Monday 21 December 2009

Mumford and Sons

At last, a breath of fresh air for our UK airwaves. Mumford and Sons are a London-based folk band and, as you can see from their debut video below, they truly rock and are just what we need to dispell the homogeneity of our damned music charts.



Oh, and Rage got the Christmas number one. Maybe the tides are beginning to turn.

Sunday 20 December 2009

Rage Against The Hype



I hope today, on Sunday 20th December, when it is too late to contribute to the Christmas Number 1 in the UK, that people understand the importance of Rage Against The Machine getting the top spot, and beating X Factor winner Joe Mcelderry. It is not about getting one over on Simon Cowell, or a personal attack on the slightly-talented Joe. For the sake of the music industry in general, we cannot, for a fifth consecutive year, allow a manufactured, won't-be-here-next-year, has-all-his-songs-written-for-him, releasing-a-cover-song child, representing all that is bad about our music industry, win the battle to the top against one of the most important bands of this generation. The lyrics that RATM write were, and still are, important; they still mean something, they are still searching for answers. The music is just fantastic; Rage are an awesome bunch of musicians. There couldn't be a bigger middle finger to our X-Factor generation than a basically unheard of (in terms of the mass UK audience) 1992 American nu-metal political masterpiece reaching the top.

Music consumes us; think how many thousands of songs are released each week over the entire globe. Then think of how many choruses you could hum during their week of release, as the subliminal radio-drones creep into your system and another R'n B-tinged, over-produced, 118bpm, spineless, meaningless record has made its mark. We would certainly notice a world without music, but everything just blends into everything else, and as long as 'pleasant noise' gets up from Point A to Point B on our journeys, we don't really care that the soundtrack to our lives is actually just depressing.

To illustrate this point, I watched last week's UK chart top 10 countdown on a music channel yesterday. I had to turn it off when it hit number 6; without the ad breaks it could have been one 20-minute track with such slight changes no wonder everyone is brainwashed into buying the same drivel that leaks from our inexcusable music icons of today. What happened to the Bob Dylans, the Bruce Springsteens, the Frank Sinatras, the David Bowies and the Elton Johns, The Beatles' and The Stones', what happened to real music that actually meant something. Why does nobody write this stuff anymore, why are we stuck in a timewarp relying on these artists and songs that date back to the birth of recorded music to fulfill our guilty pleasures when feeling like we are raging against the machine because we've switched from BBC Radio 1 to BBC Radio 2. People say you can define the difference between these radio stations by age; I disagree. At least Radio 2 delve into the archives and put on some real classic songs.

For Rage to win the Christmas number 1 this year would really shake up the industry and its consumer; us. Maybe this would stir people into looking into different artists and styles of music, maybe this would bring our timeless and fantastic rock artists back into the limelight and urge our young musicians to write real hit songs that really do mean something to them and us. And maybe Simon Cowell will pull the plug on the X Factor, retire happily with his millions and we won't have to see his smug face in all his soulless X Factor winners again. Hey, I can dream, right?

Friday 18 December 2009

Re: Frost Fayre Post

After having my previous post about the Frost Fayre being printed in this week's local paper, the Central Somerset Gazette, I was contacted by a colleague of the SYVN (Somerset Youth Volunteeing Network) who organised the bands part of the event. She had reason to be disappointed with what I'd written because the Editor of the paper cut off the final, and most pointful, paragraph, effectively changing the very point of my letter. Here is my second letter to the Editor, which I hope is printed next week:

With regards to my letter printed in last week's Gazette about the Frost Fayre gig cancellation, I felt that due to the final paragraph of my letter being cut, my words could have easily been perceived as if my anger was vented at SYVN. Had the entire letter been published, this could have been avoided. The final paragraph read: "The cliche is that young people attract bad press, but there are enough young people doing good to silence their 'critics' and who aren't dillusioned and angry ASBO-hunting stereotypical yobs. Don't get me wrong, Glastonbury has it's fair share of petty crime, but I'd like to see the powers that be who cancelled Saturday's celebration of young and local talent enforce their reign of unnecessarity in the more deprived cities of the Country; we should be grateful for the compliance and willingness of our young generation here, and encourage them to take part in more events that bring together the community, rather than re-open a road for a few drivers who can't take a short diversion whilst youngsters rule the streets of Glastonbury with guitars in their hands instead of knives."

By leaving this out, the whole point of the letter effectively changes, and looks like I'm venting anger at SYVN whereas the point was being angry at the council/carnival club for re-opening the road and meaning that our young people suffer. SYVN is the work of young people and relies on just volunteers to put on these events. They do a great job, and it was fantastic last year in Clarks Village, of which my band were also a part of, and was a completely celebrated event. I have worked with SYVN through my Learner Advocate position at Strode College and know that they do a lot of good for our young people. The incompetence does not lie at SYVN's door; it is down to those that opened the road, cancelling the event.

I hope this sets the record straight.

Monday 14 December 2009

Homecoming Gig




So, I came home a week earlier for Christmas to be able to play a local gig in Glastonbury for the Frost Fayre. They shut off the highstreet all day long and at the bottom of the street is a gazebo for local bands. We were the first full band to play, and there was a fair-sized crowd who had gathered. As soon as we started to play, it was evident we had taken a risk with the one-practice we'd had, not having played together for a good 6 months, but nobody made any shocking mistakes so we got away with it! The drum kit I was using was like something from school; there was one mic on the kick drum but that was all and the rest of it, or what could be heard, just sounded shocking. During our first song, there was a power cut to half of the stage. As we started our penultimate song, we were interrupted for someone to announce they were in fact now re-opening the road. So everybody watching had to crowd on the other side of the road and watch us through passing traffic. As we started our last song, we were again interrupted, this time asked to stop playing so they could move the entire stage and face it round the other way. I felt embarassed enough just sounding so rubbish playing such a cheap, unmiked kit; it sounds silly but a decent drum kit that was miked up would literally have transformed the entire sound. After we were stopped, with no intentions of carrying on anymore, the council apparently shut down the entire gig. There were many other bands waiting to play and lots of people waiting to hear them; disappointment and anger was rife. This is exactly the reason I hate doing gigs for people who don't know what they're doing; it's just embarassing for musicians who aspire to be professional, but get interrupted by hippies and power-hungry councillors. Anyway, I can't even be bothered to go into a whole thing about it now, I'm sure enough people will write to the local paper and nothing will be done. It's a shame, because it does give young and inexperienced bands a chance to showcase themselves to a decent crowd, as well as providing more local drive for some better-known bands, at a time where we should be encouraging and nurturing the talents of our youths and providing opportunities like this for them. The cliche is that young people attract bad press, but there are enough young people doing good to silence their 'critics' and who aren't dillusioned and angry ASBO-hunting stereotypical yobs. Don't get me wrong, Glastonbury has it's fair share of petty crime, but I'd like to see the powers that be who cancelled Saturday's celebration of young and local talent enforce their reign of unnecessarity in the more deprived cities of the Country; we should be grateful for the compliance and willingness of our young generation here, and encourage them to take part in more events that bring together the community, rather than re-open a road for a few drivers who can't take a short diversion whilst youngsters rule the streets of Glastonbury with guitars in their hands instead of knives.

Friday 11 December 2009

Driving Home For Christmas

I love Christmas! It's been a busy final week at Uni but early tomorrow morning I'll be boarding the train, laden with bags and suitcases and presents and heading off back to Glastonbury :)

On Wednesday night we had our Uni-course gig at a cool venue in Southampton. It was our first real chance to check out all the other musicians properly in a live setting, and was certainly a lot of fun to play. It's been ages since I've gigged, and going from gigging regularly to literally nothing but a couple of open mics in the past 4/5 months hasn't been easy! The passion in my playing was a long time coming but it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders as I walked offstage. Our band played 'Sweet Disposition' by The Temper Trap, 'Waiting on the World to Change' by John Mayer, 2 originals of which I wrote lyrics for one and finished with U2's 'With or Without You'. My request to do 'You Give Love a Bad Name' was of course shot down, but I hate naff Jovi covers anyway and I doubt we'd have got it close enough to the original!

Tomorrow I'm braving the elements and am playing a short set with my old band on Glastonbury highstreet as part of the annual Frost Fayre where they shut off the highstreet and have bands, jugglers, stalls, that kind of thing and it's a cold but fun day :) Then I'll spend the two weeks left leading up to Christmas catching up with old friends, visiting family and, of course, eating and drinking far too much. I'm very excited to be going home!

It's the calm before the storm in Jovi-land right now, all the plugging here in the UK is long done and I'm sure most have forgotten about the short-lived hype. The X Factor was I think a good appearance but shows like GMTV, This Morning and The National Lotto were a little old hat. Had they been on, for example, T4 Music, Jools Holland, etc they might have branched out to a younger, and more interested, audience but as I've said before, they can't be winning over as many new fans as they did back in 2000. At that time they were playing CD:UK and Top of the Pops, and it obviously worked well.

Anyway, it's another long one; I tend to write less often but with more words but that kinda works for me. I'll try and find time at home over Christmas to write if I so feel the desire; I tend to prefer writing when I've got some inspiration and a reason to rather than thinking I better had for the sake of it.

I can hear the sickly drones East 17's attempt at a Christmas song in the room next door. Apart from The Darkness' attempt a couple of years ago we don't really have any new Christmas songs coming through; it's the old ones that have stood the test of time and are pumped out year on year. Our 'Christmas songs' are those that are just happened to be released over the festive period and generally have nothing to do with Christmas, but it's nice I think to have Christmas-specific songs. Everyone likes Christmas songs and movies, especially new ones, and it's not like they're going to get old. Maybe they should make the X Factor winner prove their worth and their first release must be a self-penned Christmas number. That'd seperate the cheese from the downright awful. On that bombshell, I think I'll sign off.