At The Basement - A Tribute

I don’t usually do stuff like this as advertising and marketing isn’t really my thing, but I Just thought I’d give a mention to a music programme I’ve been watching lately on Sky Arts channel called ‘At the Basement’ that I think is absolutely superb. As per usual, and in the true spirit of this Blog, it got me thinking … What I love about the programme (apart from some of the superb bands they have on of course) is the pure simplicity of it. They have no crazy wild-haired presenter shoving a microphone in a rather intrusive fashion into someone’s face ‘presenting’ the show, they have no headache inducing intro music followed by one of those annoying adverts that are 80 decibels higher than the actually programme itself, they have no song titles before and after each song has been performed and best of all is that they have no talking. Just music! And that’s it! They even film the band at the end of their set putting their stuff away (can you imagine MTV or E4 Transmission asking Pink or Kelly Clarkson to pack away their guitar leads? – I don’t fucking think so) that, in my opinion, is a true reflection of what a music programme should be all about. Now don’t get me wrong here, some ‘TV DJ’s’ are actually quite watch-able to a certain extent, most notably being Zane Lowe as he can be quite knowledgeable when it comes to asking a band a question that doesn’t sound patronising. But he (and many of his colleagues) do have tendencies to kiss a lot of musicians’ arses in a big and rather embarrassing way especially when they talk to them about their latest album release (you never hardly hear a bad word said about them, but when they’re not face to face on the Brown couch they slag them to death!). But, the most annoying, embarrassing, arse-licking utter slimy piece of shit of them all has to be Jools Holland!! Urgh! The man really does make me feel like I’ve just ate a bucket of two day old cold sick! And have you noticed that he always has his ‘mates’ on his show (Tracey Chapman, Jeff Beck, KD Lang, Van Morrison, etc, etc) along with the usual jaaag un-known indie band and jaaag un-known African beat combo (who have about seventeen members with some superb Nelson Mandela shirts on by the way) And finally, the most annoying thing about Jools Holland’s show is the god awful way he goes over to sit and chat to the latest hip celebrity while they drink a bottle of Becks and talk about their latest book or TV show they have coming out. So much for the BBC’s impartiality on advertising eh? Corporate wanking and ego enhancement more like! Other ‘TV DJ’s’ that get on my tits are Jo Whiley and Lauren Lavern!! Sadly, the dreaded festival season is upon us now and I’m already fucking sick to the back teeth of these two dickheads portraying themselves as some sort of cool hippy chicks with her over-friendly nature sitting on a bails of hay with no shoes or socks on sucking up to the singer from The Kooks or Kasabian telling the, hoe great they are. I think they just fall short of sucking their cocks to be honest (then again, when the cameras are turned off, who knows what happens eh?). And as for the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury & T In the Park, I’m sorry to say, but they should re-name them Celeb-bury or Celebri–T in The Park as they’re too busy focusing on what Lily Allen is wearing to make her extremely flat bee-sting size tits pop out (again) or type of wellies Kate Moss or other members of her entourage are wearing. Sometime during this fashion parade and the horrible sight of Jo Whileys fucking plates of meat, they might just show a few bands. So, do us a favour eh as you all know I like it when you chaps talk to me about some decent band you’ve seen lately, next time At the Basement is on, give it a watch and we can all hail the best music show on the telly (it’ll be one in the eye for the glitzy Music TV producers as well) So get it watched kids, either that or carrying on watching Jools Holland’s verbal molestation of KD Lang every week!! There’s a sight eh? Mol

Squeezing Out That Difficult Third

So, much to my delight, The Arctic Monkeys are back. And it has to be said, I’m as excited as Bubbles was at Michael Jackson’s will hearing. One thing always strikes me about the Monkeys is the way the critics suck up to them big time! Personally, I absolutely 100% agree with them as I love them and they have released two brilliant albums. They’re debut being, in my opinion, one of the finest British albums of all time and one of the greatest and cleverest concept albums since Dark Side of the Moon. But they’re now approaching that time in their careers that all musicians dread … the difficult third album. Now I know it’s a musical cliché and not every musician takes any notice of it, but I’m sure some of them do have a very good knowledge of music history and know that the difficult third does exist. The Monkeys though, I think they are a group of supremely confident young men (all still aged 23) who will just shrug it off with comment of “not arsed mate” and quietly get on with making decent music. Now, I’m no music critic by any standards, but having listening to the Monkeys latest single, I can’t help thinking that the lovey-dovey relationship between the critics and the Monkeys will soon be coming to an abrupt end as lets be honest here: critics love nothing better than sharpening their pencils in anticipation of a good old public execution. The NME are prize examples of this. The Monkeys two albums received an extremely rare and well deserved 10 for their debut and a 9 for their second so I’m guessing this time around when Humbug is due for released the lads in the band will be reading the review and be shell shocked to roll their eyes over a frosty 7 or indeed a (fucking freezin’) 6 Now, if they do receive a bad review for Humbug, I personally feel the blame should lie at the door of Alex Turner and his rather annoyingly sixties obsessed Last Shadow Puppets for ruining the party. The way I see it this this: the Monkeys were on a roll. No doubt they might have needed a break after a long spell of constant touring, so my question is this: why didn’t Turner? The rest of the band did! He should have took time out to write stuff for his number one ‘project’ instead of waddling off around Europe with his best mate and their Scott Walker tribute band Sadly, of late, there have been a succession of bands who have fell foul to squeezing out a difficult third in the shape of Kasabian, Franz Ferdinand and The Zutons, but there have been a couple of bands who (in my opinion) have released very good ‘difficult thirds’ and they are The Rakes (Klang) and The Killers (Day and Age), two stunning albums with very clever (and sometimes pornographic) lyrics provided by Alan Donohue and Brandon Flowers. These are of course two very different bands from The Artic Monkeys as The Killers are American and have never really captured the hearts of the British public in the way The Monkeys have and The Rakes have never (sadly) really hit the heights of mainstream Indie Music. Then again, they seem very comfortable and assured of having that ‘tag’ hanging around their necks. Personally I hope the Monkeys do well in their careers and I do like them as lads as they are a breath of fresh air that glides over a business that is far too obsessed with taking itself seriously and seriously full of people (acting like dickheads) who also have their heads firmly implanted in the anus’s. But remember this Mr Turner before you decided to have another ‘side project’ moment, if the music isn’t up to scratch and the reviewers have well and truly sharpened their pencils, as the one of your most famous tracks goes … “give him half the chance I bet he’ll rob you if he can I know he’s not impressed at all”. Mol

Good Times From Bad Times

Don’t know about you lot, but if I hear the words ‘downturn’, ‘credit crunch’ or ‘recession’ one more time I’ll hit the fucking roof!! We all know were in pretty bad times of late wouldn’t you agree? But, to make matters worse (apart from the sight of Robert ‘I’ve got a lovely new pink tie’ Peston on the news every fucking night) I’ve just finished watching the Glastonbury highlights (or was it, as I predicted: Glastondaddy?) and that was fucking shite as well!! Don’t know about credit crunch, it’s more like Music Crunch!! Anyway, I went out last Saturday for SAFP’s birthday (amazingly he’s still yet to fall foul to the mid-thirties pot belly like most of the people I know who read this Blog!!) and we were talking about music from the nineties compared to today’s ‘offerings’. This conversation also coincided with Blur’s reunion at Glastonbury (one of the only decent bands to play that weekend by the way) so, as well as having a spot of nostalgia, it got me thinking about the mid nineties and when Brit Pop ruled the land. Blur, Suede, Supergrass, Oasis, Pulp and er … Shed Seven became number one artists in the country and well and truly cemented the Indie label into the mainstream. Most of all, from what I can remember, these were fun times. Everyone had fun as (in my opinion) the music was fun and there was no such words as ‘credit crunch’ to be heard! During these times we were obviously a lot younger then so our weekend retreats (The Mardi, Le Bateau & L2 to name just a few) were times of carefree enjoyment when everyone went out and we all pretty much enjoyed the majority of the music that was out at the time. These also were the days when we use do to the conga around town singing “Gary Bone, Gary, Bone, Gary Bone, Gary Bone, La Laaaaaaa” to the tune of Vindaloo amongst other mad things (see some previous Blogs for some of the stories by the way) Many of us also attended gigs pretty much twice a month no matter who the band were as the ‘scene’ at the time felt quite special, so much so that we really didn’t got to gigs for the music! I was watching a documentary the other day about how British Indie and what went onto form Britpop came out of the misery of Thatcher’s Britain and basically lifted the nation. Bands like The Smiths, The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses all picked themselves up and dusted themselves down to bring a new type of music for the people and put smiles back onto their faces and basically inspired a generation of bands such as the Oasis, Blur, Supergrass, etc, etc. They stood up to the ‘old guard’ of British music (George Michael, Paul Young, Phil Collins, etc, etc) and basically said “fuck you lot, we’ll play what we want and wear what we want and go with an Indie label instead of a major as they will support us”. And support them they did. This was the kind of attitude that made people proud to be in a British band in the early nineties again as some people (most notably Blur) were sick to death of the influx of American Grunge bands flooding the country (I feel that way now actually – once again – see previous Blog). So, In other words: they took a stand! The rest, as they say, is history! Saldy, when I look at some of today’s offerings from as the NME would call ‘Saviours’ of British music I can’t help but think the morbid band of shoe-gazers have not grasped the ideals of the mid nineties and are yet to embrace the true meaning of the word entertainment! Kind of ironic that we are in the mists of such harsh economic times that most of the bands are fucking miserable as well don’t you think? It’s like some sort of cycle of music/economics/politics is happening. Depressing times in more ways than one!! If you take a closer look at a few of the new British bands currently doing ‘the rounds’ who the NME ‘big up’, White Lies for example: Decent band, decent tunes, but you can’t help but think that they are just that little bit dull and compliant to the rules of being, well, dull! Another thing I noticed about White Lies was that they are well versed in the old fashioned one time extinct art of shoe gazing (I bet they know every stitch on the Brown Brogues they wear no doubt) And while were on the subject of dull bands I thought I’d give a rather special mention the god unbearable Glas Vegas. They are pass masters at the art of shoe gazing as well and could well and truly give The Cure or The Jesus and Mary Chain a good run for their money! So, to sound a bit like Odd Ball from Kelly’s Heroes: whose gonna take up the reins and show the country that good, happy music really can increase good vibes? Whose gonna kick bands like White Lies & Glas Vegas up the arse and tell them that there are other colours available apart from black? Whose gonna rally the troops and bring us out of this recession? Whose gonna write the songs that bring us out of the dark clutches of MP’s expenses, fascism, unemployment, police brutality, knife crime and er … Shed Seven? Musical saviours – your country needs you more than ever! Apply within (no stamp required) Mol