As some of you may know, 20JFG’s recently recruited belligerent Sci- Fi dinosaur – Preston G. Parallax – is also something of an armchair academic. Allegedly, he was one of the pioneering forces behind the emerging field of Psuedo-musicology – holding an MAPhil in the subject from the Open University. Lauded by the forces of  regular Musicology as a ‘piss take’, Preston maintains that Psuedo-musicology offers a much deeper and clearer insight into the function, and history of popular music – because it is ‘unbound by anything that actually happened’.

Let’s take a look at an extract from one of his most radical papers. Highly influenced by TV’s Adam Curtis, he takes some wildy unrelated strands and ties them together to create a thought provoking and sometimes shocking insight in the very fabric of society.

Jesus was Batman

By Preston G. Parallax

In their 1995 composition ‘Kelly’s Heroes’, a group of acclaimed thinkers known as ‘Black Grape’ floated the theory that Jesus was in fact, Batman. In the confines of what appeared to be a tawdry pop song,  a complex metaphysical discussion takes place over the true identity of the Christian deity – with one member at first proclaiming that he was ‘a blackman’, then another countering that argument with the now familiar ‘Batman Theory’, before both of them try to disclaim and disguise their controversial theories with the idea that Batman was in fact ‘Bruce Wayne’. In any case, the record only made it number 17 in the charts, and so the band along with their controversial ‘Batman Theory’ were quickly gone from the psyche of the general public.

However, in the following year of 1996, a special episode of popular British sitcom ‘Only Fools and Horses’ was broadcast. Named ‘Heroes and Villains’, it featured one of the main characters ‘Del Boy’ dressed as the aforementioned super hero, and went on to become the most popular TV show episode of all time. ‘Del Boy’ was quite literally, bigger than Jesus.

In 1997, after well-known satanist Tim Burton was kicked off the project, the third Batman movie ‘Batman and Robin’ was released. There were reports of people leaving the cinema in tears after watching it – some even saying ‘JESUS CHRIST! THAT TOTALLY SUCKED’

The Batman phenomena had reached epidemic preportions by the year of 2008, with the Dark Knight grossing more than the net profits of Christianity in the collated years 2006-2008. People skipped church to go and see it.

Could it be true?

Mr. Willie Burns – formerly known as Will Burnett (aka DJ Speculator, Grackle et al) is something of a Leg’ round these parts…

Willie Burns – Fantasy MD

His brand new E.P – out on NY’s Long Island Electrical Systems – is riddled with luxury keys, mahogany basslines and deep, shag-pile drum programming. ‘Fantasy MD’ sounds like it was produced by the 2 non-existant members of Virgo Four, whist on a hunting trip for some obscure DX7 presets located at the base of Doogie Houser theme, in the forgotten realm of 1987. And if you think this write up is bad, you should check the EP – it’s awesome.

The Willie Burns EP is out now on L.I.E.S, you can probably still catch Will’s radio show on Newtown radio.

We were recently lucky enough to receive some tracks from Sapphire Slows, who has a nice bandcamp if you’d only press here.

Sapphire Slows – Animal Dreams

Animal dreams sees the classic mega-multi-tracked vocal harmonies from 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’ being rescued from the bottom of a k-hole, before being nurtured and given their own early Aphex vibes to play around with. Joined by a piano so lonely that it doesn’t even know other pianos exist, the overall effect is more powerful than having the final scene from E.T. broadcast directly onto your emotion gland by Dr. Sadness’s Tearjerker machine. Big boys don’t cry? Oh yes they do….

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with Demos l.i.e.s