Uptown Not-Ranking

I assure you the revivified VGR is not solely a music splodge blog. In the interim here is a thing (loving, not-ranking). The first version of Uptown Top Ranking I ever heard (thanks ITV Chart Show!) still rocks in all its early ’90s goodness: The original Althea and Donna version still rocks in chill, dubby,…

Bite My Tongue, Bide My Time

“What’s that Stevenger guy listening to these days?” asked no-one in a whisper. Happily I’m here to help! In fact yr in double-luck since most of these agéd choons (mostly new to me) have pretty decent videos on YouChoob. Back of the net! Audio Bullys – We Don’t Care You’ve heard the word “manchild”, yes?…

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!

OK, so a friend who I’ll spontaneously, needlessly and unilaterally misnomer as “MIKEmichael ROMdance” (“MR” for short) linked everyone a bunch of songs to listen to on the group chat. Since he’s got a good ear for stuff I wouldn’t usually listen to and since I’m the King Of Kong Snake spamming said group chat…

We Need To Talk About Kevin Pinky And The Brain

I’ve had the show on my mind as a result of this rather fun (original voice actor featuring) cover of the Pinky And The Brain theme tune which is doing the rounds of social media. Before you click away, I’m not re-articulating the fun-but-now-trite observation that Animaniacs offshoot Pinky And The Brain‘s theme song is…

I BEAT* SPELUNKY [*didn’t beat]

OK, first off actually I haven’t completed roguelite platformer classic Spelunky. ‘Tis just a battle, not the war. I definitely have beaten it (for the moment) on my own terms though, which is what this post is ostensibly about. I’ve always wanted to talk a bit about what constitutes losing at games and I’ll fold…

WIBIL #26: Bread And Circuses

So there I was, mid-watching M. Night Grantthemanhisdignity‘s 2016 film Split on the NetFlix and talking during the film. You know me. The subject having necessarily turned to tweests, I commented to my semi-willing interlocutor that one of my favourite was at the end of a barely-remembered classic Star Trek episode. Naturally the next thing…

Kraftklub – Songs Für Liam

Lyrics translated: When you kiss me Noel writes, Songs for Liam again, When you kiss me, When you kiss me, Our friends will come back from Berlin! If that floats your boat, you may also enjoy this live version which gloriously misappropriates Hey Jude for the back half of the performance. Wenn du mich küsst!…

Top 10 PS2 Games

I wanted to grab some screenshots and write a blurb for all of these, but I’m effectively procrastinating at this point. Might add more context in a follow-up post or comments. The PS2 was an odd fish of a console in many ways and despite the extreme amount of time I spent with both of…

Soft Cell – Sex Dwarf

We apologise for the delay in programming, in the meantime please enjoy the above linked popular beat combo. Sugar and spice!

Well I Never Knew That #8

You can’t not love Terry Gilliam‘s films and it’s been ages since I watched The Fisher King but I was spontaneously reminded of Mercedes Ruehl and her excellent, raw-nerved, realistic performance in it, something which grounds and contextualises the plot’s fantastical elements (and helps blot out the memory of naked Robin Williams). Her accent does…

Pointless Text-Glitched 48K Speccy ROM

Absolutely not claiming this as any great achievement or artwork or kraftwerk. A couple of months ago, having been thinking about the serendipitous joy of occasional graphical glitches and frying Atari 2600 cartridges and the nasty things one can do to a .wav with a simple Python script and the like, I was struck by…

A’Feared O’ Factories / Me-Manufacture

Been listening to a lot of Fear Factory‘s first few albums recently (remix versions too, natch). I know Demanufacture best. Between regular Radio One Rock Show play, the amazing Gabba mix of Flashpoint, the unrepresentative but awesome Dog Day Sunrise and Burn singles, picking up Remanufacture dirt-cheap and especially blagging one of 200 limited edition…