He's a sexy and elusive motherfucker

Unless you've been asleep under a rock for the last few weeks, then you'll know that wee man Prince has been acting all silly buggers over here in the UK.

Indeed the elderly scamp has been using the element of surprise to its full advantage by playing a series of 'guerilla gigs' across London and in Manchester. The idea behind his Hit and Run tour is that his group, Third Eye Girl, reveal the whereabouts of the show a few hours before it takes place on Twitter. It's a right clever strategy cos the venues are much smaller than the arenas he's accustomed to packing. Because of this smaller scale, everyone goes fucking bat shit at the notion of seeing the wee man race through his hits in a locale where, if he wasn't wearing shades, you'd be able to see the whites of his eyes. It means many folk have spent hours waiting outside various venues around London for hours and hours and hours to see the Purple one rock through hours of hits. Not us however (boo hoo). When he's dropped a bollock of news on the internet, we've always been a little too late on the uptake or in totally the wrong place to warrant a trip to the venue queue. We're still waiting now for something to happen.

The closest I've been to Prince is standing outside Ronnie Scott's 10 hours before he was due on stage watching a queue of 200 people shuffle about and look very pleased with themselves.

Motherfuckers! 

To the top of the Shard and back again

Nothing I says I love you more than a Valentine's Day gift which involves confronting a deep and irrational fear, which is so glued to your very soul that your guts melt and become all sticky at the very thought of it.

No matter what I do, I'm deeply terrified of heights. It may not be the height itself but the fear of falling which keeps my pants moist and my hands shaky. I even come over all funny on escalators. Yeah. What a milksop. But this year on Valentine's Day it was the experience of going up the Shard near London Bridge which was the vibe. It's 72 floors up to the top of this monument. So it's high fo' sure. And the sights are immense. On a clear, sunny day (which was luckily for us, the background to our visit) you can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles. Even when, like me, you couldn't go too close to the edge... 

Woaaaaaaaah

Aliens beckoned us

Edgey

London - in all its smelly glory

Crazies going close to the edge. Stop it you loons

Waaaah

These people looked like ants and they weren't even that far away

I like CDs and I want (some) of them to stay

Like most folk in their early thirties, CDs have been a thing for more than half my humble existence. And because they were once the best way to consume sound (and I'm unable to chuck anything without some serious heart-wringing), there are stacks and stacks of them lying around our gaff - fucking hundreds of the wee shiny little bastards.

I've lugged them from one rented place to the next for yonks, playing increasingly small amounts of them in lieu of listening to albums I really wanna check on Spotify via the tinny, shitty laptop speakers. Why am I so pathetically loathe to get rid of them? Each one has some sort of memory, shitty or otherwise attached. Whether it was the first splurge of discovering Fopp and their three quid bargain bins or going without lunch for a week in a bid to save enough coin for a CD single by a no-mark indie band I was infatuated with at the time, there's something behind each one. Anything else? Well laptops sound like a pair of tins being bashed together by a chimp who's sticking sugar up its arse. CDs also used to be fucking expensive back when writing a song could make you any money so it feels like you're lobbing pound coins into the fire by getting rid of the bastards.

I've been wrestling with the dilemma of binning them, the main obstacle being that I'm too disorganised to back anything digital up so keep losing everything every time my computer dies. However, as part of a controlled experiment, I'm flogging some CDs to raise dosh for this marathon (zzzzz) attempt all via our work intranet. There's a mixed bag of shit going up for sale but I've shifted some 70 quids worth. Which ones have shifted you (don't) cry? Anything to do with Zappa, Led Zepp, Bowie, The Smiths and bands of yore while the DJ Semtex grime mix has gone untouched. The buyers are almost all blokes aged 25 and above which (possibly) proves something about how old habits die hard/I'm not alone in being a CD keeping weirdo/blokes love CDs or something else entirely. But if you're looking for tangible facts (and being a lover of physical product this is exactly what I'm after) the only real thing to happen is that (some) of these CDs are here to stay. Certain dinosaurs may have been eventually wiped out but the ones round here are still breathing...

I've got A Guy Called Gerald on the phone

For those not in the know, A Guy Called Gerald is a Mancunian, acid house hero. He's been in the game for time but played an important role in the advent of electronics in the UK and beyond with his beats laying down the blueprint for what went on to become house and jungle.

He's basically big in the game and before Christmas I got him on the phone for an interview. He's right opinionated about his music as well as the raw deal the industry has given to him and fellow artists who are only in it for the music. Man. Considering he's viewed as a pioneer (and rightly so), he's got a chip on his shoulder the size of the Hulme Arch Bridge about the state of dance music today. Interesting business which you can check out in our chat below... 

A Guy Called Gerald interview

Before Christmas, this remix of Gerald's monster Voodoo Ray emerged from Jeremy Deller and Optimo. It's magnificent...

Your eyes are like spanners - every time I look them, my nuts tighten

There was no January detox in our hood. Although we took the foot off the drinking gas somewhat, we didn't come slamming to an emergency stop like all the magazines tell you you should. Two fingers to that. Instead we've remained at a low level of drunkenness, enough to get through the working week with a solid spike on the pintometer of a weekend. And now we're in February, we can get back to the normal routine of having enjoying dollops of drink whenever we feel like - hurrah. 

Shit has been real throughout the early part of the year. After the glory of the darts at the Lakeside, there's been injections of culture (visiting London's Roundhouse for a showing of Fuerzabruta), delicious scran (at Mussel Men in Dalston) and the ridiculous (buying a 4kg of onions for £2 - still eating the bastards now). Here are some of the highlights... 

On the travelator

On the telly

Work shoes

Custard on toast

Dancing bear

Rabbit in a cabbage

Zoom in - turns out A Guy Called Gerald has liked a picture of my sister standing outside Greggs

Mucky breakfast

Oh deer

Monolith

Reservoir up past Stoke Newington

Mussel Men's Sunday Roast

London Roundhouse - Fuerzabruta

Cameras ready, prepare to flash

Biggie

Baked camembert

Love scratchies

Lads

Hero

Lamb tagine

Safety first

Pregnancy vs acid trip

Yeah bozo

Wu 4 eva

Eggy

Tony Bleurgh #williammorris

Singing bastards

Kiss the Fist present; We Run Tings

To help us hit this marathon fundraising target, we're throwing a party. All proceeds go to the running fund innit... Check the spiel below;

We Run Tings - feat. KTF Allstars (Ashley Bibble, Jill Nando, Jimpotent),

Pat Mandu,

Brother 2 Brother…

Playing yacht rock, italo, disco, rave,

Saturday - February 22nd Marquis of Lansdowne's Basement - Kingsland Road, Dalston.

9 until 2 - £4 in...

It’s February and 2014 is all over us like a disgusting, rabid bear. It’s been grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrizzzzly.

To welcome the new year, the ever-so slightly longer days and Jill’s recent lottery win, we’ve decided to reanimate the skanky corpse of electronic disco party Kiss the Fist.

The original team of Domination3000, Jill Nando and Jimpotent are back on speaking terms after coming to blows last summer over the ownership of a bag of piss porn - all it took to get the band back together was a hit of amyl, a firm handshake and a side order of hot wings.

After bringing in New Year’s eve with a rabble rousing night of Hi-NRG, italo, wedding disco and yacht rock at Clapton’s latest gentrified grief hole the Crooked Billet, we’ve decided to do it all over again in the guts of our favourite boozer, the Marquis of Lansdowne.

This one is a ‘benefit gala’ with all monies raised on the door going to Jimpotent’s marathon fund. The twerp is attempting to run the London Marathon in April and raise £1,500 for charity Kith and Kids.

If you’re feeling sorry for him, then you can donate on his page here - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JimOttewill - if not, you can come down to the Marquis of Lansdowne’s basement on Saturday 22 February, egg him and get your freak on in our charity disco.

Joining us will be our chums Pat Mandu, Bob Funkhouse and Danny M - these long-term friends of Kiss the Fist will be bringing large buckets of additional vibe and hot sonics to our soiree. Pat is big in the game, being addicted to speakers and played with Andy Blake – Danny M does tings in Leeds and Bob is well good at drinking Kronenberg.

Come down and get firmly involved…