G3
how could I have possibly forgotten the self indulgent pile of bollocks that is G3. Messrs Satriani, Malmsteem & Vai at Wembley Arena. Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to an evening of electric guitar masterbation. Thank god I did not pay.
(Carling in a Stella glass Sky high and six thousand miles away, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:43, Reply)

Went here. Seriously, what? I mean, the only people can justify this bollocks is the people who make it.
www.tate.org.uk/
(Orkran Mild Euphoria Ensues, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:43, Reply)

The English Patient
A few years ago I'd broken up with a long term girlfriend and we were in the "getting back together" stage. She wanted to start again, to pretend that we'd just met and I'd have to wine her and dine her in order to get back into her knickers. And so we went on our "first date".

I picked her up and we headed into town. She desperately wanted to see The English Patient so I'd booked tickets and we arrived at the pictures. It was 2 hours of sheer torture. It was the most boring, pretenious, bottom-numbingly tedious film it's ever been my misfortune to sit through. I was at the point where I was willing to gnaw my right arm off and sneak out of the pictures.

And I didn't get laid that night. As it was our "first date" she didn't want to give me the impression she was easy! (We'd only being seeing each other for two fucking years!)

And I wasn't even
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:39, Reply)

A Pretentious List:
The movie “Pi”, the TV show “Prisoner”, “In The Cornbelt” by Dinosaur L and stusut79 – who, whilst needing to learn that less is more, does cause within me an angst ridden dichotomy tempered only by the supercilious rapture of beautitude when connecting with his posts on a primordial level.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:39, Reply)

re: Plat Du Jour
www.platdujour.co.uk/

Matthew Herbert has done an entire album about the evils of the modern food industry, featuring songs such as "THE TRUNCATED LIFE OF A MODERN INDUSTRIALISED CHICKEN" (apparently "all live percussion is made from a dozen organic free-range eggs, egg boxes and egg cups and played with chopsticks by leo taylor")

He's playing all this live at the Barbican (the Barbican!) next monday.

I'm going.

I can't wait.

I live in North London.


...genius at work
(eightAce, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:39, Reply)

Moby
Described the liner notes to "Play" as "Essays".

No, Mr Moby. They were your usual smug, pretentious, waffly, Prius-driving twat-mongering shite. And your music makes me want to rip off my balls and stuff them in my ears, just to make it stop.
(Chumphry, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:23, Reply)

Someone at my girlfriend's Fine Art degree show
hung up a bananna on a coat-hanger in a room.
Apparantly he got a 1st. The C**t.

Another one put out a piece of paper with a coffee stain ring on it. W****r.

Another one smashed up her car and captured it on video. Again, got a 1st. B***h

God, it's all coming back to me now. Another one set out her collection of "Hello Kitty" memorabilia. WTF.

My girlfriend made a super cool porno claymation (took almost 6 months) and got a f*****g third.

Conclusion: Art students and teachers are Cnuts.
( Farmfoodsman, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:23, Reply)

Pretentious bollocks
When I went to see red hot chili peppers last year, I had the misfortune of watching the opening act 'chicks on speed'.
Lesbians with voltmeters, violins and neon costumes have never been so pointless and boring.
Steve Coogan is also pretentious bollocks. He actually believes that he is a comedy genius despite having only made one good comedy.
( Brown cow, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:15, Reply)

Quite a few actually
On a day trip to the Glasgow School of Art for the higher module of Art in high school, we were given a tour around so that the big-people projects might inspire us for our own end of the year assessed work. Among other things, the most laughable projects included the twenty or so 12x15 black and white photos of a guy farting in a bathtub, the egg carton neighbourhood and wool.

So why couldn't we just fart and stick lollipop sticks up our arses and photograph that for our projects? Because we didn't "appreciate" it enough.


*edit* The blue fanny was quite nice too.
(the_fracturedpope, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:15, Reply)

this SHOULD be glasscock
This guy is an utter twat. Enjoy:

Mark McGowan

You may remember him as the cunt who went round scratching cars, videoed it, then claimed it wasn't him when the police got involved.

Excerpt:
SAUSAGE CHIPS AND BEANS 2003

Mark sat in a bath of beans with two chips stuck up his nose and 48 sausages strapped to his head for two weeks, he was advocating the consumption of the much maligned British breakfast.
(buggerlugs fold staple mutilate, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:12, Reply)

"Apropos of nothing..."
isn't pretentious. It's a cliche perhaps but it's just good use of language. For dictionary.com:

ap·ro·pos

Being at once opportune and to the point.

adv.

1. At an appropriate time; opportunely.
2. By the way; incidentally: Apropos, where were you yesterday?

prep.

With regard to; concerning: Apropos our date for lunch, I can't go.
(InfiniteZenMaster, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:04, Reply)

A bit of a deviation perhaps......
....from the luvvies of the west end of London, but many years ago I lived in Blackburn Lancs. One night staggering home from the pub I noticed a boarded up building had been taken over by some reactionaries and hippies, and more for the smell of the puff that was coming from inside accepted an invitation to come in and chat for a bit. They were an alright bunch, the sort who mostly seem to exist through anti-disistablishmentarianism (and I am trying not to be pretentious for using such a big word).

Anyway over the next couple of weeks I got to know a few of them and got to hear tales of their protests against roads through green belt land, anti vivisection protests and so on. One sunday I was chatting with this large Australian chap who frequented the place who introduced me to a couple of fairly well to do people who were excitedly talking about their "discoveries" and we were hastily ushered back to their nice house overlooking the Rovers footall ground. They were discussing some alternative shit whilst I perused the record collection (a habit I use to judge if people are ok) - anyway it was then we were ushered into into the basement for the true "discovery" which had them jumping around like jackrabbits - in the basement the guy produced a large road map of the area and showed us the route up from the A666 and had couloured in all the streets in felt tip pen round all the streets of Blackburn to look like one of the horsemen of the apocalypse! It was something a bored child would do, but they then proceeded to hold aloft a a necklace which everyone was invited to touch the hand from the holder to ask if they "Felt the power here" - the only thing I felt was a prize prat for even considering any of these people were serious.
(Waynster James Joyce is fucking my sister!, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 13:02, Reply)

It's modern DARNCE darling
I was unfortunate enough to attend a performance of the Rambert Dance Company several years ago. A girl that I was interested in wanted to go, so I tagged along. The 'ballet' was about the life and work of the Spanish surrealist Federico Garcia Lorca, who was apparently murderd by the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War. After five minutes of self-satisfied posturing on stage, I could well understand why.

The worst part was when they actually performed a farce by Lorca, called 'Buster Keaton's Bicycle'. An typical excerpt from the narration is:

"The machine takes on a single dimension. It could enter a book, stretch out in a bake oven. Buster Keaton's bicycle hasn't a caramel saddle and pedals of sugar, of the sort that wicked men might wish for. It is a bicycle like any other, except that it is the only one that's permeated with innocence. Adam and Eve would run in terror if they saw a glass of water, but on the other hand they would stroke Keaton's bicycle."

If that isn't enough to make any rational person put you up against a wall and riddle your miserable carcass with bullets, what is?

Predictably, the whole affair ended up with thunderous applause from the crowd, and more curtain calls than I could count, as the luvvies on stage milked it for all it was worth. At least it muffled the sound of my incredulous laughter.

BTW, I did end up with the object of my desire, only to find out that she was self-cented, tighter than a gnat's chuff, and crap in bed. So a bit of a wasted evening all round.



"Anyone who uses the word "workshop", and isn't involved in light engineering, is a TWAT" - Alexi Sayle
(Huey the cat says 'Meewoe', Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:56, Reply)

Crouching tiger, fucking piggy
This has got to take the cake:
A workmate of mine is a curator for avant-garde art in his spare time and is particularly taken by the emerging art scene in China. So I ended up going to an exhibition he'd organised of arty videos made by Chinese loons who've somehow managed to avoid being executed.
Prize video showed a crowd of Chinese sullenly watching two pigs fucking. One pig was painted all over in Chinese characters and the others covered in Western letters. Both of them were squealing like ..er.. pigs, and this went on for three minutes, finishing in a slow-motion money shot.
Here was me thinking art was about Picasso and Raphael, when in fact it's all about decorated pigs wazzing all over the floor.
(mudskipper, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:45, Reply)

art students
I had an art student girlfriend who, come festival time, would dance up and down Lygon Street in a pixie costume, confronting people in cafes with her improvised dance routines. I still cringe now when i remember, although i suppose it must take a fair bit of guts to actually get out there and make an arse of yourself like that.
(uptonogood, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:40, Reply)

Edinburgh Fringe
I went to the fringe this year, for a number of days. The atmosphere was great, the street performers (have to be funny and entertaining or they don't get paid!) were fantastic and some of the pubs are top. However... some of the shows that we had to pay for - fuck me! Absolutely appalling. Students/amateur comedians that had little or no idea how to engage an audience and spent a lot of time just noodling about with strange songs and movements adding nothing to their set, story or message. I'll go again, but never pay for another show...
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:31, Reply)

STUSUT79
Tedoiusly predictable, wannabe-surrealist, "I'm so deep I find merit and meaning in the biggest load of tosh"-teenager pleasing idiot.

If only good acid was available to him - he might be able to use his obvious imagination to better effect.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:12, Reply)

my GF and her friends dragged me along, damn them all....
once went to an alternative music festival at a theatre in my home town.
A few of the performances where ok, even really liked on of them, but most of them where utter shite.
The one that really stood out was a Japanese woman with a synthesizer and a tall guy with ginger hair and a guitar.
They walked on stage and started tuning and hooking up their instruments. The guy started the performance by starting to wail away at the guitar, very dramaticly, like he was building up to do some seriously cool guitar playing.

and then came "the song"

The small Japanese woman started to shriek and scream into her microphone, tweaking, distorting and adding echoes to her howling and screeching with the synthesizer, making it even louder and more annoying. I couldn't tell if she was saying (or singing) anything, it all came out sounding like a mixture of cats being raped by elephants, seaguls attacking small children and nails against a blackboard.

The guy kept going at the guitar from different angles, producing noises I didn't know a guitar could make. some examples of what he did:
-dragging the guitar, face down, across the floor.
-rubbing it against his boddy.
-smashing it against the speakers.
-licking the strings with his tongue.
-twisting the tuning knobs while doing these other things.

they made ten minutes feel like an eternity.

idiots

the worst part was the group of the usual chin-rubbing wankers nodding like this was the best performance they had ever experienced.

Length & girth?
You know you like it baby!
( The little pink animal is mostly harmless, except on, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:00, Reply)

Industrial Music
Me and a friend used to put on noise/industrial gigs in Bradford. The industrial scene attracts it's fair share of pretentious tripe and we paid good money to people to make horrific noise to eager punters.
One group consisted of two German's (i think) sitting at a table with a metronome and two dinner plates heaped with spaghetti. The plates had microphones attached. The metronome ticked away to an accompanying feedback squeal. After a few minutes of this the performers slammed their faces into the plates. This was repeated every so often until all the spaghetti was off the plates and all over the performers/stage/audience. That probably cost us about £200 to put on.

Another gig involved an American guy melting a car tyre with an angle grinder (with obligatory feedback squall).

Much more satisfying were the several performances of Smell & Quim that we hosted.
( catbwoy, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 12:00, Reply)

i see/hear shit like that all the time
the london electronic music scene is a breeding ground for powerbook owners who want to be musician/artist/performers, but lack actual musical talent.

so they do shit like that. while their peers stand around scratching their chins and pontificating on the politcal nuances of white noise and digital signal processing.

bunch of arse.


oh, and the "burlesque" show at the speigeltent at edinburgh festival this year. what was more upsetting was that everyone in the crowd appluaded. fucking sheep.
(Mildred is a slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:46, Reply)

"Holding Pattern" WTF?
this shit:

www.lbbd.gov.uk/4-arts-culture/a13/arterial/a13-holding-pattern.html
(airyfairy, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:44, Reply)

Situationists, piss off
Saw the "anarchist" Clown Army in Edinburgh for the G8.

Sod off. Sod right off.

If you're a revolutionary, you're a fecking revolutionary. Away and fight the state (which'll win BTW).

If you're a painfully wacky student who likes fancy dress, you're a pain in the erse. Nothing more.

I don't condone violence but I reckon the polis should have let the "black bloc" choobs smash up a few banks and coffee shops and saved the baton charges for these publicity-seeking twunts.

/rant
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:42, Reply)

Contemporary Opera
My one and only foray into this genre was Doctor Ox's Experiment, booked only because Atom Egoyan was directing.
The Colyseum did not have air con and it was summer, we spent 3 hours sweating, not having a clue as to what was going on on stage. I managed to get a programme at the interval, and althoug it shed light on the story, I still did not have a clue as to what had gone on stage during those 3 hours
(albator, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:22, Reply)

"My Cock"
I once went to see an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery - which is pretentious by default - for some GCSE art prep. It was entitled "My Cock" and comprised of some polaroids of sandcastles in various stages of decay masking-taped around an A3 photograph of the artist's penis. It was shit.
( Fictional Emma, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:15, Reply)

Modern classical music
My boyfriend sings with a fairly large prestigious choir. I usually go along to see him sing. Unfortunately his choir and the associated orchestra are seen as a public service which means that they sometime have to do less well-known and not very popular pieces.

This 'music' is the most pretentious discordant crap that I have ever had the misfortune to hear. Imagine a room full of six-year-olds given instruments and told to play what they like and sing any old random words and you'll get the general idea.

The worst was by a guy called John Adams which was commissioned as a memorial to 911. It was played during the Proms at the Albert Hall two years ago. The choir had to sing words taken from the last words of people who managed to phone before the planes crashed ("I see buildings, I see water"). Accompanying this and the terrible discordant music was a recorded list of the names of people who had died. Pretentious bollocks of the highest order and in incredibly poor taste.

I have learned to avoid pieces by composers that are still alive.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:14, Reply)

My old boss...
...who was something of a Drinking Expert (the sun was never under his yardarm!) used to start conversations in the office with the line

"Apropros of nothing..."

Meh.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 11:00, Reply)

Two words: Sonic Art
Which is a degree at Middlesex University. I was there thinking it would be learning audio engineering to underpin my electrical engineering science major, in the words of George Costanza in 'The Bubble Boy' - "oh nooo".

It turns out that traditional standards in musical arrangement, audio quality and signal processing are severely frowned upon. Performing and recording a perfect solo rendition of a country and western ssong (as a friend did) gets you a fail.

For a first, you should 'explore the possibilities of a crips packet' - by recording yourself scrunching and tearing it at different distances from a microphone, for about twenty minutes.

Then, everyone has to sit around and listen to it, then discuss it at great length. With approximately thirty people in the class, this becomes torturous pretty quick.



As for myself, in first school we used to do 'Music and Movement' or something it was called. It was sort of like freeform physical interprative expression in response to combinations of music & stories which came on record or tape (CD had yet to be invented). I remember one class we were supposed to be being diggers, as my classmates whirled and flailed their arms I just stood there, puzzled. "What does it mean to be a digger? How do I become the digger?" I had no muse. The essence, the spirit, the concept of diggerness was alien to me and, as a vessel void of content or meaning I stood. Frozen to the spot, rivers of queries of my own validity cascading into oceans of self doubt. I was about 5-7 years old at the time...

... pretentious? Moi? Ich don't think so
( Liquid Crystal, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 10:50, Reply)

Get over yourself love
I know this girl who's a teacher. She occasionally has to organise her class to perform a school play at assembly - we're talking a 10 minute long "production" with a couple of songs thrown in and a big bow at the end. These kids are 9 and 10 years old. I saw this teacher recently and asked her how work was going. Error. "Well," she says dramatically, "It's my turn to organise assembly this week and I'm having a bit of a nightmare with it." "Why's that?" I ask politely. "Well I think I've got the CASTING right but I'm having trouble with the dialogue." I'm serious. It's an ASSEMBLY for 9 and 10 years olds for fuck's sake! Casting! Dialogue! I don't see her any more if I can help it.
(Mad McMad, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 10:50, Reply)

Outdoor art
When i was doing my art GCSE, i participated in an art event at a local country park, where artists were invited to make pieces of outdoor art for a new wetlands section. I created a plant sculpture out of hosepipes and sharp copper 'swords' (i am sure someone ended up impailed on those dangerous leaves). I expected the grand opening to be a night of arty-farty schmoozing, with champaign and photos with the mayor. What i didn't expect to be doing was walking around the park all night in a procession of hippies, saying 'hello' to all the plants and trees, chanting and banging a drum. Utter new-age bollocks.
(Slinkachuu, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 10:42, Reply)

bluebiscuit
There is only one guitarist in the Mars Volta… are you blind as well as deaf!?


Sorry that was perhaps a bit harsh but I was at that gig and it was amazing!
(Minty Hit, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 10:40, Reply)