I've just returned from a quiet few days in Belfast. I finally got to see Lord of the Rings (in the fantastic new Warner Village cinema at the Odyssey) and bought a load of CDs from a big bargain bucket in Our Price. I got Tom Waits 'Asylum Years', Pere Ubu 'The Modern Dance', Lou Reed 'Berlin' (all vinyl replacements y'see), Stereolab 'Sound Dust', Kingsbury Manx 'Let You Down' and Swans double CD incorporating Cop/ Greed/ Holy Money/ Young God (that's four albums!) - all priced at £3 each - and 'Eph' by Fridge for £2 as it has a slightly damaged sleeve.
No music news of any description to report, but then I have only logged back in for the first time in a week. More later.

News of the new season at ROTA, the free Saturday afternoon showcase at the Notting Hill Arts Club. Fog (on Jan 26th) and Meanwhile Back in Communist Russia (on Feb 2) look like they could be worth checking out.

Jan 12th Reverend Pike, The Blue Minkies
Jan 19th Good Time Pony (+ more TBC)
Jan 26th Ninja Tune presents: Fog
Feb 2nd Shifty Disco birthday celebrations: Theremin, Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia, Eeblee
Feb 9th Teleran Records (Japan) present: 2 Bybukowski, Yellow 6 (+ 1 more TBC)

Although the news seems to have gone unreported for nearly a week, Esquivel (the octagenarian Mexican much beloved of Stereolab and Cornelius) died in early January. I've posted a full report on the discussion board.

The new index will have to wait, but I've uploaded a review of the Feline Dream's Kill a Spyde show at last.

I seem to have overlooked it, but the Track and Field Organisation have been having their annual Winter Sprinter in London this week. I didn't even know about the Amazing Pilots on Monday night, I still haven't seen them! Anyway, arguably the best show of the week is on tonight (Thurs 10th) - when Electrelane and Saloon play the Toynbee Hall Arts Cafe in Commercial St (E1). £5 in and it kicks off at 8pm.

I've added a review of Belle and Sebastian's Christmas show in Belfast to the gig pages. I'm not deliberately ignoring the Frames I just didn't get there in time to see them!

So the tube fare has gone up? Thankyouverymuch London Underground.
Today I ventured into central London and i couldn't believe how quiet it was around Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. Tourists are so thin on the ground that a couple of the 'souvenir shops' (where you buy the tacky union jacks and big ben replicas) have actually bitten the dust.
Anyway, my main purpose was to see the movie Ghost World, which I was kicking myself for missing as loads of people have put it in their end of year lists. I have to say that I think it deserves the praise. It's basically the story of two recent high school graduates Enid and Rebecca (played by Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansen) who are pretty disillusioned about what to do next. Reebecca takes a job in a coffee shop while Enid takes "a remedial art class for retards and fuck-ups" and ends up making friends with Seymour (Steve Buscemi) a middle-aged loner who prides himself on his collection of 78rpm records. It isn't just a movie about adolescent rebellion, and it's clear that while Rebecca may just be going 'through a phase', Enid's constant striving for individuality and rejection of the mainstream is more than likely going to be a permanent part of her life.
It will also strike a chord with anyone who has read 'No Logo' as it makes a lot of points about mall-life, McJobs and corporate culture (the Masterpiece video store is one memorable scene). The decline of American culture and traditions is one of the main concerns of cartoonist Daniel Clowes, author of Ghost World, the comic book on which the movie was based. This story could be taking place in Anytown, USA where the malls are filled with Starbucks and Gap.
This is a very original and thought provoking film, it's funny too, and the characters are very well portrayed, particularly by Thora Birch.

Finally putting last year to bed.
Our albums of the year, gigs of the year and review of the year are all on-line now.
Some other sites year-end round-ups are listed below....

John Peel's Festive Fifty
Pitchfork top 20 albums of 2001
Rough Trade shops top 100 albums
the Onion's Best albums of 2001
the Onion's Least Essential albums of 2001
NME top 50 albums
NME top 50 singles

One New Year's Resolution I completely forgot about - get a job which doesn't involve nightshifts, or try everything in my power to get out of them! Yep, the last ten hours have been very tedious, only saved by watching Raging Bull on the telly and making up some CDRs. And of course, having my own free desktop theremin. It rocks.

New content at the weekend, ok folks?

Meanwhile some news from the Yakuza/ Nova Wreck camp. They've started a label called Nova Wreckords (clever huh?) and the first release is a 5 track CDR EP from Yakuza called "Silent Violent." There are 100 copies each in a hand made sleeve and you get it by mailorder by sending £3.50 to:
Yakuza, 2 Agincourt St, Belfast, BT7 1RB.

And there are actually some gigs in London this weekend:-
Tonight (Fri 4th) Part Chimp + Reynolds, Upstairs at the Garage, it's a Silver Rocket night so I imagine it's £4 or £5 8pm-3am.
Tomorrow (Sat 5th) Britt Daniel (Spoon singer solo set) + Wisdom of Harry + Kimberly Rew (Soft Boy guitarist solo set), the Borderline, £8, 8pm.

The wildly eclectic albums of the year list is published below. Cheers to those of you that voted, although I am a bit surprised that so many had Jay-Z on their lists. Variety really is the spice of life - a good selection, including some stuff that I haven't heard yet, so thanks!

1. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
2. Bjork - Vespertine
3. Radiohead - Amnesiac
4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part
5. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
6. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
7. The Strokes - Is This It?
8. Bonnie Prince Billy - Ease Down the Road
9. Fennesz - Endless Summer
10. Pulp - We Love Life
11. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
12. Daft Punk - Discovery
13. Beta Band - Hot Shots II
14. Kings of Convenience - Quiet is the New Loud
15. Simian - Chemistry is what we are
16. Gillian Welch - Time (the Revelator)
17. Squarepusher - Go Plastic
18. Missy Elliot - Miss E... So Addictive
19. Tindersticks - Can Our Love...
20. Mercury Rev - All Is Dream
21. Le Tigre - Feminist Sweepstakes
22. Fugazi - the Argument
23. Stephen Malkmus
24. Sparklehorse - it's a Wonderful Life
25. Low - Things We Lost in the Fire
26. Lift to Experience - the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads
27. Electrelane - Rock it to the Moon
28. Roots Manuva - Run Come Save Me
29. Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions - Bavarian Fruit Bread
30. Ed Harcourt - Here be Monsters

close... Aphex Twin, Bows, Red House Painters, Kristin Hersh, Minotaur Shock, the Dismemberment Plan, Autechre, Smog, Arab Strap.

I've been fiddling with the review of the year I uploaded before Christmas, and I may amend it tomorrow. I promise it's the last list of the season!

Belated happy new year! I must admit that I haven't had internet withdrawal symptoms at all during my twelve days in Northern Ireland, but I'm getting back to normal again. First priority is to get the A-Z and indexes up to date to include the new December content, second priority is to get cracking with the print edition.

A few new things will be added over the next few days - reviews of Belle and Sebastian and the Feline Dream, a generalised albums of the year feature and a composite list of your albums of the year. Ten people have sent in their lists and I've compiled a master list out of those - the winner isn't a surprise, but at least it isn't the White Stripes or the Strokes like every other list around! It might even be finished later on today.

Anyway, I had a fine time in Northern Ireland. I went to see Belle and Sebastian who still play too quietly for my liking. They were in their silly cover version mode, which kind of comes with the season I suppose. 'The Boys are back in town' was an unlikely choice though! I also saw the Feline Dream at last, who were loads better than I expected, really entertaining. Met a few people from the world of the internet at that show, including Nine who I hadn't seen in about five years! She has a new weblog Jinx Removing which I've just spent the afternoon reading.
Didn't do too much after Christmas except generally over indulge myself. We'd hired a car but then Gillian developed a chest infection, and as she didn't feel like drinking, she ended up driving me around everywhere. Naturally this meant we could visit loads more people, and we actually went to four different places on New Year's Eve, which was a good idea at the time, except I had to fly back to London at noon on New Year's Day and go straight to work - I was a bit groggy to say the least. After all these festivities I have seriously considered not drinking during January, but today one of my friends is leaving work so I guess I may be tempted. Naturally I would have hoped to hold out longer than the 2nd of January but these things happen!

in 2001 I
- completely failed to relocate from London to Belfast
- set up slowthrills.com as a domain name, as a precursor for the print edition which will appear early this year.
- didn't travel as much as I wanted, but still got to go to Tunisia in January, Sudan in May and Dublin in October.

in 2002 I
- will publish issue one of Slow Thrills (at least!)
- will write more
- will travel more
- will keep any New Year's Resolutions deliberately vague.

Well, I'm off to Belfast today so don't expect any new content for a while. Things get back to normal on January 2nd, with albums of the year and probably a lot of chinstroking relating to them. Of all the material added to the site over the past three weeks only Billy Mahonie and the Clientele (and maybe some gig reviews) will appear in our print edition which will hopefully be ready late in February. I'm also very sorry that I haven't been bothered to update the A-Z index, or the 'recently added' bits as I've been flat-out fucked for a couple of weeks. Oh well.
I'll be at the Belle and Sebastian/ The Frames show at Queen's on 21st, and at the Feline Dream gig on 23rd. Come and say "hello!"
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Last new content for a while - a kind of review of the year. Enjoy!

Another day, another major hangover. Add to that the general foggy-headed flu I'm suffering from, I'm amazed that there's been any new content at all! I even missed the Stereolab gig the other night cos I felt too ill to go. It's kind of a mix of headache, dry throat and seasonally affected boredom, so it's not much fun (the flu that is, not Stereolab)
Anyway, last night was our department's Xmas bash and we hired the venue in the Macadam building which overlooks the Thames. I made the most of the time-limited free bar (seemed like 8pm til 8.20 then 9 til 9.15 !!) so it turned out pretty good!
A weird thing happened on the way there. Myself and Matt took a wrong turn and went down a street too far, walked down the wrong side street past somewhere that looked like it could be a student halls, judging by the guy in the fancy dress afro outside it. We walked past, realised we were wrong, and doubled back. I walked very close to the guy who was wearing the afro and holding a beercan, only to hear he was talking to the security guard in a comedy Dutch accent. A closer look revealed that it was none other than Chris Morris (Brass Eye, Jam, etc) !! Now that's odd enough in itself, but this is the third time I've seen him in the street in a couple of months - I almost feel like an unintentional stalker!

I'm not too keen to start posting reviews of the year before it's actually over. The albums of the year will more than likely appear in the first week of January, and I haven't yet decided whether or not to collate the votes from emails and the message board yet - depends how broadly spread they are I suppose.
Anyway, today I've posted my Gigs of the Year, simply because I'm only going to go to a couple more so I thought I'd get a list out of the way first. See what you think, if you've got any lists of your own to post use the message board.

Late notice, but if any of you are reading this in Belfast I suggest you get along to the Go Commando Xmas Special at Katy Dalys tonight 9pm - featuring 'special guests' plus Torgas Valley Reds and DJ Chris Caul. It's only about £3 as well.

New content today - a piece called "A Total Lack of Urgency". If you remember our old front page, it said "Features (coming soon) - Why the zine is called Slow Thrills". Well, it's finally here, I've just finished writing it!

A rambling report on yesterday's festivities has been added to the site. I can safely say that this review has no chance of making it to our print issue as I wrote it last night before I fell into bed! I've only got round to coding it now.

PS If any London types are interested, the much talked about Swedish band the Hives are playing for free at the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street tomorrow at 8pm. I haven't heard them yet but i might check them out.

What a great idea to promise new content every day of the most sociable month of the year! I've just got back from the Rough Trade party and I'm completely hammered. Still, I got to see five 'bands' - from mid-afternoon til 8.30pm we had the Lollies, Chris T-T, Jacob Golden, Souvaris and Alex and Tracey from Lincoln. I'll try to post a review tomorrow.

Yeah well, I've been feeling rufffffff all day due to my over indulgence last night, but I do hope the staff in the restaurant enjoyed our inpromptu version of 'Dr Baker' by the Beta Band. Yessir!
I must own up and say that I have very little in the way of new content prepared, but I still hope to post new material all the way up to Dec 20, when I will be in Belfast and therefore without my computer. There are a few more reviews, a couple of features and an overview of the year to finish off.
(Naturally I would advise against holding your breath for these!)