Isn't technology a wonderful thing?

Saturday
Clandestino - Manu Chao
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Clear - Bomb The Bass
CM - V/A
Come On Die Young - Mogwai

Monday
Community Service - The Crystal Method
Complete 'B' Sides - Pixies

Yesterday
Core - Stone Temple Pilots
Costello Music - The Fratellis
Crimson - Alkaline Trio
Curtis/Live! - Curtis Mayfield

This time the bumper post is not down to my laziness, nor is it even because of a hectic workload. I haven't posted for a couple of days because I have the misfortune to own a computer which is as reliable as the British rail services and is showing signs of artificial intelligence. However, it's not the kind of A.I that's going to make our lives any better - it's more like a moody teenager who decides to work whenever it feels like it.

Coming home last night and finding my computer was on strike pretty much summed up yesterday. As ever, Curtis was fantastic and some of the other stuff wasn't too bad, but The Fratellis hung over everything like a particularly sulphurous fart. They remind me of bands like Powder and Sleeper who were signed on the coat-tails of Britpop by cynically unimaginative record executives who were out to make a quick buck (mind you, is there any other kind?). Ten years later we have The Libertines as the band who started it all, and The Fratellis et al as the guests coming late to the party.

The Libertines were a very welcome blast but looking at what they've spawned perhaps we should be careful with our praise. Pete Docherty's tedious 'solo career' wouldn't have come into being without them for a start. I find it hard to believe that fifty odd years after the birth of rock 'n roll a musician taking drugs, getting into trouble with the law, and shacking up with a model is still front page news. Would The Fratellis have stood a chance of getting signed without The Libertines having gone before them? I doubt it. Their glottal stop ridden tales of cities and the strange characters that inhabit them are a weak imitation that leaves you wanting to listen to the bands they're obviously trying to emulate, but who did it so much better - The Kinks, Blur, Barrett-era Pink Floyd, Ian Dury, and of course The Libertines. Singing in a mockney accent and rhyming 'city' with 'pretty' does not a gritty album make.

That album alone would have been bad enough to send me scurrying to the fridge for a beer when I got home, but the circumstances I had to listen to it in have now burned it forever in my consciousness as one of the worst things I've ever heard. Iidabashi is one of Tokyo's busiest business districts - Toyota has a large office there, as do Ericsson, Astra-Zeneca, and a number of other foreign companies. It's not a good place to be walking in and worrying that your trousers are going to fall down at any moment, as I did yesterday. My belt snapped when I pulled it a little too hard, and I was left shuffling like a tramp as I made my way to the station with my hands shoved in my jacket pockets trying to hold up my trousers. Not one of my better days.