On the move

Blogspot is fun, but I figured it would be even more fun to give Wordpress another go. Since I've already got my own domain anyway, there's no reason why I shouldn't play around with it. Fresh start and all that. Sort of reminds me of the good old days with Movable Type, my first-last-and-only proper blog, which spammers sadly got the better of. See you on the other side.

We will never sever

I was wrong. Very wrong. Dubstep is my kind of dance music. It all boils down to the essence of the genre; the down-tempo beats, the nostril-tickling sub bass, and the occasional build-up that breaks up the monotone waves of motion and smashes you back down on the floor when the bass hits again.

So yes, I went to The Villa to see Skream, a relatively big name in the world of dubstep. Suffice it to say I haven't been to a more fun live set since Surkin at Hovefestivalen last year. Once we decided to leave the not-so comfortable safety of our table there was never going to be any turning back. And when I finally woke up in the PM I didn't feel as though I'd been through a terrorcore aerobics class either, so everything turned out great.

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Technical note: I'm testing Friendfeed, and if all goes well this post should be sent to Twitter. Oh the joy of Web2.0 :)

Sold my bed, no need to sleep these nights

What do people do on dubstep concerts/raves/whatever-you-call-it? You can't really jump or dance or shout along with the songs, but I'm sure I'll think of something. It's not as if it's a problem anyway. After all, the hundreds of times I've been to live shows I've mostly had my feet firmly set on the floor, one hand clutching a beer and the other in a pocket. Just like everyone else. Norwegian crowds are tough.

So I'm all set for witnessing a genuine dubstep performance on Friday. There really is a first time for everything. Not really my cup of tea, but dubstep is a tiny genre that practically nobody likes, so going to a show is going to give me that sweet feeling of being more eclectic and hence better than everyone else. Narcissism still is the most comforting place to go.

In other news I've been really bored for a few days. And when I get bored things like this happen: Website makeover (if you for some inane reason still insist on using Internet Explorer 6, don't expect too much. Instead go here or here or here and download an alternative web browser). The drawback is a severe change in my circadian rhytm; daylight saving time didn't help either.

The wanting comes in waves

If anyone manage to release an even more magnificent album than 'The Hazards of Love' in 2009 I'll declare this year the greatest in the history of music. Yeasayer and (hopefully) 120 Days, I'm looking in your direction.

Sometimes things get, whatever...

...or Probably Not The Top 5 Albums of 2008 or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trance.

Well, not really. But to compensate for the lack of albums on this 2008 roundup, I needed a few fat headings.

Anyway, everyone knows the routine: Some person you don't know anything about lists ten or twenty records, of which you've probably heard of half at best. That's usually the way it goes in my case. Especially in 2008, which is why I didn't bother to compile such a list until now. And unlike 100% of all the other ones I've seen so far, this is a list that does not include any of the following: Glasvegas. Vampire Weekend. Fleet Foxes. Fair enough, I never really gave them a chance. But they didn't leave any impression on either the first, second or third listen, so in the end I didn't bother.

No more BS: (oh, and in no particular order)

Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Cut Copy visited Norway three times last year. Didn't catch them even once. However, In Ghost Colours will always be the soundtrack of my version of 2008, a year where the practical and predictable was set aside and I just decided to dance along to the good things that came my way.


deadmau5 - Random Album Title
Minimal House with elements of Trance, or vise versa. Nice background music while walking dogs or reading books. Everyone and his cousin wants to be remixed by the mouse these days, and the kid does have killer studio skills.


Lindstrøm - Where You Go I Go Too
Three tracks clocking in at just under an hour, starting off with the monster title track (29 minutes) It's never going to be a success, but if you're patient it pays off. Ambient electronic discoish stuff with a hint of every possible influence in the worlds of Italo and Jean Michel Jarre - needless to say, most of my friends hate it.


Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire - Lost Wisdom
The stuff that makes dead relationships come partly to life, if but only in your mind for a while, before the last song ends and you wake up in reality again. My number one choice as background noise while reading books too.


The Presets - Apocalypso
Ok album, but what a song! The spanking new video is an instant favourite.


That's about it. The first albums that came to mind when thinking of 2008, I guess that has to count for something. For good measure I'll add Sebastien Tellier - Sexuality too, but only because of L'Amour et la Violence...

No Go!

I don't usually mind looking slightly odd, weird, stupid or all of the above. After all, I proudly sported a moustache for å full month about a year ago, and at the end of the day it was a good laugh for everyone, and nobody got injured or killed.

At the time of writing I am almost dead and most definitely injured. Shoveling snow while coughing ectoplasm is described as the most efficient way to achieve a slow and painful death in 'Hernia for Dummies', and after successfully exercising the former a few minutes ago I'm not going to disagree. However, mere hernia popping out everywhere doesn't really seem too bad compared to fooling around in the front yard, running the risk of being spotted using The Mighty Wovel. Moustache or not, this just blew my funny fuse:

Power of the Night

Growing up in the 80s was always bound to leave some marks in a young boy's mind. Or perhaps it wasn't as much the decade itself, but more the experiences of childhood, which I would assume most people remember as somewhat surreal no matter what decade they belong to. I don't know.

Anyway, back then my neighbourhood was blessed with cable TV, so unlike our less fortunate brethren of the same generation who were merely left with one channel, me and the other kids were always up to date with the ongoings in the war between the Autobots and Decepticons, life on Eternia and not least Pat Sharp's mullet. And things were great.

My memories from back then more often than not involve kindergarden. Among the most memorable moments was the time me and three friends found a gun under the porch in the back. But I also remember an intensely warm summer, and dad would pick me up in his old, but really nice Renault 4, the kind with black leather seats that become too hot, which made a boy with typical 80s shorts show extreme caution while getting seated. On the way home we would stop at the gas station for some ice cream. Boysenberry ice cream that is. I've never seen a boysenberry, much less tasted one, but I'll be damned if that ice cream wasn't the best I'd ever had. And sometimes, probably not on those hot days though, we would go to the video store.

Now, I'd always choose something like Robotech or SuperTed. Safe stuff. But bigger things lurked in other parts of the store. And Critters was the holy grail. I have no idea why I so clearly remember that cover staring me down throughout my childhood, but it did. Needless to say I never really saw the movie itself. The cover was all I needed to get my imagination going. Up until now.

So yes, I just saw Critters. And what can I say? Is it good? In a Cannes sense of the word, it probably isn't. But this isn't a movie made for Cannes. It is a movie made for those of us who grew up being the first generation of mass market consumers, those of us who got up at 8 in the morning on saturdays to watch 3 hours of cartoons and one hour of toy commercials, those of us who still love strange action figures from distant galaxies and cartoons from the days when nobody cared about tv violence and its possible effect on kids all over the world. In other words; it was made for me. And even if it's only a matter of 80 minutes, for those 80 minutes it did take me back to long gone days when nothing and everything mattered. I can't really ask for more than that.