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This Week in Lumps
#35 [22/01 - 28/01]

· It seems it’s been a bad week for MySpace. A once unknown backdoor in MySpace’s setup has become public knowledge – A backdoor that allows anyone who’s interested to see the photographs of some users with private profiles. This is just the latest ‘bad news day’ for the website, and sadly there have been a few over the past couple of years. I’ve talked about its downfalls on numerous occasions here, and it seems I’m not alone in thinking how much better we’d be without it. Simon Owens at Bloggasm has reached the end of his wit, and is wanting to delete his account for good:

“I’ve been thinking about deleting my MySpace account almost since the day I got it but always opted out of doing so because of the few friends I have who don’t have Facebook accounts. But by remaining on MySpace, I realize, I’m becoming an enabler. I’m giving those friends no reason to switch over from MySpace by giving them access to my MySpace profile.”

So is this the beginning of the end? Is Simon just one in a long line of people who just cannot take any more? It’s still more popular than Facebook, after all. The author of the Mashable post following the above summed up his viewpoint:

“If I had a virtual guarantee that most if not all my MySpace buddies were moving over to an alternative like Facebook, I’d be more apt to do it.“

A recent article appeared on the BBC site talking about just how hard it actually is to completely remove yourself from MySpace, which also mentions the YouTube video that is doing the rounds. Also, Cracked.com has one of their top 5 articles up which will surely give the guys at MySpace a clue as to what would make Simon stick around a little while longer.

If they’ve already crossed a line in your eyes, IDYMD is this Wednesday.

~

· The Barrowlands in Glasgow has seen many gigs during its lifetime. If the neon lights and the dusty disco-balls could talk it would reel off a list of hundreds of bands who have either been made or been broken there. Metallica have even said the best gig they’ve ever played was in the old East End dancehall. For Scottish bands, headlining the Barras is pretty much a sign that you’ve made it. Whether this differs for international bands can be debated, having a go on Sunday evening were Texan post-rockers Explosions in the Sky.

Anticipation for a gig rarely comes as built up as this one. Originally scheduled for last April in the ABC, it seems like years have passed waiting for them to arrive. And arriving with them is fellow Temporary Residence associate Matthew Cooper, the man behind ambient noise machine Eluvium. Armed with just a laptop, a keyboard and a guitar, he manages to usher the crowd forward and proceed to cradle them into a musical hypnosis with such soothing and enchanting epics such as An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death, and the eerily spectacular Taken. Forty five minutes of heart warming music later, followed by a similar response from the crowd, it was over, and although the setlist only considered of four songs, it was a great appetiser for what lay ahead.

Many people around and outside prior seemed wary about the venue as host for a post rock gig, in fact, many people found this a suitable topic of conversation during the gig, much to the annoyance of those around them. The ABC, the original venue, seemed better suited, as many other post rock bands seem to favour it, such as Mono and Red Sparowes. In all honesty, I too was slightly apprehensive if the sound would be as good as it could be. By the time the foursome walked out to an excitable welcome, all fears were set aside, as the opening sounds of First Breath After Coma soon settled the nerves, and brought out a few smiles. The songs that followed blew the dust off the disco balls, and the lingering January cobwebs away from the heads of those in attendance. Greet Death hit with such force and anger that it mirrored some of the weather we’ve had in our city recently. The Birth and Death of the Day sounds better live then I ever thought possible. It’s safe to say that even as high as my expectations were for this gig, they was surpassed with ease.

I wont play the ‘must see/must hear’ card here at all. If that annoys you even half as much as it annoys me then you’ll understand why. I admit, if Explosions… haven’t crept under your musical radar, then they’re never likely to. Fans of Sigur Ros and Mogwai will already be well aware of them. A band who can play quiet music with the fragile grace of a spider in the wind, yet can play louder than a sledgehammer swung in furious vengeance; they were a joy to soak up. The lighting in the Barras really is quite underestimated, helping add to the already stunning sounds.

The Barras may have seen many gigs during its lifetime, not many would have compared to this one. In fact, not many people could leave saying they had witnessed a bad gig, not many people could leave without wishing they could have a little bit more.

I for one cannot wait until they come back. A stunning gig.

~

· Nine years ago, an independent film called The Blair Witch Project was released. Filmed (and widely believed) to be an actual documentary, it focused on a small group of young student filmmakers who get lost in the woods while making their own film about an eponymous local legend. The film is remembered for many things, notably the ending, but arguably two main reasons behind the success were the style of camera work, and the amount of publicity, especially on the Internet.

Fast forward then to 2008, and to J. J. Abrams Cloverfield. I first mentioned this back in week 15, talking about how much marketing was going into it, and how much anticipation it was building. The teaser-trailer was shown before Transformers, and immediately rumours started to circle. Websites started appearing, then fansites talking about those websites, and all was released last weekend when it earned an estimated $46 million in its first few days. In it, five young New Yorkers throw their friend a leaving party the night that a huge monster descends upon the city. The unfolding story of the film details their attempts to avoid being eaten through the eyes of a camcorder:

“Cloverfield is filmed from the perspective of Hud, Rob’s best friend, who was tasked with the recording of Rob’s going-away party. It’s Hud, who, armed with a handycam, captures the Statue of Liberty’s head crashing onto the street in front of their building. From there, Hud and Rob, along with their friends Marlena, Lily, and Jason, attempt to cross the Brooklyn Bridge during a mandatory evacuation of New York City.”

The similarities with Blair Witch may seem so obvious that even the most rarest of movie-goers would be able to spot them, but once the surface is scratched, you realise that the films couldn’t be any more different. Sure, the shaky rough-on-the-stomach camera work seems familiar, and the mysterious ‘thing’ trying to scare and kill everyone is portrayed in such a way that you never really know what it is, but Cloverfields’ attributes are much more closer to home than that. The rough dialogue, consisting mainly of “Oh my God!” and “What is that?”, along with the amateur filming and the almost-unknown cast add to this eerie realism that horror films rarely have. The Blair Witch achieved this because the marketing behind the film convinced people it was: if someone convinced you beforehand that it’s real, you would have no reason to doubt them. Cloverfield however, achieves an identicle level of ‘this-could-happen’ realism because of the style of news reporting we’ve become used to since then. When 9/11 happened, most of the shots we saw of the devastation were from hand held cameras. When explosions happen in our airports or train stations, the shots we see on our televisions and monitors include those ‘eye-witness’ accounts. What better way to scare people than to make them sit though this type of editing, and camera work? It’s what Empire described as primal fear. To make a film credible you have to make it as real as possible, and J J Abrams has nailed it on the head. Sure, a lot of that is somewhat ruined through the ‘monster’ aspect, but that can’t really be helped.

So, ultimately: is the film worth going to see? Evidently, by the takings so far in America, as long as you dont suffer from motion sickness. What it lacks in character depth and decent sub-plots it makes up in with a whole different level of horror. As one review said:

“The big secret, as we all should have predicted, is that there is no big secret. Cloverfield showed its hand from the off, but it’s the way in which it plays that hand that causes it to win big.”

Cloverfield is currently out in the US and Canada, and will arrive in the UK on the 1st February.

~~~

That was the week in lumps, a week in which: last.fm became the worlds largest online jukebox, Bill Stickers is still innocent, Del Toro is is talks to direct The Hobbit films, a chair walked, Call of Duty 4 is the best selling game of 2007, and happy 50th Birthday Lego!

Finally, to prove that kindness still prevails, would you go this far to reunite a lost camera and their owner? I’d like to think I would.

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