A CHRISTMAS CONSPIRACY.

In the dying days of 2009, as one family’s child is flown back in a box from Afghanistan another’s son boards a plane for America on a ‘suicide mission’ So just who is winning ‘the war on terror’? This latest one came from Yemen, and he may have been radicalised in London, it also transpires that security forces were aware of him. A late entry into a Top 10 List of You couldn’t make this shit up, of things that happened in 2009 perhaps? I say you couldn’t make it up, but they could let it happen though. Think about it! Support for their war is falling amongst the public, who maybe need reminding as to what the fight is all about. At least no one was killed, or maybe that was part of their plan. I fail to believe that MI5, CIA, Homeland Security etc could have taken their eye off the ball that much. I mean A terrorist attack at Christmas think of the symbolism if it had succeeded. Just another thing, any failings that are seen in and by the security services, will then justify their use of increased surveillance and new detection technologies. One more gate will shut in fortress Europe as their war on terror enters another year.

PETER PERRETT and THE ONLY ONES - Silent Night b/w Baby's Got A Gun (7" Vinyl-Rip)

If I set foot in another shop before next Christmas it may be a day to soon. But enough, tis the season to be jolly, and here’s a solitary little gift for you all. A slightly crackly vinyl rip, but hey it’s the thought that counts. It’s Peter Perrett and The Only Ones and their take on that traditional Christmas ditty Silent Night, backed by the rather unfestive Baby’s Got A Gun, but then again after my experiences in those Churches and Cathedrals of consumption one could have come in handy, to clear queues, remove shoppers that stand in front of you when your browsing, the cashiers that ask if you want a bag and all the other shit that goes with shopping. BANG! BANG! Tis the season to be jolly fa, la, la, la, la Fuck Off!. Tis the season that people should search for some sort of meaning in/to it all. Anyway enough ranting. I hope you all have a great time over the Festive Season, celebrating it in whatever way you do. Happy Christmas. Enjoy!

"If he only had more time to tell of all the things he planned."

DISNEYLAND AFTER DARK - No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims

Formed in the sewers of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1984. As a band they listened to The Ramones, AC/DC and The Clash, collectively they agreed that The Gun Club's Miami was the best record they’d heard. It was to be 5 years before a million pound deal with WEA records in 1989 launched them on to the world stage, fuelled no doubt by the thriving metal scene of the 80’s. But anyone expecting a blast of downtown L.A Hair Metal is gonna be either very disappointed or very relieved. This is Rawk’n’Roll with it’s roots in Punk as much as Metal which bridges the gap between the genres much like Motorhead, who D.A.D sound similar to in places. I say D.A.D because unfortunately due to threat of law suits by Uncle Walt’s Corporation the Disneyland had to be dropped from their name. No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims is one of those records that grabs you by the balls and swings you round before letting you go smashing into the wall with its addictive stomp along anthems, but hey don’t just take my word for it, here! Have a blast yerself. Enjoy/ Destroy / But most of all….PLAY LOUD!

"Walking in a winter wonderland."

The world leaders stomped massive carbon footprints across the Earth to attend The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, were after Two weeks of ‘talks’ nothing was achieved so very little will change. In Britain a day of ‘heavy snow’ Brought parts of the country to a standstill. Still at least it kept the cars of the roads and some planes out of the skies for a day. Every little helps. Interesting that the extreme weather we are seeing more of, which is often put down to global warming, in some small way is helping to reduce C02 emissions, but not only that. The more extreme weather we see the more it strengthens their case for global warming. I aint no ‘flatearther’ because just like economics and politics nature revolves and evolves in cycles. People have shaped our political, economic and social paths and now one way or another they are shaping our natural world. The longer it goes on with the world leaders resolving less the more I think that they are prepared to stamp over our world in order to maintain the socio/economic/political environment that they have been creating for the last hundred or so years. The Green eCONomy is just another sprout on their tree of global free market capitalism.

RAGE AGAINST SIMON COWELL!

A few weeks ago a couple of people unhappy with the Cowellisation of the British pop charts Christmas No.1 single, (like anyone gives a shit.) by the years X-creta Factor winners, set up a ‘face book campaign’ to get people to buy downloads of Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name to try and make it the festive chart topper. It’s the one with the catchier than swine flu “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” refrain.
Without any sense of irony 600,000 people did exactly what someone told them and signed up to the face book group. Still the revolution starts somewhere!

THE VIBRATORS - Under The Radar (*A REVIEW*)

Yes the new Vibrators album. It’s been out for a couple of weeks. Well worth rockin’ the(ir) recession with. £8.99 including postage from those good folks over at Captain Oi. They’re the business when it comes to keeping the spirit alive! So what with Consumermass coming up put it on yer list for Satan to stick in yer stocking. If you get in there quick it's only £6.99 in the X-Mas Sale. Bargain! and while yer there check out The Walls Punk Collection, or The Fits or The Dark. Brilliant CD's the lot of 'em. Anyway I digress *A REVIEW* 14 Tracks of new Vibrators material, no punk rock garage classics here. This is Knox’s take on all things in and out of love set against backdrops of sleaze in crumbling cities and dead end towns. Musically the band have never sounded more frantic and furious, more solid and sexy. There’s a trace of familiarity among some of these tunes; a guitar lick here, the odd riff there. Foot taping and stomping stuff a total pounding rock and roll out of a record. Some bands/musicians never let you down. If you like The Vibrators I’d be disappointed if you were disappointed after taking a ride Under The Radar.

NIKKI SUDDEN - Lost In A Sea Of Scarves (MP3)

Seems that Nikki Sudden is quite popular around these parts, and that’s not just with me. Someone requested Lost in a Sea of Scarves, well, I try not to post stuff that I haven’t actually got a physical copy of but seeing as it’s nearly ConsumerMass here you go with an MP3 of said album, straight from my hard drive straight from somewhere. It’s a compilation originally released in 1985 on German label What’s So Funny About, of his work with Dave Kusworth as The Jacobites, and a great introduction if you’re not familiar with it. If you’re not never mind shame for the angels, shame on you, but that can be easily rectified with a click here! For those that are there’s a couple of scans of some old Jacobites gig flyers to accompany this post.

Yet another untitled piece of prose.

My heart Fucking bleeds! £40,000 a year. Nice work if you can get it! Having to pay an extra £200 in tax. Fuck me, an extra £200 in my wage packet and in millions of other peoples a year would be nice, don’t suppose that’ll ever happen, we’ll just be taxed by stealth to pay for their fuck ups. Here’s a Top 10 of them for this year:
1) The continuing illegal war
2) MP’s expenses.
3) Taking the country to the brink of bankruptcy
4) …..Fuck it I can’t be bothered to think of anymore, it’s just too depressing and makes me too angry. Poxy fucking culture of lists. Top 10 albums/bands/books/films etc. Truth is it should be about quality rather than quantity, and its all subjective and not very objective. I object because this thing about lists, it’s just a bottom down version of New Labour’s obsession with audits, league tables etc, that’s what has defined this government, that is what has created a market for all the managers, jobs etc that are needed to monitor, collate, analysis and then present the data to the public for propaganda purposes. How much does all this shit cost to tell us, that the average family is worth £204,000 (If figures are to be believed) what? Well I never said I was average, and as for these people earning and having to pay more tax. Too right! The more you are worth, the more you should have to pay. I’ve nothing against wealth and money, it’s just peoples attitude towards it, and what it is actually worth. Nothing, if you haven’t been brainwashed by their Capitalist System, where everything is up for sale. Food, clothing and shelter, basic needs. The rest are just wants. The more you want, the more you need their money, the more you have to play the game. My families income with two people working each year is just over half £40,000, our assets? Well…….I don’t think so. What a bunch of losers! Not really, still manage to live a fulfilling and satisfying life, it’s about the value of things. The only value money has is to corrupt. The reason we are in ’this mess’ is because everyone who grew up under Thatcher and had nothing, has thanks to New Labour grown rich and become the very people Thatcher wanted to create. The Cult of The Individual. More like the individual is a cunt! Now times are hard all those who’ve worked for their future, spent money they didn’t have to attain and maintain the elusive illusion of a life style that actually means something when in reality it means nothing are gonna have to pay, but they aint gonna be happy. I can understand that with MP’s expenses scandal, costs of War etc I aint happy about those either. But the difference is I didn’t buy or wasn’t brainwashed into it and I’m doubly pissed off with seeing those that did and were, moaning about everything, but doing nothing and I’m having to live in the shit that the greedy fucking arseholes created.
You can’t fight progress, but you can slow it’s advance. Take pleasure in the Simple things, beauty in the mundane. I’m not talking about a total alternative lifestyle, cos some progress is good, some of what Capitalism and the Free Market offers is good, but a lot more of it makes me sick. It’s about a balanced diet. Total Capitalism is unhealthy! Like I said before. No class. A classless society. Maggie’s dream, and our nightmare. The people of Britain, need to wake up and see that they have been taken for a bunch of ……. Write that on yer THINGS TO DO IN 2010. List… 1) Take to the streets. After all what have you got to lose? Time to playing a different family game this Christmas.

Bringing some more of the past into the present.

"So we buy it, we consume. We are the suckers"

Why is it whenever I go shopping some things piss me off? Sales ass istants ! When you need one, they know absolutely nothing about the product you want to know about. When you don’t need one, they follow you around the shop and what until you stop walking and then they pounce. “Do you need any help?” No I don’t and if I do I’ll ask someone who’s not gone know about anything anyway. Then if eventually I do decide to make a purchase, there’s the till, queuing up behind people paying by credit card, if you can’t afford it in cash why you buying it? Some shops have cash only tills, I often find the queues shorter at those. So finally make it to the till, then the ass istant utters the words “Would you like a bag?” No! I’m gonna balance the goods on the top of my fucking head and let them get wet in the rain while I walk home, of course I want a bag.

THE WAR ON WEALTH!

THIS ISN'T CLASS WAR! THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO CLASS. I BET THEY ALL VOTED FOR BLAIR. CAN'T GET BY ON £100,000 A YEAR...... CUNTS! AND WHY NOT MAKE IT 50%?

JOHN MOORE AND THE EXPRESSWAY - Expressway Rising.

I posted this fellas debut single a year or so ago, so I thought it’s about time I posted his debut album. John Moore played with the Jesus and Mary Chain, before he went solo with his twangy, bangy 60’s Pop Punk Sleaze; a little Lou Reed here, a spot of The Byrds there and a slice of Garage Punk over there. Great stuff! He went on to release a couple more (no excuse for the pun) solo albums, before enjoying a bit of chart success during the 90’s in Black Box Recorder, but none of that work imho matches the majesty of 1989’s Expressway Rising. Check it out here! Or Check out there! Unfortunetly my original tape has long since stretched ,so you’ve got my digital replacement instead, with two bonus tracks. Enjoy and/or destroy, but do something! John Moore now writes articles for The Guardian, and still rocks out.

UNTITLED

The wanker bankers are in the news again, what a greedy bunch of mmutha fuckers. RBS the bank our government bailed out with our money now want more of our money to pay their executives obscene bonuses, for what? Investing in Dubai Stock Exchange and possibly putting more of our cash at risk.
There’s people not happy that the EU may take control over Britain’s banks, which is fair enough as after all no one was consulted over our increased control by Brussels, but then again someone needs to take control, to stop the Banker Bonus Bonanza and gambling of money on dodgy investments, it’s what our government should be doing or to be more correct; Should have done! I mean the figures if they are to be believed are obscene £5 billion. It’s just greed, but hey our politicians can’t really talk after the expenses debacle. Just think what could be done with that money? Equipping the troops in Afghanistan, better patient care on the NHS, just a couple of things that spring to mind, but hey we’re paying for those already, so why should we pay twice? Well both the armed forces and Health care are haemorging money through quangos, managers and civil servants, while frontline services suffer. High wages for managers etc provide Happy Shopper budget care and equipment.
Climate Change. Change the climate; Change ourselves! It’s fundamental, it’s the only way it’s gonna happen and I’m not talking cutting down on plastic bags or energy saving light bulbs here. It’s about what we put in the plastic bags and what we can see in our homes. Do we need it? Or do we want it? I mean how ever did we get on without mobile phones, how could we watch television before the HD flat screen plasma injection, cos that’s it; people seem addicted to technology and it’s advancement. The white heat of technology is frying people’s minds and the planet. How much more micro can the micro become? How much faster and flatter can we get? before everything reaches a finite state and we’re finished, because that’s what will happen. If people didn’t buy the shit then there’d be no reason to make the shit and if no-one was making the shit there’d be no shit being pumped into the environment. We have more than enough shit in our lives that doesn’t really make people happy, they just think it does. The brakes need to be applied before there’s one almighty crash, we need to start thinking about going backwards to go forwards, that really would be a change in the climate, but one that could just save the planet.

SHARKS - Shallow Waters ( the myspace tunes)

Here’s a band that may well be worthy of your consideration, they have been of mine since I read a brief snippet about them in the NME, and downloaded some tunes from their myspace page. It’s rare that there’s been many bands to catch my attention over the last few years from those pushers of taste at the music press; The Gaslight Anthem, Glasvegas, Twisted Wheel, The Enemy, The Dead 60’s, probably about one a year, this years model goes by the name SHARKS. Why this bunch ? Well… 1) With their slicked back and quiffed up hair they look slightly different to the floppy fringe, skinny look spiky haired indie wannabe whatever look, but more importantly…2) They had something to say that made me think umm! These guys might actually be worth checking out, unlike the rest of the floppy fringed, skinny look spiky haired indie wannabes that the NME shove down its readers throats. The band said they’d “rather be poor and lonely for the sake of keeping their music pure” NME said it could make the band seem po-faced. Excuse me but since when was it po-faced to do it your way, regardless of the cash and celebrity. Sounds like a good attitude to me, that’s what makes a band A BAND and not just another product for the industry. Anyway, time will tell how Sharks survive in the waters of the music biz. Not that they sound that bothered because in an interview for Impose Magazine when asked about future plans James Mattock from the band said “It's hard to know, destroy and rebuild music... I guess.” Sharks back up their talk with a sound not to dissimilar to early Manic Street Preachers with a dash of the Clash a splash of US Punk Rawk and a sprinkling of that 80’s and early 90’s indie/alternative sound. Geat stuff! As well as their myspace songs I’ve also included their cover of The Wedding Present’s Brassneck on this here download. If you’ve liked any of the other bands I’ve plugged here via the pages of NME; Gaslight Anthem, Glasvegas etc then I’m sure you’ll find Sharks just as good, give ‘em a few months and they’ll be circling, scaring and ready to tear at the flesh of the industries dead and dying ducks.