This is the last My Chemical Toilet post, for I am now “putting it to bed”.

Say whaaat?

Don’t be sad (but don’t be happy or indifferent, either). It’s been a fun old thing to do, and I hope that since it began in 2007 it’s provided some interesting and amusing stuff to read.

I’m getting on a bit. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that it’s undignified to be writing silly things about music once you’re nearer forty than twenty. And I’m certainly not saying that I’m too old to love music anymore. But keeping the site updated, and feeling the urge to say things about music, has become more and more of an effort over the last year or so. And I think if something like this isn’t fun anymore, it’s kind of pointless to continue with it.

What’s really behind this? Is your back giving you “jip”, old man?

Well, it’s hard to keep track of everything that’s going on, for one thing. I spend less time listening to music now than at any previous point in my adult life, and similarly I spend less time reading about it and forming opinions. These days I tend to read books on the tube rather than listen to music.

Ahhh, so is it because “you can’t even understand what they’re singing”?

I’m not going to say anything like “muh muh muh, all modern music’s rubbish”. It isn’t, not at all. I just don’t have the same desire to seek it out as I once did, and it’s something I’ve been wrestling with for a while.

When the site was on a role I was struggling to find the time to fit in all the things I wanted to write about, but of late the struggle’s been more about not knowing what to write about in the first place. That’s not really an ideal position to be in if you’re running a blog.

Jesus. This is all a bit emo, isn’t it?

FUCK OFF, IT’S MY SITE.

I can’t believe you’re giving up writing – you’re genuinely amazing, you are. Are you going to cut off your hand like that painter did with his ear? Because you’re every bit as talented as he is, you know, and much handsomer.

I still love writing, I still love writing on the internet and I still love writing silly things. It’s just time for me to stop writing about the music, man.

Aren’t you sad? You have no children, so this is pretty much the only thing of any worth you have ever produced, isn’t it?

It is a bit sad for me, because I’ve always been proud of running this thing; and it’s a bit scary to not now have, er, “a thing”. The exposure the site has given me-

HOLD UP – is this going to be a self-aggrandising paragraph about your “influence”?

-has been great in many ways, helping me to get jobs, travel, go to gigs and festivals and stuff. I’ve met – both physically and virtually – a lot of nice folk, and made new friends.

The site has acquired a decent measure of what is referred to in the online arena as “influence”-

TWAT.

-and people have said nice things about it. I’ve been on the BBC “Sound Of” list of, ahem, “tastemakers” for the last couple of years, and was nominated for best blog at the Record Of The Day awards last year. Although, to my mind, turning up so high on lists like this suggests a lack of knowledge of what’s “out there”, music-wise, on the part of some social media types.

You disingenuous, falsely modest bushel hider-underer.

Look, one thing the internet is not short of is music blogs. And I’m fairly sure there are a lot – even in just the UK – with fingers more closely on the pulse, and with more prolific posting regimes than this one. I’m not saying quantity should count more than quality, but I’ve only published about a dozen posts this year, and half of those were nostalgiafests. So, you know, if you work in a field where it’s your job to know who the most influential folk are – don’t just trust what the “experts” tell you.

Testify. I mean, you were never even listed on The Hype Machine! And you call yourself a music blogger!

I’ve never been listed on The Hype Machine because I generally tend not to post MP3s for people to download – for a long time this was a legally dodgy area, and-

You’re a chicken.

-and it was a hassle I couldn’t be bothered with. That’s changed somewhat with services like SoundCloud. But there aren’t a great many music blogs that write amusing things, so I hope I provided something a bit different somewhere along the way.

I think they’re about to roll the music, so it’s probably time to wrap it up.

I’d like to say thanks to all the people who have contributed to the site over the years, and to those who made the effort to post a comment (even if you were a bit of a dick; and especially if I was a bit of a dick). It’s nice to feel like people listen to what you say, even if they hate it.

Thanks an’ all to the good people who have ever retweeted posts, linked to the site or recommended it/me in any way. Thanks also to Phil Martin for the triffic illustrations you see dotted around (and the MCT logo), and Power On Communications for the design, hosting and admin helps.

OK, you luvvie, that’s the thanks. Any “sorrys”?

Sorry to all the public relations people whose emails I ignored. You chaps and chapesses are wayyy too plentiful, and I am filled with foreboding at the task I have in front of me in attempting to be removed from your mailing lists.

So where are you going to go to, my lovely?

I’m writing regularly for the marvellous LUV & HAT, which I enjoy enormously. If I have pressing things to say about other stuff it’ll be at stuartwaterman.com, and I really must get back to my non-racist Tumblr, Bring Back Lost Lover.

I’ve changed my Twitter handle from @MyChemToilet to @stu_waterman (sorry about the underscore, I tried to avoid it) – if you unfollow me because I’m not all about the music anymore, or because you find this post grossly lachrymose, I understand one hunnert percent. If you’d like to offer me the opportunity to write your Christmas round robin newsletter or something, you can contact me at waterman.stuart at gmail.com.

And your final words are…

Love music, not genres. Toodles!

I decided to try it out by creating a “story” that looks at how big a part Whigfield’s 1994 song “Saturday Night” plays in people’s actual Saturday nights. I did this by searching for Twitter mentions of the song in the lead up to, and from within the guts of, the Saturday night that just took place. My incisive commentary appears within the stream.

(I suppose you could do this yourself by going out next Saturday and asking people whether they intend to, or have already, danced to Whigfield’s “Saturday Night”. But I think we know that if someone’s not on Twitter they’re not really worth listening to, don’t we?)

HERE IS MY REPORTAJ.

Well that was fun, wasn’t it? (Look, at least I didn’t do one about people referencing The Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays” at the start of the week. You’d have topped yourself halfway through. Think on that.)

QUESTION

ANSWER: Nowhere. Literally nowhere. We wouldn’t exist. Nobody would. Literally nobody would exist. Imagine that. Imagine it now. Imagine it now with your brain, which would not exist if it wasn’t for women.

OK, I’ll calm down. The centenary of International Women’s Day is on Tuesday 8th March, and to celebrate a friendly bunch of charities – going under the banner EQUALS – are putting on what is commonly known as a “gig” at the Southbank Centre in London on Friday 11th March.

(Disclosure: I have “helped out”, in a minimal fashion, with the EQUALS campaign.)

The bill for EQUALS Live will feature absolutely no men in skinny jeans*, and will instead showcase the womanly talents of Kate Nash, Paloma Faith, VV Brown (pictured, giving her answer to the question: “When will we know men and women are equal?”) and the ceaselessly caring Annie Lennox (International Women’s Day is kind of A-Len’s baby).

Tickets for EQUALS Live cost between £30 – £50 and are going faster than Annie Lennox’s hair colour use to change back she was a Eurythmic.

Other events being put on by the EQUALS “massive” include:

- The EQUALS Soul Train on March 8th – which y’all are invited to take part in. The flasgship one is in London’s Jubilee Gardens, near the London Eye; but if you can’t make it there’s nothing to stop you creating your own one.

- The Women Of The World Festival Conference, also London’s Southbank Centre, which is a three-day cultural jamboree including contributions from such Big Ladyguns as: Kate Mosse, Kay Mellor, Rosie Boycott, Juliet Stevenson, Annie Nightingale and Shami Chakrabarti. They’ll be approaching ishoos such as the central question posed by EQUALS: “When will we know men and women are equal?”

- A tie-in with the Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011, celebrating a hundred years of women filmmakers and live shows from Imogen Heap and Micachu, among others.

There are lots of other stuffs gwannin’ as well, with organisations, bloggers and all and sundry encouraged to create their own events. For example, splendid book blog For Books’ Sake is putting on a female-themed quiz on Wednesday 9th March in North London.

Buy tickets for EQUALS Live

Buy tickets for the Women Of The World Festival Conference

Buy tickets for the Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011

WeAreEQUALS.org

EQUALS on Facebook

EQUALS Soul Train Facebook event page

EQUALS on Twitter

* Except for session musicians, possibly

New Jack Swing pioneers Bell Biv Devoe popped up on Jimmy Fallon’s show last week, performing their brand new- sorry, their twenty-one year old song, “Poison”. The chaps looked pretty good for their age, taking wise, if funky, precautions against televised indignity: green leather waistcoats to hold in the guts, and shades to hide the crow’s feet. Respect for trying a few moves before running out of breath, as well.

“Poison” still sounds great today, although of course not many people realised on its realise that it was a subtle warning about HIV and AIDS. Or – no, that was “Poison” by Alice Cooper, wasn’t it? Or – no, was that “Poison” by The Prodigy? Or – hang on, was that “Poison” by Nicole Shirtslinger? Or – could it have been Poison the band?

Yes, didn’t Poison the band form with the noble aim of preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS, with each song’s lyrics part of an overarching, career-spanning narrative bemoaning the loss of sexual freedom in the eighties and nineties? Wasn’t there something in “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” about avoiding pricks?

I don’t think Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” was about HIV and AIDS. It was merely the tale of a woman whose wily sexual powers were such that BBD decided she bore a resemblance to an actual poison, such as cyanide, sarin, strychnine, ricin, tetrodoxin, hemlock or potassium chloride.

It’s still not clear exactly which substance this toxic femme resembled, but given the effect the above examples have on a human being’s central nervous system we probably owe Bell Biv Devoe a hearty thanks for the heads-up.

Or at least we might if they had TOLD US WHAT HER NAME WAS. Pillocks.

I thought it would be good to look at the best music parodies he produced when he was on TV & radio. I hate even using the word “parody”, thanks to all the berks on YouTube who use the word to describe their dickings-about.

Chris Morris produced all of these before YouTube even existed. Ponder that.

Blouse – “Oh Me Oh Myra”

Pixies – “Motherbanger”

Fur Q – “Uzi Lover”

JLB-8 – “Little White Butt”

Nirvana – “Panty Smile”

R.E.M – “Whale Meat”

Buy “Disgusting Bliss: The Brass Eye Of Chris Morris” at Amazon.co.uk

You shouldn’t really need an excuse to like Miley Cyrus’s's’s’ “Party in the U.S.A”, because it’s a rather adorably catchy little twit. But let’s face it, folk of a certain age, or people who have a misguided sense of their own coolosity, will never be able to admit liking it.

So here’s Rye Rye with a hipster-friendly remix of it. She’s probably only a year or two older than Miley Cyrus, but I think everyone’s allowed to like this “Party In The USA” remix because:

1. Rye Rye is “urban”, and her version is “dancefloor-friendly” (i.e., it’s faster and contains rapping).

2. For the video, Rye Rye appears to have raided M.I.A’s “closet”. Perhaps it was while M.I.A. was guesting on her recent single “Sunshine”.

3. Rye Rye adds plenty of “eyyy”s and “yeah”s – and even uses the word “bitch” a few times – which the original version sadly lacked. Crucially, she also employs the well-worn question “where the party at?” – which, in case you were in any doubt that you were listening to a track intended for dancing to, helpfully clears things up. Of course, she knows damn well where the party at, the minx. It’s in the title of the song she’s sampled, for goodness’s's’s’ sake!

I love the video. It’s basically just some people dancing in what appears to be a school’s music room, but Rye Rye seems to smile throughout with the sheer joy of flinging her limbs about. And there’s not a hint of filth in the dancing, either, which is a bit of a rarity in a female-fronted pop vid “in this day and age”. I would be surprised if it didn’t put at least a hint of a smile on your face.

Rye Rye’s debut album comes out in a couple of months I think, but she’s just released a free mixtape which sounds like an aural migraine, if that’s your kind of thing:

Rye Rye’s official website

Rye Rye on Twitter

Rye Rye on Facebook

Buy Miley Cyrus tracks at 7Digital

Twenty years ago I was in the midst of a decade-long slog to tape every song I liked for posterity. Back then I didn’t know that one day you’d be able to obtain songs from the ether, just as I failed to anticipate that there would come a time when shiny Puma tracksuits would go out of fashion. You live, you learn.

The result of hours and hours of taping the charts (and in later years, The Evening Session and Mark Radcliffe) off the radio, I have dozens of tapes that quite effectively illustrate how my music taste (d)evolved through my teens and early twenties.

I thought it would be interesting – and humiliating – to go back to one of these tapes and take a look at what I could learn about the me I used to be.

My key findings were:

1. I had no clue how to create a running order.

2. I adhered to a music policy that bordered on the deranged.

3. I possessed very, very small handwriting (thanks to my primary school teacher Mr. Davies, whose strange, pathological hatred of anything larger than what you can squint at in the above image had done its damage).

So join me as we see how, within the space of one TDK D-90 – which covers, by the looks of it, late 1991 to early 1992 – one teenager’s taste managed to veer from Mariah Carey to Senseless Things; from Julia Fordham (??) to The Prodigy; from Ride to Shanice. This is the alluringly-titled Compilation 17.

Side A

1. “Goodnight Girl” – Wet Wet Wet

A poor start that illustrates the bravery it takes to go through one’s old mixtapes, and acts as a mere hint of the embarrassments to come. What’s worse is that I clearly recall defending this song to some Fila-sporting friends who maintained that the only thing worth listening to was The Prodigy. I had yet to see the value in much of that rave nonsense.

I’m willing to admit, here and now, a mere twenty years later – they were right, I was wrong. I stand by Popped In, Souled Out, though.

2. “God Gave Rock N’Roll To You II” – Kiss

From the soundtrack of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Adventure, this remains one of the finger-waggiest music videos I’ve ever seen.

3. “Can’t Let Go” – Mariah Carey

I had no memory of this one until I looked it up on YouTube. It’s fairly standard early-90s Mimi, complete with a brief ultrasonic moment near the end. Obviously, this could only be followed by…

4. “Waterfall” – The Stone Roses

This tape was made when I was still in my Smash Hits days (the NME period was a year or more away yet). Despite the Roses appearing in the pages of ver Hits many times, I never really got past the fact that they walked in a manner that suggested – as my Dad might put it – “as if they’d pooped themselves”.

As much as I’d like to say that The Stone Roses had an instant effect on me, “Waterfall” was actually the first song of theirs I liked. And I think Happy Mondays’ “Step On” beat them to my affections by about a year or so.

5. “Old Red Eyes” – The Beautiful South

The Beautiful South were never cool, but I genuinely think this is one of the best songs about alcoholism ever written. Shame the video’s a bit rubbish.

6. “Pride” – Clivilles & Cole

The C&C Music Factory folk. Why they released this under their full names is unclear.

7. “Hit” – The Sugarcubes

Mad Bjork and Mad Einar, being mad about falling madly in love. All in all, a bit mad – and still utterly brilliant. “I said ‘ouch’! This really hurts!”

8. “Easy To Smile” – The Senseless Things

Honestly, you can’t understand a single word they’re singing.

You know how these days everyone and their Mum goes to music festivals? Back then the only people who went to Glastonbury looked like this and smelled like your dishcloth.

9. “Feel So High” – Des’Ree

You know, it only just occurred to me that the “high”/”touching your sky” motif is probably a Jimi Hendrix reference. Des’Ree – she just keeps on giving.

But that doesn’t mean you should try ripping her off.

10. “Everybody In The Place” – The Prodigy

Clearly, in the space of a week or two, I’d changed my earlier stated opinion on The Prodigy. I still love this, and yes, I do remember attempting to replicate Leeroy’s dancing in my brand spanking new Air Jordans. Dear God.

11. “Twilight Zone” – 2 Unlimited

“No Limits” is always held up as the exemplar of 2 Unlimited’s perfection of substance-free dance music, but “Twilight Zone” just about matches it I reckon. And anyway, are either of them any less nonsensical than “Everybody In The Place”? Hmm?

12. “A Little More Time” – Kylie Minogue

I suspect that the presence of an almost permanently-visible Wonderbra in the video may have had something to do with this song making an impression on my teenage mind.

13. “Love Is Everywhere” – Cicero

Cicero was a Scottish guy who the Pet Shop Boys signed to their label and helped out with production on a few songs. Just in case you don’t pick up the Scots vibe from his accent, some bagpipers join him on stage halfway through. Amazing.

Don’t you think he looks more like a footballer than a synth-pop artist?

Side B

1. “Loves Moves In Mysterious Ways” – Julia Fordham

This is the one song on the tape that, even after listening to it again, I have no memory of whatsoever. It’s from a film called The Butcher’s Wife, which might mean something if I didn’t have no memory whatsoever of that either.

2. “Take Me Away” – Cappella

Between 1991 and 1993, it seemed like there was never not a song in the charts called “Take Me Away”. This one samples “Love Sensation”, the same song Black Box used for “Ride On Time”.

As ecstatic exhortations of the time go – take me away, lift me up, let me go, open your mind, and so on – this is a dated but nonetheless pleasing example. With a completely shit video.

3. “Born Of Frustration” – James

Always preferred this to “Sit Down”, if only for Tim Booth’s hooting. Utter nonsense, of course, but a good tune.

4. “Can You Feel The Passion” – Blue Pearl

I think this is the first time I’ve heard this song in twenty years – and I can instantly recognise that it is BRILLIANT. Honestly. It barrels along like a brooding techno-goth kind of thing, and then the ravey chorus kicks in. It is utterly glorious. Listen to it.

5. “Stay” – Shakespears Sister

I liked Cher Lloyd’s version on The X Factor, but it definitely lacked the camp qualities of the original. The video remains amusing to this day – I love the bit where Siobhan Fahey rolls her eyes at the end, as her proto-Russell Brand devil-woman loses out to Marcella Detroit’s shrieking nutbag.

6. “You Love Us” – Manic Street Preachers

Bubbles, fireworks and scissor kicks. This is what people fell in love with when it came to the Manics.

Incidentally, it’s always intrigued me that the chosen shortening of their name was “the Manics” rather than “the Preachers”. It’s a bit like people called the Stones “the Rollings”, isn’t it?

7. “Movin’ On Up” – Primal Scream

Disappointingly, their performance of this song from Top Of The Pops isn’t on YouTube – shame, because I remember Bobby Gillespie leaping about in a shaggy coat and Adidas trainers pretty vividly. Here’s a lousy quality version from The Word instead.

8. “I’m Doing Fine Now” – The Pasadenas

You think this is funny? The Pasadenas were the first band I saw live.

9. “Crucified” – Army Of Lovers

This group apparently sold over seven million albums. Almost all of them in mainland Europe, you understand.

10. “Leave Them All Behind” – Ride

Gather round, kids, and try and figure out why bands like Ride were tagged with the label “shoegazers”.

Ride became so synonymous with the term that hip n’cool comedy show The Mary Whitehouse Experience did a sketch about it. And if you’d like to see how ridiculous people looked when dancing to this song, check out this performance on The Word.

11. “I Love Your Smile” – Shanice

I remember genuinely loving this song, which is a bit confusing because I’m sure this is around the same time Nirvana came into my life. It was probably Nirvana for dinner and Shanice for dessert, or something.

I’ve only just realised that the second half of this video is rather creepy – witness the guy hiding in the trees taking photos of Shanice and her extremely young friends…

12. “Remember The Time” – Michael Jackson

He’d sprained his ankle, the silly sausage, which is why he’s sitting down in this performance.

13. “Back Door Man” – Little Angels

An album track, I seem to remember – so this is “Boneyard” instead. It gives you a good idea of their oevre, and why the oncoming grunge juggernaut kind of swept them away.

So there we are, ninety bemusingly eclectic minutes from my teenagehood. I think I’d stand by about ten of the songs here, which isn’t too bad really. Julia Fordham isn’t one of them.

I think the stand out rediscovery for me in this exercise was Blue Pearl’s “(Can You) Feel The Passion”, which I am almost certainly about to listen to another five times. I would recommend you do the same.

I won’t go into the whys and wherefores and wherefore art thous, but I found myself watching a film from 1985 called Rappin’ recently. I would imagine it was one of the first films to try and incorporate hip-hop into its narrative, because it’s utterly appalling.

Mario Van Peebles plays a man called John Hood, who, to the ears of everyone around him, is a brilliant rapper. The viewer soon realises this is not the case. Or, most viewers do – here’s The New York Times around the time of the film’s release:

Rappin’ has a finale that gives everyone in the cast a chance to rap a line or two. Some of them, like Mr. Van Peebles, are quite good at this; most are not.

Anyway, whatever his verbal abilities, obviously the protagonist ends up being known as John “Rappin’” Hood.

His crew contains Eriq LaSalle, aka Dr. Peter Benton from ER, and they use this rapping stuff to try and fight off dratted property developers who are attempting to evict people so they can build a MegaMall or something. Ice-T pops up for a bit, in a significantly less scary form than in the years that followed.

If you’d like to watch it for yourself, it’s on Lovefilm’s online service. Maybe don’t make it your primary reason for taking out a subscription, though.

I wrote a thing about my recent fondness for dubstep for LUV & HAT.

Shame it prompted Stuart Heritage to descend into a pit of despair, but them’s the breaks.

Read LUV & HAT: Dubstep mere seconds after clicking this link

Follow LUV & HAT on Twitter

If you’re missing the doomtronic flourishes of The Knife or Ladytron, this Austra lot may appeal. They’re new signings to Domino, and “Beat And The Pulse” combines foreboding synths and a pop sensibility to pleasing effect.

It’s the kind of goth pop that always seems to go down very well in the States, so you might expect to hear it in a club scene on CSI: Delaware or something similar before too long.

Nice hair-scarf, too. The good thing about a hair-scarf is that it’s very difficult to lose one in a pub, unless you happen to be drinking with the kind of maniacs who bring clippers with them on a night out. And if you are, you kind of only have yourself to blame. Get some new friends, I would.

Austra – Beat & The Pulse (Radio Edit) by DominoRecordCo

Buy Beat And The Pulse on 12 inches of round plastic

[via Nialler9]