORM FOR THE PaRTY SEaSON.

fashion@gairrhydd.com / 09

fashion

10 /fashion@gairrhydd.com

Photography:Lucy Russell With thanks to Glam

fashion

fashion@gairrhydd.com / 11

interviews

Mighty Boosh funny man Noel Fielding is quite the renaissance man, lending his talents to multiple outlets, with a book, a festival, two live shows, three televsion series and a radio show to The Mighty Boosh's name. Not to mention his appearances in Nathan Barley and The IT crowd, nor his frequent sojourns into DJing. Prior to his second visit to Cardiff for The Mighty Boosh tour, Ben Marshall spoke with Fielding about Russell Brand, a Boosh film and underwater lasers.

F

or a man who is near idolised by a signififcant proportion of the country, Noel Fielding is a disarmingly polite an affable man. It's easy to see why so many of The Mighty Boosh's fans treat him as a demi-god with his poster-boy good looks and his almost childlike approach to life. However, despite this public persona, Fielding is also a deeply focussed man, and his prolific output is testmant to it. On the eve of his second sold out show in Cardiff this year, Noel spared some time to discuss his upcoming projects among other things.

Despite the success of all three series of The Mighty Boosh, Fielding suggested that another series may be off the cards, and that their future may be in film. 'I mean I know that the BBC were interested in doing a film and so are we. It's another interesting way of presenting a narrative, and I think that we can't just simply do another series, as we like to give ourselves more challenges.'

The Mighty Boosh team certainly have challenged themselves over the past year or so, lending themselves to producing a book, a festival and even a live band to expand their empire. Music certainly has been central to the success of the Boosh, and Fielding hinted that this may be their next big adventure. 'We have like 40 songs now,

and with the live band the sound of many of these songs has evolved.

I don't think we want to do just a straight music album, we want it to be more of a concept album like War of The Worlds, or Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. it's just a case of getting the right producer on board really.'

Fielding has also always been linked with music in the public eye, with his rock star girlfriend and cool indie friends, and has also made a name for himself as a DJ. However, despite his Shoreditch indie credentials, Fielding still has time for the old classics. " My girlfriend was playing some Kate Bush the other day, and I was absolutely loving it!

I'm also listening to a lot of Suicide of late, and I really like the La's. I met Ian Brown in a shop the other week and that inspired me to get the first Stone Roses album, which I'm also really into.'

Noel Fielding is possibly most known to the tabloid reading masses for his pantheon of famous friends, notably Russell Brand.

Diplomatically avoiding pointing the finger at anyone in particular, Fielding still had some interesting thoughts upon that matter.

'I didn't actually listen to the original broadcast, but it does seem to have all gone a bit too far really, hasn't it? I know Russell really well and he isn't malicious in the slight-

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est. Although it has to be said that the producers probably should have stepped in. It's not like the producers just shut the door and let them get on with it. And to be honest, Manuel is like a god in this country! it's like going after Del Boy!' Nevertheless, even after dealing with one of the most ludicrously overblown news stories of the year, Fielding is equally happy discussing the merits of inter-species warfare. He tackled possibly the most important question of the day; who would win in a fight between a polar bear with lasers instead of eyes and a polar bear with sharks instead of arms?

'I guess I'd have to say Lasers.

Lasers can reach further can't they?

That said, what if it's underwater?

That's the only loophole. We'd sucker in all the laser people and then we'd be like 'oh right it's actually taking place underwater. We'd clean up!'

And with that our interview came to an end. Despite his almost universal critical and popular acclaim, he still remains the easy-going and good-natured manchild that the whole bloody world seemed to fall in love with after the first series of The Mighty Boosh, and I guess that's central to his enduring appeal with the British public.

interviews

Blind Date

blind date

The love goddesses are back doing what they do best, with another successful date to add to the back-catalogue!

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Out of 10, I'd give him an 8... We shared lots of similar interests.

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Mark

Sian

Blind Date: Mark, lets get down to business, what would you give Sian out of 10?

Mark: I would give Sian a 7.

What were your first impressions?

I thought that she looked really nice and she seemed really friendly.

Were there any highlights of the date?

I found out that one of her favourite bands was Slipknot which was great as I'm a fan and I haven't met many girls who like Slipknot aswell.

Interesting. So were there any shocking moments?

Basically we both went to the toilet but there was only one cubicle free as the others were out of order, so we had to wait for each other to finish, which was a bit embarrassing.

Oh dear, do you think you'll keep in touch?

Yeah, I'd like to meet up again as mates.

How would you describe Sian in three words?

Interesting, friendly and chatty.

So which would you rather: Chuck, fuck or marry?

I'll go with marry.

Thanks to Mordaith Bar & Grill,

Ok so we've heard from Mark, now it's your turn to dish the dirt. What did you think of him?

Sian: Out of 10, I'd give him an 8. We had a good time.

And what were your first impressions?

I thought he seemed really nice because he was talkative and easy to get on with.

What was the highlight of the date?

Probably the fact that we got on well and we shared similar interests in music and stuff.

Nice. So would you meet up with Mark again?

Yeah I would do if he wanted to as well.

How would you describe Mark in three words?

Talkative, good-looking and friendly.

So the infamous chuck, fuck or marry question?

Hmm that's a hard one. Definitely not chuck - I'll go for fuck.

Oceana. For bookings call 029 20

377014

erested in taking part ? Email us!

Blind date goes live on Xpress! Int

blinddate@gairrhydd.com / 15

features

E M E R T X E

PEAKS

Live life on the edge? Jamie Maddison sure does. Features get to grips with the highs and lows of scaling mountains, abseiling gullys and cheating the elements. Just don't look down... in the guidebook as a 'popular and well-trodden' beginners' route, it was apparently easily completed within five hours. Visible from our approach up the glacier on the previous day it had seemed exactly that: easy and short. Reluctantly, I leave the comfort of the bag, hurriedly pile on some clothes, and emerge from the tent into the crisp glacial air.

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It all seemed so easy, but we should have taken the situation more seriously

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T

he sun strikes down, unbearably hot even at this altitude. My throat is rasping and my body is screaming at me for water. The one litre that I did bring up had run out roughly four hours ago and we were still high up on the mountain.

It was meant to be a warm-up peak: easy, even to us inexperienced alpinists. Yet here we are, five hours overdue, off route and on the wrong side of the mountain. Now, to make matters even worse, our little group of four are faced with a perilous abseil down a shattered gully where stones fire pitilessly past our heads. I look around at the strained faces of my fellow Cardiff University mountaineers – Olly, Duncan and Andy, each deeply absorbed in their own thoughts. They must be thinking similar thoughts to my own, dreaming about the comfort of camp and blocking out the irritation of our situation. It had all started so well; how had it all gone so wrong?

Just a few hours earlier, brought to an abrupt awakening by the alarm blasting Bloc Party into the early morning silence, I lay basking in the warmth of my sleeping bag contemplating the ascent of our first big mountain. This was to be our training peak, a starter for bigger and better things to come.

Described

To my left, Duncan and Andy are stirring in their bivvy bags. Behind them, the sun is just breaking over the highest mountain in the region.

Olly emerges from the tent behind me, sleep still in his eyes - it’s probably still in mine. We exchange a few jokes as we begin to stuff our packs with all the rubbish we think we might need. After a hasty breakfast we pull on our crampons, ready to go. Andy and Duncan plan on doing the same route as Olly and I, but will be an independent climbing team so I doubt we will see them much today.

Hoisting our bags over our backs, Olly and I look up at the mountain - still dark in the pale light of the

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dawn - and set off to conquer our first alpine peak.

The ascent turns out to be exhausting for us both, but technically quite easy. Progress is somewhat slow as we meander our way up the sloping ice fields, stopping frequently to get our breath back and take a drink, only to then push ourselves further up the mountain against all the signals from our aching and over-laden bodies. Duncan and Andy, much fitter and acclimatised than ourselves, had overtaken us relatively early on and had disappeared out of sight around a rock buttress.

Olly attacks the ice gully with vigour, leading the entire pitch with ease. And then we are on the col, looking down the other side of the mountain to the valley. It's another 40 minutes to the summit, but this proves easier than the rest of the climb as the rock is flatter, and we're soon standing with Duncan and Andy.

It all seemed so easy. We should have taken the situation more seriously, though, as our next decision changed everything. Disliking the idea of returning the way that we had come up, we chose to descend the other side of the ridge, which the guidebook confirmed was a legitimate route. Duncan and Andy hadn't brought any rock gear so we would have to work as a four, with one team leading and

features

“

Any slip would mean a 50ft plummet down into the gully below

“

leaving the gear behind for the other team. The plan was to move swiftly over the ground, and remove the equipment when the last person went past. The problem, however, is that this method is notoriously slow and tedious. Progress slowed to a crawl. The ridge was much longer than we had anticipated; each time I saw an edge of the ridge I longingly hoped that on the other side there would be a slope meandering back to the glacier and camp. We were denied such a blessing; each time we reached these edges the only thing they yielded was yet more ridgeline, more rock, more climbing...

We hadn’t expected to be up here this long. My water bottle is empty and the sun in the cloudless sky is causing a racking thirst and making me sluggish and irritable. Sharp exchanges begin to flare up and everyone senses that we're losing control of the situation.

We begin to lose our way. An argument erupts between Olly and I over which way we should go: down the melting snow ramps over the exposed 1000ft north face, or scale a shattered gully on the south side where it may be possible to abseil safely down to the snowline. After a few tense words we end up taking the abseil.

The gully leading to the spire we wish to abseil from is steep and composed entirely of shattered rocks. I am the first one to be lowered down, which is a bonus as I have the security of a rope above me on the occassions when I nearly fall through the crumbling footholds.

I finally reach the spire, and from it I can see a snowfield that seem to stretch seemingly right down to the glacier. This is our way down! I secure myself to the rock and now it's up to the others to descend just as I did. Olly and Duncan have a

much tougher time, as they don't have the rope above them, and any slip would mean a 50ft plummet down into the wretched gully below. At long last we all end up awkwardly placed around the jut-

ting rock, ready for the next stage of our adventure.

It takes a further hour to finally complete the abseil, miraculously without anybody getting hit by any of the of debris unearthed by our movements. The time at this point is two o’clock - seven hours since we first set out.

We had all previously thought that, once we'd got off the rock and back onto snowfields, we would be down at camp within the hour. From our new perspective we found that this wasn’t going to happen. It would be at least another gruelling three hours before we could shuffle exhaustedly into the relative comfort of our sleeping bags. But for now we have to keep moving; Andy prepares the abseil whilst Olly gets ready to lead the next pitch. Once more we set off, winding our way down, perilously descending this immense mountain.

A bluffer's guide to moutaineering: Bivvy or Bivouac Bag - An extremely lightweight waterproof shell that looks like a sleeping bag and acts like a tent, protecting the user inside from the worst of the weather.

Crampons - Outdoor footwear that are made from spikes and are worn on boots to provide traction on snow and ice.

Buttress - A section of the mountain that protrudes from the rest of the surrounding rock face.

They are often the steepest and hardest parts of the mountain to ascend through.

Col - The name given to the low point that is often found separating two mountains.

Gully - The name given to channels in the mountain which are generally the least steep section of the mountain and so are seen as the easiest route of ascent.

quenchfeatures@gairrhydd.com / 17

interviews

Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds

Provincial pop-punkers Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds are one of the most talked about unsigned artists in the country. Having already bagged support slots with equally hotly tipped Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong and The Wombats, the band have set out on their first headlining tour trundling into Cardiff for an all too brief visit. Ben Marshall and Rupert Waldron meet up with the band to discuss influences, future plans and Polar Bears.

H

ailling from various parts of Suffolk, Cheeky Cheeky and The Nosebleeds are an up-and-coming band with a few festivals already under their well-dressed belts. With support from both the NME and Radio 1, it seems as if 2009 may really be the year that they break through into the mainstream. The band

spared some time before their Cardiff gig to impose their own brand of wisdom onto the Cardiff student populace.

How are you enjoying the tour?

It's going really, really well. It's really picked up, because we're just about to release our new single, and we're

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getting more and more radio airplay. We are starting to feel it a bit, and are getting a bit tired, but we're still absolutely loving it. However if you spend a couple of months in a van you do definitely know about it.

We live off sandwiches now.

I've noticed that you have a very distinct aesthetic, which

interviews

We were just a gang of friends first, really. A Gnarly gang. We used to always be climbing trees, lighting bonfires, climbing trees and lighting bonfires in the trees... That said, when you're with the same people all the time, you are bound to end up sharing similar tastes whether it's style or music taste, so I think it's an entirely organic development really.

How long have you been together?

The current incarnation? With the current incarnation I'd say about a year and a half, when we actually started playing proper shows and stuff.

“

Most of our stuff concerns being young and British because we are, in fact, young and British

“

You have been enjoying a noticeably increased period of press coverage, is that something that you care about a big deal?

It's nice appearing in the NME, but when we are playing day to day it's not that noticeable. I mean it's always nice to think 'Oh yeah, we're in the NME this week,' but at the end of the day we'll be judged on the attendance of our gigs and if people buy our records. We don't have an awful lot of time to be thinking about it, really.

What would you say were you

musical influences, as it does seem to be somewhat of a mixed bag?

We've always listened to punk, but we've also always been fans of pop music as well. Like we've we love the Stooges, Electric Eels, the Dead Boys, that sort of early American punk and Garage Rock. We mainly listened to a lot of Rock 'n' Roll, Punk and Even some Electro and Dubstep. Of course when we were younger we listened to a lot of the classics, like the Ramones and Chuck Berry, but we've found our music influences broadening as we've grown up really.

been hard if they had only heard the records. We did used to have a song with a French chorus, but we didn't actually play that song, which may have been somewhat of an oversight on our behalf.

“

We've got this idea for a car that runs on Love...

“

seems to permeate all aspects of the band, whether that is your clothes or your outlook on life.

Was this a definite effort on your behalf?

How about your lyrical influences, where do they come from in your lives?

We base most of our writing on our day to day life really. I don't know what else to write about if I'm being honest. Most of our stuff concerns being young and British because, we are in fact, young and British.

Do you have any future album plans?

We haven't planned anything really, we've got some ideas about our producers, and we have been working with some people, so I guess we'll see what comes about from it.

We certainly don't have a set date in the diary. I mean the thought of making an album is still quite a scary prospect for us. It still seems like such a far away thing to us, that we don't think about it all that often . At the moment we're just playing as many shows as we can and writing our music.

Do you think that you are a band that lends itself more towards live music than records?

I do think that our music has a certain impact when played live, but live music is what is really. We do love playing live, but I do think that there is something special about putting something down to record, whether it be on vinyl or mp3. I mean there's something quite universal about live music. When we played in France a couple of times, they really enjoyed it and got behind us, which I guess would have

What are your plans for next year?

We've got a few ideas. ideas and inventions mainly. We've got this idea for a car that runs on Love.

And a party catheter. If you don't want to keep going to the toilet, then we've got your back. We haven't worked out the mechanics of it yet, but we're hoping to do big things with it in 2009. However, in all seriousness we're hoping to continue touring, write some more songs and take over the world.

Finally, who do you think would win in a fight between a Polar Bear with lasers instead of eyes and a Polar Bear with Sharks instead of hands?

Lasers! Lasers are long range, and that bear would run circles around the one with sharks instead of arms. Can it see? Oh man if it can't then it's shit. If it was just spinning in circles. The one with sharks could just duck under the lasers I suppose. It does also depend whether the sharks are independent from the polar bear, because if they aren't then we're talking.

Although there is a flaw because wouldn't a shark die if it was on land? The blood flow would be catered for by the polar bear though.

I'm actually going to go with the one with sharks. It's like Shipwrecked!

Lasers vs Sharks. Brilliant.

interviews@gairrhydd.com /19

gay

MATCH OF TH

ing love of man It's a national obsession, a lucrative business and the most endur . Until now. Lu Game' has never been readily associated with the gay community have to be personal experiences on and off the pitch, and proves that you don't the world of football.

20 /gay@gairrhydd.com

straight (probably slightly insecure) guys assume that there are lots of soft tackles and flying make-up.

For sport of course, I play up to this by telling them poker-faced that we play in really tiny, tight-fitting shorts that show everything! But by far the most galling reaction I get is from other gay people. On one hand I have the big, hairy, horny bear-types desperate to know all the sordid details of communal showers. And then on the other side of the gay bar, I get the camp

“

"You can’t be gay," she said. "You play football!"

“

I

t's been nearly 20 years since the first (and, to date, only) gay professional footballer ever publicly outed himself. And a decade since Justin Fashanu committed suicide after his career and reputation collapsed in the Sunday rags with allegations of sexual assault. The tragic end to Fashanu's life proves that there remains a depressing taboo around homosexuality in the world’s most popular team sport. David Beckham and his sarong aside, The Beautiful Game remains the reserve of masculine society; where narrow-mindedness and bigotry go hand-in-hand. Only a few weeks ago this spectre raised its ugly head on Sunday September 28th at Fratton Park, when Tottenham played Portsmouth. Hundreds of shameless Spurs fans taunted Sol Campbell with racist and homophobic chants. Yet, sadly, the FA has so far failed to act out against Tottenham or its supporters.

When I came out to my Mum in the middle of an argument aged 17, her immediate reaction was not shock or upset, but disbelief. “You can’t be gay,” she said. “You play football!”. And so the reaction has been ever since. When people find out that I’m gay, I’m happy to report that (in this world of Frappuccinos and Graham Norton) most just accept me for who I am. But when people find out that I’m a gay man who plays football, the responses are slightly more varied. Some

as Christmas fairy-types recoiling in horror at the thought of mud anywhere near them, unless it’s going on their faces as part of their skin care routine. Both look at me like I’m some kind of failed homo, who is not fit to wear the badge.

But there is hope. Three years ago, back home in sunny Birmingham, I was looking for a new club to play for, and a mate of mine told me about a new team that was starting up specifically for people from the gay community. I admit now that I had the same misconceptions that I have just told you about; all missed

kicks and campery with the only team banter being something along the lines of “Sweetie, just hit the fucking ball! I have a mani at three."

I convinced myself that it was either that or a bunch of hairy early-30s fitness freaks with shaved heads and cheap-looking tattoos.

But I went all the same, and I’m glad I did. I discovered that this up -and-coming football club wasn't exclusive in any way. You didn't even have to be gay to play; sexuality just didn't matter. There were gay guys, lesbian girls, a couple of straight guys who just liked playing somewhere with no attitude, and even a post-operative transsexual.

From the foundations of a gayfriendly team, we started to play in a gay-friendly league.

By being a part of this whole environment I have made the most amazing friends you could ever ask for all over the United Kingdom.

Six months ago, I was telling somebody in a bar how much I enjoyed playing for the gayfriendly team, and it was at this point that I came across the most frustrating reaction ever. We’ve all met somebody like this guy the militant gay. “You should disband the gay teams and just join normal ones like everybody else”.

Bitch, please. Firstly, define ‘normal’. Secondly, you don’t have to be gay. You just need to believe that everybody has the right to play, regardless of sex, age, sexuality or ability. And thirdly, if I joined a so-called 'normal' loc-

gay

HE GAY

ny lives. But the 'Beautiful uke Owen draws on his own straight to shoot and score in

al team, my away matches would be Maesteg, Ebbw Vale and Dinas Powys. As it is, they’re Manchester, Brighton and London, which conveniently offer the best gay nightlife in the country. Why would anybody give that up?

I've been part of the team now for three years and I have played in matches and tournaments against other gay-friendly teams all over the country, from Bournemouth to Edinburgh. I’ve played in the Gay World Cup in London. And now in a new city, a few mates and I are setting up a new gay-friendly football club.

So far, it's going well.

“

David Beckham and his sarong aside, the 'Beautiful Game' remains the reserve of 'masculine' society. So is there a place for gays in football?

“

gay@gairrhydd.com / 21

food

A Sweet A

For all those who suffer from sweet tooth syndrome, Jenny Edwards searches for an explanation behind sugar addictions.

R

ecent reflections on my dark days under the grip of Maple and Pecan Crunch cereal have made me wonder if there is any scientific legitimacy behind food addictions. Is there anything that can justify the late night trek to the corner shop for a chocolate bar? What about the magnetic pull of the Family Fish bar after a night out?

Ok, so they're obviously in a whole different league from the many serious intervention-requiring addictions, but wouldn’t it be nice if a midnight cupboard raid could be excused by more than just plain greed?

Thankfully, it seems that some free-thinking pioneers from the world of science actually agree. Yup, they've produced some bona fide research-backed theories to soothe your post-binge conscience:

The Dopamine Factor: A recent study by Ivan de Araujo and his colleagues in Portugal focused on the brain’s ability to ‘sniff out’ calories. 'Calories' is an instant danger word for the health-conscious, but it seems the grey matter disagrees. The research suggests the brain responds to sugar based calories with a drug-like effect on its dopamine-rich reward centre (the

'nucleus accumbens', for those in the know).

Genetically-altered lab mice that lacked taste receptor cells consistently chose sugar water over normal water, despite any physical way to show the difference. Interestingly, for anyone who argues that sweet ‘n' low really does taste the same, low calorie sweeteners did not produce a similar dopamine boost.

This study supports the idea that simple carbohydrates and sugary foods are addictive because they affect the brain reward pathways.

The powerful effect of the dopamine is enough to thwart even the best intentions.

Hedonic Hunger: No, it's not the name of a new cult.

Hedonic hunger is a scientific theory that suggests living in an affluent society creates a ‘food environment’ that can cause an appetitive drive similar to that produced by other pleasure-driven acts such as drug use.

Scientists at Drexel University reviewed studies on what drove animals to eat. It was found that motives for eating for pleasure and out of necessity overlapped, but could be separated. Therefore it is possible (and scientifically validated) to experience frequent food thoughts and urges without actual hunger.

Hedonistic food consumption can also be explained by evolutionary adaptation, which helped us survive periods of food scarcity in the distant past. Actual withdrawal symptoms were shown by rats who were denied sugar water after long periods of access. Research suggested these symptoms were similar to those of rats withdrawn from drugs.

When applied to humans, this suggests we are powerfully motivated to eat good food to ward off the withdrawal symptoms of anxiety and stress that would occur in their absence. A theory clearly demonstrated by the "Not another Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut" adverts.

And the cure? For anyone not blessed with a will power of steel, there is apparently very little hope.

Solving food dependencies is low on the to-do list for medical pioneers, leaving us to our own devices.

If cold turkey doesn’t do it for you, past experience suggests that indulgence is the only answer. For me, a couple of weeks in which the aforementioned Maple Crunch cereal was breakfast, comfort food, drunken binge and hangover cure, I was well and truly cured after just one look at the shocking nutritional information.

Perfectly legitimate excuses for any food indulgence: -I’m indulging my Hedonic hunger.

-I’m being controlled by my nucleus accumbens and dopamine pathways.

-Deprivation is not the answer look at the Victorians.

22/food@gairrhydd.com

-The guilt will motivate me all the way to the gym tomorrow... or the next day.

-Its an in-built survival instinct; we live in turbulent times.

Addiction Millionaire’s Shortbread Makes 12 bars Ingredients: - 175g plain (all purpose) flour - 125g butter, cut into small pieces - 50g soft brown sugar, sieved Topping: - 50g butter - 50g soft brown sugar - 400g can condensed milk - 150g milk chocolate 1. Preheat the oven to 190˚C/375˚F/ Gas Mark 5, and grease a 23cm / 9 inch square cake tin.

2. Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and rub in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles the fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and mix to form a firm dough.

3. Press the dough into the bottom of the tin and prick with a fork.

4. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until lightly golden. Leave to cool in the tin.

5. To make the topping, place the butter, sugar and condensed milk in a non-stick saucepan and cook over a gentle heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to the boil.

6.Reduce the heat and cook for 4-5 minutes until the caramel is pale golden and thick and is coming away from the sides of the pan.

Pour the topping over the shortbread base and leave to cool.

7. When the caramel topping is firm, melt the milk chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Spread the melted chocolate over the topping, leave to set in a cool place, then cut the shortbread into squares or fingers to serve.

food

Banana Muffins Makes 12 Ingredients: - 2 large bananas, mashed - 75g soft brown sugar - 4 tbsp sunflower oil - 1 large egg - 125ml milk - 200g self-raising flour - ½ tsp nutmeg, grated

1. Preheat oven to 190˚C/375˚F/Gas Mark 5.

2. Mix mashed bananas together with the sugar and oil.

3. Beat in egg and milk.

4. Fold in flour and nutmeg.

5. Spoon into non-stick muffin tins and bake for 15 - 20 minutes.

Easy Chocolate Fudge This is the easiest fudge to make – for a really rich flavour, use a good dark chocolate with a high cocoa content, ideally at least 70 per cent.

Makes 25 Ingredients: - 500g dark chocolate - 75g unsalted butter - 400g (can sweetened condensed milk) - ½ tsp vanilla flavouring

tor until firm.

1. Lightly grease a 20cm/ 8 inch square cake tin.

Top tip: For chocolate peanut fudge, replace 50g of the butter with crunchy peanut butter. Don’t use milk chocolate to make this fudge as the results will be too sticky.

2. Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a large saucepan with the butter and condensed milk.

6. Tip the fudge out on to a chopping board and cut into squares to serve.

3. Heat gently, stirring until the chocolate and butter melts and the mixture is smooth. Do not allow to boil.

4. Remove from the heat. Beat in the vanilla flavouring, then beat the mixture for a few minutes until thickened. Pour it into the prepared tine and level the top.

5. Chill the mixture in the refrigera-

food@gairrhydd.com / 23

travel

Eccentric Europe Magaluf? Check. Faliraki? Check. Bored of Europe yet?

Whether you're Morris Dancing in Holland, exploring quaint Swiss towns or going off the beaten track in Montenegro, Europe has countless undiscovered nooks and crannies. Travel takes a look at the undiscovered side of the continent...

Dutch Courage

T

he Netherlands has a lot more to offer than just sex and drugs - so much more.

For those of you who can manage to escape the excitements of Amsterdam, just a stone's throw to the North-East is the pretty fishing town of Enkhuizen. Why was I drawn to this town and away from the bright lights of Amsterdam?

Well, you may not believe it but...

Morris Dancing.

I left my cosy home with some black face-paint, a rag jacket and a quite sizeable stick to join the Foxes Morris Dancing team for a fun and largely alcohol-filled trip to Europe.

We were lucky enough to know a friendly teashop owner who provided endless cucumber sandwiches throughout our stay, and in return, we provided the traditional English entertainment which went down well with the locals and tourists alike.

24 /travel@gairrhydd.com

The crowd was very interested in what we were doing, if a little scared. Unfortunately I think we reduced most of the children to tears!

Enkhuizen itself is a sweet town, rich in maritime history. It has many fascinating museums, as well as the biggest collection of Flessenscheepjes (ships in bottles for those of you not in the know) in the world.

Not to mention some of the freshest, tastiest fish I’ve ever tasted. Be sure to try the ‘Kibbelings’ - a spiced battered fish - they’re delicious!

It seems, my Morris Dancing connections have offered me an alternative way of seeing the world.

We have connections as far away as Hong Kong and Canada, which makes for an interesting and longlasting global travelling tradition for many years to come!

Melanie Biggs

travel

A Hint of Basel

N

ow, I am aware of what many of you will be thinking – Switzerland? How can such a small and, well, stereotyped country be 'exciting and exotic'? It does cheese, chocolate, postcard scenery and sitting on the metaphorical fence. It does this well, living up to its efficient reputation in the process.

However, having spent twelve of my formative years in Basel, Switzerland's little-known smallest Kanton, I can assure you that it is worth a visit.

For starters, budget airlines fly to Basel International Airport, a mere fifteen-minute bus ride from the city centre, so getting there won't break the bank. The well-situated youth hostel also means that it's possible to find a place to stay on a student budget.

The city itself has a lot to offer the curious visitor. The medieval 'Old town' makes for a pleasant cobblestoned stroll to the spectacular cathedral and its views of the Rhine

and beyond, with a few Roman ruins along the way. If ancient buildings are your thing, the nearby town of Augst boasts an entire amphitheatre!

On the other side of the Rhine, the waterfront consists of a picturesque promenade, which in the summer is lined with cafes, ice-cream vans and sunbathers.

Basel prides itself in being a city of culture and, despite its small size, boasts an impressive array of museums, art galleries, theatres and arthouse cinemas. My personal favourites are the Natural History Museum, the Kunstmuseum (the city's biggest art gallery) and the Fondation Beyeler (a stylish modern art museum in the suburb of Riehen).

There are also more specialist offerings, including museums showcasing toys, comics, papermaking and bodyparts - although the Museum of Anatomy is only for those with strong stomachs!

If you prefer shopping and partying to cultural activities, the city centre boasts shops and markets

aplenty and there are new malls all around the outskirts of the city. The nightlife is varied, offering everything from trendy bohemian bars to nightclubs filled with messy underage drinkers, via Irish pubs and salsa clubs.

Basel is at its best in February during the carnival (think brass bands, pipers, unbelievably large masks, lanterns and confetti bombs!), in October during the citywide funfair and in December for the Christmas lights and market. If you have a little time on your hands it is also worth bearing in mind that Basel is surrounded by beautiful countryside, within easy reach of the Alps, the Jura mountains and the German and French borders, including the stunning Alsace region. Surprisingly, this tiny, off-the-beaten-track city is not too good to be true, and there are endless other possibilities to keep the visitor entertained, so happy exploring!

Rebecca Ganz

The Full Mont-y with coves begging to be explored and rock-scrambling soon becomes essential.

An increasing number of yachts making their way over the horizon,

“

“

W

hen met with the tantalising offer of a beach holiday in Europe, many places spring to mind – Spain…

Greece… Croatia, perhaps… but what about Montenegro?

Wedged quite snugly between Bosnia and Albania along the Adriatic Coast, Montenegro is a pretty sweet location, rife with stunning beach resorts and minimal crowd issues.

Arguably, the country’s two top coast destinations are Budva and Kotor, both offering completely different shoreline experiences.

Beach bums should head to Budva. The shore is bespeckled with Café del Mar-esque watering holes, making beaching a 24-hour event.

Chill-out music coos softly from the bars in the day before shifting to respectable euro-beats as the sun begins to set. The coast is littered

Check it out while the water’s still sapphire

however, suggest that Budva’s enigmatic seclusion is not long for the world – check it out while the water’s still sapphire.

On the flip-side, Kotor produces a more cultured offering. Set around the stunning Stari Grad (Old Town), Kotor is like an undiscovered Dubrovnik. Tucked away in a vast

mountainous cove, Kotor was once an important naval base. Surrounded by lush green peaks, the harbour makes for a pretty dramatic view for those willing to climb the city walls.

Also well worth a mention (though not strictly a beach destination) is Montenegro’s Durmitor National Park. Covering nearly 400 square kilometres, the park is, quite simply, epic. Famous for white-water rafting and hiking, Durmitor is a crucial beach afterthought, and the perfect punctuation to your Montenegran escapade.

Flights to Montenegro are sparse and extortionate at best so it's recommended that you fly to a nearby hub (Split in Croatia is probably your best bet) and make your way to Mont on land. This allows for an extension of your trip and incredible coastline views en-route.

Andy Tweddle

travel@gairrhydd.com / 25

travel

N A IR ...without borders Next in our Without Borders series, Travel takes a look at possibly the most controversial destination on the planet. Iran has been labelled part of the 'axis of evil' by George Bush. Lizzie Church investigates.

26 /travel@gairrhydd.com

in to find six grizzly-looking men clad head-to-toe in khaki glaring at us. There was an awkward silence, which was made worse after we, slightly guiltily, admitted we were British.

Just as I was beginning to worry that we would be turfed out for daring to enter their country, one of the guards broke into a toothy grin, slid two Cokes across the bar towards us and said “Welcome to Iran!”

“

The bar was a regular hangout of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard

“

W

hen most people these days think of Iran, they usually think of an ultraconservative, radically religious terrorist zone on the verge of nuclear war.

So when my boyfriend Andrew and I decided to include Iran on our Middle Eastern adventure this summer, quite a few eyebrows were raised. Despite our friends thinking we were crazy, and my Mum filling up every time she saw the main news headlines, we packed our bags and set off to discover the other side of the story.

Not being able to afford a flight straight to Tehran, we took a back-breaking 42-hour bus ride across Turkey. We were the only foreigners on the bus so were the subjects of great fascination, although it took a while for anyone to pluck up the courage to make eye contact with us!

When we reached the border and I had to don the mandatory headscarf, the whole bus exploded with laughter and I was jostled to the front of the queue – only so that the border guard could have a good guffaw too it seemed! So much for ultra-conservative!

We exchanged our money 18,000 Iranian rials for one pound!

- and headed to a nearby bar for some much needed cooling off (it already felt like the headscarf was melting into my skull).

Unbeknown to us, the bar was a regular hangout of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard so we walked

From then on, we knew that there was a lot more to this country than we'd imagined.

At the end of the long bus journey, one of the passengers invited us to stay at his house and, as dodgy as this would sound if it had happened in the UK, in Iran it was just another example of unbelievable hospitality.

We spent the next couple of days literally being waited on hand and foot; food was served to us throughout the day and we

began to feel like royalty. There was no question of us paying for anything; I actually think that the family would have been offended if we'd tried. We spent the evenings teaching the children about the rest of the world; they had no idea where Britain was and didn't understand why Iran was so demonised in the news.

The oldest boy, Hossein, spoke hardly any English, although he was able to have a pretty decent conversation with Andrew about football (“Manchester United – very good, Chelsea – bad”), rap music and WWE wrestling! It was surreal.

The whole trip went beyond our expectations and completely altered our perspective of Iran. People were overwhelmingly friendly, and not because they wanted to sell us anything, but because they were just genuinely pleased that we had come to their country.

Random people in the street would offer us tea (I'm surprised I came back with any teeth because they made it so sugary!), children would want their pictures taken with us, one man abandoned his shop for the whole afternoon to show us around the stunningly beautiful city of Esfahan.

It was completely humbling and one of the most worthwhile experiences of my life. So ignore the papers, turn off the news and go to Iran - and make sure you tell everyone about it.

going out

GOING OUT?

BEDLAM GREAT HALL

S

cratch Perverts: the mere mention of the name gets me all of a fluster. Andy C, ditto. Oh, and did I mention Shy FX, Sub Focus, Commix, Benga, Rusko…?

After my initial disappointment at hearing that Bass Invaders wasn’t taking place this year, this legendary line-up from Bedlam has put the smile back on my face.

Scratch Perverts – a.k.a. Tony Vegas, Plus One and Prime Cuts – will be headlining, and if their appearance last year at Fun Factory is anything to go by (can you believe they didn’t charge entry? Mental) then Saturday November 29th will see one of the most high-energy performances the Great Hall has ever witnessed.

First up, Tueday 26th sees HipHop turntablist supremo A Skillz playing at Glo Bar, with Aperture bringing a set from the newly released Grooverider (fresh out of his Dubai prison cell) the following Friday. Continuing their run of highly impressive headline acts, C-Y-N-T brings upcoming electro star Foamo to the Clwb on the 27th, and Voodoo faced London bass-monster Drums of Death the week after.

For those mourning its apparent recent demise, the news that longstanding breakbeat night Sumo is making a return at the start of December should bring considerable joy. For their first major outing this

year they are featuring the undeniably excellent Alex Metric; a DJ that should only be missed at your absolute peril. This month's Holodeck also comes as a bit of an early Christmas present, with a performance from the well-seasoned and highly renowned Andrew Weatherall.

The big event on people's lips, however, is the mighty drum 'n' bass showcase being put on by Bedlam at the Great Hall on Saturday 29th.

Headline acts include Scratch Perverts, Andy C, Shy Fx, Benga and many more.

Remember, poverty is not an excuse! See you all out there...

The Going Out Team x

Kirstin Knight prepares for the drum & bass invasion The collective has been in existence since 1996, and it is the diversity of their music that sets them apart from other DJs. Prime Cuts defines hip hop as “a celebration of all kinds of music”, and this attitude is evident in the wide range of influences which contribute to the definitive Scratch Perverts sound. He refutes traditional ideas about musical genre: “A hip hop record is about a vibe – and if a record has that vibe I personally look upon it as being integrally hip hop.”

It is unsurprising, then, that they should be headlining a night otherwise entirely devoted to drum & bass and dubstep. The original RAM Records bad boy Andy C is back, accompanied this time by Sub Focus, whose 2008 release Timewarp was so popular it was even named Radio One’s ‘single of the week’. (I know!

And they played it in the daytime!

Shocking.) Shy FX, another mainstay of the drum and bass scene, needs no introduction; a producer since 1994 and, more recently, the big boss of Digital Soundboy records, he’ll also be tearing up the dance floor in the main room.

Most exciting, perhaps, is the inclusion of the dubstep massive, as

represented by Benga and Rusko.

Despite some Drum & Bass Arena bloggers’ worries about the dubstep/drum & bass combo, Benga’s release Diary of an Afro Warrior last April was proclaimed by one reviewer as “probably the full-on danciest dubstep record yet” – so, ye of little faith, leave those prejudices

“

Hip-hoppers, dubsteppers and bass-lovers: join hands!

“

F

rankly, we're getting a bit fed up of hearing about the credit crunch. Lately, word has been getting around that the effects of the worldwide financial balls up that is currently taking plac- have even begun to filter into the world of Going Out. This is a tragic state of affairs, and one that cannot be allowed to persist.

With the selection of events on over the next fortnight, we think it's perfectly reasonable to take up eating meals of condiment sachets or washing with fairy liquid to free up some of your weekly budget for the important things, like going out.

Here's why...

at the door.

And that, in a nutshell, seems to be what this night is all about.

Hip-hoppers, dubsteppers and basslovers, join hands, because this, my friends, is the musical revolution.

God, I’m coming over all hippy; I’ll be the randomer with over-sized pupils hugging strangers at the door.

Watch out, security – see you at the weekend!

Bedlam, Great Hall, £17 - tickets available from the Union Box Office

goingout@gairrhydd.com

/ 27

going out

LISTINGS 24/11/08 7/12/08

• •

•

Aperture pres. Grooverider (Drum n Bass), Glo Bar - £5 Holodeck pres. Andrew Weatherall (Techno/ Rave/ Drum n Bass), Clwb Ifor Bach - £8/10

4/12

24/11 •

•

GIG - Crime in Stereo, Clwb Ifor Bach - £6/7 • •

• • •

•

Drums of Death

25/11 GIG – Paige, then Hammertime!

(Club night), Barfly - £4/5 Year of the Pug (Indie), Clwb Ifor Bach - £2/£3 Aesthetics (Hip hop), Buffalo Bar - £2/3

•

26/11 • •

Listen Up! (Indie), Clwb Ifor Bach - £2/3 Neuropol (Dubstep), Glo Bar Free/£3

•

•

•

A Skillz

27/11 •

•

•

Bedlam with Scratch Perverts, Andy C, Shy FX, Benga and more... (Drum n Bass/ Dubstep), Union Great Hall - £17 Cool House Relatives...

Electro (House/ Electro), Glo Bar - £3/5

•

•

6/12 •

• •

Vinyl Vendettas (Indie/ New Wave/ Rock n Roll), Clwb Ifor Bach - £5 GIG -The Lowlights, then Flyswatter (Club night), Barfly - £6 Cool House (House), Glo Bar - £3

•

GIG - Outcry Collective, Barfly - £5 We Love Sundaes! (House/ Electro/ Party), Glo Bar - Free

2/12 • •

Year of the Pug (Indie), Clwb Ifor Bach - £2/£3 Collective (Hip hop). Glo Bar £2/3 GIG - Solutions, then Hammertime! (Club night), Barfly - £4/5

28/11 GIG – Fight Like Apes, then Mad4it! (Club night), Barfly - £5 The Dudes Abide (Indie/ Pop/ Rock n Roll), Clwb Ifor Bach £3.50/4.50

•

30/11 •

•

•

•

The Dudes Abide (Indie/ Pop/ Rock n Roll), Clwb Ifor Bach – £3.50 SUMO pres. Alex Metric (Breaks/ Electro) GIG - Dodgy, then Mad4it! (Club night), Barfly - £15

Alex Metric

•

The Week That Was (Indie/ Electro), Clwb Ifor Bach - £6/7 GIG – UK Subs, then Discord (Club night), Barfly - £6 C-Y-N-T pres. Foamo! (House/ Electro/Techno), Clwb Ifor Bach - £3 Uprising Soundsystem (Reggae/Dancehall), Glo Bar - £3

Vinyl Vendettas (Indie/New Wave/Rock n Roll), Clwb Ifor Bach - £5 GIG – The Other Smiths, then Flyswatter (Club night), Barfly - £8

C-Y-N-T pres. Drums of Death (House/Electro/Techno), Clwb Ifor Bach - £3 Uprising Soundsystem (Reggae/Dancehall), Glo Bar - £3 GIG – Blessed by a Broken Heart, then Discord (Club night), Barfly - £8.50

5/12 •

Collective pres. A Skillz (Hip Hop) - Glo Bar - £3/5

29/11

OneMission social, Glo Bar Free

7/12 • • •

3/12 • •

28 / goingout@gairrhydd.com

GIG – Selfish C*nt, Barfly - £4 Listen Up! (Indie), Clwb Ifor Bach - £2/3

GIG –Warrior Barfly - £8.50 Living Room (acoustic), Clwb Ifor Bach - £2 We Love Sundaes! (House/ Electro/ Party), Glo Bar - Free

going out

REVIEWS AudioJack Clwb Ifor Bach

T

he lights are out. The room is dark. Smoke hangs thick in the air, pierced only by the beams of the brand new cluster laser installed for the gig. This is the scene that welcomes the crowd for AudioJack’s appearance at the Welsh Club; as great a homage to a secret underground warehouse party as you could ask for.

This being the first ever appearance of the Leeds duo in Cardiff, the club understandably fills up fast.

By quarter to 12 it is at capacity, and the dancefloor is full of people getting fired up for a night of the best bass, beats and bleeps you could ask for. By the time they grace the stage, at half past 12, the atmosphere is electric, and there are almost as many people dancing

onstage as on the dancefloor.

Being a longstanding AudioJack fan myself, I was awaiting their set with rapt anticipation. However, I had been told that they have started to deviate from their trademark techno style of late, so was unsure of what exactly to expect.

True enough, the first hour was distinctly more house-based than I had imagined it would be, with the twosome showcasing plenty of tracks off their forthcoming album.

Nevertheless, the second hour brought with it a welcome return to the sound they are famous for, and although it didn’t contain many of their signature tunes, was just what the crowd wanted to keep them moving through the night.

By the time AudioJack had finished, the room was still full of people, and many of these stayed until the club closed at nearly half past three. All in all, the night was just another showcase of why C-Y-N-T is one of the best clubbing experiences around in Cardiff today.

AG

SNAP HAPPY?

send us your going out pics and you could get your face on these pages! goingout@gairrhydd.com

goingout@gairrhydd.com / 29

keepi

arts

A collection of Welsh talent: from

30 /arts@gairrhydd.com

Mark James Exhibition Magpie Gallery 13/11/08- 7/12/08

T

onight, ‘LL Files’ has landed, with its witty commentary on life in the Valleys.

Or as the writer would note, ‘the truth is by here’.

A modest crowd is gathered at the Sherman to see the regular recording of this award-winning comedy for BBC Radio Wales.

“

A few jibes at Jonathon Ross keep it contemporary

“

welsh arts:

LL Files Sherman Theatre 14/11/08

Drawing inspiration from current affairs to call centres, pubs to Prince Charles, the cast members rattled through a range of different scenarios with ingenious impersonations. The characters were brought enthusiastically to life by the talented performers, who employed a range of voices and accents with skill and finesse. Not to forget the odd spontaneous song thrown in for good measure.

Writer Myfanwy Alexander’s astute observations on life in Wales made the production thoroughly endearing and entertaining, with a few jibes at Jonathon Ross keeping it contemporary.

Some of the Welsh accents were a little forced and the odd groan emerged from the audience at a few of the punchlines. But on the whole the 45 minute recording was short and sweet, a light bite for the radio brought to the stage with style.

Kate Budd

A

combination of old and new works of art by Cardiff born artist, Mark James, are on display in an exclusive exhibition at the Magpie Gallery.

Mark James is best known for being a controversial figure on the art scene, with many of his pieces being interpreted as an attack on the establishment.

The exhibition had a variety of art pieces that captured the eye. The display included a mixture of photography, sculpture, film and print as a part of the 2008 Swn festival.

One of his most controversial and recent pieces of art, the figure “99% is Shit”, was featured in the gallery for everyone to see. This contemporary piece of art is meant to reflect a modern interpretation of public opinion and indeed aims to generate debate.

The graphic designer illustrated some inspiration from cut-and-paste art work, with a black and white collage print of a skull.

What is interesting about Mark James’ art is that many of his pieces allow the viewer to make up their own mind about what the art represents.

Another contemporary and alternative feature within the exhibition was a screening of his first film, This Dull Ache.

Mark James has previously worked within the music industry, producing art for music bands such as The Fratellis and The Charlatans. The exhibition gives an exclusive look at the pieces that have made the Welsh artist a well acknowledged figure on the contemporary art scene.

Lisa Evans

ing it local arts

m local productions to controversial contemporary art...

I

t should have been theatrical suicide. To my shock, Frank Vickery’s outstanding script 'Forty Love' was hand-held by what I assumed must be an underprepared or anxious cast. Performed in a room with an astounding lack of set, the saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ quickly became ‘Don’t judge a play by its stage’ – or lack thereof.

The aptly titled 'On the Edge' production was teetering on the tip of terrible, yet it somehow squeezed out a genuinely hilarious and heartwarming adaptation.

The comedy drama delves into

The Diary of Anne Frank Sherman Theatre 11/11/08

B

ased on the best-selling book, this production by the Cardiff Little Theatre is a poignant re-telling that proves to be both uplifting and ultimately tragic.

For those unfamiliar, the true story follows a Jewish family in the Second World War who are forced to relocate to the annex of an office building in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Their attempt to avoid discovery by the Gestapo and the inevitably dire consequences that follow are all narrated by young Anne (Ceri Matthewson) in her diary.

In a play where historical accuracy is paramount, the production is successful in adding a sense of

infidelity, independence and illness.

It is a sparkling script that is undeniably as deeply sensitive as it is cynical. Although featuring a number

“

'Don’t judge a book by its cover' became ‘Don’t judge a play by its stage’

“

On The Edge: Forty Love Chapter Arts Centre 12/11/08

of engaging presences, Forty Love’s finest moments are courtesy of the delightful Anwen Williams. As the narrator and long-suffering wife of Ralph, Marcia is played to perfection by the instantly likeable Williams.

believability to the proceedings, with the scenes depicting everyday life juxtaposed with radio announcements from both Churchill and Hitler.

Despite the seriousness of the plot, little moments of comedy are featured throughout, with Anthea Parker as Mrs van Daan providing notable comic moments early on, as well as Matthewson’s lively introduction to the character of Mr Dussel (Robert Gairy), of which the overt sexual undertones must surely have been accidental.

Matthewson’s performance as the title character is certainly a lively one, with her colourful personality helping at times to carry the play through some of the bleaker moments. But this vivaciousness sometimes reaches the point of her simply being annoying, which detracts from what is otherwise a solid performance.

Complimented beautifully by Michael Kellignan as Ralph, the story unfolds as Marcia experiences a life-changing revolution.

After enduring forty miserable years in silence, Marcia is determined to escape. The endearingly mismatched couple are immensely entertaining throughout.

The audience is invited to indulge in the humour of their farcical disputes that are also an insightfully light-hearted look on love, marriage and obligations. Naomi Martell and James Ashton play their forgettable younger incarnations that are (quite literally) overshadowed by Williams and Kellignan.

Forty Love lacks the professional precision you would expect, but it has a bloody good sense of humour.

Sarah-Jayne Murphy

The supporting cast is mostly consistent, with Alun Evans giving a particularly strong performance as Anne’s father Otto Frank, although the performances of Carys Brett and Gareth Ash, as Margot and Peter respectively, however, are to a large extent wooden.

Overall, the Cardiff Little Theatre succeed in putting on a production that is poignant without being depressing, and thought-provoking without being pretentious.

Steve Wright

arts@gairrhydd.com / 31

books

Books judging a book by its cover... for you!

“

The honest, witty style has aged gracefully

“

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe (Harper Collins)

I

n 1958 Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was termed as being definitive of the working class spirit. So, in today’s society, does the book still hold the same relevance as it did then?

Well, yes, it still displays the same working class perspective and rebellious spirit as it did in the 50s. In 2008 the sympathies that the tale of Arthur Seaton is designed to evoke are perhaps somewhat redundant.

It cannot be denied that the book is still an interesting read, and I still found myself caught up in Arthur’s

32 / books@gairrhydd.com

life of Saturday night boozing and adultery, something which still exists in 2008. Yet some of the deeper meanings of the novel passed me by. Perhaps merely because I failed to relate to the issues of a 21 yearold factory worker in Nottingham, who was still adjusting to society after his conscription to the army.

As an insight into lifestyle in the 1950s, Sillitoe’s book is definitely worth a read, and the honest, witty style has certainly aged gracefully.

Sillitoe’s interaction with the character’s thoughts and his careful hints and omissions make the book just as

pleasurable and amusing to read as it must have been 50 years ago.

I think it would be difficult to find any book that could be described as being truly timeless, at least in allowing readers from all generations to be totally immersed in the author’s intended meaning. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning certainly comes close to remaining as effective now as it was when first published, and even if you fail to feel in tune with the mind of Sillitoe’s character you cannot help but be entertained by him.

Emma Pocklington

books

A

itself. Embarrassingly predictable from the start, the plot unravels to reveal that Nina, formerly Karen Wild, was a teenage murderer, and Rupert, otherwise known as Mark Curtis, the brother of her victim.

Although the plot leaves a lot to be desired, Glaister’s obvious talent for characterisation is exposed through her brave portrayal of Nina.

It is difficult not to empathise with the protagonist’s brutal childhood, the impetus behind her downfall, and her efforts to cover up her ambiguous past in order to save her deteriorating relationship. Glaister successfully manages to invert the traditional thriller novel by distancing Rupert, the intended victim, from the reader through his obsessive nature and sexual deviancy. Despite this moderately redeeming quality the text cannot be saved. The build-up is repetitive and insipid, and leaves the reader wondering what the point is. Definitely one to avoid.

Amy Protheroe

W

and Frost aficionados Maxwell would be a definite disappointment.

Despite these negative comments, the poem 'A Play of the Word' demonstrates how Maxwell’s lyrical style can be enjoyable and shows his complex syntactical style to its full advantage.

His technique becomes more comfortable, especially for poetical

ritten with a dry and colloquial diction, Glyn Maxwell’s collection of poems in Hide Now are abundant with poetic characteristics.

These features both help and hinder his poems, which can make for a forced read, even for an admirer of poetry or perhaps because of this. The Independent praises

“

“

Nina Todd Has Gone Lesley Glaister (Macmillan)

t a glance Lesley Glaister’s latest offering, Nina Todd Has Gone, seems like a gripping psychological thriller.

With the back cover promising a ‘horribly plausible game of catand-mouse’ that would ‘keep me up till the early hours’, I think I could be forgiven for anticipating an exciting read.

Nina Todd lives a seemingly hum-drum life: tedious office job, boring boyfriend who is obsessed with birds (of the feathered, not the female variety) and a nagging shrew of a mother-in-law. However, her monotonous existence is thrown into disarray when Nina meets the handsomely debonair yet socially questionable Rupert. There are three narrative voices in the text that belong to Nina, Rupert and Nina’s childhood personae Karen. Through these voices the character’s secret lives are gradually revealed.

The novel’s structure is twisted, innovative and edgy. However, the same cannot be said for the story

His narratives are intricate, yet can appear superfluous, as if he is trying too hard to be complicated

Hide Now Glyn Maxwell (Picador Poetry)

his “brilliantly elaborate syntax and forms” but it is this very elaborateness that make his poems too convoluted to be read with ease.

His narratives are intricate yet can appear superfluous, as if he is trying too hard to be complicated by making the many poetic features mean too many things.

Powell’s Books have heralded Maxwell as ‘the most adept heir to the poetic legacies of W. H. Auden and Robert Frost,’ yet for true Auden

novices or those who like to read for pleasure more than for analytical aggravation, in his shorter poems.

'Love Songs From Plays,' it too remains and 'All Things Bright' are much more pleasant and amusing.

Perhaps this is because the poem can be read and the book can be put down again in a space of twenty seconds.

Eleanor Joslin

books@gairrhydd.com /

33

books

F

grace, tamar and lazlo the beautiful Deborah Kay Davies (Parthian)

34 / books@gairrhydd.com

who has been dumped for another woman, school sports lessons on a miserable winter day... you get the picture. The poems are both sad and funny as they seem to reflect both the bleakness and the beauty of everyday life. For anyone wanting to broaden their literary horizons by trying their hand at reading poetry

O

to attack her, comes and goes within two pages, when its one of the most sinister and puzzling scenes in the story.

I felt that the relationship of Grace and Tamar was very convincing and appealing. Indeed, I love stories where families are more bitter, rivalrous and slightly afraid of each other. It just seems more real to me than the huggy-dovey love-ins that you usually get with siblings. Grace nearly kills Tamar, Tamar puts the fear of god in everyone. I don't know which one I thought I was more like.

Probably best if I don't say really.

Back to the Wales in the story.

After reading novels with Wales as up-and-coming urban cosmoploitan, Wales as quirky, black-comedy setting, Wales as beautiful unspoilt land and so on, it makes a change to read a novel where the landscape is used around it to add more sinister meanings to everything.

Ultimately, don't be fooled by the smiley children on the cover. The story is darker than it lets on.

Aisling Tempany

n first glance at the cover I really wasn't sure how to take this book. I thought it was another twee little chidlhood story, with twee things and happy times, but probably with some darker twist. Actually the book is pretty dark and subtly violent from the opening.

As with Flashes and Specks above, grace, tamar and lazlo the beautiful is strongly influenced by its Welsh surroundings. In Davies' book though, the Welsh surroundings have more dark sinister impacts on the story.

The book is said to be a series of short series about the siblings, Grace, Tamar and Lazlo. This is its biggest flaw. It would have been much better as a straightforward novel. The short-story feel meant that just as something dramatic or meaningful happened, the chapter was over and the next scene was some time removed from it. The early chapter in which the withdrawn little sister Tamar is suggested to have killed a padeophile who tried

“

The poems reflect both the bleakness and beauty of the everyday

“

Flashes and Specks Elizabeth Ashworth (Cinnamon Press)

lashes and Specks is a collection of short poems by Elizabeth Ashworth who, although born in Buxton, has spent most of her life in north Wales.

Ashworth is a freelance journalist, author and former teacher and lectures in creative writing at Bangor University having won a number of awards for her poetry.

The collection is published by Cinnamon Press, an independent Welsh publisher specialising in Welsh writing. Needless to say then, that the subject matter relates largely to life in Wales and the joys of Welsh countryside.

Ashworth also takes inspiration from the writing of Walt Whitman, from whose poetry she has taken the title of her book.

Despite the terrible cover design, this poetry collection is surprisingly accessible, as the language employed by Ashworth is simple and to the point. Her poems largely concern the ins and outs of everyday life: a conversation between father and son in a doctor's waiting room, the difficulty of counting one's blessings, Damien Hirst, blossoming hawthorn, chestnut trees, the cousin

(as did yours truly), Flashes and Specks could prove an excellent starting point as it is so easy to become engrossed in the author's world. For those of you who are already poetry boffins, this collection will provide a light and contemporary read alongside the volumes of Blake and Keats on your bedside table.

Rebecca Ganz

books

Books in Cardiff a guide to all things literary and local

a guide to your

local bookshops

In the run up to Christmas there's a distinct lack of book-related events.

So, instead, create your own event and search out the best places in Cardiff to spend your loan/earnings/Christmas money on books...

Troutmark Books

Castle Arcade. St Mary's Street In my opinion, the best secondhand bookshop in Cardiff. Sells a good range of fiction, poetry, drama and biography, and is run by people who know about books. They very rarely buy books off you though. Smells like a proper book shop, has black shelves and the appropriate level of Radio 4 in the background.

Oxfam

St Mary's Street Oxfam is always a safe bet for secondhand book shopping.

There is a small selection in the shop on Albany Road, but your best bet is to head to the city centre. In contrast with Troutmark, the lack of knowledge of books on the part of its staff means you're quite likely to find an underpriced gem.

Pormeirion Gift Shop

Wales Millenium Centre, Cardiff Bay The gift shop in the Wales Millenium Centre has a good range of Welsh literature on its shelves, including many of the books reviewed on these pages. It also sells pretty blank journals, and is surrounded by the bay, with exhibitions and fancy cafes and restaurants. So as well as buying a book you can buy a fancy blank journal and start writing your own great Welsh novel.

books@gairrhydd.com / 35

digital

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BANG BANG you're dead

Tom Baker takes a reality check and gets to grips with guns in games.

FUTURE RELEASES: 36 / digital@gairrhydd.com

age whilst pumping up the Desert Eagle pistol so that it's capable of decimating enemies. Why should a object able to propel chunks of metal at high speeds and in very quick succession be deemed less

“

It's tempting to say that games are becoming more realistic.

Tempting, but wrong.

“

I

ssues with the violent content of games have been around since Mario murdered his first turtle, but one aspect of games which is seldom raised is the accuracy, or lack thereof, in the depiction of weapons.

The workings of an actual gun are about as far removed from the group of pixels representing the weapon controlled vicariously through your Xbox, than Victoria Beckham is from a big mac. Yet games are constantly throwing the prospect of ‘realism’ at gamers like it’s the buzzword of the decade.

With graphics moving more and more towards normal mapping, and accurate physical depictions of the world, it's tempting to say that games are becoming more realistic.

Tempting, but wrong.

Gaming representations of guns jumped off the accuracy train a long time ago. Games like Counterstrike and Call of Duty, which claim to be gritty and realistic, give weapons like sub-machine guns negligible dam-

destructive by developers than a similar object which propels chunks of metal at a slower rate?

I value gameplay, but in titles where the developers have clearly reduced the power of guns to fit into a design philosophy of ‘fast guns mean weak bullets’, but then slap a

SOCOM Confrontation PS3 SOCOM has always represented a high point in war strategy games.

But will confrontation be able to break through Tom Clancy's iron grip on the team shooter market?

We'll find out on the 28th.

big 'realism' sticker on it, something has gone awry. Personally, I abhor games which go too much down the realism path; getting shot once and then having to bandage yourself whilst dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder does not factor into my idea of a good game. That’s why I applaud games with a sense of humour about themselves, like Serious Sam or Mercenaries. They know they're never going to capture the reality and brutality of conflict entirely, and why would you want to? War is hell.

Graphical improvements and a closer representation of the world are all well and good, but gameplay which mimics real life is never going to be achievable unless, in the future, we all have joysticks surgically implanted into our craniums. So stop trying to make games something they’re not and take them for what they are, fun little escapes that take us out of reality, not put us back in.

Tom Baker

digital

FALLOUT 3 I

would never have thought you could make such a thriving world from an apocalyptic setting, but Bethesda do a damn good job. Think of Oblivion set in a nuclear wasteland after a fictional World War 3. I’m sure the developers would want to remove all evidence of my male anatomy for saying that, but the use of the same game engine and style are so similar it’s like looking at a mirror image.

The story begins as you're born into a nuclear shelter known as a Vault. Inside, there is a substantiallysized community who live in isolation from the rest of the decrepit world that fell victim to a nuclear war. The overseer of the vault is never shy from reminding everyone they will live and die there. Once you reach the grand age of 19, your in-game father seems to take exception to that and leaves, thus your journey and search for him begins.

The start of the game is a tutorial, as well as a prelude to the forthcoming tale. Your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) teaches you all necessary life skills, walking, opening doors,

BB gun marksmanship, etc. If you played Oblivion, the controls are exactly the same and will be very familiar to you; this really works in the game's favour, though I’m sure some discerning Fallout fans will disagree. Customisation of your character’s facial appearance is fairly extensive, and features the option of race choice (as in Caucasian, not orc, ewok or lil’ munchkin).

If, however, you manage to make a character that looks vastly different from any others in the game, I will eat an entire issue of Quench with a side of Gairrhydd...

RPGs often only ever achieve extremes; you'll either want to use the game as kitty litter or cement it into your console’s disc-drive. Fallout 3 does the latter. Hours, days and if I wasn’t careful, weeks would flutter by into the vast expanse of history.

The level of freedom is compelling alone. If you want to be the big bad overlord of the wastes, you damn well can, and characters will eagerly remind you of your reputation. Upon my first gander into an outside settlement, I was greeted by the sheriff.

I didn’t take kindly to being labelled

Playstation 3, Xbox360 and PC

a potential criminal, so capped him in the head, rather ironically proving his suspicions. Now, your choices do have a small amount of influence on the people around you, and each time you perform a bad deed you receive bad karma and vice versa.

Neither extreme is seen as a good thing by certain organisations.

I really like Fallout 3, and it offers an intriguing plot delivered by the main quest line. If you fancy a bit of a break and wish to explore the game there is acre upon acre to discover, with many side quests to pick and choose from, all offering beneficial and fun rewards. It’s quite cool hearing your deeds (good or bad) being reported on the local in-game radio station. It's just a shame that there really is nothing to dissuade you from being a bastard, though that could just be me.

Viewing it from a Fallout initiate’s perspective, the game is a solid and absorbing RPG, but whether fans will say the same is another matter.

I feel it could shatter their dreams of a modern iteration but to be honest, this is a must-buy.

Liam Charalambous

digital@gairrhydd.com / 37

music

inmusicthisweek

live:fuckedup

swnreview

albums:razorlight

musiceditorial newsinbrief Let it Be

Wall of Shame

Flaming Lips Game

Paul McCartney has come out this week and announced his intention to release Carnival of Light, a 14-minute long avant-garde piece recorded by the fab four at Abbey Road back in their heyday. Always keen to dine out on his past, McCartney is determined to release the 'legendary' track, even though his surving bandmates vetoed the idea back in nineties. Harrison said he thought it was too 'out there', but since he's dead there's nothing to stop Macca releasing it, aside from getting the permission of Ringo and the deceased members' trustees.

Paul is clearly flogging a dead horse here. Christmas number one anyone?

Sick child-abusing nonce Gary Glitter rightly had his Wall of Fame brick taken away from the hallowed walls of the Cavern Club this week.

Glitter, 64, was rightly locked away by the Vietnamese authorities for sinful deviances. If you want to have your say on sicko Glitter, now walking free in our democracy, then let Gordon know how you feel and let's take some serious action and hang these paedos... So yeah, in an act of Stalinist revisionism the owner of the Cavern has reluctantly removed Gary Glitter's brick. This is clearly ridiculous: his moral indiscretions don't render his musical career invalid. Another victory for the tabloids then.

Everyone's favourite Oklahoma space rockers The Flaming Lips have finally released their longawaited film in the US this week.

Christmas on Mars, written and directed by frontman Wayne Coyne, is about a colony set up on Mars.

The film is now out on DVD, but, if you can't wait until you've ordered yours, you can always check out the accompanying computer game which is free to play on the band's website. It seems ridiculously hard, and my ability to complete the first level was not helped by the tortoise-like Mac I'm using up in Quench towers. Still, it's kinda fun: http://game.flaminglips.com/ Enjoy kids!

discoverlocal...

R

emember, remember the fifth of November. It's Guy Fawkes Night and it’s a chilly one. Don't worry though Buffalo have the antidote with a night of live music to warm your cockles, promising marshmallows, fireworks, sparklers and not a Catholic trying to blow you up in sight. The most appealing aspect of the night is the opportunity to catch two of Cardiff’s very own up-and-coming groups.

People who have ventured out

Me and the Major. Buffalo Bar. 05/11/08

into the smoke-filled night are rewarded with the songs of Me and the Major and Elephant & Soldier all in the confines of 'the Secret Garden'.

Despite the slight lack of space to manoeuvre and background chitter chatter, Me and the Major work well in settling everyone down and make conditions a darn sight cosier.

Playing their way through a series of sprightly acoustic numbers the four-piece seem to enjoy themselves as do the receptive clientele.

Founded in Aberystwyth and developed in Cardiff, look out for these guys in their regular noisier guise in and around the city.

Next up Elephant & Soldier. They play a set of captivating acoustic/ string ballads, which unfortunately were hard to appreciate in such a bustling and boisterous environment, but were delightful nonetheless. Who needs fireworks when you have talent like this on your doorstep?

Tom Coyle

gairrhyddmusic@gmail.com / 39

SWN

music

friday

With the highlight of Cardiff's musical calender over for another year, Quench Music brings you the definitive review of the fantastic Swn festival...

Volcano @ Clwb

Clinic @ Clwb

It's 8.30pm, and what better way to kick off Swn's opening night at Clwb Ifor Bach with Chicago three-piece Volcano. Playing an extended set (Indian Jewelry are missing...) to a crowded bottom floor, Volcano do second album Paperwork absolute justice and perform a suitably spasmodic run-through concluding with the bizzarely-structured favourite, Africa Just Wants To Have Fun. PG

Tonight's headliners Clinic take to the stage for what will be one of Swn's major hooks this weekend.

Dressed in the customary scrubs and surgical masks, the nearveteran Liverpudlians perform a set loyal to their eight year discography, taking tracks from Internal Wrangler through to this year's Do It! It's not a bad set by any means, but it's a performance that neglects the sponaniety that is characteristic of their records; it's lengthy, at times repetitive, and lacks the drive and eccentricity that made their name.

It's a shame not to have seen a more inspiring set following the superb performaces by younger bands that preceded them. PG

Rolo Tomassi @ Clwb

Rolo Tomassi

Proclaimed by Huw Stephens himself as 'the best live band in the world' there's a fair amount of expectation on the young shoulders of screamo quintet, Rolo Tomassi.

Any anxiety, however, is quickly obliterated as the band kick, stomp and scream their way through a set as accomplished as it is fresh and as controlled as it is guttural. Few bands manage to reach this level of intensity, but to do so with such style and a sense of fun is something truly special. KE

40/music@gairrhydd.com

Johnny Foreigner @ Barfly Brummy trio Johnny Foreigner are old hands at headlining Cardiff Barfly, and they take to the stage in the manner of seasoned pros, berating the venue for once again not fulfilling their rider wish of Gin. Launching into a tenacious set with Henning’s

Favourite, the band play with all the energy their live show is famed for.

They proudly announce at one point that they’ve written their first set-list, and it’s one hell of a set list, littered with new material that’s likely to be on their new album rumoured for release in the spring. Like most audiences of the weekend a lot of punters seem to be there out of curiosity rather than fandom, but JoFo still manage to rouse the crowd and they go down a storm. GF Casiokids @ Kaz Bar Despite an inauspicious start Casiokids took to the stage with a distinctly muted shuffle. Perhaps this was due to their flight from Norway being delayed, and then their route to the venue being blocked for the rugby. However, it only took about half a song of their outrageously upbeat brand of electrofunk to test the resolve of even the most militant of non-dancers. Instrument hopping, game clapping and audience invasion gave the feel of the best music class you never had at school. An unmitigated success. BM

music

saturday Blue Wall @ Clwb It's the second day of Swn festival, and what better way to kick it off then skipping on down to Clwb Ifor Bach to catch Cardiff’s very own triplet sons Blue Wall - presented

by BBC Radio 1’s Bethan Elfyn and BBC Radio Cymru. Blue Wall cast their net of endearingly honest lyrics and trawl you into a minimalist postpunk world, which I defy anyone not to bounce along too in merriment.TC TC The Muscle Club @ Barfly What better way to continue exploring new realms of local talent then heading down below the Castle Street tarmac and catching The Muscle Club, who are launching the NME presents night. Comparisons to the likes of The Cribs and Los Campesinos! are sure to continue, but with an assured rafter of support slots already under their musclebound waists, prospects are looking bright for Cardiff’s jovial indie pop kids.TC The Joy Formidable @ Clwb

Truckers Of Husk @ Kaz Bar Cardiff’s very own local math rock group Truckers Of Husk continued to flaunt their musical prowess with a stonking good set at the previously unknown, but quaint venue 'Kaz Bar'. Despite the disadvantage of a lack of stage, TOH more than make up for it in their relentlessly energetic performance, reaching giddying heights of technical ability throughout. TC Golden Silvers @ Kaz Bar NME's current bitchboys Golden Silvers, played to a near packed Kaz Bar to a resounding wet fart of expectation. Yet more skinny hipsters with ironic moustaches playing the kind of music that even Hall & Oates would baulk at; Golden Silvers simply fail to live up to the expectation levelled at their door by holier-than-

thou indie sources. BM Gallops @ Kaz Bar Holy Jazz Fuck, I think my face may have literally been rocked off the front of my skull. Wrexham's Gallops! come across like a heavier Battles and are completely captivating. Combining electronic loops, minimalist guitars and heavy as fuck percussion to simply stunning effect.

An undiscovered gem of Swn. BM Cats in Paris @ Clwb Headlining the Introducing stage are the rather fantastic Manchester based outfit Cats in Paris; they sound like no Manc band you’ve ever heard before. Filled with virtuoso fiddles, elaborate keyboards and witty lyrics, Cats do a good job of charming the audience’s collective pants off. Call and response lines like, “I’m the King of Norway/ No Way!/Yes Way!”, while perhaps a tad twee for some, seem to really endear the quartet to the appreciative Swnsters in attendance. The set was perhaps a little too long, and their material slightly repetitive, but overall Cats in Paris get an enthusiastic thumbs up. GF

Truckers Of Husk

With a stare that can make you squirm in your own skin, the lead singer of The Joy Formidable , Ritzy,

is one sassy lady. Nonetheless TJF are much more than just another cute alternative pop band with an attractive lead; pure harmonious bliss captivates the crowd, which lap up every breath of the North Walean’s lyrics and are only disheartened when Ritzy begins to wrap up the final song.TC

music@gairrhydd.com / 41

music

sunday Picture Books in Winter @ Barfly Esoteric lyrics and epic folk-tinged Indie rock are the order of the day as the band described by Swn as "Los Campesinos' harder older brother" take to the stage. Their engaging performance and endearing onstage antics certainly won this Cardiff quintet some new fans. GF Tubelord @ Barfly Kingston math-poppers Tubelord warming up an audience for Dananananakroyd's second show here in as many months is exciting to say the least. Tubelord blaze through a set in anticipation of next year's debut album. It's typically catastrophic, and though hardly revolutionary, Tubelord offer one of the weekend's most exhilirating shows. PG Dananananaykroyd @ Barfly

Future Of The Left

Who said Scottish bands were miserable? Say what you want about Dananananaykroyd, but there is an unparalleled sense of fun during their live performance that is impossible to deny. Pink Sabbath sets the tone; the band making full use of two drummers and loud upbeat guitars.

With so much energy on display it’s

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inevitably not long before testosterone levels go through the roof, the band and crowd united in a sweaty shirtless mess of bodies, guitars and power leads. Danananabrilliant.KE

could fathom the words, and old classics finishing with the seminal Your Mother's Got A Penis, although they didn't go down as well as they might have a few years ago. RW

Pulled Apart by Horses @ Kaz Bar

Future of the Left @ Clwb

Vomiting, Broken Glass, and some very scared waiters: Pulled Apart By Horses know how to rock. The Leeds four piece delivered a set of stunning riffage, frequently invading the audience with instruments in hand and forcing the hesitant crowd back. Kaz Bar had quite clearly never seen the likes of them before; two of the admittedly drunk band threw up whilst performing and the bar was mounted by their guitarist. All this behaviour smacks of an act overcompensating, and that’s what I might be saying if they didn’t have such brilliantly brutal songs. After the gig we couldn’t help but clamour for witty idioms to describe what we’d witnessed; “they turned Kaz Bar into Basra!” was undoubtedly the worst. GF Goldie Lookin Chain @ The Point

It’s fitting that the second Swn Festival should be closed by Future of the Left, not only a Welsh band but one that embodies the forward thinking spirit of the weekend. As always they are on top form, treating the packed Clwb Ifor Bach to songs new and old, amongst a discussion of the late novelist Michael Crichton and the usual abuse of prog-metal band Tool. The band’s set culminates in perhaps the most overblown yet awe-inspiring gesture I have ever witnessed, as bassist Kelson Mathias hangs upside down from the roof of the venue whilst continuing pound away at his instrument.

There have been some spectacular non-Welsh bands over the course of the weekend, but in this snapshot of time Welsh music has never seemed so exciting. KE

The always entertaining GLC were on early with their endearing chavtitude and Newport accents, playing a couple of new tunes to which no-one

Contributions from: Tom Coyle, Kyle Ellison, Guy Ferneyhough, Phil Guy, Ben Marshall & Richard Wood

music

live live live live live live live

G

IDA MARIA

FUCKED UP

MOTORHEAD

The Point

Clwb Ifor Bach

Great Hall

22/11/08

12/11/08

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oly Mother of God. Despite being one of the most prolific creators of Hardcore music of our times, you never quite get the full impact of the unholy force that is Fucked Up until you see them live.

Their talismanic frontman, Pink Eyes aka Father Damian aka The Baddest Motherfucker Ever change the lives of anyone who sees them live, led the audience on a near religious experience. Dressed in a pre-school set of armour, it truly felt as if everybody who saw this band destroy downstairs in Clwb would follow this man into battle.

That's not to say that the band is simply the extraordinarily engaging frontman, as the remainder of the band managed to keep grace under pressure, firing salvo after salvo of white hot punk fury into the orgy of violence that the gig had developed into, frothing the already unhinged audience into further paroxyms of delight. Truly phenomenal.

Ben Marshall

omewhere between a slightly condescending "iechyd da" introduction and an unsettling finale of three minutes of empty stage feedback was a Motorhead gig. On a scale of general ballsyness (a bollocko-meter, if you will) the music was about as masculine and noisy as a grizzled old badger raping an unloved rusty lawnmower. In a thunderstorm.

Despite what any extended similes may imply, somehow the overall gig was fuck awful. It's possible that the high ticket price discouraged a potential younger more energetic crowd, leaving the Great Hall filled with roughly a thousand bald headed, hairy arsed, wannabe tough guys standing relatively still just nodding appreciatively. Standing in the middle of this windswept meadow-of-middle-age unfortunately dampened the impact of a reliably brutal band.

Jamie MacIver

H

S

Fucked Up

Fucked Up

iven that it’s as cold as Oslo outside, the prevailing question is whether Ida Maria, in true Norwegian spirit, can set the draughty old converted church that is The Point a-blazin’.

It’s a somewhat tepid start with the perky ditty Queen Of The World creating little impact in the grand surroundings. Things do heat up as the set progresses; feet shuffle to Forgive Me, and Stella even gets lovers kissing; its guitar line dribbling like caramel in an M&S advert.

Moreover, you can’t fault Ida’s colourful stage presence; one moment she seems a hair-ruffling maniac and the next a bedraggled puppy doing doe-eyed looks in the spotlight.

The show benefits in becoming a delightful chaos of catchy tunes that throng the air like flying daggers and penetrate your skull. Shame they don’t penetrate further to add flames to what’s essentially heat and smoke.

Matt Wright

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music

albums albums albums albums DEATH VESSEL

SINDEN

BIG STRIDES

Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us

FABRICLIVE43: Get Familar

Super Custom Limited

Sub-Pop

Fabric Records

Tall Order Records

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he album wanders in an experimental manner through the fields of folk and country, joining often ethereal vocals with inventive guitar lines.

On first listening it is hard to accept the singer’s gender as fact... surely there must be some smuggled ovaries in the vocal department? Joel Thibodeau is a songwriter that delivers his lyrics with a testicle defying pitch that hovers comfortably in the range of a middle aged woman.Never stumbling into genre clichés (folk and country could evoke a nightmarish combo of bearded tales and inappropriate cowboy hats) the album showcases a range of instruments and moods.

Delicate acoustic melodies act as the foundation for the majority of songs whilst introducing unexpected jazz vibes, writhing electric guitar lines and the odd complimentary banjo (and yes...surprisingly it works!).It is a genuinely original sounding album that veers between jubilant quirky campfire moments to the unsettling and haunting beast of a track which is “Peninsula” . A startling and very interesting album, definitely a band to follow.

James Spittle

Death Vessel

7

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f you’ve never understood why people willingly wander the labyrinthine bowels of London’s renowned Fabric club, this album confirms its reputation as a dance scene superpower.

Embodying Fabric’s ethos of experimentation and openness to diverse influences, Graeme Sinden exposes us to the shock of pairing the random with the very unexpected, mixing bhangra with grime and African tribal chants with conventional techno beats to produce an eclectic selection of tracks so varied that even non-hardcore dance fans should find something to enjoy.

Escaping the haze of jungle beats and twitchy electro, Sinden remains at his most masterful when handling bassline and dubstep – Joker’s ‘Gully Brook Lane’ oozes dirty synths, while Alan Braxe’s ‘Nightwatcher’ is guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser. Machines Don’t Care’s blistering ‘Beat Bang’ completes an album that pays testament to Sinden’s vast knowledge of the contemporary music scene and adds another acclaimed DJ to Fabric’s gleaming collection.

Renyi Lim

7

B

ig Strides are marketed as a "Badass funk blues jazz rock trio". Drop the "badass" and it's actually pretty accurate. This is their third album, following successful support slots for the Arctic Monkeys and Bloc Party, Glastonbury appearances and various other shows.

There's resemblance to Ben Harper, Jack Johnson and some Sublime here, with some good musicianship, funky riffs and bluesy basslines, but it's not quite backed up with any songs that really grab you as outstanding - although you might laugh at the fairly accurate references to Cardiff in Hen Night Limousine. The three-piece nature of the band leaves the sound a little empty in places, which is a pity as there's some talent here. The vocals can occasionally detract from the otherwise very pleasant music, sometimes delivered in a toneless sub-Streets style that doesn't really add anything to the songs, and the lyrics aren't anything special. When the singer actually decides to sing, the sound immediately improves.

A bit more energy might serve this band well.

Don't seek it out, but don't avoid it either.

Richard Wood

6

music

Listings

singlesoftheweek

Monday 24th Thea Gilmore + Joan Coffey @ The Point

Tuesday 25th Wednesday 26th Chad Vangaalen + Women @ The Cooler, Bristol

Thursday 27th Anavan + Crimesss @ Clwb UK Subs @ Barfly

Friday 28th Heck + Little Bear Wails + Me and the Major @ Tommy's Bar Fight Like Apes @ Barfly

Saturday 29th Neil Landstrumm @ Timbuk2, Bristol

Sunday 30th The Living Room @ Clwb

Monday 1st Alabama 3 @ Sub 29 Jason Donovan @ St. David's The Muscle Club @ The Croft, Bristol

Tuesday 2nd

RAID '08: Huw Stephens + Picture Books in Winter + The Low Lights + The Muscle Club + Me and the Major + Tommy B @ Solus

Wednesday 3rd Selfish Cunt @ Barfly The Roots @ Bristol Academy

Friday 5th Threatmantics + Plant Duw @ Clwb Slipknot @ CIA The Zutons @ Bristol Academy

Saturday 6th

A Place to Bury Strangers @ Clwb Nouvelle Vague @ Anson Rooms, Bristol

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Emmy the Great

Sam Isaac + Flashguns @ The Croft, Bristol

Guns n' Roses

5

Chinese Democracy Geffen

M83

7

We Own the Sky Virgin

Guns N’ Roses’ first new song in 17 years! It’s not that bad, but it is a disappointingly clichéd follow-up to their past material. And the guitarist just isn’t Slash. DR

A satisfactory cluster of ambient harmonies and extensive reverb set behind a whispering vocal. This is euphoric Electronica, but sadly far from original and not strong enough as a single. NC

Skilf

Emmy The Great

7

Slow Me Down Heavy Duty

We Almost Had a Baby Close Harbour

8

Skilf’s a straight talking, unabashed freestyling MC. And as such, the EP’s pretty good. You can’t get help getting the feeling that he’d be a lot more fun live though. TR

A lovely little ditty, with beautiful vocals and sweet lyrics, We Almost Had A Baby is a gorgeous 1960’s influenced tune which makes a pregnancy scare seem strangely appealing. DK

Dorp

Titus Andronicus

London Out There Caned & Able

8

Titus Andronicus XL

9

Dirty guitars complimented by wacky laser synth sounds make Dorp sound an awful lot better than their slightly dubious name might suggest. A genuinely refreshing blend of rock and dance. MB

No Shakespearean tragedy round these parts, just pure angst-driven punk from their debut album. Singalong chorus, thunderous drumbeat and infectious bassline; where and when can I see them live? TC

The Streets

Gloria Cycles

Heaven For the Weather 679 Recordings

3

It’s Mike Skinner’s fault that Americans think we talk funny. How he can ‘sing’ this without laughing is anyone’s guess, but the shear absurdness of this track is far from a laughing matter.

Avoid like the plague. SW

3

No Zeros Wendy Bikes Recordings In-ya-face riffs, husky Kings of Leon-esque vocals and enough energy to power a small town- attitude is not something the Gloria Cycles lack. Unfortunately, lyrical genius most definitely is. EB

film

film news . rumours . conjecture BURTON FINDS HIS ALICE

PITT-IFUL TREATMENT

MONOPOLY: THE MOVIE

After a lengthy casting process Tim Burton has finally settled on little known Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska (who can be seen alongside Daniel Craig later this year in Defiance) for the title role in his big-screen reworking of Alice in Wonderland. As for the rest of the cast all the regulars are likely to feature; Johnny Depp is made for the Mad Hatter and Burton's wife Helena will presumably take to the throne as the films Red Queen. But a few surprise hints suggest that Anne Hathaway is lined up for the role of the White Queen, while Matt Lucas is set to star as Tweedledum and Tweedledee and the legend that is Alan Rickman has been cast as the hookah-smoking Caterpillar.

Oh, and Tony Blair is the Cheshire Cat, but that’s another story altogether. The jury’s out on just how Burton’s fairy tale adaptation will turn out, but the casting is getting more tantalising by the day and as long as the director stays true to Lewis Carroll’s wonderfully enchanting fantasy, then this could turn out to be an absolute gem. Disappear down the rabbit hole with Alice in 2010.

Poor Brad Pitt, it must be hard when you reach the point where you’re so famous that no one believes who you are. At a private screening of Pitt’s latest vehicle, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the star was reportedly roughed up by the door staff after being mistaken for paparazzi and denied entry. After a rather heated exchange, Pitt broke free and rushed upstairs where he hid in a bathroom until the commotion died down and he was eventually let in. In response, the Los Angeles City council went into a midnight emergency session just hours after the incident. The Council unanimously voted to put a ten-year ban on anyone from making unwanted physical contact with A-List celebrities.

Believe it or not game makers Hasbro have teamed up with Universal to work on a big-screen adaptation of the classic 80s board game Monopoly. And if that wasn’t enough crazy for you, then set your jaws for gawp because none other than Ridley Scott is on board to direct. Scott is apparently looking to give the movie a futuristic vibe, much in the spirit of Blade Runner, which means the monocle man will probably turn out to be a replicant, or something. Frankly it’s difficult to imagine how this one is likely to turn out, but whatever the outcome this is certainly a brave and intriguing venture. Reports also suggest Hasbro-Universal are set to collaborate on a Ouija Board movie, as well as a Battleship flick. What’s next? John Woo’s Risk? Hungry Hungry Hippos by Wes Anderson?

Imagine.

this week: hayao miyazaki screen icon p. 55

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film

choke dir: clark gregg cast: sam rockwell, anjelica huston, kelly macdonald out now, 89 mins Synopsis: Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a sex addict con man who works in a historical re-enactment theme park. In order to pay for his mentally ill mother's (Angelica Huston) care, he scams restaurant diners into saving him as he ‘chokes’ on his food and then bleeds them dry as they send him pity money. Disillusioned with his life, all seems lost until he meets his mother’s doctor, Paige (Kelly MacDonald), and begins a quest to discovering his true identity.

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hoke is a deliciously dark humoured tale of sexual deviancy, obsessions and abnormalities. Sam Rockwell gives a brilliant performance as Victor, who can be summed up as simply a bit of a scum bag.

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He spends his days skipping his sex addict workshops to have sordid sex with other members on bathroom floors, working as ‘the backbone of central America’ as a village idiot in a Renaissance theme park, and pretending to be a variety of dead lawyers when visiting his deteriorating mother. Despite all this, you just can’t help but love him, flaws and all, and he becomes the anti-hero of the film and the sanest of the characters.

Underneath all the sex scenes and boob shots (believe me, there’s an awful lot of boobs in this film, including a nun's…) Choke is ultimately a film about abandonment and identity, and the audience follows Victor’s pursuit to find his long lost father. Well placed flashbacks offer the audience an insight into Victor’s troubled childhood, and also go a long way to explain why he is so screwed up, as well as showing some innocence and naivety to our unlikely hero.

The major problem with this film is that it feels like it is almost split in two halves. The problem filled deterioration of Victor’s life is both

engaging and ridiculously funny, but a sub-plot that Victor may be the messiah feels messy and thrown in for the sake of it. The film tends to jump shakily from one story strand to another, leaving the audience wanting more explanation and more humour. Although generally funny throughout, the hardcore comedy tends to lapse throughout the film, coming in fits and bursts. Victor’s masturbation-obsessed side kick is definitely one of the films high points, and the inappropriateness is cringe worthy; especially when he begins getting off on a picture of Victor’s mother.

Choke is massively different to Palahniuk's other adapted film, Fight Club Apart from the quirky dialogue, deviant subject matter and strange focus upon rehabilitation workshops, it must be taken in its own right. It’s definitely not as good as Fight Club, but then was it ever going to be? Choke is definitely worth watching purely for Rockwell’s stunning performance and the brilliant one liners.

Brittany Maher-Kirk

***

film

the baader-meinhof complex dir: uli edel cast: moritz bleibtreu, martina gedeck, johanna wokale, bruno ganz out now, 150 mins Synopsis: As tension rises in 1960’s Germany over the oppressive right wing establishment and press, radical Andreas Baader and journalist Ulrike Meinhof begin to organise resistance. As things esculate however, the situation turns increasingly violent.

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he Baader-Meinhof Complex is the latest German film endeavouring to add to the country’s recent and long overdue cinematic rennaissance.

Unfortunately, where The Lives of Others and Downfall succeeded in capturing the political upheaval of 20th century Germany in an engaging, stylish and easy to assimilate manner, The BaaderMeinhof Complex falls disappointingly short of the mark.

Let’s start with the positives shall we? The Baader-Meinhof Complex boasts some compelling central performances that, along with the movie's necessarily brutal violence, allow the movie to deftly dodge accusations of sensationalism by laying bare the contradictions of people willing to kill to preserve democracy.

Johanna Wokalek is intoxicating as Baader’s zealous co-revolutionary and girlfriend, and both Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck hold their own as Baader and Meinhof respectively. Bruno Ganz inevitably however, steals the film, investing federal police chief Horst Herold with compassion and intelligence enough to ideologically anchor the movie. The film also captures beautifully the gritty style of 70’s cinema, haircuts and all. This however, is where the positives end.

Unlike Spielberg’s sharply observed, pacy political thriller Munich, The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a non-stop frenetic onslaught of ideas, violence and look-a-likey uber-cool leather jacket wearing revolutionaries that leaves you

breathless, confused and frustrated.

Director Uli Edel obstinately refuses to address the relationship between the eponymous members of the group in depth. It is tempting to defend him by suggesting that the pair fundamentally misunderstood one another ideologically, but this would suggest that the film included some footage of Baader and Meinhof actually having a conversation. It doesn’t. In fact, the pair share so little dialogue it’s a positive wonder that they managed to organise a revolutionary movement at all.

The biggest failure of The Baader-Meinhof Complex however, is it’s reluctance to engage with the motives (or lack there of) of both the group and the individuals involved. No attempt is ever really made to explain how Meinhof, a loving mother and wife who had for so long relied on passive forms of protest, could utterly forsake her family and seemingly her principals to champion violent radicalism alongside a hot tempered, rash man like Baader.

The wider context in which the RAF were operating isn’t drawn with any real detail which left me blindly groping my way through the narrative as I desperately tried to recall my brief flirtation with a History A-Level. The catastrophic rifts that developed between what Ensslin called ‘the Auschwitz generation’ and their children, the state, the students, the media and the people are only briefly alluded to despite being almost universal themes in a decade that suffered Vietnam, the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Europe-wide student riots.

Though the native German audience’s innate knowledge of the events of the film has to be taken in to account, the film just doesn’t do enough to explain one of Germany’s most turbulent post-war periods to the unintiated viewer.

The movie IS watchable and the central performances are strong, but it lacks the script and director to compete with Spielberg’s masterful Munich. Ultimately, like the turbulent time it seeks to commit to celluloid, The Baader-Meinhof Complex is facinating, violent, and profoundly fractured.

Sim Eckstein

***

w. dir: oliver cast: josh brolin, elizibeth banks, thandie newton out now, 129 mins Synopsis: From his recklessly troubled youth, to his shock turn to politics, W. chronicles the journey of a simple Texan and how he matured to become the 43rd president of the United States of America.

I

f you detached 'Dubya' from reality and forgot it was a biopic then it would become a fairly entertaining film, but that's practically impossible to do. Stone tries to tie every moment in George's presidential years to some familial event, from awkward speeches to ‘that’ pretzel. He only veers off this course when examining Dubya's supposed tension with his father, and Stone insists on linking this father-son relationship to every one of Bush junior's mistakes.

From a director who's made a career from creating provocative cinema, it seems ridiculous that he chooses this subject to withdraw his poison pen and act as some sort of neutral arbiter. He’s woefully uncritical of Bush, omitting the day of September 11th and the Floridian electoral recount from the script.

In fairness, Stone counterbalances this by criticising the motivations to invade Iraq, but Cheney and Rumsfeld are exaggerated into such villainous war-mongers that the director detracts from any serious point he's trying to make.

Josh Brolin delivers a good performance, but you never believe him as Bush. He just doesn't possess enough of a physical resemblance, and when Ioan Gruffudd strolls onscreen as Blair you’d do well not to snigger.

Not cutting enough to be a satire, not funny enough to be a comedy and not deep enough to be a drama, Stone's near-apolitical take on the Bush presidency is little more than an insipid caricature.

Guy Ferneyhough

**

film@gairrhydd.com / 49

film

body of lies dir: ridley scott cast: leonardo dicaprio, russell crowe, mark strong out now, 128 mins Synopsis: When covert CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) uncovers information on the Islamist mastermind Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), he devises a plan to infiltrate the terrorist network with the help of his Langley based boss, Ed Hoffman (Crowe). This uneasy alliance soon leads to a cultural and moral clash between the men.

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merica has become obsessed with portraying its heroic endeavours in the War on Terror on the silver screen, and the results so far have been somewhat underwhelming. What starts off here as a promisingly political, high-

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octane action flick, soon wanes towards yet another lacklustre spy caper.

DiCaprio’s reinvention from wind swept boy next door to slick-talking tough guy has so far proven a shrewd career move, yet this latest turn feels more forced than it did in The Departed and Blood Diamond.

This is in part because the characters tireless efforts really lead him nowhere, except into the hands of a bloated Russell Crowe, who’s hammed up CIA operative epitomises the faceless incompetence of America’s intelligence service.

Although this is by no means a particularly poor turn from the brash Aussie, his character is simply impossible to relate to, suffering from poor direction and a largely underwritten part. This, and because the bulk of his interaction takes place via a Bluetooth headset so most of the time all you see is Crowe wandering aimlessly around the screen acting his pants off on the phone, and occasionally stuffing food into his podgy gob.

Moments of genuine suspense are few and far between and the film suffers from a relentless change of pace which swings from the heart pumping to the mind numbing. Anyone expectant of an edgy, intelligent thriller will be grossly disappointed, and like me will probably be left reeling with frustration and trying desperately to recall at what point Ridley Scott became such a lazy director. That said the action sequences are aesthetically irresistible; Scott shows he’s at least willing to get his sleeves dirty when polishing a turd.

Ultimately this latest surge offers up little more than yet more bland food for thought, which frankly, is getting tougher to chew. The fight against terror may be an ongoing one, but unfortunately it seems that as long as there are troubles out east, we will continue to suffer at the hands of such geopolitically charged thrillers, all seeking to uncover new truths about America’s foreign policies.

Adam Woodward

**

film

max payne dir: john moore cast: mark wahlberg, mila kunis, ludacris out now, 100 mins Synopsis: New York detective Max Payne arrives home one evening to find that his wife and newborn baby have been raped and murdered by a gang of hoodlums raging off a new super drug known as Valkyr.

Cue a quest for revenge that leads him into the city’s dark underworld.

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s a fan of the Max Payne computer games, I was pleased to find that the film’s story line follows the plot of the first game pretty faithfully.

Considering the woeful track record of films based on video games (Doom, Hitman, Street Fighter etc), this adaptation goes some way to break from the mould.

The film, as a whole, is highly stylised and pretty to watch. The gritty, noir-esque quality of the graphic novel sections featured in the game remains, and there are some great shots lifted directly from this for those in the audience that recognise them.

The film’s lead roles, however, are horribly miscast. Mark Wahlberg is just not menacing enough, and the part would have been far better off in the hands of someone like Micky Rourke. Mila Kunis (yes her out of That 70’s Show) is so comically unbelievable as femme fatale Mona Sax that you want to slap her until she goes home and stops looking like an angry kitten.

Interestingly enough the game’s signature selling point, it’s pioneering use of Matrix-lifted ‘bullet time’, is rather under used in the film, although the moments when it is are satisfying to a degree. Overall, it’s a fair attempt at capturing the mood of the game, that should hold some appeal to fans of the Payne universe, but definitely won’t be causing any major reactions beyond that.

Alex Gwillam

**

zack and miri make a porno dir: kevin smith cast: seth rogen, elizabeth banks out now, 101 mins Synopsis: When long time roommates Zack Brown (Rogen) and Miriam Linky (Banks) run into some financial trouble they find themselves facing homelessness.

Down on their luck the pair decides that the best way to make hard, fast cash is to make a porno. But as filming begins, what started out as a business proposition between friends turns into something much more.

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t seems odd that this film fits so well into the Apatow mould, especially as it was Smith who began paving the way for such gross-out flicks well over a decade ago. Perhaps the mentor has become pupil, but perhaps that is too harsh and too easy a right off. The joy of all of this vulgarity is that after all these years, Kevin Smith still finds sex a sordid affair, and this cum-com exemplifies his penchant for filthy film-making.

The Jew-fro sporting Rogen, whose embodiment of all things slacker makes him the ideal Smith alter-ego, once again exhibits the bumbling charm that has seen him become Hollywood’s latest comedy golden boy. There are equally strong turns from the evereffervescent Elizabeth Banks, while Justin Long puts in a scene-stealing cameo as the gay porn star lover of high school player Bobby Long (Brandon Routh). Fans of Smith's earlier work will be pleased to see some familiar faces amongst the cast too, most notably Jason Mewes in characteristically indecent form as Lester the Molester.

A razor sharp script proves Smith is still the daddy of offbeat dialogue and outrageous one-liners. There is plenty of fruitful titillation too (after all, this is a porno), but the narrative at times borders on tedious and generally fails to get the blood pumping. There are moments of unadulterated smut and genuinely stomach-churning lewdness that only Smith could deliver with such impenitence, but scattered amongst all the sentiment their impact is short lived.

Slushy ending aside, this is still Smith’s finest work for some time; it’s edgy, ruthlessly rude and above all very funny, but ultimately falls just short of delivering that much needed money shot.

Randy Longhorn

****

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film

COMIC

"iron-fran vs. th

C

52 /film@gairrhydd.com

omic books and graphic novels have provided the basis for a whole host of movies over the last decade or so. From Superman to Batman, Sin City to Blade, these cinematic reincarnations of beloved animation and beautiful artwork have never been so relevant.

There are a few notable exceptions, of course, that perhaps aren't so noteworthy, but that's not my fight.

Comic-book movies are extremely difficult to produce: for the most part, there is often an army of dedicated comic-yielding fans to please, and that in itself ain't an easy task. I know plenty of these crazed yielders, and expectations are sky bloody high when it boils down to these films.

Perhaps the best place to start to prove my thumbs-up-to-comicbook-films theory is the recently reinvigorated Batman franchise.

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins took comic book material and made it into a proper film, without gimmicks or a suitably vivid and colourful superhero fantasy world to fall back on.

Three years later, Nolan did it all over again with The Dark Knight, drawing upon relevant themes of terrorism, fear and paranoia, all of which exist at the heart of our own contemporary society and applying them to Wayne's own make-believe universe. It worked on a magnificent scale.

In a similar vein, Frank Miller's graphic novels, 300 and Sin City, were both

adapted for the screen in bold and daring ways, particularly considering the technological innovations employed by both directors. The exceptional use of computer-generated imagery and blue-screen methods ensured both films never strayed from their roots within the graphic novel, and instead stayed firmly implanted within the world of fantasy created on paper. It is arguably the darker, grittier films that work better both aesthetically and thematically in comparison to the cartoonish gimmicks of some others; Blade, X-Men 2 and Hellboy all fall into this edgier, stylised category of film-making and all three are brilliantly executed takes on their source material.

Even Spiderman 2, in all of its 12A certification glory, was the saving grace of the trilogy: Alfred Molina's Dr Octopus, some fucking awesome special effects and that niggling Peter ParkerMary-Jane love story made for an entertaining sequel and a maturer follow up to its predecessor. Plus, you can't complain when the wizard Stan Lee himself, cameos, a neat reoccurrence of every Marvel movie.

That's not to say there haven't been some ruddy awful comicbook movies made for the purpose of a quick big-wig buck, but for the most part, these films are awe-inspiring feats of character construction, story-telling and CGI. With plenty more in the pipeline, ranging from Thor to The Watchmen, the comicbook genre is nowhere near it's untimely and catastrophic demise just yet. And deep down, aren't you all pretty glad. Pow! Shazam!

Take that, The Simcredible Jerkoff.

CON?!

film

he simcredible hulk"

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n the post 9/11 era it’s been difficult to shake the feeling that we are all…well, not really super enough to be honest.

The sudden explosion of public interest in our humble underwear sporting champions, and the huge box office of 2002’s Spiderman has resulted in Hollywood thrusting a veritable smorgasbord of caped crusaders down our retinas at every given opportunity. Before we continue though, let me set out my position.

I like comic books. Not as much as some, but I like them nevertheless. I’ve read a selection of both Marvel and DC’s offerings and enjoyed and understood them (they’re about girls right?....just kidding).

Hell, Watchmen is one of my all time favourite novels. I am, in other words, no snobbish prig who wants to run down comic book movies because they’re based on texts that aren't culturally valued yet. Indeed, it is because I respect comic books as a rich and important visual and verbal medium that I have donned my purple pants to write this very article.

Comic book movies have been, to-date, almost universally disappointing. From the ‘not too bad, but I still want to weep quietly into my marvel collection for a while’ adventures of Superman, Iron Man and Hellboy, to the terrifying ‘oh God, my eyes, my eyes…is that Nick Cage?’ experience of Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Electra, Catwoman and The Fantastic 4 they have nearly all managed to fall short of their printed source material (notice, out of an over developed sense of fair play, I have yet to mention the steaming pile of shite that masqueraded as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

No man, woman, child, or supernatural being from the planet Krypton

(take note, Obama) could possibly deny that, with the exception of perhaps Batman (please remember the monstrosities that were Batman Forever and Batman and Robin), comic book films have failed to replicate the plot complexity, character depth, emotional development, subtlety or sense of sheer sodding excitement of the comics they are based on. Perhaps it’s in some ways understandable considering that comic books have hundreds of issues at their disposal when creating their characters’ mythologies. However, that isn’t really an excuse. As The Dark Knight so wonderfully demonstrated this summer, it can be done when directors and writers start to do their ruddy jobs and cease to simply use the comics as storyboards (here's looking at you Frank MIller).

When you consider how much money has been ploughed into these movies, it is hard not to wonder what original blockbusters haven’t been made as a result. But that isn’t really the point. These movies are being churned out at such a rate because they are low risk, lazy money-spinners - even Catwoman took $82 million.

As we stand we have a mere handful of worthy comic book movies and more are due this coming year. What we need to decide is whether we’ll start demanding better from these films, or keep on buying into this comic con regardless. SMASH! How's that for a Simcredible sign off Iron-Fran?

You're going to go down, down like a lead balloon...I mean Iron. Balloon that is. Shit.

film@gairrhydd.com / 53

film

s c r e e n i c o n s wizard has always strived to uphold an organic hand drawn technique which has long been a custom of Japanese film-making.

A 1997 distribution deal with Disney saw Miramax release Japan’s highest ever grossing film, Princess Mononoke, to a western audience for the first time to acclaimed criticism. This marked a turning point which saw Miyazaki’s masterpieces receive global distribution for first time, and although many of the films were dubbed for western audiences, the genius of these enchanting films did not go unobserved.

Perhaps the most revered of Miyazaki’s works and certainly the most

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nimation is today undoubtedly one of the most popular cinematic mediums, constantly transforming and pushing the limits of digital technology. In a CGI strewn world, however, traditional feature animation has been all but forgotten, but Hayao Miyazaki continues to favour that crudest of tools, the pencil.

His work centres largely on the paradoxes of good and evil and is heavily steeped in Japanese mythology and spirituality. Recurrently featuring strong, independent young girls as his primary protagonists, Miyazaki has often been regarded as a feminist, but this is a sentiment the man himself has never fully adhered to. Wise, complex and utterly mesmerising, his films harbour a deeply woven morality and are as much fables as they are works of art. Inspired by a tradition of Japanese anime art and Manga comics, the silver-haired

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recognised came in 2001 with the release of Spirited Away. This thrust Miyazaki and his co-founded animation company Studio Ghibli into the mainstream, becoming only second film ever to win Best Animated Feature Oscar and first anime film to do so. By 2002, a sixth of the Japanese population had seen it.

At 67 the anime auteur is Japan’s most successful film-maker, and his work continues to set new cinematic precedents. What makes Miyazaki such an inspiring architect of animation is the tradition he consistently evokes, it is his faithfulness to the old way of doing things which sets the standard for animators and film-makers alike. His hands-on approach compliments a rapturously imaginative mind that crafts landscapes of immeasurable wonder and beauty. In a world of high-tech trickery where the thrills are delivered with a rumpus of song, dance and exhilarating action, Miyazaki’s magical characters and lusciously illustrated world still takes your breath away.

Adam Woodward

film

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hether it's perfecting a strange accent, getting a quirky new hair cut or growing a bad piece of facial hair, it's obvious that getting ready for a new role requires the actor in question to change in some way. Some actors, however, seem far more prepared to go the extra mile to get into a specific role, making their performance more convincing and their character portrayal ultimately more believable. Here are the actors that went that extra mile to change their physical appearance...

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS - MY LEFT FOOT Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as Irish writer and artist Christy Brown, a man born with cerebral palsy, is as passionate as it is powerfully realistic. Day-Lewis reportedly insisted on remaining in character and wheel-chair bound in between takes, resulting in him remaining in a hunched over position for so long that he even broke two ribs during production. The effort that DayLewis went to in order to cultivate such a believable character is reflected in his performance, which ultimately lead to him winning an Oscar for best actor.

RENﾃ右 ZELLWEGER - BRIDGET JONES' DIARY Renﾃｩe Zellweger showed admirable determination for getting into character when she accepted the role of unlucky-in-love Bridget Jones. In order to play Bridget, a woman determined to get her life back on track.

Zellweger packed on around two stone to her slender frame before rapidly losing the weight again after production finished. As if this wasn't enough, she then went through the entire ordeal again three years later in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Nothing compared to what we went through watching it to be fair.

TOM HANKS - CASTAWAY Tom Hanks plays FedEx manager Chuck Noland, a busy man whose life is turned upside down when his flight crashes on a remote desert island, leaving him to fend for himself with only an unresponsive volleyball for company. The film contains a four year time jump, and producers apparently halted production for a year in order for Hanks to grow his hair and go on a diet in order to lose 50 pounds. His startlingly thinner (and considerably hairier) appearance significantly contributes to a realistic portrayal of a man constantly battling for his own survival.

ROBERT DE NIRO - RAGING BULL Robert De Niro's raw performance as vicious boxer Jake LaMotta is facilitated by the way De Niro threw himself into the role, going on a diet to gain a massive 60 pounds for the film's later scenes. At the beginning of Raging Bull, De Niro looks in peak physical condition as his character violently fights his way to the top of the boxing world, eventually gaining the title. The contrast between De Niro's at the film's conclusion is truly amazing. The 60 extra pounds of weight make him look like a different person, helping to emphasise the faded star's abrupt and hopeless fall from glory.

Words - Sam Haysom Images - The mighty Benjamin Phillips

CHRISTIAN BALE - THE MACHINIST Producers of The Machinist claimed that Bale dropped a full 63 pounds from his original weight of 180 in order to play the paranoid insomniac Trevor Reznik. Those used to seeing the actor in films such as Equilibrium and the Batman Begins would find him practically unrecognisable due to his shocking, emaciated appearance. Bale apparently wanted to lose even more weight, but was stopped due to health risks, being advised to come off his rumoured diet of mainly apples and coffee. As well as all this, he then managed to put the weight back on in time for his role in Batman Begins, a year later. Now that's dedication.

film@gairrhydd.com / 55

music

Razorlight

Bloc Party

albums albums albums albums

Tuff Teeth

ANBERLIN New Surrender

RAZORLIGHT Slipway Fires

Valve Records

Island Records

Mercury Records

hile Tuff Teeth could come across as a bit flimsy and two-dimensional in its lacking of a bass guitar’s penetrative charge, the frenetic boy/ girl vocals and yappy guitars are punchy enough to compensate.

It’s as colourful as fuck, and tracks like ‘Crooked’ are endearingly infantile, sounding like At The Drive In jamming with The Pixies in the Early Learning Centre, while high on Sunny D. That’s not to say there’s not a darker, edgier side to I Heart Hiroshima as well- in Crime, drummer/vocalist Susie Patten treats us to the engaging simile ‘broke your ribs like pencils’. Moreover, the subtly strategic Wires, in which the refrain ‘Colour, colour...if you touch it, it’s explosive’ is proof that they can be sophisticated too. ‘Punks’ is a real corker though because after clobbering you with a cute melody, it leaves you grappling with ambiguous lyrics like ‘climb down to heaven, climb up to hell’...it’s like really stimulating.

Matt Wright

ew Surrender sees Floridian angst-mongers Anberlin make their major label debut after a series of successful indie releases. Listening to the record however, I can’t shake the feeling that hitting the ‘big time’ has come at the wrong time.

The record plays like the cookie cutter genero-emo that was ever so popular a couple of years back and what would have made Anberlin the cash cow that Universal probably thinks they still could be. Mixed full of spunk screamers and the obligatory ‘thinky’ acoustic tracks, New Surrender never subverts expectations.

Unremarkable flagship single Feel Good Drag often flirts with cliché, suiting a band pretentious enough to thank ‘their souls’ in the album sleeve. What you get from this Godbothering bunch is a record that’s great for what it is. The problem is that it’s the type of music you’d probably outgrown when you threw away your first Limp Bizkit hoodie.

Luke Snell

I HEART HIROSHIMA

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igmouth strikes again. Razorlight’s career has been littered with big-headed remarks, illusions of grandeur and bad hairstyles. Johnny Borrell has done it yet again with an album that is more pompous than its predecessor.

Slipway Fires is the bands much anticipated third album and there are many decent points to it; Borrell’s voice sounds better then ever, many tracks have a compelling atmosphere similar to that of Queen.

However the bands idea of self importance has interfered with a potentially great album. Opener ‘Wire to Wire’ is a perfect example of this.

It is a compelling and decent song but it is so laden with pomp and over production that it reeks of over zealousness. It makes the band look as if they are desperate to hit the stadium circuit. Overall the album is dressed up to appear much better then it actually is, like a tramp in a suit.

Rupert Waldren

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