You Can Get Back In The Machina Now

More a series of barely controled neurological impulses than anything else.

Finally made the connection between current events and the orange-bedecked cars streaming down Flatbush between Borough Park and the City yesterday. the orthodox were out in force protesting the Gaza pullout, and probably in sufficient numbers to compell NY1 to make the withdrawal the top story this morning. Cue rock-throwing and various acts of low-level defiance from the young settler sympathisers. The New York end could barely muster some coherent slogans.

We've tended to avoid discussions with any of the settlers' rights people we might encounter, since we can't see where an argument in favour of settling all Palestinian lands would go. "Um, what do you do with the people that are already living there....?" The settlers' main argument (aside from the insane messianic stuff) is that Gaza would be a useful base for terrorists, and while we would agree that the spot would be uncomfortably close to Israel, there is also the possibility that anyone wanting to force a pullout from the West Bank or, yes, the destruction of Israel, could pursue these goals from a greater distance, say, for example, Tripoli.

There probaby should be a word for this sensation, and we're not sure it's an honourable one, but it's not quite schadenfreude. It describes the way that every time a pretty hardline and tough-sounding politician comes to office in Israel he's eventually forced to take a position that infuriates the extreme right not so much out of electoral calculations but to avoid a bloodbath. We imagine that Bibi will feel the effect soon enough.

Rather than attempt a elegant segue, we'll just lurch into the faintly, and comparatively not remotely, distressing news that dEUS' album the Ideal Crash is not available for purchase in the United States of America. This is the first decisive black mark against the cultural life of our homeland that we've ever recorded. This news reached us as we embarked on Operation Put The Tapes Up Front, whereby the terrible C90 renderings of grunge classics are to be replaced by shiny CDs, and from there rendered to iPod. Early rescues for Nirvana Unplugged and the first Weezer. But no bloody dEUS.

We were going to leave it there, and wait for a sublime second-hand experience before posting something a few weeks later. But a second's googling lets us know that dEUS are back! dEUS are/were the kings of Belgian alternative rock, mentioned by their more rabid adherents in the same breath as REM or Radiohead. We always preferred to see them as a gentler and cleverer Smashing Pumpkins, but please don't let that put you off. They disbanded towards the end of the last century after losing too many members, and not selling enough records.

But they're back. With a new album and everything. You can only purchase the new music on the iTunes at present, which sucks pebbles because of the DRM and all that. There is also a show on at the ICA while we are in London, but it is sold out. We are already working on the rationalisation that will be required when it dawns on us that we cannot find a ticket, of which the most obvious is that of the original line-up, only singer Tom Barman remains (the Belgian G N' R? Oh goody), and the fans are not entirely convinced by the new stuff.

So we'll post something from the first album, Worst Case Scenario, which you can, and indeed must, buy HERE. This one is called secret hell, and references the Sunday Telegraph, and is rather sad, and was not enough to lure Cutesome back into the bed the other morning. Feh. Barry White it ain't.

dEUS - "Secret Hell"
Buy the album here. Go On. Do it. What's wrong with you?"

[Originally entitled "Stuff...Nonsense...Ect, Ect" until the spirit of dEUS came back in]