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BBC short film downloads
the bbc's carrying on w their digital expansion, offering a short film download subscription service (that's free) - PC only though, and only for the first 10,000 to sign up. good idea though.
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3rd May 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
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friday night with kiefer
jack bauer's taking time out to talk to jonathan ross march 5, 10.35pm, bbc1
26th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
Later With Jools
Team Chimpomatic were at the taping of the new series of Later with Jolls Holland last night. Pearl Jam, Zutons, Spinto Band and the (er) 'mighty' talent of Jamie Foxx and his entourage. He single-handedly managed to lower the bar beyond my wildest expectations - and made Miami Vice the 'must miss' movie of the summer.... even though I had been looking forward to it.
Pearl Jam were given centre stage and were clearly who everyone was there to see. Kicked off the great show jam, then did World Wide Suicide, Severed Hand and finished with Alive.
Check out surveillance for a video clip.
26th Apr 2006 - 9 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Pearl Jam
London Astoria
As one of the last gigs on my list of all-time favourite bands, having not seen these guys had always nagged at me. I had been too poor as a student, out of the country for one tour and then after the death of some fans at the Roskilde festival in 2000, Europe had been off rotation for the last couple of Pearl Jam world tours. I was resigned to eventually seeing the band at the enormo-arena-dome some time past their peak - and convincing myself that I wasn't disappointed.
Recently, things started to look up. A well invested fan club membership led to a great 7 inch single, but the golden ticket was a heads-up on this one-off warm up show at London's Astoria. Chimp Jnr managed to snag the tickets, which sold out in 1 minute and ended up going for £450 on eBay. It crossed our minds to cash them in and fly out to Seattle, but even there a 20,000 seat Arena could not offer the same opportunity as a 1600 seat venue on home turf.
The gig had a quick turnaround and before we knew it we were queuing down the side of the Astoria, round Soho Square and back onto Oxford Street. Some of the eBay tickets had apparently been confiscated, so some persistent fans did get a chance to get last minute surprise re-sale tickets on the door. The touts dropped their tickets to £250, while security guards checked the ticket numbers as some fakes had been circulated.
The atmosphere in the queue and inside the venue was electric. It obviously wasn't just us that had been holding out to see them, and when the band came out the place went crazy. A quick acknowledgment that it had been a long time set the scene, and then we're off with new single World Wide Suicide. As noted, this is a bad title, but as a song it was a great start - thundering, off new album Pearl Jam, but still one that the fans could get into. That was followed by Life Wasted and Severed Hand from the new album, which subdued the crowd slightly as they are still relatively unknown.... Two more new songs followed, but these were current b-side Unemployable and Christmas b-side Gone, which is already one of my current favourites. So things were picking up, and then they really took off with Even Flow.
From then on things only got better and better. The band pulled highlights and rarities from their 15 year back catalogue, such as Sad, I Am Mine, Leavin' Here and Given To Fly mixed in with a couple of the new tracks. There was a healthy dose of revived songs from black-sheep album Ten (which out sold Nevermind for you haters out there) including an awesome ramped up version of Why Go? The Indie Goth Revival is over, long live Grunge.
The highlight had to be an impromptu sing along to Betterman, where Eddie Vedder literally hardly sang a word. The entire crowd took over in a spine tingling moment, reminiscent of Black on the Benaroya Hall album. Visibly moved by the crowd response, the band came back for two encores until finally the end had come, as Mike McCready plucked the opening notes of traditional set-closer Yellow Ledbetter. Everyone sang along and the band even dropped in a few notes of Nobody's Fault But Mine as a nod to Robert Plant, who was in the crowd with his son. After a bow the band started to leave the stage, before the overwhelming reaction from the audience genuinely changed their minds. Eddie Vedder called them back for one more... a storming rendition of Alive. As one of their only UK hits, this is often how they are perceived by those who know little of their later work. It was an unashamedly 90's moment, and I realised that after 15 years of progressing onwards they are now looking as much like the grunger's of the early 90's as ever.... and I love it.
All in all it couldn't have been a much more satisfactory conclusion to my quest.... although thanks to a man on the inside we are off to see them taping Later with Jools Holland tonight.
25th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 4.5 star reviewsibbc
more plans from the bbc to open all their shows up, let you download stuff up to 7 days after broadcast, and get hold of archive material etc. sounds like they're really going for it
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25th Apr 2006 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
later jam
just got confirmation of the pearl jam on later… appearance for the vedder fans among you. 5 may, 11.35pm, bbc2. sounds like they're the featured band of the night: "viewers can expect a couple of new tracks, along with one of their classics."
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13th Apr 2006 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
this time, we'll get it wrong
embrace have somehow been asked to do the england world cup theme... doesn't bode well, really. wonder who brazil's getting?
28th Mar 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
the dvd that knew too much
hitchcock freebie in this saturday's guardian
more hitchcock related stuff on tonight's culture show, bbc2, with something on bernard herrmann's scores
22nd Mar 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
loose guitar man
guitar man will hodgkinson live on this week's loose ends
19th Mar 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Canadian Entertainment
One of the best things about Canada is the fact that The Kids In The Hall is on every night. In fact most TV in Canada seemed to date from 1994, which generally was not a good thing. Luckily we brought our own entertainment in the form of Marx Brothers movies on DVD. Hear Harpo speak here.
17th Mar 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
BR UFO
british rail plans for a ufo. would it be able to deal with leaves on the line?
14th Mar 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
live gilmour
live david gilmour concert online and on bbci (red button stuff) until 14 mar. couple of pink floyd tracks and the obligatory new ones
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12th Mar 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
more moore
longtime c71 hero alan moore is on tonight's culture show hopefully laying into the film version of v for vendetta. bbc2 7pm and 11.20pm.
9th Mar 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
super furry lobster
more new creature news: a deep sea furry lobster
8th Mar 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
this is planet earth
ba ba ba ba-bah… saw a preview of the new epic new HD bbc series planet earth this morning: totally awesome. like blue planet but mainly above water. snow leopards in vertical chases down mountains, miles and miles of caves with insane 5 metre high crystal formations, bat caves where the entire food chain is based on bat shit, etc etc. great photography, super sharp, and the mighty david attenborough saying things like "here… is a carpet… of cockroaches." plus he was sitting 2 metres away from c71, all v surreal for a hungover chimp.
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9th Feb 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
The BBC Rules
So, it looks like all those license fee hikes will soon be paying off, with news that the BBC will soon be making most of it's programming available as free downloads for seven days after it is broadcast. That would really put a fire under the download/iPod revolution, as well as saving a lot of heartache over missed episodes of Neighbours.
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1st Nov 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
results-ah!
mark e smith to read the football scores on bbc1…
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25th Oct 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
bilderberg speaks
notorious "secret evil rulers of the world" the bilderberg group are actually being interviewed on bbc world service tomorrow
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28th Sep 2005 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
i feel like dylan tonight
just a reminder to catch no direction home bbc2 9pm tonight - as good a dylan film as you'll ever see… plus loads more on bbc4 all week.
26th Sep 2005 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Robin Rhode
There's some cool performance-animation(TM) from South African artist Robin Rhode over at the BBC website.
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22nd Sep 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
in at number ate
plat du jour's number 8 on the bbc 6music album chart. nice interview on bbc collective too, with a cheeky free track to download, esme's waltz
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21st Aug 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
b.o.b. update
no direction home, the dylan doc from martin "no oscars" scorsese is scheduled to show on bbc2 26 and 27 September, the dvd's out on 20 sept in the us, 30 oct uk
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21st Aug 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
ice haven
daniel "ghost world" interview and screensaver stuff up on bbc collective, talking about his new comic ice haven.
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29th Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
bob-bucks
now dylan's done a deal with starbucks. weird. still, saw a clip from the new scorsese doc coming on bbc later in the summer, and that looked great, so, er maybe we should just ignore this.
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28th Jun 2005 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
dylan alert
like a rolling stone out-takes on tonight's culture show, 7pm and 11.20pm, bbc2
2nd Jun 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
Sith Reaction
The BBC has a round up of reviews for The Revenge of the Sith over at their website. The chimps gatecrashed an early screening yesterday and will be posting our own report shortly...
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Chimpomatic Review
Revenge of the Critics
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9th May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
FALL on FOUR
caught the upcoming bbc four profile of long-standing chimp 71 heroes the fall, some cool footage in there: playing with michael clark and a giant hamburger, splitting up one version of the band on stage, running through all the 40-odd members, recording their last peel session etc etc...
well worth catching - The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith, 10pm, bbc four, friday
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16th Jan 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet
Dolphin Rescue Squad
pay tribute to the captain of the dolphin rescue squad
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#CSF
#ChimpInterviews
#Music
#Stupido
16th Dec 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
Coming this Fall
just heard there's a fall documentary coming on bbc4 in jan... and also got sent this insane video from the accidentals
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3rd Dec 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
Magnum
Looks like we might need to drag Tom Selleck out of retirement to combat this.
19th Aug 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
Beasties Are Back
The Beastie Boys anti-hiatus continues to gather pace. Anyone who gets me a ticket for this gets a free chimpomatic t-shirt.
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7th May 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
Un Blu Ray
Lucas has obviously decided to finally get this out before everybody wants the Blu-Ray version and skips the DVD altogether.
2nd Apr 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
Bush Fire
even bush is joking about the lack of wmds now...
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26th Mar 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
BBC3
BBC3 on top form last night, showing the excellent Tigerland. Great cinematography and definitely Joel Schumacher's best movie since (ahem) The Lost Boys. Followed by Catterick too.
11th Mar 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet
Buckley
BBC 2 replayed their Jeff Buckley documentary yesterday. Bordering on Spinal Tap in places, but utterly watchable....
16th Jul 2003 - Add Comment - Tweet
Eeeed Roooooney!!!
Look's like Ferris Bueller was in real danger after all... Ouch!
9th Jul 2003 - Add Comment - Tweet