TV SMITH'S CHEAP - Live In Uxbridge 1990

I found this on my hard drive t‘other day, forgot I had it, dunno where I got it from, might have been from MrMagoos sadly defunct Running Riot in 2000 whatever blogspot. It was originally one long MP3, but I’ve separated the tracks. The photo I used came from someone over at the mighty fine TV Smith Forum, their name however escapes me, I’ve just messed about with the colour of it, and added some lettering. Right then now that’s all done with, lets get on with the rest of it. After The Adverts and The Explorers both split up TV Smiths next venture was gonna be done….“Just For Fun! A few mates travelling around the country in a couple of estate cars, with all the equipment piled in the back: mobile compact, above all CHEAP.” After five years of no one noticing them Cheap called it a day
Ironically their only album RIP Everything Must Go was released after the band had broken up and TV had released his March Of The Giants album. Anyway now it’s time to take a trip back to Dec 1990 when Cheap played in Uxbridge, dunno where in Uxbridge this recording is from, but a mighty fine one it is, amongst others you get their brilliant Margaret Thatcher baiting single Third Term, and it’s b-side Buried By The Machine, there’s also a track that maybe familiar to lovers of The Lords of The New Church, The Lords Prayer. Here’s a bit of useless Rock’n’Roll trivia for yer….What connects TV Smith to Bruce Springsteen? Well….When The Lords Of The New Church recorded The Lords Prayer, a TV Smith track, that I believe, or though I maybe wrong he wrote for the band, it was produced by Little Steven, Guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Anyway here’s a blast of vintage TV Smith; Rough, Raw and Ready. It’s No Time to be 21, 31, 41, or 51.

Swearing in The Streets.

No Swearing in public! What a load of fucking bollocks! Yeah it’s not big and it’s not clever, but there are other things some people do in public that offend me more….like breathing!! Apparently in one town, the business leaders reckon swearing ’yobs’ are putting off the shoppers, funny when I ever I have to go into my Town Centre, it’s the shoppers that not only put me off, but piss me off! Bags full of shit they don’t need, not looking where they’re going bumping into you because they’re to busy talking or texting on their mobile phones, and then look at you like it was your fault. It’s enough to make you fucking swear.

DR MARTINS and NME Promo Download.

This was available last year through NME.Com to mark the 50th Anniversary of Dr Martins shoes/boots. A promotional thang uniting footwear with Rock’n’Roll, for those readers/listeners “aspiring to be the brand”. Readers of this blog should approach this download with extreme caution, cos what you get are ten tracks of cover versions. A definite case of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Noisettes should be put on trial for crimes against music for what they’ve done to The Buzzcocks classic Ever Fallen In Love, the same goes for Verbal and Yoon for their treatment of The Runaways Cherry Bomb. The jury’s out on what the Duke Spirit have done to Sham 69’s If The Kids are United, which is to turn it into a synth/guitar drone akin to Suicide if they were fronted by Siouxsie Sioux on downers. Not that it’s all criminal. Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club put in a haunting version of The Pogues Dirty Old Town, but the highlight of it all, and the only reason I posted this is Michael Davis from the MC5 taking Canadian politico-punkers DOA’s Something Is Not Right With Me and giving it even more balls than it had before, if that’s possible. There’s also a bunch of wannabees, mightbees and will neverbees covering tunes by Human League, Jeff Buckley, Stone Roses and Max Romeo, but I’ve no idea who they are, nor do I want to know. Life’s full of enough shit without adding to it! But hey don’t just take my word for it. Here have a blast for yerself.

So after 16 year of being ‘in hiding’ (he lasted longer than Bin Laden) Ratko Miladic The Beast/Butcher of Bosnia has either been captured or Serbia have given him up to be tried for war crimes. It seems a coincidence that Serbia are looking at joining the EU. Whatever….at least another inhuman being is gonna face justice, Miladic was responsible for the genocide of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 when Yugoslavia was at war with itself, it was as if the holocaust had never happened. The biggest atrocity is that this ethnic cleansing took place as hapless and hopeless UN Peace keepers looked on. I wonder if this historic UN failure to ‘protect innocent citizens’ explains its gung ho actions in trying to ousted Ghadaffi, and what about Osama Bin Laden, who was ‘brought to justice’ for less. Yet Ratko Miladic is gonna be able to drag his case through the War Crimes Court that no doubt he will refuse to recognise, in a length trial. Perhapes he should have his brains burnt out instead!

Last week we had those crazy Christians, saying the world was gonna end. It didn’t….I think people knew it wouldn’t, but how many people think it could? This week I’ve seen the religious vultures hovering overhead ready to pick at the flesh of the weak and wounded. I’ve been accosted by someone trying to put the Book of Krishna in my hand. I’ve seen groups of Jehovah Witnesses gathering in my neighbourhood with pamphlets in their hands. They’re all trying to sell people a ticket for their slow train trips to salvation when the world ends. Well….the train I’m aboard is out of control, but its destination is FREEDOM!

TV SMITH - Coming In To Land. (A Review)

This album is vital. Musically and lyrically brilliant. TV has surpassed himself with the twelve tracks that make up Coming In To Land. In my opinion TV’s never released a duff record, but…. He’s also never released one that sounds so relevant since The Adverts, Cast Of Thousands. The ugly face of 21st Century Society is confronted…. “The throw away values will hold you then have you.".... This is full on frantic stuff in some places, brooding and mournful in others. Catchy and tuneful all the way through. Uplifting and positive. Respect to TV and the band: Vom Ritchie (Die Toten Hosen), BB Quattro (Suzy & Los Quattro, Bored Teenagers), Tim Cross (Adverts) For releasing possibly my favourite album of the year so far.
Given the right push in the right places, Coming In To Land could turn on and tune in a whole new bunch of listeners to the only TV that doesn’t lie.

GAGA GAGGINGS. (Some notes/thoughts)

A non story becomes the story. ‘Glamour Model has affair with footballer’

One of the major talking points in the media recently, has been about people not being able to talk, due to super injunctions that celebrities have been taking out in order to keep their private indiscretions from the publics eye. Name and shame the fuckers that’s what I say. Or alternatively let them waste their money and buy their anonymity, because all these ‘kiss and tell’ stories do is feed the tabloids and the media moguls profits.

How ironic that one of the law firms benefiting from the injunctions is called Schilling, cos that’s what it’s all about….money, money, money

Freedom of speech becomes a commodity that can be sold to the lawyers and judges if the price is right.

Judges have criticised parliamentary privilege, which allows MP’s to defy court ‘gagging orders’ by naming figures trying to hide behind injunctions.

So called ‘gagging orders’ have done nothing but create disorder in the media, Parliament and The Courts. It was left to internet democracy to speak the truth and name the name.

Is it in the ‘public interest’ to hear about the sex romps of football players? No probably not but….the Jeremy Kyle generation love a bit of it, and the vicarious car crash tabloids rely on the sex and scandal, celebrities are happy to court the media when they are in control of the story, they just don’t like being found out doing anything that will tarnish their public image.

Public figures in positions of power, what they get up to is definitely in the public interest
Fred Goodwin former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland’s mind wasn’t on the job when his bank went bust, he was thinking of a different kind of on the job, and now the tax payer’s picking up the tab for his fuck up.

The old adage that all publicity is good publicity obviously doesn’t apply when squeaky clean images turns out to have dirty secrets.

The tabloid media have created the culture of celebrity and gossip, and the public have bought into it. Supply and demand. Gagging orders limit the supply. So would it be a bad thing If the Celebes wasted their money on injunctions. Without the media there’d be no celebrity.

Essential Ephemera #12

Over there is an article on The Adverts/TV Smith from January 1989’s Record Collector, Here’s a link to a recording of The Adverts in Manchester at The Electric Circus on 26th June 1977. Quality is a bit rough, but…. it is what it is, as they say. The link’s not mine, it comes from a fella called moodychops over at Bob Juice Forum.

New Day Rising

Well the world didn’t end yesterday. I woke this morning to find everything just the same. I did think that perhaps the world ended thousands of years ago, and that history has been lying to us and we’ve been living in some sort of hell created for us ever since. The way to make things not the same is to think differently. If people stopped reading the lies they believe, and watching less of the lies that shape their reality and buying stuff they were lied to about and didn’t really need, then their world would really end! and a new one would begin. Welcome to my world!

Don't Fear The Reaper.

This could be my very last post ever, as the world is due to end today, or so some American Christian group believe, some how I doubt it, apparently they said the same thing in 1994, and here we still are, as I’m sure we will be tomorrow, when maybe I’ll have something more to say about something else. Until then, see ya. If I’m wrong and those crazy Christians were right, well I dunno what to say, and it won’t really matter cos there’ll be no one to read it any way.

REVOLUTION ROCK - A Compilation CD

Today’s musical offering is a CD which was given away with issue two of Vive Le Rock magazine, which is a brilliant read, and the compilation is a great listen. If you didn’t get hold of a copy, I cant provide the words, but here’s the music. The UK SUBS need no introduction. Creation is one of the standout tracks of their new stand out album Work In Progress. THE SENDERS serve up a hefty, hearty slice of New Yawk Rhythm and Blues. MICHAEL MONROE disappeared from my radar after Hanoi Rocks called it a day, and he’s only re-surfaced on it after listening to the track on this CD. THE DUEL are chilling, sultry and haunting, like Penetration and Manufactured Romance. BRIJITTE WEST’S DESPERATE HOPEFULS travel a similar road. THE WOLFMEN feature Adam Ant’s former partner Marco Pironni, and turn out a Lou Reed/Roxy Music row. Then there’s some Punk’n’Roll from THE LOYALTIES, and a dose of Garage Pop Punk from THE SHOTGUN KILLERS. THE HUMPERS are definitely unsafe at any speed with their MC5, Heartbreakers infused Rock’n’Roll. THE EXPOSED and RANDOM HOLD both deliver some old skool melodic Punk Rock, then there’s the full blown Ska/Reggae dub street punk of ROGER MIRET AND THE DISASTERS. So many labels…. when it’s only Rock’n’Roll. The new issue of Vive Le Rock is out on the 24th of this month.

ROSCOE VACANT

Roscoe Vacant is a Scottish writer and performer, whose music ranges from electronic punk to piano dirges and all things in-between. He works as both a solo artist, and occasionally as part of a band. Roscoe Vacant and the Kamikazes. Nothings Going To Change is his 6-Track acoustic EP released in 2009, the Escape from Doom Valley EP was Roscoe Vacant and The Kamikazes first live performance. Recorded on April 22, 2008 for Generate Ayr FM. This is stripped to the bone acoustic Punk Rock Blues, frantic, wired, powerful, passionate and totally electric. Imagine Billy Bragg scrapping in the street with Gang of Four and Wire. If you fancy a blast here ya go, two for the price of (n)one. There’s several more downloads available at Roscoe’s website, Including three tracks he recorded with legendary Scots punk band The Zips, and kicking back against corporate Rock’n’Roll, they’re all available free to download, and well worthy of yer ears and time.

THANX TOPPLers!

Imagine my surprise and delight to find the package pictured opposite had unexpectedly popped through my letter box the other day: A glossy 10 page A5 magazine and 16 Track CD. Those good people at Topplers Records, Scotland’s premier micro DIY label have released another compilation See Dee, their fourth. Once again featuring and show caseing some of the artists on their roster. This is late 70’s early 80’s post punk for the modern age. I mean where else are you gonna find former Swell Maps, Jowe Head and Phones Sportsman, with their twisted pop songs and seventies scenester Steve Treatment, then from over the English Channel there’s The Existentialists with their pop art blues, or how about some fuzzed out garage rock poetry from Dan Melchior. The Armedalite Rifles from New Jersey are Indeed Shambolic. What about some instrumental Rock’n’Roll from The Knockouts? The fucked up folk of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, the electronic pop throb of Gang, and the more extreme electro of Drowned UFO or the twiddly tweeks by The Skirlin’ Bursters. Take a trip with Scotish JapRockKrautrockers The No Men, and float away with the blissed out ambient sounds capes of Noveller. This is a brilliant collection of , off the wall Rock’n’Roll experimental and shambolic electronical musical pop madness, or what ever you want to call it and it’s all available here for a bargain bustin’ recession fuckin’ price of £1.20, and that’s just for the postage. CLICK, CLICK and wait for the postman.

Osama Bin Who?/ The Royal What? / It’s all been forgot / New distractions, New reactions / Celebrity shaggings, media gaggings / No privacy for the Facebook nation and Twitter generation / Stabbed teens, Missing children / Where are we going? / A Train drivers ransom demand / Pay offs protect the Olympic image / Corruption / A World Cup bid shrouded in dodgy dealings / Round and round it goes / Nothing is really new / From scandal to scandal / crisis to crisis / from one outrage to another / Day to day / month to month and year to year / An endless cycle / Past, Present and Future / Its all in front of our eyes, people just need to open them!

KNOX and THE TRAILER TRASH ORCHESTRA - *A Gig Review*

I don’t get my sorry arse to many gigs these days on account of the price of getting to ‘em and then the cost of the ticket, plus there’s not that many bands I want to go and see. So when I found out Knox and The Trailer Trash Orchestra were playing a pub a few miles up the road, and not only was it free entry, but there was an offer of a lift. (Cheers Chris and Haddy) my arse was ready to go.
Mind you I’d have gone on the train and paid to get in for this one. I mentioned a while back about The Vibrators gig on April 23rd, what I didn’t say was that it was to be Knox’s last gig with the band, as he wanted to work on some solo projects, like what he’s done with The Trailer Trash Orchestra, so last night (Sat 7th May) was one not to be missed, unlike The Vibrators one, when I couldn’t afford the train fare.
The venue; The Victoria Pub, well lets just say It’s a good job my cat didn’t want to go, cos the place was so small there wouldn’t have been room to swing it, and it’s a good job the audience wasn’t in the mood for a ho-down, co it would have been like dancing on a postage stamp.
The two sets The Trailer Trash chaps played were a nice mix of their own numbers, cover versions and ones that Knox got up and sang. I thought their reworking of Magazines Song From Under The Floorboards was genius, that’s until I heard what they did to Lords Of The New Church's Russian Roulette, truly inspired, shame they didn’t get Knox up to sing it with them, like he did on I Wanna Be Your Dog.
If the Trailer Trash Orchestra roll into a town near yours take a trip and go see ‘em, if they bring Knox along for the ride yer in for a special treat, if they don’t yer still in for a top night of toe tapping barnstorming Hill Billy Punk Rawk with a steel guitar, violin, mandolin and stand up bass. The Trailer Trash folk have got it all the look the sound, the attitude and the missing teeth. Nothing is taken too seriously this shit is real and it’s about having some fun in the darkness.

Osama BORED Laden.

The Americans have released some video footage from tapes they found when they raided Bin Laden’s house; they show someone that may or may not be Bin Laden, watching someone who may or may not be himself on the TV. What does this prove? He watched himself on TV in his house, not that he was executed and then thrown in the sea! Will the real Bin Laden please float to the surface?
Jubilant, nationalist triuphalism makes us no better than the Islamic Extremists. Now that ‘justice has been served’ and the victims of 9/11 have been avenged, how about something radical like….talking to the terrorists? Because if the leaders of the ‘free world’ are gonna continue fighting fire with fire, the fire will only get bigger and the 9/11’s and 7/7’s will be the first of more dates in the diaries of remembrance for the West.
The war on terror has been one whole CONspiracy from the moment the planes hit the twin towers and the pentagon, and not forgetting the one that ‘crashed’ in a field, to when Sadham was pulled from out of his hole, and now the killing of Bin Laden.
The last ten years has been one whole terror spectacle. The Conspiracy Theorists aren’t ’nuts’ it’s just that they can imagine beyond the spectacle and know that there’s a different truth out there, not just the one they’re told by the real nuts, who create and control this chaos, because remember without it, there’d be no need for them to preside, rule or govern over us.

The Obama Bin Laden Aftermath.

The picture opposite shows the moment when US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton saw it was former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden………
I mean you couldn’t make some of this shit up….wait up….they are making this shit up, or at least ‘revising’ previous news reports, and the circumstances of where Bin Laden was living/hiding
First Bin Ladens wife was a ‘human shield’ and was killed, then she ran at a commando and was shot in the leg.
Did Pakistan security forces/government know he was living yards from a military base? They say…No! Britain and the US say Yes! What does the rest of the world make/think of it all? I haven’t heard much of their reaction.
President Obama’s rating has soared in opinion polls, I’m bet he’s glad he didn’t shut down Guantanamo Bay like he promised, and what about the ’inhumane’ water boarding, that helped loosen tongues and provide info.
The way the flag waving patriots are acting is gonna radicalise and antagonise any ready to go Jihad extremists. Throwing the body in the sea prevented a martyrs grave, but was it 100% in keeping with the Islamic faith? And now people don’t believe he’s dead, I mean Obama and his crew got to watch it live and direct, any images we see will be highly censored, that’s if the US release any, apparently they are too ‘gruesome” You don’t say….I didn’t think they used water pistols!
Oh the irony if a picture is released to satisfy the public it’s gonna create an iconic image extremists will use for propaganda purposes. Paranoia Paradise, Fear City, they’ve already arrested some people outside Selefield Nuclear power station.
It aint gonna be Britain or the US that gets it first, it’s gonna be somewhere like Somalia, Yemen or the Phillipeans, somewhere not at war with terror. We are gonna be living with the threat of attack for many years, whether it is real or not, the leaders of the free world will make sure of that, it keeps us under control and gives them ammunition for their mission.

KILLED BY THE U.S.A!

So the people of the Western world can sleep easy in their beds. I wake this morning to hear the news that Osama Bin Laden has been killed in Pakistan by American forces. Funny that, I was only reading in one of Saturdays papers (a rare story that wasn’t about the Royal Wedding) about how the US had messed up capturing him in the hills of Tora Bora years ago.
The operation that killed Bin Laden was a result of intelligence received by the US in August.
It’s all in the timing; Obama trumps the Republicans allegations that he’s not American by bringing them the head of Osama Bin Laden, should be worth a few votes come re-election time.
There’s people on the radio saying today is “A great day for civilised people.” while celebrations and mass hysteria breaks out in the “USA, USA, USA, USA!” were they’ve swapped their Royal Wedding Day Union Jacks for The Stars and Stripes.
Expect the Hollywood block buster The Killing Of Bin Laden to be released by the end of the month.
Will the world be a safer place now the wicked witch is dead? Or will the yellow brick road turn red with the blood of more victims as the West battles against the East, and Good against Evil.
Where’s he gonna be buried? The West doesn’t want to create a Martyrs Grave! What about the manner of his death/assasination? American troops operating in another country!
What about the context of this and all the uprisings and discontent within the Arab world at the moment?
More mass coverage for the masses in the mass media, more bad news being buried, and other real news being pushed aside by patriotic propaganda for the people.

Something else that was also in the news.

Hats off to the good people from a Bristol community who objected to the tax dodging supermarket chain Tescos opening another shop in their city. They took their fight to the streets and met with the usual opposition from the Police and hostile media. Apparently it all started off peacefully until there was some ’trouble’ with anarchists in a squat in the area. If this government really want the people to feel part of their community then they need to start listening to the people, not antagonising them. It’s not just their big society it’s ours. The multi nationals have already killed off local shops up and down the country with their out of town retail parks and supermarkets., now Tescos, Sainsburys etc want to take over the empty run down shops, as they’re the only people that can afford the Rents, and I would say business Tax, but…. we know what some big companies think about paying tax don‘t we.

The Day After The Day After The Day....

Now they’re showing the highlights of the highlights of the wedding. For Fucks sake! Talk about media brainwashing. Souvenir on Souvenir edition of the newspapers with the same fucking pictures! “Rule Britannia…Britannia waves the rules, the British people, what a bunch of fools.“ Bring forth the guillotine, well that was the idea until the police pissed on any potential protestors parade, by arresting them the day before the wedding. They were planning some street theatre in Soho square. The wooden gallows had already been impounded by the Police, then they arrested the actors. No crime had taken place, talk about the thought police state. While Willy and Kate were downing their crack baby cocktails, her Majesties Armed Forces were carrying on their role of bringing democracy to Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. I might have had a knats cock of respect for the whole event if someone from the Royal Family had come out and said the reason Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren’t invited to the wedding was because of their involvement in an illegal war, the cost of which is economic as well as human. That would have made me think perhaps this is the face of a new monarchy, but no….they will still be a dying institution with nothing to say, no matter how many flags the people fly.

SWERVEDRIVER - Last Train To Satansville. (Promo CD)

Right, lets take a trip back to the early 1990’s. Time to park up the Mustang Ford and ride the steel rails with Swervedriver. What a band; they were head and shoulders above the rest of those bands in the Melody Maker/NME Shoe Gazing Scene, that they found themselves lumped in with. These guys didn’t just drone on, they rocked and rolled as well. Songs which draw you in and take you on a journey to some place else with yer feet taping all the way. Enjoy the six tracks on this A&M Records promo.
This post is in memory of a mate of mine who did a brave, desperate and selfish thing on 1st May 1993, when sadly he took his own life. Gone but never forgotten!