<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' version='2.0'><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:09:06 +0000</lastBuildDate><title>Sonic Avenger</title><description></description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>164</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-6245655198776271696</guid><pubDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:48:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-03-11T01:09:06.794Z</atom:updated><title>Rage Against the Machines</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWyLaXCV2_s"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Watching: Mad Men - The Kodak Carousel&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/metropolis1-784492.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/metropolis1-784490.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Greetings people. Y'know, during my years here on &lt;b&gt;Earth&lt;/b&gt;, one thing I've found is that sometimes, where everyday technology is concerned, once one machine packs up, several other tech-items that you have come to rely on will do the same. In my own case, the &lt;b&gt;Sonic Chariot&lt;/b&gt; has been in the car-clinic for most of this week. Numerous problems under the hood need fixing, which won't be cheap.&lt;br /&gt;Now my main &lt;b&gt;computer&lt;/b&gt; has decided to mutiny too, and I'm writing this from another machine. I've cleared out a few viral-nasties recently (courtesy of anti-virus app &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?tag=mncol"&gt;Avast!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; which I can heartily recommend), however I'm left with one central problem - I can't access this site, or that of my webspace provider. Not sure why this is yet, but it feels strangely &lt;i&gt;specific&lt;/i&gt;, even &lt;b&gt;personal&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt; I have to say. I've even managed to lose the charger for my mobile phone and am currently using an enormous Nokia from the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"&gt;Cretaceous&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt; era until it shows up or I give up and buy a new one. So one way or another, the machines are indeed revolting, and doing it in battle formation. Stay tuned for more war reportage.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-6245655198776271696?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/03/rage-against-machines.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-5415809578417571916</guid><pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:52:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-02-22T12:27:11.901Z</atom:updated><title>Pop Cultured</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMf-dWacpy0"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Age of Chance - Timeless&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/popculturedgeoff-753961.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/popculturedgeoff-753958.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div&gt;In a book-ish frame of mind today pop-kids. Currently thumbing through a splendid volume of music-based photography entitled &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.mcnulty.co.uk/index.php?/projects/popcultured/"&gt;Pop Cultured&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; by Liverpool camera-meister &lt;b&gt;Mark McNulty. &lt;/b&gt;Some essential, often epic, some might say &lt;b&gt;iconic&lt;/b&gt; (see above) images and anecdotes contained within these covers I can report.&lt;br /&gt;The best deal on it, I found, was to be had at &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pop-Cultured-Music-Photography-McNulty/dp/1846311683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1266449040&amp;amp;sr=1-1"&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;. Ordered it yesterday afternoon and it arrived this morning. Yes indeed, we're all living in the &lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"&gt;Space Age &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt;now. So, my robot-friends, put down whatever you're doing,  and whether by hover-board or jet-pack, go out and buy this book. Or like me, stay in and buy it.&lt;br /&gt;Whichever, you'll want to thank me later.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-5415809578417571916?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/02/pop-cultured.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-2123735075431420049</guid><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:15:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-02-15T21:48:18.971Z</atom:updated><title>Glam-Fix</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o29VoxtsFk"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Spiderman Theme Tune&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/mad-men-office-716262.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/mad-men-office-716260.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div&gt;It's probably fair to say that I could do with an injection of &lt;b&gt;glamour&lt;/b&gt; into my daily existence at the moment. That, and a reminder that the sun is still up there somewhere. I don't mean &lt;b&gt;Caligula&lt;/b&gt;-style decadence or anything. A hot country, a sun-lounger, a tall drink and some decent reading matter would do the trick. For now, the nearest I get to a &lt;b&gt;glam-fix&lt;/b&gt; is watching &lt;b&gt;Madmen&lt;/b&gt; every Wednesday night.&lt;br /&gt;That said, February, apart from being the coldest month, is also the one when thoughts turn to sunnier prospects, and an end to &lt;b&gt;hibernation&lt;/b&gt;-mode seems that bit closer. I even bought a pair of anticipatory flip-flops today from Primark. &lt;b&gt;£1.50&lt;/b&gt; well-spent. There's no harm in being prepared I always say.&lt;br /&gt;On another topic, I've had numerous queries concerning the non-appearance of a new &lt;b&gt;Live at Chéz Sonique&lt;/b&gt; set. Apologies music-lovers, but the hold-up is due to a few tech-problems I've been having. One was with my domain-hosting company; their server got hacked and they had to change all the log-in passwords. The email that notified me of this got spam-filtered by &lt;b&gt;AOL &lt;/b&gt;(see previous post)&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;so I was offline for a while there when I needn't have been.&lt;br /&gt;Also, most of the tracks I use in the Chéz Sonique broadcasts are digital-transfers from my &lt;b&gt;vinyl&lt;/b&gt; collection. The software I use for this went into &lt;b&gt;mutiny&lt;/b&gt; mode and caused further hold-ups. Yessir, the machines sure are revolting.&lt;br /&gt;Anyhoo, with a bit of luck I'm now on top of these gremlins so another musical despatch from Chéz Sonique will be with you very soon.&lt;br /&gt;Peace, out.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-2123735075431420049?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/02/glam-fix.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-846528736809386012</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-02-07T12:10:26.732Z</atom:updated><title>A-O Hell 2</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Stevie Wonder - Superstition&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/my-feet---snow-4feb2010-724286.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/my-feet---snow-4feb2010-724280.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Greets peeps. Well, just&lt;b&gt; w&lt;/b&gt;hen you thought &lt;b&gt;Spring&lt;/b&gt; was around the corner, more white stuff falls from the sky and puts everything back a few weeks. On top of this I've been beleagured by tech-problems of one kind or another recently. The battery that powers the &lt;b&gt;Sonic Chariot&lt;/b&gt;'s engine decided to give up the ghost a few nights back. The freezing &lt;b&gt;fog&lt;/b&gt; that had settled around &lt;i&gt;Chéz Sonique&lt;/i&gt; probably didn't help matters but it was particularly annoying because the component in question was less than a year old, and I don't like having to &lt;b&gt;walk&lt;/b&gt; anywhere if it can be avoided.&lt;br /&gt;I also have an ongoing problem with &lt;b&gt;AOL&lt;/b&gt;, my ISP. I cannot get online from my main computer despite the little flashing green light on my wireless router telling me that I actually am. A forty minute pep-talk, paid for by me, with an otherwise very personable AOL tech-chap in &lt;b&gt;India&lt;/b&gt; also proved to be a complete waste of time. A new ISP may be on the cards very soon I think. If anyone out there has any recommendations in this area, please let me know.&lt;br /&gt;Aside from these petty annoyances, I'm looking forward to the &lt;b&gt;Spring&lt;/b&gt; now. I've had enough of damp and darkness; soon I shall bestride the Earth in sonic &lt;b&gt;shorts&lt;/b&gt;, boys and girls.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-846528736809386012?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/02/o-hell.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-1812275376370850808</guid><pubDate>Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:02:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-02-15T20:02:52.640Z</atom:updated><title>Sonic Beach</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F5C0rrncXE"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Listening to: Black Sabbath - Sweet Leaf&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/cenotaph-pic-716881.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 293px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;G'day boys and girls.&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;Moving very slowly into&lt;b&gt; January&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;2010&lt;/b&gt; over here. Like most other burrowing &lt;b&gt;marsupials&lt;/b&gt;, I'm in semi-hibernation mode at this bleak juncture in the calendar, so I'm hardly at my most alert or motivated. Slowly but surely though, this will change.&lt;br /&gt;Sub-zero temperatures haven't helped of course. It's as cold right now as I can ever recall it being, but as y'all know, it's &lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;Forever Summer&lt;/span&gt; in my mind. This is no easy task I can tell you. I mean, just take a look at that pic up there. A time-worn snapshot of post &lt;b&gt;WW1&lt;/b&gt;-era smalltown, hard-times Britain? Nah, a pic taken from the doorway of my local Sainsbury's earlier today.&lt;br /&gt;That's the state of play in &lt;b&gt;Cruel Britannia &lt;/b&gt;as I type, pop-kids. As Daphne Du Maurier once wrote, it's grim Up North. However, years of yogic discipline and self-deprivation have given &lt;b&gt;yours truly&lt;/b&gt; the ability to completely blank out my immediate surroundings at will and mentally repair to my favourite sun-lounger on &lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;Sonic Beach&lt;/span&gt;, far away in time. This is why I'm such a &lt;b&gt;sunny&lt;/b&gt;, warm, agreeable person, pretty much all the time. Seriously, anyone who knows me would tell you the same.&lt;br /&gt;Peace, out.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-1812275376370850808?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/01/sonic-beach.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-5451917574953513952</guid><pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-01-07T17:54:49.281Z</atom:updated><title>About the Weather</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzz64XMTcdA"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: The Shadows - Frightened City&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/UK-weathermap-Jan09-743665.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 282px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;And lo, &lt;b&gt;Cruel Britannia&lt;/b&gt; did completely close down and grind to a halt. Because of snow and ice. In &lt;b&gt;January&lt;/b&gt;. Who could've seen that coming? Schools closed, cars abandoned, airports shut down. All for the lack of some&lt;b&gt; grit&lt;/b&gt; being thrown on the roads, from what I can see.&lt;br /&gt;And with that opening observation, bang goes one of my &lt;b&gt;Nu-Year's&lt;/b&gt; resolutions - ie, not moaning about the weather. The sad truth is, I enjoy it too much. It's one of life's pleasures for us hard done-to &lt;b&gt;Brits&lt;/b&gt;. So as long as cold weather in winter continues to be headline news over here, I'll feel justified in moaning about it.&lt;br /&gt;In other news I'm currently in the process of assembling another &lt;b&gt;mix&lt;/b&gt; for your Nu-Year's delectation, which I'll be posting as soon as it's finished. Ok, &lt;b&gt;Forward&lt;/b&gt; my little friends...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-5451917574953513952?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/01/nu-year.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-3687542711984105458</guid><pubDate>Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:09:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-01-02T11:03:55.389Z</atom:updated><title>At last - 2010</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO2SJmMUr6A"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Unkle - Heaven&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/2010-779463.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;Happy New Year&lt;/span&gt; one and all. Yes, 2009 is finally behind us, and a new &lt;b&gt;decade&lt;/b&gt; beckons. I've never known a year that so many people claimed to be their worst. Say what you like but there's definitely something &lt;b&gt;astrological &lt;/b&gt;going on there pop-kids. As is my custom I stayed at home on the last night of 2009. Apart from my aversion to &lt;b&gt;Auld Lang Syne&lt;/b&gt;-orientated  revelry it didn't seem like a good idea to give whoever's in charge &lt;b&gt;Up There&lt;/b&gt; one last chance to rain down misfortune on my year. Thus fine wine, pizza and a Robert De Niro flick sealed the deal for me last night. That said, I still do the flinging-the-front-door-open-at-midnight thing, and watching the fireworks etc, so I'm not a complete &lt;b&gt;New Year&lt;/b&gt; party pooper. Right boys &amp;amp; girls, helmets on and here we go into the Great Unknown...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-3687542711984105458?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2010/01/at-last-2010.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-9052636385050414166</guid><pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:30:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-24T11:47:54.275Z</atom:updated><title>Yuletide Preparedness</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://soundcloud.com/sonicavenger/the-sonic-santa-christmas-collection"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Ramsey Lewis Trio - Santa Claus is Coming to Town&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/morrisons1-717580.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Some things continue to amaze, year in, year out. Like the &lt;a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/22/eurostar-services-resume-snow-travel"&gt;&lt;b&gt; apparent surprise&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; expressed by councils the length and breadth of &lt;b&gt;Cruel Britannia&lt;/b&gt; that snow and ice might actually be a reality in &lt;b&gt;December&lt;/b&gt;. Like the scenes of near-riot in any given supermarket or department store on any given day in the lead-up to Christmas. It seems to begin slightly earlier every year.&lt;br /&gt;Anyhoo, my up-at-the-crack-of-dawn-to-shop approach (see previous post) worked in the end, and I pretty much have everything done that needs to be done. Plus I managed to traverse &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/2007/06/nu-post-sir.html"&gt;Satan's Slip-Road&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/b&gt;(Southern readers: the &lt;b&gt;M62&lt;/b&gt;) without too much grief earlier today. Never a relaxing trip at the best of times.&lt;br /&gt;Of course, in accordance with government guidelines, I'd packed a thermos of coffee, some blankets, stout walking-boots, some flares (no, not the trousers) and a supply of glucose tablets, just in case of climatic &lt;b&gt;Armageddon&lt;/b&gt;. Over here, you just never know.&lt;br /&gt;Ok, onward into the &lt;b&gt;Season of Goodwill&lt;/b&gt; we go.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-9052636385050414166?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/12/getting-closer.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-4090791767606184058</guid><pubDate>Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:43:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-22T12:17:41.572Z</atom:updated><title>Fear of Christmas</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://soundcloud.com/sonicavenger/the-sonic-santa-christmas-collection"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://soundcloud.com/sonicavenger/the-sonic-santa-christmas-collection"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt; Lou Rawls - Good Time Christmas&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/pudsey_cenotaph_snow_21dec09-741467.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;The scene at &lt;b&gt;7.30am&lt;/b&gt; this morning, as I trudged my way through the local streets to go swimming with the dolphins. Yes, you read it correctly dear reader. &lt;b&gt;Swimming&lt;/b&gt;.  I even opted to travel on foot, as the Sonic Chariot was sufficiently buried in ice that I decided to let the sun do all the hard work later in the day.&lt;br /&gt;Let's face it, I'm about to spend the next week laying on a settee in the land of my forefathers, with a TV-remote in one hand, a flagon of wine in the other and a vast tin-box full of &lt;b&gt;Cadbury's Roses&lt;/b&gt; on my chest. Just like it says we must in &lt;b&gt;The Bible&lt;/b&gt;. So in preparation for this joyous celebration, I figure it's probably best to snatch a few minutes of &lt;b&gt;rogue exercise&lt;/b&gt; while I can...catch my body all unawares, like.&lt;br /&gt;I also have some last-minute-but-crucial Yuletide &lt;b&gt;shopping&lt;/b&gt; to do, which will see me in the local town centre tomorrow before sun-up.&lt;br /&gt;I actually tried this earlier today. Drove 5 miles, parked the &lt;b&gt;SC&lt;/b&gt; near as possible to town, walked for 20 minutes and, upon arriving in Leeds, was presented with what looked like a series of out-takes from a &lt;b&gt;George Romero&lt;/b&gt; flick. Queues everywhere. Queues to join queues. I turned on my heels and headed back the way I'd come, without so much as a greetings card to show for it.&lt;br /&gt;Tomorrow I shall repeat the exercise but at a ridiculously early hour, before the &lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;Army of the Undead&lt;/span&gt; have risen, and begin their day's shopping. I shall report back.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-4090791767606184058?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/12/fear-of-christmas.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-4583745338473795644</guid><pubDate>Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:04:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-11T18:41:43.624Z</atom:updated><title>Sonic Santa</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://soundcloud.com/sonicavenger/the-sonic-santa-christmas-collection"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Babs Gonzales - The Bebop Santa Claus&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/sonic-santas-xmas-collection-714673.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 310px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Ok mon petit blogettes, as mentioned in the previous post, I've been putting together a &lt;b&gt;Yuletide&lt;/b&gt; music mix, and there it is, over there on the right. Click on the &lt;b&gt;green arrow&lt;/b&gt; to listen, click on the link below to see &lt;b&gt;track-listing&lt;/b&gt; and download. I tells ya pop-kids, some of those selections are not easy to find these days. The &lt;b&gt;Bebop Santa Claus&lt;/b&gt; has long been a Festive favourite of mine, and I never get tired of listening to Porky Pig's reading of &lt;b&gt;Blue Christmas&lt;/b&gt;. Lou Rawls, The Ronettes, &lt;b&gt;White Stripes&lt;/b&gt;, Little Cindy, the &lt;b&gt;Brady Bunch&lt;/b&gt; and more. All the greats in one &lt;b&gt;26-track&lt;/b&gt; long Festive procession of Yuletide jollity.&lt;br /&gt;I actually compiled this because I can never find a Christmas selection that I like enough to buy, so here's the answer. Lovingly crafted by my own fair hands, and free for y'all to download - until &lt;b&gt;Twelfth Night&lt;/b&gt; that is, as tradition decrees. Enjoy.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-4583745338473795644?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/12/sonic-santas-christmas-collection.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-7965442066584088235</guid><pubDate>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:32:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-07T11:48:27.950Z</atom:updated><title>Live at Chéz Sonique Vol 2</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://soundcloud.com/sonicavenger/live-at-chez-sonique-vol-2"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Live at Chéz Sonique Vol 2 &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/christmas-fear-780444.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 192px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Greetings music lovers. As I do every year around this time, I'm getting the Christmas &lt;b&gt;Fear&lt;/b&gt;. I'm hoping that the ritual dressing-of-the-tree ceremony at Chéz Sonique later today will ease the fear factor a little. Naturally there will be some ritual drinking-of-the-alcohol to accompany the proceedings. Tradition in these matters is of the utmost importance.&lt;br /&gt;Anyhoo, in the &lt;b&gt;Yuletide&lt;/b&gt; spirit of Giving, I present to y'all my latest Sonic Odyssey, &lt;b&gt;Live at Chéz Sonique Vol 2. &lt;/b&gt;Click on the &lt;b&gt;orange arrow&lt;/b&gt; over there on the right to listen. Click on the link below to see the track-listing and download.&lt;br /&gt;Tastemakers at large have already given &lt;b&gt;Vol 2&lt;/b&gt;  &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://ireallylovemusic.co.uk/blog/?p=1329"&gt; the thumbs-up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; and it has been broadcast on the &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.play.fm/recording/joemckechnieonpiraterevivalwithsonicavenger_undergroundresistanceremix2009113024384"&gt;Joe McKechnie Show&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;,&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;alongside a superb &lt;b&gt;Underground Resistance&lt;/b&gt; mix. See what you think pop-kids.&lt;br /&gt;I'm currently preparing something with a seasonal theme, so stay tuned.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-7965442066584088235?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/12/live-at-chez-sonique-vol-2.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-3016628873944698639</guid><pubDate>Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:23:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-06T00:20:16.608Z</atom:updated><title>Vinyl Thrills</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdePVqDPa6I"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Leonard Cohen - Democracy is Coming to the USA&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/7-Inch-singles-711031.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;'Sup homies.  This afternoon finds yours truly putting the finishing touches to another barrier-breaking/envelope-pushing half-hour mix, cut and crafted by my own fair hands. This one is destined for an online radio show (details to follow) but I shall be uploading it here for all you taste-makers and Sonic &lt;b&gt;thrill-seekers&lt;/b&gt; to see what you think.&lt;br /&gt;Tiring of the acres of files on my hard-drive, I've definitely rediscovered my love of vinyl lately...in particular the &lt;b&gt;7-inch&lt;/b&gt; variety. I'm not even talking about the more celebrated specimens that sport a picture-sleeve, though obviously that &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; the ideal aesthetic situation for a small, round piece of plastic with a hole in the middle to be in.&lt;br /&gt;However, some of my collection comes from a time when 7" singles were taken from pub &lt;b&gt;jukeboxes&lt;/b&gt; and placed in revolving racks in local sweet-shops, waiting to be loved a second time. I think Marcel &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Proust"&gt;Proust&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; wrote about just this at some length.&lt;br /&gt;Anyhoo, some of these gems will undoubtedly be finding their way into my own particular take on &lt;b&gt;Mixtape&lt;/b&gt; Poetry, then out there into the cold, dark recesses of cyberspace. Now that's one epic journey pop-kids. Stay tooned.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-3016628873944698639?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/11/curb.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-8771993969522547807</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-07T12:06:00.949Z</atom:updated><title>Live at Chéz Sonique Vol 1</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Live at Chéz Sonique - Vol 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/file-713037.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Greetings y'all. Well, it must be said that recently, the onset of the the &lt;b&gt;dark months&lt;/b&gt; has seen yours truly in an unseasonably celebratory mood. Not quite ready for hibernation, I've been hosting a few off-the-cuff &lt;b&gt;music appreciation&lt;/b&gt; evenings, so to speak, for a select coterie of guests. The soundtracks for these events - compiled and mixed by myself - have proven quite popular with the assembled party-goers. Lots of cuddly &lt;b&gt;7 and 12-inch&lt;/b&gt; vinyl will have this effect, I find.&lt;br /&gt;So instead of handing out CDs, I've uploaded the first of these mixes to those kind folks at &lt;b&gt;SoundCloud&lt;/b&gt; - over there on the right pop-kids. Click the &lt;b&gt;blue arrow&lt;/b&gt; to listen. Click on the link to see the&lt;b&gt; track-listing&lt;/b&gt; and download. As the tracklist indicates, this ain't Judge Jules. Just stuff I like, cut and re-shaped to my own personal requirements. With this as the basic template, expect further installments as and when. Enjoy, &lt;b&gt;music lovers&lt;/b&gt;, and all comments welcome.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-8771993969522547807?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/11/live-at-chez-sonique.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-5411817817298850163</guid><pubDate>Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:08:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-12-08T17:08:57.784Z</atom:updated><title>Halloween</title><description>&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBISTpycH3w"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Sonic Youth - Halloween&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="left"&gt;&lt;img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/Sonic-Hal-753332.jpg" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Good evening people. &lt;strong&gt;All Hallow's Eve&lt;/strong&gt; is upon us once again. This time last week here in Cruel Britannia, the clocks went back one hour, thereby plunging us hapless inhabitants into the season of &lt;strong&gt;death and decay,&lt;/strong&gt; which the more &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/2007/09/autumn-into-winter.html"&gt;seasonally deluded &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; of you out there are wont to refer to as &lt;strong&gt;Autumn&lt;/strong&gt;. Not I though. Despair all ye who enter this season.&lt;br /&gt;So, anyone who's been paying even vague attention around here will recall that I'm all in favour of scarey stuff. Other commitments have prevented me from doing the &lt;strong&gt;Halloween&lt;/strong&gt; thing for a few years now, but this year, falling on a Saturday as it does, things are looking up. Not that I'm planning on leaving the house dressed as &lt;strong&gt;Wonder Woman&lt;/strong&gt; or Charlie Chaplin as our U.S. cousins have taken to doing though. If I ever dress as Wonder Woman I tend to do it indoors anyway. Too chilly.&lt;br /&gt;No sir, Halloween still equates to &lt;strong&gt;scarey &lt;/strong&gt;around these parts, so I've a shortlist of movies that must be watched. Not sure what yet, but the &lt;strong&gt;Blair Witch Project&lt;/strong&gt; is looking good. I've also ordered pizza that has the mushrooms fashioned into the likeness of a laughing skull. If I can obtain scarey alcohol locally, I'm getting that too. I even have a black cat resident in &lt;em&gt;Chéz Sonique&lt;/em&gt; for the evening. Yes, really.&lt;br /&gt;Moooohahahahaaaa!&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-5411817817298850163?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/10/halloween.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-7634605233686871313</guid><pubDate>Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:35:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-11-11T17:10:52.565Z</atom:updated><title>Heading for the Hills</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz6etlLN-tQ"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Soulful Strings - Burning Spear&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"   style="  white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:monospace;font-size:13px;"&gt;&lt;p style="visibility: visible;"&gt;&lt;object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://widget-b3.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf" style="width: 426px; height: 320px;" height="320" width="426"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://widget-b3.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf"&gt;&lt;param name="quality" value="high"&gt;&lt;param name="scale" value="noscale"&gt;&lt;param name="salign" value="l"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt; &lt;param name="flashvars" value="cy=ms&amp;amp;il=1&amp;amp;channel=2233785415183888307&amp;amp;site=widget-b3.slide.com"&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.slide.com/pivot?cy=ms&amp;amp;at=un&amp;amp;id=2233785415183888307&amp;amp;map=1" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://widget-b3.slide.com/p1/2233785415183888307/ms_t011_v000_s0un_f00/images/xslide1.gif" ismap="ismap" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.slide.com/pivot?cy=ms&amp;amp;at=un&amp;amp;id=2233785415183888307&amp;amp;map=2" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://widget-b3.slide.com/p2/2233785415183888307/ms_t011_v000_s0un_f00/images/xslide2.gif" ismap="ismap" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Currently in the land of my &lt;b&gt;forefathers,&lt;/b&gt; about to set off to West &lt;b&gt;Wales&lt;/b&gt; for a few days of peace and tranquility. A short spell of the above will hopefully reconfigure my brain circuitry and put me back in general harmony with the universe. Restricted access to the WWW and technology generally will be no bad thing either. Just me, the birds, the badgers, and &lt;b&gt;Mother Nature&lt;/b&gt; watching over us all, even when we're in the pub.&lt;br /&gt;Canfod 'ch i mewn hychydig ddiwrnodau &lt;b&gt;pop-fynnod. &lt;/b&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-7634605233686871313?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/10/heading-for-hills.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-351000076803937936</guid><pubDate>Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:27:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-10-10T21:11:23.539Z</atom:updated><title>Age of Chance v Guardian</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://rippingvinyl.co.uk/2009/06/23/no9-age-of-chance/"&gt;Listening to: Age of Chance - Kisspower&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Just a qui&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/aoc_v_guardian_geoff_pic-706539.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 186px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;ckie boys &amp;amp; girls, by way of an &lt;b&gt;add-on&lt;/b&gt; to that last post:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Age of Chance v The Guardian&lt;/b&gt; is out today. A great interview with Angus Batey, y'all can read it online &lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/08/age-of-chance-mash-ups"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;. Having just read it myself, I think I might dig out some of my old &lt;b&gt;cycling-gear&lt;/b&gt; from the vaults then maybe wander around the environs surrounding &lt;i&gt;Chéz Sonique&lt;/i&gt; in the hope of being recognised by Guardian readers. Yes, badly in need of an &lt;b&gt;ego-rub&lt;/b&gt; here. However, a more likely scenario is that I'll end up getting chased into a deserted windmill by irate local arbiters of good taste brandishing farming implements and flaming torches. As of today I say, screw 'em - read the papers fules, I'm a &lt;b&gt;Pioneer&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;, &lt;/b&gt;it sez so right &lt;i&gt;there&lt;/i&gt;. Peace, out.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-351000076803937936?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/10/age-of-chance-v-guardian.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-291008871620253381</guid><pubDate>Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:34:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-01-16T20:56:52.481Z</atom:updated><title>This is the Age of Chance</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSTdCAx-r7o"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Age of Chance - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Noise&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/AOC---BIG-BAD-NOISE---GEOFF-explosion-748693.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 235px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;The musical part of my previous existence is now available to buy pop-kids, as &lt;b&gt;EMI&lt;/b&gt; have digitally re-issued the entire &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ageofchance.com/P/06.htm"&gt;Age of Chance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; back catalogue. Yes indeed, the &lt;b&gt;dayglo-constructivist-lycra-clad&lt;/b&gt; underbelly of the 80's is out there and available once more.&lt;br /&gt;While I'm at it, here are some links which the more discerning &lt;b&gt;music-lovers&lt;/b&gt; amongst you will find useful:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Age of Chance&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;back-catalogue - Buy &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ageofchance.com/P/09.htm"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;Also released are &lt;b&gt;3 previously unheard&lt;/b&gt; tracks from the &lt;b&gt;Playing With Fire&lt;/b&gt; sessions:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Definition of a Riot&lt;/b&gt; - AOC's wild deconstruction of&lt;b&gt; Flame On &lt;/b&gt;and 2 other remixes:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Longest Day&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;Midsummer RMX. &lt;/b&gt;Y'all need to hear these.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;AOC Official website&lt;/b&gt; - &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ageofchance.com/"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt;Of special note with the latter is the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"&gt;sleeve artwork&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt; section &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ageofchance.com/P/03.htm"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;. There are some great little hidden&lt;b&gt; eggs&lt;/b&gt; in some of the sleeves for your visual delectation. Look carefully.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"&gt;Great interview:&lt;b&gt; AOC v The Quietus &lt;a href="http://thequietus.com/articles/02595-age-of-chance-interview-classic-indie"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "&gt;&lt;b&gt;AOC Back-Cat&lt;/b&gt; reviewed&lt;b&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.remembertheeighties.com/index2.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/b&gt;(click Reviews &gt; Age of Chance)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Age of Chance live&lt;/b&gt; &lt;b&gt;onstage&lt;/b&gt; - Great photos &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://homepage.mac.com/molyneuxlinda/Age%20of%20Chance/index4.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Excellent article on the &lt;b&gt;AOC &lt;/b&gt;sleeve-artwork company &lt;b&gt;Designer's Republic &lt;/b&gt;with free downloadable and very groovy  &lt;b&gt;DesRep Mix&lt;/b&gt; - &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.noiseheatpower.com/brain_aided_dancing.htm"&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;AOC's legendary, super-rare &lt;b&gt;12"&lt;/b&gt; sample-fest &lt;b&gt;Kisspower&lt;/b&gt;: Free download &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://rippingvinyl.co.uk/2009/06/23/no9-age-of-chance/"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;div&gt;There are two items which are not being re-issued - The first two 7" singles &lt;b&gt;Motorcity&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;Bible of the Beats, &lt;/b&gt;on the band's own &lt;b&gt;Riot Bible &lt;/b&gt;label. This is because &lt;b&gt;EMI&lt;/b&gt; don't own the rights to them, &lt;b&gt;AOC&lt;/b&gt; do.&lt;br /&gt;I'm sure they'll make a reappearance at some point in the future, but for now &lt;b&gt;Motorcity &lt;/b&gt;is on the accompanying CD to John Robb's current bestseller &lt;b&gt;Death to Trad Rock, &lt;/b&gt;an exhaustive study of the 80's &lt;b&gt;Indie/Noise&lt;/b&gt; scene, which of course AOC feature significantly in. Available &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.fanstar.co.uk/showscreen.php?site_id=6&amp;amp;screentype=folder&amp;amp;screenid=160&amp;amp;shopaction=showproduct&amp;amp;product_id=2114&amp;amp;categoryfilter=22"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/b&gt;and all leading book shops. If you can't rush out and buy this one right away, you'll be wanting to place it at the very pinnacle of your Christmas list. &lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bible of the Beats,&lt;/b&gt; on the other hand, is available on the excellent 2-disc, 48 track &lt;b&gt;CD86&lt;/b&gt; compilation, &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/CD86-Various-Artists/dp/B000HT3KO2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=music&amp;amp;qid=1254857670&amp;amp;sr=1-1"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;Make copious notes class, as I'll be asking questions at a later date.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-291008871620253381?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/10/this-is-age-of-chance.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-2191983224461865216</guid><pubDate>Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:34:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-10-07T14:23:31.366Z</atom:updated><title>It's a Beautiful Day</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCsoJCW-Gzk"&gt;Listening to: Burial - Versus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/itsabeautifulday-771861.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 319px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hello boys &amp;amp; girls. No, &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the U2 song of the same name. It just is. A &lt;b&gt;beautiful day&lt;/b&gt;, that is. &lt;b&gt;October&lt;/b&gt; and the sun still shines down on selected corners of Cruel Britannia. I didn't feel so great yesterday to be honest, but today, once I'd taken my morning swim with the dolphins then re-emerged into the sunlight, everything seemed right-ish again.&lt;br /&gt;Part of this has to do with me giving up on one or two projects that were proving to be a definite waste of my time and energy. Sometimes you just have to admit &lt;b&gt;defeat&lt;/b&gt; and bow out, and I have. The &lt;b&gt;upside&lt;/b&gt; is that now I can better use my time for things that really matter, and I'll be sharing these with y'all pretty soon.&lt;br /&gt;Today I also dropped off a couple of big bags of clothes-I'm-never-going-to-wear-again (some of them quite &lt;b&gt;groovy&lt;/b&gt; I'll have you know) at the local RSPCA shop, so the cats and dogs will all be cheering too. Good &lt;b&gt;Karma&lt;/b&gt; must be on the cards for me now, surely. I have a definite cosmic backlog of that particular commodity which I need to collect, quite soon if possible.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-2191983224461865216?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/10/listening-to-burial-versus-hello-boys.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-4258890461007773700</guid><pubDate>Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-01-16T20:57:49.690Z</atom:updated><title>Summer the 2nd Time</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8YpOM7LVew"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Alice Cooper - Hello Hooray&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/Soltan3-796321.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I report, dear reader, from the throes of an  ongoing &lt;b&gt;heatwave&lt;/b&gt; here in Cruel Britannia.  No, not a misprint, and not an opener I've used before it must be said, especially in &lt;b&gt;September&lt;/b&gt;. As far as I'm concerned, if at all possible, on that rare occasion the sun comes out to play these days, it's time to put down whatever you're doing and re-organise your day. The cold hard fact is that very soon the &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time"&gt;Great Darkness&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; will descend upon this fair isle, and that will be that until next &lt;b&gt;Spring&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;Along with this all-pervading gloom come the &lt;b&gt;Winter Apologists&lt;/b&gt; - you know 'em, drizzle-loving, dampness addicted -  singing their seasonal song about the ever-changing colours, the kaleidoscopic beauty and natural wonderment of &lt;b&gt;Autumn&lt;/b&gt;. Yeah, maybe in Aspen, Colorado you delusional flower-children. Over here it's just &lt;b&gt;Brown&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;It's all part of the &lt;b&gt;Weird Weather&lt;/b&gt; patterns we live with nowadays though. I mean, the last few days here have been sun-drenched and cloudless. We just don't get to see that anymore, even in  midsummer. Anyhoo, I'm just going with it while it lasts.&lt;br /&gt;On another topic altogether, yesterday as I'm sure y'all know, was the eighth anniversary of&lt;b&gt; 9/11. &lt;/b&gt;Normally I'd have done a &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/2008/09/911-seven-years-on.html"&gt;commemorative blog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; in accordance with this, but I just couldn't rouse myself at all. A couple of nights back I watched a U.S. TV documentary whose entire remit was to make &lt;b&gt;9/11-as-Inside-Job&lt;/b&gt; theories look like Aliens-have-fiddled-with-me ramblings. Nothing new there I know, but it insulted my intelligence enough for me to switch it off, and kind of dulled my urge to write about it.&lt;br /&gt;Even the most obvious aspects of the 9/11 attacks bear further investigation. Like, whatever it was that &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paWiZ2Y8fRg"&gt;hit the Pentagon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; and exploded, it most definitely &lt;i&gt;wasn't&lt;/i&gt; a &lt;b&gt;Boeing 757&lt;/b&gt;. As a recent speeding summons of mine stated: We have photographic evidence.&lt;br /&gt;The &lt;b&gt;9/11 Truth&lt;/b&gt; will out in the fullness of time pop-kids, you'll see.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-4258890461007773700?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/09/summer-2nd-time.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-2759906383726059528</guid><pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:12:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-28T08:33:11.887Z</atom:updated><title>Ellie Greenwood</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Listening to: See below&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"   style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);  font-weight: normal;  white-space: pre; font-family:Arial;font-size:10px;"&gt;&lt;object width="425" height="344"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hweXcgF1DRI&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;"&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hweXcgF1DRI&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;This RIP thing is getting depressing, so I'll keep it short. Reading about the death of &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/27/ellie-greenwich"&gt;Ellie Greenwood&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; today, I knew that she'd written a fair number of 60's hits but I never realised just how &lt;i&gt;many&lt;b&gt;.&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/i&gt;Let's face it, she'd have gone down in history if she'd only ever written &lt;b&gt;River Deep Mountain High&lt;/b&gt;, but she penned &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.elliegreenwich.com/musicography.htm"&gt;so many&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/b&gt;transcendent pop songs it's untrue. &lt;b&gt;Phil Spector&lt;/b&gt;'s Wall of Sound would never have been built without her, and the history of popular music would've been very different indeed.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-2759906383726059528?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/08/ellie-greenwood.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-7428566160491702108</guid><pubDate>Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:25:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-24T09:11:01.869Z</atom:updated><title>A Random Thing of Beauty</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuUvGh9-Ef4"&gt;Listening to: MFSB - Love is the Message&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"   style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);  font-weight: normal;  white-space: pre; font-family:Arial;font-size:10px;"&gt;&lt;object width="425" height="344"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VmwzVhqX-2k&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;rel=0"&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VmwzVhqX-2k&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Here's something I came across over the weekend, and I post it for no other reason than it made me smile. I'm no &lt;b&gt;Luddite&lt;/b&gt;, but it's so good to see a place like this doing brisk business. Long may it do so. For much the same reason, I'm currently listening to the mighty &lt;b&gt;MFSB&lt;/b&gt; anthem &lt;b&gt;Love is the Message&lt;/b&gt;. A great way to enter the coming week. Click on the title above and turn your speakers up to see what I mean. I should do more of this random stuff pop-kids, it's jolly therapeutic.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-7428566160491702108?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/08/listening-to-mfsb-love-is-message-heres.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-1294327564114702471</guid><pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:07:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-14T15:02:55.170Z</atom:updated><title>Exit Les Paul</title><description>&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnC4VXaYJLQ"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Apollo 100 - Joy&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 221px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/les-paul-1-785921.jpg" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align="left"&gt;Guitar legend &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul"&gt;Les Paul&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; died earlier today, aged 94. Without him, it's difficult to speculate how any music over the past 60-plus years that ever required an electric guitar might have ended up sounding. Such were the strides he personally made in &lt;b&gt;guitar&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;recording&lt;/b&gt; technology. In tandem with this, he developed a truly innovative playing style and had a successsful recording career - &lt;b&gt;36&lt;/b&gt; gold records and &lt;b&gt;11&lt;/b&gt; US number ones. In every sense of the word, a complete Original.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-1294327564114702471?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/08/exit-les-paul.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-5671082311755836002</guid><pubDate>Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-14T09:25:23.338Z</atom:updated><title>Back on the Horse</title><description>&lt;div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4-155tCLKM"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#ff0000;"&gt;Listening to: Unkle - I Need Something Stronger&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#ff0000;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: left" alt="" src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/Pudsey-pool-2-735617.jpg" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;Good day music lovers everywhere. Every morning this week for yours truly has started at 8.00am in the basement of &lt;i&gt;Chéz Sonique&lt;/i&gt;, the &lt;b&gt;swimming-chamber&lt;/b&gt;. Yes, I've decided that it's officially time to get things moving again with a spot of the ol' exercise. I've not done any of the latter for much too long now, mainly due to my &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/2008/08/good-news-not-so-good-news.html"&gt;Big Mishap of 2008&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;. To this end I have returned the relevant staff to full-time duties and have, with their assistance, managed to regain some of my former &lt;b&gt;aqua-skills&lt;/b&gt;. Not exactly back to my &lt;b&gt;Young Dolphin&lt;/b&gt; status of course, but I have no doubt that this will come.&lt;br /&gt;It's time to celebrate what's left of the Summer pop-kids. If I owned a surfboard, I promise you I'd be waxing it vigourously.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-5671082311755836002?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/08/back-on-horse_06.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-6218226876775424740</guid><pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:19:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-10-06T18:33:24.521Z</atom:updated><title>The Weekend that Was</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtCpttsZiys"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Moon - OST&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/bbc_leeds_interview-771742.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Good morning Blog citizens, welcome to the week. Not a bad weekend all in all for yours truly. Saturday I was interviewed by Mr. &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.wherediditallgoright.com/index2.html"&gt;Andrew Collins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; for BBC &lt;b&gt;6Music.&lt;/b&gt; Arrived at the studios early so that &lt;b&gt;Panic&lt;/b&gt; would not be allowed to enter the proceedings. Found there to be no-one on the reception desk, doors locked, no lights on. Stood outside for 15 minutes or so, until I could alert a grown-up to my predicament. After some indoor waiting around, I was shown to a small room by a helpful chap, who handed me a pair of headphones and informed me that the appropriate folks would be 'Dialling me up as and when'. Helpful Chap then ran off at top-speed to present the news on local TV. My thanks to him.&lt;br /&gt;I sat and stared at a grey wall, listening to the amplified sound of my own increasingly shallow breathing in the head-set for 20 minutes or more. Several calls were made to yet more grown-ups, each growing in fractiousnesss. &lt;b&gt;Panic&lt;/b&gt; entered the proceedings. Eventually, I'm happy to report, contact was made and an effortless conversation about the finer points of &lt;b&gt;Popular Culture&lt;/b&gt; was broadcast to the nation. Result.&lt;br /&gt;This morning I have swum like a juvenile dolphin and am supercharged with positivity for the coming week. Onward.™&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-6218226876775424740?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/08/that-was-weekend-that-was.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22648826.post-328649117193011064</guid><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:55:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-01T08:44:48.390Z</atom:updated><title>Curb Your Seinfeld</title><description>&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F-CpE73o2M"&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span"  style="color:#FF0000;"&gt;Listening to: Fever Ray - When I Grow Up&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.sonicavenger.com/uploaded_images/curb_seinfeld-712012.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 326px; height: 217px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;At last, amid all the war, famine, pestilence and downright &lt;b&gt;rudeness&lt;/b&gt; out there, a sign that there may indeed be a God. The entire cast of &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.sonicavenger.com/2008/11/doing-opposite.html"&gt;Seinfeld&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; have been written into the forthcoming 7th series (U.S. readers: Season) of &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrGwhoN0K8"&gt;Curb Your Enthusiasm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.  Read about it &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-7-31-seinfeld-reunion-coming-to-curb-your-enthusiasm"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;I can only imagine that Michael &lt;b&gt;Kramer&lt;/b&gt; Richards will be glad of the employment again following his &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_ac-op8IA"&gt;onstage meltdown&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; of a couple of years ago.&lt;br /&gt;For anyone not familiar with Seinfeld who may be experiencing some &lt;b&gt;Sein-Curiosity&lt;/b&gt;, try watching &lt;b&gt;Curb&lt;/b&gt; (as we say) then working backwards to it. You'll see the evolution. Don't bother too much with the last few series though. Co-creator &lt;b&gt;Larry David&lt;/b&gt; had left to do CYE by then, and his absence was more than evident. Go for what are referred to on the box-set as the &lt;b&gt;Yadda-Yadda Years&lt;/b&gt;. Then, when you've learned all the scripts, get back to me because I don't know many, in fact &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; &lt;b&gt;Sein-Fans&lt;/b&gt; and I need recruits with whom I can back &amp;amp; forth all the one-liners and in-jokes.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22648826-328649117193011064?l=www.sonicavenger.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.sonicavenger.com/2009/07/curb-your-seinfeld.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Sonic Avenger)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item></channel></rss>