Ar Kid', Where Art Thou?

So, the Manc swagger has finally shrugged its shoulders to the world for the last time and Oasis (it appears) are all but over and they’re finally free … and sorry about the pun ... to do what ever they want. Been reading quite a bit lately about the ever extending rift between the Brother’s Gallagher and their on going feud over who sits as top dog on the good ship Oasis … and it seems the younger sibling has prevailed. It seems they haven’t spoke to each other since 2000 after a certain incident involving Patsy Kensit. I’d love to know how they continued to write songs for none years, wouldn’t you? Noel, for all his likeability and comedy quotes over the years (the one about the Romanian orphans on the Baddiel & Skinner show was a particular classic, harsh, but still a classic) seems to have done a complete reversal of his personality and basically given in to his band and irritating, cocky younger brother and blinked first in a classic game of music ‘chicken’. Coward ness has hardly been one of your many attributes, Noel. Standing up for your self and putting up your dukes on the other hand … As for Liam, love him or hate, you do have to admit his style of singing (un-like Oasis) was kind of unique (the “Shiiiiiiiii-on” will surely be his most memorable vocal line) So what of Oasis? Can they survive without each other? Who will now be ‘top dog’? Will they get Brain May in to play the guitar? And most important of all: who will ‘write’ the songs as we all know of Oasis’ ability to employ plagiarism into their ranks As for their past, everyone knows the age old fact that Oasis should have called it a day after Definitely Maybe & What’s The Story as what followed these two albums basically contained maybe one decent single and a shit load of album fillers (Little James – anyone?). Flogging a dead horse has never been a more appropriate career for them since then (IMO) At the height of their appeal-a-bility in the mid nineties I could never really decide between Noel & Liam which one I actually liked the most (a bit like which Spice Girl you’d shag first) but I must admit I’m gonna miss Noel more as he has always seemed a lot more down to earth and always kept a certain connection to his working class roots even though he did up sticks and move to London. I lost a bit of respect for him after that. But, finally I’d just like to say good luck to both of the Gallagher Brothers for what ever (no pun by the way) they do in the future as, even if you didn’t or don’t like them, they’re impact on the British (and world) music will be ever lasting A lot of bands owe them That deserves a ‘dipping of the hat’ Mol

Born In The USA? ... Er, Hardly!

The missus was in the shower the other day, I knocked on the door, she whispered “who is it?” to which I replied “it’s Gerald, the plumber”. She opened the door and casually, I walked in and started to massage her soapy, steamy ti ….. er … hang on a minute! Wrong Blog! Anyway, as she showered away, I could hear her singing some jaaaag song by Scouting for Girls or whoever the fuck it was and I thought to myself “oh Jesus fucking Christ on ice, not more American crap!” But, then it hit me and I realised they aren’t from America, they’re British! Anyway, after contemplating re-enacting the famous scene from Psycho or pursuing the possibility of a soapy tit wank, I got thinking: why do so many British singers sing in this American accent? Now, by no means is this posting anti-American, on the contrary as America has produced many great bands that I greatly admire and is steeped in rich musical history, but these artists/bands I will refer to are British and not American. Take a few British singers for instance: Rod Stewart, Elton John, Brian Johnson, Robbie Williams and the great Robert Plant all have big sounding America accents when they sing. Now, believe me when I say they shouldn’t all of a sudden turn into Chas ‘n Dave, Michael Caine or Grant & Phil Mitchell, but don’t you think they should sound a bit more, well … British when they sing? As astonishing it may be that so many of these artists sing the way they do, there really is one true expert at singing in an American accent. As you all know I’m a pretty big fan of The Stones, but Sir Mick has not only mastered the ability to sing in a perfect American accent, but he has got each regional American accent down to an absolute tee! Some achievement if you ask me. If you don’t believe me have a listen to ‘Wild Horses’ (Texas), ‘Far Away Eyes’ (West Coast/Bakersfield) & ‘Fingerprint File’ (East Coast/New York). I urge you to listen to these tracks and you will be truly stunned and think you are actually listening to Gram Parsons or Kenny Rogers. Pure genius But it’s not just the British who are guilty of mimicking the accents of our cousins over the pond, look at The Vines, INXS & AC/DC (all from Australia), Soundtrack of our Lives, The Hives, Roxette & Abba (all from Sweden) and The Trills (Ireland). All of these singing a very strong American accent! And please take note of this for the record: I do not (repeat: do not) possess any Roxette albums. Ok? Now, I, and everyone else reading this blog know how much of an impact and influence American music had/has on British music and culture during the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s with many British artists taking influence from many American Blues artists such as John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, Robert Johnson, Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters & Jimi Hendrix, but that was then and this is 2009, some thirty - forty years later. Many influences have come and gone for the artists of today such as Punk and Britpop to take their inspiration from, many of whom are British. So why do we have to rely so heavily on American music to inspire our vocal style of today? After all since the above years have passed we have had any musical revolutions such as Punk Rock, Metal and Britpop all massive influences on today’s music that has well and truly left it’s ‘stamp’ on bands of today. There are the odd exceptions to the rule with regards singing in an American accent with likes of Blur, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Super Furry Animals, The View and The Proclaimers (who do sounds remarkably like a cross between Russ Abbot’s ‘See-You-Jimmy’ character & The Krankies), but these are very few and far between. But it’s not all doom and gloom on the accent front chaps. Many fine British bands are breaking through at the moment who do actually sound like they are from these shores so maybe all is not lost after all: Alan Donohue from The Rakes is one of the finest social commentators since Jarvis Cocker, Maximo Park are the first band since Lindesfarn and the first singer since Jimmy Nail to sing in a Geordie accent, The View sound like Billy Connolly after seventeen lines of cocaine and a night out drinking shit loads of Stella and The Enemy sound like Barry from Auf Weidersein, Pet with a rather angry cob on! There’s enough British sounding vocalists there you could shake a stick at! So, if you’re sick to death of listening to these Trans Atlantic sounding Brits, sit back, put your feet up, put Quadrophenia on, get yourself a can of warm Carling and have a rootin’ tootin’ good time yaall and remember: be careful out there. I’m off for a ‘soapy’ (better get me Lynx out) Mol

Come One My Face ... Book

Everyone I know these days pretty much uses Facebook, Myspace or one of the many other social networking sites. Either way you try to escape it you really can’t (even if some people you know set up pages using your name!!) One bird I know spends all night on it when she gets home and gives it her full un-divided attention (her kids probably know her as ‘that fat bastard who sits upstairs on the computer all night eating Curly Wurleys & Chomps’) the same girl in question has even admitted to me that she does not clean her house or cook for her three children!! Obsessively shocking I know, but not everyone I know spends all day telling people about how big one of their shits was on these social networking sites. It doesn’t really get on my nerves as such, but it can be slightly irritating as it seems some people’s lives are pretty much dictated by FB or MS. Now I know I’m gonna get loads of shit from some of you Facebookers who read this as you all know I don’t ‘do’ Facebook, but these social networking sites do a have plus side apart from meeting young men/women for a good old shag when you get home from the pub … they’re pretty helpful for un-signed musicians and bands. The other day Neil mentioned on one of my Blogs about bands gaining recognition through hard graft of their own doing. It got me thinking about a few months back when I remember having a conversation with a musically learned friend of mine about what Radiohead did with their last album ‘In Rainbows’. In case you didn’t know they released it as a free of charge download without the ‘services’ of a record label. This was seen by many (including me) as a pivotal moment in music history and a chance for many artists to break free of the corporate shackles most massive over-powering record labels like to strap to their ankles. Had Radiohead had enough of boardroom executives telling them what they could and couldn’t release and finally seen the light? Or did they get sick of the fact they were not being paid enough for their music? When Radiohead did release ‘In Rainbows’ free of charge they made it available for people to make a ‘donation’ or ‘contribution’ on the website they released it via if they wish to. This almost guaranteed some return of sale as there are no doubt plenty of generous die-hard Radiohead fans out there who would contribute pretty much anything at the drop of a hat. As they had no interference from a label attached to them during the ‘sale’ of the album the band made an absolute killing from donations from loyal fans and basically cut out the middle men (A&R, promotions, marketing, distributors, managers, execs, overheads, etc, etc) and proved to many established and up and coming bands that you can release an album without the help of a label. Now, as my afore mentioned friend said in his argument there is a massive difference between a band of Radiohead’s stature and appeal and that of four snotty nosed Scals who praccy in crash studios twice a week. Everyone knows if Radiohead released a fart (though some may well think I’m pretty much on the money with that comparison) it would sell and sell well. Bob Dingle and the Hairy Bollock Orchestra from some council estate in Huyton on the other hand though would have to work extremely hard to get themselves in the public eye. But there has been the odd exception when it comes to un-signed acts. As well as having alphabetically arranged CD’s, I’m also pretty sad enough to admit I used to watch Dragon’s Den. A few months back there were a band on called Hamfatter. Not really my cup of tea musically and the band’s manager was a bit of a Herbert, but, and it’s a big but: they went on the show looking for investment and backing so they could do all the normal stuff most bands do after they sign a record contract and receive some sort of cash advance like: release album, videos, tour, promotion, smash hotels up, etc … and they got it courtesy of Peter Jones (he’s the lanky streak of annoying piss who looks like Phil Pugh by the way – not Ryan Babel). I can’t say I’ve followed the progress of Hamfatter since they appeared on the telly, but what I hear is they are doing pretty well all with the help of some well connected business man and without the help of a record label. That speaks volumes to me as it’s a hell of a lot better than some bands do with a record contract (just look at The Zutons current position for example) Apart from getting your balls sucked by some rat from Page Moss, another plus side of using social networking sites is to think of the money bands spend advertising and marketing (which is actually paid back to your label by you – the band by the way) when you could basically advertise the date for you latest release or next tour on your Facebook or Myspace page free of charge. An alternative to the previous two is also to create your own website or go through the shady back street process of Fly-Postering (Ben: remember that time by the Mardi? – hahaha) Having read plenty of stories from some musicians about the perils and pitfalls of the music industry (one being the swimming pool that is full of shit you have to swim across scenario, I’ll find the story for you some time and show you it as it makes a pretty eye-opening read) it does make me wonder why some musicians continue their quest for the Holy Grail that is a record contract. Record execs (in my opinion) do nothing except delay most of their band’s progress by insisting the stuff they are about to put out is not up to their standards (even though some of these cigar smoking dickheads have never actually played an instrument or been part of a successful band in their lives). That, for me, is the root of all evil in music and it comes down to one precious thing: money and how much of it the greedy men at the top are going to make from your music!! Maybe Radiohead did change music for the better? Maybe they were greedy and just wanted to show their label that they don’t like being ripped off? Maybe they were sick of having to answer to someone? Who knows? I know most people who read this would gladly change places with someone who has the choice to just fuck off his boss and ‘go it alone’. But, at least Radiohead did one thing many many bands all around the world strive to do with their music: they did it on their terms and they are reaping the rewards!!! So, if your good enough and you have the will and drive to make it and have a decent fan base, who says you don’t need a label? That’s gotta make any musician feel ten feet tall … even if you are Thom Yorke! Mol

I'm Alright Jack, Keep Your Hands Off My Stack!

I was reading a rather interesting interview last week with the current chairman of the Brit Awards Panel: Ged Doherty. He said the British Music Industry is currently in a good position and is coping well with the global recession. Nice of him to say, isn’t it, especially as he is probably ‘earning’ way in excess of a six figure pay packet plus other lucrative ‘kickbacks’ no doubt. He also followed with some typical British doom & gloom comments about those scurrilous pesky downloading kids currently ‘ruining’ his plans for global musical domination (and also reducing the contents of his wallet) that really got my goat. Doherty went on to say that out of the six top selling acts in the world currently, four of them are British (Leona Lewis, Amy Winehouse, Duffy & Take That) These acts are making millions each year out of album & download sales as well as sponsorship deals and commercials (the one with Take That frolicking around with that bevy of beauties at crimbo still makes me feel sick to my boots by the way), but they are still missing out on the extra pennies being siphoned off their profits due to illegal downloading. Well boo fucking Hoo!! My heart fucking bleeds for them. By the way, I’m sorry to keep banging on about The Brits, but shit sticks doesn’t it and I do mainly write about stuff that gets my goat. That’s probably the reason you all love me so much isn’t it? Haha Anyway, last time I checked this country (and most of the world) was in a deep recession that could last for years leaving families with serious financial problems. People are being laid off from their jobs left, right and centre and the world is on the brink of financial collapse. Yet, Doherty and the rest of his well off well connected cronies are moaning about the small handful of illegal down loaders cutting into their profit margins by an approximate 5% each year! What an absolute tight-fisted scare mongering greedy twat! Personally, because of people like Doherty coming out with such comments like he did, I think it’s no wonder people ‘obtain’ their music via Limewire, illegal Russian websites, Pirate Bay and pirate CD copying. They still sound the same so why not run the gauntlet of obtaining them against the law instead of paying the rip off prices you would pay for them legally? The chances of you getting caught are pretty unrealistic anyway and what’s the worse that could happen, a nasty letter from Richard Branson saying “you could be in very big trouble, Sonny”? I’m literally shaking in my brand new Virgin boots you silly bearded faced tit! Which brings me to the nice role model over-paid superstars of today: Not all of us can afford the nasty little habits the likes of Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty and many other of these sauced-up musicians and record execs alike have. Doherty & Winehouse have probably emptied half of South America up there noses yet they still moan about being ‘tormented’ while they sit in their luxury flats throwing punches (and lawsuits) at photographers whilst crying poverty and moaning about isolationism and all the other bullshit that comes with it. Musicians are experts at exploiting themselves in the eyes of the media as some sort of victims who the world has dealt a ‘bad hand’ to. Sadly there are enough suckers who are taken in by it. Look at some of the current pop stars selling their ‘stories’ through tabloid newspapers and publishers (with the help of a good writer, of course). Last time I looked I’m pretty sure Cheryl Cole has had two or three autobiographies during her fledgling pop career. Coldplay have released at least the same. God knows how many Metallica have had. Yet you still hear them banging on today about how much money they are losing via the black market. Heartbreaking isn’t it? I mean, it must be hard living in million dollar mansions in plush suburbs of Los Angeles & London without a financial care in the world while shovelling astronomical amount of marching powder up their nostrils mustn’t it? Another thing that gets me about these bastards raking in obscene amounts of money is the fraud aspect that gives them so many sleepless nights in their luxury four-poster beds. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not really that bothered about people downloading music illegally as it can be quite an expensive hobby to obtain music through official channels as I’ve pointed out, but given the amounts of money that does pump through the music industry don’t you think the people ‘at the top’ should start investing some of their money into more advanced fraud prevention measures instead of spending all their time sitting on their yachts in Monaco drinking champagne and snorting cocaine off their 19 year old girlfriend’s brand new fake tits? Whoever coined the phrase Thatcher’s (greedy) Children was indeed right on the money (no pun intended by the way) So, next time you hear about some stuck up rich pop stars or Billionaire record executives going on about how their impoverished and privacy-invaded lives are ‘getting them down’ and that they’re missing out on an extra few pennies or how illegal downloads are ruining music, don’t rush to buy their book or their ‘story’ in Hello magazine and certainly don’t waste your sympathy on them. Just laugh at them and don’t give them the steam off your piss. They’ll think and do the same if it were you in their position. And finally, if you think illegal downloads are ruining music in a financial sense, take a look at the lifestyles these dickheads have and then compare it to someone who wants to have a bit of musical enjoyment in his life in these hard times by listening to music … but can’t as they’re on the dole. Different world isn’t it? Mol

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