Haynes Arms

I went for tea at the Haynes Arms the other night. Now, beforehand I left a status on Facebook and a guy commented saying how amazing the parmos where. So, as I tend to do, I Googled "Haynes-Arms Parmo".

About 6 or 7 results down was, lo and behold, a Burnley Wallet page. Now, for the uninitiated, this was the old blog that me, my brother and our mate Keith used to run and this result is during mid to late 2005 when the Wallet was at it's peak.

I had a read through and it brought back some amazing memories and some huge laugh out loud moments. Cracking stuff. A particular favourite of mine was the night out that ended with a an old school mate pretending to be a Canadian Ice Hockey player whilst Keith acted as his bodyguard! I don't know why, it's just so random it cracked me up!

Here you go.

Twitter

It's intense isn't it?

I mean one guy I follow, he had 9 posts on the front page when I logged in tonight.

9!

Beatles Rockband

It's great!

Expensive but great.

I paid £149.99 for my big bad ass Beatles Rockband set, rushed home, unwrapped it, played it for a bit and now it's sitting ominously in the corner whilst work and a social life have taken over. Hurrah for me. Well not quite.

I'm a bit miffed at my almost non-existant drumming skills. I know what to do, and can move both arms independently of each other, and in time. Add a third movement, such as a bass pedal for my foot and it all goes a bit wrong! Ringo, you my friend were and still are a genius. Keith Moon however was just something else! I can't imagine trying some of his drum fills.

The sound, presentation and overall feel of the game are sensational. It is second to none. The quality of this product and package I think are brilliant. You do feel as though you really live out the incredible journey the Beatles took in their relatively short career. Even some of the songs have bits I've never even heard before thanks to the remasters being used, particularly noticeable on I'm looking Through You and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

The songs are an excellent mix, though I was very disappointed by some omissions such as Hey Jude, Let it Be, A Day in the Life and All You Need is Love but I guess too much piano and orchestration led to their cuts.

It does have other downsides though, the microphone for singing has quite a delay so hitting notes 'spot on' when singing is difficult and requires an unnatural amount of singing before you should. Also, the jump from easy to medium is far too high and even the easier songs are far far too hard.

I played Guitar Hero 5 tonight and the feeling of playing an actual instrument is far more prevalent on that than Beatles Rockband. You feel like your nailing the riffs, playing a similar finger movement to what you would on a real guitar. On the Beatles game I feel like I am hitting random notes because they are a bit louder at that point in the song.

As for expert mode. I tried to play While My Guitar Gently Weeps on expert mode and was almost rushed to hospital for a hand transplant. Far far easier and with less movement on a real guitar.

But, whilst continuing the comparison, Guitar Hero 5 is really dirty looking and not a very polished product though I must admit playing as my avatar (complete with aviator sunglasses and pale blue tuxedo) was fantastic. This feature is sadly not available and I have to persist with what I feel is a poor likeness of George Harrison

Anyway, back to to practice the drum solo to The End.

Ringo - you absolute beast!

The Upbeat Glass Smash

The Upbeat Glass Smash is a musical project I've worked on for many years now and I decided to put together my favourite tracks and present them to you here...

The Best of The Upbeat Glass Smash

Music Monday

To steal an idea from my brother Pete's blog and to link in to Twitter's Music Monday, Monday's are going to have a musical theme on this here blog. Be it just a song / video, a classic live performance, an anecdotal story of rock excess or an interesting "didn't know that!"

For example, La Roux is June Ackland off The Bill's daughter. I didn't know that!

Anyway, let's kick off with a great tune from who else but my all time favourites, The Who. This is Who Are You.



The song was written by Pete Townshend after a night on the lash depressed and feeling like he had sold out. He ended up bumping into some of the Sex Pistols, who had made a comment about the Who in a TV interview, at the Speakeasy in London. Townshend, blind drunk, got in their faces screaming, "Who are ya?!"

This video was filmed at Shepperton Studios especially for the "The Kids Are Alright" documentary not long before Keith Moon's death in 1978. Moon was in a pretty bad way having recently come back from his Los Angeles home after some unbelievable drug and alcohol abuse. It seemed this day he was just in mischievous, show off moods. Apparently, once the filming was over, he played a drum solo that John Entwistle described as "...just fucking phenomenal!". Judging by his playing here, I can't imagine it was anything but.

Derren Brown

As soon as I saw this...



...pop up before the hypnotic video started I knew it was going to be a let down. I didn't get stuck.

Sheff Wed vs. Middlesbrough

On Tuesday the 15th, me and good friends Keith, Chris and Rob took a trip down to Sheffield for Middlesbrough's away game.

It was fantastic! We enjoyed the great pubs, a gourmet burger, plenty of beer, Rob doing chin ups on a grab-rail on a tram, a great game of pool and some truly appalling Hillsborough disaster comments/songs. Best of all though was the 3-1 victory for Middlesbrough!

Actually no, best of all was raving in the back seat of the car on the way home with Rob to songs like this...



On third thought the very best thing was writing poor Rob's mobile number on the back of a betting coupon and asking him to put it in the gents. I still don't think he clicked on that it was his number!

Photo evidence...

Where Have I Been?

I've been up to all sorts lately hence the lack of blog posts.

I've been...

Minding my brother's dog for the past seven days whilst they were on holiday; spending a belter of a day in Sheffield for the recent Boro game; enjoying a few nights out with the gang and working far too hard.

I'll try and get some blogging done on the above plus some good stuff about my new phone and of course Derren Brown who has been pretty much the only thing talked about at work for the past week.

If I can get out of my chair tonight, I'll try and blog my experience of being stuck to it!

Soundalike

I heard an absolutely cracking tune on the radio the other night on my way to five a side. It was by Tthe Noisettes and it's called, Never Forget You.

It's fantastic.

I love it but there's a part of it that I was sure I had heard before.

It's this "Alway's remember me!" bit.



What was it? I Youtubed the video and ploughed through all the comments. Nothing. The closest was some guy saying ti sounded like something he'd heard in the 60s.

I listened and listened and then tried singing different stuff over the top of it.

"If you're without him."

"When it's without you."

"When you're without him."

"When you're without her."

"When you're without love!"

Ahh, something clicked that that last line was off a song I like. I Googled the lyrics but didn't have much look until I finally got there...



Am I right? Or is it just me hearing this?

Back to the Future 3

You know in Back to the Future 3, Marty takes that picture of the gravestone with the Doc's name on it right? Then it changes to Clint Eastwood after he accepts Buford's challenge to a showdown on the morning before they go back to 1985.

Well this has always bothered me you see.

After they have the gun fight and Marty does his naff 'Man with no name' impressions, he cracks Buford's head through it, how come the picture of the gravestone changes to just a picture of nothing? You know the gravestone disappears?

All I'm saying is that the grave plot would have been used by some other dead person wouldn't it?

Thought's please.

Don't even get me started on BTTF 2.