Nemesis To Go

Adventures in modern advertising, part 104

2009-11-12T09:54:40Z

On my travels around the London Underground a while back, I came upon a poster advertising Richard Hammond's new TV show.

Now, I Don't Do TV, but I'm sufficiently down with popular culture to know that Richard Hammond is best known as the cute one off Top Gear - the one that all the housewives think is dishy. Some might say that a cart horse would look dishy when stood next to Jeremy Clarkson, but hey. The ladies have spoken. Who am I to disagree?

Anyway, here is Richard Hammond, as featured on the poster for that all-new TV show:

What a dreamboat, eh? It must be the flyaway hair.

But wait - that's a strangely manic expression on Richard's face, don't you think? Those wild, staring eyes, those compressed lips, the agonisingly raised eyebrow, as if he's trying to put a brave face on a sudden sharp pain - this is not a man in a state of ease and relaxation.

What could have caused this?

Well, I don't know about you, but I think I'd look a bit manic if I had a sodding great hook rammed up me jacksie:

D'you think someone at the ad agency doesn't like him...?

Through the section labelled 'Shirts'

2009-11-11T09:10:06Z

Well, after yesterday's wordathon, I think today I'll post a fab pop video.

Here we have the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band performing 'Canyons Of Your Mind' in 1968. This song contains what is reputed to be the world's worst guitar solo. It also contains the voice of Vivian Stanshall, a wonder of the world in itself...

Much of the Bonzos' stuff is a bit it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time (that time being, basically, the wiggy end of the hippy era). These days it can seem a bit awkward. But when they keep it focused, you still can't touch 'em.

On Blogging (slight return)

2009-11-10T12:50:08Z

From time to time, I take a look around the blogosphere, weigh it and measure it, prod it and poke it, and stick a virtual thermometer up its arse. Here's one I made earlier.

Perhaps it's time to have another look. Warning: this is going to be a fairly lengthy post - and all text, too. For once, no wacky photos of rock stars. But I'll put in some sub headings to break up the big text block.

Hey, you want substantial content? You got it!

Time for a T-break?

Recently, I've seen a few people bewailing the decline in 'real' blogging, and the way Livejournal is increasingly becoming a mere relay station for Twitter. That's a phenomenon I've certainly noticed on my LJ friends' list, where brief (and, to casual readers, often utterly baffling) tweets have replaced real content from several people.

Twitter is also invading MySpace, but because the Twitter-sync thing Myspace has invented puts your tweets in the 'What are you doing now?' box at the top of your profile, the overall effect is much the same as if you were simply updating MySpace itself. In fact, MySpace has managed to accommodate (or perhaps we should say contain and control) Twitter in a rather neat manner that doesn't get in the way of any regular MySpace content. It certainly keeps the blog section of MySpace free of Twitter-guff.

But LiveJournal is definitely Twitting-up. It would be interesting to know if similar stuff is happening elsewhere - on Blogger, for example. If not, why not?

In any case, I don't necessarily think this will kill real blogging stone dead, because people who are genuinely motivated to make substantial posts - who have, in short, something to say - will still do so. But there will be others, who are perhaps more in the way of consumers rather than producers, who will see a Twitter feed as an easy way to stay in the game without actually being a player.

And here we have an irony. It's very often the people who bemoan the Twitting-up of LiveJournal who help to create it. It's hardly logical to deplore a perceived decline in blogging, and the increase in 'filler' stuff like Twitter feeds, if you're going exactly that way yourself.

It reminds me of the decline of Usenet, some years ago. I remember many people complaining that newsgroups were full of nothing but fluff and spam and bitchin', and few people were posting anything of substance. That was the reason many people gave for abandoning newsgroups, and migrating to LiveJournal, which was very much the new kewl thing at the time.

Of course, the logical solution - if you think it's a problem that fewer people are making substantial posts, then help to reverse the trend by making some substantial posts yourself - never seemed to occur to anyone.

I suggested this solution once, on uk.people.gothic. The response was, basically, yes-someone-should-certainly-do-that-but-not-me. It was as if people thought of content as something that others were obliged to provide for them, rather than something that had to be created by them. I've seen that same attitude on LiveJournal - users will bemoan the lack of good content as if it's an obligation that others are failing to meet, rather than something that applies equally to themselves.

The Cotswolds effect

I think there's a basic scenario that plays out in all blogging/networking/online communication options. If you plotted their fortunes on a graph, the resulting line would look much the same for all of 'em. A steep upward slope, a bit of a plateau, and a gentle drift downwards. Much like the Cotswolds, in fact.

It happened with Usenet, it happened with LiveJournal, it happened with MySpace. It's now starting to happen with Facebook. It won't be long before it happens with Twitter. There's the initial surge of enthusiasm for the new cool thing, and the sudden rush of new users. This creates a heyday of many users providing good, substantial content. 'Substantial' being a relative term here, of course. But you can still be substantial in 140 characters - especially if the cumulative effect of a multi-way conversation builds into something bigger. See what Amanda Palmer does with Twitter for further evidence!

But, after the heyday, there comes the long, slow, drop-off. People who were at first enthusiastic users lose their motivation - or perhaps just lose their mojo. They make fewer posts, or resort to low-content filler posts, like putting Twitter feeds on LiveJournal - often while complaining about others who are doing the same. Fings ain't wot they used to be, and all that. Eventually, they're just not around much any more. They duck out; they disappear.

Something new comes along, some new blogging option, the latest networking app. And the cycle repeats. The enthusiastic rush suddenly erupts again...and then the disenchantment, and then the decline.

Why does this happen? I think, as much as anything, it's a fashion thing. People follow trends. They tend to do what everyone else is doing. It only takes a few people to jump on the kewl new blogging opportunity or social networking app, and before you know it everyone's made that same leap.

Many Usenet people went to LiveJournal, back when it was the new thing. Then MySpace came along, and for all its faults and limitations that became the place where you just had to be. Facebook arrived, and all of a sudden there was a surge in that direction - even though it immediately got a worse rep than MySpace. Many people actively disliked it from the start. And yet, it grew and grew. I remember posts appearing on LiveJournal to the effect that 'I've given in and joined Facebook' - it was significant how many people used that kind of phraseology, that they'd given in. Going to Facebook certainly wasn't a positive decision on their part. But they still went to it. Why? Because they were following the trend.

It's an irony (Another one! That's two so far!) that many people who I know to be ruthlessly independent in their general outlook - people who would never dream of following trends in clothes, cars, or home furnishings - become dedicated fashionistas when it comes to the virtual world. They just have to be down with the new thing, even if they don't particularly like the new thing.

Dreams and nightmares

To a certain extent I even saw this happen even when Dreamwidth came along - the LiveJournal-alike that gained much attention when many LiveJournal users suddenly convinced themselves that LiveJournal was about to close down. There was a mini-rush to set up Dreamwidth journals at that time - regardless of the fact that long-established alternatives such as Blogger were already there.

Why, then, go to Dreamwidth? Because it was the new thing. I wonder how many of those Dreamwidth journals now see much use, or ever gained an appreciable number of readers. My guess is...not many. In a way, I feel sorry for poor old Dreamwidth. Its moment of glory - when it was briefly the new kewl thing, when it experienced that sudden surge of enthusiastic new users - was so short.

I wonder - is anyone putting regular, substantial content on Dreamwidth, and getting a large readership, with lots of interaction in the comments? I'd be interested to know if any of that has actually happened. Has content ever reached critical mass on Dreamwidth? On the other hand, have people started bulking out their Dreamwidth journals with Twitter feeds, or just letting the journals stand empty?

As it happens, I think Dreamwidth is a good thing. I like its principles, I think it works well. But I did not join it, although I could've grabbed a start-up code at the time. I never believed the general scaremongering that LiveJournal was about to close (and whaddaya know, it's still here) so I had no practical reason to find another blogging option.

And, even if I did need another blogging option, I would almost certainly not jump on the new thing, because that's just not me. I'm such a contrary bugger that if i see everyone going one way, I immediately experience an urge to move swiftly in the exact opposite direction - or, at the very least, sit back and watch the frenzy from a safe distance. It's an instinct that has never failed me.

And so to the newest new thing. Twitter came along, and became the app you just had to have. It's currently enjoying its moment of glory - but don't bank on it staying that way. The familiar scenario is possibly just starting to play out with Twitter. I've noticed people expressing disenchantment with the fluff and guff of Twitter, and starting to restrict their use of the service as a result. Some have quit altogether. Even Stephen Fry - a major celeb Tweeter - contemplated quitting just recently.

My guess is that as soon as the next social networking app to catch everyone's imagination comes along - the new fashionable thing, whatever it may be - you can bet there'll be a general migration towards it, and Twitter will experience the familiar decline we've seen many times before. Just wait. It'll happen!

None of the above

None of the above means that the various blogging 'n' networking apps will die through lack of use. They may die from other causes - Twitter hasn't made a profit for anyone yet, and nobody seems sure if it ever will. For that reason alone, the plugs may eventually get pulled from the back end. But as long as there's a critical mass of core users, the demise will not occur from the front end.

Everything will just stabilise at a sustainable level, with the core users - the content providers, people who have something to say, who have a positive reason for being there - keeping them going.

LiveJournal and MySpace work for me. They give me a workable format for my irregular, but usually fairly substantial posts (which Facebook and Twitter can't do), and a fairly large base of readers, which is useful when I'm plugging my webzine. That's quite nice to have at all times, of course. If nobody's reading, there's not much point in writing, right? I doubt if I'd get those advantages with other blogging options such as Blogger, which seem a bit too much like shouting into the void to me.

Twitter did not seem to offer me anything essential, so I never went near it. I'm actually rather cynical about the phrase 'Follow me on Twitter!' - an all-purpose slogan that I'm sure was invented to make the Twitter experience seem more exciting than it really is. It's as if they're trying to create the impression of a journey with a destination, rather than an endless round of domestic trivia and other fluff. I always think, Follow you? But you never go anywhere!

But I realise that a few people have found ways to really use Twitter, and all power to them. I think what Amanda Palmer does with Twitter is brilliant - but I suspect she's one of very few users who get something genuinely useful in the real world out of it. Incidentally, she uses Twitter in addition to her substantial and often lengthy blog entries, not as a substitute for them. She knows her horses and her courses.

Some people don't go anywhere near any of the above, of course. They spend all their time on subject-specific forums. For example, there are umpteen Emilie Autumn MySpace fan pages, at least three Emilie Autumn LiveJournals - one is her own, two are fan communities. But as far as I know nothing much has ever happened with them. All the action (and the interaction, and the conversation) is on Emilie's forum, on her own website. It certainly seems to be the place to go to read the words of Emilie Autumn herself.

The deathrock.com forum still seems to be busy, while other deathrock discussion opportunities, like the LiveJournal community, have now gone quiet. Forums do seem to be the one branch of virtual interaction that's often overlooked, but sometimes they do the best business.

Even Usenet is still thriving in places. uk.railway is going strong!

I think it comes down to this. If you've got a real use for these blogs, networks, apps and comms facilities - if you've got something to say, something you want do that needs a particular kind of communication and interaction - you'll naturally gravitate to the place that does the best stuff for you. And you'll make it work.

Otherwise, the trends will come and go. And so will their followers.

Right, then. That's it. Wacky photos of rock stars will return forthwith!

This time, there will be no encore

2009-11-07T11:01:37Z

Fred went to the vet today.

It was a one way trip.

Here he is, in the last hour of his life:

If you compare that photo with the ones I posted here only a few weeks ago, you can see that his tumour had grown alarmingly. He could no longer open his mouth properly: we had to mince his food into a paste, so he could lick it up. The tumour was also pushing his right eye out of its socket - he could no longer close the eye, and it had become infected. He was losing weight, and had stopped taking an interest in anything much. He spent his last days dozing on the bed, occasionally getting up to use his litter tray. Once he'd done so, he no longer had the strength to climb back on the bed.

We decided that rather than wait until his tumour grew so large he could no longer breathe - it was definitely going that way - it would be best to hasten his end while he still had at least the last few shreds of his old good life. We weren't prepared to watch him suffer, and die a painful, drawn-out death. Frankly, I hope someone does me that same favour if I ever need it.

Goodbye, Fred. The best cat ever, and my brilliant friend for over 15 years.

We'll be telling Fred stories for years to come. Did I tell you about the time the postman knocked on my door one morning? But not to deliver a package. He pointed to Fred, who was turning upside down in a sunshine frenzy on the pavement. 'Is that cat all right?' he said, with concern. I had to admit Fred's antics did look rather bizarre, as he wriggled around like a mad thing. 'Oh, yes, he's fine,' I said, 'He's Fred!'

Fred is buried in the back garden. I'm going to grow sunflowers on his grave.

A pint and a fight. A great British night!

2009-11-04T11:12:01Z

Last night I was in Middle Earth to witness what Genesis P-Orridge claimed was the 'last Psychic TV gig in England'. (He didn't say anything about Scotland or Wales, though. National Eisteddfod next year, then, Gen?)

He was also a little taken aback to realise that the venue, the Tabernacle in Notting Hill (Just up the road from the Rough Trade shop) had been, in its hippy incarnation, the location of 60s psychedelic club Middle Earth. 'I used to come down from Birmingham to see Pink Floyd!' sez Gen, before trying to raise the ghost of Syd Barrett:

Someone in the crowd made a crack about his age. 'I'm sixty next year,' retorts Genesis. 'My age has never been a secret. Just the secret of my beauty has!'

The grand finale was an elongated 'Foggy Notion'. The band were told that they had a mere four minutes before curfew time - and proceeded to play their longest song, the guitarist deliberately extending his solo to the point where the other band members began exchanging 'What the fuck is he up to?' glances. And there was a stage invasion, during which two punters - who were, as far as I could tell, completely unknown to each other - began acting out the argument between Candy and Andy in the song. At least, I think they were acting. It did look like quite a convincing fight at times...

Note the 'What do I do about this?' expression on the bouncer's face on the right:

I want to form a band with that girl. Lydia Lunch and Nancy Spungen in one handy package!

If that really was Psychic TV's last show in England, at least the band went out with a bit of traditional British chaos.

F&TM under LEDs

2009-11-03T00:05:00Z

Here come a few photos from the Faith & The Muse gig on Sunday night at Dingwalls. A splendid performance by F&TM themselves, although it's a rather awkward irony that as the F&TM line-up expands (they had no less than nine people on stage) their audience seems to dwindle. I'd estimate the crowd was about 150-ish, which for a band that's generally regarded as one of the bigger acts in goth circles is not a great total at all. I'm tempted to try to get to one of the other gigs on their European tour, just to see how the crowds are holding up elsewhere (Paris, November 26, anyone?)

If present trends continue, next year F&TM will probably appear in the UK with a 97-piece symphony orchestra and the Treorchy Male Voice Choir, and they'll be playing the Betsy Trotwood to three blokes and a whippet.

Anyway, some photos. Monica Richards gazes into the empyrean realm (just down a bit from Chalk Farm):

This is one of the Taiko dancers. Or were they Butoh dancers, and Taiko drums? Don't worry, I'll check this before the review goes up. You'll almost believe I know what I'm on about:

I was going to junk this one because it's just too red for comfort - but the white star on the left (actually the light on the music stand) saves it, I think. Good mohawk action here, anyway:

William Faith's battery operated light-up novelty hairstyle was the hit of the night:

By adopting a winsome tilt of the head, the singer out of RazorBlade Kisses just manages to stop her hat falling off:

This gig might end up being top of the review stack in issue 8 of Nemesis To Go. Then again, there's a Psychic TV gig tomorrow, and if I include that one in issue 8 it'll be top of the stack - which will create a nice balance with the gig-stack in issue 7. But I've already got Throbbing Gristle in issue 8, and I wouldn't want to overload you with too much Genesis P-Orridge in one go.

The editorial committee will have to ponder that one, I think. Back to the one-finger typing marathon, then...

Amanda Palmer, Robert Smith, and the inexplicable something

2009-10-30T09:41:01Z

Amanda Palmer has written an open letter to Robert Smith.

That stark statement sounds a bit ominous, doesn't it? Makes it sound as if she's complaining about something. 'Sir, I note with concern the absence of keyboards in the current Cure line-up...'

Actually, her letter is a rather wonderful treatise on what it's like to be A Fan - a real, shrine-in-the-bedroom, inexplicable-emotional-surges, wildly-impractical-fantasies fan. And how, over the years, fandom wanes...and then, when you least expect it, comes back.

If you've ever been a fan of anyone, if there was ever a time when the posters on your teenage bedroom wall seemed more real to you than the people in the street, you'll know exactly what she's getting at.

I was never a particular devotee of The Cure. I saw them only once, at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1985. They came on, did the hits, and buggered off. It was fine...but I wasn't a fan. However, there were other bands which made that Special Connection for me (remind me to tell you about my teenage bedroom shrine to Debbie Harry), so I know of what she speaks.

Being all grown up now, I no longer have shrines in my bedroom, or wildly impractical fantasies about rock stars. But I still get involuntary surges of - what? Rock 'n' roll hormones? - when I see a band or hear a song that does that inexplicable something. I hope I never lose that, although there have been times when I wondered if the inexplicable something had upped and left me.

During the seven years I promoted live shows in London, I was constantly up to my neck in band-business, so much so that I did worry that music had simply become work to me, rather than something to enjoy. Even now, I can't go to a club just for fun. I spent seven years ruthlessly flyering London clubs, to the point when even today I get twitchy and out of sorts if I find myself in a club without something to do. I've met people in the music biz who have gone completely like that - record label proprietors, other promoters, music writers, who don't actually seem to like music much. You just can't imagine them putting on a CD or going to a gig simply because they want to.

Amanda Palmer confesses she went that way in the years she's been working at her own music. But one night in the desert earlier this year, Robert Smith pulled her back from the brink, and reaquainted her with the inexplicable something. Good old Bob, eh?

And so, Amanda Palmer wrote a letter to Robert Smith. You can read it at her MySpace blog or on her website. Two different fonts, same content. (By the way, in case you go there and think 'Is that it?', the piece of paper she's holding up in the photo is not actually the letter. Scroll down to read the real words.)

Incidentally, Amanda Palmer also offers her services as a keyboard player for The Cure. Given that the band does seem to need one right now - how about it, Bob?

Frock 'n' roll (slight return)

2009-10-28T10:33:34Z

Tea up!

Now I know just why Franz Schubert
Didn't finish his unfinished symphony
He might have written more but the clock struck four
And everything stops for tea

Emilie Autumn: Friday March 12 at the 02 Academy Islington.

Time to get yer best frock pressed...

Names are for tombstones, baby

2009-10-27T10:33:57Z

One of my more whimsical pastimes is collecting good and bad band names. Just in my head, you understand: I don't keep notebooks or anything. That would be silly. But I was just looking down the London Gigs list, and I think I've found a few new ones to add to my collection....

Good band names

Dinosaur Pile-up
Personal Space Invaders
One Man Destruction Show (brings the house down, I'm sure)
Japandroids
Cats And Cats And Cats
We Were Promised Jetpacks
North Sea Radio Orchestra

....and my favourite from the entire list:

Ringo Deathstarr

Bad band names

Pinky Doodle Poodle (What are they? Five?)
The Shitty Limits (One of those hostage-to-fortune names. It's too easy to say, 'Yes, you certainly are.')

I don't think any of the above trump my all-time fave band name: Velocity Kendal. That one probably won't mean much to anyone who doesn't know the source, but not only is it a nice pun, the word 'velocity' hints at a band that play it fast and no messin', but have a slightly intellectual humour about them, too. I never saw this band (they were around the Bull & Gate type venue circuit for a while in the 90s) so I don't know what they were actually like. They could've been sludge metal for all I know.

For a long time my worst band name ever was...Sportsbra. It just conjures up an image of something dumpy, boringly practical, probably in beige. The name doesn't have the slightest shred of enticing glamour or intriguing humour. Mind you, I dare say there are people out there who have sports bra festishes. They probably thought it was great.

Recently, however, I discovered a new all-time worst band name: Favours For Sailors. That one probably sounded brilliant when the band was batting potential names around in the pub. In the cold light of day it's just....blimmin' awful. In this case I have seen the band, and they are the most tediously forgettable alterno-indie-lad-rock combo you could ever suffer. I remember the guitarist was wearing brown tasselled loafers, too. Brown tasselled loafers! Game over, as far as I'm concerned.

A good name won't save a bad band, but a bad name can be a hurdle for a good band to climb over. Death Cigarettes recently changed their name to Cold In Berlin, which is a slight improvement, although it does make them sound like they should play frowny Krautrock, or something.

Best to get it right first time, that's the advice I'd give to bands. And think about your footwear options, too, kids.

Stick it up your diary

2009-10-26T07:53:18Z

Here's a new thing:

As you might guess even without clicking that banner (and you'll certainly find out if you do) this is London Gigs, a new one-stop guide to live music in London.

You might wonder why we need a London gig guide, when we've already got the likes of Time Out, the NME, and various other event listing resources. But the trouble with these is that they're often a bit of a fart-about to use, and tend to be biased towards the big names and the big shows.

Let's see if I can prove my point by testing the two big ones...

The NME gig guide doesn't even have an intuitive link on the NME website these days - it now lurks behind the word 'Tickets' which takes you to a ticket-selling page for various big names. The actual gig guide is behind another link, as if it's not all that important (which, in today's celebs 'n' stars driven NME, it probably isn't).

When you eventually get there, you'll find a UK-wide guide with - again - a bias towards the big names. Last night I tried it out by putting 'London' into the search box to filter out a London only list - and the top few entries included upcoming shows by ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, and Mel C out of the Spice Girls. Not what you'd call cutting edge stuff, and probably not even appropriate for the NME gig guide (I imagine the NME's sales to the Bee Gees fanbase are pretty minimal). Being a kindly soul, I gave the NME the benefit of the doubt and searched for 'Lydia Lunch', who I know has a London gig in the works. The search came up blank. Well, so much for the NME.

Time Out is still a good bet for general London stuff, but of course Time Out isn't just a London publication any more. The first thing you do when you go to the Time Out website is choose your city - from a list that includes Berlin, Boston, Rome, Israel (which isn't actually a city, something Time Out seems a little confused about), Edinburgh, Vancouver, Moscow, Beijing, and Kuala Lumpur.

Still in test mode, I selected 'London'. Then I clicked on 'Music', and was faced with...er, a photo of Robbie Williams. The gig guide itself is behind yet another link. Once there, it seems pretty comprehensive, and certainly includes the kind of noiseniks I'm interested in. But it also lists the likes of Shakin' Stevens and Fleetwood Mac (75 quid at Wembley Arena? I don't think so!) So, too much hassle to get there, and still too much excess baggage - and, incidentally, no Lydia Lunch gig, either.

It seems there's a vacancy for a simple click-and-you're-there London gig guide that filters out the easy listening, but does include the interesting stuff, the noisy stuff, the weird stuff, the obscure stuff, the underground stuff - and Lydia Lunch. That's what London Gigs is all about. It's very new, but there's already lots listed - including several gigs I didn't know about, but hastily scribbled on my calendar as soon as I spotted them. Who knew The Legendary Pink Dots are playing soon? I didn't - but that one's on my personal list now.

A few gigs are flagged up as particularly interesting. You can see which gigs are recommended by zines such as The Organ, Suba Cultcha and, er, Nemesis To Go. Yes, you can have a good laugh at the kind of 'orrible rackets I think are worth your attention. But overall I think this site does the business. If you're a London gig-goer, I'd say it's a good idea to go here first.

If you're a band, a promoter, or a venue with upcoming events you'd like to see listed on the site, or even if you just happen to know about a gig or two that's looming up, by all means submit the details. As I said up there, this is a new thing and there will inevitably be a few gaps until everything gets into its stride. If you spot a gap, or if you have some extra info relating to the gigs already there, or if you see a correction that needs to be made, there's a handy email link for you to shove in the info. The more info that gets shoved in, the better the gig guide becomes...

Don't send stuff to me, because apart from contributing a few bits and pieces of info that I happen to know, and recommending one or two particularly interesting gigs (in my head, anyway), London Gigs is nuffin' to do with me. All the contacts are on the site itself.

Oh, and that Lydia Lunch gig? Saturday November 7 at the Lexington. The only reason it's not one of my recommendations is that the Organ recommended it first!

The loneliness of the long-distance fanzine proprietor

2009-10-23T22:55:21Z

I am presently spending every spare moment staring boss-eyed into a cheap and not particularly hi-rez monitor screen, trying to bash issue 8 of Nemesis To Go into a fit state for public consumption.

There's nothing technically difficult about this. All I'm doing is filling up my blank page templates with content. But generating that content takes umpteen hours of one-finger typing, not to mention a certain amount of brain-cudgelling to make sure that I'm writing stuff that is appropriately pithy and at least intermittently witty. There's nothing worse than reading reviews that amount to worthy-but-dull waffle - there's a lot of that stuff around in the world of music writing (both online and off) and I hope I manage to steer clear of it. You'll be the judge of that, of course...

Then again, according to my stats, I always get significantly more hits on the photos than on the words, which seems to indicate that most people don't read any of my deathless deathrock prose at all. They just go straight to the pix. Well, that's fair enough (he says, through gritted teeth). But the photos are an equal part of it, too. In fact, it almost takes longer to assemble a good range of new photos for each issue of my zine than it does to write the words - hours of desperate photoshopping to try to improve my crummy, grainy, under-lit photos taken at stupid venues which think that feebly glimmering LEDs represent adequate stage lighting.

Sometimes, I've junked whole reviews because I don't have decent photos to go with them. The other day I went to see Cold In Berlin (Death Cigarettes, as was) in the traditional poorly-lit back room of an East End bar. Frustratingly, the venue seemed to have plenty of expensive lighting kit, none of which was used properly on the night. It seemed they'd just pushed the faders up to 'dim' and walked away from the control desk.

Anyway, my photos were poor, and I decided to bin the idea of reviewing that gig and wait for Cold In Berlin to play somewhere where they actually bother to switch the lights on. There was a photographer at the gig with a large and impressive professional camera, but even his photos are basically green and purple shapes looming in the darkness - quite arty, I suppose, but they certainly don't capture the energy and fire of the band. (And what this one is supposed to be is anyone's guess).

This time I've got an extra problem in the photo department. I'm using a hastily-purchased flat-screen monitor which was the cheapest one I could find on the web. It probably wasn't the greatest idea to buy the cheapest monitor (or are Acer monitors generally regarded as a bit crap?) - but anyway, I'm finding it quite difficult to judge whether my photos are coming up well or not.

I've put a few random photos in this post (you may have noticed this already). If you think they look a bit odd, that's probably because they were Photoshopped on my cheapo monitor and I couldn't see what I was doing. I'm going to look at this post on other computers over the next few days, to see how they've turned out. Meanwhile, if you think the pix aren't quite right on your monitor, let me know and I'll...erm, swear profusely, I expect.

It occurs to me that if I was a proper music mag I'd probably have an entire team doing all this. Several people writing the words, several people taking the pix. Someone else to lay out the pages and make sure it all looks good. Several layers of technical people to make it work. If my monitor went on the blink, I'd call IT and put my feet up while they fixed it. PR people would queue up to give me stuff. I'd have my people call their people, and we'd do lunch.

Even webzines seem to be made mob-handed these days. I was just looking at the credits for God Is In The TV. Now, I'll grant you I'm not comparing like with like - GIITTV a very mainstream publication, which majors on exactly the same artists you read about everywhere else. If you really, really want yet another interview with Florence And Her Annoyingly Omnipresent Machine, or you unaccountably can't find any details of the new Ian Brown single anywhere else in the music media, be assured that GIITTV will fill you in. But the credits page lists an editor and no less than eight sub-editors.

I suspect 'sub-editor' is basically GIITTV's term for 'contributor' - they can't all be editors, surely, otherwise the zine would be all chiefs and no Indians. Still, that's a lot of staff. If they divvy up the tasks roughly equally, nobody's going to be overworked.

Meanwhile, my credits list looks something like this:

Uncle N - Everything.

Well, I shouldn't complain. I started up my webzine because I wanted to; I keep on rolling out the new issues because I want to. If I ever stop wanting to, I'll stop doing the zine, and I don't see that day on the horizon just yet. But sometimes I wish it wasn't all me.

Right. Break over. Time to plunge back in...

Amsterdam Untourist

2009-10-20T22:52:56Z

Looking back over my posts here, I see that I didn't put up any of my souvenir photos from Amsterdam a while back. In fact, I can't even remember if I mentioned the trip to Amsterdam.

Well, let me put that right. Postcards from Amsterdam now follow...

Here's how we got there. If I'd been a bit more on the ball I would've booked the ferry out and the train back, via Brussels, thus turning the trip into a circular tour. Next time, maybe.

Here's the North Sea, as seen from the good ship Stena Hollandica. The lights on the horizon are container ships bound for Rotterdam - there's so much shipping on the North Sea you could almost walk across, stepping from ship to ship:

From Hoek Van Holland (that's Dutch for 'Hook Of Holland') we took a Sprinter Trein (that's Dutch for 'Sprinter Train') to Rotterdam. Then we took a Sneltrein (that's Dutch for, erm, Snel Train) to Amsterdam Centraal (which is - stop me if you're ahead of me here - Dutch for 'Amsterdam Central').

Here is the roof of the station - look carefully and you'll see banners depicting hanging men dangling from the steelwork. Now, what's all that about? These Duch are crazy!

Amsterdam is a city built on a swamp. A swamp below sea level, too. Why the good people of the Netherlands decided to establish a city on such an unpromising site is a mystery - I mean, it can't even be an 'It seemed like a good idea at the time' thing, since building a city on a swamp below sea level is patently not a good idea at any time. Amsterdam has been gently subsiding into the primeval ooze ever since.

Look at the building on the right in the photo below. This was originally flush with its neighbours, and, at ground level, still is. It's gradually tilted forward as its foundations have shifted - a fine example of what happens when you build on mud. I don't know why they never had the idea to tie the buildings together, so the entire terrace becomes one unit and the buildings keep each other up - or at least all go down together. There are wonky buildings like this all over the place, and this, of course, is one of the reasons Amsterdam is such a picturesque city. Long may it not fall down, say I. Bet their insurance premiums are a bit stiff, mind:

Amsterdam is famous for its exotic and luxurious hotels. This is not one of them:

Tempting though it was to stay at the Hotel Croydon, simply because it's called the Hotel Croydon, we didn't. We actually stayed at the...

...Hotel Nadia, which was a splendidly eccentric establishment - completely renovated in 2004, they proudly boast. What they don't tell you is that the hotel was apparently renovated in the style of a 1960s seaside B&B, so everything is neat and clean but ever so slightly odd, as if you're trapped in the film set of of Withnail And I Go On Holiday, or something. The bathroom was the smallest space I think I've ever occupied without accessing the fourth dimension.

Here's a nearby street scene. The hotel is at the far end of the buildings on the left - under the pointy-hat roof. The picture in the foreground shows Nazi troops entering Amsterdam in 1940. The reason it's there is to show that this street has not changed at all from then to now - an astonishing piece of survival, since it's not a specially preserved historic location, or anything. Only the cars have become a bit more sleek (and more numerous):

Here's some non-motorised traffic. There's probably a really witty caption for this photo, based around a punning reference to Amsterdam's gay scene - but you make it up. My mind's gone blank:

I think it's fair to say the owner of the bicycle in the photo below doesn't get much use out of it. There are actually two bikes here - both have been chained to the fence so long that they've become covered in ivy. The funniest thing is the sign - itself vanishing under the vegetation - which prohibits bicycle parking:

It seems Claude Monet has lost his cat:

Metal monster:

Of course, one of the prime attractions of Amsterdam - certainly for British people who just aren't happy unless they're on a binge - is that it's legal to smoke DRUGS in certain approved establishments. In common with most countries now, the Netherlands has banned smoking in public places - but the legislation only covers tobacco. So we have the ironic situation that while it's perfectly legal to sit in an Amsterdam coffee shop all day sucking down heavy-duty skunk until you fall over, if you spark up a normal cigarette you're an instant criminal.

To get around the tobacco ban, the coffee shops lay on a free supply of their own, erm, 'special herbs' (which aren't special in that way - you've got to pay for the really special stuff) to use as bulking material for your joint in the absence of tobacco. But it seems there's no control over what these 'special herbs' actually are (lawn clippings? Wood shavings? Hair fished out of the bath plughole?) - so how do you know that the stuff you're stuffing in your spliff isn't more harmful than tobacco?

Anyway, here's a sign that makes it all perfectly clear. Please memorise all this - you'll be quizzed on it after a couple of spliffs:

I tried to find some funny food, as is traditional whenever I go a-travelling, but I'm afraid Amsterdam is a very sensible food city. The best I can do is this menu, which offers diners the option of 'Mayo-Ketchup-Unions'. I think I'll have a dollop of General, Municipal, & Boilermakers, thanks, with the Transport & General Workers on the side:

And here's a strangely masochistic hot dog, stabbing himself in the head with the tomato sauce:

We leave Amsterdam now, with some wise words concerning fruit location from Laser 314. The fruit is not where it's supposed to be, apparently. Nor is your H, Laser, mate:

Come back Captain Sensible, all is forgiven

2009-10-20T10:58:36Z

Yesterday I was in my local Aldi (Best Supermarket of 2009, I'll have you know). The checkout queue was suddenly held up by a disgruntled customer who was trying to return a complete box (10 1kg packets) of long grain rice he'd previously purchased and taken home.

Guess what his complaint about the long grain rice was...?

It wasn't long enough.

Well, that was certainly one of those 'Is it me, or has the world gone utterly arsewitted?' moments. It's at times like this that the loopy world of rock 'n' roll seems positively sane.

So, let's have some examples of sanity from a few recent gigs. Here's Ari Up of The Slits, playing bass in a completely sensible fashion:

Peter Murphy serenades the ceiling in a perfectly level-headed manner (nice mini-hoodie, by the way, Pete):

Lettie multi-tasking live on stage, in an entirely reasonable way:

Rachel out of KASMs has a nice rest - and why not? It's always wise to take a break now and then, don't you think?

While Sarah the drummer out of Wetdog clearly won't tolerate any nonsense. Look, she's put her foot down. Er, up. Well, the thought is there:

These photos are just a few excerpts from my recent raw-material trawl which I am now attempting, in a very sober and rational fashion, to turn into a webzine...

However, I think I'll have to interrupt my work in order to return this packet of pasta twists I bought from the supermarket the other day. I've just noticed - and you can imagine my unspeakable horror here, I'm sure - that they twist the wrong way.

Ice cream for crow

2009-10-17T09:44:21Z

Here's a little something I found via the Organ zine, your number one news source for the latest goings-on in the intertwined worlds of rock 'n' roll and ice cream...

It seems someone's marketing a punk rock ice cream, with packaging that looks a bit Sex Pistols-esque. This has not gone down well with the Pistols themselves.

The Sex Pistols are threatening to sue an ice cream maker who is selling an ice cream cocktail called The Sex Pistol, and who is using the strapline 'God Save The Cream', often displayed over a picture of the queen to mimic the cover to the punk outfit's 'God Save The Queen' single. The company, Icecreamists, have set up a stall in Selfridges, and describe their ice cream based products as being "more Sid & Nancy than Ben & Jerry".

I'm not sure the reference to Sid & Nancy is a great selling point, you know. I mean, when I see those names I think of dingy hotel rooms, blood on the sheets, bad drugs and bad lives. It certainly doesn't make me think, 'Hey! Gotta have me a cool 'n' refreshing ice cream!'

Still, it's all good publicity, innit. I mean, I'd never heard of the Icecreamists before, but now I have. You can't beat a bit of controversy when it comes to publicity, as the Sex Pistols know very well. The Icecreamists website, by the way, is here. Looks more death metal than punk to me. They've obviously spent quite a lot of money on an uber-conceptual website that, when the Flash intro finally stops loading, basically amounts to a link page for Twitter and Farcebook. Is that all websites are these days? It hardly seems worth it!

Anyway. In other tenuously-related Sex Pistols news, last night I witnessed Johnny Rotten's stepdaughter taking her knickers off approximately three feet from my face. No ice cream was involved - but there was a banana. I might have some photos from the evening's entertainment later...

New adventures in the true cult of Heavy Metal

2009-10-08T07:04:44Z

The woman in WH Smith gave me a very odd look, but then I suppose it's not often she gets a customer who buys both Heritage Railway and Terrorizer magazines.

I'm not a regular reader of Terrorizer, journal of the 'True Cult Of Heavy Metal', as it proclaims on the front. I think the last time I bought Tezza (er, we do call it Tezza, don't we?) it claimed to be an 'Extreme Music' magazine, which seemed to mean that occasional reviews of The Prodigy would incongruously crop up amid otherwise wall-to-wall metal mayhem. Quite why Terrorizer thought that the Prodge - basically a boisterous pop group, let's face it - counted as 'extreme' while real extremists such as Whitehouse or Merzbow never got a look in was always a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it's just as well the mag has reverted to its heavy metal heartland these days. Stick with what you know, and all that.

But what does Terrorizer know about goth? That's a more pertinent question than you might think. A few months after Artrocker and the NME decided that goth was A Good Thing After All and slapped copious quantities of goff-stuff all over their covers and content, Terrorizer has made its own pitch for the black pound.

The latest issue of Terrorizer comes with a free goth mag entitled - without, it must be said, an over-abundance of imagination - Dominion.

Dominion is a very slim magazine-ette. It's edited and mostly written by Terrorizer's goth correspondent Joy Lasher, whose name always sounds to me like something you'd buy from the toy shelf at Skin Two, along with spare batteries and a supply of KY Jelly. But don't run away with the idea that we're on some sort of fetish tip here. Dominion comes at goth from the metal angle, which is just as you'd expect, given the territory of its mother-mag. But it majors on Northern European metal, which is slightly more curious.

The stars of the big features are Finnish glammies-turned-cheesy-gothies The 69 Eyes, and Norwegian gothic-metallers-turned-ever-so-slightly-pop Theatre Of Tragedy. Norwegian swords 'n' sorcery merchants Leaves' Eyes keep the end up for the elves, not to mention the Norwegian tourist board. 'The magic of Norway, with its majestic fjords, vibant folklore and breathtaking natural beauty...' begins the piece, as if writer Kim Kelly was under the impression she was knocking out blurb for a holiday brochure. By the end of the article she'd almost convinced me to book a cruise. Meanwhile, in a rare concession to music made in countries that don't border the arctic circle, Dutch symphonic-metal outfit Epica get half a page of text in which the word 'Helluva' is used without the slightest shred of irony. Only in the metal scene!

Oddly enough, Terrorizer itself features a big piece on those stalwart British daddies of dour, Paradise Lost, which surely should have been the lead piece for the Dominion pull-out. When goth-metal growlers like Paradise Lost don't get into the goth supplement, but entirely un-gothic symphonic metal bands like Epica do, you wonder just how these things are put together. How on earth do they make decisions at Terrorizer HQ? Rune casting? Toss of a coin? Poohsticks?

Fortunately, elsewhere, Dominion broadens its content - and, refreshingly, does actually acknowledge the existence of the underground, which neither the NME or Artrocker did. There are smaller, but compared to the metal stuff probably more pertinent, pieces on Maleficent, The Eden House, 45 Grave and Psydoll, among others. 'Better stock up on the pocky' says the Psydoll piece. Pocky? Isn't that a Medieval skin disease? I'm sure the Terrorizer-reading kewl kidz will instantly understand what's going on there, but I fear they've lost me. Look, I read Heritage Railway magazine. What do I know?

The CD reviews cover the likes of VNV Nation (erm, their former record label was Dependent, not Dependence), Screaming Banshee Aircrew, Fangs On Fur, and Kirlian Camera. This last is a masterclass in writing around the subject, rather than about the subject: the review ranges widely over the band's allegedly dodgy politics, the singer's two side projects, and the longevity of Clan Of Xymox before finally seeing off the CD itself in a compact 38 words, these including the band name and album title. Me, I can't do that round-the-houses stuff. Maybe that's why I'm not a music journalist. However, I do know that Kirlian Camera were not 'once dismissed as an Italian band' - they are an Italian band!

There's a page of lifestyle accessories, a news piece on goths going green (it's the mildew, I tell you) and a mere three live reviews, which frankly seems a bit will-this-do, especially as the live circuit is very much the engine room of everything these days. But I shouldn't gripe: this is, after all, issue one. I dare say things will shake down a bit in future issues.

Personally, I'd like to see the metal content ruthlessly pruned (there's a whole other magazine for that - what's it called? Oh yes, that's right: Terrorizer) and everything else expanded. There's a lot going on in the goth-ish world that never gets much attention from the UK media, and in spite of Dominion's if-in-doubt-default-back-to-metal approach, the mag seems to have more of a handle on what's happening than most. I don't quite know if Dominion is going to be a regular thing, but it deserves to be given a proper run.

There is, in fact, a distinct lack of detail regarding Dominion's future. Terrorizer editor Louise Brown mentions that 'We've produced an extra magazine, Dominion, designed for all those who decadently devour the night...' (nice alliteration there). This sounds encouraging until you realise she hasn't said anything about whether there will be another one. The Dominion MySpace page does use the words 'The first issue...' but that doesn't mean there will be a second issue.

Well, I hope there will be a second issue. And a third, and a fourth, and more. The best way to ensure that, of course, is to buy this one. And then lay siege to the MySpace page, so they know they've got some interest out there.

I get the impression that at present Dominion is clinging to metal stuff like a nervous swimmer clings to his polystyrene float, convinced he'll instantly drown if he lets go. But there's potential here. I hope Terrorizer is bold enough to stand back and let Dominion roll. It could end up going somewhere rather interesting.

Now. Would you like to know what's in this month's Heritage Railway?

The riff's second hand, we stole from The Damned

2009-10-07T07:52:41Z

Indie kids of a certain vintage might like to note the return to the fray of I, Ludicrous, who were mildy famous a few years ago as a kind of second-eleven version of Half Man Half Biscuit.

One of their new songs is a work of observational comedy genius. Have a listen to 'We're The Support Band' on their MySpace page. I've seen quite a few support bands just like that. In my showbiz days, I probably booked few, too...

Edit this

2009-10-05T07:50:30Z

Is it me, or does Papillon, the new single by the Editors, sound like VNV Nation if Ronan Harris could sing?

I'm sure outraged fans of Contemporary European Electronic Dance will tell me, in precise and pedantic detail, exactly why the Editors track is completely different to anything VNV Nation have ever done, and to draw comparisons is a pernicious falsehood - but have a listen to the track. You'll see what I mean.

Quite apart from the to-and-fro synth line, which is somehow utterly 1999, I can't get over that little tickety-tock drum machine flourish which crops up at the end of the chorus. That's so...bedroom. I assume the Editors are well supplied with major label recording budgets and technology and all, so the reason this tune sounds like a slice of home-made EBM-angst is because they want it to be that way. How very odd.

(Try out the 'Tiesto Remix' on the band's MySpace page, too - that one sounds like Apoptygma Berzerk!)

The album from which all this comes is called 'In This Light And On This Evening', which sounds like the title of one of those godawful MOR compilations that come out around Valentine's day, always stuffed with mush such as Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight' and Chris de Bergh's 'Lady In Red'. God only knows what the Editors were thinking of there.

I worry about our modern pop stars sometimes, you know.

Fred in unexpected encore

2009-10-03T07:33:26Z

Fred: 1994 (possibly) - Not Dead Yet (definitely)

Yesterday, I made a post here to the effect that our No. 1 cat, Fred, was missing...presumed dead. He has cancer; and when he vanished last Sunday and didn't come back, we feared the worst.

Guess what?

He came back.

I took this photo just a few minutes ago. Here's Fred having his Saturday morning lie-in:

Actually, Fred didn't really come back - I had to fetch him back. Like so many incidents in Fred's life, there is a story attached.

Yesterday, shortly after I'd made my post about Fred being missing, we thought we'd better ring up the vet and cancel his Saturday get-his-tumour-looked-at appointment. "We can't bring Fred in," we said. "He's vanished - we think he may be dead." "Oh, no, he's not dead," sez the vet. "He's in Putney."

Some might say there's not much difference. But - wait a minute - Putney? How did he get there?

I rushed off to the Putney Animal Hospital, where Fred had ended up. There, I learned the story. Someone had seen Fred last Sunday walking along a neighbouring street - no more than about 200 yards from his own home. They had assumed he was a stray cat, scooped him up, and carted him off to the RSPCA. The RSPCA had noticed his tumour (you can't really miss it) and had put Fred in hospital. Fortunately, they'd also scanned him and got his vet details from his microchip. That's how our vet knew where he was.

Apprarently the RSPCA had tried to phone us directly. As it happens we did a call from the RSPCA just recently - but I thought it was a telephone chugger and wouldn't talk to them. Of course, I now feel terribly guilty about that. Fortunately, Fred doesn't seem to hold it against me.

Well, I went to get Fred. He was pleased to see me (in a "Well, you took your time" manner) and he is none the worse for his adventure. When he came home, he went straight out onto the roof from where he'd disappeared on Sunday, as if he was carrying on where he left off:

Thank you to everyone who said nice things when we thought Fred might be dead. Of course, he's still living on borrowed time - he's a 15 year old cat with cancer, and one day he really will be dead. But...not just yet. And I'll apply the rule of Habeas Corpus if Fred disappears again!

I reckon he's currently on Life No. 8.5 and counting. But that last 0.5 certainly doesn't contain a dull moment.

Later this morning he's going to the vet, for that get-his-tumour-looked-at appointment. Fred doesn't know this yet. As soon as the cat box comes out I bet he'll be wearing an 'Oh no, not again!' expression...

Fred takes his leave

2009-10-02T07:20:17Z

Fred: 1994 (possibly) - 2009 (probably)

If you follow my occasional cat posts here, you'll know that our No. 1 cat, Fred, was diagnosed with cancer-of-somewhere-near-the-jawbone a few months ago.

Not that this seemed to bother him - he carried on living his usual full life, just with an increasingly large tumour growing out of the side of his head. But recently - literally within a matter of days - the tumour seemed to put on a spurt of growth, and I wondered how much longer he could hold out.

The photo above was taken in August; the photo below just a few days ago at the end of September. You can see the difference. His right ear and eye were being pushed out of position, and the tumour was starting to show on top of his head. I could only guess at what was hapening inside his head...

Last Sunday morning, Fred woke up, and then went out on the flat roof below the window and sat in the sun for a while, as he often does. He went off somewhere across the roofs...and we haven't seen him since.

We suspect his tumour reached some sort of sudden crisis point. Somewhere out there, he died. We've asked around the neighbours, but nobody has seen him. We have to assume he's gone.

Here he is, in early September, looking distinctly unimpressed by my attempts to build a ladder rack on my Land Rover:

In a way, I'm relieved it ended this way. I was dreading that final trip to the vet. I'm comforted by the thought that Fred died in his familiar haunts, living his usual life. And it's a very Fred-esque way to go - because we found Fred, as a lost kitten, on the street. Nobody claimed him, nobody knew where he came from. And now nobody knows where he's gone. His departure was as mysterious as his arrival.

I'm just grateful for the years in between.

What are we doing here?

2009-09-26T16:42:04Z

Well, I'm not having a super fun Saturday. I'll tell you why below. But first, I think I'll post a video here to cheer myself up.

Last night at the ICA I saw Pere Ubu doing ART. It was good. In fact it was slightly scary and hilarious at the same time - but it was not at all rock 'n' roll. So here's a video of the band with their rock 'n' roll hats on, because I feel like rockin' my cares away...

This is Pere Ubu performing their almost-hit 'Waiting For Mary' on Night Music - a US TV music 'n' chat show, apparently similar to our own Later With Jools Holland. Instead of a genial boogie-woogie pianist, this show was hosted by a genial jazz saxophonist, David Sanborn. He and his band would jam with the rock star guests, which explains why there are a few people on stage here who aren't actually members of Pere Ubu (look out for Debbie Harry on backing vocals).

I can't decide whether David Sanborn's squawking sax enhances the song...or buggers it up. If you know the original, compare and contrast. That first growling bass note (by a mystery bassist: presumably one of Sanborn's band) is rather good, though. Oh, and this was 1989. Non-ironic eighties hairstyles were still obviously The Thing on American TV. Beware the mullets!

Anyway. I like Pere Ubu for many reasons. For the ART, and for...this:

Well, that's quite cheered me up. David Thomas has not become any less manic between then and now, by the way.

And now, the woe. This morning I set off at the crack of 9 a.m. to travel across London to a certain garage in Wanstead where my Land Rover has been having its electrics fixed and its rust holes patched.

Wanstead is in the top-right corner of London. I live in the bottom-left corner of London. But hey, with our super-efficient London Overground urban rapid transit service (otherwise known as the Crosstown Zoom) at my disposal, crossing London on the diagonal is a doddle, right?

It was a doddle right up to Gospel Oak station, whence I beheld the stark legend that strikes terror into the heart of every traveller:

RAIL REPLACEMENT BUSES

I spent the next hour sitting in a bus. The bus spent that hour sitting in a traffic jam. I arrived too late: the garage was closed. It won't be open again until 8.30 Monday morning. All I can do is make sure I'm there at opening time (I'll have to bloody well start my journey on Sunday night, obviously), offer profuse apologies for my Saturday no-show, and hope the bloke doesn't charge me extra for having my Land Rover cluttering up his yard for two days.

And things were going so well up to that point.

I know what you're going to say: why didn't I choose a garage closer to where I live? To which I reply....erm, don't ask awkward questions!

Gig hier; gig aujourd'hui

2009-09-25T11:05:54Z

French is a funny language. It's as if, sometimes, it runs out of words, and has to fall back on convoluted conceptual descriptions. The French for 'today' - aujourd'hui - literally translates as 'At the day of today' which is surely a case of going round les maisons to say something simple.

All of which has nothing to do with the fact that last night I witnessed the Screaming Banshee Aircrew giving it the full post-punk palaver at the Purple Turtle. A 'gig off' for me. No photos, no review...apart from the stuff I'm writing here.

Perhaps more pertinently, given that the SBA have come up via the goth scene route, this was a non-goth scene gig. Sure enough the goth scene crowd - the usual faces who normally show to just about any 'scene' event almost regardless of which bands are playing - was conspicuous by its absence.

That was an interesting phenomenon in itself, which I think bears out my contention that the goth scene is basically a social circle: a relatively small bunch of friends, friends-of-friends, aquaintances and familiar faces, who attend events arranged for, and marketed to, exactly that social circle. But they seldom step out of that circle. Since the SBA played the Purple Turtle only a few weeks back, in a fairly standard Flag Promotions goth-slot, the comparison between that gig and this gig is inevitable.

Friday August 28: Screaming Banshee Aircrew play a goth scene gig at the Purple Turtle, pitched by Flag Promotions to the bespoke goth scene crowd. Practically all of the goth scene turns up.

Thursday September 24: Screaming Banshee Aircrew play a non-goth scene gig at the Purple Turtle, pitched by Glasswerk to the alternorock crowd. Practically none of the goth scene turns up.

Conclusion: to the goth scene, the scene is more important than the music. Which is my point of departure, of course, because for me the music is more important than the scene.

I'm sure all of this is no great revelation for the Screaming Banshee Aircrew. They know that any chance of success lies with attracting a wide audience that is genuinely interested in what the band do, rather than relying on a scene-crowd that isn't interested in anything much except the scene. So more gigs like last night are probably the way forward.

Although, in another way, I'd say gigs like last night probably aren't quite the way forward. The SBA found themselves gamely waving their new wave banner amid a bunch of reactionary old rockers who all seemed to have opened the instruction book at 'worthy but dull'. The second band on was a real endurance test for me. Just because Muse have become quite big now, it seems any old bunch of prog-metal beardy-scruffbags has assumed a spurious cool by association. Result: the gig circuit gets cluttered up with bloody awful bedroom-proggers who have hopped on the Muse bandwagon. Well, they can ruddy well hop right off again, if you ask me. And that's swearing.

Still, last night the SBA turned it on in fine style, and even won over the beardy prog heads. They've nailed the new wave to their own weird wall (hmm, good phrase there, I'll be using that again!) and the results are rather good. If they were a random band that I'd caught by chance at the Dice Club or somewhere like that, I'd be raving about this brilliant bunch of glam-punk dynamos. What the hell, I am raving about this brilliant bunch of glam-punk dynamos. Now they just need to play the Dice Club...

And so to The Day Of Today, as the French put it.

I discovered via a MySpace bulletin this morning that Pere Ubu [link goes to the band's dog's breakfast text-o-rama website] are playing the ICA tonight (September 25). They kept that one pretty quiet: if it hadn't been for that bulletin I would never have known this gig was on. This proves that MySpasm does have a practical use after all.

Advance tickets are still on sale - it's a tickets-held-on-the-door deal, so you can buy more or less right up to showtime.

Apparently Pere Ubu will play songs from Bring Me The Head Of Ubu Roi, their musical adaption of the Alfred Jarry play from whence the band took its name. So it may not be a normal rockin'-the-hits Pere Ubu gig. There may be outbreaks of ART.

Outbreaks of ART are fine by me, but I cherish the hope that Pere Ubu will throw in Final Solution as an encore. Some days, that's my all-time favourite song. Aujourd'hui just might be one of those days.

Jah Wobbles but he don't fall down

2009-09-19T09:46:26Z

It's rare that I'll read a book from cover to cover in one go, but I've just done that with Jah Wobble's autobiography. It arrived yesterday afternoon. By midnight I'd seen it off.

So, what's it like, I hear you ask. Well...

Fresh off the press (Wobble says he wrote the book just after his Chinese Dub tour) the book takes us from Wobble's birth in the bomb-scarred badlands of London's East End right up to his present-day life as the much-respected maverick of experimental bass grooves...and resident of the Manchester suburbs, where he now lives as a contented family man. But Wobble's journey from London to Manchester, from the riotous days of punk rock to suburban bliss, has certainly been via the scenic route.

At the risk of employing the kind of cliché that Wobble himself would abhor, it's a rollercoaster ride, and, like many autobiographies, it speeds up as it goes along.

There are meticulous chronicles of Wobble's childhood, his punk rock teenage tearaway years, and his early excursions into music with Public Image Limited [that link goes to the new, official, PiL site: try the Fodderstompf fan site for much more info]. We get detailed accounts of particular events that took place at studio sessions and gigs - Wob is assisted in his detailed recall by the fact that PiL hardly played live at this time, of course. There's plenty of rock 'n' roll bad behaviour, too. Certain pages of the book are positively awash with booze - Wobble ended up as a pretty serious alcoholic, and his battle to reform himself is an affecting theme that runs through much of his story.

My favourite bit of mayhem is when Wobble (literally) slaps down Sean Hughes in the Never Mind The Buzzcocks TV studio. Hughes winds Wobble up. Wob warns him he'll get a slap. 'You can't do that, you're spiritual,' says Hughes. 'In an Old Testament sort of way,' sez Wobble, and promptly wades in.

Later, he zips through whole decades at a gallop, leaving out much detail. Entire albums - entire bands - go unmentioned. Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound empire is duly namechecked (we even learn that Wobble and Sherwood 'shared the same dealer', which I'm sure was handy) but there's no mention of the fact that it was Adrian Sherwood who reunited Wobble and original PiL guitarist Keith Levene as members of Dub Syndicate after many years of estrangement.

Levene, in fact, gets short shrift. He's more or less dismissed as a chronic junkie whose best work is far behind him. That may be true - let's face it, Levene has hardly raised his head above the parapet for years. If he does have any creativity left in him, he keeps it well hidden. But Wobble, as ever, doesn't wrap his opinions in tact or namby-pamby politeness. He delivers his views pugnaciously and straight from the shoulder. You should see what he has to say about the people behind WOMAD, when a friend who worked for the organisation introduced him around: 'It was so horribly upper middle class...the impression I got was that the senior people that I met simply assumed that Womad's only black employee had got some cockney bloke in for a chat, and so fucking what.' Wobble later became quite a star of the Womad festivals, so he got the last laugh there, at any rate.

There's also no mention of The Damage Manual, the supergroup put together in 2000 by ex-PiL drummer Martin Atkins, with Wobble on bass and Geordie from Killing Joke on guitar. Perhaps Wobble wanted his book to concentrate on his own bands, his own music - he blips past those post-PiL times when he's played for, or been a member of, other people's bands. But I can't help feeling there are stories here which have not been told, characters who should've got more than a walk-on part. Poor old Martin Atkins, who Wobble seems to get along with quite well in general, is described rather dismissively during the PiL era as 'a young, ambitious drummer on the make', which is a bit rich given that at the time Wobble himself was a young, ambitious bassist on the make.

There are also mistakes - odd glitches which make the reader pause and think, 'Huh? What?' Possibly the most glaring error is the repeated references (including in the index) to the first PiL album as 'First Edition' - it was, as any fule kno, First Issue. Maybe the book was rushed out just a little too quickly - someone really should have nailed that one. Curiously, I just noticed a similar odd error on the biog page on Wobble's website, linked above. The single Bomba (I've got it: it's good) is referred to as 'Bomb 12'. Maybe that's only a typo (it was, after all, a 12" single) but if Wobble wants a proof reader, I'm here to tell him my rates are low. Possibly not as low as 30 Hertz, but down there somewhere.

The book is a bit like sitting in a pub with Wobble, having him bend yer ear about his life. It's somewhat like John Lydon's autobiography in that respect. But while Lydon's book was basically one long aggrieved wail about how the world at large was always wrong and he, Lydon, was always right (I thought the book was like a punk rock Portnoy's Complaint as much as anything), Wobble is much more convivial company. He's ever-ready with a funny story or a self-deprecating aside. He's the kind of bloke you'd like to have a beer with - or, these days, a herbal tea. It's also worth noting that while Lydon's autobiography was actually an extended interview, transcribed by two American music writers, Wobble's book is the real thing. He wrote the lot himself.

It's just a pity he's not part of the recently reformed Public Image Limited. Quite apart from his definitive bass sound, I reckon the looming presence of Jah Wobble would liven things up no end.

AFP encore

2009-09-14T11:23:40Z

Last night I was at Amanda Palmer's secret gig at the Underworld. Which, judging by the packed house, was not secret at all by the time showtime came round. This one really was a riot - a seat-of-the-pants, made-up-on-the-spot, let's-do-the-show-right-here extravaganza that always managed to stay the right side of amiable chaos. But it was a close run thing at times.

So, by way of a counterpoint to my last post, here's Amanda Palmer under the fuzzy red lights of the Underworld. In this pic she's reading her own lyrics off someone's iPhone:

Although this was AFP in punk rock mode, showbiz values still ruled. There were several costume changes, in which Amanda would struggle into random items of clothing hurled up on stage by the audience. This flouncy dress was about 7 sizes too small for her, but she still got into it with a little help from her stylist, Holly Gaiman:

We did not get a song from Neil Gaiman on this occasion. But we did get a bedtime story. Someone else's flash went off at the precise moment I took this pic, which explains the annoying white flare. But the way the pages of the book are caught in mid-flip is good:

And there was a chorus line of puppets, which really was a 'Now I've seen everything' moment. I was on the wrong side of the stage to take a good photo of the puppets in full cry, but I'm sure other people's pix will be up on the web shortly if you want to see more. In fact, if the recent gigs are anything like the last time Amanda Palmer played London the whole lot will end up on YouTube any minute now, in song-by-song increments. Incidentally, note the latest costume variation in this photo - tights worn as a top:

Previously I said that I wasn't going to write a review of the Union Chapel gig. I thought, from a journalistic perspective, the secret gig would be The Story. But in fact I think the real story is the contrast between them. So, who knows. There might be two lots of AFP in the next issue of NTG. We shall see...

Songs Of Praise with Amanda Palmer

2009-09-13T10:36:40Z

Never let it be said that I spend all my time in noisesome holes of rock 'n' roll.

On Friday night I found myself witnessing some modern ART installations by S.C.U.M and others in the squeaky-clean surroundings of Whitechapel Art Gallery. Well, some of it was squeaky clean. The best bits, as ever, were the messy bits. A few photos might turn up here in a while...but not just yet.

Then, last night, I was amid the riotous Victorian gothic architecture of the Union Chapel to see Amanda Palmer, who is quite riotous herself in her own way, if not exactly Victorian or gothic.

From Whitechapel to the Union Chapel. It's almost poetic, innit? Anyway, here's Amanda:

This was a night off for me. This gig will not be reviewed in the forthcoming issue of Nemesis To Go. I was there simply to soak it up, and it was a good one. There's your four-word review, right there.

But I did take a few photos, from my vantage point up in the gods...

Here's Polly Scattergood, who sang a few songs with Amanda, both on stage and from up in the dress circle. This isn't a great pic (the strong white light on her face was hard for my camera to deal with) but I like the lighting rig coming in on the right. Neat composition, cheers:

Neil Gaiman also favoured us with a song - a splendidly entertaining interlude, although I have to say that he probably shouldn't give up the day job:

I also took a few ART shots of the riotous Victorian architecture. All you steampunks, step this way...

I found this old gas lamp bracket in the highest part of the church. Genuine ecclesiastical cobwebs:

This bracket has been converted to that new-fangled electricity stuff. It'll never catch on, you know:

This is a screen hiding some hot water pipes, for heating technology is an abomination in the sight of the LORD...

Curiously, the one thing you won't see in the Union Chapel is any religious imagery. I didn't spot so much as a cross anywhere in the building. It appeared that certain parts of the carved stonework on the lectern had been concealed by makeshift covers - possibly to hide Christian imagery? If so, I don't know why they'd do this. Perhaps they don't want to upset the heathens.

Right. Now back to the noisesome holes of rock 'n' roll....

OMG! AFP! NW1!

2009-09-10T12:20:59Z

I dare say you may know about this already, but Amanda Palmer has a secret gig a day after her two un-secret gigs in London this weekend.

It's on Sunday September 13 at the Underworld in Camden. Or, at least, I think it is. The ticket agency/venue websites say it's the Underworld, but Amanda herself seems to think she's playing the World's End pub over the top. I dare say the exact location will become clear on the night.

It seems to be selling relatively slowly at present - I think the early-hours-of-Sunday-morning factor probably makes the gig a no-no for anyone with a life that requires them to be awake and functioning during daylight hours. And, of course, there has been no real publicity. The art of putting on a secret gig is not to make it so secret that nobody shows up, of course.

So, if you fancy a little AFP in NW1, you can buy advance tickets here and here. I assume tickets will also be on sale over the bar at the World's End, if you happen to be around Camden. Since there is so little time for advance tickets to be sold, I dare say there will be tickets on the door too, but check with the venue on this, because it's not like I know, or anything.

Right. Now Amanda Palmer's secret gig is a bit less secret...