Post Four - Shut Up And Play The Hits

This entry is about a film which will be (hopefully) released this year, and will be premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, which in terms of independent film, is considered quite a 'big deal'. The film in question is called 'Shut Up And Play The Hits', a sort of docu-film about the days leading up to the end of a band.

According to the press blurb it's a 'narrative film documenting a once in a lifetime performance and an intimate portrait of James Murphy as he navigates the lead-up to the show, the day after, and the personal and professional ramifications of his decision.'

If you don't want to read what I think about this film (then why are you still here??) it's probably best to skip to the trailer at the bottom. Otherwise, read on..

On April 2, 2011, one of my favourite bands of all time played their last ever live gig. LCD Soundsystem played a four hour-long show to nearly 20,000 people, with those who couldn't get tickets, watching a specially set up stream on the music website Pitchfork.

As live gigs go, it was one of the best I've ever seen (even on my laptop screen) and seeing the best part of the LCD back-catalogue played out for one last time was well worth going into a fourteen hour shift at 8.30am, after just an hours sleep.

I probably should be ashamed to admit that even though I was thousands of miles away, watching a stream of a live gig in the middle of the night, I was so close to actual tears on several occasions. (Note: I am a little bit ashamed, and will blame it on tiredness and student malnutrition, but there were parts which did get 'proper emotional', and I'm not a robot...)

This felt different to when other bands I've liked have split, because I've never seen it coming. The shock of being 'caught out' by news of one of your favourite bands often means that you don't get the opportunity to think about why you'll miss them, only that you do so.

It felt different because it was all so planned. Frontman James Murphy had for a long time said that the bands third record, 'This Is Happening', would be their last, but his claims never really seemed factual until the announcement of this final gig. The named date of April 2 seemed so final, so terminal, that if I wasn't so saddened by their decision to quit whilst on top, I would have been less oblivious of the near-genius of the decision to do.

It reminded me that musicians, bands and artists do have a creative lifespan, and whether they call time on a project because they feel like it is no longer a going concern, or whether the nucleus of the group becomes dislodged from the rest of the cells is mostly irrelevant.

Anyway, the point of this entry was to talk about my potential excitement of this 'docu-film' being released, not to longingly pine over the departure of the band about whom it features. Below is a video to watch; unsurprisingly its a trailer for 'Shut Up And Play The Hits'. If you like what you see, my next bit of advice is to travel to www.shutupandplaythehits.com

Paul

Post Three - Thierry Henry

As you may have heard on Twitter or Facebook last night, the king is back. Well the king of Arsenal at least. Several references to the long-awaited return of Thierry Henry dominated the 'Trending Topics' list on Twitter, and several of my (and yours too, whoever is likely reading this) Facebook contacts updated their statuses to allude to his homecoming.

Arsenal's Third Round FA Cup tie against Leeds seemed to wait patiently for his arrival, having served up over an hour of toothless attacking versus stout defending. In fact, the only notable incident took place in the televised build-up, when the unfortunate Martin Keown was stuck on the head by a football which was probably aimed at his ESPN colleague Robbie Savage.

Just ten minutes after his introduction as a substitute in the 68th minute, Thierry Henry scored the only goal, one which better sports writers than I would describe as a 'trademark finish'. The relief was almost palpable for players and fans alike, who otherwise would have had little for discussion other than the spurned chances which fell to Andrey Arshavin and Marouane Chamakh.

So often in sport, time provides the opportunity for those who have wronged to seek forgiveness, or more likely that negative memories are omitted from the consciousness of fans at a time of happiness. It seems strange to think that twenty-six months ago (after Henry deliberately handled the ball in a World Cup playoff match for France against Ireland) he was arguably one of the most hated men in football (not the most hated - that mantle will likely belong to Sepp Blatter for many years after his death).

Yet only Henry's most vocal detractors mentioned that incident on the social networks, and negative sentiment was so scarcely placed that It was easily ignorable, amongst adulation from fans of many of Arsenal's rival clubs. Even as a Manchester United fan (who has grown a 'penchant' for current Championship leaders Southampton having spent three years at university there) it was a joy to see him return.

England has the best leagues and cup competitions, so to want the best players, matches and stories (which are so often lacking in the modern FA Cup) can only be natural. The third round of The FA Cup had a narrative of history running through it, as Paul Scholes came out of retirement to help United overcome City in the Manchester Derby, and Paolo Di Canio notched up another giant killing as manager of Swindon Town over Premier League opponents Wigan.

Arsenal will likely face sterner tests in the remaining six weeks of Henry's loan from New York Red Bulls, but for now it was just enjoyable to see the return of a player who could've all too easily tarnished his reputation in England further. Whether you have forgiven or forgotten for past indiscretions, the latest chapter in a career which may only have a season or two left, started on an emphatically high note for Thierry Henry.

Paul

Post Two - Blackbusters

I like Twitter. Well for the most part I like Twitter. Once you overlook all the awful tweets from fans of Justin Bieber / One Direction / Lady Gaga / The Wanted / Jedward etc, what's left is a informative social network which is quite fun to read and interact with.

On a personal level I find Twitter to be quite enjoyable when watching television (mostly reality shows or sport) and I have been known to tweet a lot during episodes of The X Factor (or Celebrity Big Brother which launched last night).

Anyway moving onto the point of this post. Ed Miliband has been on the end of a bit of Twitter stick after he sent out a tweet mourning the death of Bob Holness, who presented the TV show Blockbusters.

Except Ed didn't put Blockbusters. He (clearly accidentally) wrote 'Blackbusters', noticed the error of his ways, then deleted said tweet.

Cue a load of keyboard warriors (y'know, the sort of people who think that superinjunction jokes are 'cool') jumping on the already overloaded "oh look something racist was said, therefore I must be seen to kick off about it" bandwagon that's been doing the rounds in the last couple of weeks.

In case it wasn't already apparent, this is just a bit of a whinge at people who try and suck all the fun out of Twitter. There is now a #EdMilibandGameShows hashtag currently sat in the trending topics, which has some funny (if a little tenuous) suggestions - with my favourite currently being 'Dancing On (Thin) Ice'.

I'd like to think that this all could have been avoided by Ed Miliband sending out a follow-up tweet making light of what is clearly a TYPO, but then I guess somebody at Labour HQ probably advised him to delete and just look a bit stupid for the afternoon, rather than being perceived as racist and stupid. Who knows?

Paul

Post One - An Introduction

This will hopefully act as somewhat of an introductory piece about what to expect from reading this blog.

The truth is that there won't be a particular niche (just yet) because I don't want to be limited to a solitary topic, but it will probably include stuff about PR, the media, sport, music. Nice and refined.

Everyone knows the Internet is full of blogs which don't get read, because they're awful, error-strewn ramblings about subject matter which not many people care about. At uni our lecturers encouraged us to write blogs about stuff which interested us and our experiences of our studies, in between writing reports with eye-watering word counts.

Without wanting to sound too boastful, that blog (which I won't link to at the moment - it won't be too hard to find if you really are keen to read it...) managed to clock up over five thousand page views in about a year. Granted the Daily Mail website probably gets that every six seconds, but I was happy anyone bothered to read it at all.

I'm not a huge fan of bloggers, my PR experience to date makes me think that they are self-entitled exploitative freeloaders who believe that they are more important than journalists or PRs, with the mistaken belief that any (minor) slight against them is suddenly a huge deal. Despite that sweeping generalisation, I do understand the use of the platform as a communication method as well as the purpose that bloggers can play in a PR strategy. A necessary evil.

Blogging can be used as a tool for 'good', and hopefully keeping this updated will help me find a job in either a PR or Marketing agency (the reason why my old lecturers suggested blogging was to get 'noticed' in the industry). At the moment I'm currently looking for work (having recently completed a four month PR internship) so this might be a nice distraction to unemployed life.

As a recent iPad convert, I want the majority of updates to be composed using either my iPad 2, rather than having a expensive tablet which isn't being used to anywhere near its potential. This will almost definitely result in double-posting, shocking typos and grammar, as well as the occasional 'posted from my iPad' signature.

I'm not saying that anything you read here will be of amazing quality (because the chances are it won't be) and it likely won't be updated all that often (my old boss said that blogs should ideally have at least 3 updates a day for SEO purposes), but there might be something worth five minutes of anyone's time here on an occasional basis.

To conclude, this will be a irregularly updated blog about various subject matter, approximately relevant to the time in which it was written. If that sound interesting, I'll likely be promoting updates on Twitter (@paultays), or if you don't have Twitter, stick it in your bookmarks.

Paul