A very long episode this week, mainly because of the full scale Dark Compass style rant about Glamour For Better and Ear Candy Music at the start of the show and the interesting and tragic tale of Solomon Linda and The Lion Sleeps Tonight at the end of the show. I never intended to make it run nearly an hour, but I think it was well worth it on both counts.

The lead up to my first anniversary show begins now! At the end of February I will have been doing this show for a year and to celebrate I am planning to put together a show where my listeners can select their favourite tracks from my show and if they like they can record a link for said track that will be played on the show. Get thinking about what tracks you would like me to play and then send me an e-mail and maybe a link to ourobouros.podcast@googlemail.com.

Another week of slim pickings on the video front this week. One that only got made because of the awful Resident Evil Extinction film, has a huge budget and looks pretty crap, and one that was made for absolutely nothing and is ingenious.

Emigrate - My World

un:armed - Talk Talk

See you next week, when hopefully there will be less talk and we'll be back down to the 35-40 minute show I aim for.

TRACK LIST

1: Emigrate - My World

2: The Blacks - Raincoat

3: The Chiara L's - Kate's Kid

4: un:armed - Talk Talk

5: Two Shots Of Rye - I'll Be Running My Whole Life

6: White Trash Cowboys - White Trash Cowboys

7: Black Lab - Hole In My Heart

8: Amaryoni - Lion Sleeps No More

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

After I released this last episode of my podcast I contacted all the bands to tell them that the episode I played them in was online and to thank them for letting me play their music.

Glamour For Better got back in touch with me saying that they never gave me permission, despite the fact I had the e-mails to prove it. Then the record label, Ear Candy Music, got involved and insisted that I remove the track from the podcast. This is doubly irritating considering that Ear Candy were complicit in previously allowing the same track to be available as a free download for an extended period.

This is a ridiculous situation where record labels and even artists still don't appreciate the benefits of podcasting, but I have followed their wishes and removed the offending track.

The edition of Episode #36 now available for download does not contain the offending track. 

TRACK LIST

1: Rieser - Rockstar

2: Dead World Leaders - Vitamins

3: Freezepop - Less Talk More Rokk

4: The Epilogues - Caroline

5: Niki Kwik - Northern Cities Shift

6: Michael Trac'e (AKA Tragic Soul) - UnDone

7: Karoshi Bros - Fuck Da World

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

The podcast after the drunken trip to London before. After a Tuesday afternoon having a 'wail' of a time celebrating Pete Cogle's 200th show I'm back having only just recovered from the cold I caught after getting soaked on the way to London. A great time was had by all and you can hear what got recorded on PCP #200 released on Wednesday.

In the above picture we have (L to R): Rowley Cutler, Pete Cogle, Peter Clitheroe, me and Paul Snelling 

A quick note on this weeks artists. A couple of days ago when I last checked on the websites of the acts I was going to play act 6 was using his real name of Michael Trac'e. After I recorded the show I was shifting my top friends about on myspace and now he is using the name Tragic Soul. Just in case there's any confusion.

Videos for this week:

Dead World Leaders - Vitamins

Freezepop - Less Talk More Rokk

The Epilogues - Caroline [Live Performance]

Karoshi Bros - Love The World [Video is for 'clean' version of the track]

As ever remember to listen to Made In The UK and I'll see you next week.

A small delay in releasing the first show of the new year, for which I apologise. With Christmas, my birthday on Saturday and my latest gig this past Wednesday it's been a busy couple of weeks.

Speaking of my gig it was a brilliant night with two great bands. The bar staff at the venue said it was the best gig they'd seen in a while. Yet again it was only two bands since I had a band pull out on me at the very last minute. You expect some problems when you start promoting gigs, but to have a bands pull out of every gig except the first one is ridiculous. Even for the first gig the bottom band on the bill showed up 20 minutes after they were supposed to be on stage. That was the quickest sound check I've seen in my life. For last months gig I had a total of 5 bands pull out on me, one on the day and they only managed to tell me after they were supposed to arrive. Stress is not the word. It will be the last gig I am promoting for a while, but hopefully when I return the stressful part will have been over.

I'm off to London tomorrow for a 'podcrawl' with some of my podcasting friends, which I'm really looking forward to. A lot of beer will be drunk, a lot of talk will be recorded and hopefully we'll all be coherent. This will either be a fantastic idea or the worst thing British podcasting has ever produced. We'll have to wait and see.

Pretty good video selection this week. The Gay Blades' video is something to behold.

The Gay Blades - O Shot  

Silly Fools - Stay Away

The Scissor File - Reason To Run

Metropol - Collision PART 1 PART 2 [Live Performance]

65daysofsorrow - Don't Go Down To Sorrow

The way things have been going I don't know when the next episode will be released, but I'll see you in about a week.

TRACK LIST

1: The Modern Cliches - Sharp Suits & Dirty Handshakes

2: Seagull Strange - Bitten To The Quick

3: Information Society - Synthesizer

4: The Gay Blades - O Shot

5: Silly Fools - Stay Away

6: The Scissor File - Reason To Run

7: Metropol - Collision

8: 65daysofstatic - Don't Go Down To Sorrow

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

I very rarely listen to the radio. Nowadays most of the music I hear is either played on podcasts or is on MTV2. For this reason I have a strong affinity for music videos and have produced a YouTube playlist for every episode of my podcast.

This has left me with a collection of videos, and it seemed sensible to attempt a video podcast of my favourites of the year.

My criteria for selection are basically for the video to have a strong central idea and for it to fit the song.

Here's what I've come up with:

1: David E. Sugar – We Weren't Put Together

Played Episode #2

Directors: Tomfoolery Pictures

This is a humorous puppet video that uses the old Michel Gondry technique of each element of the song having its own visual cue. I know that sounds incredibly pretentious, but all you need to know is that it's very funny. David's expression at the end pretty much sums it up.

2: Fear Of Flying – Three's A Crowd (Band have changed their name to White Lies)

Played Episode #5

Director: James Appleton

When I said at the top of these notes that the video should fit the song, I couldn't have thought of a more appropriate video than this one. The song involves a battle of wills between a man and his girlfriend's pet cat, so you can imagine where this story driven video ends up. The bits at the end where the girlfriend shows some distinctly feline characteristics are very odd.  

3: Los Campesinos! – We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives

Played Episode #6

Director: Monkmus

When this track originally came out, the band had a difficult time persuading people that this was not an anti-war song. After seeing this video it's easy to understand why. The primary coloured battlefield animation is at times priceless. It's probably safe to say that the video is anti-war even if the song isn't.

4: Headland – Love Hate

Played Episode #8

Director: Andrew Harmer

When the chorus for a song goes 'I hate racism, I love orgasms' it's difficult to imagine a video that could possibly fit the song. A puppet bobbing his head along to the music before tripping out after watching too much TV shouldn't work. It really, really does.

5: The Haiku – The News Is: The World Sucks

Played Episode #11

Directors: The Band

There was no way that this video wasn't going to make the final list as this is the music video I was in. The band only lives about 20 miles up the road from me, and when they sent out a myspace message asking for extras I went along. I'm the one with the big no. 54 on my shirt. Even if I wasn't in it, this would probably have made the list anyway. The idea of a mass protest march fits the song perfectly and when the fun of it all is brought down by a list of wars that British forces have fought in, it becomes thought provoking too.

6: Some Velvet Morning – Settle Down

Played Episode #12

Director: Shane Davey

This is a perfect example of a really simple idea defeating the obvious lack of budget. When the lyrics of a song talk about the problems of trying to grow up, having the uninterested protagonist of the video being chased by scantily clad women seems to work perfectly. When record companies can spend millions on a video that ends up looking like crap, this is the kind of thing they should be considering.

7: The Young Punx! – You've Got To...

Played Episode #15

Director: Han Hoogerbrugge

There's only one way to describe this video. Absolutely bloody mental. The brightly coloured animation of empty shirts with clown heads and animal headed mummies beating each other up is certainly one of the most interesting visual experiences of the last year. I really worry for the sanity of the director.

8: Harrisons – Dear Constable

Played Episode #16

Directors: Dylan Southern & Will Lovelace

With The Manic Street Preachers becoming more MOR with every passing year, the mantle of politically aware British rock has passed to a new generation of bands. Harrisons are one of these bands and this dystopian vision of a future Sheffield is a great place to start. The visuals have been heavily influenced by the film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 and compliment the song perfectly. You have to admire the bands commitment to the video concept in the final scenes.

9: The XCorvettes – An Alcoholic State Of Mind

Played Episode #18

Directors: The Band

Another example of what can be achieved with imagination and a camcorder. I have managed to avoid programmes like The X Factor and Pop Idol, but the bloody things are so entrenched in the popular conscience that even I can see what a good spoof this is. I am slightly concerned with how comfortable Johnny from the band seems to be in drag though...

10: Echo Helstrom – Hungry Ghost

Played Episode #30

Director: Kurt Nishimura

Stop motion animation using humans can be a very effective tool in the film-makers arsenal. When it's done right it can be spectacular and this is an example of it being done right. The dark, foreboding stage with the haunted dancer all alone starts us off and when the band members appear, briefly, in the black background the doom-laden feeling is enhanced.

Well the 'Best Of' podcast is now out featuring my 10 favourite tracks from the 10 months I've been producing this show. It's a nice collection of songs, with some rock, some punk, some electronica, some humourous acoustic and of course a very weird track to close the show.

I'm not going to put up video links for this episode like I usually do. If you want to look back in the archives Elizabeth, Jupiter One, Planetakis and ddd all have a video available for their track. The reason I'm not going to produce an official list is that I will be releasing a video podcast featuring my favourite videos of the year within the next few days. It's a completely different playlist with 10 more great songs combined with 10 great videos.

A quick announcement that it's my turn to host AMPed again this week, so look out for that this coming Monday.

It's also my next live gig on Wednesday and it's looking like it might be the last for a while. Details on the next 'proper' podcast episode.

Hope you all had a happy and safe holiday period, and here's to a great 2008.

TRACK LIST

1: Gompa - Popsong (From Episode #2)

2: The Chiara L's - You Do (From Episode #27)

3: Elizabeth - War Is Beautiful (From Episode #16)

4: Dead World Leaders - Vultures (From Episode #25)

5: Jupiter One - Countdown (From Episode #34)

6: Rieser - Angerflow (From Episode #2)

7: Invocal - Cheer Up, Frowny Face (From Episode #26)

8: Planetakis - Pogo In The Shoes Of Kylie Minogue (From Episode #5)

9: Pipe Choir - Savior (From Episode #18)

10: ddd - Wall To Wall (From Episode #22)

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.