I Saw John Carpenter Live!

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As John Carpenter and his band launched into their live rendition of the theme from his ghostly masterpiece The Fog, some genius thought it'd be a good idea to turn on the smoke machine. And they were right. It was fucking genius. Seeing Carpenter play that piece of music with footage from the film projected onto a large screen behind him, while mist slowly descended over the room, was one of the many highlights of the Liverpool gig that I saw him at on the 28^th of October. I can't say that any ghost-pirates appeared from the fog this time, however it's been so long since I last ate any fruit that it wouldn't surprise me if I had fucking scurvy at this point. Getting into the gig had proven to be more of a ball-ache than I'd imagined thanks to Google-maps providing the wrong location, one Taxi-driver refusing to take us because “he'd be fucked by the Hackneys”, and then finding ourselves stuck outside the most badly organised venue that I've ever been to. People with paper tickets were allowed straight in whereas those with E-tickets had to stand outside until twenty-minutes past the gig's original start time for some reason. To quote a fellow E-ticket queuer; “it's like we're the working class and this venue thinks it's the fucking Titanic”.

Let's Be Frank

Frank starts in some fucking God-awful British coastal town where the beach is made out of broken rocks and the sky is constantly threatening to piss down. Life for Jon is predictably boring with his attempts at writing songs resulting in both unproductive brain-farts and well... shit. One day when out walking, he spots a man attempting suicide which, having seen the grottiness of the area, seems like common sense to me. Being both British and human though, Jon doesn't really worry and instead watches apathetically from the side in the vain hope that he'll suddenly be struck by some musical inspiration. Also, watching this breakdown with understanding nonchalance are the chap’s bandmates who are now in need of a new keyboard player. Jon plays keyboard. He joins the band... it's as easy as that. Sadly though, the band he's joined are so musically experimental that their sound is like listening to somebody angry fuck a dustbin and everybody except the lead singer hates his ginger guts. Oh, and just because that's not already enough of a set up for a ninety minute film, the lead singer is clearly fucking mental having made the common-as-muck life choice of permanently wearing a giant Frank Sidebottom mask on his head. Yep, it's another one of them... A film about the creative process as filtered through the deranged mind of a nutcase, hidden behind a papier-mâché symbol of musical old Madchester. God, I hate all the fucking clichés!