X Marks The Spot

I know everyone is probably sick to the back teeth of reading about the forthcoming election, so, the last place you probably expected to read about it was in Mol’s Sound Words? Right? ... Wrong!

So, for a bit of a twist on the usually bullshit you’ve been listening to over the last month from lobbyists, journalists and spin doctors I was thinking about what songs should the respective candidates for the post of Prime Minister adopt for their election campaigns.

Here are a few suggestions I had in mind:

Gordon Brown: It’s got to be Street Fighting Man by The Rolling Stones. Brown is a big, bawdy monster of a man capable of ‘having anyone’ in the ring I reckon (that basically means he can kick Cameron and Clegg’s head in easily). Perfect song for him I reckon. It might also be a good idea to have Golden Brown by The Stranglers only with the words changed to: “Gordon Brown, taxes the poor” . and finally, after this weeks debacle in Rochdale, maybe a track by The Audio Bullies wouldn’t go a miss? (get it?)

Nick Clegg, in my opinion, Slick Nick looks more like a pill-popper from the summer of 1989 looking for a ‘love in’ on Ainsdale Beach after necking a few ‘Gary’s’. I think his track should be original version of ‘You’ve Got the Love’ by The Source. This is mainly down to his new found popularity amongst the (young) voters of this country. A big smiley t-shirt, a beaney hat and a pair of semi-flares instead of a suit also wouldn’t go a miss

David Cameron: ah, good old foppish Dave with his dodgy side part and rolled up sleeves (supposedly representing the working class man). It’s a tough one which song to choose for ‘Dodgy Dave’. Personally I think ‘Liar’ by Henry Rawlins would be perfectly suited. Either that or ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’ by Rod Stewart as it seems that is the first thing his party are (allegedly) planning to do if they get into Downing Street

So, who ever comes out on top could well be singing we are the champions and the two runners up (obviously without the result of a hung parliament) might just have to listen to don’t look back in anger

Tally ho!

Mol

Absolutely Gagging For It

Was a usual Sunday this week for me (hangover, couch, paper, roast, pornography, etc, etc). Need a serious lifestyle change I reckon.

One thing really did stand out for me on this rather mundane of Sundays that absolutely baffled me though. Don’t laugh now, but I was watching the top 20 Dumb Ass Videos on MTV2 for a bit of a laugh as some of them are actually quite funny and it does beat Songs of Praise or Heartbeat doesn’t it? Anyway, about half way through up popped a video by a band I really do like, it was Hash Pipe by Weezer and to my amazement every time the singer sang the word ‘Hash’ in Hash Pipe, it was blanked out by MTV! HASH!!!! Un-f*cking-believable!! But, it gets better, when the song had finished and they then went onto show the title of the song and the artist, it came up … Hash Pipe, Weezer. How I f*cking laughed!

Another thing I noticed on the same show was a song by Franz Ferdinand called ‘Do you Wanna’. Now, this song contained the rather risqué lyrics of “he’s ye friend and I blew him before ye”. Obviously a reference to male oral sex wouldn’t you agree and plainly ‘ok’ for MTV to show on the national day of rest?

So my point is this: Why is it ok to show naughty words, but not ok for them to sing it? And who on this great big massive earth, apart from Mary Whitehouse (who is dead by the way) or some religious fanatics would be offended by someone saying ‘hash’? Weezer hardly said C*nt or Tw*t or “stick this smack loaded needle into my helmet now you aids-ridden crack whore c*nt” now did they? What will they ‘muffle’ next? Knickers? Bottom? Breast? Nipple? Bum? Bloomers? Golly Gosh?

We have come a long way though if you compare it to 40 years ago.

At the height of their popularity, The Doors and The Stones both appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in the mid sixties and were told to ‘change’ their lyrics in the ‘interests’ of their viewers (mainly fundamental Christians who were used to burning these bands’ albums as the deluded f*ckers used to think they were actually the devil re-incarnated). The Doors were told to change the lyrics in Light My Fire from “girl we couldn’t get much higher” to “girl we couldn’t get much better”. The Stones were asked to change the lyrics in Lets Spend the Night Together to “let’s spend some time together”. Strangely enough it was The Doors who never appeared again on the Ed Sullivan show as they refused to compromise over the lyrics, The Stones, on the other hand did compromise. Very un-stones like wouldn’t you say? However both situations are utterly pathetic and damn right patronising to both bands to even suggest such a drastic change in lyrics which were hardly, let be honest here: extremely risqué. But, it is usually America and Britain were most of these ridiculous censors come from who both claim to stand for freedom and democracy. Free countries? Don’t make me f*cking laugh!!

It’s not just swearing & sexual pastimes that have been censored when it comes to lyrics, some bands that have a certain political belief can also have their lyrics censored.

I take it everyone remembers the uproar caused by Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax during the eighties? Pretty close to the knuckle lyrics I’m sure you would agree, but the band were censored for the second time when they released Two Tribes. I’m not too sure it was the contents of the song that was banned, but the video certainly caused some controversy (it was a satirical look at a fictional fight between President Reagan & President Gorbachov in case you didn’t know) and was subsequently banned. Can you imagine stuff like that being allowed today? Too right you could! You only have to look at an Eminem video to see how much has actually changed!

But going back to my initial point about Weezer and the mention of drugs is just plain and utter nonsensical. The way I see it is when it comes to censoring lyrics, swearing and other ‘naughty’ words, they are part of the social make-up of most of the decent songs history has ever produced. These words are real, people do say them. So why do the powers that be have to take this away from us and demonise them? I’m not saying swearing is the be all and end all of a typical conversation in today’s working class society (although I’m still yet to hear Stuey swear, or see his feet to that affect), but sometimes it just seems natural to curse in the style of someone on a documentary about Tourettes sufferers with your mates when your down the pub.

I know I do it far too much as I’m regularly reminded by my mother, but if this continuous ‘action’ against bad language persists, what is the future of music as we know it now? Are we going to see a generation of kids starting bands singing and writing songs for the religious channels on television and singing in churches instead of gritty spit-and-sawdust music venues? Are we going to be flooded with goody-two-shoes singers like Aled Jones & Gareth Gates singing about bunny rabbits, being touched by god (not down below though) and all things generally nice about the world? It’s a sad and f*cking pathetic state of affairs if you ask me! And the way I see it is that the more you ban it, the more people are gonna do it.

So, without sounding like Hugh Fearnly Wittingstall, I’ve decided to start another campaign. It’s called the ‘Go and Get F*cked’ Campaign. It’s aimed at people who are thinking about starting a band. The idea is that every band should have a profanity in one of their songs and the title of their band.

Whose up for it?

No one?

Ok, f*ck ye then

Mol

Old Classics

I was talking to a mate on Saturday about some of the clubs we used to 'vacate' years ago and it got me thinking about a Blog

1^st question

Hands up who remembers the late nineties? Probably most of you lot reading this no doubt.

2^nd question:

Hands up who loved the L2, The Mardi, the ‘K’ and Le Bateau?

If you have your hands raised to all of the above, get ye semi-flares out and comb a Miff Head Into your Barnet and get ‘You Tubing’ kids as I can’t be arsed writing a Blog this week.

Enjoy …

Put Your Hands up - Reef

Block Rockin’ Beat – Chemical Brothers

Just – Radiohead

All I Wanna Do Is Rock – Travis

Whippin’ Piccadilly - Gomez

And finally, a club classic …

Born Slippy – Underworld

Mol

A Grand (National) Day Out

It seems there is no limits to your humble editor’s abilities as I began my career of roadie last Saturday and I must admit, it was thoroughly enjoyable

Last Saturday a mate of mine asked me to be his guitar technician for his band’s debut gig to which I quickly said yes. The cunt didn’t tell me it was going to be in the shit hole of Manchester (if there’s any other parts, of course) called Wythenshawe

On this most glorious of Spring days famous for it’s sporting calendar’s FA cup semi finals and The Grand National with the sun beating down like a bastard the day started off in the most appropriate of settings: the back of a transit van (with no windows!)

Apart from the occasional dodgy emission escaping from my backside, it wasn’t that bad a journey. As we pulled into the car park of the pub with a numb arse after spending half an hour in the back of a transit van with the two previously mentioned shady characters who shall remain nameless pretending to be extras from The Sweeney we began to wonder If doing this gig was a particularly good idea.

“Fucking Scousers, eh?” was the first (and not the last) comment we received from the pub owner and his mate eyeing us up as Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting by Elton John was suddenly entering my head. Feeling Oblivion by Turin Brakes was also a contender for most appropriate Song of the Moment

After settling into the venue and having a few complimentary drinks brought over by the rather humorous barman who came out with the classic line of “putting the funk back into function room” a bit later on seemed to settle everyone’s nerves about being in such far, hostile waters.

A bit later on, Mart, in his eternal wisdom, decided to take that rather perilous journey of nipping over the road to the shop for some ciggies. Innocent enough you might be thinking, that is until five meat wagons pulled up to nick (and leg) the local scallies who were no doubt selling their hard earned drugs to more local scallies

Now, every pub has its one particular lunatic. Everyone knows him, he’s the nutter who knows everyone, a bit like Ronnie from The Queens in Huyton. This pub had a rather amusing (some would call – backward) chap called Gaz. Gaz was under the impression that there was gonna be trouble this night as we were a bunch of Scousers playing a gig in a council estate in deepest darkest Manchester and he took it upon his shoulders to be ‘the muscle’ for the evening. To be honest, Gaz the Spazz (as I christened him) couldn’t fight his way out of a wet Echo (or a moist Manchester Evening News, if you like). Also, during the bands’ version of Jumping Jack Flash a bit later on, Ben did turn down my request to replace the song’s famous chorus with “Jumping Jack Gaz he’s a spazz, spazz, spazz” on the spot in case it sparked a mini-riot (similar to the one Mart had witnessed earlier)

The band in question, who might I add here were doing their first gig as a covers band, played exceptionally well for 2 reasons:

1. They are immensely experienced at playing live
2. Their guitars were expertly tuned by yours truly

All in all it was lads doing what they do best: getting on, rippin’ each other and generally having a laugh. Another thing also surprised me about this little grown-up version of Stand By Me and it was tha the relationship between the two rival cities separated by thirty odd miles of the M62 is not as frosty as some people make it out to be and that the one thing we do have in common is working class people who like nothing better to do on their Saturdays is to have a few beers, listen to live music and get legged by the police

Compare this to the weekend when so many (orange) glamour pusses parade around town see the Aintree Grand National as an opportunity to have some sort of ‘wag off’ where glamour well and truly takes centre stage

I’ll have a couple of hours in the back of a transit van and a Phoenix Nights style function room before that any day!!

Mol

Skin Pounders of the World - It's Time to Make A Stand

Just been reading an article about drummers who stand up while they play. Apparently the person who wrote the article thought it was “cool” for drummers to stand up. Er, I think not

The article in question went on to quote such old clichés such as “drummers like to hide behind their cymbals” and they are the “dinosaurs” of the music world. To be honest with you, the person who wrote this article sounded like she was definitely in contention for the title of World Bullshit Bingo Winner 2010. What a load of fucking rubbish!

Drummers to me have always portrayed the image of big bustling, hairy, sweaty men who eat babies for their tea and drink enough booze to fill a well in Western Africa. Drummers such as John Bonham and Keith Moon have always struck fear into the hearts of many a hotel owner from Los Angeles to London. That’s the main reason most people who love music love drummers

But some (and most) drummers I know have been the butt of nearly all jokes I know in music. And you have to admit, some of them are superb. My personal favourite is this:

A drummer is walking around a music shop when the assistant approaches him and says “see anything you like, sir?” the drummer replies “I’ll have a look around and give you a shout in ten minutes”. Ten minutes pass by and the drummer approaches the counter, points to the back of the room and says “I’ll have the trumpet and the accordion please”. The shop assistant replies “sorry sir, but the radiator is screwed to the wall and we need the fire extinguisher in case of emergencies”

Seriously though, you ask any drummer (if they can understand the basic concept of English) if they prefer to stand up whilst playing or if they prefer to sit down and I’ll guarantee the majority will say they prefer to sit. The reason (I think) behind this is down to a couple of points:

1. They might get lost on stage if they are given the chance to wonder and come a cropper with some rather dodgy stranger offering them the chance to see some nice little puppies

2. They live in such a crazy world its safer for the public that they are actually sitting down and not terrorizing them

3. (seriously) They put a hell of a lot of energy into their performance

To ask a drummer to stand up for a good half hour/hour is nothing short of torture and, in my opinion, slightly disrespectful towards the good old faithful, cuddly skin pounders that, let’s be honest here, every home should have.

Just think of the joy your own little drummer boy would bring to your kids faces when they come home from school and they are greeted by their own hairy skin pounder sitting by the fire as you play with their soft underbelly and taking him for a run in the park to fetch a (drum)stick

They really do need a break. So much in fact that I’ve set up a helpline for endangered drummers all over the world who struggle for survival in the face of such oppression and cruelty, those poor souls that need help (finding the venue) and those who simply cannot possibly write music at all

So, if you wish to sponsor a drummer, contact these numbers (0151 281 6831) (08712332244) and donate all you can

They need your help

Mol

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(Don't) Get ye Hits Out

Just been reading an article about famous bands who are no longer willing to play their most famous hits live in concert, and I have to admit: I totally agree with them

The story in question surrounds a recent performance by MGMT (or GMTV as my missus refers to them as). At one of their recent gigs to promote their new album, the band play the whole of their new album in its entirety much to the annoyance of the crowd who were (allegedly) shouting “kids, kids, kids,” (that’s one of their famous tracks in case you didn’t know) at the end of the show. So, as GMTV come back on to do an encore, what do they do? … That’s right … they play another song off their new album. The result at ‘full time’: endless booing

Now, to be honest here, I do actually like MGMT, but after last week shenanigans, my admiration of them has been taken to a new level as (and here’s my point): Music should be about changing and going forward not about going over the same old boring ground

Take Radiohead for example: they never stood still. I’m not saying their current music is out of this world, but you could say that they got the most out of their guitars (to stunning affect it has to be said) and they just said “fuck it, let’s try something different”.

Now not everyone will agree with me here when it comes to Radiohead’s sudden change of direction after the massively popular Ok Computer and The Bends, but if you think about it, they have been playing music now over a period of two decades because they have kept their brains alive by constantly changing the set. That, for me, is a healthy sign

So, let’s now look at it from a different perspective and look at Nineties Pill-Popping Fun Heads EMF with their (only) hit ‘Unbelievable’. Can anyone else imagine going to see them and not being pleased without them playing this song? I, for one, if of course I was a member of EMF, would find it utterly fucking unbearable to play this song every bleeding night just because their ‘fans’ want to hear it or there will be blood

I feel it would also be a great weight lifted from the shoulders from the likes of The B52’s not playing Love Shack or Dr and the Medics not playing Spirit in the Sky just for one night as well

Now, before you all start banging on about what the fans (who have a paid a lot of money) want, you must also consider the impact playing the same old song over and over again week after week, year after year will have on the band itself. It’s gonna lead to a serious lack of productivity and imagination and that will lead to one thing: shit music!

You wouldn’t want that now would ye?

However, sticking to your guns, I’d take that any day

Mol

Lights, Camera, Music!

I was reading an article this week about the impact music has had on films and it got me wondering are film soundtracks as important as the actual film itself? I seem to think so. Now I’m not going to blab on about The Sound of Music or Titanic, but proper films!!! Films with great sound tracks

Nowhere better to start than Reservoir Dogs I reckon. I believe it set the precedent for the modern day film sound track when Quentin Tarantino released his debut film in 1992. Since then, some people have always looked at the track listings before watching the actual film before they pass judgment on whether it was worth the admission fee they paid that ended up lining Mr Tarantino’s pockets. Personally I think he’s never let anyone down with his choice of songs. The iconic opening scene in Reservoir Dogs sits firmly in the mind of any music goer as ‘Little Green Bag’ plays as all the guys walk down the street in their black suits!! Brilliant stuff

Another thing Tarantino has done with some of his collections of songs is inadvertently re-launch the careers of certain bands. Take Steelers Wheel (stuck in the middle with you from Reservoir Dogs) and Urge Overkill (Girl, you’ll be a woman soon from Pulp Fiction). Both of these bands are without doubt hugely in debt to Mr Tarantino. If not, they would have been firmly placed in the archives of music history and a career of obscurity

When it comes to some films sound tracks, I actually prefer the productions that have had the complete score written and produced by the one person. Take the Clint Eastwood classics Dirty Harry and Magnum Force for examples. Both films had the music written by the legendary film scorer Lalo Schifrin. I remember years ago when we used to play at The Picket we used to enter the stage to the opening music to Dirty Harry. Lalo Schifrin also wrote the soundtrack to films such as Enter the Dragon, Bullitt and Kelly’s Heroes and television programmes such as Starsky and Hutch and Mission Impossible. Total legend!!

There is one film soundtrack that I absolutely love to death and it’s a small segment of a film from the seventies called The Parallax View starring Warren Beatty. If you get a chance watch the film and listen to the music in the scene when Beatty goes to The Parallax Corporation for ‘processing’ and they play him a film consisting of a series of images. The music is utterly stunning. No idea who wrote it, but it’s superb none the less.

The best of British films sound tracks has to be Guy Ritchie’s black comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The film itself has such artists as James Brown, The Stone Roses, (Billy) Ocean Colour Scene, The Stooges and the rather superb vocally blessed Pete Wingfield with his high pitched ’18 With A Bullet’. I think Ritchie kind of seen himself as the ‘English Tarantino’, sadly the rather shit ‘Swept Away’ swept away (sorry) any credibility Ritchie had after ‘Lock Stock’ and ‘Snatch’!! Poetic justice really for casting your missus in a film if you ask me! Plus the fact that it was a complete bag of fucking shit also made him lose even more face in the film making department. Divorce soon followed and the rest is history!

But, my all time favourite sound track has to be without doubt Boogie Nights starring Bert Reynolds, Mark Walberg and Julianne Moore. Some absolute classics on there including: Rick Springfield, ELO, The Beach Boys, Marvyn Gaye and The Commodores. Even the utterly shocking songs written by John C Reilly that are performed by Marc Walberg (“Feel The Heat & “The Touch”) as the starring man Dirk Diggler we’re superb comedy value if only for their pure cringe worthy ness!! Superb film as well

But some times it is the music that takes the starring role. Rightly so in this day and age when, sadly, there are not enough decent actors and actresses to go around.

Thank god for music archivists eh?

Mol