UK SUBS - Work In Progress (4 Track Live Download)

Right then, here’s a little treat for you, a live four track download of songs from Work In Progress; Hell Is Other People, This Chaos, Creation and Strychnine all recorded live @ Lock 42 in Leicester on 12th Dec 2010. An ideal companian for those who’ve already bought the album, and a taster for those who really should get hold of a copy. Enjoy! Thanx to the original gig taper and torrent uploader, where I got the tracks from.

Hats Off to My Local Shop Keeper.

I have decided to boycott my local (in)convenience store….In the last couple of months it’s been robbed and as a result the owner has imposed a ban on Hats, Caps and Hoods being worn in the shop, because obviously anyone sporting headwear is a potential robber, even those like myself who he knows by name and sight. When he told me about the new rule, I said slightly taking the piss that he was infringing on my Human Rights, by telling me what I can or can’t wear in his shop. I suppose the key words are…. his shop, and he was within his rights to take this action , and if the customer isn’t happy with his totalitarian stance then they can choose to shop elsewhere, which is what I’ve decided to do for a while. His reasoning behind asking/telling everyone including regulars to remove their headwear was that if he asked someone he didn’t recognise to take off theirs, and there was a regular customer with a hat or hood on , it could create conflict, as to why there was one rule for one and one for another, which is fair comment, but I argued that all he had to do was say that he knew the person with the hat/hood, but he didn’t know the other person. Slightly unfair maybe, but hey as we know life can be unfair, and as a regular spender in his shop for the past however many years I feel he’s taking the piss. How the enforcement is going I don’t know, but I was walking past the shop the other day and I saw a rather disgruntled local with a cap on standing outside talking rather crossly to someone about “…that Fucking (I’m not gonna name the shop keeper) won’t serve me because I said I wouldn’t take my hat off, and he knows who I am.” Looks like the owner was right about one thing….It would create conflict!

No News Isn't Good News!

I imposed a partial media blackout upon myself last week, well I watched and read less of the news, but there were a couple of things I picked up on:
1) NHS, The sacred cow is gonna be slaughtered, or at least cut into bite size chunks for the Private Sector to chew up and then spit into the face of the public, and call it choice. I mean look at the fuck ups with the NHS after hours Doctors services, when Agency Doctors covered shifts and killed people! Competition For Care is not healthy, when people will get no real choice, just what is available at the cheapest cost.
2)Tony Blair and The Chilcott Enquiry. How much of our money has been spent on finding out the truth, yeah right….We know the truth, it was an illegal war founded on lies. The only way this is ever gonna be money well spent is if Blair is tried for war crimes and found guilty.
3)The News Of The World phone taping scandal that has seen Andy Coulson former editor of the paper resign from his role as head of government communications, because of the allegations of taping celebrities phone conversations when he was the papers editor. He had to go, I mean, if he was prepared to go that far to feed peoples hunger for the cult of celebrity and increase sales of the paper, what would he be caperable of when wheeling and dealing for the Government.

THE CLASH - Kingston Advice (Bootleg CD)

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted any Clash stuff, so here we go with a copy of Kinston Advice, a bootleg CD released in 2004 by Kombat Records, and a fine affair it is to. Recorded on Nov 27th 1982 at The Jamaican World Musical Festival. It was The Clash’s last gig of that year, and the last one Terry Chimes played with the band, it was also the only time they played in Jamaica, with the band playing a more Reggae/Groove heavy set. They went on in the early hours of the morning, the sun rose as they finished their set, which goes someway to explain the slightly frazzled set, that and the fact that Joe and Mick had been tripping on magic mushrooms while watching Gladys Knight and The Pips performance the previous night. Enjoy it here! (The Clash, not Gladys Knight that is) The gig has been released as several bootlegs, but all apart from this one have ommited I Fought The Law. While I’m on the subject of The Clash, I seem to remember someone wanted the 1978 Ant-Nazi League gig at Victoria Park re-posted, which has been done, just take a trip to the original post by clicking here for a new link.

Essential Ephemera #10

A set of stickers that came free with THE CLASH's This Is England 12" single

It doesn’t have to be this way. If the profiteers all down the line from production, supply and retail, all took a little less profit then the prices wouldn’t have to rise so much.
Economic growth to get out of recession, If the recession is more moral than financial, surely the best way out is through not buying any more stuff.
A fundamental shift in peoples thinking and what they value, is what we need . The Top Shop and Vodaphone protesters know the score, and so do some of the students. Chucking fire extinguishers off the roof of Tory Towers probably wasn’t the best thing to do, could have killed a policeman, I aint got much time for the Soldiers Of The State, but they’re only pawns in the game, as they are gonna find out in the coming years when the cuts bite and the tension rises, are we gonna be seeing specialised private security forces being called in to control future protests, cos the police have had to make cut backs. As for the sentence the guy received? A bit excessive when compared with some convictions for knife crimes and even sexual assaults, still it’s all about making an example of someone, as I’m sure they will out of some of the 200+ who’ve been arrested so far. Another thing....Police kill a person at G8 protest, no charges. Protester doesn't kill Policeman and gets a custodial sentence.
What else has been happening over the last week? Floods, nature shows once again who’s the boss! all the stuff people have or don’t have means shit when it comes to the forces of nature. Then there was the attempted assassination of US Politician and the subsequent shooting dead of six people. A result of aggressive US Republican Politics? Most definitely! that and an availability of guns, and someone prepared to just do it. Troubles in Tunisia, triggered by a fruit and veg seller who set himself on fire and died in a public protest against having his stock confiscated by the authorities because he was selling it illegally. Violent protests on the streets followed and the countries un democratic leader fled. Just think....If the authorities had had a fire extinguisher!

None of the above is new news, all that sort of shit has gone on years and years ago, it’s just the time, places and faces that change, the events and struggles across the world stay the same! It’ all part of humankind and natures endless cycle. The past becomes the future, then the future becomes the past, and the world keeps turning.
If people wanna Stop the world! and get off to look for a different future, then they need to change, or are the majority happy to go along with the(ir) ride, no matter what the cost!

"To my head, To my head"

I’ve been sitting here in front of this PC for a good few hours with the stereo on playing a few albums:
(UK SUBS - Work In Progress, SOCIAL DISTORTIONS - Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes, THE CLASH - Kingston Advice, THE VIBRATORS - Punk Rock Rarities, and ELECTRIC RIVER - Radio No Go.) taping away at the keyboard, cutting and pasting preparing a couple of posts I was gonna post today. But ….I keep getting distracted, drifting off and subsequently forgetting what I was trying to say. I think might be overdosing on Rock’n’Roll.

SOCIAL DISTORTION - HardTimes and Nursery Rhymes (A Review) + Live Download

Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is Social Distortions first album in a good few years. Has it been worth the wait, and does it stand up to Singer/Guitarist Mike Ness’s idea of wanting it to sound like The Black Crows meeting The Dead Boys? Too damn right, guilty on both counts! Take it away….
It’s big and bold. Crashing Guitars, Pianos and Gospel singers grace Mike Ness’s South Cal drawl and confessional lyrics, and take their ‘Outlaw Rock’ to a new level, but never leaving behind their Punk roots. Mike is one of Rock’n’Rolls real survivors, and also one of the most under ratted songwriters. It took over 30 years for the band to appear on US Television. A wrong that was righted last year when they preformed Machine Gun Blues the first single from this album on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Is this the best Social Distortion album? I dunno, but it is one of the best Rock’n’Roll records I’ve heard for a long while! It’s been on heavy rotation in the Wolf Den this weekend. Thanx to the Mad/Bad Ne….(No best not in case I get him in to trouble) for passing this on to me, unfortunately I aint gonna post it, you’ll have to go and buy it if you wanna hear it or find another leaked copy, but instead how about Four live versions, recorded in Offenbach, Germany 2009 of songs on the new album? Three of them You Can’t Take It With You , Alone and Forsaken, and Still Alive are from the physical CD release and one, I Won’t Run Anymore is from the Itunes Download version. Check ‘em out live and in the raw here! and the albums out on Epitaph Records on Jan 17th. Buy Bye!

WE DON'T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL!

We are being told how to think. The Government are using big business to help shape their policies and agenda, we have been under bombardment by new initiatives recently, all with the aim of changing the way we think.
This new Pension scheme the government plans to roll out, were everyone will be signed up for it, unless they choose to opt out., why can’t people choose whether they want to join, I’ll tell you why; It’s because they want our money, and they’ve made people so worried about financial security in their old age that people will let the choice be made for them, rather than decide for themselves.
The Food industry are talking about giving out free vouchers to encourage healthy eating, yeah and healthy spending on products.
Top Shop who are owned by Phillip ‘government advisor on saving money while not paying tax himself’ Green, are giving vouchers to school children, if they walk to school. Asda are reducing the prices of some of their furniture, to encourage families to buy a kitchen table so they can eat meals together.
The drinks industry in a bid to reduce ‘binge drinking’ are introducing a new unit of alcohol measurement; 2/3rds of a pint, apparently it’s how you can buy it in Australia.
Donating to charity government are talking to banks to see if it can be done at cash machines. Organ donations, talking about it being suggested to all new drivers who pass their test that they might consider donating their organs for transplants when they die.
Volunteering, I haven’t heard this mentioned yet but….How long before the 600,000 people who’ve had their Jobseekers allowance sanctioned, because they have refused or been unable to find work are given the option of ‘Volunteering’ in order to start receiving their benefits again?
All these things are an example of something called ‘Nudge Theory’, were by people are given a nudge into making decisions that they might not have made if it had been left down to their own free will.
Are people so stupid that they don’t know what decisions to make about their lifestyles if they want change them without having to be coerced and manipulated, or should I say nudged into making them? Wait up….best not answer that, cos if the answers yes then that gives weight to this whole idea of ‘Choice Architecture’ and if the answer’s No, because people are quite happy to live their lives however they want to then that gives weight to the thought that the government are building a new society on the foundations of fascism, were there’s only one way, their way! and if you don’t do it their way and for example you need Health care, it could be denied to you. Once again who pays? We do, because How much money have people got to pay into pension plans, to spend on healthy food, and
the only reason they can afford to drink is because the price of alcohol is so cheap in the very supermarkets that are gonna be promoting healthy lifestyles. Anyway it could be argued that many of these so called Social ills that this government wants to put right are a consequence of previous governments policies that have seen the family unit breakdown, people working longer and more unsocial hours in order to finance the lifestyles they’ve been sold and that they bought into and drinking to excess because they aint really happy and want to escape the grim reality of living a false life. The cost of their Free market capitalism is the price of our freedom. I wonder if it’s gonna be worth the price? Are people gonna change into ‘responsible’ citizens over the next say 10 years, were we’re living in their utopian dream of a caring sharing ‘big society’ or are we gonna be living in a dystopian nightmare where if you don’t conform to their way of thinking, you’re not gonna be nudged, but beaten into submission…..Think about it!

THE ROCKS - We Got It (CD Single)

In a bid to bring you something new and different to all you good people that visit this blog, here’s a blast of something from 2003. It’s a band called The Rocks, with a blast of some Fucked Up Funked Up Punk Rawk, which creeps and crawls into yer brain until yer foot starts taping. We Got It is reminiscent of the New York No Wave scene of 1978. The Bomb and Save The Wolf are far more lo-fi Rock‘n‘Roll, anyway hear it for yerselfs here. ENJOY OR DESTROY!

Some Scribblings From The Cutting Room Floor.

2011 = ????
They say it’s gonna be a ‘difficult year’ Who for? Them or Us, well that’s down to us, but I can’t see it being that difficult for them with their cushions of capital to recline on in their million pound mansions.
If we believe what we’re being told, we’re gonna die in some flu pandemic or be blown up by terrorists, and if we don’t then we may live to 100, which means we better start saving for our future, well that’s what they’re telling us, but It’s not our future they’re thinking of, it’s theirs ….They need our money to fund the country. Once you start paying into their pension funds, it becomes theirs to invest in whatever, wherever, and I bet when it’s time to get it back, there’ll be less of it than there was.
Still if we wanna sit back comfortably and watch the shit hit the fan in glorious HD Technolcolour best get down the sales and invest in a new TV and leather reclining sofa before the 20% VAT increase kicks in.
Like I said same shit….They just want our money and keep theirs! Unless we make it difficult for them!

Essential Ephemera #9

Here’s a review from the now defunct Sounds music mag, a gig advert and my ticket stub from a 1987 gig by THE GODFATHERS. One of the smartest and sharpest guitar bands ever. Back in the day these guys rocked; Like The Heartbreakers meeting Eddie and The Hot Rods on a South London housing estate. I’ve posted this ephemera for no other reason than I’ve just been listening to their Shot At The 100 Club release, a live recording of their 25th anniversary show back in June of last year, and….maan! they still rock! This Damn Nation, Birth School Work Death and I Want Everything are lyrically as relevant now as they were in the dark days of Thatcher, musically….well great Rock‘n‘Roll never ages, but the idea that music can politicise people seems to have died a death. Perhapes in 2011 we’ll see it resurrected and people will start “Biting the hand that doesn’t feed them”

Hey Ho Lets Go It's 2011 !

Happy New Year.... I say New Year, but it’s only a new year if we make it a new year. If we don’t then it’s another year, the same as any other year, different numbers that will add up to it being just another year full of the same old shit !