ClaRK! Kent

Yeah. It's a song to be from the new album. Hence "heard it live," etc. It's on some random compilation from the NME as well. RK!

Having met and hung out with Ricky Wilson, I feel obliged to defend him. He's a really nice guy, and the place where he grew up was obscenely dull, hence his drive for achieving fame to end the drudgery. And besides, Kaiser Chiefs are probably one of the better live bands in the country at the moment, having seen most of the ones you mentioned. I agree about Razorlight and The Bravery, they both fucking suck. The Libertines were a great band, and they still could be, but Peter's tabloid day out is becoming a bit dull. Tom Meighan is a dick, but Kasabian are okay. Brandon Flowers, however, is the next Morrissey if you ask me, he's incredibly charismatic without jumping around like a squirrel on acid. And don't be down on the 80s, they're a Hell of a lot better than the decades before and after. It's nice that somebody likes Patrick Wolf, also. But if you think Interpol are either underrated or talented, you need your head examined. Overhyped shite. RK!

I'm into a huge amount of music ATM, so this is only really touching the surface if we're talking current stuff... 10. "Lyla" - Oasis 9. "Hounds of Love" - The Futureheads 8. "E-Pro" - Beck 7. "Spectacular" - Graham Coxon 6. "Luno" - Bloc Party 5. "Na na na na naa" - Kaiser Chiefs 4. "Tristan" - Patrick Wolf 3. "Medication" - Queens of the Stone Age 2. "Old Soul Song for the New World Order" - Bright Eyes 1. "Change Your Mind" - The Killers (new song, I believe, heard it live and found it online, very good) Again, only a selection. RK!

Nothing by Oasis gets its fair share of airplay in the US, because they can never be bothered to kiss the required amount of PR-head ass to get on commercial radio playlists coast-to-coast. Because they're too cool. When I think 'underrated' I don't necessarily think of commercial airplay, but like critical acclaim and how much they're seen as a serious artist/song. Hence the Ashlee Simpson thing. On a similar vein, I like Octopus' Garden and Maxwell's Silver Hammer, which are often derided as "silly shit" by older Beatles fans I know. Sourpusses. The lack of Sixpence is a drag, I only have the one album and can't find any others. RK!

Have never heard anybody mention Paranoid Android, except for me and my friend Grace, and we're both huge fans so that doesn't count really. The Sixpence None The Richer and Ashlee Simpson songs were more in terms of critical acclaim, in a serious sense, than commercial success. You'd never get the NME covering Ashlee's album, for example, and I haven't heard anything from Sixpence None The Richer in the music press for years, and even then it seemed that people looked on them as a one-trick pop pony. They're both actually very talented recording artists. RK!

Most of these might be quite odd, but whatever. The Smiths - Ask, Oscillate Wildly, Some Girls are Bigger Than Others, The Beatles - Tell Me Why, Day Tripper, Back in the USSR, John Lennon - Jealous Guy, Paul McCartney - The entire 'Pipes of Peace' album, Radiohead - Paranoid Android, Subterranean Homesick Alien, Cranberries - Ode to my Family, Promises, Just my Imagination, Oasis - The entire 'Be Here Now' album except Magic Pie, Eric Clapton - Strange Brew, Jimi Hendrix - Dolly Dagger, Freedom, Little Wing, Blur - Stereotypes, Mr Robinson and his Quango, Ernold Same, and so on. These are songs which aren't so much underrated songs from a respected artist, but songs from bands that aren't seen as 'cool' or whatever that I actually really like... Anything by McFly (seriously, check the musicianship out!), Ringo Starr solo work, Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me, Ashlee Simpson - Autobiography, Alanis Morrissette - You Oughta Know, Eight Easy Steps, Patrick Wolf - about everything he's ever done. Yeah. RK!

Best bit - The Emperor laughing at Yoda, captioned as... "ROFL" "You can hang with us, but we still think you're a n00b" Good times. RK!

It's an exclusively-Chinese practice, and it all but died out what with Communism destroying all of their customs and all. But yeah, it was disgusting. They did it so the women couldn't walk properly unaided, and thus would rely on the men to do anything/were more servile. A pretty vile practice, really. Still, Kou and Chiaki have normal feet, so they're fine by me. Japanese girls are hotter than Chinese girls in general, really. Chinese girls at my age tend to not have been raised too well, due to the tacit support for the waning One-Child Policy in the 1980s (even into today, in fact) meaning that everybody wanted boys. Girls were not loved. There's a whole generation of eligible Chinese batchelors coming into manhood now with no girls to marry... poor bastards. I've been to China, it's a beautiful country but the government's practices make me sick. They leave baby girls in dustbins in Beijing, because they're not wanted. Back to girls, though - if you find Asian girls attractive over basically all others, does this mean you have a fetish or you're just weird? Is it racially supremacist? If you say that you don't particularly find dark-skinned women attractive, is this wrong? The moral dilemmas surrounding being 18 with unusual taste in girls. RK!

I honestly don't have a preference, because I have no foot fetish or the like. Whatever kind of feet your average Asian chick has, that's fine by me. RK!

Spanish feet, yeah. In some cultures - Spain? - they're considered quite attractive. I think it's interesting. In an interesting cultural-attractiveness aside, according to a friend of mine who studies Japanese at A Level, the Japanese vision of what an 'attractive man' is supposed to be, the perfect-man thing, has many features in common with many Western men. Like, they did some study and these Japanese women rated characteristics predominant in Caucasian men as the most attractive. Suits me. Kuriyama, here I come! RK!

Yeah. They're all rubbish character bios, vague snatches of story, and 'press this button here' stuff that is all explained in the in-game tutorials early on anyways. And it's also a good excuse to shill Squaresoft merchandise, which is terrible. Apart from the really beautiful 12'' figure/model of Selphie my sister got me for my birthday a couple of years back. Pride of place on the shelf, baby! RK!

I tend to get FF games (the more recent ones, anyway, 8 onwards) on the day they're released, through Amazon or some such site, and they have the strategy guides for an additional fiver or something. Why not? They all have some really nice art in them, and they can help if you're overly stuck in an area. Although I do agree that it's stupid to play with the walkthrough the whole way, because then - why play? Why not just read the guide? September? Egads, what a long time to wait. Aww. RK!

A lot of Morrissey fans come across as pretentious, I'm sure, just as I'm sure he comes across as pretentious to the uninitiated. I've read a lot about him, listened to every single one of his albums/singles, and he's an incredibly deep individual with an extraordinary personality and sense of the world around him. Like rvdwannabe said, he's got a great knack for dry wit, sharp humour, and whatnot. As for the instruments, with The Smiths at the very least they were anything but 'just background.' Johnny Marr was a musical genius who deserves to be revered up there with Hendrix, Clapton, and Paige IMO, because his riffs and arrangements powered those songs along. How Soon Is Now?, What Difference Does It Make?, Panic, etc - these songs were driven by the music, and still stand up as great music today. The voice is superb, IMO, but I guess that's a matter of personal preference. It's very different to almost everything you heard in the genre up to that point, and even today - although he has his imitators as everybody does now. He conveys a lot of emotion and power through his voice. I don't think it's fair to call a man who - despite being away for 7 years and without 'the band' for 17, is still revered by millions worldwide and has the ability to shift an absolute shitload of albums with virtually no airplay and very little promo, and has been holding reverent audiences in his hand for 20 years now - nothing special. He's something to care about, within music, I think. These days, everything is so pre-packaged and commercially-driven, even in the alternative market a lot of the time, that anybody who seems to have a vaguely-working brain is jumped on as some icon. Morrissey is different, he is an icon. Maybe it's a British thing, I don't know, because a lot of his songs are very British in their humour, subject matter, and emotion, but his songs speak to me on a very profound and personal level. He's somebody to love, a true icon in the Dylan/Lennon/Hendrix/Reed sense of the word. I mean, yeah, people like Josh Homme and Jack White and Pete Doherty and the like make some great music, but who could love them? Their mothers? I wasn't a huge Morrissey fan, until about 3 years ago. I'd heard some albums, thought they were alright, but did think he was 'a bit depressing' - the classic words of the uninitiated. Whilst staying with friends in America, I was lucky enough to see him live - he blew me away, he won me over in 90 minutes. I've seen him live twice since then, and it's been beautiful each time. Sorry if that was a bit of a rant, but I do love the man and his music so I'm a bit protective. VIVA MORRISSEY! RK!

James Iha's best days are behind him, without Corgan he is a ship without a sail. Muahahaha. Morrissey is God. That is all. RK!

Again, it's a style preference really. RK!

I just have respect for my guitar, I've had the same one for about 5 years now and that's mostly through style and generally being kind to it. My playing isn't 'intense guitar wankery' or whatnot, it's fairly raw and visceral at times but not silly Steve Vai-style stuff, 5 notes in a second or whatever. Yes, they can afford new strings and new guitars, I know that. I just don't like that style, it's a personal gripe. RK!

It's a sloppy style that will, in time, damage and fuck up your guitar. That's my main gripe. Respect your instrument. RK!

I like most genres of music, in all honesty, there's something good in every genre. I just don't like grunge, or rap-rock, or a lot of more recent stuff to come out of the US. I find it stale and very lacking. I agree with muddatrucker that a lot of the great guitarists have no depth, and it's all just an exercise in "my guitar playing is better than yours, and by extension so is my phallus" stuff. I love a lot of 'simpler' music, I'm supremely willing to give any band a listen before I judge. I've listened to quite a lot of grunge, and all of that, and I don't like it. I find that it rapes the guitar, makes it sound terrible, and clearly shows no talent. There's a difference between requesting everybody be able to play at breakneck speed without missing a transition and requesting that bands know that thrashing your guitar will KILL it. That I don't like. RK!

I'll track some down - I have a friend who likes that sort of thing, I'll ask him. I'm aware that often being technically proficient isn't the point. Hell, some of my songs only use 4 or 5 chords, but I do like to get the feeling that the guitarist hasn't only started playing a month ago and is now raping a Gibson on MTV. It's an artistic thing. RK!

Ah, good. All is forgiven. *puts away samurai stars* RK!

James had only 1 single though, that was remotely remembered. They haven't stood the test of time, I suppose. I like them, though, that song at least. I'm not really into any of the grunge stuff that the Melvins influenced, so I'll cede to you on that one, because you clearly know more than me about it. I dislike Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains, and if Stone Temple Pilots sound anything like the supergroup that their singer is now in, whatever their name is, they can't have been too great either. I'm a musician myself, so I suppose I have a sort of "are they doing anything new/better with it?" thing that I have to answer yes to in order to truly love a band. Also, the playing has to be proficient enough for me to not be able to learn their back catalogue in two days, a la most grunge bands. I think playing, on a semi-serious basis, sort of changes the way you look at music. RK!

Battle Royale, a disappointment? It's one of the best films ever made! RK!

The Bravery should've at least called their album "Honest Fuss" and given us all a laugh. They're ripping off the Killers, who in turn are stealing from New Order. Most music is the sum of its influences these days, which is a sort of sign that it's all been done before but now we're just putting a spin on it. My opinion on the 90s - I like much Britpop, I do, but the decade seemed to be populated by one-hit wonders like James, The Las, and suchlike, all of whom were never 'great.' If you're considering Garbage as Britpop, then they're in there too, but I wouldn't call 'em that. And I didn't like pulp. As for grunge, I dearly enjoy Nirvana's last two albums, I do - but Mudhoney? The Melvins? Butthole Surfers? This was not good music, people. I like New Wave, ChrisSteele, I do - and those bands are all good, but for me they paved the way for the Ecstasy-ridden, utterly-shite dance-filled part of the 90s music scene, and that annoys me. But I do adore Kraftwerk and New Order. Adam Ant was also good. The 80s were the best decade, because of the Smiths. No more, no less. The Smiths made the 1980s. I like all of the bands that ChrisSteele mentioned in his "times are good now" bit - apart from the Bravery, who are annoying, and Razorlight. Johnny Borrel is - and I know, I met him after one of their earlier gigs in Camden Town - a TOTAL ASSHOLE. I can't get over that, he's a fucking prick of the highest order. My friends and I were being quite nice to the band, but he was trying to score with my then girlfriend all the time. Tosser. RK!

Has anybody seen Advent Children? Is it any good?

She's hot, yes, very hot indeed. But not as hot as Kuriyama. Or Gwen. She can be my new number 3, I guess. Bye-bye, Vida Guera. If all you have is an ass, you'll get knocked off eventually. RK!