Sc Here's Looking At You(Tube) / Weird Wide Web
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Here's Looking At You(Tube) Un-original Gangsters
Imitation, goes the old saying, is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, yes, but it must be quite irritating to the imitated party, all the same. Picture the scene: you’re in a band – you’ve spent countless hours writing your songs, practising, honing your sound and developing a style all of your own. Then you flick on the old wireless one day and discover, to your horror, that some bunch of absolute chancers have shamelessly stolen your schtick. What an outrage! Sadly, the likelihood is that everyone else – apart from perhaps your lawyer – is just going to find the whole thing quite amusing. Ah, ‘tis a cruel world and no mistake.
NIRVANA SEETHER
CALL THE COPS Since they themselves are somewhat – ahem – ‘indebted’ to Joy Division, New York gloommeisters Interpol can have no real complaints about this – but it’s still pretty jaw-dropping. This is the dubiously-named ‘Uni_Form’ a Portuguese band whose single ‘Shadows’ is so uncannily reminiscent of the Interpol style that there must genuinely be grounds for legal action of some kind here. Of course, Uni_Form’s lyrics actually make more sense than Interpol’s – even though English is their second language – so that’s a point in the Portuguese act’s favour. Overall, not entirely unpleasant – and certainly better than that other well-known Interpol rip-off act, Editors. - TINYURL.COM/PORTUGUESEINTERPOL MOZ BE SOME MISTAKE
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Words by Neill Dougan
WEIRD WIDE WEB Surf Far, So Good POLICE PLEASE ME Kids say the funniest things, eh? Or, to be more accurate, kids talk a load of off-the-wall gobbledygook – albeit of an often highly entertaining nature. Recognising this, 29-year-old comic artist Ethan Nicolle started transcribing the nonsense playtalk of his five-year-old brother Malachi – and then turned it into a web-comic. The result? Axe-Cop, an adventure tale so gloriously surreal that it could, indeed, only have come from the mind of a child, as the eponymous axe-wielding law officer is joined by Dinosaur Soldier, Leaf Man and, perhaps best of all, Vampire Man Baby Kid. Classic gibberish. - WWW.AXECOP.COM —78 issue 67—
“Don’t plagiarise or take on loan,” cautioned Morrissey on 1986’s ‘Cemetry Gates’. Clearly not heeding this sage advice at all were Bristol twee-poppers The Brilliant Corners, who in 1988 released ‘Why Do You Have To Go Out With Him When You Could Go Out With Me’, a single
COMFORTABLY NUMB Self-proclaimed home of “useful, useless info”, Feelnumb.com is a handy source of quirky trivia and unusual titbits that you never knew you cared about, but which, once you stumble upon them, are strangely compelling. From all the specs on the actual bus used by The Beatles on their Magical Mystery Tour, to a recording of the first ever performance of Oasis’s ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ (complete with Noel declaring “I only wrote it on Tuesday!”), to the strange dating habits of George Michael. And that’s all just on the first page. Best not to look at this site if you have any pressing matters to attend to, as it may cause spectacular levels of procrastination. - WWW.FEELNUMB.COM YOU BELLICOSE WAR-MONGER! Our interest piqued by their recent appearance at the World Cup, AU wanted to find out more about North Korea. Turns out it’s a pretty strange place. That much is evident from reading the bizarre, farfetched and occasionally – despite the tragedy of it all – amusing propaganda emanating from the secretive
that – with its jangly guitars, baritone vocals and self-deprecating, vaguely humourous lyrics – might as well have come stamped with the disclaimer: “We really, really love The Smiths.” Ultimately, the main difference between this and The Smiths is that Morrissey and Marr’s lot were actually good. - TINYURL.COM/QUITELIKETHESMITHS IT’S A GAS Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 was pretty distressing. But almost more upsetting was the rash of piss-poor Cobain copycats queuing up to cash in on teenage angst both during and after his life. 16 years on and still they keep crawling out of the woodwork. A particularly egregious example is Seether, a thirdgeneration Nirvana tribute act from South Africa that makes Bush and Nickelback look like paragons of originality. Of course, no Nirvana song ever boasted a lyric as downright cringeworthy as, “I wanna waste her monthly blood / Wanna get some on my love.” Listen especially carefully and you might just hear Kurt slowly spinning in his grave. - TINYURL.COM/NIRVANALITE
regime’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Their pronouncements are collated at NK News, a database of North Korean propaganda, where you can search by topic or peruse the Kim Jong-Il regime’s most outlandish pronouncements in the KCNA Hall of Fame. And don’t forget to have a bash at the KCNA Random Insult Generator. You loud-mouthed militarists. - WWW.NK-NEWS.NET Words by Neill Dougan