Tony's Home Page

Fish
Above : Gratuitous Surrealism

Fun thing to do

Memorise the contents of my home page, and then track me down. (Hint: Try a pub). Then convince me you are psychic by regailing me with my own life story. To make this game even more fun, tempt me into betting money on your lack of psychic ability. I am a cynic by breeding, and so I will confidently predict that you will do no such thing. I will eventually leave penniless, and over awed by your talent.

Introduction

This homepage is a compilation of rubbish thrown together during bored moments over the past few years. It's disjointed, inconsistant, out dated and generally rubbish. The point is I hate homepages. It seems terribly vain to think that others would like to read your mumblings, and it is also impossible to summarise your own character in HTML. It's almost like writing your CV, a bowel shudderingly embarassing experience. The best way to learn more about someone is to meet them - I'm quite happy to do that if you're buying the drinks.

My Town

When I say "My Town", I mean the place I was born in and the place where I've lived for most of my life. I don't mean it in the possessive sense. It's obviously not specifically my town, that would be silly.

Right, the place I call home is Southport, a fairly large town near Liverpool. It's like Blackpool, only less attractive and features hot and cold running sewage, armed police and The Floral Hall.


Above : Two shots of the nicer side of Southport

Thrilling facts about Southport

Southport is hardly an entertainments mecca, but it's still more fun than Uxbridge.

Uxbridge

I chose to go to Brunel University on the misguided idea that Uxbridge was part of London, and not some pathetically dull rancid suburban hole. I would like to be more enthusiastic about the place, but apart from the limited entertainments at the University anything worth doing is an hour on the tube away in London. Cool stuff in London includes "Blow Up" at the Wag Club, and the upstairs soul room on "Club X" nights in the LA2.

Cambridge

Between Summer 1998 and 1999 I lived in Cambridge working for Acorn Computers Ltd which became Element 14 Ltd and then through a partial take-over I ended up working for Pace. Cambridge is a great place, but completely lacking in any sort of night life apart from the copious numbers of pubs. Night clubs and bars are ridiculously overpriced and invariably play the same old rubbish. It's lucky London's only an hour away.

Family

We have a dog and a budgie, and it gets exponentially more boring from then on.

Heck, it's a dog.
Above : Dog.

Me

I can't be bothered. You really don't want to see this, and definately not this.

Sport

Sod off. Pool's my limit.

Music

Visit Tony's Pop Bin - A random collection of lyrics and text relating to various bands, old stuff mostly from the days when I could actually be bothered to collate this sort of rubbish.
Tony's CD Collection (but be warned, it's big and out of date)

My musical tastes are varied to say the least. I like music rather than any particular genre of music. That's not to say I go round randomly picking up stuff that looks nice. I just buy stuff I like, whether it's folk rock, indie, disco, soul, funk, lounge, drum n' bass or whatever. Having said that I am one of those old farts who thinks the stuff released these days in general terms of quality isn't as good as a few years back. I also had quite a bit of stuff sent to me through Brunel's radio station and the student magazine, most of which is utter crap, but there you go.

I regularly spin the wheels of steel on Brunel's student radio station when I'm there, and I've also DJed at a couple of venues. Most significant was "Mondo Retro" at Brunel's Student Union, where myself (aka Kid Tempo) and the illustrious Wendy Sisco blasted a crowd of over 350 people with funk, northern soul, disco classics and a few Michael Caine samples. It went really well, (we got encores, which was nice) and I've since done another couple of similarly successful events. Hurrah!

Although pretty well out of place with my usual listening these days my favourite band is still The Sultans (formerly "The Sultans Of Ping"). They started off as what most musical journalists would call a noncy student band with songs like "Give Him A Ball", "You Talk Too Much" and their hit single "Where's me Jumper?" (well, "hit" considering their chart record). They were, I suppose, stupid, but then so were stacks of other bands at the time like The Wonder Stuff. Anyway, The Sultans progressed on to write kick arse punk music rather than tales of knitware loss, and then after selling about twelve copies of their third album they split up. Bah. Take a look at The Sultans Web Site. Niall & Sam are now in a band called Coma, with a female vocalist. I look forward to hearing released stuff!

Through my Sultans fandom I've made some great friends, including a funky Japanese girl named Megumi Nakai. We spent ages talking over e-mail and now write to each other and exchange cool stuff. In December we met up in Camden and spent the day wandering around pubs and cafes with Niall from the Sultans. Top bloke. Megumi took some photos.

I also seem to be in a minority for liking The Auteurs, a who are like Radiohead I suppose, but darker. The Auteurs are led by pop-guru Luke Haines, who has also put together Baader Meinhoff and Black Box Recorder. Their self titled album is devoted to the 70's terrorists of the same name. It's pretty weird, and funky in parts.

Nick Drake was a genius. If you haven't heard him, get hold of "Bryter Layter". I don't feel qualified to say any more about him.

Gig wise I've been to see (in chronological order) :

Anyway, here's a list of a few bands I like, with links to relevant sites for a few :

The Auteurs - The Beatles - Beck - Bjork - Belle & Sebastian - Blur - Buzzcocks - The Charlatans - The Cure - The Doors - David Bowie - Nick Drake - The Farm - Goldie - Gomez - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci- The Happy Mondays - Lamb - Jimi Hendrix - The Inspiral Carpets - Jamiroquai - The Manic Street Preachers - Primal Scream - Mark E. Smith - Molly Half Head - Morcheeba - Morissey - The Orb - Orbital - Pizzicato Five - Pulp - Pink Floyd - Radiohead - The Rolling Stones - Suede - The Smashing Pumpkins - - The Sultans - Supergrass - The Super Furry Animals - The Kinks - Tim Buckley - Jeff Buckley - Tricky - Underworld - Vampyros Lesbos - The Who - The Wonder Stuff

Oh, and I can't stand Bis. I'm not keen on Oasis either. Handbag house is right out of the question. I also plan to destroy Alanis Morissette, Michael Jackson, Enya, The Spice Girls, etc.

Tony's Seemingly Random List Of Wonderful Singles - note that there are tons of omissions and stuff. I can't really keep it up to date...

Computing

I've been messing round with computers for ages. It's all terribly geeky, refer to my alter ego 20-20 Software if you want to see how sad I really am. I like to think it makes me money. Well, it does. It's all blown on my rock and roll life style. A bottle of cheap cider and entrance to a club every week, and perhaps the odd album. I really must think about slowing down before I burn out.

Web Links

[Wibble Now!]
Last updated : 9th March 2000
You can mail me as xargle@eh.org