POWER OF THE PENDULUM - Demo Tape (1989)

Today’s musical offering might have limited appeal, as you won’t find the name POWER OF THE PENDULUM in you book of musical who’s who, but so fuckin’ what! Hopefully some of you good people will take a chance on this, I mean there’s always the delete command if it aint your bag. So then, what are you gonna get for yer time and effort. Well this five track demo is what can only be described as stoner goth’n’roll, this is drug music an acid trip of a listen that lyrically and musically takes you to places deeper and darker than the pubs and bong smoke filed bedrooms of Stevenage in the year of 1989. To describe The Pendulum as sounding like The Fields of The Nephilim or The Sisters of Mercy would be lazy and also not a 100% true, yeah there is a flavour of gothic gloom amongst the pumping pounding bass and haunting spine tingling rock riff licking guitars, but then there’s even a hint of Pink Floyd and AC/DC in the mix. Why back in the day the music biz didn’t pick up on these guys is not just beyond me, but also an act of cultural criminality, by denying music lovers a chance to hear something pure, unadulterated and beautiful. Anyway hear what all the fuss wasn’t, but should have been about here!
A footnote, and a bit of trivia: Jem The Pendulums bass player is the brother of Paul and Nod from The Nephilim, and Rory guitarist and vocalist played in The Last Rites with Nod after The Nephilim had broken up.

The Stop Online Piracy Act has shut down Megaupload, one of the many filesharing sites used by people to share music and films, illegal downloading they call it. The US film industry hasn’t been happy for a long time about piracy, and shutting mega upload looks like the first salvo in a fight that’s gonna continue, I’m wondering whose gonna be next Rapidshare, 4 Shared? Who knows. My view on ‘illegal downloads’ well if it’s a big label, company that loses out, it’s just a case of wealth distribution, So Hollywood can go fuck itself in glorious surround sound 3D high definition. I found it quite funny that the Megaupload founders were living luxury filmstar lifestyles; big houses, big cars, obviously funded by their ‘ill gotten gains’ or like I said….wealth that has been redistributed. My heart goes out to those bloggers who used Megaupload to host their files, especially those specialising in live recordings/bootlegs and out of print stuff, innocent victims in someone elses battle. As for the sites that put up new releases and stuff that’s still available, well….I’d be lying if I said I have never downloaded anything that could be seen as being illegal, but then I’ve also gone out and bought stuff after previously getting it for free, anything I haven’t well that’s because it’s been shit. Who’s faults that? Not mine, perhapes if record and film companies didn’t produce and release so much shit that people don’t need and can’t afford then not so much stuff would be downloaded for free. It’s all about the money and not the art!

I imposed a news blackout recently. Got fed up of hearing/reading about the global economic problems that are being wrapped in flags of red, white and blue Olympic patriotism. We’ll see just how free and democratic Britain really is in six months time, when even before the start of the games and the Queens diamond jubilee celebrations the authorities are already arresting ’potential trouble makers’
Don’t wear a hoodie if yer going to the games, if you do don’t put it up. Don’t take a rucksack, if you do, don’t try and take anything out of it, or their fear and paranoia will have you on CCTV as a potential terrorist or trouble maker.

A Saudi Prince invests money in social network site Twitter, then within a week Twitter agree to remove tweets if a country requests it. Lets remember how important twitter was with spreading the word with last years Arab Uprisings. The Chinese move their finances to the City of London. The only human right is to make money in a world where freedom is easily bought, and everything is up for sale. The cost; dead and injured soldiers, rich greedy bankers, politicians on the take, media intrusion, racism and terrorism, where failure is financially rewarded A world with no real justice or fairness, just illusion, and delusion. A world with the haves and have nots, from nation states to their citizens. The Eurozone has collapsed because some of the smaller economies such as Greece haven’t been able to compete in the market, now it’s their people that are made to suffer. In Britain people are living in poverty because they can’t compete with the better educated in the job market, their ignorance is fed and fuelled by trash talking celebrity culture and the freedom to consume.

So Nick Clegg wants to Increase the income of the poor; so that they can spend more. Like flies round shit, as the swarm to the churches of consumption , spend our way out of a recession which we spent our way into; Instant Credit! Endless Debt! That’s life in the red, white, and blue. Green and pleasant lands of Ukplc. Still at least the Olympic Games and The Royal celebrations will Unite the Kingdom, well no….but that’s what the powers we let be are gonna try a do with these events, and show the world how Great we are.

CHELSEA - Live @ The Acklam Hall, London 1980

Todays post is another pilfered performance from a torrent site somewhere, sometime. Respect to the original uploader for putting this little artefact out there. This recording captures CHELSEA live underneath The Westway in Ladbroke Grove London at The Acklam Hall in November 1980, at a matinee gig with The Dark and Infa Riot (I think) It’s only a short set that was besieged by technical problems, I’ve left it all as it was, so it is what it is, which is a great slice of punk rock history. Word on the streets is that there’s a new Chelsea album planned for this year. In the mean time here's a blast from 30 years ago. Enjoy!

More crap from the cutting room floor.

Here are some more scribbling that haven’t progressed any further than what’s written below.

After 18 years we finally see justice for Stephen Lawrence, but lets not fool ourselves that the stain of racism in our society has been scrubbed out, we only need to look at the recent behaviour of a couple of footballers, and a minority of fans. These may have been isolated incidents, but nothing is born in isolation.

So it’s aright to play god when it comes to cosmetic surgery and fertility treatment, but when it comes to assisted suicide it’s not alright. What a load of bollocks! Now I hear news that ‘our government’ recommend that people take a couple of days off a week from drinking, what a caring bunch of cunts they are. The nanny state needs its arse smacking. Looks like the elderly know the pain in store for them in the future and have decided to drink themselves to death, as over the last 10 years the biggest increase, if we believe the(ir) figures, in alcohol related illness is in the 65+ age group, either that or it’s all the champagne socialists who got themselves rich quick over the last 10 years drinking to their success.

KILL THE ELDERLY! Survival of the fittest, or the richest. How much do we care? Millions are spent on keeping people alive, many of whom would rather be dead, but they are denied that choice by a society that cares about their pain yet prolongs it.

TITS OUT! Well it all depends on who fitted the faulty industrial strength silicon implants that have been in the news recently.
I have little sympathy for those had enlargements/reductions in an act of vanity for cosmetic purposes, you paid yer money you took yer chances, don’t expect the NHS to clean up the mess left by private medical firms. They breast get it sorted, no way should the tax payer pay for someone else’s mistakes. Who’s responsible? Ultimately PIP, who were the manufacturer of the faulty product, but what about the consumer? Supply and demand and all that. If people accepted imperfection then there would be no market for breast implants, other than for those having reconstructive surgery. If the NHS have used the product, then they share responsibility for purchasing the product, and need to put right the damage. Then there’s the authority that licensed it and said it was safe for the market. Aaaah! The beauty of Capitalism, when it all goes tits up it’s always the consumer that suffers!

As they build hope for the future they forget about the decay and despair in the present!
I mean look at this proposed High Speed Rail link, the present network isn’t exactly running smoothly, so they’re gonna carve up more countryside to build a new route that promises to be faster and better, until reality bites and it ends up becoming like the rest of the network; overcrowded with delays and cancellations. Road widening schemes do not reduce congestion, they just make more space for more congestion. Do we really need to spend millions just to get somewhere half an hour quicker? All this job creation it’s good for the economy rhetoric is just a case of the emperors new clothes. Isn’t it great isn’t it good….No it’s shit, just like the Millennium Dome was and what the Olympic legacy will turn out to be. The country’s skint and they’re spending our money on shit we don’t need.

I Got The Dead Pussy Blues.

R.I.P Dodgy. 1992 - 2012

Named after ‘Brit Pop’ band Dodgy. He’d been with me for 20 years, through thick and thin, mostly thin. He had a good innings, and a good life, and now he’s gone!

THE VIBRATORS - Live and Energized in 2004.

Today’s musical offering was recorded at the legendary CBGB’S in New York sometime in 2004, and was ripped by someone from the live Energized DVD. I came across it somewhere on the net a while back when looking for any live Vibrators recordings, which are few and far between. Energized is an understatement the twenty two tracks here are fast, furious, frantic and on fire! All the old and new favourites are there. Pure Vibrators Mania?….Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! If you are into The Vibrators I recommend a trip to Noise Addiction Blogspot, were the wondrous Bat29 has four….yep that’s right four Vibrators live gigs up for grabs. There’s a couple from 1984 in France and Sweden, and a couple of more recent ones from Germany and Austria in 2009, but before you go….Get Energized here!

FIRST POST........of 2012!

History’s clock ticks over into 2012 another year over another begins, the past becomes the future when nothing is learned from the lessons of History. The world revolves but things stay the same. The only progress is scientific and technological, and that’s debatable when for example human thinking is left to a device such as a sat nav, we are surrendering our power of independent free thinking to social networks where every human action and interaction is related to a world of followers whose Blackberry/I Phone obsession is closer to an addiction.

I’ve never had a junkie walk right into me because they were to busy trying to shoot up! But I’ve lost count of the number of times people have banged into me when walking and texting, then there’s the mobile phone junkies I’ve walked into because they’ve suddenly stopped in front of me to answer a call. People seem to have no time to spare, everything needs to be instant, and done instantly.

Science fiction has become science fact! But where are the jet packs that Look and Learn magazine promised us? who needs a jet pack when you’ve got an I-Phone that you can talk to…..and that talks back!!!! This aint progress this is madness. I mean a few years ago If someone was jumping around waving their arms in front of a TV screen questions would have been asked about their sanity, but no, in the 21st Century this is entertainment courtesy of something called the Nintendo Wii, an aptly named product, cos they’re just taking the piss. If people wanna play tennis or dance why don’t they going and actually do it, rather than virtually doing it, why the need for a machine to facilitate such games and pass times.

In his 1891 essay The Soul Of Man Under Socialism Oscar Wilde believed that Machines would free humankind by doing the mundane jobs, now it seems to me that people have become slaves to machines, and are doing mundane jobs in order to pay for the latest must have all singing all dancing gadget to keep them entertained and enslaved. No one has forced people into their captivity, they have chosen their chains and paid for them. Capitalism needs technological progress in order to grow and expand into new markets, but does society really need all that science serves up? Wilde also thought machines would free up peoples time, giving them more scope for leisure time. In the noughties peoples leisure time is increasingly dominated and controlled by machines.

From The Industrial Revolution to the white heat of technology in the 1970’s progress has improved the quality of life in some areas, in others it hasn’t, it has just taken us down a road were it is acceptable to be watched over 24/7 by security cameras, were tracking devices are fitted to mobile phones and every electronic communication can be traced even when we thought they were erased. Technology drops remote controlled laser guided missiles on innocent civilians.

Fuck their future! The only way forwards is to go backwards. You might not be able to rewind history but if there’s gonna be a future, it needs to be OURSTORY!