What A Week With John Kerrison #9

…and then the Vicar said, “and you thought that was holy water…” Oh, hello there, and welcome to Friday – the end of another 5-day period needlessly quantified by modern society as ‘a week’. It’s time for you all to kick back and relax, while I, much like a TV news presenter, sit behind my desk naked from the waist down and tell you all about this week’s world events. Over the last few days Nickelback have learnt to use the internet, only to discover that no-one likes them, Pete Doherty has written some songs that sound like they were recorded in a bucket and a new drug has emerged that makes people like Kate Bush. Are we all sitting comfortably? Good, then I’ll begin.

This Is Your Brain On Drugs. Now, This Is Kate Bush In Your Brain On Drugs.

The 60’s had Hippies, the 70’s had Mods, the 80’s had New-Wavers and the 90’s were treated to the torn-jeans and ironic-slogan clad t-shirts of The Slacker Generation. I’m still yet to define the counter culture of the modern day with a sweeping generalisation, but I can’t help but think that it’s becoming infinitely more likely that they will eventually be referred to as The Fuckwits.

A few days ago a story appeared detailing how scientists had expressed concerns over a new drug called ‘Roflcoptr’ – which your parents would probably refer to as ‘the funny stuff’ without any sense of irony whatsoever. I have no idea what Roflcoptr is. It could be a pill, it could be a powder or it could be a jagged piece of tree bark you cram into your urethra to turn your urine into a hallucinogen. I’m not particularly bothered either way. What bothers me is the fact that highly intelligent minds have seemingly worked quite hard to alter the chemical make-up of a substance in order to get high, only to name it after something morons type on Bebo.

Every time I see a TTYL an OMG or a GRNYFSTER I die a little inside, so please, if you must invent your own drugs – despite there already being quite a few around – do try and name it with words. I’m beginning to fear future generations will resort to communicating with flash cards, on which are drawn badly rendered, simplistic emoticons that fail to cover the entire gamut of human feeling, stopping only to convey happiness, sadness, adolescent arousal and whatever the one with the crossed eyes and flapping tongue means (some kind of unspecified syndrome, I think). At this point we will be forced to translate the entire works of Shakespeare into TXT SPK and watch as all vowels are made redundant, causing them to live on the streets and prostitute themselves to fuel their LMAO habits.

Regardless of my foibles, the news piece did lead to one rather spectacular interview with a man who had experimented with ‘Roflcoptr’ whilst watching a Kate Bush video:

“I was in the video, actually inside the frame [he wasn’t]. I forgot where I was, what I was listening to, everything. I was that snowman [Aled Jones, is that you?], and I’m not usually prone to hallucinations. I don’t even like Kate Bush.”

If ever you needed proof that drugs are bad, this may be it. Still it’s not all bad. Take this quote from another Roflcoptr-er.

“We were on it at Glastonbury. When a mate shat himself, rather than take the piss out of him, we were just really understanding.”

Alas, it seems, the greatest minds of our generation are destined to be ruined by an almost-acronym.

Nickel-Fight-Back – Canadian Rockers Realise The Purpose Of Twitter Is Arguing With Strangers

Having spent years mastering every possible combination of the four power-chords they know, Canada’s answer to Creed, Nickelback, have started to branch out. This week they’ve been learning all about the World Wide Web.

After waiting five minutes for his dial-up modem to connect and thinking about how that horrible sound it makes could be turned into a hit single, Chad Kroeger took to the net like a fish to water… that then got trapped in a net. He immediately joined Second Life, MySpace and Friends Reunited, before someone taught him how to use what he now knows to be called ‘a Google’.

Unfortunately, what Chad found on Google was lots of people sharing negative opinions on his band, like this tweet:

“Was driving down the street, and a Nickelback song came on. I had an aneurism and violently shit myself at the same time. And my dog died.”

Not missing a beat, Kroeger employed his Wildean wit and retorted thus:

“I bet it was the best day you’ve had in awhile. #yourwelcome.”

Before high fiving himself and wondering if ‘awhile’ might actually be two words. Still, if you’re getting dragged into arguments with a grown man who admits to shitting himself in his car then grammar may not be high on your list of priorities.

NB: That is now two stories in a row with references to accidental defecation. Must try harder.

Pete Doherty Demos Invoke Sensations of Listening to Music Underwater

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from late-romantic poet and vagrant Pete Doherty. It turns out that between periods of staring hazily into the middle-distance, perfecting that look of indefinable sadness designed to reflect the sort of ennui that only people of a superior intellect can suffer from, he’s been recording song some songs. No one knows where he’s been laying down his tracks but by the sound of this he recorded the guitar and vocals in a plastic bucket using a sponge as a microphone.

Pete Doherty, ‘Hitsvile2′ by nmemagazine

You can find more of Pete’s recent demos by using Google, because I really shouldn’t have to do everything for you now should I?
Editor/Don Corleone of The Fly, JJ Dunning, wrote a little piece about the song here if you’d like to read it. Although the only review you need to hear is from Pete himself in the closing seconds of the track, “that was terrible” he says. Still, nice to hear a story about a Pete Doherty release that doesn’t involve a prison, eh?

Web-link Of The Week

Fleet Foxes Don’t Sing On FleetFoxesSing Tumblr

Covering songs is one thing, but pretending to be someone else covering songs (covering songs to the power of two) is, it turns out, not only mind-boggling but also quite charming. Try for a second to wrap your head around that. It’s the kind of Russian-doll-effect thought pattern that if considered too hard can cause permanent psychosis. It’s like arguing about time-travel – a conversation that leads to what can only be described as an intellectual ice-cream headache, unleashing so many different factions of inexplicable nonsense that it’s as if someone has torn a hole in the fabric of reality itself, causing all sorts of senseless things to pour out like word-for-word American adaptations of British sit-coms, and Dappy.

I fully understand that none of this makes any sense, but maybe it will if you check out fleetfoxessing.tumblr.com, a blog where a mysterious chap, with what can only be described as huge quantities of time on his hands, pretends to be folk revivalist band Fleet Foxes covering current pop hits. Why? Who knows. It’s pretty entertaining though.

NB: this section was written by Tim Vincent pretending to be Judy Finnegan writing John Kerrison’s article.