50% Off At Urban Retro

For 24 hours only you can get 50% off at Urban Retro with the discount code URFIFTY. The site's getting hammered at the moment so be patient.


If you're ok for t-shirts, now would be your best chance to pick up a gelaskin for your laptop, or some of their nifty Blik wall graphics.

A Silver Mount Zion

From his striking semitic looks and Jesus beard to his long curly hair backlit with a celestial glow, one can't help but feel there's something of the messiah about Silver Mount Zion's reluctant frontman Efrim Menuck, despite his protestations to the contrary.

Sunday is a day for churchly activities, he said.
That's why we're here, we said.

For me, watching SMZ has always been something of a quasi-religious experience, emerging from each gig with a rare sense of spiritual satisfaction. And so it would seem for others, as a hushed, almost awed crowd (a rare thing in Manchester) played host to the visiting Canadian five-piece on Sunday night. The band seem to play as much for themselves and to each other as for the crowd, at some gigs facing each other rather than the audience, like a post-rock drum circle.


One of the limitations of their epic soundscape style is that despite their extensive back catalogue, there's only time for a few songs, as they run to ten minutes or more each. The new numbers from their current release Kollaps Tradixionales were well received, but the crowd pleasers of the night were always going to be the stirring and provocative God Bless Our Dead Marines and One Million Died To Make This Sound.

Fortunately the band is tolerant of tapers (no not tapirs, I mean bootleggers), so if anyone would like to hear the gig for themselves, you can download a free mp3 copy here: part 1, part 2.

Pirates vs. Ninjas

The pirates vs. ninjas debate has raged across the internet for decades, with participants forced into one or other of the mutually exclusive camps.
It's a dichotomy I'm not entirely comfortable with, as I am able to appreciate both life on the ocean waves (as famously portrayed by such luminaries as Errol Flynn, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and The Muppets) and the stealthy assassination skills of the shinobi.

The obligatory t-shirt:

For reasons that elude me, it's $20 from TenBills.com

For me though, it was easy to see which side of the fence to be on. As a Pastafarian, we are taught that pirates are demigods, and therefore far superior to mere mortals from the Orient. Subscribers will recall that in our household we don't celebrate Christmas, preferring as we do to celebrate Piratemas on the same day (no doubt blasphemy to many). Last year, I attended Piratemas dressed as a ninja to confront the pirate menace (my brother Paul) in order to settle the debate once and for all. Fortunately the unscripted result was captured for posterity.



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