THE LIBERTINES - Live in 2002 'The Good Old Days'

I Watched BBC3’s coverage of The Libertines last night, and quite frankly I was disappointed and underwelmed by it, a case of going through the motions, doing it for the money, or you had to be there, whatever, I felt there was something lacking. The passion and the tension perhaps, I mean how could Can’t Stand Me Now ever sound the same as when it was recorded now Carl and Pete have kissed and made up. What I saw on the telly last night was an example of why bands that have had such a musical and cultural impact should never reform. The Libertines were very much a band of the moment and time. That moment and time has now passed and reforming will never bring it back, a shame they even tried. Was it really about the songs, or a case of “the only notes that count are the ones that come in wads” for the boys in the band? Just to check that I hadn’t lost my faith in life and music or I wasn’t being a cynical old fucker I dug this CD out, and gave it a spin. Nope The Libertines had it, back in 2002 that is. So if you fancy a blast of some vintage Libertines , you know what to do. They’re a couple of great quality Radio Broadcast shows. One’s from Nottingham Rock City t’other’s from Gothenburg, and they’ve got everything The Libertines didn’t have last night. Enjoy!

A Non News Report Of Sorts.

What’s been happening in Britain over the last few days? Well….A top Tory is gay, and has left his wife. Do I care? Then there was that ‘MI6 Spy’ who was found dead in a sports bag. I first thought….He must have been a rather short bloke or it was a big sports bag, on closer scrutiny it turned out he’d been chopped up into bits, either by an Al Qaeda operative or a ’gay lover’ I wonder if it was that Tory chap? Reading past the silly season crap, there have been a couple of more serious stories that if pieced together could form the basis of some propaganda for certain parties. Apparently there has been an increase of ’foreign students’ in British universities, then there was the story about school leavers unable to get places at university despite getting the grades; I can see a headline now in the Right Wing press about British University Places For British Pupils. Then there are the reports of more people having expensive operations on the NHS because they are obese, again I can see a headline about large people putting a strain on over stretched resources. I may be wrong! Watch this space……….

RELIGION + SCIENCE = BOLLOx

The cripples drag themselves to Lourdes as suicide bombers pack their rucksacks; they’re both in search of something. Salvation and a trip to paradise. How much for a ticket to heaven?
Deluded by reason of their faith that denies any reason other than the words of their god, their creator, a destroyer of free thinking. Theirs is the only truth and authority; praying to the lord with a Nazi salute. The fundamentalist Texas Taliban are rolling into town. Christianity and Islam are one and the same, there’s no good versus evil in their holy war of terror, just evil versus evil searching for a new Jerusalem to call their own where their word is right and everyone else’s is wrong.
The scientist stares through the microscope and compound their equations, searching for the answer. The answer to what? Questions that nobodies asked that’s what! Theories prove nothing, cos there’s always some scientific expert/advisor who says that one theories wrong and another theories right. Scientific progress has led to supposedly technological advancements that means we can put a man on the moon and send information through the air without the aid of wires. If I was a religious person, I’d say this was the work of the devil, but no we all embrace this and call it progress. People can sit and watch an impoverished nation starve to death before finding their way to Church with their Satallite Navigation system. The moral compass was thrown out with the tools of the old world. There is no morality in a world where people kill each other because they believe in something different or they dare to tell their truth. There’s no righteousness or reason in a world with the extremes of poverty and luxury that we are seeing now.
Religion and Science play on our fears, hopes and dreams, but leave us living in a nightmare that they claim to have solutions for. They collude with the state covering up acts of terror and murder.
Scientists play god with human genes and Genetically modified foods, Religion plays god with peoples rational and irrational fears and fuels the fires of hatred Science has built the weapons that are used in their religious wars. DNA brings the guilty to trial unless they’re protected by their church. It’s not god that watches over us, it’s CCTV. Science has given us ‘life saving drugs’ as long as they are not too expensive to administer, if they are then science decrees that ‘the benefits are minimal’ Science plays God, IVF empowers women by giving the childless children. Religion subordinates women.
Both are searching for their truth which ends in their control over us if you choose to belief the facts or fiction. The only place to place your faith is in yourself not in one construct or another, because when we die we are gone. God can’t save us and science can’t bring us back to life, no matter what they tell you and how much they charge you to book your ticket to heaven or cryogenically freeze you. As for going to hell that’s nothing to be scared of; because we are already there! One last thing….How come the image of God we are shown looks like Charles Darwin, but with a bit more hair?

The Reading Festival 1987 (take a trip)

As it’s The Reading Festival this weekend, I thought I’d stick up a few live sets from the one in 1987. I could approach this post with memories of standing by the side of the stage that year when The Quire Boys were playing ready to change any guitar strings, catch flying guitars etc. Or there’s 1992 the year when Kurt Cobain from Nirvana was pushed on stage in a wheel chair dressed in a white hospital robe and wig, when I worked behind the bar for the Workers Beer Company, (all my wages were donated to the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign) serving beer to the moshing mud monsters. Alternatively I could talk about the notice someone had put up at work last week selling a couple of weekend tickets for this years Reading Festival. They only wanted £187 for them, was that for a pair? No it was a £187 each! I think the only time I paid to get into Reading it was £17.50 for the weekend. I know that was back in the 80’s, but maan! that’s some price rise over the years. Anyway, enough of my shit; here’s some great music from Reading 23 years ago. There’s the sleaze and leather gasoline rawk’n’roll of Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction. Then we’ve got the blues’n’roll boogie of The Quire Boys, finally there’s The streetwise guitar assault of The Godfathers. Enjoy!

Look @ this c**t

MANIC STREET PREACHERS - *Exclusive Website Download*

The Manic Street Preachers new album Postcards From A Young Man hit’s the streets on Sept 20th
with a single It’s Not War Just The End Of Love preceding it on Sept 13th The radio that’s on at work have been playing the single a hell of a lot, yeah it’s a pop song, but it’s a Manic Street Preachers pop song! their rage may have aged, but it’s still there, subversive and subliminal as ever, like James Dean Bradfield said in NME “We’re going for big radio hits….it’s one last shot at mass communication.” Nicky adds “We’ve always been about infiltrating the mainstream….Our mantra at the start was ‘If you‘ve got something to say, say it to as many people as humanly possible‘” and that’s why the Manics still matter….Because there is no one in the mainstream that has anything to say about anything. I’m looking forward to hearing the album, which includes ‘guest’ appearances from Ian McCulloch (Echo and The Bunnymen) Duff McKagan (Guns’n’Roses) and John Cale (Velvet Underground) In run up to the release of the single and album, the band put up the non-album track I’m Leaving You For Solitude, on their website as a free download. I’m not sure it’s still available there so I’m making it available here if you fancy a listen.

Essential Ephemera #5

A Twenty Flight Rockers article in one of those 'style mags' that come free with the Sunday papers, think this might have come from The Mail way back sometime in 1986.

BATUSIS - Live

I couldn’t tell you how pissed off I was that Batusis (Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls and Cheetah Chrome from The Dead Boys new band)cancelled their recent UK gigs, (Hatfield was calling) so I didn’t, but I can tell you how pleased I was when I came across this on the traders den torrent site. It’s a recording from one of their recent US gigs, and there was nothing instructing/ordering people not to share or convert to MP3. So here you are. Batusis live in Philadelphia on 25th July 2010. I’ve had split it into two parts, cos I have converted the flacs, but to a high bit rate. The front cover is cobbled together from a couple of photos from The Big Take Over where there’s a review of their New York, Brooklyn show. The back cover is a set list from the bands Washington DC show, (it would appear they kept the same running order) which was ‘borrowed’ from the rather fine There Is A Site That Never Goes Out blog, which has a great review of the Washington gig. Over at Bleedin’ Out there’s another review of their Brooklyn gig with some video footage. Was the volcanic ash cloud the real reason for Batusis cancelling the tour, or was it just a smokescreen for poor ticket sales? who knows. Never mind shit happens or doesn’t, and didn’t. I hope the band do make it over the pond for some gigs, perhaps The DeRellas could be the support band, now that would be some showdown. If you wanna see what us Brits missed out on, have a read of the set list, but if you wanna hear what we missed then here’s part one of Batusis Live @ M Rooms, Philadelphia and there’s part two. Enjoy! and remember it’s better not to burn out, or fade away, but to keep on keeping on!

News Speak!

The Iraq War ends as it started; with a lie. No war can ever be won, ask the families of the dead soldiers who’ve lost their loved ones, ask the families of the innocent Iraqi civilians who’ve been killed. There will never be democracy in Iraq, just as there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Blair and his blood(y) money.

So Tony Blair’s gonna donate the advance and profits of his forthcoming book A Journey to an Armed Forces charity. If I was head of the charity I’d tell him where to go with his blood money!

Religion makes me cross.

As it’s Sunday, I thought I’d tell you about a ‘religious experience’ that happened to me a couple of days ago. I was walking to a mates house when I was accosted in the street by a couple of women. They’d said excuse me, so I stopped I thought they wanted directions, wrong, they said they were talking to people about god, and would I….well I didn’t let ’em finish the sentence. I just asked ‘em “what the hell did they think they were doing trying to sell me their religion when I was going about my business” I then said I had beliefs of my own, but didn’t go round stopping strangers in the street and then try telling them all about them, I also told them that I found their behaviour anti social . I then said “excuse me…. but It’s time I fucked off , see ya” and with that I carried on walking. If god is dog spelt backwards, then these two strays were sniffing up the wrong tree before taking the piss.
I dunno perhaps the above was some sort of karma for saying those nasty things about the catholic church in yesterdays post, funnily enough, before the above encounter I’d been thinking about what to write and say about the popes visit to Britain. I seriously can’t be done with Religion, it’s just another institution that exerts power over people, controls people, keeps people divided, and kills people; all with the promise of a better after life. Perhapes if people made their present lives better they wouldn’t need to place their faith and hope in the hands of false prophets with false promises.

UK SUBS - Strangle Hold

Today’s musical offering is some classic punk rawk from those United Kingdom Subversives the UK SUBS. This was recorded at the Roxy in London on 31ST Dec 1977 and originally released by Stiff Records, in 1980 as the Live Kicks album, a bit of a sore point for the band as previously Stiff had turned ‘em down for a record deal and the Subs never saw a penny from the records release, until after a court case with Stiff. The band were also unhappy with the general quality of their playing, and said “it should never have been released” It was also released in 1991 by Receiver Records as Live at The Roxy. This release is from 1999 on Dressed To Kill Records, which I picked up in a second hand bin at a record shop somewhere sometime. True, it’s not the best representation of the UK Subs that’s available, but as an aural punk artefact it’s great. For a full and comprehensive history of one of Britain’s best loved Punk bands (they recently beat The Clash and The Pistols on BBC Radio 6’s Punk Rock World Champions) take a visit to the brilliant UK Subs Time and Matter website, where there’s a ton of Subs related material to peruse.

The popes visit to Britain, is if figures are to be believed gonna cost the tax payer between £12million and £20million; for security, hospitality etc. WHAT? FUCK OFF! An allegedly cash strapped nation that is supposedly tightening it’s belt is gonna help pay for the head of the Catholic Church to visit. This is a religion that helped Nazi’s escape to South America after the war, a religion rich on Nazi gold with enough wealth to financially support one of the African nations where it’s archaic views on contraception condemn people to a life or death with/from AIDS, then there’re are the paedophile priests they have harboured and excused. I’m loving the moral values, it’s no wonder that Tony Blair converted to Catholicism. Talking of him, I wonder how much he’s still costing the taxpayer?

The Killing Fields.

There’s been a hell of a lot of killing going on in England’s green and (un)pleasant lands recently; that guy in Cumbria, then Rauol Moat and there’s been several husbands who’ve killed their wives, others have killed their children before killing themselves, there’s been mothers who’ve done the same, then there’s the constant stream of stabbings and shootings in towns up and down the land. We’re living in a country where some people are at war with themselves, I mean what drives someone to kill, and….killing your own children? crazy fucking times! where violence breads violence. From computer games and DVD’S to Iraq and Afghanistan some people become so desensitised to it all that killing becomes a solution to a problem, then some of the Jeremy Kyle generation make folk heroes out of the killers. In a disposable world, to some life is.Are we living in violent times? Or have times always been violent? Do they seem to be getting worse because we are just being made aware of it more by the media in our so called civilised society? Pain and fear sells and the people are buying. With cut backs expected in Police and Armed forces, who’s gonna protect the people from their perceived fears when the state can’t cover the cost? A private army and security force, working in ‘partnership‘ with the state. Group 4 perhaps; they’ve been transporting prisoners about for ages, and now they recently got the contract for keeping our Hospitals clean. The medi-centres that the NHS are building are another example of working in ‘partnership’ or ‘privitisation’ if you like, Centricare is the companies name I think. Lets hope the Medi-centres are well stocked up; because nothing can protect the people from themselves. We can be our own worst enemies!

Essential Ephemera #4

Funny Money

THE DeRELLAS - Hollywood Monsters *A Review*

I got another package through the door last week, and it blew my head off, no it wasn’t a letter bomb, it was 12 tracks/30 minutes of no nonsense Rock’n’Roll courtesy of The DeRellas and their Hollywood Monsters album. It’s straight to the point catchy and honest. A pedal to the metal high octane blast of a record from start to finish. It punches you in the face then gives you a great big kiss, before smashing through the garage door with the motor still running. But hey don‘t just take my word for it here‘s what others have had to say….“like a rocket fuelled New York Dolls” - Classic Rock Magazine, “Reprobate rock’n’roll with an amphetamine snarl of The Damned” - Big Cheese, “like a lost classic from 1978” - Glitzine. So NME if yer looking for something new to revive go and check out The DeRellas and bring some Glam Punk’n’Roll to the masses, there’s a city to burn. Light the touch paper and stand well back, cos these boys are more explosive than The Datsuns and The D4 ever were. Unfortunately I won’t be posting any of this album, so if you fancy a blast of The DeRellas you’ll have to check out my previous All Fired Up DeRellas post, if you all ready have and liked what you heard then you’ll have to visit one of the digital download sites or better still order a physical copy from yer local music shop, it’s out on Crushworld Records, Distribution by Code7 via Plastic Head. The DeRellas are my favourite new old band at the moment, I’ve listened to Hollywood Monsters everyday since it came through the letterbox, it’s a welcome escape from the rest of the shit going down.

FLATS - Are They Taking The Piss?

Well I got my FLATS E.P through the post the other day. Five tracks, total running time seven minutes. It comes in a fold out sleeve, no lyrics or agenda, just a picture of the band. The only agenda seems to be that Flats don’t like mods; Rat Pack testifies to this, just as The Exploited did with Fuck a Mod and The Fits did with Odd Bod Mod, back in the day. But surely this tribal rival revelry is a thing of the past? Or it should be, has nothing been learned; divided youths are easier to control.
Mucky Pup is a reasonable cover of the Puncture classic, but guys what about the words, I mean when was the last time the news was on at 9.00 clock? and surely Fiona Bruce is more relevant, when did Angela Ripon last read the news?. As for the other tracks, it’s hard to tell what they’re about , words lost through the garbled vocals, boombing bass, thumping drums and fuzzed guitar, all at 90mph A great sound, but back in the 80’s, the message was just as important as the music to the Riot City No Future Anarcho Punk generation. I can’t help but wonder if this aint some great big wind up courtesy of some merry pranksters in the music biz, I mean it’s all 80’s this and 80’s that, an era that refuses to die 20+ years on, thanks to the media everything is repackaged and resold as something new, but lacking any real authenticity which is how I feel about Flats, which is a shame, cos they make a great and good row. If you fancy a blast of a couple of Flats ‘tunes’ you know what do.

Fuck The Flip-flop !

Save money, Ban the flip flop! I don’t know how much money flip flops and sandals generate for the economy, but if figures are to be believed banning them would save the Health Service some money, it’d also save some slave labour in Asia in the production of a product, that lets face it we could live without. I know I could have lived with out the ’jesus boots’ my mum made me wear until I was about 12, back then the sandal was an object of ridicule. They should also be banned on the grounds of crimes against fashion; socks and sandals aint no look, and uncovered feet aren’t the most attractive part of the body, unless you’ve got a foot fetish.