The Null Device
2003/5/18
The street finds its own uses for things; those camera-equipped mobile phones, for example, are ideal for vote-rigging, as the Italian Mafia have discovered:
Here's the idea: you promise a voter 50 euros (31 pounds) to cast their ballot for your candidate, send them into the booth with a 3G phone, they send a picture via the phone proving that they have voted as instructed and then they get the cash.
(via bOING bOING)
My DJ set at Grand Music for Tiny Souls went quite well. I didn't play for very long (from a bit after 4 until around 8ish, in between bands; then a guy calling himself Tepid took over and brought his collection of laptop glitch electronica and such; he seemed like a pretty nice chap, and he does a weekly glitch/noise/drill'n'bass night at Pony on Tuesday nights; may have to show up to that). Also, this time the organisers provided the setup, and so I had access to a Denon DN-X800 mixer, much better mixer than the $125 Smack Converters special I usually use, and a DJ-oriented double CD deck. Ah, luxury.
(What did I play? A bit of UK indie-pop (The Field Mice, It's Jo and Danny, The Lollies, The Charm Offensive, Spearmint, Black Box Recorder and Belle & Sebastian all got a look in), a bit of shoegazer/dreampop/ethereal-type stuff (Lush, Slowdive, Parsley Sound), some antipodean acts (Architecture in Helsinki, Ninetynine, The Hummingbirds (the ones from the early 90s), The Chills, Ash Wednesday), a few old-sk00l acts (Joy Division, Pixies, Smiths), a few new things (the Interpol disc got a spin) and a few oddities (Dsico's Smells Like Electro, John Trubee's Blind Man's Penis Song, Denki Groove's Shangri-La).)
Some of the bands I saw there were quite good too; in particular, I Want A Hovercraft and Season (who are sounding a bit like Mogwai in places, in a good way). Unfortunately, I didn't get to stick around to see International Karate or Seascapes of the Interior, as the Love of Diagrams album launch was on the same night. Sometimes it'd be good to be in two places at once.