Flavours of the month (June/July 2009)...

I've been thinking of doing this for a while, a little blog now and then, to just give you a flavour of what's been flavouring my month(s) in retrospect ... so here's the first one of (as the idea goes anyway) many such posts over the coming months.

Bug Juice - I used to watch this during my summer holidays off from school, and I fondly remember watching the first season of this show during the summer of 1998. It was like going to an American camp, without having to actually bother or stump up the vast sums of money to go (I saw the camp's current rates online - bloody nora!). Anyway, nostalgia flashback overload is the order of the day with these episodes which I've been viewing online.

Cannibal movies - not just cannibal movies, but many down & dirty, sleazy exploitation flicks from the 70s and 80s, with a few newer ones thrown in. Aye, during my recovery from my hernia operation, I have been re-viewing a bunch of the exploitation horror flicks that I already have on DVD, but I've also been adding to that with a few cannibal-related horror adventure flicks that I didn't have. Very gross, very sleazy, very grindhouse ... brilliant.

Michael Jackson - the day I had my operation was when I found out MJ had died, kinda weird. Anyway, as a result the couple of music channels you can get on Freeview (the shitty signal of late is due to that sodding Digital Switchover bullshit that's now being conducted in our area for months) have been inundated with MJ videos. I'm not a huge fan - as in I don't listen to MJ albums, but I do enjoy many MJ singles, and those have been a sort of background soundtrack of sorts to my recovery over the last few weeks.

E.S. Posthumus - I discovered this group of experimental classic musicians through the soundtrack for Top Gear (which is, at the time of writing, in the midst of it's 13th series) - I've heard a bunch of their tracks now, and it's bloody great stuff. A really interesting mix of the classical and the modern, and very, very cinematic in its sound - no wonder it has become so ensconsed within the Top Gear soundtrack.

Pygmy - I'd forgotten that Chuck Palahniuk had a new book out, so back in June I nabbed myself a copy of Pygmy. At first I was struggling to get into it - it sounded like a kick ass story, one far fresher than last year's 'Palahniuk on auto pilot' "Snuff", but being that it was written in broken English spoken by the central, foreign, protagonist, I was finding it difficult to get a good flow going when reading. Fortunately, with a bit of perserverance, I've gotten into it quite a bit now and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Meat Loaf - I've had a brief return to a couple of Meat Loaf albums I got when I was about 12 or 13, back when my musical tastes were young and undeveloped. This isn't a slight against Meat Loaf, although listening to "Welcome to the Neighbourhood" more than a decade later, I dig it more fully than before ... although a couple of the tracks are a bit naff, the majority of that album is a pretty good listen. It feels like a 50s movie, which is cool too.

Friends blooper reels - being bed ridden, and only having limited choice on Freeview (which is missing several channels thanks to the Digital Switchover work that's going on around here), I got back into Friends (which endlessly repeats from start to finish on E4), and as such I found myself watching blooper reels from the show on YouTube - and laugh I most certainly did. Friends might not be ground breaking stuff, nor super deep or anything, but it's nice, familiar, friendly, and funny - and as a result, ideal for when you're feeling bloody crock (physically and mentally) after a hernia operation.

The Assassintion of Jesse James soundtrack - as I've said numerous times before, I absolutely love this film (it's in my Top 10 of All Time), and the soundtrack is superb, so I've been listening to that at nights before bed - and it's truly wonderful to listen to. It's just so bloody good - seriously, check it out.