early, late and exactly on time birthdays.

loooooookkkkkkkk whaaaaaaaatttttttt ivveeeeeeee gotttttttttttt!!!!!

its actually the best birthday present ever, and 4 weeks early! it arrived on tuesday and after 4 hours of me trying to help build it but actually getting in the way and annoying my very patient and helpful step father, i hopped on and rode to sarahs house (stopping along the way to post some letters). its the most wonderful bike to ride, as i sped down theale high street a nice old man waved at me and i dinged my bell at him! all i need now is a nice little dog to pop in the basket and im set for life. my cat will have to do for now, although she is majorly in my bad books for killing lots of things and leaving them around our conservatory. bob would never do that.

the next 7 days looks to be wonderful. ive got my bike to play with and im off to birmingham on sunday to see benjamin and jennifer. then on monday, approximatley 80 days after his actual birthday i am taking benjamin to stratford and we are going to stay in a lovely hotel and eat lovely food and probably get rained on but we wont mind.

THEN on thursday, i am off to the isle of wight for bestival! we went last year and it was the most perfect weekend so we are hoping for the same but x a million as it will be sarahs birthday on the friday. ive got a feeling its going to be one to remember.

well, back to the type writer. in the last couple of days ive done 9 hours of type writing and im nowhere near to finishing. last night my dream was about gentle friendly and type writing noises! scallywags.

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this one goes out to all the unicorns.

if you haven't heard of birmingham's bass zealots bigger than barry then you must have your new era cap pulled down to tight around your ears. in little over a year the barry boys have shot to the top their game leaving all manor of chaos and destruction in their wake. they now regularly sell out 1000 capacity venues and are one of the most influential names in the relatively recent but already highly fashionable subculture. whether grime/bmore/bassline et el is your cup of tea or not these boys certainly demand a lot of respect from their peers and as far as making sure parties go off with a bang, they're second to none.

anyway, they've been kind enough to invite my humble night tuck shop to host the second room of their back to school extravaganza on september 6th and we're more than happy to take oblige. of course, we've asked a few friends along for the ride too;
firstly is the super hip london duo deptford noise team who run the night london shunshine in ldn's east end and secondly we've asked the boys from mirror! mirror! back to wow us all with their mix of everything from black eyes through to burial, though we were never going to stop at just that were we?
anyone who knows us will tell you that we're never content with just bringing you most current and relevant dj's from around the uk, so we've out done ourselves this time and managed to get LA's finest electronic wizkid, sister mantos (http://www.myspace.com/sistermantos).
coming to you hot off the LA scene that is centered around it's much talked about, critically acclaimed venue the smell this young artist conjures up some of the most instantly listenable psychedelic electronica this side of eats tapes. take the dominant and erratic beats of drop the lime, mix them with the dark brooding nature of the flying lotus and fuse it all together with ferocious sense of sugar coated accessibility and you have intelligent, thinking man's dance music of the most mouth watering order.
don't let my musings fool you though, this is by no means difficult or conceited, infact oscar is a hero. he's willing to play for just the cost of travel and expenses and is happy to take a guerrilla approach toward equipment and sound, this is a real positive guy who is much more concerned with having a good time and has the kind of infectious nature that can only lead to fun for everyone involved. trust me on this one, he is going to get the party started!

sister mantos (feat. strawberry 06 and apple brains) - disaster beat WE ARE ONE.mp3 (zshare)

enjoy.
oh, and come watch.

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"driving in your car"

to accompany their tape gentle friendly are embarking on a tour across the land with the magnificent ponytail (http://www.myspace.com/jreamteam). the dates are as follows:

4th Sept. @ Bardens Boudoir, London (Upset The Rhythm)
5th Sept. @ Chameleon, Nottingham (Liars Club)
8th Sept. @ Satans Hollow, Manchester (Lamb and Wolf)
10th Sept. @ Whelans, Dublin
11th Sept. @ Roisin Dubh, Galway
13th Sept. @ Oxford (Permanent Vaction Presents Winkstock '08)
20th Sept. @ Amersham Arms, London (No Pain In Pop)

also, due to the unfortunate and untimely death of their "family wagon" the pair are also in need of a kind soul to drive them around between the 4th and the 13th of september, i believe they can fit all of their gear into a car so if you are spoilt enough to have one and you have nothing else to do (i can assure you that you have nothing better to do than drive around these brilliant lads and see them and ponytail both a fair few times, at least i don't but i have no car) then please give them a shout here, they're offering free cake to the winner and we'll also throw in a free copy of their forthcoming tape with us. you're not going to get an offer like that every day, at least not after they've found someone.

i'll be up in nottingham selling tapes, you can also get them from the band throughout the whole tour so make sure you get down to one of the dates, beats staying in and refreshing facebook.
thanks, stayed tuned for news on some new bands we'll be working with.
x

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another punch in the dark, connects.

finally, after almost 6 months of putting off the release dates and numerous financial and physical set backs we have definite news about the two releases which have been pending since way back when. both talibam! and gentle friendly will be officially released on october 1st but because we've kept you in the dark for so long we've decided that you're in need of a treat so we're putting them up for sale on our website on monday september 8th, then in october you'll be able to also buy them at rough trade east on brick lane and at platform in the custard factory, birmingham.

here is some information on the bands and their tapes.

talibam! - chewy needs his meat c40 cassette (ss002)


talibam! are one of the most challenging and fascinating bands in contemporary music, not content with standing still, not restricted by the boundaries of genre they are more concerned with exploring and pushing themselves and their music to transcendent new heights. on "chewy needs his meat" talibam! have pumped up and pressurized, pushing red on the meters, sinking their teeth into the saturated beauty of an analogue ecstasy. the sound is a blended up time-machine transmission from a newly populated martian landscape faraway from the wasted megacities left behind on a burnt earth canvas. After the apocalypse, toxic anthropologists will determine "chewy needs his meat" alone summarizes the debauchery and wreckage that took place.

talibam! - extract from chewy needs his meat.mp3 (zshare)

side a:
1) chewy needs his meat
side b:
1) chewy needs his meat cont.

gentle friendly - esses together/blast debris (debris from blasts had 1968-2008) c30 cassette (ss003)


gentle friendly create intricate, esoteric pop music, as private and dear as it is accessible. they are often compared to the likes of animal collective and in the same sense as experimental and innovative it is also manages to remain mysteriously individual. this cassette release, titled "esses together/blast debris (debris from blasts had 1968-2008)" is a collection compiled by the band from reams of magnetised tape and hours of song. It is a mesh of old favourites and brand new cuts for you all to step to.

gentle friendly - punch in the dark.mp3 (zshare)

side b:
1) mic check
2) ins
3) you are the brother/real fighters
4) untitled 1
5) punch in the dark
6) dymo omega
side b:
7) untitled 2
8) giants exist!
9) teen lightning pt. 1
10) teen lightning pt. 2
11) ex ex

so, there you have it. both tapes will cost just £4 each! with £1.00 to cover the costs of the postman and paypal (more overseas) or just a flat rate of £4 at shows or from us in person. so crack open your piggy banks and fill up our collectively empty pockets as of september 8th. each is limited to 100 and is on a fancy coloured cassette which is then wrapped up in brown paper and string and comes with it's own unique stop scratching comic by trav_art. get yours fast before they become back catalogue gold.

also, in other news we have someone new to introduce you to; mike coley is long time friend of mine who shares much of the same tastes, ideals and opinions of stop scratching and also has a fondness for the love playing music to the sound of our own shrinking livers and so we asked him to come on board and join myself and cassie as part of stop scratching djs, to accompany this he'll also be a fixture on these here pages as a contributor to the blog. i'll bully him into making himself known over the next few days. keep your eyes peeled for dj sets and events coming soon.

thank you, i'm off to sign on which will no doubt turn into a full blown war with the jobcenter

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mdmAMAZING!

the postman brought me this this morning. it was so big it wouldn't even fit through the letter box, those are the kind of books i want to be spending my money on.

i was first made aware of the works of alexander shulgin after a conversation on chemical substances and the possibility of creating your own. this is exactly what shulgin has done created and experimented with different types of mind altering drugs and the effect that they have on the human unconcious in differing doses.
the book is part a glimpse at an altered state of consciousness through the creation and consumption of the substances and part opportunity to be acquainted with the shulgin's through the medium of story telling, which is based on their experiences when on these drugs. from the snippets i've read online it is a compelling and wonderfully written tale of their love for each other and their adventures into the mind.
writing of this subject matter, even for scientific research and study is now illegal and so this book is kind of the bible to the world of psychedelic literature. i'll let you know how it pans out.

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"needles to say"

i writing today to find out your opinion on human medical testing?
on friday me and my housemate rickery are going to london to have bloodtests, if we get the all clear we will, at a later date, embark on a 10 day ordeal under the beady eyes of medical professionals. upon our arrival we will be injected with the flu virus and then a possible cure to observe the reaction it has on us.
my friends all have different opinions, the most popular being that i will turn into some kind of elephant man. i just wanted to know what your opinion on the subject is?

the way i see it is that i'm flat broke, have no gaurenteed income coming my way over the next few months and could really do with the cash. i have an amazing immune system and never really get ill myself so i'm not to concerned with that, of course i'm sure they'll come a point where i'm lying in bed sweating out hot soup screaming regret but hey, it'll all be worth it in the end. one less animal that needs to be experimented on too.

no age last week in nottingham was incredible. like driving around in the summer in car with no top listening to scuzzy old punk tapes through fancy new speakers in the blistering sun. perfection. they really are the soundtrack to my summer this year.
also, a band called human hair supported featuring henry from lovvers and that amazing guy jack whom i met earlier this year at dot to dot. jack sort of recites poetry over the top of sloppy post-punk guitar riffs but it doesn't sound as nearly as wimpy as that. it kind of reminds me of les savy fav circa cat and the cobra but put through a meatgrinder, so the end product is a much more honest, punk version of arab on radar. really good stuff. keep watching this space.

i haven't even eaten dinner yet, so i must dash.

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destination tokyo.

when i woke up friday morning, still slightly hung over from the previous nights adventures at apt. the prospect of meeting four japanese people, three of which being the girls who make up nisennenmondai, seemed like an arduous task. i've never been the greatest small talker, as i'm sure many of you are aware. i get shy and then try to cover it up by making ridiculous observations or talking about bards and loots, or something along those lines. combine that with a hazy head, a night of sleeping on a sofa and the fact that the three girls didn't speak much english i thought i was in for a painful day. that paranoia couldn't have been further from the truth.

i went to meet them all mid-afternoon in the city center, fortunately they were accompanied by katoman who acted as their translator. after some polite handshakes and some relatively pleasant small talk we crammed all of their gear and the five of us in a black cab and headed towards kings heath.
after dropping off some of their stuff at my house and learning that katoman is like best friends with all my favourite bands in the world or something, we headed down to the hare and hounds, where acid mothers temple were already unloading outside. it was quite a surreal situation really, me & these two sets of people who came from 1000's of miles away, only to meet in a tiny town-out-of-town in birmingham to play a gig together. after the hello's and the load in was complete me and katoman went and sat in the back area, leaving all the bands to prepare. we set about drinking the luke-warm red stripes provided.
turns out this guy is pretty much a living legend and does in-fact intimately know pretty much every band we spoke about and he's into almost everything i am, runs a label, a pr company, a punk rock record store, books tours, is in an amazing disco-funk band i am tokyo, you're osaka and is just an easy going, all round great guy.

unfortunately, i completely didn't take into account that i was djing at 10pm at my friend nick's night discord. fortunately, nisennenmondai we're on at 8.30, so i could watch their set then head over to rootys to dj and then straight back to the hare and hounds to escort everyone home. a plan which actually ran fairly smoothly.
i have a fair bit of nisennenmondai's material and it truly is incredible but in no way was i ready for just how intense they were live. they played three songs in just over 30 minutes, spanning various different genres, all with their own unique noisy edge but always unified by a consuming sense of urgency. they took the dance inducing rhythm of chrome hoof, threw in the aggressive progression of battles and topped it off with huge lightning boltesq riffs and still comfortably managed to remain refreshing throughout and never once did it seem as though they were even intending to sound anything like this. i was in awe from start to finish.

so thank you very much for everyone who came down to see them and for capsule for taking the weight of responsibility off my shoulders and allowing me to just enjoy the great company and the amazing performance without the stress of everything else and thank you to capsule for the money to get breakfast, i cooked everyone a huge vegetarian full english this morning, a perfect way to prepare for a day of the mega bus, which is what the band and katoman had to look forward to. grim.

tuck shop later. yay.

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