A Interview with:

I dunno if there's much more I can say about The Reverends that I haven't said before, their New Addicted album gets played at least once a day in the wolf den. It's that sort of album, totally infectious; a short sharp shock to the system of street Punk'n'Roll, songs from the heart that speak a truth. These guys are the real deal, and they mean it maaan! Wanting to know a bit more about what made The Reverends tick as a band, it was time to ask a few questions. Here's what they had to say.

Have you played in bands before?

Me (Phil) & Mick have been in various bands together over the last 20 odd years but none of them really did much. Frank was in a band years ago but has spent most of his time as a solo performer/writer. This is the first band Gaz has been in but again he has done solo stuff.

What are your musical influences?

All sorts of influences, a lot of old school type punk (obviously) but there's also influences from Anarcho through to Blues, Rock, Indie; between us we have a pretty diverse taste in music.

Favourite album/book/film?

Phil - Rattus Norvegicus, not really got a favourite book or film.

Mick – The Wonderful & Frightening World of…. The Fall/Any book about

bands/Dead Man’s Shoes

Gaz – Surfa Rosa – The Pixies/Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy/The Big Lebowski

Frank – World Of David Bowie/Down & Out in London & Paris/The Red Balloon

Best band you've seen live?

Phil – SLF (also one of the worst I’ve seen!)

Gaz - Iron Maiden at Leeds Festival 2005 I laughed my tits off.

Rock'nRoll, it's in the reverends blood.

Mick – Dunno probably the Fall

Frank – The Clash

Interests other than the band?

Phil - Other bands

Gaz - Yes

Mick - Knitting

Frank – Fucking about

Are you playing at any of the 'major Punk Festivals ' this year? (If No, why the fuck not!)

This old chestnut..... The answer is no we're not. As for why not, you'd have to ask the organisers but we can say it's not for the lack of trying; we've put bids in for loads of festivals but so far no takers. You could probably ask the same question of loads of bands who aren't on at any festivals and I guess, there's only so many bands that a festival can put on & far more bands that want to play.

Three words to describe the state of Britain in 2013? (You can use more than three words if you like.)

We only need 3 - "Fucked under Tories"

What's life like in Derby?

For its size it gets plenty of gigs & is close enough to bigger cities that any bands that don't come to Derby you can still get to see and it's obviously better for having us around! All in all Derby's a pretty good place to be.

What has the reaction to the album been like?

We thought we'd done something that was pretty good (but then we would wouldn't we) but the response has been far better than we ever dreamed of, pretty much all reviews & people’s comments have been nothing but positive.

What comes first music or lyrics?

Both. Gaz writes most of the music & usually has some sort of idea for the lyrics which between us we then turn into something approaching a song or totally destroy!!

What inspires the lyrics?

Our own lives and what we see happening around us.

What is The Reverends message to the people? (The Gospel according to The Reverends if you like)

Enjoy life, support real live music played by real live bands and BUY OUR ALBUM!

Plans for the future? When you gonna gig 'down south'?

We're hoping/planning to do another album sometime this year or early next if we can scrape enough cash together and pay off what we owe on the last one. As for gigging down south we've just confirmed our first London gig (18th May @ The Pipeline with The Hookers & Zooparty) and one in Bristol on May 3rd and there’s talk of Hastings in May. To be honest we get asked a lot when we're gonna play outside the Midlands and the answer is as soon as someone will take the chance & put us on.

Right then, there you have it that was The Reverends. All that's left to be said is Thanx to Gaz, Frank, Phil, and Mick  for taking the time to answer the questions, but more importantly for releasing a fucking great album. The New Addicted is available from their web site.

Bill Gates is....

....one of the worlds most powerful people. He is an evil man, with the power and the means to control all our lives. His Microsoft monopoly has already got people addicted to a virtual world, where happiness is just a click away. The 'computer revolution' has both freed people and enslaved them. It has increased communication, but dumbed down peoples skills and abilities to think and act for themselves without first seeking some facebook status social acceptance.

The pieces of the puzzle are being put in their place. The dots are getting joined. Extreme Weather; Our weather is being controlled, the recent 'bad weather' has been responsible for a reduced amount and quality of food that is being produced, whole crops destroyed, rising wheat prices. What s the solution? GM Food Frankenstein fruit and veg, nature is being fucked with by multi-national firms like Monsanto. Controlling the weather has created the condition were they will be able to say that the increase of GM Foods is necessary in order to 'feed the world' people scared of starvation will we easy to convince that GM Crops are safe and should be used as a substitute for the real thing.

Bill Gates is a major investor in Monsanto.

The death of bees through pesticides or Monsanto mutations, and who knows what else?, well they know, but they aint gonna tell us. Manufactured disease, man made mass vaccination programs. Kill and cure, what better way to stop the population growing, mass sterilisation under the guise of a malaria vaccine, 50p a shot from Comic Relief, well I aint laughing when I hear that Bill Gates and his Foundation are gonna be donating a large amount of money to the Comic Relief charity, to vaccinate children in Africa.

Bill gates, the devil doing gods work. Who put him in charge of the world. In fact who put any of these multi-national corporations in charge of running (or should that be ruining) the world? Our governments that's who, and who puts our governments in charge? The people do! and the people accept what the political puppets do and who they do business with. Governments across the world work for people like Bill Gates to protect the capitalist system.

Money makes the world go round and money makers like Bill Gates have amassed a fortune from governments and people across the world, then like all 'good capitalists' he goes around distributing his surplus cash in the form of charity through his Gates Foundation. Just like Henry Rockefeller before him.

Rockefeller, started all this Charity donation to medicine as a means to carry out a program of eugenics. Coincidently the person who advised Henry Rockefeller to donate his money to medicine went by the name of Frederick T Gates, (dunno if he's a distant relation of Bills, couldn't find anything on the net about him)

America has a history of dodgy vacination/experiments going on, always carried out on the lowest in their society, the blacks. In 1911,the Rockefeller Institute injected hospital patients with syphilis, in 1931 it also injected cancer cell into people, these are just a couple of examples from a long list of unethical human experiments carried out in the United States. In the field of Eugenics, it's not just America that is guilty, Britain had a eugenics program, as did countries such as Belgium, Brazil and Canada, in Sweden their program only ended in 1975. No government or individual is gonna admit that in the 21^st Century these sort of things are being carried out, but I'm pretty damn sure they are, what better way to cut down the worlds population, than making future generations infertile, which is why when I hear of a measles outbreak in Britain, I just wonder what else is in the vaccine and just who profits from the sale of it, the NHS are just unknowingly going along with the program.

Capitalist charity philanthropy is just a front and a cover for the rich using their wealth and power as a means to shape the world into their vision. Friends of Bill Gates have described him as “a cold and distant man.” He believes that the world is over populated. I believe these two facts are important when you look at the work his foundation does in medicine across the world, particularly in the field of mass vaccination programs in places like Africa. What else is in the vaccine and what else will it do, what about side effects? It takes someone with no feelings about other people, to distance themselves from what they are doing, which in Bill Gates's case is sterilising the world, so that in the future over population will not be an issue, and there'll be enough of his GM food for everyone to eat.

Weather modification, not only creates the seeds for looking at new forms of food production, but it is also a convenient no questions asked way of killing people off through what are seen as natural disasters. Things happen for a reason, but sometimes the reason needs to happen, situation are engineered by those in and with the power in order for them to prescribe their cures and solutions to a problem that they have either over exaggerated or created.

Bill Gates is fucking with mother nature, and politicians throughout the world have got in bed with him, and between them, they are fucking us all up!  

JOHNNY THUNDERS - Live in London 1983 (Re-Post)

Pic Courtesy of Mick Mercer Collection.

Gone but never to be forgotten. This gig at The Lyceum in London 1983 is one of the best gigs I've been to, and definitely the best time I saw Johnny Thunders. On a cold October evening, the Lyceum was hot, the atmosphere was electric. The support bands Jayne County, Chelsea, Turkey Bone and The Wild Dogs had heated the audience to boiling point. Johnny played a lengthy set made up from the old (Jet Boy) the new (In Cold Blood), the borrowed (Be Bop A Lula) and the blues (Gloria), plus an armful of Thunders classics. He even took a well received acoustic break. Johnny was on top form alive not dead, both lucid and lairy “Has anyone raped that bitch Margaret Thatcher yet?” he had the audience in the palm of his hand. After two hours he was joined for the encore by Peter Perrett and Patti Paladin, ending the evening on the same high it started. There will never be another Johnny Thunders. You can't put your arms around a memory, but you can grab a copy of Johnny Thunders CosaNostra Live at The Lyceum in 1983 here and here, (it's a two part download.) Thanx again to ic1960 over at the Chatterbox Forum for replacing my well played, stretched and snapped Camden Market cassette copy with this digital one. I've chosen to post this as it's my favourite Thunders bootleg and it seems a fitting way to remember him twenty two years since his death.  Enjoy MuthaFuckers Enjoy!

Some scribblings/notes I did during my week away.

Just who are the 'Sickos'?

Bombs in Boston! Terrorist attack!  The enemy within America or the enemy from outside?

Gun fight at the OK Coral / Blood lust USA / Celebrating and chanting in the streets / The FBI knew of one the Boston bombers / Another case of letting something happen? A nice distraction, it's all gone silent in the media about the North Korean situation / Tighten the grip, more security and surveillance, it had all gone quiet on the terrorist front / Blood lust British media, there was no need for the press to publish photos on the front pages of one of the wounded terrorists. It was never our fight, until Blair hooked up with Bush in their Holy War on terror //

When will people realise that their beloved free market capitalist system doesn't work, it's now fucked. One of it's main protagonists and preacher, Thatcher was buried this week, and still people don't see or don't want to see that the mess we are now in is a result/product of what she did.  She thought she knew what was best for the people,, but history will show that it was for the worst.

Measles outbreak in Swansea, Wales. I wouldn't trust any of their vacinations, booster jabs etc. Who knows what else might be in the serum, and what it might do do people, scare people enough and they'll do what ever their told, no questions asked. “The only thing to fear is fear itself”

Lest we forget! But lets remember all those other scheming and conniving politicians that are still alive, and creating the sick hell people are living in!!

Tintagel Head, Cornwall (April 2013)

Rough Tor, Bodmin Moor (April 2013)

Trebarwith Strand, Cornwall (April 2013)

Strange how something so aggressive and angry can be so calming and relaxing....The sound of waves crashing on rocks. However I don't see the point of those new age hippy mood CD's that replicate the sounds of nature, somehow I don't think it's gonna have the same effect when listening to the sounds of the sea in a council estate house.   

THE BOYS - Live in N.Y.C 1981

The Boys have faired better than Chelsea, The Vibrators and The Lurkers, but sometimes their importance in the whole punk rock hulla baloo gets slightly overlooked.

Members of The Damned, The Clash, Sex Pistols and Generation X all passed through Matt Dangerfield's (The Boys Guitarist/Vocalist) basic bohemian basement recording studio. Dangerfield was a member of the legendary, London SS, alongside Mick Jones and Tony James, before the all went their own ways. Matt teamed up with old art school friend Honest Jon Plain, former Hollywood Brat Casino Steele, and Duncan Kid Reid and Jack Black, The Boys were born. Less political, and more poppy than their peers They were the first 'punk band' to sign an album deal. Their self titled debut The Boys and the follow up Alternative Chartbusters, are great albums, but for me, their third one To Hell With The Boys is a forgotten classic which really showed their talent as song writers of catchy pop punk rock'n'roll ballads. Their last album Boys Only had some moments, but was a bit lacking, possibly because Casino had left the band by then.  This recording is from their first American gig in New York on 12^th June 1981 and it's a greatest hits set, with a brilliant selection of tracks from all four of their albums. Enjoy!

Thanx to Marky Dredd for making this available a few years back on one of his mighty music blogs, he also knocked up the cover art. Respect!    

THE LIVING DEAD THATCHER.

I shed no tears, but raised a cheer when the news of Margaret Thatcher death was announced a couple of days ago. The witch was indeed dead! I don't too much care for all this not being able to celebrate her death, because during her time in power she brought untold misery and pain to millions of people. She also made millions rich, and many of these are no doubt the same people passing judgement on those who refuse to accept her death as anything other than long over due and worth having a party for.

Thatcher didn't just suck the blood out of the country, she ripped the hearts out of communities up and down the land, to her there was “No such thing as society” and she made sure in the future there wouldn't be. Her right to buy a council house stole the housing stock from future generations, who have no hope of being housed by their local authority, because all the money made by selling council houses wasn't used to build any more.

The society we are now living in is a product of Thatcher and the working classes who sold their soul and socialism to capitalism. The right to buy, and to be bought. Those that couldn't be bought like the miners were made to suffer. She destroyed the Trade Unions during the Miners strike and tore the Industrial heart out of Britain, whole swathes of the country were turned into wastelands a wash with drink, drugs and despair, Liverpool, Glasgow, towns in West Yorkshire and South Wales, were all turned into ghost towns.

Conservatives under Thatcher didn't conserve, they destroyed! This was a New Right wing politics branded Thatcherism. Britain was up for sale; Gas, Electric, Steel and Railways, the whole lot. Privatisation, a free market would free the people from the Trade Unions, and make them slaves to capitalism. If Thatcher was such a Great Britain how come she sold off everything with the word British in front of it? The Bank were deregulated and a new financial market grew. It was the time of Loadsa Money....Gold, you're indestructible....with everybody's looking for something, it was also the time of recession and high unemployment, when many people had nothing and what little they had would have to be paid out in Poll Tax. The rich got richer the poor got poorer, so in that respect the conservatives did conserve.

The first women Prime Minister did fuck all for women’s rights/liberation except teaching them to be ruthless and heartless and how to power dress, in brightly coloured suits with big buttons and big shoulder pads

Thatcher shunned Europe but embraced the American Dream and turned Britain into a nightmare 51^st State of America with cruise missiles stationed on British soil. Regan and Thatchers 'special relationship' gave birth to Globalisation, McDonald’s and Starbucks have taken over.

If what Thatcher did for the country was so good, then why are we in the mess we are in now? New Labour continued with the free market economic policies and the deregulation of the financial sector, and it is all going to shit what with the recession and the collapse of the banks.

In the wake of Thatchers death and the subsequent parties and celebrations, any one speaking out is silenced and branded as being tasteless, as she was a mother and a human being. Those killed in her phoney election winning war in the Falklands were fathers who left behind wives and children. Mothers were dragged through broken caravan windows by their hair when Thatchers storm-troopers attacked the Travelling community at the Battle of The Beanfield, her Special Patrol Group stopped and searched anyone that moved on the streets of Brixton, Toxteth and St Pauls. The Miners beaten to the ground at Oregreave had families that Thatcher left to starve while she ate at the table of the New World Order, she was the mother of a thousand dead.

In the days before her funeral the state and its servants are trying to stop any more celebrations of her death, and saying how they will come down hard on any 'trouble makers', well who would have expected anything less, a total clampdown on any descent and defiance, it's what Thatcher would have wanted. She's still gonna be taking the peoples money when she's dead as a large amount of the reported £10 million cost is gonna be covered by the tax payer.

The lasting legacy of Thatcher is the rampant individualism and selfish greed that runs through our society today, she destroyed ideas of community, collectivism and co-operation. Thatcher didn't give a shit about people, all she cared about was her place in history, just like that cunt Tony Blair who just continued with Thatchers economic and social policies. I'll be raising a glass to his death as well!

As for it being wrong to celebrate the death of another human being, I have one thought.... was Thatcher human? Her policies were inhumane and she was called The Iron Lady!  

"MAGGIE, MAGGIE, MAGGIE....DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!"

NIKKI SUDDEN - Egyptian Roads.

The recording of Egyptian Roads began in 1986, but it remained unfinished and unreleased until 1997. Nikki assembled a great cast for this long lost and forgotten masterpiece; Rowland S Howard, Dave Kusworth, Freddy Lynxx, Phil Shoenfelt and Epic Soundtracks. It's a collection of the reflective and romantic, ragged and raunchy Rock'n'Roll that Nikki did so well and uniquely.  There will never be another. The passing of time is testimony to that fact, when you listen to some of the shite that passes for Rock'n'Roll these days something is lacking....Nikki Sudden, gone but never to be forgotten!  

THURSDAY THINKINGS!

Looks like the weather's gonna be getting warmer if North Korea launch some sort of thermo Nuclear attack on the rest of the world. America is their preferred target, but who knows what the capabilities of their missiles are, they could end up any fucking where. All this 'posturing' and 'sabre rattling' is it an idle or viable threat? Or is it just propaganda by the North Koreans which has been reinforced by countries like America? The War on Terror seems to have gone quite, so now they've woken a sleeping dog by prodding it with military exercises in the South China sea along with the South Koreans. It can hardly come as any surprise that North Korea has reacted as it has, or how they wanted it to, now there's another 'enemy' to be feared. Keeping the people scared, keeps them under control. You only have to look at the fanaticism of the North Koreans to see how fear can keep people in control, well that's if what we are shown is real and not just some staged show of arms for the West’s benefit and the reality is that there's nothing to be scared of. I dunno? Time will tell when the history kindle books are written. What I do know is that our leaders no matter who or where they are across the world need conflict to keep them in power, whether it's at a National or International level, it justifies the ideologies they are trying to impose on the rest of us. Politics is Power! Left Wing, Right Wing....they are all a bunch of Fascists, unless they're Communists.

PETER PERRETT and THE ONE - Woke Up Sticky (Re-Post)

A Re-Post request for this. It has been described as Pete Perretts “Great lost album” I dunno about that any more, it looks like the album from the reformed Only Ones has got lost somewhere. I mentioned its impending release four years ago, when I original posted Woke Up Sticky, but since then I don't know if it's seen the light of day, or if and when it will eventually surface. Until then here's a blast of Peter Perrett and The One. Enjoy!

Some more action from EASY ACTION RECORDS!

Some new releases coming out in the next couple of months for a couple of NPW faves, time to put on the balaclava and withdraw some money from the bank.  Full details of release dates and prices available here at the EASY ACTION website.

It's April Fools Day....

and we are the fools for still putting up with the jokers. Fundamental changes to the Welfare State take place from today. Council Tax will increase for those on state benefits who have a 'spare room' that isn't occupied. If they are also claiming Housing Benefit, the may be forced to move, if the market rent on their social housing property is above the figure set by the Government. Many people who claim Benefits do so because they are in low paid work, not because they are not working. This some how makes society fairer? where people are penalised because the bosses aren't paying a living wage, and the producers/suppliers/retailers all want their profits, so it's the consumer that pays. The spectre of the deserving and undeserving poor raises it's head and they both get chopped off under the new welfare system. Fuck The Poor! Whoever they are.

These changes are all part of ending the so called 'something for nothing society' where whatever people get they end up paying for anyway, whether they are an unemployed builder or chief executive, it's all relative to their income, and that's the issue those at the top receive tax subsidies for second homes, while others have to pay for having second bedrooms. The more you earn the more you get to keep. The 50% tax rate for high earners has been dropped to 45%. With a small amount of people getting more of the cake, it means there's less left for the rest of us, and unfortunately some people are just left with the crumbs, which the government now wants to take away from them. I don't begrudge my taxes helping to pay for others welfare, but I do begrudge paying for wars, politicians expenses and banks. There are other ways this LibConCo can make savings, but that would mean upsetting the voters i.e. the middle classes and the wealthy, and we all know their views on 'benefit scroungers' this is a case of political populism, appealing to the popular view that the government and their friends in the media help to create, with their stories of the unemployed families with 15 children living in £1million mansions in Mayfair, oh and did I forget to mention that they were immigrants.

Their Big Fairer Society is just a sham based on the values of people doing 'something for nothing' i.e. volunteering, but if they are vulnerable and in need many people are accused of expecting 'something for nothing' and told they are becoming dependent on the state for their existence. Throughout history this has always been the way, from the workhouse to the charity run food bank, a capitalist society always needs a certain number of people at the bottom in order for it to function, it keeps people in their place, they don't want to end up in the workhouse, and it gives those people less fortunate something to aim for, but the changes in the Benefits system will see people heading straight to the homeless hostel, going past go and not collecting two hundred quid. It will cost them a lot and save the country very little, apart from an army of volunteers ready to work for their benefits.

There are also changes to the Legal Aid system coming, there will be no funding for debt advice or housing problems. How ironic when these are services that more people will be wanting to access in the future, especially if they've been forced to move because of Benefit changes and are in debt because they can't afford to live on what they earn.

Changes to Pensions will also make some people poorer, and who knows what the changes in the NHS will bring, other than competition, to who provides patient care. Public or Private? The G.P's decide! Jobs for the boys and girls if you ask me, mates rates apply and the tax payer pays.

In conclusion....Things will never get better. New Labour champagne Socialists started all this and now the Conservatives and Liberals are finishing the job of turning Britain into a well unfair totalitarian state, policed by public opinions manufactured, and manipulated by the media for political ends, but can they justify the means.....