George Nostralucas presents… START WARS!

I was taken aback last week when I discovered that my significant other had never seen any Star Wars film…

I mean that’s like finding out someone hasn’t tried bread or something to our generation surely!

So I did what any loving boyfriend would, I initiated a program of education and made her sit through all six films. As an added bonus I’m making her watch them in episode order rather than the order they came out, this ruins a few plot twists such as the Leia and Luke being siblings thing and Vader being Luke’s dad but I figured I’d rather work up to the original three films than subject her to Jar Jar and ‘Comedy3PO’ half way through the saga (There are some things I can’t forgive George).

I realized today whilst reading this from Jyoti’s blog, how most of the storyline from episodes 1-3 is reminding me more and more of the current political climate. Seriously, everyone should revisit the Star Wars films and see all the similarities.

This Wikipedia entry is a good summary too. Read the parts about Palpatine designing his own threats to the republic (Usually ones he initiates as Darth Sidious) in order to seize executive power over the senate and later dissolve it entirely. When anyone challenges him (the Jedi) they are called separatists or traitors and added to the enemies and fear.

How true to life does this sound?

Remember kids, fear leads to anger… and there lies the dark side…

(s)Hit Factory

Hello!

I’ve got a project I need some help with. First a little background…

I’m in the process of buying the studio I work at along with my co-engineer and good buddy Rich. I’ll no doubt put another post about all that as soon as it’s all gone through. To be honest, my brain hurts just thinking about it. If you’re ever considering starting a business then please heed this warning – it will make you a bit mental.  Anyway, I was thinking about the studio and some things I wanted to do and one thing has been appealing to me for ages so I think I’ll give it a go.

I want to produce an album of other peoples songs. In a similar vein to the old industry model of artist and repertoire I want to build a band for each song based on where I want to take it and work out a whole production schedule for each one. Kind of like they did at Motown or Stax Records.

Here is where you come in. I need songs. The criteria is simple and is as follows:

• May only contain the instruments you wrote it on, i.e. Guitar and vocals. No additions!
• I need a text copy of any lyrics
• I get complete license to do what I like with your song, even if you think it’s shit
• You are to be of the understanding that you won’t be playing on it or singing it – if you can’t stand someone else singing your words then don’t apply

Other than that it can be whatever you want. Ideally I want this to be a really great pop album so songs about buggering corpses might not make it on (unless they’re as good as ‘Chrissie Kissed The Corpse’ by Of Montreal).

So if you’d like to take part then just email me an mp3 of the song and any lyrics or additional info that might be helpful to rob DOT pandaz AT gmail DOT com

Happy songwriting!

Red, Myspace and a big WTF?

The following is a rant I’m making about the RED campaign that has taken over Myspace today. Before I get people pointing out that any help or money to these people is something to thankful for, I know. I’m just pointing out below why I disagree with that as being ‘the best we can do’.

The new face of charity

Today I logged into Myspace and noticed the front page had been taken over by ego Red. Now I’d like to share a couple of issues I have with this project.

Ok, so Red makes no bones about it not being a charity and it simply being a consumer choice (one that will apparently help millions of people) but as a concept that just doesn’t sit right with me.

Aids in Africa is a huge problem, one that no doubt would have been lessened somewhat had the catholic church not campaigned AGAINST people using contraception. Maybe fucking Bono should take time out from having tea and chit chatting with bastards like the George Bush and the Pope and actually use his position to stick some difficult questions to these people. If Bono cared about the plight of anyone except Bono then he’d have actually made some personal difference, I realise he has publicised some good causes but never have I seen him take anything more than a shaky, political sloganeering stance on any issue, ever. Still, I’m sure all that good publicity he gets for himself through this ‘work’ never goes to his head.

Back to my problem with Red (Bono can wait, I’ll deal with him another time)…

So the problem is poverty, what causes poverty kids?

From globalissues.org

Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization, are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.

And how do these multinationals get so big? Who keeps them so powerful? The answer is the consumer, us, because if you’re reading this on a computer then you probably aren’t living in poverty. We buy their products, made in their sweatshops. We use their services, shelling out for airwaves or data cables that cost them next to nothing to provide.

And Red’s solution? Buy our multinational partners products!

The mobile phone industry must be chuffed that people will either be buying new handsets or starting new contracts in order to ‘help’. American Express will likewise be only too happy to shell out 1% of your spending in order to gain you as a customer, after all if you get charged a couple of times that’ll pay off their investment and make them some money. Plus there’s this fantastic bonus:

By giving you access to hand-picked offers and events, REDdeals help you get the most out of life: expect access to gigs, sporting events, late shopping nights and valuable travel and shopping offers.

GREAT! So they send you marketing bollocks to make you spend more as well! I imagine it costs a pretty penny for a company to advertise to all those American Express customers. Just another way that under the hood, all these companies will still, despite their charitable contributions, be making a profit from RED. Further advancing their profits and status as multinational companies.

So the RED ethos seems to be to fight the effects of consumersim with more consumerism. Is that teaching some kind of lesson? RED is offering people an alternative to charity, one where they can still be slaves to the market, only this time they’re paying off any sense of guilt they may have. They’re paying to opt out of actually doing anything about poverty. What do you do about poverty? “Me? Oh, I paid at the door mate”.

In theory, charities shouldn’t have to exist. Our societies should be able to work out systems where THESE FACTS don’t exist. Why should we have to subsidise the work that our governments are failing to do?

So, buy the RED trainers, order it over your RED phone, pay for it with your RED credit card, all you can do is continue to lace the pockets of large companies until there is some actual, tangible change in the way things are run. People like Bono are probably in a better position to suggest these changes to all the important people he lunches with, but he won’t. Cos he’s a massive fanny.

Vaults DJing Playlist

Here she is:

1. Razorlight – In The Morning
2. Hot Hot Heat – Owe You An I.O.U.
3. Arctic Monkeys – When The Sun Goes Down
4. Fiery Furnaces – Tropical Ice-land
5. The Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love
6. Raising The Fawn – Gwendolyn
7. Yo La Tengo – Sugarcube
8. DJ N Wee – 99 Problems Here
9. Blackalicious – Powers
10. De La Soul – Eye Know
11. Curtis Mayfield – Junkie Chase
12. Kasabian – Empire
13. Russian Futurists – Paul Simon
14. Islands – Rough Gem
15. Ben Kweller – Wasted & Ready
16. Sonic 2 – Title Screen
17. Belle & Sebastian – I’m A Cuckoo
18. The Strokes – Juicebox
19. Super Mario Bros – Overworld Theme
20. Solex – Shady Lane
21. The Shins – So Says I
22. Super Furry Animals – The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
23. Sonic Team – “SEGA”
24. Stephen Malkmus – Jo-Jo’s Jacket
25. Lily Allen – LDN
26. The Killers – Mr. Brightside (REQUEST)
27. Jurassic 5 – Concrete Schoolyard
28. Kanye West – All Falls Down
29. Green Day – Basket Case (REQUEST)
30. Presidents Of The USA – We’re Not Gonna Make It
31. Foo Fighters – This Is A Call (REQUEST)
32. Dinosaur Jr – They Always Come
33. Camera Obscura – Suspended From Class
34. Air – Sexy Boy
35. Cable – God Gave Me Gravity (REQUEST)
36. Kings Of Leon – The Bucket (REQUEST)
37. The Lemonheads – If I Could Talk
38. Maritime – Someone Has To Die
39. Silver Jews – Punks In The Beerlight
40. Blondie – Die Young, Stay Pretty
41. ABC – Poison Arrow
42. Mascot Fight – Skag Warehouse (REQUEST)
43. Dandy Warhols – Bohemian Like You
44. The Bluetones – Slight Return
45. Mario Kart- Invincibility
46. Delgados – Everybody Come Down
47. The Von Bondies – C’mon, C’mon
48. The Unicorns – Tuff Ghost
49. Lilys – Nanny In Manhattan
50. Interpol – Slow Hands
51. Kasabian- Club Foot (REQUEST)
52. The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done (REQUEST)
53. Polysics – My Sharona
54. Animal Collective – Who Could Win A Rabbit?
55. Trail Of Dead – Mistakes & Regrets
56. Zelda: A Link To The Past – Guessing Game House
57. Dangerdoom – Old School
58. Kings Of Leon - King Of The Rodeo (REQUEST)
59. Guv’ner – Break A Promise
60. Jamie Lidell – Multiply
61. The Jesus Lizard – Puss
62. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Call It A Day
63. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Blue Veins
64. The Fall – How I Wrote Elastic Man
65. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names – Loop Duplicate My Heart
66. Schneider TM feat. KPT Michigan – The Light 3000
67. Adam + The Ants – Stand & Deliver

A few too many ‘indie’ requests for my liking, I don’t think I ever need to hear the Killers, Kasabian, etc again in my life. Nor did I really need to hear older indie tracks like The Bluetones or The Dandy Warhols. Still I think we balanced it out by trying to play a bit of hip hop and some computer game music.

Continueing my back and forth with Bzangy…

Just popped over to Bzangy and read Jyoti’s post about the joy of shaving your hair.

Well worth a read, I agree with it wholeheartedly. Having said that, I sometimes miss having a fopping, indie swede on my head.

In other news, me and Tom (Mascot Fight) DJ’d at The Vaults last night. He’ll be sticking up the playlist soon. Far too many shit requests for Kasabian/Killers/Kooks (Why all K bands?) but managed to play lots of good stuff too.

I’ll pop the playlist up here once it’s typed up.

In further news, the new Plans & Apologies EP is off being pressed and it will look like THIS!

Things you shouldn’t chuckle at…

Deaf kids being bullied and writing poetry about it

These are pretty dark, for fans of The Office, etc. I know, I know, I shouldn’t laugh but come on! These are great!

Blogsex

Jyoti (like some scavenging web jackdaw) managed to read and post about my post below pretty much as soon as I’d clicked publish. Here’s his take on it.

I agree with him on the METAL slant and to be fair it’s not something I’d considered much, although I do think a 12,000 SEAT arena sounds rubbish for a metal festival in comparison with say Donnington or Ozzfest where it’s an open air, standing, jumping around event. I remember seeing The White Stripes at Nottingham Ice Arena and feeling like I may as well have watched it on telly being as I was roughly a mile away from the blobs on stage.

I think Jyoti makes a good point about the venue not being a bad thing per se, but I do think that despite good intentions a venture of that size is going to have to bow down to paying for itself sooner or later and for the one decent metal festival they hold per year they’ll no doubt be two kooks gigs per week.

Stock & Roll

I made the following comment on an internet forum I frequent about the coming plans to build an arena venue in Derby.
Now, regarding the plans to put a recording studio and rehearsal rooms in this behemoth: Great,go ahead! The Hive is always full rehearsal wise and I imagine Dubrek has to turn people away sometimes.

So in short, I think there probably is room for more rehearsal space in Derby.

As for a studio, fill your boots. They make fuck all money btw.

On the other hand, I have NEVER heard anyone complaining about the lack of a 12000 seat arena.

If it gets built it will do nothing for any local scene. The only bands it gets will be stereophonics and Rod Stewart (essentially the bands that would have played Pride Park but are scared they wont sell it out). Those kinds of bands get no media attention, play predominantly to older people and have no status in ’serious music journalism’ anymore.
How is that going to ‘put Derby on the map’ (yawn)? How many times has that phrase been muttered in board meetings over the last 12months?

Essentially they could take a fraction of the money this thing will cost, make a GOOD, smallish venue (a la social/rescue rooms) with a good soundsystem, friendly atmosphere and a booking agent who knows about a variety of music genres and what bands are worth booking.

So that’s a relatively small amount of money to build something that would make a difference to the local scene in terms of punters and bands or a huge, disgusting amount of money on something to house stadium rock bands (read safe, middle class music). I guess it depends if you’re making a venue for people that like music or not.

I hate to hark back to forgotten times but The Dial? The Wherehouse? Where are the replacements for these venues? If you google Derby Wherehouse, it comes up with a who’s who of nineties indie bands that played there. I’m not keen on most of them but they were bands that became massive in many cases. The difference is, the Wherehouse knew what bands to book when they were on their ascent, when they’d still be happily playing venues that size. How was that not putting Derby on the touring band map? I also remember a lot of local bands getting to support the likes of Primal Scream, The Manics, Clinic, The Delgados, etc, etc.

If you’re just some average Derbian, then you won’t know any local bands and why the fuck should you? If on the other hand there happen to be some local bands supporting a band you have heard of then you might take a chance on a gig and you may like it.
That might actually get more people to start going to gigs in Derby, anyone on here in a band knows there just aren’t a lot of regular gig-goers out there. I don’t think there’s much incentive to go see three bands you’ve never heard of.

I mean we headline a gig every other night of the week right? Surely we’d know what it’s like playing and going to gigs in Derby?

I think i’ll be chalking this whole idea up to ‘another huge waste of money and a missed opportunity on something that could actually work’. The frustrating thing is it’s all so simple yet no developers will risk their money on something that might not be ‘big business’

Too much, too zune

WHY I WILL NEVER BUY A MICROSOFT ZUNE FAILED ATTEMPT AT IPOD MEDIA PLAYER:

They’re pre-loading them with Hot Chip

Why not just slap a load of child pornography on them for fucks sake! No, I’d go as far as to say I’d prefer that to Hot Chip.

Fucking Hot Chip! They’re the worst band ever, anyone that disagrees is both RONG and will be SHOT!

The Little Explorer, Kenneth Ishak & Hooray! Say The Roses

Went to see ‘The Little Explorer‘ supported by Kenneth Ishak and ‘Hooray! Say The Roses‘ last night. A very enjoyable gig indeed, mainly worthy of note due to it being the first time TLE have played the vic (My home towns most revered toilet venue) in over three years. This was all due to some bust up with Andy (the previous owner of the Vic) but now he’s gone they are cool playing there.

Anyway, back story aside I’ll try and explain why I really enjoyed this gig.

First up were ‘Hooray! Say The Roses’, a band involving two lovely gents from Leeds – Steve Roe and Matt J. I recorded Matt’s old punk band Hit For Six a few years back when I was running a little (and rather shitty) studio in a rented industrial unit in shady Nottingham. When I saw him last night the first thing he did was apologise for his drummer being sick in the corridor when we’d been recording. That was like 3yrs ago at least, made me larf.
HSTR were really good to watch, in the way that it’s always nice to get a break from standard ‘rock’ bands. Seeing strings, banjos and weirdy old keyboards is always a pleasure for a muso like me. The songs were good too of course my only criticism being that some of the parts went on a bit too long for my liking (I like pop music so that’s just my preference I guess) but there was still plenty to keep my pop brain happy. Like TUNES! An alien concept to many bands.

Next up was Kenneth Ishak who I must admit I was rude and listened to from the bar. Sounded good, but to be honest I just find it difficult to get a feel for a solo performer when they play live. You can’t concentrate on the lyrics (or hear them a lot of times) and the songs inevitably blend into one sometimes. Hence I’ll not provide a more in depth review of him as I don’t really feel qualified. What I will do is to provide this LINK to where you can hear some of his stuff for yourself.

Lastly were The Little Explorer who were brilliant. It was a very nostalgic gig in a way because I just couldn’t remember the last time I saw them play The Vic. Lots of old faces came out of the woodwork and it was nice to feel like there was still some sense of ’scene’ and support in Derby. A few years ago there was a great period where lots of us would hang out, meet for coffees play gigs together and form new little bands between ourselves. It was a great time and I met some amazing people (TLE included), it’s dwindled a bit what with people moving or going to uni, etc but last night felt really good again. Anyways, back to the music.
Lots of newer songs, not so many of the first album which was good to see. New single Chair Legs sounded great and is well worth a few pounds from HERE. I loved the old classics but I think it would have been too much to see the same band play the same set as the last time they played the same venue three years ago. I’m all for the comfort of nostalgia but that’s going too far.
The new stuff sounds great, their sound has changed a bit but not so the new and old don’t sit well together. It felt good to see them moving into new areas and (wanky as it sounds) ‘maturing’ as a band. I hate the term ‘maturing’ when referencing bands but I think it applies here rather than implying they’ve started wearing cardigans and writing trad rock. Besides, they’ve always worn cardigans the big emo bastards.

After the gig I went out to Scream and danced like a fool. It wasn’t too busy but there were lots of nice people about. Afterwards, myself, Miikhul and Danyul went to the takeaway and got filth to take home.
Went home
Ate Filth
Fell asleep

Good night.