“I like to describe us as musical hypoalgesia because it’s silly and throw away, but kinda of a pretty idea too.” Steven Kane is talking about his band, Happy Particles, a talented sextet of musicians from Glasgow, who have just released their debut album, Under Sleeping Waves.

The band originally formed around Kane, who says:

“I had written a few songs, and basically asked people I was already in a band with to join, I also asked people who were in bands in Glasgow I liked. Pretty simple really, or pretty lucky to be more accurate.”

It wasn’t luck, but genuine talent and a shared interest and admiration that brought the Particles together - Alan Doherty - guitar, bass; Ricky Egan - guitar; James Swineburn - saxophone, rhodes piano; Gordon Farquhar - drums, percussion; Graeme Ronald - bass; and Steven Kane - guitar, vocals, laptop, piano.

Happy Particles are like a mini-supergroup with each member having a successful career with other bands: Doherty is with Prayer Rug, Egan is in Tangles, Farquhar with Stapleton, while Kane, Swineburn and Ronald are with with Remember Remember.

“As I say, it’s all connections through admiration of each others’ work. We are all pretty geeky and silly really, it just seemed pretty easy to play together.”

For a debut, Under Sleeping Waves is an stunningly assured and goosebumpingly good album.

“We recorded it with our friend Robin Sutherland in a converted barn in Dundee, and it was mastered by Ian Cook (Aereogramme/Unwinding Hours). It has various influences running through it from classical to shoe-gaze to slow-core guitar rock.

“Some tracks were almost finished before being brought to the band while others were written while jamming and others during the recording process itself. It’s a pretty varied record musically and this has probably got something to do with the fact it was all written and pieced together quite collage-like in some respects.

“Some of the tracks were written specifically to be as minimal as possible, trying to ring out as much from simple melodies as we could without it being boring.

“Some were written and then string arrangements were later done by James and Graeme individually, specifically to be more textured/complex. Lyrically I like to deal with abstractions that can also be personal to more people than just myself rather than beating someone with an obvious statement over the head.”

The subtlety and shimmering texture of tracks, such as “Aerials”, “Infinite Jet”, “Slowness” and “Classes in Silence”, makes Under Sleeping Waves the wish list album of the Christmas season and confirms my belief that the Happy Particles are destined for great things in 2012.

Under Sleeping Waves is available as a pre-order on bandcamp now - with an immediate download of two tracks. The album will be officially released on Christmas Day. 
 

  ‘Aerials’ - Happy Particles
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
YouTube user JerryBerryBass says, “A Whovian Night Before Christmas. Sort of.”

Merry Christmas to all and EXTERMINATE!
 

 
(via Doctor Who Facebook page)

 
I can’t find the provenance of this one. Anyone know?
 
Update: It’s from Bukowski’s “Shakespeare Never Did This” with photographs by German photographer Michael Montfort. Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
 
(via KMFW)

Peters on wheels. Phallic-shaped trucks deliver creamy treats to the eager masses.
 
This Australian commercial for an ice cream bar foregos subtext and heads right for the center of the peach-fuzzed meatpit of mortal delight, leaving this viewer with a slightly queasy feeling. The thrust of the thing is given an added bit of explicit creepiness when you consider that the Superstar bar is made by a company named “Peters.”

“You got to bite off the big strawberry points to get to the creamy vanilla center.”

Grab yourself a Superstar.
 

 
Mr. Yuk was the icon of an effective anti-poisoning campaign aimed at young children that was developed by the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. The Children’s Hospital opened the country’s first poison center in 1971 and also set up the first 24-hour poison hotline. The hospital helped spread this concept to other places, too, by producing generic TV commercials that could be customized with local telephone numbers and lurid, lime green Mr. Yuk stickers.

In 1971, there was really no such thing as today’s child safe packaging, and the hospital’s director, Dr. Richard Moriarty, saw a problem with the traditional “skull and crossbones” poison warning: As a resident of Pittsburgh and a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, Moriarty saw how local children might come to think of this symbol as something to do with the Pirates—or pirates—and that it might indicate “fun” to them, and came up with the concept of Mr. Yuk to replace it.

If you grew up in the greater Pittsburgh area, for generations the Mr. Yuk song was drilled into your head, but it was well-known in other parts of the country, too. My mother had a half-used sheet of Mr Yuk stickers in a drawer in her kitchen for decades. It might still be there for all I know. The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has on online gift shop where you can purchase Mr Yuk stickers and more.

Dig the spooky Moog soundtrack and paranoiac visions of demonically possessed common household cleansers in the infamous Mr. Yuk TV spot. Note how the local branding is badly botched:
 

 
Yes, I know it’s ‘shopped, but it gave me a case of the LOLs. Seriously, the longer you stare at it the better it gets.

The image is of some Christian metalcore band I’ve never heard of called A Plea for Purging. (WHAT does this name mean, anyway?)
 
(via reddit)

 
This is what it says on YouTube:

This colour clip was shot silent in 1955 in Oklahoma City while Holly and Elvis Presley were working the two bottom slots on a country package tour headlined by Hank Snow — and apparently represents not only the earliest film footage of Holly but that of Elvis as well (he’s dressed in a neon-bright green shirt and he’s already a physically commanding figure).

Other YouTubers are saying this was shot in Buddy Holly’s high school in Lubbock, Texas, the following year. Whatever the case, you can also catch Carl Perkins, and at :58 seconds in, a really young-looking Johnny Cash.
 

 
(via Everlasting Blort)

 
You fill in the blank for the new Viagra campaign out of Nairobi, Kenya. I like the title Copyranter gives ‘em “Viagra turns Kenyan men into horny, buff furries.” Trend Hunter says, “Humanimal Arousal Ads.”
 

 

 
In other words, “Darth Vader recites the alphabet on Sesame Street.” Who knew the alphabet could be so intense?

And if that wasn’t enough for you, here’s James Earl Jones counting to 10.
 

 
(via IHC)

 
Lost in the dust of Herman Cain’s comically hubristic self-immolation and Rick Perry’s definitive demonstration that he’s just not very bright, is one of the more under-reported stories of the Republican pre-primary season: Texas Congressman Ron Paul has won more straw polls than any other GOP candidate.

In fact, Paul has won more straw polls than Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann combined.

Below, Ron Paul on military spending during a House speech: