New Life Into Post-Rock With The Calm Blue Sea

Austin is the self proclaimed ‘live music capital of the world’. Not such a bold statement when its home to the SXSW festival. But it also has some great bands to go with it such as The Black Angels, The American Analog Set, …And You Will know Us by the Trail Of The Dead, Butthole Surfers, Alejandro Escovedo, Explosions In The Sky, The Gourds, and Okkervil River to name a few. Oh and of course Stevie Ray Vaughn, Willie Nelson and the 13th Floor Elevators.
Well now there’s another band from Austin Texas who’s self-titles debut LP is one of the finest things that I’ve heard this year.
Over the last few years there’s been a tendency for Post-Rock to imitate the Explosions In The Sky sound and the genre has become stale in many parts. Sure The Calm Blue Sea have quite parts that sound like Explosions In The Sky but they also reach epic peaks of early Mogwai with fine lush piano parts that Sigur Ros do so well. But mixed in together they sound their own and it's an album well worth getting.

Get The Calm Blue Sea: We Happy Few mp3 Here

Great Cover #2 The Waco Brothers: Revolution Blues

In my opinion Revolution Blues from the 1974 album On The Beach may well be one of best songs Neil Young’s ever wrote. It’s defiantly his most sinister as it alludes to the Manson Family cult.
‘Well we live in a trailer at the edge of town, you never see us ‘cause we don’t come around, we got twenty five rifles just to keep the population down.’
In truth as good as the song is the band performance lumbers a bit.
That’s something that The Waco Brothers rectify on their beefed up revision of Revolution Blues. The band really attack it square on and with Jon Langford's vocals n the driving seat it clocks in over a minute less that the original.

DL The Waco Brothers: Revolution Blues mp3 Here

Singapore Sling: The Curse, the Life, the Blood

Been listening to a record that I bought while on holiday in Reykjavík in 2007. Yeah look at me getting to go on holiday where it’s six quid for a pint of Viking beer (the locals paid for every drink on credit card, even if it was one just for themselves. No wonder the Icelandic economy collapsed soon after).
So anyway, one afternoon I was walking around in the light snow when I came across a record shop called 12 Tonar. So naturally I walk in to have a browse. The bloke working there pours out a coffee from a freshly brewed pot and offers me a cup. I don’t think that he was going to charge me for it but I politely decline anyway knowing that if I accepted I would feel obligated to buy something even if there was nothing I wanted. As I expected there was a large section on Icelandic music, most of which I'd never heard of. One CD that really caught my attention was called The Curse, the Life, the Blood by a band called Singapore Sling. As I pick it up the bloke who works there told me that it’s a collection of their first three albums. I ask him what they’re like.
“They’re really good. I’ve seen them play lots of times. They really go for it, you know. They sound a lot like the Jesus And Mary Chain and The Velvet Underground. That kind of thing. Feel free to have a listen,” he tells me.
So I go to the listening area which is a few cheep boom boxes with cheep headphones. There are a couple of other people sitting on sofas, drinking coffee and wading through CDs. I put Singapore Sling on and yes I can tell straight away that they're a band very much influenced by The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Velvet Underground. But even with the cheap audio equipment the first song Overdriver leaps out and sounds great. It’s the mark of a great song, Satisfaction and Gimme Shelter still sound amazing coming out of a pocket radio. A minute into the next song My Life Is Killing My Rock ‘n’ Roll and I’ve heard enough, so I go to the counter and buy it.

Get Singapore Sling: Overdriver mp3 Here

Big Brother Free Summer/The Real World

This is going to be the first summer since 2001 that Channel 4 won’t be dominated by Big Brother. It’s a programme that long outstayed its welcome as the formula became increasingly tiring, but at first it was good TV as it seemed more of a televised sociology experiment. Well, that’s what people who were embarrassed to admit liking it said anyway.
I admit it, I watched every episode of the first series. With Nasty Nick and his backhanded tactics, the smug one who raced go-carts, Darren with his non reasons to vote for people, the Irish Lesbian who used to be a nun, and Craig the Scouser who spent most of the day asleep. I watched all of series two as well, and the third, some of the forth, then I usually only watched the first show of each series to see the freak show of wanabees enter the house.
You see the first few series you would grow to dislike the housemates, the last few series you disliked them while they were still walking in. The turning point was the fifth year when to counter the incredibly dull fourth year Chanel 4 cast a whole bunch of celebrity hungry brainless attention seekers.

But Big Brother wasn’t the first reality TV series that I got hooked on. That was MTV’S The Real World. The premises is six strangers from different backgrounds live in a house ‘A place where people stop being polite, and start being real’ as the tagline goes. Well to a certain degree. How real is having MTV put you up in an apartment and film you go about your day to day buisness? But anyway, to get on this show it helps if you are a certain type of person who will be sure to do certain things.
Here are some examples:

A girl the country who has never left her family before and is a fish out of water in the big city. She will be shocked by the decadence but will get dragged out to a club one night where she’ll have one drink and then to the shock of her on looking housemates will get up and bump and grind on the table.

A boy from the country who has never left his family before and is a fish out of water in the big city. He is scared of anyone who doesn’t look like people from back in Hicksville County (Blacks/Latinos/Gays) but eventually he will learn that he can get along with people who look different. In one episode the gay guy in the house will drag him out to a gay club where after originally feeling awkward he will soon seem to be having fun.

A girl who is always analysing her relationship with her boyfriend back home. She will talk on the phone to him constantly and will cry in every episode. They will break up and she will get drunk and make out with random strangers in the club. Then cry some more.

A sexually frustrated religious guy who is a virgin and says he will be until he gets married.

A gay guy who will be loved and hated by his housemates in equal measures. He will drag the country boy or Frat boy or religious boy out to a gay club for his own amusement, though he will say its to show him his lifestyle so they can understand him more.

All housemates will say that they are on the show to ‘learn something about themselves’.

I’ve been watching a few random episodes online. I should really be watching something more educational, like catching up on that Wonders Of The Universe series on BBC Iplayer and pretend to understand it like other people pretend to.

Can't You Here Me Knocking

Ever since I’ve been Aware of The Rolling Stones which is since the early to mid eighties I guess, they’ve always been described as a dinosaur rock band. They were in in their forties and considered has-beens who don‘t sell any records but can sell out stadiums. Oasis took that route too. The members of Radiohead are now in their forties but are considered as relevant as they always have been. Maybe that’s because unlike The Rolling Stones they have continued to make relevant music. But REM haven’t made a good record for years (think you will still be listening to their latest so called return to form a year from now? Doubt it) but I’ve never heard them being called dinosaurs. Maybe its because the bands from the sixties were the first ones to grow old, and The Rolling Stones are still touring every now and then so they retain the dinosaur mantle.
I have no intention of seeing The Stones on their next cash cow tour but whenever I go and visit my folks I usually pull out a vinyl Stones record and place it under the needle. Usually its one from the Mick Taylor era, and more often than not the album Sticky Fingers. Partly because of the cover (the original one with an actual zip on the cover) and partly to hear my favourite stones song. Not the two that get played the most Brown Sugar and Wild Horses but the seven brilliant minuets of Can’t You Here Me Knocking. It kicks of with a classic Keith Richards riff and ends with a sublime Mick Taylor solo that comes in after a saxophone solo. With Taylor on guitar they really were at their peak. He’s a much under rated guitar player and Can’t You Hear Me Knocking is one of The Rolling Stones most underrated songs.

Get The Rolling Stones: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking mp3 Here

The Strokes Angles, Worth A Listen?

From what I’ve heard of The Strokes new album Angles I don’t feel the need to investigate it much further. Nothing against them like, but there’s so much more music that I need to get around to listening to before I would consider spending some time with it. Sure I listen to songs from their fist album every so often as it’s got some great stuff on it, but their second album was a disapointment and their third even more so.
Will they ever surpass the first record? I’ll take a not so big gamble and so no. You see, when Is This It? came out with its driving rhythm section, spiky clean but gritty guitars and punchy choruses their sound was fully formed. So what do you do on the next album? Do you stick with the same winning formula or do something different? Stick with the same and get accused of being one dimensional. But if you do something different then it better be as good as the first album. It’s a tough call when the sound of the first album was so defined.
Maybe The Strokes should have stuck with the same sound, it didn’t hurt fellow New Yorker’s The Ramones (well until they went on for too long and become a parody of themselves). But then you don’t hear much of The Hives anymore who came out around the same time as The Strokes. They had a similar narrow sound and stuck with it. I guess that people got bored of the same thing.
As I said, it’s a tough call, but at least The Strokes didn’t change their sound to sound like U2 like how Kings of Leon and Coldplay did.

Get The Strokes: Gratisfaction mp3 Here

The Black Heart Procession Return To Europe

Next month The Black Heart Procession come over to tour Europe next month for the first time in a long while. Barring an appearance at All Tomorrows parties the last time they came over might well have been the tour that I saw them on in back in 2003.
That night when I was on the way to The Scala in Kings Cross I was a touch apprehensive about what the gig would be like as their music isn't exactly the most uplifting. I needn’t have worried as the gig was truly memorable. Sometimes watching a band or a singer songwriter that plays beautifully downbeat music can hold attention so much more than a band who plays with the volume cranked up to 11.
If you like music like the Tindersticks, Bonnie Price Billy and Nick Cave in his more piano led moments then you won’t be disappointed by The Black Heart Procession. Their last album Six is a good place to start as it mixes both the fullness of the album Amore del Tropico and the starkness of their second album that’s simply called 2. In fact why not go in at the depend and immerse yourself in the stark romance of 2.
I would be looking forward to seeing them play next month except that I’m on holiday that week. Oh well, that’s just the way in goes. Just hope they don’t wait as long to return again.

Get The Black Heart Procession: Blue Tears mp3 Here

The War On Drugs

The Philidelphia based singer/songwriter Kurt Vile’s new record Smoke Ring For My Halo is getting a lot of attention in the music press and on the net. It’s a fine record and is set to be one of this years alternative hits that will be on lots of end of year lists. Today I was listening to the Musicheads podcast where it again received a very favourable review. I didn’t know until listening to it that Kurt Vile was in the band The War On Drugs.
War On Drugs were formed by Adam Granduciel and Kurt Vile with the attention of mixing their love of Bob Dylan with sonically textured indie/rock. Their 2008 debut album Wagonwheel Blues had quite a bit of filler on it but I highly recommend downloading the three stand out tracks Arms Like Boulders, Taking The Farm and A Needle In Your Eye #16.
Last year The War On Drugs released a very strong EP called Weather Future that went unnoticed. Again it shows that Kurt Vile's old band mate Adam Granduciel has the potential to make a truly great album. If he does then I hope it gets the props that Kurt Vile is.

Get The War On Drugs: Baby Missiles mp3 Here

The Hidden Track

The way that I usually sort my iTunes library is by date added. Sometimes album or artist. But just out of curiosity I pressed the time tab to see what the longest and shortest songs are. The shortest is an instrumental break from the last Spiritualized album called Harmony 3 (Voice) that lasts eighteen seconds and the longest being Nirvana’s song All Apologies that clocks in at thirty one minutes and thirty two seconds. Hang on, that’s about as long as the new Radiohead album. I don’t remember the song going on that long. I’m sure it was only about four minutes.
Ah yes, of course, I remember now. There’s about twenty minutes of silence and then the made up on the spot song come jam that is Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip. Why? If it isn’t good enough to put on the album then keep it as a B side. Well it was a B side too.
A little further down the list is another Nirvana song Something In The Way that’s twenty minutes and thirty five seconds long. Again it’s a four minute song followed by silence then a muck about noise jam that they also used as a B side.
The silence is just an annoying inconvenience. Maybe they want it to be. Maybe its some crap pretentious artistic statement like on the end of The Stone Roses Second Coming which has ninety nine tracks, twelve actual songs then track after track of a few seconds silence and then an awful six minute dirge.
The Eels song Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues is a hidden track from the album Daisy’s of the Galaxy. The only thing hidden about it is that its absent from the song titles. But it is its own track that comes on right after the ‘last song’.
And it was released as a single. So not very hidden at all.



Get Eels: Mr. E's Beautiful Blues mp3 Here

Spiderland (better late than never)

Its been just over twenty years since Slint released their second and last album Spiderland. I only had to hear Spiderland once to realise that the hype about how it’s such an influential and must have album is justified. No I wasn’t one of the very few who bought it when it first came out, and no I didn’t champion it in the mid-nineties when the record was starting to get some recognition, and no I didn’t even get a copy when Slint were being mentioned by some of the bands I liked.
The thing is, is that I only heard it for the first time about a year ago. I was angry with myself. Why wasn’t I into Slint before? Okay so I wouldn’t have known about them when they first came out, but I first heard of a band called Slint about twelve years ago. I could have been listening to them then. And I definitely would have gone to see them play live a couple of years ago on their reunion tour.
Many times I saw the CD in records shops with its very distinctive album cover and thought about buying it. But until a year ago I never did. Oh well, better late than never I guess.
I’ve since bought their first album Tweez. It’s good, nowhere near as good as Spiderland, but they were only teenagers when it was recorded. It sounds like a good demo recording (Steve Albini’s tinny production is a factor) of a band that has potential but needs a bit more time to refine their songs. And that’s what they did on Spiderland.

Get Breadcrumb Trail mp3 From Spiderland Here
Get Pat mp3 From Tweez Here

Take A Solo

I’ve heard people say “I hate guitar solos, they ruin the song.” Well it depends on the song and how it fits. For instance I don’t think that many people hear the solo in the Jimi Hendrix version of All Along The Watchtower ruins and think it ruins it.
But I’ve known guitar players who just want to show off their guitar soloing skills. Doing that diddly diddly wank thing that Eddie Van Halen does with his strumming hand up on the fret board. They don’t care about the song, for them the solo is the song. It’s just showing off and its boring. Stop playing so many notes, let them ring out a bit and try finding some melody in there.
I would take Kurt Cobain’s solo on Come As You Are or Neil Young’s one note solo in Cinnamon girl over any Steve Vai or Van Halen solo.
In this months The Word Magazine there are interviews with both Robbie Robertson and Josh Homme. Both are great guitar players and they can play great guitar solos, but only if it serves the music, for the good of the song.
Homme’s solo in Feel Good Hit For The Summer certainly serves the song. It’s fast and intense but it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Its seven seconds long.



Get Queens Of The Stone Age: Feel Good Hit For The Summer mp3 Here

Non Uniform Day

There’s not a whole lot to learn from American high school films or TV series. About the only thing I’ve learnt is that American schools have defined groups of pupils who hang out with each other and only ever mix when a member of each group has detention on a Saturday morning where they bitch, whine and realise that they are not so different after all. Its not like that in the UK, not from my school experience anyway. There wasn’t a gang of dumb ‘Jocks’ who played sports, constantly high-fived each other and had parties at the weekends where they’d drink from a keg of beer and grope cheerleaders. I played for the school football team but we weren’t a gang. And the team captain didn’t go out with the head cheerleader as there were no cheerleaders. And I don’t remember a nerd getting his head flushed down the toilet because they didn‘t do the bully’s homework. And people who liked a certain type of music would still talk to other people who were into a different type of music.
I'm not saying that school was a utopian dream. Far from it, but there wasn't as defined groups as American TV make their schools seem.
Maybe a factor why there's no obviously defined set of groups in UK schools is because everyone has to wear the same uniform. I was happy to were a school uniform because I really hated non uniform day which would happen once a year on Comic Relief or some other money raising thing where you paid fifty pence that granted a non uniform pass. I hated it because it was like a fashion parade, and a couple of days before people would be talking about what they would wearing. I can still remember some kid in my year saying “Well I think I might wear my new shell suit with my Nike Air Max trainers. It was 1990.

Lay Back In The Sun

Well that was a long winter I have to say, but it looks like the season has finally changed. Spring is here, and to confirm and make it official last night the clocks changed to British summertime. Yeah I'm not happy about losing an hours sleep last night but I'm sure the long evenings will make up for it. I just hope that the British summer gives us more than the usual few weeks of warmth this year.
So here’s a couple of songs to celebrate the coming of the summer. First of all Spiritualized. Okay so you might not think that Spiritualized are the obvious summertime band, but occasionally Jason Pierce writes a good time feel song, such as Lay Back In The Sun from the album Pure Phase.
‘Hey take it right down,
Lay back in the sun.
Gonna have me some good times, good, good dope and good fun.’

Get Spiritualized: Lay Back In The Sun mp3 Here

Lambchop are hardly the most summer good time band either. But their song Up With People is one of the most uplifting songs that I know of. Right from the opening clean guitar chords, to the hand claps, then the choir like backing vocals and then the horns come in near the end to soar it up to a whole new level of bliss.



Get Lambchop: Up With People mp3 Here

Rock Without Guitars

I once knew a girl who I had no musical compatibility with at all. None, not one song. She only listened to whatever was in the charts at the time and crap R&B like R Kelly. Nothing wrong with this, I mean of course you can still get on with someone and be into different music, but one day she tried to turn me onto the music of Kelly Clarkson.
“What the hell makes you think that I would like Kelly fucking Clarkson,” I said.
“I think you’d like her new song as it’s more the sort of music that you like. It's more rock.”
I tried to explain to her that just because Kelly Clarkson and Ashley Simpson have guitars in their songs and even though they are trying desperately hard to be so, it doesn’t mean its rock music.
Here argument was "What is the main component of rock music? Why stupid its guitars of course! There is an electric guitar in the song and so its rock."
“You wouldn’t have even noticed the electric guitar if it wasn’t for you seeing the video where she's dressed in a 'look at me I am a rock chick' outfit.” I said back to her.
Needles to say I never did get around to listening to the Kelly Clarkson album.

But you don't even need a guitar to play rock music. How can that be? You can’t possibly play rock music without a guitar can you? Funk music needs a bass, jazz needs a trumpet, pop needs a chorus, classical needs an orchestra and opera needs a big fat bloke.
Well no. The band Morphine were a three piece that played what at the time was labelled ‘bluesy low end rock music’ that consisted of drums, a saxophone and a two stringed bass played with a slide.
Then there’s Rhode Island’s Lightning bolt who with just drums and bass play a very very loud brand of noise-rock.
But one of my favourite rock songs without a guitar is by a band that you wouldn’t usually describe as rock at all. The track Dead Bodies from Air’s The Virgin Suicides soundtrack is a space rock juggernaut of a ride that by two thirds of the way through I defy you not to be playing air drums to.



Get Air: Dead Bodies Here

Issues Of The Day Like Hair

Lot of news going on today, like the budget. What’s gone up? What’s gone down? How will it affect you? Has booze gone up? It’s stayed the same. Okay so let’s move on. The Libya situation. Is the UN military right to intervene? With all the cutbacks that David Cameron has enforced over the last few month why is he so eager to go charging in? Does Colonel Gaddafi dye his hair? Come on, no one has hair that black at the age of 68.
On the subject of hair, while watching Match of the Day last weekend I noticed that Mark Lawrenson has always had that brushed back layered look on top with it being on the verge of a mullet at the back. Alan Hansen Hansen’s side parting never changes either. But at least his hair doesn’t look dated.
Not like former spurs manager Gerry Francis who is still rocking the mullet. Infact its even worse as its receding at the front and even longer at the back.
Roberto Baggio is still persisting with that ponytail rattail thing. Its worse than his 1994 World Cup final penalty miss that he blasted over the bar.
Chris Waddle blasted a World Cup semi final penalty way over the bar. He also had the mullet of all mullet’s but to Waddle’s credit at least he had the sense to get rd of it in the early nineties.

Humour Of The Handsome Family

Frank Zappa once ironically asked the question 'does humour belong in music?'
On the surface you wouldn’t think that there’s much to laugh about in the dark twisted southern gothic of husband and wife alt-country duo The Handsome Family. Brett Sparks deadpan baritone voice adds extra dark gravitas to Rennie Sparks lyrics that are often tales about murder, suicide, and ghosts.
‘A woman drove her Saturn into the black water.
Killed herself and her two kids trapped in the back seat.
She'd lost her job and didn't want her kids to be poor.’ -Snow White Diner.

But humour can sometimes be found in the darkest of places, and there’s plenty of black humour to be found in The Handsome Family. Like on a song on their second album Milk And Scissors called Drunk By Noon. For a start it has a great title but it's the line ‘Sometimes I can't wait to come down with cancer. At least then I'll get to watch TV all day’ that really gets me.

Get The Handsome Family: Drunk By Noon Here

Great Cover #1 Blue Cheer: Parchment Farm

Apparently the most covered song is Eleanor Rigby. To me it’s just another Paul McCartney little ditty that he specialises in.
If you’re going to record a cover version then make it your own or don’t bother. Some songs have been covered so many times that there is no point in doing it again. Like Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah. It was shot dead when it become a song to sing on X-Factor.
Knocking On Heavens door is a song often covered both on record and by pub cover bands. Out of all the great Bob Dylan songs to choose from I don’t know why one of his weaker songs is so popular to play. Maybe the reason is that as it’s not such a great song they think they can give it a go. Try to improve it. I’ve heard the Guns N’ Roses and the Eric Clapton versions. They didn’t succeed.

Blue Cheer’s debut 1968 album Vincebus Eruptum only has six songs on it and three of them are covers. Summertime Blues and Rock Me Baby make fine primal blues-rock interpretations of the songs. But for me the best one is when they take jazz pianist Mose Allison’s brilliant song about doing time on Parchment Farm prison and turn it into stoner-rock blueprint.

Get Blue Cheer: Parchment Farm mp3 Here

The Luminaire R.I.P.

Not so long ago The Astoria in London closed down to make way for a new railway station. It’s a shame as it was a great medium sized venue right in the centre of the city. Today I found out that The Luminarie on Kilburn High Road has closed it’s doors for the last time. Along with The Borderline it was my favourite venues to see a band play. Small, with reasonably priced beer is always better than a larger venue like The Troxy(over four quid for half a larger! Go fuck yourself) or The Sheppard’s Bush Empire (with it's low stage you must be right up the front, upstairs in the seats or over six foot five to see anymore than the bands heads). It was a place that didn’t treat it’s punters like how a J D Wetherspoon’s pub does on closing time. It was a place to go and watch a band, not a place to go and spend more time chatting with your mates. To emphasise the point they had a sign on the wall that said 'Quiet if you’re talking when the band is playing we’ll tell you to shut up.'
One of the best gigs I saw at The luminarie was from San Francisco psych rock band Comets On Fire. On records they sound like an insane sonic mess that’s somehow being held together, but even more so close up at such volume.
It’s a same that small venues like The Lumanaire struggle to stay afloat. It shall be missed.



Get Comets On Fire: Antlers of the Midnight Sun mp3 Here

For Paddy's Day

What with it being St Patrick’s Day why not celebrate it with some music from one of the finest bands to hail from the emerald isle. No I’m not talking about the multi-million selling supergroup U2. Or fellow Dubliners The Pogues with their fine punked up traditional music. Or My Bloody Valentine. Or The Cranberries.
Must be Thin Lizzy then? Na, not really my thing, ‘There’s gonna be a jailbreak somewhere in this town.’ Well I guess it’s going to be in the jail.
Maybe a band from Northern Ireland like The Undertones (Teenage Kicks was John Peels favourite song you know. Yes I do know. It‘s mentioned every time the song is played on the radio!). Or Ash their first album had some great songs like Girl From Mars, Angel Interceptor and Kung Fu. No then it must be Therapy? After all Troublegum is a great indie/metal record.
No the band in question is the only band who could fit Dostesvedy and Polish footballer Zbigniew Boniek into a line of a song about S & M sex.
Who have a song about Nottingham Forest striker Nigel Clough.
About Telling someone who talks too much to shut up.
About thanking the urinal makers Armitage Shanks.
About A fish who likes to rock ‘n’ roll.
About loosing your jumper at a disco.
About liking Japanese girls.
About a sheepdog.
I’m of course talking about Cork City’s finest, The Sultans of Ping FC.



Get Sultans Of Ping FC: Armitage Shanks mp3 Here

Bitcrush To ZXYZXY

The last couple of days I’ve been listening to a lot of ambient electronic post-rock with a decent mix of shoegaze thrown into the mix.
First off is music made by Mike Magoo who goes under the name Bitcrush. The 2010 release Of Embers is a mix of synths, soundscapes and crashing live drums. The central focal point of the album is the Fray The Middle To Meet The Ends that clocks in just under fifteen minutes.



Then I spent some good time with an album called Hansuru by zxyzxy which is music from multi-instrumentalist Gregg Pappas. It doesn’t have a dull moment on it, with lots of intricate rhythms over acoustic guitars that build and build. There’s also a couple of post-rock distorted beasts that are let loose.

Then zxyzxy takes is up another level with the album C.A.B which has four pieces of music that range from fourteen to almost twenty two minutes.It’s an album to lie down and listen to as you’ll be transported into another world as it lifts you up, shakes you around and carefully lays you back down again.
It's a long ride of an album that I strongly recommend.

Get Hansuru:Zhu DI mp3 Here

Lets Take Turns To Sing

It was this time last year when the band Alcoholic Faith Mission came under my radar. Who are Alcoholic Faith Mission? They sound like a whiskey guzzling psychobilly band from South Carolina. Well no, they’re a Danish (the only Danish band I know) band who play beautiful folk/digi-folk/ambient/elements-of-post-rock/indie-pop type music.
A year on and they’re still buzzing around my radar. Infact so much so that in the last year the song Nut In The Eye from the album 421 Wythe Avenue is the most played song on my iTunes. What do I like about it so much? Well for one thing I would say that it’s one of my favourite Male/Female vocal combination on any song. I say combination because it certainly isn’t a duet. They don’t sing to each other. In the outro they repeatedly take turns to sing the line:
‘Complacent by the choices everyone is making for me, evidently I’m sinking deeper, deeper’
I would put it up there with the duet of Some Velvet Morning by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood. Though I wouldn’t really call that a duet as it sounds like two completely different songs cut and pasted together.

Get Alcoholic Faith Mission: Nut In The Eye mp3 Here

One song that certainly is a duet is Alone In The Makeup Room by Cambridge’s finest and now sadly defunct The Broken Family Band (yes I know that Pink Floyd were formed in Cambridge, sure they had some good songs and they sold a few records but I would say they are the second best band from Cambridge).

It’s a dirty slagging match between two ex lovers. As you can see from the first line in the song:
‘I want you to die with my hands round your throat, or with me in the castle and you in the moat and everyone you know stood around laughing.’

Get The Broken Family Band: Alone In The Makeup Room mp3 Here

The Black Angels Back In Form

Some albums take a while to get into, the first couple of listens just wash over. Nothing stands out then maybe on the third or fourth listen some of it sticks and the next few listens fill in the gaps. That’s all fine, but it’s so much more gratifying when on first listen you know you like it. When on second listen you already recognise the songs. The picture has been painted and it’s imprinted in your head.
In 2006 it only took me one listen of Austin Texas band The Black Angels (named after the violin screech of a song that everyone skips on The Velvet Underground’s first album) debut album Passover to realise it would be one of my top records of the year. It’s a record of dark psychedelic drone filled with guitar hooks and menacing vocals.



Then in 2008 came Directions To See A Ghost. The first listen blew over me. I thought that maybe the second or third will catch me, but no. the fourth listen. Nothing. I just couldn’t get into it. There was a more dense drone and the sound was darker but the hooks were gone. The sixteen minute closer Snake In The Grass is such a struggle to get through I think I only managed it once.
This week I’ve been listening to The Black Angels album Phosphene Dream. Yes I know it came out last year but with my disappointment of their second album I was in no rush to get it. Straight away the first song Bad Vibrations signalled a return to form, and the songs Sunday Afternoon and Telephone are very much 13th floor elevator influenced. Well they been Rocky Erickson's backing band for some shows. I might not go back to this record as much as I do with Passover but I’m certainly glad I got around to hearing it.

Get The Black Angels: Bad Vibrations mp3 Here

Smoking Moss

Non-smoking day was this week, and some media outlets were criticising Kate Moss because she was smoking on the cat walk on this so called day of all days to kick the habit. For a start, if non smoking day is a day to encourage someone to stop then it won’t help as nobody knows it is non-smoking day until they hear it on the radio or read it in the paper that very day. Kate Moss had a fag, so what.
But wait, isn’t she a role model that children look up to for inspiration? No, she’s a model, not the guiding light for the nations future. A model. She wears clothes for a living and gets photographed. Also it was the fashion designers idea to have her smoking on the catwalk, maybe just maybe because it is non-smoking day and knowing full well the fuss it will cause. And the next day, guess what? Pictures of Kate Moss were in the papers with the designers clothes on.
The same day the government say that tobacco and tobacco products will have to be sold under the counter in supermarkets next year and by 2015 in all shops. The point being? To stop smoking. Yeah because people are going to go to the corner shop to buy cigarettes and forget they want them when they can’t see them. “I’m sure that I came in here for something? No can’t remember. Just a pack of chewing gum please mate.”

Mogwai... Intro

It’s taken me a few listens to get into the new Mogwai record Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. But I'm there now. There’s some driving Neu type motorik rhythms, a lot of riffing but without really shaking your for attention on the first few listens. It’s a more concise record than their last A hawk Is Howling but not with anything that stands out as much as the song Batcat or The Sun Smells Too Loud.
It was late one night back in early 1998 when I was first introduced to Mogwai. I was about to go to bed but thought I’d have a flick through the channels to see if there was anything worth staying up for. To my surprise and joy, on Chanel 4 The Super Furry Animals were playing the song The International Language Of Screaming. The programme was highlights of an NME award show gig at the Astoria. Next on was a band that I didn’t know, the song began quiet with clean guitars and a brooding baseline, then went super heavy, then quiet again, then back to heavy then a real cool guitar melody that followed the baseline. Then it built up to super intense heavy and then back down again.



The following weekend I went up to hmv in Oxford Street and bought their album Young Team. I’d never heard anything like it and I played it over and over.
The following week I went around to one of my mates, we were thinking about starting up another band and I asked if he’d heard of the band Mogwai. He hadn’t so I tried to explain them to him.
“Well most of their songs are long and instrumental, but without guitar solos. They start quiet and build up slowly to an intense crescendo.”
He wasn’t interested and we never did start another band. Though loads of other bands would soon start who were very much influenced by Mogwai.

Get Mogwai: San Pedro mp3 Here

Love/Hate The Last Waltz

Over the weekend I watched the Martin Scorsesse directed film about The Band’s last concert.

I’ve seen The Last Waltz before and it was my first introduction to The Band’s music. But watching the film again I think I like and dislike it in about equal measures. Some of the performances are top draw, such as The Weight with The Staple Singers and Ronnie Hawkins singing the Bo Diddley song Who Do You Love. But some not so great. Out of all the great songs the could have played with Neil Young why play the CSNY song Helpless. It’s an alright song but The Band and Neil Young doing something more full on like Cinnamon Girl would’ve been so much better. And then there’s Neil Diamond. Yawn. Van Morrison was alright but even in 1976 I’m sure a maroon jumpsuit with sequins wasn’t a good look.
Also the film smacks of self-importance, no more so when all the cast come on stage at the end to sing Bob Dylan’s I Shall Be Realised. Oh and look there’s Ringo Starr on a drum kit and Ronnie Wood is strapping on a guitar. Look at us all on stage, we are the people who make music. We are music.
At the time punk rock was beginning to make noises.



Get The Band & The Staple Singers: The Weight Here

Drinking With The Drive-By Truckers

'You know the bottle ain't to blame and I ain't trying to, it don't make you do a thing it just lets you.
When I'm six feet underground, I'll need a drink or two, and I'll sure miss you.’

It’s the weekend, I don’t know what it’s like where you live but around these parts the weekend is drenched in booze. There's nothing like a cold beer at the end of the week and a soundtrack to go along with it.
Well the country rock southern swaggered sound of the Drive-By Truckers fit’s the bill perfectly. Not just that but have some great songs about drinking. Whether it’s about a four day bender that ‘was a lot of fun until I shot my gun and the neighbours called the law.'



Or a man who needs a drink when he gets home to deal with his mundane life. Or falling asleep on the floor again, with boots still on and a cut on the chin. Or going to a rock concert, getting drunk and being pulled over by the police on the way home. Or finding a new best friend called Jack Daniels.
Right, it’s beer o’clock time!

Get 'Women Without Whiskey' Here

Crap Covers On YouTube

Today I came across a website devoted to bad cover versions. Take a look at Robbie Williams doing Blur’s Song 2. Yeah Robbie you are so RAWW N’ ROLL! Ha, it’s so so bad. Then there's Peter Gabriel’s version of Radiohead’s Street Spirit (Fade Out). What a painful listen that is. Sure it’s good to take a song in a different direction, but Gabriel has taken it to the vets to have it put down. Gabriel's latest album is all cover songs done in this sparse style. Think I will give it a miss. But then Peter Gabriel has always been crap to me, what with him dressing up as a flower in crap prog rockers Genesis and then that annoying song Solsbury Hill. He rides around on a bike when he sings it live. How shit is that.

So I looked around to find some crap covers and I came across a version of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues done by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It starts with a drum solo which is never a good thing. Then they all come in with their funk and Anthony Kiedis does that crap faux rapping that he specialises in. Still, makes a bit more sense than his own lyrics.
But then I clicked onto the Alanis Morissette's version. It’s even worse. The Dylan version was the perfect take, it's one of them songs that should be left alone.



Then I looked around for some crap cover versions by unknown or bands. There are just too many, especially the bedroom guitarists that post up anything. Sometimes they’re just badly strumming away the basic chords while the song is playing in the background. “Yes! I’ve just learnt the intro to Come As You Are, I‘m going to post it up on YouTube!”

Jetscreamer

Jetscreamer were a three piece band formed in Denton Texas consisting of singer/guitarist Will Kapinos, guitarist Samantha Moss and drummer Alex Maples. No bassist and both guitarists mostly played slide guitar with Moss sliding crunching power chords and Kopinios taking up lead with full on attack that sounds like Sonic Youth playing blues rock.. In 2002 they signed to the UK label Bella Union Records and released their only album Starhead in 2003. I was lucky enough to catch them live at The Buffalo in Highbury on what I presume was their only tour over here.
Front Porch, the opening song on Starhead perfectly shows right from off how the two slide guitars work together, it also has in my opinion one of the best middle eight break downs recorded. No exaggeration, the song is going along like a train up until 2:40 when it sounds as if a Bowing 747 aeroplane is taking off.



Get Jetscreamer: Front Porch Here

Get Crazy With The Cheese Wiz

Since listening to last weeks NPR Music: All Things Considered Podcast about music in the 90s I’ve been going back to some records from that decade. Specifically ones that I haven’t heard for a while. Now I’m not really one for nostalgia, when I listen to music that I loved in my formative years it isn’t because I try to remember a time back when. I listen to it because it’s good music. Though sometimes when hearing a certain song I can’t help thinking about the a person or party or night out that it reminds me of. Though the memory might not always be a good one as documentation of life in songs means some songs are hard to listen to and tainted.
One song picked on the podcast as the anthem of the decade was Loser by Beck, and if I’m pushed to choose a song that defines that period in time then I can’t look much further than the song with slide guitar riff, sitar, hip hop brake beat drums with nonsensical lyrics ‘don't believe everything that you breathe you get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve’ and the most catchiest of choruses.
The album Mellow Gold that Loser is from is nowhere near as good as the follow up Odelay but going back to it over the last few days as well as the song Beercan there’s realised that there’s so many other great songs that I haven’t heard in years.



Beck: Pay No Mind (Snoozer) Here

Cover Me Blind

Cover bands have a place, and it’s playing for drunk people to dance and sing along to. I’ve seen my share of alright cover bands, and a good amount that were truly awful. A few years back I played drums in a band that used to practice in a rehearsal studio where numerous cover bands bashed away. I never want to hear Hey Joe, Alright Now or Sweet Home Alabama again.
Some of them were technically good but no matter how they played the worst bands were the ones who took themselves ever so seriously. They didn’t realise that the only reason to be in a cover band is to have a laugh and make a few quid. Don’t act as if it's anything else.
Personally I’ve never been remotely interested in playing in a band that knocks out a few well known tunes for beer money. But I've played in bands that have thrown in a couple of covers to fill out the set. A country punk version of I Shot The Sheriff anyone? Sadly (or more to my relief) no recording of it exists. We also played a couple of songs by the band Firehose called Rocket Sled/Fuel Tank and Down With The Bass. Of course the crowd had never heard the songs so the audience thought they were our own. Infact I didn’t get around to hearing the original versions myself until our band split. I just drummed along.
But one out of three people in the band not knowing the song is better than four in five not knowing the songs like when I played in a band in my late teens and the guitarist thought we should learn a song by Swervedriver. We played it live a couple of times and I still don’t know what song it was.

Download Firehose: Down With The Bass mp3 here

Voice Of Seven Thunders

I’ve recently came across a self-titled album on Tchantinler Records that came out last year by Voice Of The Seven Thunders. It’s a project by Bolton guitar virtuoso Rick Tomlinson who’s previously recorded under the name Voice Of The Seven Woods.
Where as Seven Woods is more an acoustic freak-folk affair that often has eastern styled leanings, Seven Woods is a much more a band record that rocks a whole lot more. There’s still acoustic guitar in there but it’s hammering out a rhythm underneath the electric guitar as it weaves out twisted psychedelic solos that reminds me of the Jimi Hendrix song Free Spirit.
For years I wasn’t sure if Free Spirit even was a Jimi Hendrix song. I got it on a bootleg called Fire that had some Live recordings of classic songs like Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and Purple Haze along with a couple of instrumental songs.



The reason why I’ve never been sure if the instrumental songs were played by the Jimi Hendrix Experience is that I’d bought another Hendrix bootleg from the same shop in Stratford that had a few songs that certainly weren’t Hendrix. Maybe Hendrix played in the backing band of the version of Bessie Mae but it certainly isn’t him singing. That CD also had some live recordings including a storming eight minute version of Red House and a song called Morrison’s Lament which features Jim Morrison drunkenly shouting rubbish over a laboured jam. Free Spirit was given an official release in 1998 on a compilation of Jimi Hendrix rarities.

Back to Voice Of Seven Thunders, it's an album well worth checking out and I look forward to whatever voices of seven Rick Tomlinson does next.



Voice Of Seven Thunders: The Burning Mountain mp3 here

Talksport Bordom

The radio station Talksport was the obvious place where former Sky Sports employers Richard ‘smash it’ Keys and Andy ‘do this up will you love’ Gray would end up. Especially after Keys did his half hearted apology on the station where he claimed that his departure was part due to ‘dark forces at work’
Talksport is a station that encourages its hosts to air their own views, sometimes you get the feeling that they’re just doing it to get a reaction.
Keys said that he will be giving his own views on the programme and not just asking the questions. Well I’ve caught bits of their midmorning programme over the last two weeks and I’ve heard no such thing. All I’ve heard is two blokes drone on about football at a snails pace. It doesn’t fit radio. All they ever talk about is football, there are no tangents that they go off on. Three hours five days a week Richard keys asks Gray questions and he finds new ways to repeat himself. Its all so straight down the line and so boring it hurts.
They can’t last, how can they, what are they going to talk about when there’s no football going on.
Why am I still listening? I’m not, I only did a few times just to see how bad it could get. Once I watched paint dry to see if it really was boring. It was, so I stopped. I wont be doing it again.

Wooden Shjips For Midweek Monotony

It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week. Often I fall into a state of stagnant
purgatory when it comes around to Wednesday, the previous weekends exploits are way behind but the forthcoming weekend is not yet in grabbing distance.

It’s easy to feel like you’re going through the motions in a hypnotic monotonous state. And the repetitive space-drone-rock of San Francisco band Wooden Shjips are perfect to reflect that state of mind.
Most of the time they stick to the same formula, the rhythm section keeps it locked in tight to a simple driving groove, no drum fills, no bass scale runs. The Moog keyboard forms a bed underneath, a verse of echo dek vocals followed by the guitar going off on one with an overdrive delay pedal solo.



It may sound like they only have one song but what a great song it is.

Get Wooden Shjips For So Long mp3 here

Back To Arab Strap

The music of the Scottish duo Arab Strap, consisting of Vocalist Adrian Moffat and
multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton passed me by during their ten year recording career.

I wish I was into them at the time, and looked forward to their latest realises and checked out their tour dates in the listing sections of the NME but in the mid-nineties I guess I wasn’t ready for their restrained, brooding melancholy music. I was listening to generally more upbeat stuff like with distorted guitars like Super Furry Animals, Oasis, Sonic Youth and The Who. But of course the records are still there to be heard, so over the last year or so I’ve been making my way through Arab Strap’s back catalogue. If you’re unfamiliar with their stuff and don’t know where to begin then I would suggest starting with the album The Red Thread and work from there. But I wouldn’t recommend that you put it on when getting ready for a Saturday night out.



Get Arab Strap: The Love Detective here

Last of the Country Gentlemen

Ten years ago the Denton Texas three piece band Lift to Experience released their debut double album called ‘The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads.’ A concept album about the end of the world where Texas is the promised land set against a swirling psychedelic wall of sound.. It could even be called Christian-space-rock. If you read the songs titles after one another they read like chapters from the scripture.

Disk One titled Texas reads:
Just as Was Told, Down Came the Angels, Falling from Cloud 9, With Crippled Wings. Waiting to Hit, The Ground So Soft.

Disc Two titled Jerusalem reads:
These Are the Days, When We Shall Touch, Down with the Prophets, To Guard and to Guide You, Into the Storm.

But as the bands singer/guitarist and songwriter Josh T Pearson mentioned in an interview when asked about the records Christian leanings he noted that you can admire Michelangelo’s David as a great piece of art without having to believe in angels. I knew on the second listen that it would be an album I will never tire of.

If they sounded apocalyptic on record then they were even more so live. The first time I saw them was at The Garage in Highbury supporting Cat Power. I’d never heard and still haven’t heard a band play so loud. After they left the stage in a barrage of feedback Cat Power came on with an acoustic guitar and quietly strummed and mumbled while hiding behind her hair. I didn’t stay for much longer and left with my ears buzzing. To say that the main act was blown away by the support act is a massive understatement.

Lift To Experience soon split up and Pearson retreated to deepest darkest Texas. A couple of years later I saw him play a spellbinding solo acoustic gig above a pub next to Spitalfields Market. He played a bunch of new songs under the heading Angels Vs Devils. Over the years these songs would mutate to various degrees of success and have been documented in bootlegs available to buy at shows, such as Live In Paris, and one that I own called To Hull And Back (yes it’s a live album from the oh so great Yorkshire city of Hull). The only proper release was a spooky cover of the Hank Williams song ‘I’m So Lonesome I could Cry’ on a split single with The Dirty Three.

But next month is when Josh T Pearson finally puts out his debut solo album on Mute Records called Last of the Country Gentlemen.

Its not like the wall of sound that Lift To Experience played, its not like the Angels Vs Devil songs. It’s a beautiful, sparse, haunting, personal record. listening to it all the way through took something out of me, but with songs like ‘Woman When I’ve Raised Hell’ and ‘Sorry With A Song’ its well worth it.
I just hope the next record doesn’t take so long.


Josh T Pearson: Sorry With A Song (Alt Version)mp3

Band Name Prejudice

Elbow's new album ‘Build A Rocket Boys!’ is released on March 7th. I first got into Elbow when their second album and in my opinion their best ‘Cast of Thousands’ had been out about a year. I was aware of them before and what I ’d heard I quite liked, but I was put off by their name. I mean who would name their band after an awkward sounding body part. I don’t know how they all agreed on it. It’s so bad. But then again they were originally called Soft. That’s even worse.

Guy Garvey from Elbow has often stated that their music is influenced by the eighties band Talk Talk. Talk Talk made some great records but it’s a crap name. Not so much at the time but if you type their name into a search engine now you get a load of offers on a phone and broadband package. Until their fourth album The National used to have a Google search problem. You had to trawl through National Express, National Geographic, National Rail, National enquirer... it went on. But not as bad as any band with the word fuck in their name.



I'm over my band name prejudice's, apart from the band !!!.

Talk Talk: Life's What You Make It Here

Dogs Green Cross Code

Two weeks ago I was walking down the road when a dog charged out from an alleyway, ran past me and into the road. Luckily an approaching car braked just in time. Then a woman comes running out of the alley and shouts at the dog to come back to her. The driver of the car is making a gesture at her in the manner of, “What the fuck are you doing woman? Put your dog on a fucking lead you idiot!”
She grabs the dog by the scruff of the neck and drags him back to the pavement.
“What’s he moaning like that for? He can’t help it, he’s only a puppy,” she says as she turns to me, looking for me to respond. The dog then runs around and gets underneath my feet. My thoughts echo that of the driver, “Put it on a lead you fucking idiot!”
She grabs him again and guides him to the curb.
“Wait, wait,” she says as they look to cross the road. I walk on and she calls to me “Bless him, he’s only four months old so he doesn’t know his left and right yet.”
I’m sure she was being serious.
A week later the same dog ran out into a much busier road. A car breaks but still clips the dog, it barks and runs into the forest. The woman runs after it. The car then pulls up to the side of the road and the driver gets out.
“Did you see that?” he asks me.
“Yeah, I did” I said.
“I couldn’t do anything about it, it just ran out in front of me. Why doesn’t see put it on a bloody lead,” he says as he checks to see if there is any damage to his bumper.

I’ve not seen the dog this week so I guess its either dead or its learnt left and right and the rest of the green cross code.

Western Skyline

The last couple of weeks I’ve been trawling through a boxset of the HBO series Deadwood (yes that’s the bloke out of Lovejoy don’t you know). At the back end of last year I spent a good solid month on the Xbox playing Red Dead Redemption (yes that's righ,t it's like Grand Theft Auto with horses). This month I hope to see the Cohen brothers remake of the film True Grit. I guess I’m going through a wild west phase.
But you got to love a western, and the music is always great (well apart from that Jon Bon Jovi song in Young Guns). My favourite film soundtrack has to be the one that Neil Young did for the Jim Jarmusch western Dead Man. Young's trusty black Gibson guitar crackles away menacingly throughout.



Staying on the western theme, I've also been getting into the self-titled debut album from the Italian band Guano Padano. It’s a record heavily influenced by their fellow countryman Ennio Morricone spaghetti western film scores, mixed in with Tex-Mex Americana and some surf Guitar.



Guano Padano: El Divino mp3 Here

Great Opener, No Trail

So to get this off the ground I need an opener. Every album needs a great opener. It’s one of the rules of Rock n’ Roll. Start with something to grab the attention. Something to make the listener want to stick with the record. Some bands try to be smart and put one of their weaker songs at the beginning of a record. Maybe its because they think they’re far too cool to do the obvious thing of starting with one of the better songs. Maybe it’s because they think that every song on the album is a masterpiece.

A good proportion of albums stick to the rules and start with the best songs. Then usually it will trail off into filler.
Hear are some great opening tracks from great albums that don’t trail off:

There’s not a weak track on Bob Dylan’s Bring It All Back Home and no better way to kick it off than Subterranean Homesick Blues.



Nothing screams ‘Pay attention to me now!’ like Iggy And The Stooges Search And Destroy when you put on Raw Power.



My Bloody Valentine’s song Only Shallow from Loveless set’s the tone for the record perfectly.



Safe From Harm from the album Blue Lines by Massive Attack. What a bass line.



Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space eases you into Spiritualized album of the same name. On occasions I’ve skipped though the last track that’s seventeen minutes long but it’s a near to perfect record as you can get.



Massive Attack: Safe From Harm mp3 Here

Pointless Inquiries

Is anything going to come out of The Chilcot Inquiry? Will there be a conclusive outcome with repercussions to follow? No, of course not. Tony Blair was giving evidence last week, what’s going to come of that? Nothing. It will just drag on for weeks more at a huge expense and when it finally does grind to a halt there will be so little outcome that it will barley be reported and soon forgotten.

The inquest to the death of Princess Diana took six months and cost millions. What was the outcome? That the irresponsible driving by her chauffeur killed her not the Royal family. Was there ever going to any other outcome? Of course not, it seems like the whole point of the inquiry was to shut Mohammed Al-Fayed up.

Also going on at the moment is the 7/7 Inquest. Only BBC news seems bothered to report on it daily. Today’s news from the inquest is- “A senior paramedic was unaware of any deaths until 30 minutes after arriving at the suicide bus bombing in Tavistock Square.”
What is the point of such evidence? What is the point of this inquest? We know what happened and who the bombers were. Other days headlines are- “The 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 bombings were "murdered" in acts of "merciless savagery.” No shit, you don’t say.
At the inquest they’re also showing never seen CCTV footage. What’s the relevance of seeing twisted metal and people screaming at a new angle. “Out now the 7/7 bombings DVD special edition, with extra unseen footage.”
These inquiries are pointless and only happen so that it seems that the powers that be are doing something.

Cut Price Booze

The price of a pint in my local pub has gone up. Its now £3.10. Its not the cheapest pint in the area, but then I would rather drink in my local backstreet boozer than the JD Wetherspoon’s on the high road. Its not the most expensive as that that title will always be held by the shiny bar on the high road that’s filled with coked up Essex boys.
Its getting to expensive to spend all Saturday night in the pub so now a lot more people stay at home a little longer to have a couple more drinks at before they go out. Pubs are suffering as a result, but its not the customers fault. The price of alcohol in a pub has increased far beyond the rate in the off-licence. I can buy a can of beer in the shop around the corner from me for a pound. A rise of about 20p from when I bought booze (underage) in the early 90s.
Then I heard that the Coalition Government are going to bring in minimum alcohol pricing. “No,” I thought, “now its going to cost a lot more to have a couple of beers at home!”
Then they implemented the law and all was okay. It turns out that a can of beer can not be sold for less than 38p a can. So it will only effect (if at all) the super special promotion bulk buys that they have at Christmas.
Health campaigners are not happy with the new law as it’s a watered down outcome. Well they can stick their morale high ground kill joy stance. There’s nothing wrong with a couple of beers at the end of the working day, and a good few more at the end of the working week at an affordable price. Not everyone that cracks open a bottle is a binge drinking ASBO that’s ends the night puking in the gutter.

Stratford Spurs FC

So David Beckham is training at Tottenham. There was no big deal when he trained at Arsenal a couple of years back in the MLS off-season. But there wasn’t a chance that he might turn out in a Premier League game for them like he might at Spurs. So there’s been news reports from the Tottenham training ground in Chigwell and football hacks and pundits giving their opinion on whether it will be good for the team or not. Because they must be pro or against him in a lilywhite shirt.
“They only want him for the shirt sales,” is a lazy response I’ve heard various people say. A work colleague told me that in the Tottenham shop you can buy a shirt with Beckham on the back with the number 77. I told him that you can have anything printed on the back of a shirt if you ask for it. I can have my name printed on the back, it doesn’t mean that I will be running out at White Hart Lane this weekend.

Its been a Tottenham heavy news week. Should they move to the Olympic stadium? Well it makes obvious sense as a business decision. But tradition is a big part of any football club and that’s countering the pure business decision.
At first I was totally against them moving to east London. Tottenham Hotspur Football Club should play in Tottenham! North London, not east! But then most Tottenham fans like myself are from the surrounding areas, not Tottenham itself. And Stratford is not too far from Tottenham, its only that the postcode changes from N to E, its not like the Olympic stadium is in west London or on the other side of the river. The transport links to White Hart Lane are awful where as you don’t get any better than transport links at Strafford. On a selfish standpoint- Stratford is three tube stops away from me. I could be door to door in half an hour.
If it happens I’m sure that in time I will get used to it but at the moment even with all the plus points it just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t help when there’s stories like the one in the Evening Standard on Thursday that said that Tottenham may have to change their name to something like ‘Stratford Hotspur.'

But of course that’s just bullshit scaremongering. I fucking hope so.

Vox Pop

If anyone comes up to you in the street or on the train and started talking to you, the natural thing for most people to do is ignore them. Maybe say as little as possible to them so they don’t realise that you want them to go away but by not totally engaging with them they will hopefully move on. like when a drunk starts talking to you at the bar or when outside smoking a cigarette. If the conversation comes naturally then fine, but its not like that when some drunk just wants to talk nonsense to whoever is in their line of vision. Usually they say some quip and laugh as they look for you at laugh back with them. I hate it the most when in happens in the gents at the urinal. Sorry but I don’t want to start a conversation with a drunk stranger while we’re both holding our dicks taking a piss.

But it seems that if a stranger comes up to you in the street with a microphone and starts asking questions then a lot more people are willing to converse. Vox pops- “Because your opinion matters.” Or rather because some idiot who feels they must give an ill informed opinion just because a microphone and a camera are shoved in their face.
Today the terror alert in the UK has being raised, so BBC news went to Heathrow Airport to see what people there thought about it. “Well its kind of unnerving but there’s not a lot you can do apart from looking out for something suspicious and reporting it to the police,” someone said in the as he struggled with his bag in the car park. Thanks I feel better now.

The January Lull

So the summer ends, the clocks go back and the nights draw in, Halloween shortly followed by Bon Fire Night, the build up to Christmas, Christmas eve, Christmas day, Boxing day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, the decorations come down and then its back to work feeling shattered and with serious damage done to your bank account, New Years resolutions broke and the New Year blues kick in, the Christmas trees left out for the dustmen and people still saying Happy New Year well into January.

Well I certainly feel shattered and my bank balance has taken a bit of a kicking but that’s what excessive drinking will do. I’m tired and I think too much time sat on the sofa playing video games has turned my brain to mush.
So my New Years resolution is to start doing more constructive productive stuff. But right now I can’t, I’m just too tired. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I promise.
Maybe I should start taking life more seriously this year and draw out a five year plan or something. Oh fuck off, I said do more productive stuff not become a complete bore.