More of the same shit.....but it still stinks!

Fuck You Capello, and every politician, council leader, banker, boss and official who’ve received or are in line for bumper payouts, compensation etc for doing their jobs badly. “Money talks and bullshit walks!” FIGHT THE C***S!!

It's all over now!

Looks like this is the last World Cup related post, as England are coming home, they’re coming home. Never mind, better luck next time, even though it aint down to luck, it’s down to playing a game, something England didn’t do in any of their matches. They played without passion and commitment and some of the players looked like they were going through the motions, but you probably know that anyway. The reaction from people (work colleagues and mates) I’ve spoken to has been pretty unanimous; players are over paid prima donnas who care more about their celebrity status than representing their country, which was music to my ears, especially as my mouth kept silent until I agreed with them. One guy I was standing behind in a queue at my local shop reckoned they should all be shot, slightly extreme I think, but hey you never know, the team bus could be hijacked on the way back to the airport tonight by one of the South African gangs, cos I don’t think they’d get any ransom money for the players, the way some of the English people are feeling today.

'Suhunday Sport'

It’s that time again. Another day another England World Cup match, but this time it’s against our old foes; The Germans. Two World Wars, One World Cup, and all the other jingoistic xenophobia and petty racism that goes along with it, England expects and all that, if the media are to be believed. Sport does unite a nation, in victory and in defeat, whatever the score after 90min, Extra Time or the dreaded penalty shoot out I hope that it doesn’t turn into some nasty fight based on national pride and identity settling old scores, if that happens then everyone loses, except the advertisers, sponsors, manufactures and suppliers of flags and plastic tat emblazoned with the flag of Saint George, they have been the only winners throughout the competition. As I’m typing this, the build up to the Big Match is happening, so I’m gonna wrap this up now, just one final thing; I was watching a BBC sports report yesterday evening when the presenter was talking about Ghana being the only African team left in the competition, at one point when congratulating them she referred to them as the “Black team” a bit of an own goal there for the Beeb!

PRIMAL SCREAM - "Do you wish you were seeing Kylie Minogue?....well fuck you!" (Glastonbury 2005)

It’s that time of year when the alternative cultural consumer fest of Glastonbury takes place. In 40 years the underground has become the overground, the alternative is now mainstream. “You’ve got the money we’ve got the soul” Primal Scream’s Glastonbury appearance in 2005 was no loved up Screamadelica groove, although Bobby Gillespie was well loaded, this was some Evil Heat with bad vibrations, a brilliant confrontational and controversial performance. A blistering apocalyptic rock’n’roll drone. Sick City splutters and stalls with Bobby announcing “We are a punk rock band and you’re a bunch of fucking hippies” before the song is kick started back to life again. After Detroit Bobby declares that “The war on terrorism is a pretext of setting up an international police state.” During Swastika Eyes Bobby gave a Nazi salute which didn’t go down well with the organisers, by the end of the last song Movin’ On Up the band refuse to leave the stage, with Mani playing a snippet of the Stone Roses I Am The Resurrection’s bass line, and Bobby telling the audience “Well you should have been here fifteen years ago you lazy bastards” if they wanted to hear the Stone Roses. The power was cut and Bobby Gillespie was physically removed from the stage. Hear this legendary set here. Enjoy and Destroy!

FUCK ART, LETS....

It’s good to see that in this age of austerity and poverty that there’s still some prosperity, with some rich fucker paying £35million for a crappy old painting!
Still at least the former owner Andrew Lloyd Webber is gonna put the proceeds towards a good use towards training future musical theatre stars. Great just what we need; more self obsessed prima donnas making Webber money by performing in his expensive West End productions people can't afford to see.

FOOTBALL 1 THE BUDGET 0

It seems that today in England’s green and (un)pleasant lands many of the people were more interested in how England would do in their World Cup game than in yesterdays budget. In the football England beat the mighty Slovenia by…. one goal to nil, a nations pride restored? I didn’t see the game I was working, I heard the commentary on the radio, but that aint the same as watching, so I can’t really comment on how, or if the team played. As for the budget….well we’re all gonna be losers in that game, they give with one hand and take away with the other, and their hands are about as safe as the unfortunate England goalkeeper Rob Greens. I hope that when the cuts start cutting deeper over the next few years that people get as upset and cross with their politicians as they did with their footballers. ANGERLAND, ANGERLAND!

BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE - First Gig London 1985

After being sacked by The Clash, over differences about the musical direction the band should follow Mick Jones took inspiration from the emerging New York Hip-Hop sounds, and along with fellow cultural/musical/artistical explorers Don Letts, Leo Williams, Greg Roberts and Dan Donovan set up Big Audio Dynamite, who became a groundbreaking musical force; mixing Hip Hop beats, Rap’d lyrics and samples from films with Rock’n’Roll guitars. The groups first album released in 1985 This Is Big Audio Dynamite is a classic, another desert island disc of mine. It sounds as fresh today as it did 25 years ago. This recording is from their debut gig in London @ The Kentish Town Forum on 28th Nov 1985. Enjoy!

Oils not well with Britain and Americas special relationship.

So if Obama is comparing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to 9/11 what’s his response been? The previous administration launched a ‘war on terror’ he’s launched an attack on BP, which like the war on terror has gone beyond what is acceptable; considering that BP admitted liability and said that they would pay for the clean up costs a few weeks ago. I’m not here to defend BP and their actions or inactions. Their part in what happened is indefensible, but I’ve heard no mention by Obama of the US’s involvement in the whole fuck up, let’s see…. where was the rig? Off the American coast! where did the workers on the rig come from? America, who stood to benefit from the oil production? America. Then there’s the Halliburton connection, who are doing quite well out of the war on terror and seem to be blameless in the eyes of Obama in anything to do with what’s happened in The Gulf Of Mexico, I’m not so sure, something stinks if you ask me. The offshore drilling deals were struck with the Bush administration, no doubt George Dubya was securing his financial future, cos lets face it he was never gonna make as much as Tony Blair on the public speaking circuit. Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find it’s just more Bullshit Politics. The war on terror defined the Bush administration, will the Gulf Oil spill define the Obama one? Over here in Britain, the LibConCo need to start thinking about their response to Obamas attitude, cos while the protestors on Capital Hill want BP’s assets frozen there’s a whole lotta people who are possibly gonna see their pension plan payouts become as worthless as the leaking oil. As a nation we are seeing the bodies of soldiers coming home in boxes from the other Gulf where our troops are supporting the Americans in not only the war on terror,but in the search for new mineral riches and resources, I wonder who could possibly get contracts for future mining operations in Afghanistan?

Saturday Sport.

Oh dear! Another crap performance from England in the World Cup. A nation expects and is left wanting and waiting for their team to play some football, after all it is their job, and they’re making hard work of what should be an easy job against the teams they’ve played so far.
The ball’s too round, not enough practice with it, excuses and excuses to cover up the glaring fact that things aint right in the England camp, they aint playing well, there’s something lacking. The players may have the physical skills and ability, but I don’t think they’ve got the psychological skills and ability to be the winners rather than the bunch of losers they are at the moment. I know they haven’t lost a game in the competition, but a couple of draws against the mighty footballing nations of USA and Algeria isn’t something to be proud of, and unfortunately unlike in other areas such as politics and economics for example the English people aint prepared to put up with any old shit,especially if they've paid a lot of money to watch the games, that’s why the team was booed as they left the field, if the players don’t understand that…. then I rest my case about the teams mental abilities. If players aren’t happy about the pressure they might be under from the media and the fans, perhaps they should look for a different job, because it’s part and parcel of the game now it’s big business; high expectations and returns are what’s required, the players have reaped the rewards at club level, now they need to deliver the goods at international level for their country, something they don’t seem caper able of at the moment. If stress, tension is the problem, then perhaps they should fly out the WAG’s (Wives and Girlfriends) to help relieve some of the stresses, then again maybe not cos players like Ashley Cole and John Terry would probably shag the other players wives or girlfriends, seems that’s the only playing away from home they’re any good at. Anyway I'm gonna try and not get too hung up on this World Cup thang, but for me it's a nice distraction to write about other shit that's going down.

Some EASY ACTION with JOHNNY THUNDERS.

It’s been a while since there’s been any legitimate Johhny Thunders releases hitting the streets, the last one (I think) being Jungle Records rather fine Down To Kill collection, which coincidently I picked up last weekend at a local record shop for the bargain price of £7.99 for a 3-disc set 2xCDs + 1xDVD (1. Unreleased early demos 2. Complete live 1977 3. Unseen video footage, and 24 pages of booklets) I’ve slightly digressed….Easy Action Records, suppliers of the finest Rock’n’Roll have plans to end the drought of official releases with a few things in the err!.… pipeline. I’ll hand you over to Carlton P Sandercock from Easy Action to tell us more.

“Everyone at Easy Action is proud to announce we will be working alongside the Johnny Thunders Estate / Beta Petrol in producing a catalogue of Johnny Thunders recordings on an exclusive imprint called Chatterbox. We have had great success with our relationship with the Stooges & Iggy Pop as well as producing high quality box sets and albums by T.Rex, Steve Marriott and the MC5.
Outside of Jungle Records, who have done a sterling job for Thunders fans - above and beyond the call of duty, and of course Warners ‘So Alone’ album, we will be looking at compiling a boxed set of unreleased material from 1975 onwards. We will also be re-issuing and re-mastering certain albums that have been out of print for some time. Reels of tape have been located already!
As fans, we want the profile of Johnny Thunders to return to the rock n roll music and fragile acoustic performances that he delivered.
We promise to produce highly packaged product and will liaise with fans to ensure we deliver exactly what they (and we) want on CD, LP, 7” and digitally.
Beta Petrol now have an archive of amazing photos, many unseen. With the official merchandise company “Don’t mess with us “ providing quality T shirts etc, we can at last provide quality Johnny Thunders goods and hopefully bury all the cheap and vile product that has escaped over the years.”

Well that’s certainly wetted my appetite for unheard Thunders material. To feed anyone else’s Thunders habit, here’s a crafty little dose of The Heartbreakers from Max’s Kansas City on 23rd July 1976, I’ve lifted it from a two disc set called S.O.B lost live tapes 1976-1977 (It’s were the Portsmouth one came from as well) it was released by Back To Zero Products, dunno if it’s classed as a “cheap and vile product” or it’s semi official, what I do know there were only 250 pressed up. It was The ’breakers first gig with Bill Rath on bass instead of Richard Hell, and a mighty fine set it is. The scourge of Sid Vicious; Nancy Spungeon reviewed it for Issue 4 of New York Rocker saying how tight the band were for a first performance and how “all for members together created a perfect chemistry, a certain magic, if you will..” Check out the magic here mutha fuckers!

Sunday Sport.

It was hard to escape from the fluttering flags and an induced sense of national pride that England played the USA yesterday in the World Cup. I didn’t see the match from the start, I had more important things to do. Yes, I know…. Unbelievable, what could be more important than supporting your nation in their bid to be world champions in a game they invented, but in a competition they haven’t won since 1966, and after yesterdays performance , well!!?? I turned on just in time to see ’the goal’ straight through the England keepers hands and legs and into the back of the net, Ooops! that wasn’t supposed to happen. During the half time analysis I heard one football pundit say it could have been nerves, this got me thinking…. Yes the players must be under pressure, we already saw Rooney get a bit tetchy in a recent friendly and then manager Capello got a bit upset with the media taking pictures at players hotel/training ground. The signs were there that things might get a bit shaky. So where does this pressure come from? The media and the people. There’s a paradox here; The People want the team to do well. The media need stories to sell papers to the people, often stories are negative and intrusive, which can effect the teams performance. So as with the BP oil spill we are all ultimately responsible with a thirst and hunger, but this time for news stories about our team and success for the team, even though one can effect the outcome of the other. Here’s what I reckon….People should boycott the worst culprits in the press or have a total tabloid blackout on reporting about the England team, just leave them alone and let them get on with doing their job, for which they are quite well paid for, if they were on performance related pay for last nights effort, they wouldn’t have got much, especially not the keeper. But we shouldn’t just blame the goal keeper, yes it’s his job to save but it’s others jobs to defend and score. Between them all the English team should have beaten the US, I mean they’re not a footballing nation, they even call it soccer. With the amount of money the English players are worth and all the skills they believe they have you’d expect to get a result against not just the US, but all the teams in the group, non are what you’d call ’world class’ or is that just a sense of a nations over inflated belief in their teams talent? there are no excuses; pressure, nerves they need to just get on and do a good job, cos if they don’t there’s gonna be a lot of unhappy people in England in a few weeks time, and that’s on top of the impending economic cut backs, (might be a few jobs in the football team going as well) but then if they win there’s gonna be a lot of happy people forgetting the real reality of England’s situation and standing as a nation in the world.

Essential Ephemera #2

A flyer from the HANOI ROCKS / JOHNNY THUNDERS / BABYSITTERS Oct 1984 Tour.

The Gig took place in Sheffield England. It was a sudent union college gig. Probably one of the crappiest flyers ever..The Hanoi Rocks, for fuck's sake, bloody student shower, can't even get the name of the band right. (see what I've done with this; World Cup 2010....South Africa...Nelson Mandela Building... Get it.) I remember taking the train to this one, was gonna spend the night on the railway station, but managed to crash on the floor of some students flat, unlike on a couple of other dates I went to on the tour, when I did have to sleep on cold railway station benches, well worth it though....Great gigs!

A weeks worth of watching, wondering and writing, plus a crappy collage.

What started out as a sort of social experiment reality show has turned into a fest for wanna be celebrities; Big Brother enters it’s last series. Shame I’d have like to have seen one more, with an ultimate twist. NO ONE WAS WATCHING, 16 deluded freaks and geeks thinking their on TV and being watched but no one was, COS NO ONE CARED. Have two programs, the first were they go in the house, as normal, with the flash flash of the paparazzi and screaming crowds. Then put them through all the tasks and stuff they do, don’t bother filming any of it, let ‘em think they’re on TV. Only film them getting evicted, have no-one at the eviction no fuss or flash lights, just them in an empty studio with a presenter telling them it was all a con. The second program could be clips of all their reactions at being shown up for the shallow superficial fame chasing fools they all are, if it wasn’t for the recent shootings in Cumbria I’d have suggested having a hidden sniper to put them out of their misery.
Israel Gaza where’s middle East peace envoy Tony Blair ? Earning big bucks talking shit.
Barbara Follet my local former swindling MP gets a payout for not being an MP she paid back the £43,000 of the peoples money and gets a £42,000 payout!!!!!! She’s a grand down on the whole deal, not bad for a fucking loser.(I've got that wrong, it was the other way round,so she's £1,000 up on the deal, Bitch! When the ConLibCo get their choppers out and start the cut backs, lets remember why, but don’t forget it was politicians of all parties that stole from the people. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!
BA Strike, Unite Union. Strike pay £45 per day. There’s some people out there earning not a lot more and having to work for it. Their livelihoods might be at threat in the coming months, not the perks of their job. The strike may be killing BA profits, but it’s also draing the Unite funds. Lets hope there’s enough money to support the rest of the Unite workers who aren’t BA cabin crew, but who also fly the flag, when they take or think of taking industrial action, as I’m sure they will at some point in the not so distant future. On the subject of industrial action, there are gonna be cuts and we’ll find out the exact extent of them when the Budget happens in a couple of weeks. I just hope it’s gonna be the well off that feel the cut of the chopper, all those in those New Labour Job Creation positions of middle management. The pen pushers, civil servants and audit statisticians the non jobs that contribute nothing other than control. Slash, slash chop the mutha’s down.
War of attrition. What’s the new hegemony gonna be? Let the new shower have their hour, before we hit ‘em with some massive strikes and street protests at the pain and misery I feel and fear they will put the least well off people in Britain under. Give ‘em a couple of years until 2012 and then hit ‘em, The year of the London Olympic Games, lets have some games of our own; the Molotov throwing competition
In these recession times, I’ve applied for a new job, money’s a bit better, no a load better. It would make my world go round a bit easier. Anyway, this got me thinking…… I’d do the job for a bit less money, than is on offer and still be financially better off than I am now. So how about people bid for the amount of money they need, not want for doing a job. Say for an example there’s a job paying £25,000 and someone’s earning £15,000, how about if they offered to do it for £20,000. After all they’d still be £5,000 better off. The only problem is what to do with the left over £5,000? Let the bosses keep it, increase their profits? No chance! But what about if the applicant decides what to do with it, so long as it benefit’s the rest of society? I dunno another half baked idea maybe?
Media distractions; World Cup fever fuelled on cheep beer and new flat screen HD ready telly’s. The flag of St George flying over number 10. Money, Money, Money makes the world cup go round.
A Fox attacked a couple of sleeping babies while their parents watched TV, after leaving the back door of their East London house open. Front page news “When I saw my children and the fox in the room it was like a scene from a horror film“ No the real horror was some of the publics reaction to the story. Bring back fox hunting!…..What?…..I don’t remember the red coated huntsmen ever galloping through the streets of London , leaping over garden fences and parked cars in pursuit of foxes on a regular basis. Anyway this got me thinking….Urban Fox Hunting….Get the local yoof together in a pack and have them chasing and killing the foxes instead of each other.
The BP Oil disaster starts turning into a row, who’s responsible? US president Obama is blaming the British company, while neglecting to mention Halliburton’s (them that benefited from the Iraq War) involvement in offshore drilling. British Prime Minister Cameron has been criticised for not putting Obama straight and saying no, it’s America who’s responsible. It seems pretty straight to me…. Obama’s trying to deflect his governments involvement in the pursuit and cost cutting done in the search for the black gold, and Cameron’s saying nothing, because there’s nothing he can say, not when BP have already said they will cover the costs of the disaster, well he could ask the US government to contribute something I suppose, after all they did allow the drilling to take place. The knock on effect of all this is that BP share prices are dropping, as a result the amount of money they are putting into an already fucked up British economy is reduced, and also here’s the whammy….many peoples pension funds are tied up in BP, therefore the more money they lose, the less money there’s gonna be in workers pension funds. Still WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE due to our reliance of oil as an energy provider, but that’s no reason why workers who’ve paid into pension funds should lose out to the profiteers. We buy and we consume products that are manufactured by equipment fuelled by oil, the whole world is fuelled by the black gold. As I type this, the World Cup has started; how many air miles and carbon footprints have been used getting the teams and fans to South Africa, all the new flat screens that have been bought to watch the games on, the production of all the flags that are fluttering etc, etc. It’s England’s first game tonight, and oh! the irony, they’re playing the USA. I did hear the game was gonna be sponsored by…. BP.

BlamePeople.

OIL = MONEY = DEATH!

NIKKI SUDDEN / JOHNNY FEAN / SIMON CARMODY - The Last Bandits In The World.

Sometime in or around 1986 Nikki Sudden got together an occasional band with Simon Carmody from legendary Irish cult psychedelic pop, punk’n’rollers The Golden Horde and Johnny Fean from Irish Celtic Rockers The Horslips. Together they were The Last Bandits, this is their only album; The Last Bandits In The World, and a fine melancholy folky affair it is.

Here comes the sun, and I say....

It’s a warm day, the sky is clear except for vapour trails. The sound of mind numbing dance music fills the air, pumped out through open windows. I don’t wanna be listening to someone elses House music. The flag of St George is flying and flapping in World Cup patriotic pride on houses and cars. Topless men parade their tetosterone , keeping cool but not looking cool. Women expose as much flesh is decent in search of a beautiful tan, but finding only ugly sunburn. There’s two kids on the bus one is incessantly texting on their mobile phone, the other is reading. Now there’s a turn up for the books on this fine summers day.

ESSENTIAL EPHEMERA* #1

*The title for this series of posts is unashamedly lifted and ripped off from a rather fine blog called....Essential Ephemera, which specialises in scanned,zipped and ready to download Punk Fanzines from the 70's and 80's. I feel Si's Ephemera is far more essential than my old collection of crumpled and faded flyers, ticket stubs etc that I'm gonna be posting as and when. But hey don't just take my word for it pay him a visit, and delight in the anarcho punk politics in old issues of Cobalt Hate and Pigs For Slaughter. Then there's Grinding Halt which is a good read, no real politics but some great reviews and interviews then there's copies of Strangled and London's Burning, no prizes for guessing which bands the main focus for these couple of 'zines are. Anyway enough of this shit there's more pressing reading to be had and done over at Essential Ephemera.

"I'll be a taxi driver for you honey, take you anywhere you want to."

A few thoughts about the crazy Cumbrian killings that happened the other day, when Taxi driver Derrick Bird unleashed his real rain through the villages of Cumbria, England killing 13 and injuring 25 in a spree of not so random shootings. His brother and the family solicitor who Bird believed were conspiring against him over money, another taxi driver who Bird thought was taking customers from him, a retired worker from a place Bird worked at before he was sacked for stealing, and the brother of a lottery winner, were 5 of his victims.
The blame culture takes aim at the police, they didn’t do enough to stop the killer, as a taxi driver he knew the roads like the back of his hand. Next target….Gun Laws; tighten them. The killer had a conviction for theft, why was he allowed a gun licence. The gun laws are tight after Hungerford and Dunblane, anyway, you can’t legislate against lunatics. Why did he do it ? Money! He had financial troubles, You could legislate against the greed and envy of capitalism. The economic troubles are taking their toll on some of the people. Money, the root of all evil?
What happened in Cumbria is an extreame example of how far a person can go, for others suicide is a solution when the pressure becomes too much. If we are looking for who or what to blame then I blame capitalism.
With a surname name like Bird, it’s a shame he didn’t use Twitter, as well as the two guns. If he’d tweeted as he killed that would have given a real insight into the mind of a killer, and plenty of fodder for the tabloid press. Who must think that people are stupid when they have to print a picture of what the killer might have looked like when he was on his spree, or is this the sensitive reporting that the local MP has asked for.
One final thought, I wonder what the LibConCo are up to while the peoples minds are being well and truly distracted.

THE HEARTBREAKERS - ZigZag Interview, July 1977 & Live @ Portsmouth Polytechnic, June 1977

THE HEARTBREAKERS - Live at Portsmouth Polytechnic 23rd June 1977