John Walker's Electronic House

It’s been a funny year for albums. Well, from my perspective at least. Which is a weird perspective, and I blame Spotify. I’ve not had the sense to pay attention to what’s making waves for years, but I’ve still been vaguely aware of who’s around, a bit of what’s happening. Mostly through friends’ recommending stuff. But that seems to have dried up this year too – maybe the John Walker Music barriers broke and bothered everyone around me too much. In fact, I think all the best music tips I’ve had this year have been from Tifaux writer Dan Miller via his Twitter feed. But I’m mostly blaming Spotify and its links at the top to try other stuff, letting me hop around without remembering where I’ve been. And I’m blaming the always-excellent 3WK Underground Radio, which as ever I treat like a great friend whom I constantly forget to call. But whenever we do hang out it’s so inspirational I scribble notes throughout. Names of bands to check out, which now of course means typing their name into Spotify, then YouTube.

When I look through the lists letting us know what’s best of 2009 rather than react in either agreement or disgust, instead my response is one of: “Who?” I’ve completely lost touch. And I really don’t yet get The Animal Collective. Which leaves me in the the street, looking through the window unsure if I want to be inside. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t loved lots of songs this year. Loads have stood out.

So rather than albums, this year for me it’s been songs. Here are some songs, not in any useful order, but all great. Remind me of anything I’ve forgotten.

Math The Band – Tour de Friends

I’m so delighted I discovered Math The Band this year. They remind me of bands discovered at Moles’ Purr night years ago, impossibly perfect shouted excitement over the top of Casio tunes and madcap drums. In fact, I can’t think of a band I’m more keen to see live. Everything on Don’t Worry is great, but my favourite is Tour De Friends. There’s no video for it, so I was going to put a pictureless video of it. But there’s a live version that while distorted is too fantastic not to use. So here it is.

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For a while I’ve been saying the same joke as I walk through airport security. At the point where we’re all required to take our shoes off, thanks to the failed explosive attempt by shoe bomber Richard Reid, I like to say, “If I were a terrorist, I’d hide my bomb in my underpants. That would make security more interesting.” How we’ve all laughed.

Thanks Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. You totally stole my joke.

Well, I can’t tell you how honoured I am that people ask me to say how unutterably shit each episode of Doctor Who proves to be. So here goes:

Wow, how unutterably shit. Russell T Davies is now only one episode away from his oh-so necessary death, before he gloriously regenerates into Steven Moffat this Spring. It seems he intends to go out in a giant celebration of everything that has made him one of the most tiresome and incapable writers. The End Of Time Part 1 was bad in ways previously unexplored by science.

Interestingly though, this penultimate RTD episode isn’t bad in the ways his smug ghastliness normally manifests. Instead he even seems to be bad at being bad. We can normally rely on Davies for some vile preachy speeches, a sanctimonious scene that comments on the errs of our ways, and of course a loud-speaker-bellowed declaration of quite how relaxed and nonchalant everyone is about someone being gay. But in this episode he manages to be terrible at even these.

It seems like good form to sum up the plot at this point in the piece. I’m not sure that this is possible. It appeared to be the work of a seven-year-old. But here goes: “So the Doctor is being naughty right but he visits the Ood in this giant white castle place and they tell him that the Master is coming back and that Bernard Cribbins is sad and so he flies back to Earth but the Master comes back because his wife hasn’t washed her mouth for three years but then she throws this potion right and then the Master goes mad but he gets magic powers and can shoot electricity from his hands what turns into explosions and he can FLY and everything and then there’s these old people who sexually assault the Doctor and there’s burgers cos I like burgers and then the Doctor tells him off but there’s this cross black man and his girlfriend daughter who has this gate from outer space and there’s these green aliens in disguise as humans and then the Master and the gate do this thing and then everyone in the whole world apart from Catherine Tate and the Doctor and Bernard Cribbins turn into the Master and then it ends.”

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Opening with a terrifying clatter of the microphone, the matter not under discussion this week is: Is it the end of the great British pub? More immediately discussed is the tragedy of the Lost Rum Doings. Inevitably going down in legend, an entire episode of Rum Doings was lost to the cruel twist of Audacity’s crashing, causing us to immediately begin another to replace it.

And you know what – thank goodness. Because the result is the most positive episode of Rum Doings that will likely ever exist. It’s a celebration of things that we like.

John likes the banality and idiocy of Eggheads. While Nick likes well cooked chips. (John rather stupidly refers to Golden Wonder potatoes as “Golden Delicious” – please forgive him this.) Then there’s crazy golf, fontanelles, warm coffee shops, hypno-running, Chicago, Radio 3, how Rum Doings saves lives, chicken, leaves of privet hedges, the Brandenburg Concerto, and others.

Oh, and email us! Tell us why you listen, and whether you’re one of our non-gamer listeners. Or leave a comment below. We need to know. For science. And if you’re a female cellist of course.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

As ever, we depend on you to promote this. Please, take the time to retweet it, tell friends, or post about it on forums, that sort of thing. And please actually do that. You, we mean. Yes, you, because you never bother, and it would be so little effort.

The success of Rage Against The Machine being at number one this Christmas is interesting not because it’s one in the eye for whichever baddie you want to pick – X Factor, Simon Cowell, dreary mums – but rather for the power it displays.

I’ve never seen X Factor, nor have any idea what the winner – Joe I understand – sounds like when he sings. I’ve also no idea about the song he’s covering, which I read was originally sung by Miley Cyrus. (Which is about as ageing fact as you could ask for – I lost track of pop music before the song being covered was released.) It might be brilliant. I’m fairly sure it isn’t. But I don’t really have an opinion either way on whether a very drawn out karaoke contest merits so much attention – people seem to enjoy it a great deal, I’d rather wedge spikes into my face. I choose not to watch it (and to ignore most people’s Twitters on a Saturday evening), and thus it doesn’t get a chance to offend me. Not watching would seem a far more effective statement than messing with its Christmas No. 1 spot.

I also don’t care what song is at number one at Christmas. In fact, it’s only by this recent fuss that I’ve learned that X Factor winners have been Christmas number one for the previous four years. But as Cowell pointed out during the last week, before that it was Mr Blobby and Bob The Builder as much as it was anything more musical. The only interest I take in the seasonal chart is finding it amusing when greedy copyright whore Cliff Richard fails to get anywhere with his sanctimonious drivel.

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Everybody who spends as much time stuck inside their own head as I understands those bizarre compulsions to do things that might not be entirely in line with that which is sensible. The ridiculous idea that fills your mind, either to be acted upon or shaken loose before you get in trouble. I think the most terrible example in recent times was when waiting for the toilet on my flight back from Seattle a few weeks back. I was stood next to the emergency exit door, with that deliciously big handle, and the words written in red with the chunky red arrow, instructing you to rotate it through the full 180 degrees. How incredibly fun it would be to turn a handle so large and appealing, to tug to begin its motion, and then satisfactorily clunk it into place. It would be like turning the lever handle on a giant bank vault, or opening a secret cave in an ancient tomb. I cannot imagine a more fantastic handle to turn. Except this one would of course lead to the deaths of hundreds of people on board, including me, and the plane crashing out of the sky.

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Rum Doings returns a week early for a very special tenth episode special. Very, very special. You may have noticed one subject comes up again and again, and in this episode we line a hundred sharks up in a row and jump them in spectacular fashion. For nine minutes. And then things return to normal.

Once normality is returned the subject not talked about this week is The Now Show. Which brings us to discussions of home made orange liqueur, the etymology of freelance, thoughts on drunkenness, and Nick’s stolen nitrous oxide. John’s hyper-evolved teeth come under scrutiny, what makes a good town, and wondering if it’s a good idea to cure cancer. And this leads inevitably to thoughts of environmentalism and the entropic death of the universe. And finally, what scared us as children.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

If you want to send us an email, it’s podcast@rumdoings.com. Or leave a comment below – we appreciate a little note to say hello, or how much you hate us.

And once again, the only thing we ask of your is promotion. Please blog, tweet, Facebook, IM, email, or whatever you wish, encouraging everyone you know to listen. Retweeting is massively helpful, and especially if you’re a world famous superstar. Join us in a couple of weeks for our Christmas Not As Special.

In Episode 9 of Rum Doings the topic not under discussion is whether it’s time we stopped funding the NHS. The topic under discussion is Neighbours. And that’s almost it.

No, come back! A Neighbours edition of Rum Doings was inevitable from the moment Nick first said, “Let’s record a podcast because I want to see how difficult it is to be good.” Neighbours – the Australian soap opera – has been something that has fascinated both of us since we’ve known each other – around fourteen years. Although neither of us have watched it for about six or seven. (You may well notice we talk about characters who are currently in it, who we had absolutely no idea were still around.)

There’s brief earlier discussion of Nick’s vestigial reproductive organs, our rule-breaking deviation from rum to a magical flavour-changing elixir, and the grammatical confusion of me/I that introduces our dominating topic.

Despite how rehearsed Nick’s opening to the discussion may seem, it’s all as spontaneous as ever. However, we did secretly decide we’d finally get around to talking about it this time. And we don’t apologise at all: this is our discussing why we found this programme so special for so many years. Although things do deviate in the last fifteen minutes, slightly.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

And another thing. We love that so many people are listening to Rum Doings. It pleases us greatly. So we need you to do something for us. We want none of your money, nor even your blood. We just want you to take the trouble to promote the podcast for us. Just a tweet. Or a Facebook post. Maybe comment on your blog, write a review on iTunes, or refer to it on a forum. Most easily of all, just retweet the link that perhaps alerted you to this post. It’s surprising, and pretty annoying, how few people have taken the time to do this – so come along, give us a link.

If you want to send us an email, it’s podcast@rumdoings.com. Or leave a comment below. We’ll read out emails regarding John’s new botty-friend and baby Judith’s poetic greetings in episode 10.

In the triumphant return of Rum Doings, delayed for a while by the birth of Nick’s daughter, Judith, we celebrate with the consumption of an Asda Smart Price meal. And indeed the possible consumption to follow.

This feast begins with a bowl of Asda Smart Price chicken curry, washed down with Asda Smart Price Dark Rum, with Asda Smart Price Chocolate Mousse to follow. Not discussed in the episode is John and Edward, whatever that might be, with instead the meandering topics covering Judith’s arrival, talking with our mouths full, and then alittlebitofpoliticsladiesandgentlemen. A belated discussion of Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time leads to thoughts on immigration and why we need more of it.

We offer a shout-out that probably won’t be too gratefully received, thoughts on parenting and being honest about ugly babies, considerations on the extraordinary nature of vanishing chocolate puddings, and then important matters of the bottom. John’s senility is gleefully highlighted by Nick, and Nick’s chicken hate hypocrisy is underlined by John. Then an astonishing discovery about chickens is unveiled. Find out about the time John was allowed to work in a hospital pathology lab, and Nick shares memories of his wife’s c-section. Oh, and John’s fat.

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If you’d like to email Rum Doings, point your comments toward podcast@rumdoings.com. Send in poetic greetings to Judith Mailer, and indeed suggested names for John’s haemorrhoid. Now you want to listen.

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I’m pondering the approach I will take for a story for Rock, Paper, Shotgun – the small spin-off blog from this site that I allow others to hang around on – about the role sleep plays in gaming. This may sound preposterous, but there are at least two interesting stories to tell, and the subject of game-related dreams is one all gamers can relate to. But I feel an overwhelming urge to write the post as a personal account of my own fears of sleep, making it all about me with slivers of science and theory occasionally sliding in. However, this would raise the ire of those for whom the Important Matter Of Gaming Discussion should not be sullied by personal account.

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