A perfect example of the power of advertising. How to make a out-of-touch, ailing brand suddenly seem contemporary and cool. Better still they have leap-frogged the Lynx ’sex sells’ cliche and managed an advert that somehow makes a mockery of men yet still appeals to both sexes. Good stuff.

“Wow…” exclaims Broken Social Scene front man and co-founder Kevin Drew as he takes to the stage, “We weren’t expecting there to be so many of you.”  It’s been three long years since the Toronto troupe have graced this side of the pond, and judging by the throng of fans tightly packed into the small, hot Academy 2 in Manchester, their absence has been duly noted.

And it’s not just the crowd who are packed together like Sardines; the stage is just as crowded, giving the whole show an intimate feel. Joining band regulars Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning through their express tour of the UK this summer are a whole host of supporting musicians, both part time and full time band members who help breath life into the Canadian music collective.  The bands delayed return to our shores, combined with their wealth of tracks creates a sense of urgency about their one hour thirty minute set tonight, with such a deep well of music to draw from, which songs will be cherry picked to be played?  Suddenly ninety minutes doesn’t seem enough time to spend with these guys.

But first things first, lets not forget the band are here to promote their new album Forgiveness Rock Record, and that seems like as good a place as any to kick things off tonight.  The band warm up with new tracks World Sick and Texaco Bitches before treating fans to some much loved older tracks. Fire Eye’d Boy, Superconnected and 7/4 (Shoreline) from 2005’s self-titled album are intertwined seamlessly in the set list with Cause=Time and Looks Just Like The Sun from 2002’s You Forgot It in People, the latter an impromptu addition to the setlist after ringleader Drew adapts to the mellow atmosphere that’s formed between the crowd and the band.

Pausing mid set to dedicate new track Water In Hell to all the people involved in the recent troubles in their Canadian hometown, the band feed the mellow vibe with bittersweet love song Lover’s Spit, before ending things on a up beat high with the 2005 epic track It’s all Gonna Break.  Playing fifteen minutes past curfew, the band more than made up for their delayed return, a show that was without a doubt, worth the wait. Leaving fans hoping we don’t have to wait another three years before experiencing Broken Social Scene’s musical greatness once again.

Adidas Originals remake the famous Star Wars Cantina scene for their World Cup ad campaign. Plenty of familiar faces including Daft Punk, Snoop Dogg, Noel Gallagher, Ciara, David Beckham, Ian Brown and more.

The Germans are coming, it’s true.

In fact in many cases they may already be here, lurking in cupboards or appearing on coffee tables, covering them in brightly coloured miniature effigies, sitting upon alluringly colourful 2D worlds. For the time being this miniature invasion will be confined to homes belonging to rather geeky men, or the odd family but this influx of German culture really deserves to spread through-out britain.

German style boardgames are different to their English and American counterparts in a number of ways, one particularly nice note is they focus less on aggressive tactics than American style games, players rarely are eliminated from a game before its end and the competitive aspects of the game are less luck based.
However the main selling point of these European board games is undoubtedly the art and attention to detail, Americanised games often look horrible, full of cheep looking plastic parts and “ker-razy characters”, European boardgames generally have painted wooden pieces or stick to carefully drawn cards as an alternative keeping the quality and detail. you really cant fault the presentation of some of these games, they look Gorgeous. Most German games are set around a theme, examples such as Tikal, Dixit, Forbidden Island are all drawn to perfection, cute and evocative of their setting. Many, including Zooloretto and Tikal feature expansions or in Tikal’s case full sequels, they really cross the border between games and books.

Obviously the point of a boardgame is it’s a social activity, plus you can play them whilst drinking which is an instant advantage over Mario Kart or Street Fighter. Really what’s got me so excited about German style board games is the delicious artwork in a game format, plus they have that mysterious feel to them that mainstream games like ‘The Logos Game‘ (Yuk!) lacks and German games like Smallworld are packed full of. they tend to be a little on the pricey side, but then they’re crafted with the love and attention to detail, and last potentially a life-time. proof of their soon to be recognised excellentness also comes from Xbox Live Arcade, which is set to release a number of German boardgames in xbox version this year, paving the way for a much need renaissance

Yeah, its fair to say German board games aren’t exactly very high on the ‘cool’ scale but they’re important because they have the magic of the very best children’s books, but shared between you and your closest friends over a few beers and a coffee table.

For Your Consideration:
The Werewolves of Millers Hollow
Zooloretto – Also Available on your IPhone!
Tikal
Smallworld
Race for the Galaxy

Causing chaos to all flights in and out of the United Kindgom, the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland has been the topic on everyone’s lips this weekend. On 14th April Eyjafjallajökull resumed erupting (after the previous eruption on 03rd March), this time from the top crater in the centre of the glacier, causing meltwater floods (also known as jökulhlaup) to rush down the nearby rivers, and requiring 800 people to be evacuated. This eruption was explosive in nature and is estimated to be ten to twenty times larger than the previous one in Fimmvörðuháls. This second eruption threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere which led to air travel disruptions in northwest Europe starting on April 15, 2010, including the closure of airspace over most of Europe.

Flickr Set / Google Earth / YouTube

I have a feeling this will be pretty much preaching to the choir, but I have to make sure you all know about this. This American Life is one of the best, if not the best, radio show/podcasts I have ever heard. It is incredibly high standard. Basically they take a theme and do two or three acts on that theme. They do research and tell unusual stories that are absolutely fascinating. Some will make you laugh some will make you cry. And you know me, that counts as great art. Subscribe to the podcast here.

I actually managed to get tickets for Bug: 18. For the past few years I think I have either seen it sell out before I get round to buying tickets or just noticed in passing that I have missed one. SO what’s it all about? Well let me tell you a little fact, it’s a grand tour of the most exciting and innovative new work in music videos, with the one and only Adam Buxton as your guide. Half of the infamous Adam & Joe show off of TV and wireless radio box fame. Its basically a mix of live blog, stand-up, comedy and cutting edge motion. Much like a conversation with myself, yeah, imagine talking to me but in a theatre on the Southbank and it would be almost as good, infact at key points better.

The show opened with Adam rapping about the evening events. I don’t know if you have ever heard his songs but they are pretty special.

With the magic of the internet I can even show you the videos. The first and possibly my favourite of the night was this little gem from L’ogre (insert Buxton’s hilarious pre-amble about french men and collectives …you had to be there). One of those “Why didn’t I think of that, simple concepts” Quite simply taking historical art and putting the band in there. What makes this video so compelling is the low-fi production but done with such precise/painstaking effort. Everyone I have shown this to since has had a similar reaction to this as LOL cats. A mixx of ahhhhh and laughter. Makes me wanna puke then clean it up apologise and bake everyone cup cakes. Mondieur!

Hold Your Horses! – 70 Million / Director: L’Ogre

S&S faithfuls will be pleased to hear that a few of the showcased videos have already graced our pages. Including the likes of Die Antwoord, Ok Go, And one that I/we have meant to post for the last few weeks(I’ve been busy ok!) Nobody beats the drum – grindin. Before you watch this take into account that it is stop frame animation, it doesnt become really apparent until you get further in. Frikin labour of love right there! The making of is pretty euro funny too.

Nobody Beats The Drum – Grindin / Director: Rogers Van Der Zwaag

Temper Trap – Love Lost / Director: Dougal Smith Anecdote time: I was waxing lyrical to Rob about the evenings events at Bug. We were riding down a canal from the Spot, on a beautiful spring early eve, the sun glistened on the semi polluted Lee Valley canal. Flies circled us like tramps in a clichéd cartoon strip. I had just remembered Temper Traps promo as we rolled around the corner and was verbally setting the scene for him, describing it as ’some place ooop north I’m sure I recognised’ Low and behold as I said this I realised we were within the actual location of the video. It was a real Tron moment right there. OK you probably had to be there.

Sorry the video is kind of unavailable at the moment but I can link you to it:

Liars – Scissor / Director: Andy Bruntel Another simple surreal concept well executed here. I won’t give too much away on this one.

Mia Doi Todd – Open Your Heart / Director: Michel Gondry Here’s something with a little more visual simplicity than some of his more famous promo’s. Nether the less it still has his unique quirky approach that he has become so famous for. Its not his best ever work but there is a real lo-fi simplicity in the idea that makes it very compelling. The song is pretty weak though, I want her mouth noises to stop.

Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal / Director: Sean Pecknold Hardcore claymation. Months of painstaking work must have gone into this one, apparently working right up to the last minute of the deadline, around the clock, to finish it off.

WhoMadeWho – Keep Me In My Plane / Director: William Stahl Danish video by Good Boy Creative. A portrait of a man and a wry take on achievement, me thinks.

Mujeres – Reyerta / Director: Tom Kingsley Playful idea set in a hairdresser’s where heads start changing rather than hair.

St Vincent – Marrow / Director: Terri Timely Quite a haunting one this, in a very ambient way. Looks beautiful too.

You have to check this out In B Flat a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users. The videos can be played simultaneously — the soundtracks will work together, and the mix can be adjusted with the individual volume sliders. Super clever.

Nolans – Cheddar / Director: John Nolan A bit of a  ‘and finally’ here. A little short by animatronic master and director John Nolan. A mix of trained mouse (how do you train a mouse?) and robo-mouse. It’s pretty funny.

Hope you enjoyed all that as much as I did. And make sure you get on the mailing list for the next Bug event.

This one goes out to all the web nerds out there! For anyone whose ever designed a website you all know that using flash is almost turning into a modern day faux pas. In recent months the release of updates and new browsers (FireFox 3.5, Safari 4, Google Chrome and Opera) means the need for this outdated form of web design seems to be finally diminishing. As a test of this new technology 9elements have created a little experiment which loads 100 tweets related to HTML5 and displays them using a Javascript-based particle engine. Through an extremely beautiful and minimalist playful format each colored particle represents a tweet. Most interesting: modern mobile devices like the iPhone or Android-based phones also support new standards in favor of Flash. The future looks bright for HTML5. Launch the canvas experiment here.

WIRED asked Density Design of Italy to draw a map based on the future scenarios, developed by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, to aid the reader in grasping the ideas and hypothesis built by 7000 influencers from all over the world(easier said than done!). The result is a both beautiful and engaging vision of cultural trends to come. Check it on behance or explore the whole thing here.

I’m not big on my American stand-up. I tend to find it a series of ever increasing loud noises full of sound bites and a general lack of lateral thinking or irreverence. Massive sweeping statement, I know, wanna fight about it? I just had a listen to Aziz Ansari’s new album(is it classed as an album when just comedy??). You may have seen him in Funny People and some other U.S stuff I don’t know about. He’s in the Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow crowd …so you probably get the picture. Basically what I am trying to get across is that this guy seems a cut above the rest, he definitley has that brash American style, yet his delivery is bang on. Check the Kanye material near the end, it is frikin priceless. Spotify