MobileAct Unsigned - A Spy In The House of Gav

It’s four thirty on a dismal Wednesday in half term. On Hotham Street, Liverpool a line of roughly a hundred assorted scals and indie kids are waiting to be let in to the Carling Academy. Suddenly a film crew appear with a bearded man with middle aged spread. This is Simon Gavin, head of A&R at Polydor and music ‘mogul’ at the helm of Channel 4’s new talent show MobileAct Unsigned. A few scally girls in brightly coloured tights yell ‘Who are you?’. They’ve got a point.

It’s not X-Factor, it’s not Fame Academy, it’s not Pop Idol. That’s the line that Channel 4 want everyone to swallow. Those shows are about stuffing one more glassy-eyed warbler into the already heaving pop industry, and pulling every string available to make sure that they peak and disappear, ready for the next one whereas Channel 4 describe MobileAct as ‘a multi-platform search to find the hottest unsigned band in Britain’. Multi-platform means it’s sponsored by and utilises mobile phone technology (like X-Factor), that viewers can interact with the programme using the internet (like X-Factor) and that the public can vote on the winner by texting in (just like…oh fuck it, I’ve made my point).

So it’s the indie band X-Factor, which Channel 4 seem a little embarrassed about. They shouldn’t, the talent show has always been a staple of TV scheduling and is a legitimate form of entertainment. The problem is that the viewing public know exactly how talent shows work, and that rather than a shiny new band being presented clean and ready-wrapped by the NME, Radio One, MTV and E4, we get to see every slip up, every desperate begging session, every in-fight and every tear before we even hear enough songs to fill an EP. We get the people before the product, which is an unnatural way to experience a band.

Back at the Carling Academy there are six bands waiting to perform to an invited audience of free ticket holders and blaggers. Alex James, the bass player from Blur, and the aforementioned Simon Gavin are sat on a white leather sofa looking like Blofeld and his gimp whilst a jovial floor manager heats up the crowd. These bands have already been through an online vote and an appearance in the heats, where they performed in front of such musical luminaries as Just Jack (who when faced with a tumult of indie bands was left repeating ‘it’s not really my kind of music’ like an idiot budgie), Mutya Buena and gawking fool Calvin Harris. The bands were then further whittled down with a series of ‘interviews’ where the judges broke their spirits, treated them like scum and forced a series of contrived in-fights.

In 2003, Simon Gavin told music industry directory Hitquarters the following ; ““If all you have are TV-associated projects, real talent has a problem getting noticed.” One of the real problems with public voting as it exists on Mobileact is the unreliable ballot. Bands are asked in the early stages to get as many people as possible to vote for them on the Mobileact, which basically means that the bands with the most mates (or the most mates with multiple email addresses) do better. The TV monster which Gavin warned us of four years ago also turns artists with raw creative talent and balls into toadies of the highest degree. In the second round of the show the acts are asked to perform acoustically and are judged on this, all ready for Radio One’s Live Lounge with Whiley. Where is it written that all bands have to reduce what they do down to its simplest and most generic form? At this stage, any electro or hip hop artists are at a distinct disadvantage, and quelle surprise, it’s the guitar based indie bands which get through.

The first band to play in the Liverpool round of the knockout stages are Revenue, a swaggering lot from rock ‘n’ roll Peterborough who are the embodiment of the ready-for-TV band that the judges seem intent on putting through. For filming purposes every band has to play two minutes of their song for camera coverage (ie filming from different angles) before they perform properly. Revenue churn out their two minutes looking like they’d rather be anywhere else, turning away from the audience and messing with their instruments whilst playing. All of a sudden, they’re being filmed for real and darn it if they aren’t bouncing around and gurning like indie jesters. The passion, the effort, all fake. They turn it on like they turn their amps on, and NOW we’re rock and roll stars! The judges love it.

In 2004, in an interview for the Guardian on the rise of ‘art rock’, Gavin told Alex Petridis that “record companies are in the position that they have a very successful mainstream roster and it would be criminal not to exploit the resources….not to try something different as well”. How times have changed. Gavin’s mantra on Mobileact has been ‘It’s not commercial enough. I can’t sell it.’ It seems those downloads are pinching tighter than expected.

All of the bands here tonight are too worshipful, too desperate and too easily persuaded. When Simon Gavin tells The Bad Robots, a ska tinged bunch with the best song of the evening, that they’re a ‘safe option’, they nod and grin like it’s the greatest moment of their lives. Alex James tells all-female The Mentalists that they remind him of 4 Non Blondes (possibly the first outing for that reference in 12 years) they giggle, blush and show mock horror before giggling again. All of these bands, being cowed by the bright lights and the backstage privileges, seem oblivious to the fact that they’re being sized up, poked, prodded and rejected based on a scant set of ideals.

I ask Simon Gavin who his favourite band of the series is. His answer is the same as host Alex Zane : Hijak Oscar. A blues/soul/folk band (their description) whose influences are either dead or haven’t released a record since the dawn of MP3. All fine and good you might say, but Gavin has spent the entire audition process saying that anything other than electro indie, indie rock or just plain indie is ‘a niche market’, or the old chestnut ‘too difficult to sell’. Hijak Oscar cannot win this competition – the votes will come from people who call blues and soul ‘their mum’s music’, and where does that leave Simon Gavin and his relevance to this show, primarily watched by 14 to 18 year olds? By the time the winning band are in a position to release their debut album, about 12 months from now, the music scene which Gavin is trying to shoe-horn them into will have moved on considerably. On the final auditions show, he told an aspiring soul singer that it was Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse who were selling records now, not Jamelia or Beverly Knight. The possibility that this might change was not mentioned, just as it wasn’t when Mr Gavin dismissed a Screamo band earlier in the series.

When I ask whether this contest will produce anything relevant to music today Alex Zane, the nicest man in television, convincingly toes the party line; “MobileAct gives these bands access to contacts that they wouldn’t get anywhere else. They’ll meet people here who will help them in the future and I think they’re all benefiting from the competition. Plus there’s the potential that we find an amazing band.”

But who are his favourite bands, and would they have entered a competition like this? “I like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, people like that. Things have changed in music now and you never know. There are platforms like myspace and bands are doing a lot of stuff themselves so they might well have done.”

It’s hard to imagine John Lydon re-writing Anarchy InThe UK for the acoustic guitar but you can see what Zane is getting at. Music has changed, the way that music is promoted has changed, the bands have to change to some extent because unlike the dark ages of Punk, New Wave and even Britpop, the processes and the people behind A&R are accessible to anyone with Wikipedia in their favourites.

I ask Alex James, cheese purveyor, whether Seymour (Blur when unsigned) would have done well in this competition. “Seymour? Seymour wouldn’t have been invited” he replies. No, Seymour would have sent in an unsolicited demo to Andy Ross, the Food records A&R, and invited them to their gig. In fact, that’s what they did, and they were signed. Ask a tiny indie label about this way of working today, and the response is different. Nobody wants demos any more, they want hype, numbers and a ready made band of followers. They want a website, some choice quotes and a million myspace friends, as well as a band who have done everything they’re about to pay the record company for before, done it better, and for free.

So what’s next for MobileAct and its confusing title? They have recently revealed that viewers will be able to re-instate one of the bands who have been ejected. The favourites seem to be Yorkshire-based The Headliners, five cheeky chaps with nu-rave clothes and some spiky indie pop songs which plough that barren furrow between McFly and The Buzzcocks. They’re adorable, and you can imagine spending five minutes in their company and not wanting to dig your eyes out with spoons. Luckily the public vote for the winner of MobileAct, so if The Headliners make it back into the competition they will almost certainly triumph. Whether this is a poison chalice for any up and coming band remains to be seen.

The Cribs - Birmingham Carling Academy 05.10.07

*This review was written for a Cribs website, if you're not familiar with the band a more detailed review of their latest album is further down this page*

Ah, Brum Academy, The Cribs’ favourite venue in the country according to them, though I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s the big sweeping balcony full of people who’ll throw empty glasses at you when you stage dive – even when you’re in the band. Maybe it’s the happy-go-lucky bouncers who put an X on your hand when you come over the top, yet turn a blind eye when your arm ends up looking like a game of noughts and crosses. Maybe it’s the fact that every single Cribs show there is fucking awesome.

Launching into Our Bovine Public like it’s their last three minutes on earth the band look possessed by the whole atmosphere. The kids have shown some mega appreciation to the fantastic Bobby Conn and Pavilion but this is what they’re after, and the energy that bounces back and forth from stage to pit is tremendous.

Gary reminds us that new single Don't You Wanna Be Relevant is "the one with the video where we look like the Archies", a comment which flies straight over the heads of the under 25 year olds in the audience but is nonetheless very accurate.

Ryan’s taking his t-shirt off, which to me signals he’s coming into the crowd, This he does, managing to kick me square in the head in the melee. (If you’re reading this Ryan I’ll settle out of court). The jeans are ripped in half, the shoes come off and the next thing I see Ryan is being passed back to the waiting security guards who carry him away. Someone helpfully yells ‘Shit, he’s dead!’, but thankfully just knocked out.

Moments later the band re-appear. Gary says ‘Thanks for raping my brother’. They did play something at this point but I can’t remember what due to a) beer and b) the aforementioned kick in the head. Ryan comes to Gary’s mic to sing a sweet rendition of Shoot The Poets and finally retreats, to Casualty probably.

As the lights come up someone is trying to persuade a roadie to give him Ryan’s forgotten t-shirt, like it’s the Shroud of Turin. And now we all know why this is The Cribs’ favourite venue

Monumental Hypocrisy

Who’s up for a trip around Parliament Square then? A swift visit to the Churchill memorial, swerve Abraham Lincoln where some tourists from Arsecreek, Kentucky are posing, and past Benjamin Disraeli, whoever he is.

There will we find the newest monument to a man who has demonstrated and inspired greatness, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Let’s just remind ourselves what this man stands for. Influenced by Ghandi, Mandela’s first political activity involved giving free legal advice and representation to blacks who suffered under the National Party. After non-violent actions failed, Mandela co-founded and led the armed wing of the ANC in paramilitary training, guerrilla warfare and sabotage. To put it lightly, this was one serious motherfucker.

Mandela began his struggle in the shadow of Ghandi, but drifted towards what Malcolm X would later describe as equality ‘by any means necessary’. It was arguably the Sharpeville massacre which turned many moderate ANC members into armed revolutionaries. In a South African township in 1960, a group of over 5,000 people converged on the local police station. They asked to each be arrested for the crime of not carrying their identifying passbooks. As the crowds grew, armoured tanks surrounded them, and opened fire, killing 69 and injuring another 180.

Lt. Colonel Pienaar, the commanding officer of the unit which committed the massacre, had earlier been quoted thus; “the Native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. For them to gather means violence." A similar feeling seems to have been behind a piece of legislation which makes the unveiling of a statue to Mandela despicably ironic. If, tomorrow, the government unveiled a piece of discriminatory legisaltion, it would be against the law to protest about it in the shadow of Mandela’s image. Since 2006 it has been illegal to mount a protest in Parliament Square without the express permission of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Anyone entering Parliament Square with a placard could be arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and held whilst a DNA sample was taken from them. The same could happen to anyone who had a permit to protest (a contradiction in terms really) but who used a loudspeaker. In fact, this could now happen to anyone, technically for doing anything at all, as the definition of an arrestable offence is now anything for which a policeman arrests you. It’s the kind of Catch-22 situation that the phrase was coined for.








The passbooks which those at the Sharpeville massacre were protesting against being forced to use were basically ID cards. They held a person’s name, employment details, photograph and fingerprints. They had to be presented on demand and not carrying one was an arrestable offence. Sound familiar? Imagine being arrested in front of that statue for failing to produce your compulsory ID card, which unlike the paper versions given to the blacks in South Africa, can also record your biometric data, and can hold an unlimited amount of information due to its chip technology.

Mandela had no qualms about moving towards armed resistance when the freedoms at stake were so precious. Surely a better tribute to his efforts would be to lift the restrictions on demonstrating in Parliament Square and to send the ID cards legislation to join the Passbook in freedom’s own Room 101.

Swindler's List

Daily life is full of decisions. What shall I have on my sandwiches? Where should I park? Should I download child pornography for the purposes of spurious ‘research’ into the area of childhood as a whole for a one line appearance in a BBC Three late night comedy drama, or is that a bad idea fraught with pitfalls?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. But in what form of reality could you reasonably be expected to decide whether you prefer a serial killer, a dwarf, or an animated crab? I’ll tell you where, in a land called Listopia, where even the most idiotic of people can claim to be film buffs because they can enthusiastically rate fictional characters depending on their resonance in their pathetic daily lives.

We all know that lists are big money these days. Lists on TV can last for six hours and straddle a whole bank holiday weekend, and will guarantee news coverage and promotion when the Daily Mail gets upset that ‘Gaz twatting Mozz’ is the nation’s best loved street crime on YouTube. Lists in magazines always guarantee big sales, because everybody wants to match their personal outrages with those of their film/music/tv heroes. “Jimmy Page better than Jimi Hendrix by one place! I’ll firebomb the offices of Mojo before I will allow this travesty to stand!”

Total Film magazine have already delivered their Top 100, as voted for by people who find Empire too mentally challenging. Readers placed The Empire Strikes Back at number one, rather predictably, in a list so masculine that it virtually sprouted chest hairs. The gangster, horror and sci-fi genres were so overwhelmingly represented that you get to number 18 in the list before you find a film with no violent deaths. Total Film have now unveiled the voting forms for their newest list, the Top 100 Movie Characters, and the result is a trip to Listopia so surreal and unfathomable that David Lynch must have been the guest editor.

Only in the fields of entertainment are enthusiasts expected, nay encouraged, to rate completely disparate paradigms against one another. In Annie Hall Woody Allen jokes about the pointless awards industry and wonder whether they will crown ‘Best Fascist Dictator – Adolf Hitler’. But that would at least draw some lines of comparison – Maggie probably wouldn’t make the cut if there was a panel involved - unlike the idea that a sci-fi film about killer robots can be judged equally against a Swedish language dadaist introspective about fruit trees.

To help those film buffs who don’t actually know or like any films, Total Film has compiled a list of characters to choose a Top 100 from. As well as fictional characters from literature (Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, Gandalf) there are real people (Johnny Cash, Bonnie Parker) and all manner of weird inclusions. Nowhere does the magazine attempt to justify or explain its reasons for compiling this list. Is it to measure the skill of actors in taking a script and developing a character, including voice and movement? If so then Johnny Depp’s rendering of Captain Jack Sparrow is certainly a relevant entry. Caspar on the other hand owes very little of his ‘character’ to the voice actor playing him in the children’s movies. There’s a even a clue for the kid in the description ‘the friendly ghost’. Not rocket science really, just don’t make him a bastard platypus who speaks fluent German.

Elsewhere amongst the prescribed choices is ‘The Monster’ from Frankenstein. Unfortunately the IMDB lists four films called Frankenstein, including a frankly strange method attempt by Robert De Niro and the 1931 version with Boris Karloff. Other multiples occur with Alice In Wonderland (8 versions), Aladdin (3), and Cinderella (24). This would suggest that it is the character in general that is being celebrated and not the film character at all. If that’s the case, why is there Hightower from Police Academy, but not Dr.Jekyll? Are we voting for Jude Law or Michael Caine as Alfie?

There are so many errors and omissions in the list that it becomes painfully clear that the magazine is putting this out as a money making exercise. Who is Willy Wonker? What the fuck is Toy’s Story? Who is Romeo ‘Montigue’? Don’t they know that Danny Zucco is in Grease and not ‘Greece’? Or is this a straight to video version that I haven’t seen? Also, if the Total Film journalists are choosing the list from which to vote, should they not be fired immediately for suggesting that of the millions of characters ever committed to celluloid, the dad from Jumanji and the whale from Free Willy are among them?

In the October issue of Total Film, this feature will probably take up around ten pages. That’s ten pages that could have been used to discuss relevant and important issues in film, such as funding for independent films which haven’t been produced by George Clooney and don’t have Oscar nominees in them, or the state of British film industry, or the fact that cinemas like FACT in Liverpool are forced to screen summer blockbusters instead of foreign language films to keep on the sweet side of the distributors. Instead we have the eternal question – is Sebastian the crab better than Idi Amin? If only we didn’t have to wait til October to find out….

The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever

Fuck the NME. Fuck them right up the arse with a pointy stick. Fuck XFM. Fuck polka dot dresses, new rave and the ‘re-birth’ of indie guitar music, because without all that overblown, empty dollar green garbage, The Cribs new album would be number one for a hundred million years and The Kooks would spontaneously combust in the face of the awesome power of three brothers from Wakefield who write the best songs this fledgling century has seen.

As you might have gathered, it’s hard for me to undersell The Cribs. Their presence in British music is like a little Radio Caroline, bobbing about in treacherous circumstances, battling through the jaunty and the desperate on the airwaves to re-assure you that you’re not going mad. Their first album, ‘The Cribs’, was a DIY effort which burned through 40 odd minutes of adrenaline guitars, shouting and Beatles-esque melodies. It was a gem which was left in the dust as the majors pushed out The Thrills, The Coral and other soft going singalong albums in time for festival season of 2004. The follow up ‘The New Fellas’ was a hook-led classic. Something of a climb down from the rattiness of the first album, but it held chart worthy songs like ‘Mirror Kissers’, ‘Hey Scenesters’ and ‘Martell’ which amused the Radio One playlist for a good few weeks. With Alex Kapranos at the helm, some were expecting a sharper, more poppy album this time round. ‘Men’s Needs’ is anything but a compromise to the current scene. You can hear the influence of Kapranos as vocals are shoved up front, the distortion has been reduced and the hook lines and iron-clad melodies are given a starring role.

More than anything this album is threatening the boundaries of what the indie revivalists expect from a record. There is not one second of filler on this offering, listen to any big seller from The Kooks, The Feeling, The Killers and try and say the same, the words’ll stick in your throat. In fact, it’s difficult to keep a straight face discussing these bands in the same breath as The Cribs, although they’ve been lumped together by every magazine and radio station going. The record starts with the spastic rallying cry of ‘Our Bovine Public’, reducing The Cribs so-called rivals to porridge in the space of 2 minutes and 16 seconds. Any one of the next eight tracks could be a single, horrifically catchy equality anthem ‘Men’s Needs’ has been, and ‘Moving Pictures’, the half mournful, half hopeful tune that feels like you’ve always known it, is the next one out of the bag. The big surprise of the record is ‘Be Safe’, which marries a marching bassline to the spoken words of Lee Renaldo (of Sonic Youth) and a rousing event chorus. It will sneak up on you and assault you before delivering you battered into the end of the album and the warm waters of ‘Shoot The Poets’, a sweet anti-love song with a touching vocal from Ryan Jarman.

In all probability The Cribs will survive the poisoned association with the increasingly generic indie scene, and will still be releasing albums as brilliant as this one when the likes of The View are ‘pursuing other projects’. In the meantime, The Cribs are flicking vs at the bands they recently lambasted on stage at Glastonbury and going off on tour to be with the already converted, who are getting smugger by the minute.

The Cribs - Liverpool Academy - 25.05.07

Originally published on Twistedear.com

Remember when pop music used to be fun? Roughly 5 years BC (Before Coldplay) when bands didn’t really care whether they were taken seriously and didn’t date models or actresses because they weren’t really handsome or fucked up enough? Those were good days, and The Cribs are slowly dragging them back.

You won’t catch the Jarman brothers campaigning against climate change, or being papped for Heat magazine, but you will find them pumping out riff-led anthems whilst jumping around and sweating, you know, like bands are supposed to. At the Liverpool Academy Ryan Jarman, on vocals and guitar, wears a constant look of confusion, as if he still can’t believe that this happening to him. He sweats like Joan of Arc and bounds about the stage, oblivious to the plastic jewellery and beer dregs that are being flung onto him. The Cribs have risen in the public psyche with TV appearances, festival headline slots and their new album and single going top 20. But to look at them perform you could be fooled into thinking that they’ve only just graduated from booking their own gigs at the local conservative club. The energy, the hunger, the newness – it’s all still there.

The Cribs have always attracted a healthy mix of indie kids and townies - a bit like Oasis they have that duel appeal that stems from bouncy guitar lines meant for pogo-ing and lyrics that sound apt when they’re being yelled at taxi drivers after 12 pints of Stella. The brothers Jarman are also popular with the ladies – Ryan and Gary are twins but there’s a ‘nice’ one and a ‘dirty’ one, and then there’s little brother Ross, ripe for corruption. One love-struck lady feigns an injury and is taken into the backstage corridor for a rest, only to make a run for it when security’s back is turned. When Ryan hurls himself into the pit as customary at the end of the show, his shirt’s torn up within seconds and feminine screams emerge from the melee. It’s just like the golden days of The Osmonds.

Their first album ‘The Cribs’ was recorded somewhere between a shed and an underpass by the sounds of it. It’s lo-tech to the extreme with bits of odd toy-like effects, outtakes and shouting . Somewhere within each two minute classic a chorus and a hook are dumped in, and against all the odds it works. By the time ‘The New Fellas’ came along the hooks were clearer and the songs fully formed. Singles like ‘Mirror Kissers’, ‘Hey Scenesters’ and ‘Martell’ are their true pop classics and these are still the songs that lead to the most screaming and singing along. Most of the crowd could probably play them more accurately aswell but it just wouldn’t be the same. Rather than balking at the hits, the band revel in them, swaggering and smacking away at their instruments saying with every stroke ‘We wrote this!’.

Now onto their third album, produced by Alex Kapranos, The Cribs have polished their recorded sound but retain that no-frills performing style that makes them such a great live prospect. There are bum notes, inadvertent tempo changes and moments when no-one on stage seems to know what’s happening next. The crowd chimes in with ‘der der der doo doo da da’ which signals that they want to hear the three note riff of ‘Another Number’ from ‘The New Fellas’, and the band start it up dutifully, as if they’re glad of the idea. As a member of the audience one feels like they wouldn’t quite know what to do without our cues, it’s a comforting thought, we’re all in this together.

Down in the venue foyer, minus three pints of sweat but with half a dozen new mates the Crib-ettes are still singing twenty minutes after the band have vacated. A girl is lipsticking her phone number on the bus outside. These are a simple but happy bunch, you could do worse than to join them next time round.

Willy Mason - Liverpool Carling Academy 05.05.07

In March 2006 Willy Mason played a sold out show to roughly 300 in the smallest room of Barfly Liverpool. This year the show sells out again, only this time the venue is the 1200 capacity Carling Academy. Such is the draw of the New Yorker whose mix of accessible political anthems and songs about cats has attracted all kinds of music lover to his warm and intimate shows.

Can a show still be intimate when there are 1200 people there? It’s strange but it can. The heat in the Academy is immense but the bar is virtually ignored once Mason hits the stage, with little brother Sam on guitar and Nina Violet on viola. The subject of the tour is Mason’s second studio album If The Ocean Gets Rough, and like other artists he has enabled fans to listen to the album for free on MySpace for the last two months, ensuring none of the killer ‘We Don’t Know This One’ moments which can distract the casual attendee. This tour has been preceded by a series of ‘Living Room’ gigs, where Willy shows up at the house of a fan and plays literally in their living room. Seeing his stagecraft, you can believe that nothing changes between the set in a lounge in suburbia and the set in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire or the Leadmill.

If The Ocean Gets Rough has had a mixed reception by the popular music press in general, who were so pleased with themselves for liking the Grandma’s Basement EP but cooled towards Where The Humans Eat. It’s not a firebrand Willy that has emerged from the hype of the first album and perhaps that’s where the industry criticism comes from – this is personal writing about his Martha’s Vineyard life and his frustrations at the hypocrisy and greed of the modern world. Mason is still only 23, a fact that can be forgotten when he performs so assuredly, and his world is still that of a young American, wondering why his generation can produce such poetry and passion and yet still find a functioning illiterate in the White House. Willy works through the album steadily, throwing in older tracks along the way. There isn’t a huge difference between this album and the last, a fact which has led to criticism from some quarters. What happened though to the idea of constancy? How much can a 20-something’s world view change over 2 years? What does change is the confidence with which Willy Mason tells stories, like the son mourning his father in ‘The World That I Wanted’.

At the Carling Academy the crowd is almost reverential. “He’s fuckin’ brilliant inne?’ remarks one young man, who wouldn’t look out of place on page four of the Daily Mirror with a black rectangle over his eyes and ‘Asbo Teen’ as the headline. To say that the crowd is ‘mixed’ is an understatement of epic proportions. As Mason picks the opening bars of ‘Where The Humans Eat’ (the aforementioned cat song), a fifty-ish white haired man and a pierced emo teenager look at each other with glee as if to say ‘I love this one!’. A few rows in front stands a old school punk next to three shaven-headed lads in tracksuits. Seems that frustration, left wing politics, domestic animals and lilting ballads about the sea make up that elusive uniting force amongst the youth of Britain.

The band’s sound is balmy, full and responsive. Underpinned by gentle resonant bass lines and brush-struck drums the instrumentation rushes back and forth like a dying tide behind Mason’s raw moans. This is the sound of a long-touring band who have had time to adjust to each other and they never falter. After finishing the night with the much loved ‘Hard Hand To Hold’, Nina Violet fiddling for all she’s worth, Mason wanders back on stage to allow one more burst from the choir. ‘Heads or tails; So Long or Oxygen’ he says, flipping a coin. Of course he plays both, because he’s the nicest man in folk.

In the wake of the local elections the doom-mongers who wrung their hands over youth political apathy would have been heartened by the sound of 400 18 to 30 years olds singing ‘Justice, equality, freedom to every race’ at the top of their lungs. ‘Oxygen’, Mason’s own non-partisan manifesto draws the most joy from the steaming crowd. He has a habit of adapting and changing his third verse to ensure that his is the lone voice for at least a part of the sing-a-long anthem, announcing truths like a scruffy statesman while the throngs look on with pride.

Willy Mason – believe the hype and get your tickets early next time, or you might have to depend on him showing up to play in your living room.

The Kids Are All Nuts

According to Professor Aric Sigman, a psychologist and biologist, children under 3 shouldn’t be allowed to watch television. Aged 3-7 they might be permitted half an hour a day. Aged 7-13 they can watch 2 hours. Any more than this and your child is liable to suffer all manner of problems, from ADHD to morbid obesity. "Screen media must now be considered a major public health issue” wobbles Aric. Strangely enough, he used to appear as the resident doctor on Going Live! which was over two hours long and therefore unacceptable for children’s viewing by his standards. I remember switching over immediately when he came on with his transatlantic drawl, trying to tell me about acne treatments when I wanted to see Trev hit Simon with a pie.

Who’d want to be a kid in 2007? Junk food will kill you, toy adverts are immoral, myspace will see you killed by paedophiles, television makes you fat. The poor little sods are cosseted from all sides by over-protective hand wringers desperate to preserve an idea of childhood that hasn’t existed outside of The Famous Five. We are in danger of producing a generation of defenceless weirdos who have no idea how to survive in the modern world. If parents absorbed all the media messages about how to bring up their children their heads would explode. Your child may not sit in front of the television but they may not be allowed outside in case a stranger kidnaps them for a starring role in his child porn videos. They may not eat junk food or too much salt, or sweets, or fizzy drinks, or more than one serving of oily fish, or red meat. In fact, why don’t we just suspend our newborns in saline filled pods until they reach 18, that way no harm can possible come to them and we won’t feel like Fred and Rosemary West because Cosmo ate a cheeseburger and then watched Dr Who.

Unfortunately this kind of relentless over-parenting has infiltrated television anyway. Any child allowed to watch TV after 7pm will see wave after wave of ‘bad’ children being fixed by Supernannys or Child Psychologists until they sit properly, eat their carrot sticks and go to bed at 8pm on the dot dreaming of another sticker on their behaviour chart. The BBC even has a parenting website where you can check up on where you’re going wrong. There’s a very helpful section on how to explain wars and conflicts to your kids. During the first Gulf War I remember writing a diary entry on the day the conflict began. I wrote with great detail and excitement about the new Sylvanian Families rabbit I had been given, and added at the end ‘PS War broke out’. I really didn’t give a shit about war and international politics, I assumed that if it got really bad, ie there were Iraqi soldiers marching down High Street, that school would be cancelled and my dad would probably sort them out. Now, parents are being told to sit their children down quietly and explain that ‘something bad is going on very far away but you’re safe here’. Of course we all know that this will actually scare kids shitless because they understand inherently that parents lie about everything. They will interpret this ‘chat’ as “We’re probably going to die soon, but please don’t make a fuss’.

Star charts are another method of breeding greedy brats who can’t cope without attention. The thinking behind them is that they encourage good behaviour by rewarding it. Eaten your dinner? Star! Gone to bed? Star! Stopped beating your brother with a wooden spoon for no reason other than it’s mildly diverting? Star! So what happens when junior gets to school and expects praise and rewards for behaviour he should be displaying anyway?
Will they have a star chart in his University classroom? Or in the boardroom? No. By this time he’ll have to get used to the fact that the vast majority of people behave well all of the time, and get bugger all benefit from it. Either that or he can siphon off interest from company pension funds into an offshore account for forty years and then spend five minutes on the naughty step.

The Sunday Supplement method of child rearing is even more vomit inducing. It generally involves skipping ropes and Mummy and Me Painting Classes and is the preserve of middle class upward movers who think that the childhood they never had is what should be afforded to their children whatever the cost. This imagined idea of what children enjoy doing is even more barmy than the Supernanny tribe’s. They spend hundreds of pounds on toys the same as the rest of us, only Harry and Olivia-Jane get hand made Cornish hoops and sticks or genuine Gloucester-built rocking horses that Dad saw on Countryfile. The children’s misery at being the only people in school who don’t know how to pronounce Wii is compounded by the weekends being rigorously timetabled with ballet, pony trekking, pottery and cello practice. Then, when Olivia-Jane gets happy slapped because she can’t weave herself a wicker shield quick enough, they take their kids out for ‘home schooling’, effectively ending their normal lives and consigning them to a future filled with Bee Identification courses at the local Ranger’s station because pubs are for morons.

“Screen media” is one of the few pleasures that kids are still allowed to enjoy. Where else is a child able to see a lion eat a gazelle? Toxteth? Is mum meant to fork out £25 on a ticket to see Manchester United play in the FA cup because 90 minutes is too long for a child to sit and watch it for free at home? I would like to challenge Professor Sigman to try and prevent my two year old sisters from watching Numberjacks. He won’t last five minutes.

Cherry Ghost - Liverpool Carling Academy 2 05.04.07

What with the traditional music press being made increasingly redundant by the speed and relative freedoms of the internet, many music fans rely on a thin portfolio of advisors for their news. Zane Lowe perhaps. MySpace perchance. Toilet doors inscribed with the words ‘Holocaust Breakfast R the Future of rock’ possibly.

Herein lies a problem, as with the explosion of new music content comes a reduction in reliability, and accountability. Previously, any print journalist extolling the virtues of a band could be humiliated by the non-performance of their Next Big Thing. Bets were not hedged, colours to the mast were not pinned unless an act was so startling good and so cruelly forgotten that to not shout their praises from the rooftops would make the infant Jesus cry with horror. Now, print journalists are few, and web journalists are many. Web journalists are largely unaccountable. As Kirsty Walker I can proclaim that a band I quite like are the most amazing musical happening since Og the caveman banged on a stretched animal skin. Tomorrow, as Lulu DeBournville-Smythley I can proclaim that they are, in fact, shit and everyone has jumped the gun. Whoah, whoah, everyone back in their own beds, they are not the Messiahs, they are The Ordinary Boys.

I may have jumped the gun with Cherry Ghost. But so did Zane Lowe. So ner.
Close to six months ago I was telling everyone I knew that Cherry Ghost, AKA Simon Aldred of Salford, was the Next Big Thing. I had found him through MySpace, where the four songs on their meagre profile were enough to send me reeling into ecstasies. The multi-layered, wonderfully over-produced ballads swelled with fat xylophone notes and swirling prickling strings. Aldred’s voice was raw and brilliant, like a tramp in a doorway singing Handel’s Messiah with full accompaniment. It’s a whiskey voice, a smoke filled battle cry of a voice, which lends every lyric a kind of drunken truth. It’s gorgeous, and it’s a pleasure to listen to.

What was on offer at Liverpool Academy was so diluted, so understated that it smacked of embarrassment. The Big Sound of the produced tracks offered up on the Cherry Ghost MySpace profile was gone. It was replaced by a bloodless strumming and dreary bass lines performed by a band who looked like they were kicked out of Towers Of London for being too scruffy. Aldred himself looked grateful for the attention, and his voice was as moving as ever, but the songs which made people sit up and pay attention to Cherry Ghost in the first place were abandoned for a setlist which was prosaic and well, average. In an hour’s set, only the new single ‘Mathematics’ and a strutting mid-tempo number called ‘Here Come The Romans’ stood out. The problem was they stuck out too much, like two Monets in a gallery full of wallpaper samples.

A quick glance at the front row of the audience spoke volumes. Polo shirts and Timberland as far as the eye could see, all checking their watches to see if they could still make last orders in the Dog and Duck. It was your typical Supporters Club. The story was a little different a few rows back where interested parties had assembled to hear more of what they had been treated to from free downloads and the first single from the album, played to death on Zane Lowe. It didn’t happen, and some wandered off before time.

Cherry Ghost’s music has been compared to Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. I pray that Simon Aldred sees the distinction between their live performances, and his. He may feel more comfortable returning to the working men’s clubs after his performance at the Academy, but if it takes glitter, a light show and forty piece orchestra to translate his recorded material to the stage, he should do it, and Heavenly should pay for it. Buy the album, it will be wonderful, but give Simon Aldred a few more coins and a few more months before his live performances live up to the hype.

Whiny Dancer

Elt goes political all too late for Sun City....

Mention the words ‘Sun City’ to any adult over the age of 30 and watch them shrink away in revulsion as they remember the injustice, the pain and the stigma attached to owning that record, written by Silvio Dante from The Sopranos. But Sun City was also a resort, built in ‘Bophuthatswana’, a made up country which was named as an independent state in order to strip black tribespeople of their South African citizenship, and force them to work in the lucrative platinum mines, and the new Sun City casino.

Sun City was a nauseating example of white cultural and economical supremacy in South Africa. Apartheid was at its most healthy and the ban on gambling under the National Party drew thousands upon thousands of rich, white South Africans from Jo’burg and Pretoria to Sun City, where gambling was legal and blacks were banned. In a country where virtually every business and institution stank of corruption and apartheid, Sun City excelled itself. And what better way to draw the rich, racist and ignorant than to stage huge concerts, with some of the world’s headline acts. Acts like Queen, Rod Stewart and Elton John. Ah yes….Elton John.
Elton’s been back in the news lately. He’s turned 60, he’s caused controversy in Tobago as local church leaders have warned he may ‘unduly influence’ the youngsters (presumably they mean dressing like Benny Hill after a date with Trinny and Susannah), and he’s taken on a new role as a crusader for equal rights.

Oozing sanctimony like a giant lefty slug, Elton tells the New Statesman that he is very concerned over bigotry and tells is “We should all stand up for basic human rights.” Right on Elton, except you’ve changed your tune since 1983 when the basic human rights of black people to be treated better than dogs in South Africa were the subject of much consternation to many. Elton crossed the picket line of all cultural picket lines when he agreed to take the Sun City dollar and stick two fingers up to the UN boycott. Of course, when questioned about this sanction break he simply replied that he did not see Sun City as being the real South Africa. Roberta Flack turned down $2 million to perform at Sun City. You can bet she thought it was the real South Africa.

Mind you, it would be easy for Elton to forget he ever visited Sun City, the world wide web holds little information about the show or the surrounding controversy : it’s like the event never happened. In the 1908s he UK Musician’s Union refused to support visas for many artists, including noted anti-apartheid singer Johnny Clegg who had ‘broken’ the UN boycott by playing with Zulu tribespeople, but had nothing to say about Elton’s transgressions. The Union had initiated the boycott itself in 1961, years before the UN, but strangely failed to take action or make comment on any British or American artists, concentrating instead on those from other countries looking for approval to tour Britain.

John’s constant whining about gay rights in the UK is sickening when you contrast this cause with that of the black South Africans he so quickly pissed on to be able to thrust his fat spangled arse into the foulest of all money troughs. Gay people in the UK may have it tough, but they can vote, they can employ straight people, they can ride on the same buses with straight people, they can have passports. Elton’s personal political battle – for the right to have a wedding as tacky as Jordan’s and to have bigger tits – is a transparent act of selfishness. In fact, all of his political leanings show a distinct lack of empathy with anyone dissimilar to Elton John. ‘It Could Have Been Me’ is the title of his New Statesman whine. God, just imagine….

Wage To The Slave

This idea of white folks paying reparations to the ancestors of black slaves got me rather worried. I’ll be honest, I have never checked whether the ancient Walkers were slave owners, it’s not something that tends to come up at Family History coffee mornings. In an effort to investigate possible atrocities in my distant past I talked to my eldest relatives who couldn’t ever recall family pictures with Africans in chains, but did show a liking for a former Black Panther turned comedian by the name of Charlie Williams. Undeterred, I typed ‘Walker slaves’ into Google, whereupon I found the story of Quock Walker, who was bought as an infant by a Massachusetts landowner and sued him when he wasn’t set free at 25 as promised. Quock was given his freedom and fifty pounds, which to be truthful is all I’ve ever wanted out of life.

It got me to thinking about what reparations I might be due, and so, in the absence of any claim on my estate by previously owned people, I am launching my own reparations suit.

Stephen Volk (£500,000 in hurt feelings and a new Trev and Simon DVD)

You may not recognise the name, but this vicious bastard wrote the one-off BBC drama Ghostwatch, which starred lovable Going Live! presenter Sarah Greene. In this drama, staged as a spoof live feed from a supposedly haunted house in London, Sarah Greene played herself, reporting on the ground from the spook house, and eventually being shown crawling into an understairs cupboard where an evil, murdering ghost called Mr Pipes was waiting to kill her and allow her corpse to be slowly eaten by starving cats. Being an aficionado of Going Live! I was horrified and had nightmares for nearly five years. I now own possibly the only signed photo of Sarah Greene which includes the dedication ‘To Kirsty, See, I’m alive!’.

Also in this category :
Kerry Stevenson’s mum, who allowed me to watch Nightmare on Elm Street 3 at her 8th birthday party.

My Dad (A signed confession and 80% in the will)

For the following atrocities:

Telling me as a child that when the ice cream van played its chimes it meant it had run out of ice cream.

Not buying me a Poochie for Christmas 1990, believing instead that I would prefer a full size snooker table.

Insisting on us catching a local Spanish bus to visit ‘El Parc Dinosaurio’, which resulted in us riding right past said park and spending four hours in a backwater town trying to find the bus back to Palma Nova whilst being accosted by gypsies selling lucky herbs.

Telling me that the Easter Bunny turned evil if you were still awake when he came.

Massimo Taibi (£250,000 and a free shot at his groin with a medicine ball)

In May 1999 United finished off a glorious treble, so why, when I recall that footballing year can I only focus on the farcical efforts of Italy’s answer to Mr Bean. When Alex Ferguson assured us that Taibi would have no trouble filling Schmeichel’s shoes, we had no idea it was because he was used to wearing oversized clown clogs at the weekends. A snake would have done better against the marshmallow shots of Chelsea on that miserable Saturday in October, when they trounced us 5-0 and all of it down to the lunacy of Taibi. He let in 11 goals in four games before he was finally laid low by way of a tranquiliser dart and put in a crate stamped ‘Reggina’.

And in brief:

Suede – £12.99 back for ‘A New Morning’, that piece of shit masquerading as their fifth album.

My Mum - £1,000 for telling me that when she thought the Russians were going to drop the bomb in 1982 she planned to crush up on overdose of paracetamol into my Horlicks to spare me the horrors of fallout.

(By the way, I have done some further checks into the possibility of my family owning slaves, and in looking through my Dad’s record collection I found one by Kool and the Gang. Case closed, free of guilt!)

Champion Tossers Put Tosser Champions To Shame

In last month’s Swine Magazine Shaun Smith pronounced the British Darts Oranisation Championship coverage as one of the few things that would cheer you up as you saw all the shite you’d paid hundreds for less than a month ago now reduced to 8p and slung in a wire bucket as a warning to others. True enough, sport has been risible in the last few weeks : deserved humiliation at the Gabba for Sir Andrew Flintoff and his knock-kneed troupe of titled tossers who were too busy turning their logos to the cameras to catch a fucking ball; the BBC asks website visitors to ‘pick your England Rugby Union XV’ and we wonder if Judy Dench is available; we’re so accustomed to a two-horse race in the so-called ‘Best League in the World’ that the prospect of Chelsea dropping two points counts as a footballing coup.


So left with snooker – sport’s own screensaver – and darts to choose from, five million people tuned in to watch two fifty year olds toss the arrows in the BDO final, half of them hoping to see a match rivaling the excitement of the PDC’s final where Raymond van Barneveld beat Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor in a tense sudden death round, and half just amused to see fat blokes and mulleted birds taking a pub sport seriously.


And so to the Lakeside where the thousand most annoying people and their kids from everyone’s local are sat at pub tables swilling beer that you suspect is at bargain prices to stimulate the atmosphere and stop ‘Tiny’ McGee from Doncaster from chinning the barman when he expects eight quid for two plastic pints. They wave ready made signs saying things like ‘SHEILA + WILF AT THE DOG, PUTNEY’, the obligatory ‘180’ pre-printed cards having been handed out and customized with ‘TEZ YOUR A NOB’ and ‘SHIRLEY – MARRY ME?’.


Entrance music, costumes and nicknames are of course de rigeur in darts these days. Like puffed up American wrestlers they wait at the arena entrance, dry ice billowing and some poorly chosen entrance music playing in the background. Anastasia Dobromyslova of Russia inexplicably chose Evenescence’s ‘Bring Me To Life’ which as far as I know has little or nothing to with darts. Andre Brantjes chooses the rather somber ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ by Tears For Fears, and Tony West says ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’ with the help of Baby D.

The players in the BDO look pleasingly uncomfortable with the foofarah of their entrances to the hall. In the semi-final between Martin ‘Wolfie’ Adams and Ted ‘The Count’ Hankey, the organizers had a field day, scattering plastic bats and toy wolves everywhere and turning the smoke machines up to full. “It’s the Wolfman versus The Count” announced commentator Tony Green, in case some of us didn’t get it. And there’s Martin Adams, entering to the strains of ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ and giving the obligatory howl. Hankey wore a full length black cape and tossed more plastic bats into the crowd. Both men had big smiles and winked at the crowd constantly, like they were desperate to make out that this was just a bit of fun.


Both semi-finals were superb, England captain Martin Adams beat arrogant bastard Mervyn King who has in the past blamed air-conditioning and the length of the oche for lack of form. King had earlier threatened to walk out of the competition if rumours of him joining the Professional Darts Association persisted. In a brilliant TV interview he looked set to knock Ray Stubbs spark out for pressing the issue but unfortunately anger management seemed to triumph.


Phil Nixon had entered the tournament for the first time, and as a rank outsider at 150-1. He played eleventh seed, Dutchman Niels de Ruiter and went 5 sets up only to see de Ruieter come back to make it 5-4. On finally winning 6-4, the oldest player in the tournament entered the final as outsider again, looking slightly less glamorous than ‘Wolfie’ Adams, with the half-hearted nickname ‘Nixy’, and looking like a greying Roy Cropper.


For all the sound and fury of the build up, it looked as if this would be the quickest final in recent years. Adams powered ahead, accurate, confident and focused, annihilating Nixon who looked like he was throwing chocolate logs into concrete. Going out for the break in the first to seven sets match, Adams was 6-0 up. In the players’ lounge, Bobby George, whose bling would make King Midas shield his eyes, wears what looks like a mayoral chain as Ray Stubbs begs him to confirm that the Beeb have got a real routing on their hands. “Nixy must be gatted.” Says Bobby.


Back on the oche and Tony Green is all but packing up his butties when out of nowhere Nixon pulled eight consecutive winning legs out of the bag – tossing in 180s like he was at a practice session and leaving ‘Wolfie’ Adams to howl in disbelief. On and on he went, Adams starting to miss the doubles that he’d landed without a problem only minutes before, and Nixon banging them in with pinpoint accuracy. From 6-0 and the prospect of an early night, came 6-6 and the players tied at 2 legs each. Martin Adams had been one dart away from victory eight times in the first half of the final, now his arm looked like lead, and Phil Nixon, the 150-1 shot had him by the balls.


Through all this, the crowd are going mental for every underdog dart that leaves Nixon’s hand. The cameras meanwhile, are bouncing between the action and the two players’ wives, sitting in the balcony. Sharon Adams wears ‘Bet Lynch’ by Matalan, a beautiful silver leopard print blouse with added ruffles. Much was made of the fact that a BBC make-up girl gave her a good going over before curtain up. She looks heartwarmingly attractive – even Tony remarks on how ‘well’ she looks. Suzanne Nixon has been given no such attention but sits with half a lager in her hand, clearly seen as intoning ‘Shitting hell!’ when Nixy misses an important double.


Tony Green refers constantly to the two women; “Sharon Adams has left the hall, she can’t take it any more!” he said as Nixon finally leveled to 6-6. “Suzanne Nixon’s standing up – she’s not going anywhere!”. This was about as far from the misguided idolatry of the World Cup WAGS of last year as you could get. It was justified recognition for women who haven’t been in receipt of BMWs or lucrative advertising contracts, but have lost their houses, like Sharon Adams did when Wolfie’s first foray into professionalism went awry, or acted as the main breadwinner like Suzanne Nixon whilst Phil tried for twenty years to get to the BDO finals. The financial rewards now that those dreams have come true are paltry by today’s sporting standards. In the same week as David Beckham gets $1million a week for his semi-retirement, two darts players get 70 and 30 grand respectively for being World Champion, and Championship runner up. The same day as the final a woman opened some random boxes on Deal Or No Deal and beat the championship earnings of Phil Nixon by two thousand quid.



“They’re playing for the world’s greatest title” says Tony Green. In a world where Mourinho blames lack of money for Chelsea’s misfortune, and not even the landed gentry can keep the colonists down at cricket, it’s difficult to disagree.