Tuesday, 31 December 2013
2013....2014....
....They are just numbers.
Nothing is new if nothing changes. Never mind resolutions what we
need is a New Years Revolution! The clock keeps ticking, it's time
to seize the time! The future is unwritten, the past has been and
gone, we can't change that, we can't turn back time, but we can learn
from it in the present and use it to shape our futures as
individuals. We need to be moving forward, progressing as people in
order to create a better world for ourselves and others, unless we
are truly happy with what we have got, with what we hear and see
around us, but ultimately with who we are. When we re-visit the past is it to remember, regret or remind us of who we have become. Nothing will change if we
all stay the same, and change nothing in our lives,unless we do when we wake up tomorrow, it wont be a New Year, it will just be
the next year.
All the best for the future to all the
Readers and Rock'n'Rollers who've visited this blog last year
Hopefully you will have taken something musically or mentally away
with you from here. If you didn't I make no appologies, it obviously
wasn't me you were looking for. Thanx, NPW.xxx
2013....The Beat Went on!
2013....What's been released this year
and going round and round on my CD player. Well....In no particular
order we have.... JOHNNY THUNDERS with Hurt Me, this album showed his
tender side; stripped naked with just a guitar, a brittle and
beautiful listen NIKKI SUDDEN, The Boy From Nowhere Who Fell Out Of
The Sky is a six CD box set. A lovingly crafted and compiled
collection of Nikki’s work. Both these were reissued by the
wonderful Easy Action Records. Sweet Revenge by the criminally
ignored Punk'n'Rollers the LIGHTNING RAIDERS, was not so much a
re-issue, because back in the day it was never released. Knox may
not be touring with THE VIBRATORS but On The Guest List shows he's
still part of the band, with a collection of songs that rank amongst
the best he's written, and all supported by a cast of special
guests. The UK SUBS, they just keep going, and going and getting
better as they go, maturing with age disgracefully. CHARLIE HARPER
and CAPTAIN SENSIBLE, this was a real surprise Too Much
Reality....took Punk to a new Psychedelic underworld of neon grey.
GLM, released three blinding Rocky yet slightly poppy download only
tracks from their website. DEADCUTS, do just that....they cut you
dead! A switch-blade to the throat of all the taste-makers and
trend-setters. Deadcuts are out there and have got something special
going on. BABYSHAMBLES Sequel To The Prequel, a brilliant album,
Pete Doherty has been the only real Great British Rock'n'Roller for
the last....fuck knows how long. THE MOB returned with a single Rise
Up! an anthemic call to arms. THE FITS, reformed legends of the UK82
Punk scene, returned with some Punk Rockin' action with their Lead On
EP. NEW MODEL ARMY, released a dark and moody master piece, and
JAMES KING AND THE LONE WOLVES crawled out of the wreckage with some
sublime swamp rock blues. Finally a couple of Punk'n'Roll
supergroups cut through the crap this year. THE CRUNCH with their
album Busy Making Noise which is a blast of pure Power Pop Punk,
their line up includes former members of the Cockney Rejects, Lords
of New Church/Sham 69 The Clash and Diamond Dogs. THE INTERNATIONAL
PLAYBOYS, include a Twenty Flight Rocker (Gary Twinn) Sex Pistol
(Glen Matlock) a Gen X/Chelsea (James Stevenson) Blondie (Clem
Burke.) released three stompin' tracks via their web page. Hopefully
an album will be released in 2014. Finally PRIMAL SCREAM's 2013 was
a real return to form, a musical and lyrical statement of intent.
Well there you have it a year in my Rock'n'Roll world....Here's to
the next one!
Monday, 23 December 2013
Sunday, 22 December 2013
Saturday, 21 December 2013
Thursday, 19 December 2013
KNOX - Three Free Live Acoustic Tracks
Self portrait by....Knox. |
Knox (The Vibrators) and Charlie Harper (UK Subs) have started working on a new Urban Dogs album, planned for release next year, it's gonna be a “Punky type album” according to Knox's website. You can't keep the old punks down. If you need further proof then check out On The Guest List which was released earlier this year, it is possibly the best Vibrators album ever, some brilliant collaborations with Walter Lure, Hugh Cornwall, Nicky Garrett, Ross The Boss and Brian James amongst others. It's also got a couple of the best songs Knox has written; Rain To Town and Birdland Is Closed. 2013 also saw the release of another 'brators greatest hits collection by New York's O Rama Records, who are also planning to re-release Knox's excellent and long lost, forgotten and sadly ignored 1983 solo album Plutonium Express. While we wait for that and the Urban Dogs release, Here are three unpunked acoustic tracks (Automatic Lover, U238 and Baby Baby) from Knox, with some audience participation recorded live at the Made in Brasil Restaurant in Camden Town, London. ENJOYorDESTROY! Thanx to original uploader on YouTube.
THURSDAY THINKINGS!
It's around that time of year when the
media have a round up of what has gone on over the last twelve
months. (Immigration, extreme weather, global warming and the
environment, celebrity drugs shame, famous/influential person dies,
crime, terrorist fear, corrupt politicians, policies that target the
poor, humanitarian crisis's etc, etc.) Well things have just gone
round and round, the stories are the same it's just the names and
places that are different from last year and the year before that.
Things will continue to go around and round with continued
familiarity certainty and inevitability from year to year until the
cycle is broken. This will never happen as long as total global
capitalism fuels the machine, with it's total disregard for those
that have the least in order to feed those that have the most.
With every passing year the circle is
ever decreasing, until it will eventually become a dot, a full
stop....The End! History will repeat itself no more....We will all
be history when it ends with a big bang! But until then the struggle
must continue, it's the only way to slow down the wheel and change
the course of history, it's not like they haven't been told, and
there are a lot more people seeing through the shit and ready to take
a stand against the power. I predict more riots and more
confrontational politics as the years go on. Lets see what happens
next year with protests against the HS2 High speed rail link, (I've
been to Birmingham a couple of times, can't see why anyone would want
to get there any quicker) Then there's Fracking and building on green
belt land. Lets see just how revolting middle England can become,
never mind not in my backyard, what about not in anyone's backyard.
Then there's the possibility of revolting pensioners taking to the
streets and building barricades with zimmer frames and wheelchairs
when both state and private pensions fail to meet the needs of an
ageing population. How will the state respond, well all the
machinery is now in place to brand anyone that speaks out or acts
against government policies a terrorist, What happened on 9/11 in
New York and on 7/7 in London, changed the course of our history with
the right of free speech and the right to protest etc now coming under
attack, but carried on with the course of theirs; global domination
for Free market Liberal Capitalism. In the face of the collapse of
communism a new enemy was found; Islam and in paticular Muslim
extremists who want to destroy Western values and freedoms, well it
looks like the war on terror has been won....by the real terrorists.
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Monday, 16 December 2013
LIGHTNING RAIDERS - Live in New York City 2011
“There's a raid on.”....Back
together after twenty nine years it's Johnny Hodge and Gas Wilde with
their Lightning Raiders. The Lost Rockers are captured live and
direct from New York City in the year of 2011. The 3 tracks: Acid
Combat/Citizens/Rowdies take no prisoners and find the Raiders
firing on all cylinders with a blast of 100% incendiary no nonsense
Rock'n'Roll action. Check it out here! As a little bonus for you
good rockin' people I've included a live version of Views from 1980
recorded at The Moonlight Club, Hampstead. ENJOY'N'DESTROY!
MONDAY MUSINGS AND MOANINGS.
1001 things to do before you
die....Live your life without the aid of a fucking handbook telling
you what to do, see, hear or watch! People are tourists in others
lives reliant on everyone else and not themselves, responsible for
nothing, waiting for a response from google. Remote and distant from
reality living in a world full of stuff defined by others, a world
people can't afford to live in 1001 things to destroy before they
destroy us! Here are a few to be going on with, in no particular
order:-
Advertising / Reality TV / The National
Lottery / Mobile Phones / TV Talent shows / Credit Cards / Arms Manufacture / Satellite and Cable
TV / Wi-Fi / Private schooling / Work related bonuses //
Have any of the above improved the
lives of the impoverished? A world with more often offers less.
Small changes at the bottom can lead to
a big change at the top! Shake the foundations and the structure
will start to wobble, remove parts of the foundations and the(ir)
monstrous Frankenstein creation and structure will start to collapse.
Welcome to the wasteland, where destruction leads to construction
and something new and more human can emerge from the debris. Having
less may give people more.
Ingenious space space saving items;
just mean people have more space to fill with more shit! Ingenious
labour saving products give people more time to labour at something
else. Productivity and efficiency. People
seek perfection in an imperfect world an ideal that can never be
attained no matter how much is spent. People want to remain young and
beautiful from the outside, but inside they are just old and ugly and
putty in the hands of the cosmetics industry.
An instant world means people become
inpatient. People expect more from goods and services yet morally
they contribute less as they scuffle and scrap for stuff. Lack of face to face communication
means people become faceless; human beings are de-humanising
themselves with every e-mail or instant message they send. Work does not set you free! A culture
of Credit and debit keeps people chained to their desks and
imprisoned in death camps that are called offices, call centres,
warehouses and factories. If stuff wasn't sold cheap and people
didn't have the cash to buy stuff and had to save before they bought,
then would there be so much stuff produced? STUFF THEIR STUFF!
You know something isn't quite right
when the adults are wearing baby-grows, or 'onesies' to call them
by the name given to them by the fashion industry, and they are
dressing their four year old children like adults and encouraging
them to grow up quicker. People are stealing their children’s
childhood from them, their innocence is corrupted from birth, as they
place them in the arms of a purple dinosaur who also serves as a
military torture aid against the orange jump suit clad inmates of
Guantanamo Bay.
In the wake of the Jimmy Saville
celebrity sex scandals some crazy fools have talked of lowering the
age of consensual sex from 16 to 15, they justify this by saying that
statistics showed more children were having sex before they were
16???? That makes as much sense to me as politicians wanting to
lower the voting age to 16, despite the statistics showing that young
people 18+ are not voting anyway. Still at least parents can look
forward to a future with no 'teenage tantrums and troubles' because
there will be no more teenagers because some sections of society want
to see the death of the teenager and are quite happy to see a future
generation old before their time, living in a world that tells them
1001 times what to do and how to live their lives.
Sunday, 15 December 2013
SUNDAY SHOUTING
So it's been ten days since the death
of Nelson Mandela, and he is finally been buried. Just like all the
bad news political leaders across the world have been burying under
the media’s blanket coverage of his death. Have the South African
people been singing and dancing in celebration of Mandelas life all
this time, or is it only for the cameras? Political leaders take
'selfies' and show the people, that ultimately the only people they
care about are themselves. Smile for the camera Cameron, while
hiding your uncomfortable truth; when he was at university he
supported the death of Mandela for being a terrorist. Stand up for
your hypocrisy Cameron, hang your head in shame at your past and
present; students clashed with police at a protest march in London
recently, not that you'd have heard much about it on the news. As
for your future Dave? Well.... when the people are dancing in the
streets of London, it won't be in celebration of your life, it will
be in celebration of your death!
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
UNDER NEATH WHAT - What Is It
I don't really do requests, but I was
asked for this, and as I've had it lurking around in my lazy mind
when thinking as to what new or old music I could post, it would only
seem right to get my arse in gear and do it! So here ya go straight
outta out of my pile of music to post on the blog, and from back in
1989 it's UNDER NEATH WHAT with their one and only album; What Is It.
No question or exclamation mark in the title....interesting, The
albums title pretty much sums up from where Under Neath What are
coming from.....What is it? Well....it's beyond Punk and Metal, more
a Psychedelic post punk, mental metal. A sleazy mutant gutter
guitar blues, played out in a dope smoke filled garage. It's a
hypnotic, tripped and blissed out listen, reminiscent of a spaced out
Zodiac Mindwarp, The Cult, Lords of The New Church sort of thang.
Scant info about Under Neath What out there, seem to vaguely remember
one of them might have been Canadian and they lived in a squat in
Brixton for what that's worth. They were here and then they were
gone never to be heard of again, or never to be heard. Anyway this
is for Kammenos and any one else who fancies giving it a blast.
Highly recommended! ENJOY OR DESTROY!
Sunday, 8 December 2013
CHELSEA - Live @ Madam Jo Jo's, London, 28/10/13 (*DOWNLOAD*)
Time for some punk friction. It's been
nearly 37 years since Chelsea front man Gene October helped open the
Roxy Club in the Soho district of London, which in a hundred days
kick started the punk scene by taking it out of the hands of the
fashionable elite and putting out on to the streets. Fast forward to
2013 and we find him once again in Soho this time at Madam Jo Jo's, with the
great unsung heroes of the punk rock wars; Chelsea, playing not just
to London, but to the world with a live and direct internet streamed
show. Thanks the dedication and determination of people like Gene,
Knox and Charlie Harper, Punk Rock now stomps the streets of towns
and cities across the world. The power of the music and the message
still resonates today War Across The Nation never sounded so vital,
there's a hunger and rage burning; Chelsea are still on fire!
A new album is due to be recorded in
the New Year, the band are seeking support from 'the fans' to help
fund the record. You can find out more at the bands website, and
if you go here then you can grap a download of their Madam Jo Jo's
gig. Enjoy! Thanx to the original uploaders of the video that I
extracted the audio from.
Friday, 6 December 2013
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
WEDNESDAY WONDERING'S AND WANDERINGS!
Christ on a cross, it's nearly Christmas, no lets make that consumer mass. A cash celebration spend, spend, spend. Wants not needs....shoppers battle and fight for the bargains, for more shit they want but don't need. Can't wait to see 'em scrapping at The Poundland Sale.
People die....Famous people;
celebrities, ordinary people; nobodies. The innocent, the guilty,
young people, old people....slaughtered by the hands of others or by
their own hands, or from natural causes. A quick painless death or a
slow painful one. Some deserve to die for the suffering they have
brought to others. Some lives are cut short before they have been
lived, others just go on, and on....We are born and we die, such is
life! We are nurtured by our nature, given chances, we make choices
or fate decides. Some are born into an easy life, others are lucky,
many struggle. Some work in jobs they love, others in ones they
hate, some people don't have/need or want to work
The guilt, the pain. The joy and love.
The hate and fear. Emotions and feelings make and hold us together
as an individual, but divide us as a collective. Those in power make
sure of that!
Break the circle end the cycle, stop
the wheel from turning. Our history is all about learning. Things wont change unless people want
them to. Things wont change if people don't change. What if people don't change, or want
things to stay the same? Wheels still keep turning. The people keep
dancing to the pipers tune.
Technological progress makes things
spin faster. Everything becomes flatter and bigger, quicker and
smaller. Distance and time becomes shorter. Money keeps the people
peddling, they think they are making their own way through life, when
really they are just following well worn paths.
The free press costs; intelligence
questioned or insulted by headlines intended to provoke an emotional
response by reader or viewer public opinion shaped and moulded as
policies are drawn up. Mass mind manipulation across the nation.
Who watches the watchers when every one is blind to the lies.
Alternatives are either vetoed by
vested interests, or invested in with vested interests. For example,
The British Medical Association want to ban those e cigarettes that
people have taken to using as a means to give up smoking as they
haven't been approved by the association. While politicians pushing
Green Environmental policies have shares in companies that produce
parts for wind farms.
Propaganda truths distorted Free
thinking controlled by power forces, with their constant
contradictions.
Monday, 2 December 2013
Sunday, 1 December 2013
GLM - Summer Nights (Are never like movies) *A REVIEW*
Summer Nights (Are Never Like Movies)
is the third and final release of 2013 from GLM, like the previous
two: A Perfect Storm and The Future is Calling, it's available free
from their web-site, and it's another rip roaring riff and lick laden
track.... “A landslide on stereo!” Guitars chime, cymbals crash,
drums roll and the bass bounces, while Pete tells the tale of
someones night out that doesn't end well; the reality is never as
exciting as the dream. The strength of Pete's vocals lies in their
weakness and vulnerability which fit perfectly with the words and
music, non more so than on Summer Nights (Are Never Like Movies) GLM
have saved the best till last, with tunes like this the future is
calling and if there is any justice in an unjust world 2014 will see
GLM kick up a perfect storm in the world of Rock'n'Roll.
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
Sunday, 24 November 2013
JAMES KING AND THE LONE WOLVES - Article / Review / Download.
With all the current media interest
about JFK, I was recently moved to play James King and The Lone
Wolves rather brilliant Texas Lullaby. I didn't really fancy blowing
my head off with the Dead Kennedys, I was more in the mood for
something slightly more laid back and mellow. Back in the early
eighties James King and The Lone Wolves were jangly swamp blues
rockers; Mean, moody and menacing, they could have been contenders,
but tales of drunken and violent excesses and a no compromise
attitude meant major record companies were afraid of the big bad wolf
and went for the easy soft options like Lloyd Cole and The Commotions
and Aztec Camera instead, and mainstream success eluded the Lone
Wolves. The band split in 1985 and their legend faded into
obscurity, or did it?
Anyway to cut a story short, after
playing the 5 track Texas Lullaby 12”, a record I've held dear
since 1984, I did an internet search on James King and The Lone
Wolves, and found out that my radar had missed the fact that the band
had reformed in 2011, to play a couple of tribute gigs and haven't
looked back due to the positive reaction they received, they also
started recording, and the four track Pretty Blue Eyes E.P was
released earlier this year, available as a digital download from
Amazon.
The opening track Pretty Blue Eyes,
recalls the sound of the Velvet Underground, while Fun Patrol is a
neo Rockabilly rumble, a re-working of an old song of theirs, now
with added harmonica. Guitars reverberate as James spits out some of
the wickedest lyrics ever written; “Would you crawl on broken glass
for me?....Would you blow your fucking brain out with a gun for me?”
Even Beatles Die is a swirling and sweeping statement with Thunders
style guitar licks. Happy Home finds feedback infused guitars
dropping in and out creating an atmospheric anthem of alienation “I
don't want to crawl in your world I want to take a walk in mine.”
Has age mellowed James King and The
Lone Wolves? No! They sound far darker and deeper on their walk to
hell. The off kilter country vibe is still there, but there's more
of a chugging and chopping three pronged guitar attack going on
behind James's distinctive drawl which is akin to Iggy Pop, Johnny
Thunders and Lou Reed having a fight on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall
Street. If the devil has all the best tunes, he got another four
missing from his collection.
The Pretty Blue Eyes E.P is a haunting,
emotional, intense and uneasy listen at times, the very essence of
Rock'N'Roll; a groove that moves, an impassioned howl while
wrestling with demons. These are twisted and tortured tunes of
anguish. Tales of emotional turmoil and torment, broody and buoyant
songs to drown in. This is life with all its beauty and ugliness
affirming stuff! Single of the year? Definitely! Can't wait to hear
their reworked Texas Lullaby which they are in the process of
recording and mixing at the moment.
While I was on my internet travels I
also found a couple of videos on youtube, from which I've ripped the
audio (Thanx to the original uploaders) for your enjoyment. Here's
Happy Home, Even Beatles Die and Fun Patrol. Live @ The
Glasgow Glasshouse in March 2013, and there's Fly Away
and Fun Patrol live on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1985.
Enjoy! or Destroy!
Saturday, 23 November 2013
KILLING A SACRED COW; Monty Pythons Flying Cash Circus!
So that Great British institution Monty
Python have teamed up and got back together. When times are hard
animosities and differences have been put aside. A sell out tour,
DVD's etc will no doubt follow, and fill the bank accounts of all
concerned. This isn't unfinished business, this is just....
business, and the joke is on anyone who buys into it.
I'm so glad The Clash never reformed,
and so disappointed that The New York Dolls did, the dead can never,
or should never be replaced. When Joe Strummer was still alive
offers were turned down, which is why for me The Clash unlike the
Pistols were the only band that mattered, but hey at least the
Pistols had the honesty and decency to call their comeback tour The
Filthy Lucre Tour.
For me the only reasons acceptable for
re-unions and reformations are when the bands or artists have
unfinished business i.e. ones that never realised their full
potential, or feel they still have something relevant to say. I have
no gripes about bands like The Fits, James King and The Lone Wolves,
The Mob, Chelsea or The Outcasts all becoming part of the 20th
Century retrolution circus. Perhaps they have a part to play in
destroying the present obsession with the passive consumption of the
past, which is giving us no future.
Those that ignore the past are
condemning us to a future that has been written. Those that use the
past to condemn the present can help write the future. I wonder what
new material Monty Python will come up with?
Sunday, 17 November 2013
Friday, 15 November 2013
Thursday, 14 November 2013
THE RAMONES - The Cretin Hop (Unofficial/Bootleg album.)
This recording captures The Ramones in
front of an enthusiastic Ann Arbor audience in February 1979 during
their Road To Ruin tour, and months before they started recording End
Of The Century. The set is a great selection of tunes from their
first four albums plus a couple that would appear on the
aforementioned End of The Century. It's fast, furious and frantic
full throttle pedal to the metal Rock'n'Roll. Raw, rough and raucous
even by Ramones standards. As a bonus there are also 7 tracks from
various TV show appearances the band made between 1982 and 1995.
Hey, Ho Let's Go!
Sunday, 10 November 2013
LIFE INTIMIDATING ART.
Some musicians us the term 'art' to
describe their work, because as music, it's shit. However art
defines any old shit because it is....art, and anything seems to pass
for art if people are told it is art. Music doesn't need definition
because people can hear it is music. When it comes to what people
see, they have to be persuaded and seduced into looking at something
for what it isn't when it is what it is....a pile of bricks, a dead
cow or a floor covered in seeds, they are what they are until people
are told it shows humanities darker side....blah, blah, blah. It's
another case of the emperors new clothes, and all the media and
service industries are in it all together; selling people more shit
they don't really need by telling us it is something that it is not.
The whole world is just gaga!
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE.
Modern life discarded in Portmadog, North Wales Oct/Nov 2013 |
Fuck holidays abroad! The beach at Morfa Bychan, North Wales Oct/Nov 20130 |
Ahoy! Ahoy! The Land and The sky! Cwm Croesor, North Wales Oct/Nov 2013 |
UNTITLED POEM/SONG #?
Looking in the mirror craving
attention,
another love child of a narcissist
nation.
Look out of the window, cannot see
anything
another blinded child who always wants
something.
Celebrity kills, creating a death
culture,
bones of the past picked at by
capitalist vultures.
Bought and sold, the new and the old.
By all the taste makers trend setters,
movers and shakers.
Down from the hills comes a thundering
sound.
A thousand marching feet across the
ground.
Tattered and torn flags, flapping in
the field.
There will be no surrender because no
one will yield.
The blood runs over England’s green
and now unpleasant lands,
everyone fighting something they don't
understand.
Two world wars and one world cup,
a dead empire, who gives a fuck?!
British soldiers give Nazi salutes.
Fingers on the triggers, there are
Muslims to shoot.
A grey mist covers a land with no hope
or glory,
history tells a different story.
A storm is coming, a real rain will
fall
knocking all the Humpty Dumpty's from
off the wall.
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Sunday, 3 November 2013
Sunday, 20 October 2013
"EVERYTHING YOU SIGNIFY / EVERYTHING YOU REPRESENT....
I RAISE MY FIST AND I SING MY SONG FROM THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT UNTIL THE SETTING OF THE SUN / I'M A THORN IN THE EYE OF THE CURRENT CONTENT. RISE UP!"
Rise Up! Is the throbbing and tuneful new single from reluctant Anarcho Punks, The
Mob. After thirty years they're back to the battlefield with a real
call to arms anthem to blast from the barricades. Available from All The Madmen Records or as a digital download from Amazon.... RISE UP!
|
Saturday, 19 October 2013
BABYSHAMBLES / DEADCUTS - Live @ Cambridge Junction (*A Review / Article*)
Last Thursday
(17th) between them Babyshambles and support band Deadcuts
blew the roof of the Cambridge Junction. It was a night of Pure
Rock'n'Roll at its most riveting and exciting, certainly the best
time I've seen Babyshambles. I wont go into detail of the songs they
played, but it was a well selected cross section of the old'n'new,
borrowed'n'blue, because Babyshambles are more than just Pete
Doherty, as a listen to their latest album Sequel To The Prequel will
testify. Pete was at his playful and prancing best, at one point,
with scant regard for health and safety he launched the micstand and
microphone into the adoring throng of 'shambles crazies. Earlier in
the evening Deadcuts had shaken the foundations with a post punk, post
brit pop sonic assault on the senses. From the opening guitar noise
and the first few chords along with their glam scruff look something
told me that Deadcuts might be quite good. Thirty minutes later and
my initial reaction had been proved wrong, they weren't quite good,
they were fucking great!
A trip to their
facebook page the next day revealed a lot more about Deadcuts to me.
It turns out singer and guitarist Mark Keds had been in the Senseless
Things (a late 80's early 90's indie guitar band.) Bassist Mark
McCarthy played in The Wonder Stuff, and Goth Rockers Queen Adrena,
Drummer Trevor Sharpe had hit the skins for Miranda Sex Garden, while
the guitarist with a look of Johnny Thunders about him was Jerome
Alexander formerly of The Skuzzies. With that sort of pedigree, and
a rich and varied list of influences from Johnny Thunders to Death In
June and The Birthday Party to Prince. it is no wonder the Deadcuts
are a....cut above yer average Rock'n'Roll band.
The piercing twin
guitar attack, solid Semtex bass and the machine gun drums hammer their
songs into yer head and heart, these are tunes that absorb and engulf
the listener before spitting them out shaking and twitching on the
floor. The throaty and drawling vocals add to the full throttle
aural assault. Never mind being a breath of fresh air in the stale
stagnant Rock'nRoll world of the noughties Deadcuts are like a
tornado; ripping it all up with their sleazy sonic soundscapes, like
a punked-up Psychedelic Furs. Deadcuts are a psyched up primal,
tribal and feral howl in the face of mediocrity.
I dunno if the 4
track CD of theirs which I picked up at the gig is their new single
or what, but it's well worth tracking down, but while you do that,
here's a selection of songs from their soundcloud page for you to
Enjoy or Destroy!
SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE SILENCE.
Been on a bit of a downer for the last
few weeks, hence the lack of posts, but I've just started writing
some random shit down recently.
The nights have started to draw in
streets and alleyways are engulfed in darkness cos the council have
turned down the lights to save money. Fuel poverty as energy prices
rise.
Turn on the TV and across the globe
countries go from crisis to crisis. while the Western world still
hold onto the capitalist dream of globalisation.
From civil wars in Africa that fuel the
worlds wireless mobile phone addiction to chemical attacks in Syria
and the news that the Red Cross are gonna be providing food parcels
to Britain’s poor and needy this Christmas. This is not good.
With so much wealth in the pockets of so few and others are
starving....Eat the rich! Rob their cake! Don't buy the products and
try to live their dream while others exist in a nightmare.
The US Government has shut down; such
has been the cost of their decades of warmongering and endless space
exploration McRocket Man looking for new frontiers to exploit both on
earth and out in space.... ….
Two days off the wheel, and just like a
hamster I'm gonna curl up and do fuck all! The phone rings, I
nearly answer it as if I was at work....need a break get a way from
it all. Modern life isn't rubbish, it's mundane, or is that just my
life, where everything becomes a routine, as much as I love doing
this blog sometimes it's hard to get enthusiastic about stuff, or
summon up the energy to even think.
Frustration....freedom denied by chains
that bind. Snap the shackles, raise an arm and a fist of fury. Pull
down the blindfold take a look around remove the gag from your mouth
and shout NO!
We need to take steps into the unknown,
into the darkness. We are the light at the end of the tunnel. Just as we have made our own prisons,
we can escape from them.
“I stood among them, but not of them,
in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts.” - Lord
Byron.
All quite on the Eastern Front as the
worlds biggest warmongers America and Russia decide who became the
peacemaker in the Syrian chemical weapons crisis. When the reporting
stops, that's the time to think I wonder what the fuck they are up
to? What deals have been struck as compromises are bought and sold
around tables of power.
Dunno what's worse? working in the
private sector making the bosses money, or working in the public
sector watching the managers waste our money!
Migrants drown as they try to reach the
West...Turn around there's nothing to see here. People with nothing
want something while people with everything think they are something,
when really they are nothing. Cut 'em and they bleed just like the
rest of us.
The ship of fools is sinking.
The times they have a changed! For the
first time in a hundred years the next generation is gonna be
financially worse off than the previous one, or perhaps people have
developed higher expectations and demands in the instant
success/failure consumer society they are living in than previous
generations. There is also no incentive to save. Interest rates are
low to both the borrower and the saver, thing is the more you save
the less interest you receive on your savings. It's all about spend,
spend, spend! People used to save for a rainy day, i.e. for when
times got tough, now they just save to spend on a rainy day and carry
on regardless with no thought for the future.
Kissing China's arse to get more
cash into the coffers of Ukplc. Forget human rights records or the
sweatshop economy. It's all about clothing the Western consumer army
in cheap clothes and arming it with cheap goods.
Who's covering the cost for the hunt
for Madeline McCann? Cos I don't see why the taxpayer should cover
the cost of the parents irresponsibility! If they were a family from
a council estate who left their kid alone when they went down the
pub, they'd have been crucified in the media and by the public. How
many other families have had their children abducted, and have they
received as much support from the state as the family McCann have?
A sign of the times, or a sigh of
things to come? Food-banks in a nation starved of goodness but full
of bigots and bullshit.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
ZOUNDS - Live @ WFMU Terre T's Cherry Blossom Clinic 22/10/11
Zounds were lumped into the early
1980's Anarcho-Punk scene, but came from a different more Rock'n'Roll
musical place than the likes of Crass and Conflict but the politics
came from a similar place. The fact that these songs sound as fresh,
exciting and relevant as they did over thirty years ago says as much
about Steve Lakes song writing as it does about the society and the
world that we are living in today hasn't changed in that time and in
most respects has got worse. Everyone is looking for a little bit
more, or want some demystification as to what is going on, and there
is just more trouble coming everyday. We need to hit them where it
hurts, subvert, and a change has got to come before to long. I can't
recommend this here download highly enough. Five great songs and an
interview with a rather embarrassed Steve Lake and the rather OTT
presenter Terre.T. Listening to her almost pleading the band to play
one of her favourite ever songs Can't Cheat Karma almost brought a
tear to my eye and took me back to 1980 and the Leys Youth Club in
Letchworth when I first saw Zounds and they blew me away. Their
first album The Curse of Zounds is a desert island disc of mine.
Their latest album The Redemption of Zounds is also a rather fine
Rock'n'Rolling affair that says something. Who said music and
politics don't mix.!
Sunday, 29 September 2013
UP THE WORKERS!
Trust management....I wouldn't trust
the management to run a bath, never mind a hospital. I did read
recently that the problems with the NHS aren't down to bad
management, but due to staff shortages?!?!?! Surely that is bad
management because isn't it down to managers to work out and manage
the human resources, and if the services are suffering due to a lack
of staff then it's down to them to manage the recruitment and
retention of staff. If the budgets restrain and dictate staffing
levels then surely management have been misusing our money. Problems
within all areas of the public sector are down to bad management. If
these managers worked in the private sector, they wouldn't last a
week because their incompetence and lack of foresight would effect
company profits and the shareholders would not be happy. In the
public sector, it is the public that are the shareholders, and they
need to know the truth is not the glossed over version which is
presented by the NHS's public and media relations departments.
I heard talk on the Radio (LBC 97.3fm)
this morning about whether we need Trade Unions.???? YES we do need
unions, but NO we don't need unions that are prepared to compromise
their members rights for their own ends, which are usually financial.
Trade Union leaders are well paid and well off in comparison to those
they purport represent. How can someone with a well off lifestyle
possibly be in touch with someone that has to work a month to earn
what they do in a week. The exception would be managers that are
union members, as many of these are overpaid for the jobs they do or
more than often don't do. The reality is that the unions are in bed
with the management and so far up each others arses that it's the
workers that get fucked.
If anything we need stronger Unions
more so than at any other time in recent history, what with the
Government trying to take away workers rights with changes in
employment law that makes it easier to dismiss a worker if they
aren't performing. I wonder if this also applies to managers? I
doubt it, unless they have a lovers tiff with the unions
Someone needs to take a stand for those
at the bottom, who keep those at the top in their positions of power,
or have the workers been brainwashed and bought off by nice end of
salary pensions that they are happy to spend their lives on their
knees waiting to retire? It would appear that this might be the
case, as Trade Union membership has declined over the years since the
1970's and the recent protests have all been about keeping hands off
pensions, not about the working conditions and practises which are
often the cause of poor delivery of services to the public.
I can see a divide developing, or
should I say being created between workers in the Public Sector and
Private Sector over pay, pensions and job security. Jobs in the
public sector are seen as jobs for life, which is another thing wrong
with the NHS and Local Councils, many workers have been there for
years and years and have developed working practises and cultures
over the past that are not in keeping with the present, so you get
both managers and their staff going through the motions and keeping
silent about bad practices through fear of losing their job. In a
world where the individual rules, the powers that we let be can
target and pick off smaller groups easier than they could one big
union of people. The Trade Union power was reduced after Maggie
Thatcher destroyed the Miners during the strikes in the 80's, then
under New Labour's champaign socialist reign union leaders got fat on
the profits of power and layer upon layer of middle management
positions were created to reward workers ready to compromise their
socialist values for, any short fall could be filled by young
graduates schooled under the conservative value of competition being
the only way to deliver goods and services to a self preservation
I'm alright Jack society.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
No!
First there was their god damn awful cover of Blondie's One Way Or Another, and now this ....a bastardised Ramones logo pillow case. Is Punk dead? No it has just been exploited by a bunch of corporate cunts and sold to a generation of pinheads that just don't have a clue. "BEAT ON THE BRATS WITH A BASEBALL BAT."
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
YessssSSSS!
Sorted, no more 5's as S's and everything in capital letters. I've had a new keyboard fitted in the laptop (cheers Keithy) and normal (whatever you define as normal) service is resumed! I'll crack on with re-posting the music people have requested, give us a week or so and that should be sorted, unlike the social and political issues going down. They will never get sorted because it's in the powers that we let be's own interests to have us living in the disorder and chaos that they create and foster in order to control people.
Sunday, 22 September 2013
THE CLA5H - HIT5 BACK
FOR THO5E THAT CAN'T AFFORD THE CLA5H
5OUND 5Y5TEM BOX 5ET, THE CHURCH OF 5ONY HAVE I55UED A 5MALLER BOX
5ET OF THE BAND5 FIVE ALBUM5 AND A 5TENCIL, PACKAGED TO LOOK LIKE A
FLIGHT CA5E THAT COULD BE YOUR5 FOR £30, ARE THE5E ALL RE-MA5TER5 OF
THE RE-MA5TER5 THAT CAME OUT A FEW YEAR5 BACK? . THEY HAVE AL5O
RELEA5ED ANOTHER BE5T OF, CALLED HIT5 BACK. DOES THE WORLD REALLY
NEED ANOTHER CLA5H BE5T OF I THOUGHT, THAT WA5 UNTIL I LOOKED AT THE
TRACKLI5TING, AND THE CONCEPT BEHIND IT, IT'S A TWO CD SET, 32
TRACK5 IN TOTAL SPANNING THEIR FIVE ALBUM5 AND 5INGLE5,
BECAU5E UNLIKE PREVIOU5 BE5T OF'5 THERE ARE 13 TRACK5 THAT WERE NOT
RELEA5ED A5 5INGLE5. THE TRACKLI5TING DOE5N'T RUN IN CHRONOLOGICAL
ORDER EITHER, THE ORDER I5 BA5ED ON A 5ET LI5T CHO5EN BY JOE 5TRUMMER WHEN THE CLA5H PLAYED THE BRIXTON FAIR
DEAL ON JULY 10th 1982. BY DOING THI5 (AND PO55IBLY THE
REMA5TERING) ALL THE OLD FAVE5 I GREW UP LI5TENING TO 5OUND 5OMEWHAT
FRE5HER TO THE5E OLD EAR5 WHEN TAKEN OUT OF THEIR ORIGINAL CONTEXT
FROM THE ALBUM5 THEY APPEARED ON. HIT5 BACK HA5 IT ALL; THE PUNK,
THE FUNK THE ROCK, THE RAGGA, AND MUCH MORE. IT AL5O RETAIL5 AT THE AFORDABLE PRICE OF A 5INGLE ALBUM/CD WHICH ALL IN ALL MAKE5 IT THE ONLY
CLA5H BE5T OF THAT REALLY MATTER5.
Saturday, 21 September 2013
TURNING REBELLION INTO MONEY / CA5H CITY ROCKER5 ?
THE CLA5H'5 5OUND 5Y5TEM BOX 5ET WA5 RELEA5ED THI5
MONTH AMONG5T MUCH DEBATE ABOUT IT'5 MERIT5; WHY REMA5TER THE PA5T,
AND THE CO5T; A £100 IN A TIME OF RECE55ION? I5 THI5 IN KEEPING WITH
THE CLA5H'5 PRICING POLICIE5 OVER PREVIOU5 RELEA5E5. FOR EXAMPLE THE
5ANDANI5TA TRIPLE ALBUM.
WITH ALL THE EXTRA5 BADGE5, FLYER5 ETC
A5 WELL A5 THE MU5IC AND FILM THI5 NEW BOX 5ET I5 THE ULTIMATE CLA5H
COMMODITY, BUT ONCE AGAIN THE PA5T HA5 BEEN AIRBRU5HED AND A
5TALINI5T PURGE HA5 ERA5ED CUT THE CRAP FROM THE CLA5H'5 PA5T..
ANYWAY ENOUGH FROM ME HERE'5 5OME WORD5 FROM THE CLA5H :-
“THAT'5 THE GAMBLE WE HAVE TO TAKE.
WE BELIEVE WHAT WE'RE DOING I5 RIGHT. IF WE HAD TO BE DICTATED BY
WHAT OTHER PEOPLE 5AY IT WOULDN'T BE THE CLA5H.” - PAUL 5IMONON ON
5ANDANI5TA RETAILING FOR LE55 THAN THE PRICE OF A DOUBLE ALBUM 1981.
“IT'5 A BIG FLOP. THE THING I LIKE
ABOUT MAKING A 5TAND ON PRICE5 I5 THAT IT'5 HERE AND NOW AND NOT JU5T
A PROMI5E. IT'5 DEALLING WITH REALITY: HOW MANY BUCK5 YOU'RE GOING
TO HAVE TO PART WITH AT THE COUNTER TO GET IT. IT'5 ONE OF THE FEW
OPPORTUNITIE5 WE HAVE TO MANIFE5T OUR IDEAL5, TO MAKE THEM EXI5T IN A
REAL PLACE. TO DO IT IN THATCHER5 BRITAIN DURING A RECE55ION WA5 A
KIND OF FLAMBOYANT GE5TURE.” - JOE 5TRUMMER ON THE OUTCOME OF THE
5PECIAL PRICING OF 5ANDINI5TA 1981
“HE WHO FUCK5 NUN5 WILL LATER JOIN
THE CHURCH.”
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