kierandelaney.net

2007’s Top Albums

Posted by Kieran - 30/12/07 at 12:12:09 pm

I sat down to write this a few hours ago, and I’ve just decided I’m finished. Its like to back to the future, writing the beginning last, after I already wrote what comes next. I’ve put this list of 10 albums (plus one honourable mention) in no discernible order. Everything is here on merit, not on past glories (sorry Bad Religion, but you know, it was a backwards step). If you buy one of these albums, make sure it’s Circus Acts brilliant Sleepwalkingthetightrope.

This year, for perhaps the first time since I actually discovered music had words and songs meant something, I’ve struggled to listen to all the new music I’ve found. I’m not sure if its just a dwindling amount of time (new job, new house etc.) or if its also something to do with the explosion of underground promotion. Take Circus Act’s Sleepwalkingthetightrope. Before this year I’d have never heard of them. Not very well toured, not exactly breaking into the top 10. But, reading a review on punktastic lead me to their website. Obviously I downloaded the three free tracks. And you know what? Its the best album of the year, and better still, it cost a fiver. Within one listen of the first track I was laying down the paypal details. If you spend £5 on anything, make sure you get this album, which is like catchy pop played by At The Drive in with more than a few time changes, three vocalists and the dirtiest sense of self knowing you’ll hear. Brilliant music, and probably the best British release this year.

And it makes me think - how crazy are the piracy zealots? 6 of the 10 albums I’ve listed here I would never have even bothered with if it wasn’t for a myspace/purevolume and yes Oink. Circus Act I found through a webzine. They made three tracks available - for free. I was hooked. Making those tracks available didn’t bankrupt them - it earnt them at least one sale, probably countless others.

Another example is Massachusetts based Four Year Strong, with Rise Or Die Trying. Hyped to bollocks by the “underground scene” (read the internet kids) as the new Set Your Goals (dual vocals, beat downs, soaring choruses, melodic, uplifting…) although Four Year Strong are a little different. For a start they’re far more of a pop punk beast with a smattering of hardcore, as opposed to the poppy posi-core of SYG. However check out half the album on Myspace, and its pretty clear there’s no hype smoke without fire. Brilliant, and lyrically uplifting Four Year Strong have kept a shit eating grin plastered on my face for months.

One of the most anticipated albums of my year has to have been Career Suicide by A Wilhelm Scream. Pre-empted by jaw dropping single (song of the year, no doubt) 5 - 9, this album was always going to find it tough to live up to Ruiner and Mute Print, their previous efforts. And whilst they’ve already released their best song, this album literally blew me away. Nothing could have prepared me for such an amazing album. In terms of bat shit crazy, balls to the wall, melodic hardcore AWS are peerless.

Writing the record, I kinda talked the guys into a system I like to call “more is more”. Basically, musically and vocally, as much shit as you can possibly fit into a song and pull off live, fucking throw it in, that’s why there’s harmonies and fucked up beats and guitar crap all over the place.

Going for a change of pace, the summer was all about the blissful chilled out reggae of Tim Armstrong’s A Poets Life and Mad Caddies‘ Keep It Going. Whilst Tim Armstrongs album was originally recorded in 2006, its May 2007 release meant it dropped in time for summer and as Hold On demonstrates, it was all about sitting in the sun and relaxing. Mad Caddies however took the reggae vibe more in the direction of their traditional ska, and partially into the fringes of punk, but nonetheless, they’ve managed to produce their most accomplished well rounded album to date. These two albums were brilliant.

It doesn’t seem like any year can pass without Fat Wreck Chords releasing something that sticks in my head. Smoke Or Fire’s This Sinking Ship crept in and stayed there. Its really probably just more of the same, melodic punk rock that’s catchy but not sugary sweet, but its kept me entertained for the best part of the year.

Two more British bands that have really pushed the scene in this country are Capdown and The Ghost Of A Thousand. I’ve waxed lyrical about TGOAT and their brand of Refused style hardcore. If there’s one fault with their debut This Is Where The Fight Begins its that its not quite varied enough. But its head and shoulders above Gallows debut, which has been re-released 201 times. Its got groove and anger and some subtle melody - hopefully with a bit more variation they’ll get the recognition they deserve. Capdown are another band that have never really gained the recognition they deserve. Blistering live shows, huge songs - but they never moved out of the toilet circuit. Wind Up Toys was always going to polarise the existing fanbase, but a band can only release the same album so many times before people get bored. WUT is a brilliant record, slightly more straight laced, less punk, but no less furious - gone too is the plethora sax solos, and the band sound better for it. Gone is the simple verse-chorus-verse-PARP-chorus and in comes some tricky structures with every song having its own rhythm. A massive step forward, and shamefully set to be their last as the band have decided to call it a day.

Biffy Clyro’s Puzzle is one of those albums you feel like you waited forever for. Its a stunning work from start to finish - their fourth album, first on a major label, is a combination of everything before. I’ve yet to catch them live, and i guess i’ve missed my chance to see them in a small venue now.

Finally (and by no means at the bottom of the list) Reuben’s In Nothing We Trust. Reuben would probably have been in my list if they dropped a polished turd, but this album is amazing. Reuben have always had a knack at writing melodic rock songs, like an angry Foo Fighters with some angular leanings and a bit of heavy riffery. On this release though there are no obvious 3 minute pop songs. This is another stunning album, from another British band. There’s 9 minute prog-metal work outs and delicate acoustic ballads (with nasty words) - but its not just thrown together it all flows perfectly.

And finally, you can’t really consider a best of compilation for a top list, but No Use For A Name deserve an honourable mention for All The Best Songs which is obviously all the best songs. 26 of them.

Merry Christmas

Posted by Kieran - 24/12/07 at 03:12:13 pm

So how seasonal? It doesn’t feel like xmas at all. I mean apart from the fact that I get to listen to xmas music in ever shop i go to and even at work, where they have erected a giant 6ft christmas stereo pumping out the same 7 songs on repeat. I’ve never been a violent person particularly but i now have a hit list of seven people who need a special “visit”.

So what does christmas mean anyway? We nailed this guy to a cross 2000 or so years ago (well, i guess about 992 years give or take, but lets not be morbid) and now we realised that may have been a bit hasty. So to celbrate his birth in gratuitous over the top “sorry we’re wrong we didn’t mean it, it was all the jews fault” fashion we smugly eat as much as we possibly can and squabble over who got the shittest socks.

Its like easter, when we eat chocolate eggs to symbolise Jesus being reborn out of a giant chickens rectum covered in cocoa powder. No wait, thats not right is it?

Above all its tradition. Built on more tradition. It used to be really expensive to buy a turkey so everyone did, to ease the collective guilt of nailing our one possible hope to a cross. Maybe he was a kook, strung out on whatever class A’s they had at the time, but maybe, just maybe, he was telling the truth, so lets spend lots of money and book a ticket to heaven.

Funnily enough, the only time of year that turkey is still expensive is december. You’d be amazed who cheap a 20lb oven busting clipped wing bird is in January.

Xmas is also the time of year that Simon Cowell pats himself on the back and gets a new set of teeth for the year ahead. I’m not joking, he flashes that shit eating grin so much he must need a new set of teeth every 12 months. Mind you, if he can make a global star out of Beavis I guess he’s paid his dues.

So anyway, I’m sitting at work and I’m listening to christmas songs, and its like Dante’s Inferno (literally the air conditioning is wacked up to 400 degrees because “its winter”). I’m trying to concentrate, which funnily enough I’m paid to do, and its literally impossible when some squeeky cock is shrieking “don’t let the bells end” on your ear. What does that even mean???

I can’t wait til its all over tbh, and i can get myself some High Def 50″ Plasma Bargain. Thats what christmas is all about, the relentless grinding of the corporate machine squeezing pennies out of you because its traditional and a religion which no one follows anymore feels a bit guilty about something which may or may not have happened.

Pssh. On a side note our christmas tree is the tits.

SimpleLife Plugin Ready!

Posted by Kieran - 21/12/07 at 08:12:17 am

So I hacked together a lifestream using SimplePie, and it turned out quite a few people were interested. Whilst it was great for people who could code or who were interested in coding, it wasn’t great for the PHP challenged amongst us - what the greater community really needs, even those who are big on code but short on time, is simplicity.

So I set about tranforming my PHP script into a fully fledged plugin for wordpress, below is a preview of the options page:

As you can see - everything is contained on one options screen. Click on the color labels for each feed and up pops a 217 web safe colour palette. Choose a colour and you get an example in the box. The piece de resistence though, save the options and the plugin automatically updates the username/feed field to give you an up to date example of what each lifestream option will look like for that feed. Color clashes? Change them!

Also - in most cases its enough to enter your service username. However, some sites aren’t compatible with this such as flickr - I *could* add some scripting to change a flickr username to an ID, but in my experience this is not only buggy, but requries the bundling of the Flickr API, which adds a bit of overhead. Instead you just add your ID (there is a link to IDGETTR which will tell you your ID).

Is there anything I’ve not thought of I wonder? I’ll provide a limit for number of items shown, and of course there will be a widget as standard. Please let me know if there is anything you’d be interested in seeing in the first release proper, or in future releases. Spread the word too if you can, I don’t want this to be the best lifestream plugin I want it to be the wordpress lifestream plugin.

PS. Anyone any good at styling plugin options screens, I’m struggling to make my options pretty in layout

Idiot Takes Out Loan With 2.6m% APR, Then Moans “Its Expensive”

Posted by Kieran - 20/12/07 at 12:12:55 pm

It’s disgusting really that anybody can be that stupid. Its quite horrific to think that someone somewhere would take a loan out for £800 and accept to pay back £800 a month forever. Then, when the chips are down, what did she do? She took out another loan. With a slightly better 16k% APR.

The first loan, which came with an interest rate of 2,639,385.9 per cent APR, was agreed with Early Payday Loan Ltd (EPDL) based in Windsor, which lends up to £800 a time to clients.

The second loan, which came with an interest rate of 16,203.2 per cent APR, was agreed with Payday UK, based in Milton Keynes. That was for £225, but within 16 days the cost of repayment was £281.25.

Amazing. Apparently most people don’t even read the APR on small loans. Excuse me? When they have to widen to page to fit the digits on, its difficult not to notice.

There is no excuse for stupidity like that. None at all.

Article

Picturegrid Wordpress Plugin

Posted by Kieran - 15/12/07 at 10:12:04 pm

The wordpress plugin I’ve been working on is finally done and sitting at v1.0

Picturegrid allows anybody with a Flickr account and a Wordpress powered blog to insert their photographs directly into their website. Fully featured plugin provides:

• Options Page
• Sidebar Widget
• Lightbox Support
• Add Anywhere

All you need is a wordpress blog, a Flickr account and a free flickr API key to make use of the plugin - the sidebar widget allows you to easily show your favourite or recent photos, whilst making your own page template (literally adding one line of php) means you can have a lightweight gallery of up to 500 images with a lightbox or without.

Project Page

Inconvenient Truths

Posted by Kieran - 15/12/07 at 11:12:06 am

Hello I live in the UK. Its really cold. I mean, -1 degree this morning. Icy! I know some people who live in the USA. Where right now (yes i realise its a big place) there are catastrophic ice storms which have killed 22 people. Global warming? I’m probably going to hell for this, certainly my children will burn in eternal fire if the IPCC is to be believed, but i quite like the idea of it all warming up a bit. I wouldn’t have to fly anywhere to go and catch some summer holiday sun. I wouldn’t have to drive to work on dangerous freezing roads in the winter. Scraping ice of a car window is a bitch.

Anyway, much aside from all that (its 90 degrees on the equator, will they really notice one more?), Al Gore recently got theNobel Peace Prize. I love the idea of him holding peace talks with the raging weather systems, he certainly fucked up the middle east with Clinton. I hate Al Gore. More than Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas (London Bridge doesn’t go down you drug muppet, that’s Tower Bridge - meth sure does destroy the brain). He’s a despicable tosspot. Ex vice president needs to make cash quick. Needs a career really - i mean ever since George Dubbya stole his presidency. What to do? What’s hip, vogue, and absolutely guaranteed to cash in on peoples fear and hysteria (an American politicians specialisation)? CLIMATE CHANGE.

Trouble is “Call Me” Al, when you were vice president of the worlds largest economy, for 8 years (8 lonnnnng years) you did slightly less than fuck all about Americas carbon footprint. Heres one for the records. Al Gore the money grabbing morally bankrupt “fund raiser”? No, not Al Gore the vice president who would rather batter developing nations with trade sanctions to protect his own countries drug companies than prevent the spread of the worst disease faced by human kind? Yes Al that’s a no brainer, of course greedy multinationals come before human life. Those inconvenient truths get everywhere don’t they.

Now, I’m not going to enter into the debate on whether or not global warming, climate change etc is happening and whether or not its human led. But, lets not be alarmist about the whole thing. In fact a UK high court judge has ruled that An Inconvenient Money Spinner can only be sent to schools when accompanied by a document detailing the other side of the argument

• Mr Gore’s assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”. The judge said this was “distinctly alarmist” and it was common ground that if Greenland’s ice melted it would release this amount of water - “but only after, and over, millennia”.
• Mr Gore’s assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
• Mr Gore’s reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned “swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice”. The judge said: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.”

But then who would let facts get in the way of stirring up a storm?

I mean the fact that Global Dimming, caused by such things as aeroplanes flying in the sky, is actually contributing to keeping our surface temperature down? That’s no fun! No fun at all! You can’t tax the bollocks of people going on holiday in planes if they think they might be helping Africa get some chilly respite. Evidence for this was observed by scientists during the three days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. During that time all commercial flights were grounded, and gave scientists the opportunity to study the effects on temperature without contrails. The effect was that the range in temperature increased by 1 degree centigrade. This was considered to be a significant and substantial effect for such a short time.

But you know, even that’s being one sided. See how easy it is to manipulate the facts to keep yourself on the lucrative lecture circuit (and the cash prize from Nobel)? Global Dimming of course has its drawbacks - for a start its masking the effect of any warming that is actually occurring - global warming could be worse than it is (this is also rightly a positive if its holding back catastrophe). Read the article and side effects like acid rain (not tasty) and asthma in kids (not tasty) become apparent.

The crux of the whole thing though? Interfering bastards. I get up. Its raining. I get out my coat and i go to work like every other day of the year. A politician gets up. Its raining. He immediately asserts that a) he should do something to stop this and b) this might give him some leverage on his political opponents.

And guess what? It doesn’t always work. Brazil, being pressured by chaps like hypocrite Gore, are about to build shitloads of hydro electric dams.

Brazil has plans for a massive reservoir-building programme in the Amazon region that would increase the surface area of the country’s reservoirs twentyfold. That, says Fearnside, would raise emissions of greenhouse gases from Brazil’s reservoirs to the equivalent of more than 200 million tonnes of CO 2 a year—over three times the country’s current annual emissions from burning fossil fuels.

The BBC have a more idiot proof article.

Turns out Al, its not quite as simple as your bandwagon makes out.

And Live Earth….. how much carbon did that cockfest burn? ALL THOSE LIGHTS. And the plane tickets for the predominantly American cast playing in London.

Those inconvenient truths really do get everywhere.

ABSTRACT

Posted by Kieran - 13/12/07 at 10:12:10 pm

Its been a while, but you know, ever since BT shafted me and chalked one up for the massively incompetent customer service-less bastard award by changing our number and cancelling our broadband I’ve been going through my old photos rather than going through other peoples old photos on Flickr.

Anyway these aren’t old photos at all, they’re NEW. All shot on a cheap 35mm disposable camera. At my works Christmas Party. They’re much better than drunk peoples faces, much better.

All Abstract Photos

SimpleLife Updates

Posted by Kieran - 05/12/07 at 03:12:49 pm

My Wordpress Plugin SimpleLife has been featured on popular lifestreaming blog http://lifestreamblog.com.

Based on some early feedback, I’ve also updated the roadmap to show my intentions now I’ve hit a usable beta.

This basically details me turning it from a page template into a fully fledged plugin. I intend on allowing people to put their service usernames into an options page and allow simplelife to generate the feed address dynamically, i also intend on allowing users to add aditional themes.

Finally, i hope to introduce a visual style generator into the options page so each feed can be styled from within the options page.

Phew!

He’s Behind You!

Posted by Kieran - 03/12/07 at 01:12:36 pm

I don’t know if anyone thought this through, but Frank Bruno’s current resurgance as the queen of pantomime seems a little ill conceived.

Imagine putting a man with a history of paranoid schizophrenia on a stage and then getting 300 people a night screaming “he’s behind you”.

Cesc!

Posted by Kieran - 02/12/07 at 10:12:19 pm

Sometimes we take the little man for granted - he’s always a the end of the bed when we wake up and he’s always on our laps when we’re watching tv.

More Photos