9th November 2008 Had the pleasure of a damn rare thing the other day- a US arena that isn’t out in the boonies, miles from anywhere but is actually located in the centre of town close to where things like people and shops are. Made a very pleasant change thats for sure. The 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore, Maryland has been open for business since the early 1960s although it was known as the Civic Centre for its first 25 years and then Baltimore Arena up until 2003. They have had them all here over the years and some of the proof of this is displayed on the walls backstage as framed ads for legendary shows from the 1960s (Stones, Beatles, Byrds, Dylan etc) are everywhere. Some of the juicier bits of memorabilia are tucked away elsewhere though. Stage manager and local union rep Brian Snell, who has worked at the Arena since the mid 1970s, is a very nice man and is justifiably proud of the building’s heritage and his office is home to a few pieces of history that he managed to save from being thrown away. Pride of place goes to a lovingly restored Altec Lancing 250SU mixer/amplifier that was part of the original PA that was installed in the building all those years ago. The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix both used it and Brian swears that it is still in perfect working order. All four channels of it. The power supply for this unit didn’t escape the clutches of the binman unfortunately so it hasn’t been run up for a good few years, but they built stuff properly in those days so I have no reason to doubt his word. Also on display here are tape machines and original outboard equipment from the 1970s as well as a large collection of backstage passes, including one from an Elvis Presley gig in 1977, performed only a couple of weeks before he died. Rare stuff indeed. The 1st Mariner Arena keeps getting the big boys (and girls) as well, the Rolling Stones played a rare indoor show here a couple of years ago and Brian and his crew managed to find a way to fit in 26 trucks worth of gear and still leave enough room for 12,000 people. Wonder what was left over from that night that is waiting to take its place in the hidden archive… 31st October 2008 Halloween night tonight. A big deal in the US, everyone gets costumed up and has a bit of a knees up. We are on a day off today and even the staff in the hotel lobby are all kitted out as vampires. I, unfortunately, have no costume and nowhere to go. It’s a shame that we are not doing a gig today really because I’d have been well up for doing that in fancy dress. In fact what would be ideal is to do it in a kind of Halloween/It’s a Knockout crossover style, I could dress as an eight foot tall demonic policeman but have my trousers full of water and be tied to the floor with a bunji cord so I couldn’t quite reach the stage to do guitar changes. I could win points by dividing the number of successful guitar changes by the number of litres of water that spills out of the trousers. Everyone could then do the load out dressed as giant skittles. Get Eddie Wearing and Stuart Hall in to commentate and we could sell the idea to satellite TV- It’s a Loadout. What a concept. Excuse me I need to make a phone call… 13th October 2008 A day off in Detroit, Michigan home of the US car industry and a very fitting place to end up after last weeks first attempt at driving in the USA (a 250 mile round trip from Indianapolis to Dayton). It’s a bit weird to get used to all this left hand drive/other side of the road malarkey but all the cars have automatic transmission which leaves you free to keep your attention on the road rather than be distracted by trying to change gear using the door handle. An automatic is just a matter of press and go, rather like driving a dodgem car (but hopefully with less collisions) its not proper driving. How are you supposed to red line it and get the engine working properly when a machine keeps changing gear every 3000 revs? This turning right on a red light business is a bit wrong as well, it goes against all my UK derived driving instincts to be moving off when a light is still red. But the only ropey moment in the whole trip was the first crossroads I came to with other traffic present and no traffic lights. As I approached it occurred to me that I had no idea what the priority system was in the US so, after a moments panic, I decided to play safe and just sit there until everyone else had gone. This worked well but god knows what the bloke in the car behind me thought (although to be fair, when I eventually got back to hotel I asked the guy on the front desk what the priority is in that kind of case and he had no idea either. Neither did his mate who he called in from the back office and they both drive every single day). I didn’t get the Dodge Charger that the hire company originally offered me though, they changed it for a Chevy Malibu. Which apart from sounding like it should be the kind of drink that you have in half a coconut with loads of umbrellas and a crazy straw, didn’t look as mean as the Charger. Not to worry though, I’ve got a 4.6 litre Mustang GT booked and confirmed when I get to California and I’m looking forward to ragging that all the way from San Diego to Yuma and over the mountains into the desert basin. I might have to buy some snakeskin cowboy boots to wear while I’m doing it too. I mean, you have to do these things properly don’t you? 1st October 2008 ‘Always The Place To Be’ claims the welcome plaque at the Holiday Inn in Binghamton, New York. ‘Our mission is to provide you with an excellent hospitality experience that will exceed your expectations’ it continues. Well, if you expect to only want a drink up until 10.15 at night then the Holiday Inn will have exceeded your expectations because you will get a bonus 15 minutes drinking time and the mission will have been successful. If, however, you get back to your ‘international’ hotel at 10.45PM after a 14 hour working day and expect to be able to get a quick slurp in before bedtime you will find yourself shit out of luck. And whatever you do don’t get hungry either because there is no room service at night. And talking of expectations I don’t expect the ‘free broadband internet service in all rooms’ which the hotel are promoting to be something which is slower than dial up and keeps dropping the connection. So, on the alcohol, culinary and communications fronts my expectations have not been exceeded (or even met) and I’m afraid its mission failed. In fact I can only assume that the Binghamton Holiday Inn is ‘Always The Place To Be’ only by virtue of the fact that there is nothing else around here. Christ, what a shithole. If you need proof that America is in recession then you only need to visit places like Binghamton. A sluggish river runs through a moribund downtown area full of closed down businesses and discount stores and the place is almost deserted after dark. If you look hard you may find two bars open after 10.30, one of which serves the worst draught beer I have ever tasted and is frequented by a small collection of mangy locals who eye you suspiciously and make you feel about as welcome as VD in a convent. The other bar contains students. If that isn’t reason enough to give it a wide berth then bear in mind that these people have chosen to come to this place to go to University. Enough said there I think. It wasn’t always this way, so I’ve been told. This was the birthplace of IBM computers and the place was a boom town. Two golf courses, country clubs, huge houses for the high rollers etc. Then, during the late 1970s it was discovered that IBM had been dumping all the toxic chemicals that they were using in the hills and woods around the area. This had contaminated the water supply and people were feeling the effects. I was told by one local that four of his classmates were dead before they reached 12 years old. Poisoned basically. This scandal has been ongoing since then and it wasn’t until 2002 that IBM admitted some kind of responsibility but the area will be feeling the effects for generations (and the future of computing turned out to be in software and not hardware so IBM struggled too. Karma perhaps?). The end of the cold war meant a lot of defence work was lost too. So maybe it is understandable that things are a bit dour around here after all. We are here for a weeks worth of rehearsals at the Ice Arena and its currently day five so Water Arena is becoming more accurate as more and more of the ice melts. Got to keep as much stuff off the floor as possible and every surface on stage left is stacked up with boxes and cases. Still, it may be cold (and wet) but must not grumble, we have a trio of British caterers with us so the food front is safely in the hands of someone who knows the difference between zuchini and a courgette and it is the small details like that which stop situations coming to a head after all. 18th September 2008 Blimey, what a week last week turned out to be. Not only was the Metallica album put on sale two days early but I’ve also discovered that all the Killing Joke John Peel sessions are now available on CD too. I bought a bootleg cassette of these years ago and even though I am not 100% certain of the current location of this cassette, it doesn’t matter because I don’t own a tape deck anymore. Can’t wait to get hold of this compilation, its been a long time since I heard these versions and no longer will I have to put up with a drop out in the middle of Nuclear Boy, which was caused by the little girl from next door pressing record and play together when she was messing about with our family ‘music centre’ while my mums back was turned. My own fault for leaving the tape in the deck I suppose. Anyway, a lengthy blog entry about the magnificence of Killing Joke is long overdue so I’ll get this album ASAP. That should get the memories and the creative juices running 11th September 2008 There is always a first time for everything and today is the first time that I have been stopped under Section 44 (article 1) of the Anti Terrorism Act. You would have thought that armed militias or gangs of fundamentalist extremists or even blokes with beards would be natural suspects for being the perpetrators of terrorist attacks but apparently blokes from Suffolk driving vans full of empty second hand flightcases can find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong place being round the back of Kings Cross railway station and the wrong time being anytime on the day of September 11th. So there I was, a textbook example of purity and innocence, in my hire van driving down York Way and I find a roadblock in place under the flyover and I am waved over to the side of the road. Out of the van, name and address given and all that kind of thing and while they are searching the cargo I ask the officer in charge why I’ve been stopped. He fixes me with a grave look and says “Well, what day is it…?” It was a Thursday but apart from that the only thing special about it to me is the fact that it was the day before the new Metallica album was due out. I kind of suspected that might not be the answer he was looking for though. Unless, of course, the whole Anti Terrorism thing was just a ruse to search for pre-release copies of the Metallica album. Unlikely I suppose but you never know these days. Anyway, assuming that the Newmarket pub or the Greek café opposite Rosie McCann’s are not on Al Queda’s hit list, I wondered aloud what possible terrorist targets could be located around here, just around the corner from John Henrys? The officer gave me that look again and pointed overhead, “What’s that?” he said. I knew this one because I remembered them building it, it was part of the Eurostar high speed rail link. The officer nodded and raised a portentious eyebrow and I suddenly understood the situation- they were stopping people in vans under the Eurostar flyover because it might be a target for a car (van) bomb. Nice one plod, I would have thought it would have been better to stop an attacking vehicle BEFORE it got to the target but that’s just little old me, splitting hairs and being pedantic again. August 28th 2008 A mystery has been solved. Its been a long, long time and I wasn’t particularly looking for an answer for most if it, because back in those pre-internet days there wasn’t really all that many places to look. Once upon a time, back in my early teenage years, I purchased a seven inch single from Red Rhino Records in York. I was young and not particularly knowledgeable at that point and I bought it because I liked the blood splattered design on the centre label. There was no picture sleeve, no record label name, no indication of which was the A or the B side, no copyright clause, date information or even an artist name. In fact the only text on the label was the number 1970 on one side and the words TV Eye on the other. The TV Eye side opens with what sounds like a radio announcer saying the words “…they watch it all and listen to them tune up and listen to them check speakers. Er…I think we’ve got some action coming up now- we’ll leave Bob Waller for the moment and go to the stage and listen to Iggy and The Stooges”. A particularly thin and trebly recording of a live performance is then faded in. It is a band playing a very basic, very distorted and almost certainly very loud form of rock ‘n’ roll. But at least I now knew who the artist was because the kind announcer had told me, in fact I’d even heard of someone called the Stooges because The Damned had covered one of their songs called ‘I Feel Alright’ on their first album. I was pleased that my blind purchase was shaping up to be a good addition to my burgeoning punk rock collection even if the audio quality was a little ropey and there was some bloke talking over it. The song TV Eye featured a sick, screeching guitar solo, devoid of melodic or harmonic content, which seemed to be accompanied by the sound of someone either revving a motorcycle or taking a chainsaw to the stage and it is not until a long time and quite a few plays later that I realised that this is the sound of a bass guitar, fuzzed up to the max, fighting to hold the song down. This side of the single ended abruptly with a loud scream from the singer (presumably this Iggy bloke) and the announcer butting in once again “There goes Iggy, right into the crowd. We’ve lost audio on him. This seems like a good place to get a message in” Iggy is still screaming his head off in the background as the recording suddenly ends and the needle of my turntable hits the centre groove, thudding and crackling to its own rhythm as I lay on the bed puzzling over what I’d just heard. This Iggy person sounded a bit deranged, his vocals alternated between being shouted, growled and screamed and he certainly didn’t seem to be adverse to getting close to his audience. This latter fact was confirmed as I flipped the single over and lifted the needle onto the 1970 side. A sudden fade in brought me into the middle of another feral guitar solo and our friend the announcer kindly letting us know that “Since we broke away for our message, Iggy has been in the crowd and out again three different times. They seem to be enjoying it and so does he!” As if to confirm this pronouncement Iggy screams “I FEEL ALRIGHT, I FEEL ALRIGHT” and when the gonzo ping pong of the song’s main riff kicks in, I realise that I know this one. It is the song from the Damned album, the one they covered, and so I find that I can make sense of the noise and follow what’s going on- kind of. The song is making sense but god only knows what is happening onstage as the announcer has now told us that “We seem to have lost him and we are trying to get a light on him now”. As the band enter the song’s final refrain a lone female voice suddenly appears, almost drowned by the wall of distortion. The voice is hysterical with either excitement or distress and seems to be screaming the word ‘please’ over and over and is pleading to ‘take a piece’ or something about a ‘taking a t-shirt’. The voice is soon sucked back into the confusion and its place is taken by the shrill squeak of a freeform saxophone, wailing and grunting its way through an extended version of the song’s final section as a simple pair of powerchords phase their way through a long elegant swoop. From nowhere the disembodied voice of our announcer says with disbelief “That’s peanut butter…!” Hang on- what about peanut butter? What’s he talking about? What’s going on that I can’t see? Suddenly, with a long snare drum roll the song collapses in on itself and stutters to a halt. The recording ends there, cutting the announcer off as he hands over to his companion in the crowd. I was astonished and confused about what I had just heard. If it wasn’t for the voice of the announcer I would have thought that this was bad live recording of some pre-punk garage band that was OK because of its link (through the cover version I already knew) with the current UK punk scene. But the announcer’s descriptions of what was actually going on made me think that there was something chaotic and dangerous going on while this band were performing and this mysterious single seemed to be almost a voyeuristic document of some event that might very well have been completely out of control. I found it fascinating and the fact that there were no clues as to its origin just made it all the more intriguing. It was obviously a non official release as it had no markings as to its identity. Where was it recorded and by whom? And was there any more of it? I played it to my friend Mike and the ghostly womans voice that is briefly audible scared him shitless and he refused to listen to it again, he said it was creepy. It was obvious that I was going to have to probe into the official catalogue of this chap Iggy and the band the Stooges and over the next few years I bought the three classic albums (The Stooges, Funhouse and Raw Power) and a couple of Iggy’s solo works and asked people who might know (and there were not many of those round our way) but I could never find any info about my mystery single. It was a live recording of Iggy and the Stooges- that was all anyone knew but that was obvious from just listening to it. It took almost 10 years and a move to a completely different part of the country for another piece of information to fall into place and it was late one night during 1988 during one of those post pub gatherings at a friend’s house where the music is on and the rizlas are out. This particular friend was a member of a band who I had just recently joined and we were still in the getting-to-know-you stage of things and it turns out that he is a big Iggy fan, in fact he buys and collects bootlegs and unofficial releases and it was while I was flicking through his collection that the listing on the back of one particular compilation caught my eye as it featured two tracks- TV Eye and 1970- listed as being ‘Live at the Cincinatti Pop Festival 1970’ and the sleeve notes mentioned that the audio was taken from a TV broadcast. I asked my new friend if these tracks happened, by any chance, to have talking on them. He smiled a stoned smile and replied “That’s peanut butter…!” They were the same tracks and the sleeve also had a photo of Iggy at this very concert. It’s a fantastic image of him standing bare-chested among a sea of raised hands with his right arm pointing off camera and is a great teaser for what the television footage must be like. Alas, my friend had never seen and had no idea of how to get hold of this footage and we both agreed that it must be presumed lost otherwise the Stooges collectors grapevine would surely be aware of it. Film of the Stooges live is the holy grail for him but he’s never of the existence heard of any (there is considerable excitement later that year though, when a bootleg video of a Dutch TV biography of Iggy turns up that not only features an interview about the early days with Stooges guitarist Ron Ashton but also features about 30 seconds of silent black and white footage of the band live). Fast forward another 10 years and I find myself in New York. I’m on tour but we have a day off so I’ve gone shopping and I find myself in a record store that happens to stock ‘unofficial’ releases. I’m after a copy of the banned Rolling Stones tour film ‘Cocksucker Blues’ and while I am in the video section I check out the Iggy videos, they all contain the usual footage (Bang Bang with the ping pong balls, live on The Tube with Frank Infante on guitar, the Dutch documentary etc) but the last one, called Iggy Pop Rarities, lists a few minutes of what it calls The Stooges live in 1970 (TV Eye/1970). It could only possibly be the Cincinatti footage, and sure enough it is. Unfortunately it is also the worst quality copy of anything I have ever seen (and I own quite a few bootlegs). Obviously there is no way to be sure what generation copy it is but the visuals are reduced to a series of indistinguishable blurs and it constantly glitches and catches. Its also incomplete (judging by what I know from the audio). Its very frustrating but all part of the bootleg buying game in those days. I had come tantalisingly close to the final piece of a jigsaw that had been ongoing for 20 odd years but had been foiled again. As I sat on the tour bus, running the video again to try to make out identifiable shapes from the mess, I wondered if it would be another 10 years before something else would crop up that would solve the mystery. I was right. The all powerful internet has been bringing the knowledge to the world’s population for a few years now and as I sat idly in front of my computer last week with nothing better to do, I put the words Iggy, Stooges and live into You Tube and up came the result- Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Live in Cincinatti 1970. I was astonished, not only to finally find the elusive footage but also to discover that it has been up there for almost two years, just waiting for me to come and look for it. As I waited for the footage to load, I hoped that it wasn’t going to be a copy of the same cloudy mess that I had purchased back in 1998. It wasn’t. It also wasn’t high definition Blue Ray whatnot either but who cares, I’m not a pampered child of the 21st century. It’s a little fuzzy round the edges and is timecoded but its all there. The clip opens up with my old mate the announcer, resplendent in suit and tie with his TV composure intact, closing his interview with a comparatively scruffy companion (presumably Bob Waller) and announcing the Stooges. The first shot of the band is over the neck of Ron Ashton’s strat and is of a very young Iggy bending over the front row of the audience. He is bare chested and is wearing tight jeans, a spiked dog collar and silver gloves. His naked torso is drenched with sweat and he is bawling into a small silver coloured microphone. He straightens up as the verse finishes, the camera turns to follow him and bass player Dave Alexander comes into view, leaning back as he digs into a Mosrite bass guitar. The most that is visible of guitarist Ron Ashton is one shoulder and the back of his head. He will be seen from the front later but apart from that the musicians in the band are barely featured, kind of a shame but it doesn’t matter because you know the action is going to come from Iggy. He seems to be gasping for breath and is leaning on the mic stand for support as he regards the audience with a baleful stare that eventually turns into a snarl. He is obviously biding his time and, as the song enters a breakdown section, he is off the front of the stage and is lost among the audience members- a silver gloved hand briefly visible trailing behind before being swallowed up. The first half of the footage fades as an ad break comes in. Nice timing for god’s sake…Part 2 begins with Iggy on all fours. He has lost one glove, has no microphone and is shouting wordlessly at the audience. As he straightens up he is obviously searching the floor for the elusive mic and it is eventually handed to him an audience member. Iggy returns the gesture by jumping back into the crowd (where he will remain for the rest of the song) and manages to complete half of another verse before sinking from view. Confusion reigns, you can’t see anything but a heaving mass of tumbling bodies and Iggy’s shouts are interspersed with that weird womans voice. Eventually a spotlight finds its mark and the first person up out of the mess is a woman with a camera, closely followed by Iggy. That is what the screaming was all about- she was on top of him trying to take a photo and her voice was leaking into the vocal mic. She carries on trying to take photos from close quarters as she (and Iggy) are being jostled from all sides. He eventually abandons the mic by throwing it back onto the stage and climbs onto peoples shoulders, they are holding him up by the ankles when he points at something off screen and that iconic shot is played out. He is showing off, baiting the audience, alternately joining in their game and then mocking them. Then he is holding something, a can or a jar, and is smearing the contents over his chest and flinging handfuls in the air and at audience members. It’s the peanut butter incident, for a long time a rock ‘n’ roll legend, now in its full glory for all to see. The camera angle changes to close up as Iggy is swallowed up by the audience again eventually surfacing, with the help of a number of teenage girls, close to the stage. Gasping, filthy and bedraggled he is helped back onstage as the footage ends. Its great and I’m overjoyed. It has been almost thirty years since I sat listening the audio part of this performance and wondering what the hell was going on. I can now put the places, faces and incidents together and have the whole picture. Its all pretty much as I imagined it once I had learned a little bit about the man Iggy (although I did envisage it all taking place indoors). The announcer appeared exactly as I pictured him at first too, although the voice and his delivery made that easy. It’s an amazing piece of film and a great performance, proper dirty greasy rock music teetering on the edge of chaos, the kind of stuff that legends are made of and are few and far between these days. It has also given me one of my favourite rock ‘n’ roll images. The mystery is solved at last and it was worth waiting. August 11th 2008 5.15AM in Tokyo. I’m back in one of my favourite cities in the world but I’ve been wide awake for about an hour, even though I only got into bed shortly before midnight. Can’t work out why the sleep thing isn’t happening this time around and its getting pretty exhausting for a 12 hours-a-night man like myself, I’m now well down on my quota for this week. Being a professional, I’m not going to let it affect my performance and all that, although I may allow myself a quiet mope in a dark corner by myself when no-one is looking. Festival season has reached Japan and this year I’ve swapped my usual weekend at Fuji Rock for the Summer Sonic double header in Tokyo and Osaka. The Japanese summer is short but intense and is in full effect at the moment, the extremely high humidity is causing the kind of sweat marks that haven’t been seen since the last episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and a short walk up the street for a snack means that you come back soaking. The peculiarities of my physique means that I constantly have two matching pools of moisture at the top of my stomach, kind of like a silhouette of the kidneys. Not a very dignified look and changing t-shirts twice a day means that I’m eating into my supply at double the estimated rate. I’ve managed to top up with a few freebies from the festival but I think I’ll have to get a couple of cheapo tourist shirts to see me through, otherwise I will be doing the upcoming Hungarian and Dutch gigs topless. And we don’t want that believe me. We are currently billeted in the Ark Hills area of Tokyo which is a part of town that I’m not too familiar with and it seems to be a bit more sedate than the areas that I’ve stayed in before- the Blade Runner districts like Shibuya and Shinjuku (the latter of which was pretty comprehensively destroyed in Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah). However, from my hotel room I can see that we are pretty close to the Tokyo Tower (very effectively smashed up in Gamera- Guardian of the Universe) which also means that Roppongi is not far away too. Now, I’m a big fan of Japan. I like a disciplined, well structured society and I love daft toys, neon lighting, futuristic railways, fancy calligraphy and the chaos and energy of modern Japanese cities. The folklore and traditions of old Japan are pretty interesting too. Hence, the area of Roppongi is not really for me. The fact that the streets are provided with special locked bins labelled ‘For the disposal of indecent flyers’ may be a clue to what this district is about. It is the home of the Hard Rock Café, Tony Romas Rib Joint, a few dozen hostess bars and about half a dozen ‘English’ pub type places and so tends to attract hoards of pissed up foreigners all carrying on like they are in Gateshead town centre on a Friday night. Its not the really the kind of atmosphere that I came halfway around the world to enjoy and I will be giving it a wide berth as usual and will be spending my time in pursuit of something more Japanese- like giant monsters (or Kaiju in local parlance). While perusing the internet a few weeks ago, I discovered to my excitement that there is a new statue of Godzilla that has been erected at Toho Studios in Tokyo. I was already aware of the modest tribute to the big lad that is located close to the Hibiya Park metro station, as I had made a pilgrimage to visit it a few years back and although it is a fine piece it does only stand a couple of feet tall. From studying photos of the new statue it would seem to be around 8-10 feet tall and even though this is still a few hundred feet short of life size it is a pretty impressive sight and an absolute must see for a fan such as myself. Finding an address was difficult, there was no information available online, but I knew the way to the Toho Twin Towers building and the Toho Entertainment Centre from Hibiya station so once in the area, it would be a piece of cake to find a friendly local and perform the International Sign Language extended mime action for ‘large statue of giant monster’ for him/her and get pointed in the right direction. Easy. Unfortunately after a lot of wandering around and a few very spirited imitations of Godzilla we found out from a very handy English speaking tourist office that the new statue is actually located at the Toho Studio lot, where the soundstages are, way out in the middle of the suburbs. This would need at least a half day adventure to get out there and back safely and we didn’t have that much time to spare. Bloody work, getting in the way of the sightseeing again. An outing that proved to be more successful was the Devo gig a couple of nights ago and I was taken by surprise on two counts, first by my willingness to go to a gig on a night off and secondly by the bonkers Japanese band who were supporting. They wore their hearts on their sleeves and were obviously heavily influenced by the headliners but have taken the Devo blueprint and made it faster, punkier and a whole lot more manic. Excellent robotic keyboard player too and I never thought I hear myself saying that. Polysics are my new favourite Japanese band (even though I never had an old favourite one) and I’ll be scouring YouTube for live footage sometime soon. So, all that is left of this Japan time is a quick trip over the Rainbow Bridge and past the Tokyo ferris wheel (completely mangled in Godzilla Vs Mothra) for the final gig at the Studio Coast club and home first thing in the morning. The toy shop at Narita airport will get a visit for last minute bargains because one cannot leave without a final armful of playthings, your kids would never forgive you. August 4th 2008 Just a quick note to say to one and all Welcome Back to XSelectronics. I am delighted to say that the hosting bill has been paid in full and the normal mix of complaining, poorly thought out arguments, unwanted technical opinions and gratuitous swearing is back. Until today, the site hadn’t been updated since April and down below you will find all the blog entries that have been piling up unpublished since then all uploaded at the same time. And although I would like to think that there have been hundreds of faithful readers checking back here every couple of days in the desperate hope that some new gormless rant has been posted, I am realistic enough to realise that this is probably not so. I do however know of at least two misguided souls who have been looking forward to this day, so these latest items are dedicated to you my poor, lost children. I am also pleased to announce a couple of things, firstly that due to the restraints of the word count in my Guitar magazine column the planned ’10 Things Musicians Do That Piss Their Roadcrew Off’ piece will now appear as a blog entry on here because lets face it, 600 words isn’t nearly enough to do that subject justice. Secondly, that there will soon be a reformat of the XSelectronics website. The blogs will be individually entered under their own title, subject and date and will be accompanied by relevant illustrations and images. They will all be indexed and hopefully searchable too. I’m also toying with the idea of allowing comments but will probably decide against it as I know I will get fed up trawling through the blog spam everyday looking for genuinely interesting comments to approve. The photo galleries will be a lot more compact and better presented although I cannot guarantee that the content will improve. That’s all in the future though and it may take a while, a friend is putting the templates together for me in his spare time and I have got to get round to uploading the content and you know what I’m like…If you don’t know what I am like trust me here because I do know me, I’m on the inside after all. Besides I’ve already paid for this space until December and you have to get your money’s worth these days don’t you? July 30th 2008 I like to think that I am a reasonably intelligent person. I may not be a surgeon or one of NASA’s top engineers and in fact I left school with only 2 ‘O’ levels (in English and Drama unfortunately. I look back now and think ‘what the hell was I doing?’ metalwork, technical drawing and computer studies would have been far more useful but that’s hindsight for you). Life and its many experiences, books, the ability to listen and learn in an adult way and a willingness to think and evaluate have taught me an awful lot in the 25 odd years since the school gates closed behind me for the last time. Travel is good for broadening the mind too but no matter how extensively I’ve travelled or how clever I may think I have become, there are one or two things which always make me feel that I’m back in class 4Z with an empty brain that somehow doesn’t want to start. Take, for example, the lighting system in some hotel rooms. I am currently sitting in my room in Portugal and I cannot work out how to turn all the lights off from the bed. There is a panel of four switches next to the bed and two different types of reading light above it on each side (one of the styles has its own toggle switch on the base too). A simple law of mathematics says that there are a possible 128 different combinations of these four switches alone, and that is without factoring in the status of the master switches by the door. I can only get the non-gooseneck reading light to come on by having the main lights on too and I can’t turn the hallway lights off and leave the main lights still on, no matter what combinations of master/slave switches I use between the bedside and doorside panels. Plus, the upright lamp on the other side of the room only seems to be controlled from the master panel by the door, which is no good because if you have that turned off then none of the lights work at all and I cannot for the life of me work out how to get the reading light on the gooseneck to turn on at all. On either side of the bed. No matter whether the toggle switch is on or not. Its far too bloody complicated and I think I’m going to cry. All I want to do is lay in bed with a cold ‘un and read my book, is that too much to ask? And another thing, while we are on the subject of hotels, why is there always an episode of Murder She Wrote overdubbed in German on the TV in all European hotel rooms? I find it slightly disturbing and the reason for that is (as anyone who has stayed in a few hotels in Europe can testify) that German seems to have become the international language of pornography. I haven’t made an extensive study of this but it is an impression that I have got from those previews that pop up when you are browsing the channels looking for Discovery in english. You know, the ones where you have to put your room number in to carry on viewing. They always seem to have a German soundtrack, hence the language and the activities are inextricably linked in my mind and that is why it is slightly wrong that Angela Landsbury should seem to be inadvertently encouraging such behaviour. Unless you feel that way about Angela Landsbury of course (I don’t luckily) which could be the result of spending too much time in European hotel rooms, in which case you should stick to BBC World and a club sandwich. Unless you are in the Park Hotel in Novi Said, Serbia as this hotel serves an interesting regional variation on the club sandwich in that it contains beef rather than chicken and it has the bacon on the side. Full marks for innovation I suppose but I have to say I was disappointed. After all the club sandwich is an international benchmark of how good a hotel is, I’m not interested in whether there is a gym or a roof terrace or award winning conference facilities, I need to know how good the club sarnie is. Because lets face it, it is a true multi functional dish- its toasted and contains bacon (and egg) therefore it is suitable for breakfast. The presence of the chicken and salad qualifies it as lunch as well but if you have a huge side of fries (as one should) then it is truly a large meal, making it perfect for dinner usage. Genius whichever way you look at it. Therefore anyone who tries to mess with the tried and tested formula better come up with something pretty special and the Park Hotel didn’t unfortunately. Whereas the Scandic hotel in Borlange, Sweden played a very clever card by serving their club sandwich with curry mayonnaise, a cunning twist that took me by surprise but worked perfectly. Fat bread, lightly toasted. Fat chips nicely browned. These people could teach even the Americans something about the club sandwich and those people have got plenty of previous. Shame the hotel was full of bloody musicians, for a minute there I almost had the perfect meal. July 8th 2008 The Hodokvas Rock Festival is an annual event in Slovakia. I’ve never been there before so I can perhaps be forgiven for thinking that Bratislava was the country we were in instead of the name of the nearest city. Very ignorant of me and I apologise. I will, however, never forget this event because upon our arrival on site, as we wound our way between the shuttle buses and portacabins, I caught a flash of silver over to my right behind the catering tent. Lots of flashes of silver infact, all parked neatly in rows. A sight that nearly made me fall to my knees in astonishment and disbelief, a bit like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes (but without the loincloth) met my eyes. A decent portion of the ex-Czechoslovakian air force was sitting disused behind a chainlink fence. At least twenty MIG 21s were rusting away, the polished silver exteriors now weathered and bruised while those with painted fuselages were peeling and flaking. I love a cold war jet and the Eastern Bloc stuff has an allure completely different from Nato hardware, probably due to its scarcity, so the sight of all this in one place was genuinely exciting and the load in would have to wait as this was a photographic opportunity too good to miss. Shame that I’d left my camera at the hotel then…bloody typical. Luckily a colleague came to my rescue with a loan of his Canon and a wander around the perimeter of the fence revealed that this must be the location of some kind of military museum. It was also quite obviously closed which was a shame as every fibre of my being was aching to get in there and wander around. It was incredibly frustrating to be so close to these rarities but not to be able to get a decent photographic angle, especially as none of the exhibits seemed to be roped off in any kind of way. I had to get whatever I could by shooting through the fence. It was probably quite fortunate for the festival that we were shut out as you would have never got me out of there in time for the gig to go ahead as scheduled. I would have been far too busy hugging MIGS and would never want to leave. Mind you, as Tony the Barber pointed out, I could have probably given them a few quid and taken one away with me. Try getting that in the back of a sprinter van without chipping the paintwork.. June 30th 2008 I arrived back in the village on Saturday, freshly laundered and smelling of roses, and found that I was no longer the owner of an electricity supply. I still had electricity though, the clock on the cooker was still winking the incorrect time at me and the Freeview box was still tuned to Dave but I was no longer responsible for the account. Through a complicated series of events that I still don’t fully understand, the person who was the registered occupant of my house before me now has his name on the electricity bill again and everyone at Eon Electricity denies all knowledge of it, me, and even themselves as they claim that the person who changed it over doesn’t exist. Dashed odd behaviour if you ask me, better boot the problem up the chain of command to the landlady and go see a rock band instead of arguing with faceless bureaucracy. I’ve been a worried man recently you see, because due to scheduling problems I’ve been forced to hand over my Stone Gods gig to a babysitter. A babysitter with very overt shoes. Luckily his technical skills far outweigh his shortcomings in footwear and when I didn’t receive any emergency phone calls telling me that all the careful prep work we did was in vain and everything was broken into tiny little bits, I knew that he was doing a damn fine job. Like I always knew he would. However curiosity got the better of me and so it was that I ended up taking a trip up the A11 to Norwich for the final night of the Stone Gods tour to have a butchers at the band, this time from the other side of the fence. I very rarely find myself going to gigs for pleasure as it always makes me a bit fidgety and uneasy, I always have the uncomfortable feeling that I should be doing something else other than propping up the bar swilling lager. I also get very restless if it sounds a bit weird and if any of the gear goes wrong, I have to be practically physically restrained from shouting encouragement and advice. It doesn’t make for a relaxing evening out as you can imagine. There was no need for any of that though, the performance from both band and crew was flawless. The venue was full, the beer was cold and the version of Metallica’s ‘Whiplash’ that the band are knocking out is stunning. Strange watching someone else do your job though, kind of like seeing an ex-girlfriend out and about with her new fella. Or someone doing a cover version of a song you once wrote that you have to accept is very good. Or lending the missus your car knowing it will come back with all the CDs out of the cases and wine gum wrappers or tissues in the ashtray but it returns spotless. So a big round of applause is due to Stuey Q, the bloke in the shadows stage right as it is quite a complex gig to get your head around in a couple of short rehearsals. He won’t be able to hear you clapping though, his shoes are too loud… June 21st 2008 Mosquitos. Bastards. I’m slowly but surely being eaten alive, they have sucked so much blood out of me over the past 24 hours that I feel faint. I’ve got bright red volcanic mounds all over my arms, neck and face that are itching like a bastard and I’ve got them halfway up my back even though I haven’t had my t-shirt off . Pesky little critters, how did they get up there? We are in Venice, Italy and are staying in the same hotel I stayed in last year and people have even been attacked by the mozzie hoards in the safety of their own beds. Not me though, thank god, I’m not daft enough to sleep with the window open. For some reason, the Heineken Jammin’ Festival organisers gave us a stage pretty much to ourselves for last nights gig. We had the luxury of an absurd 5 hours to do our changeover, which was long enough to load in incredibly slowly, change all the strings, leisurely clean and dust everything, re-bias all the rental amps, go have dinner, have the longest line check in the history of rock and still have plenty of time left over for some twiddling of thumbs. All accompanied by the soundtrack of Iggy and the Stooges, Queens of the Stone Age and Linkin Park from over on the other stage. The Sex Pistols faithful were at the barriers pretty early, obviously unaware that they had a long wait instore and I was very puzzled by the chap who stood there all day in his Stooges t-shirt, seemingly oblivious to the noise being made by the genuine article only a few minutes stroll across the park. Perhaps he was distracted, as many were, by our bass tech Tony the Barber. His fleeting resemblance to a certain Mr J. Rotten caused much excitement among the faithful, resulting in plenty of shouting and brandishing of cameras. Isn’t it nice that the singer of the band turns up hours before he is due on to help with the setting up of the bass gear? Now that’s a team spirit. Brings a tear to the old mince pies dunnit? June 11th 2008 So finally the 2008 tour season gains some kind of momentum. Today is the first gig of the Sex Pistols summer tour and we are at Birmingham Academy. A wee bit smaller than anywhere else that the band have done in the 13 years since the first reunion and I was under the impression that it was a secret gig, a bit of a warm up for the festivals etc. How come it has been sold out for almost two months if it’s a secret gig then? How does that work? I suspect that ‘open secret’ may be more accurate…It’s a great responsibility being in charge of one of the greatest guitar sounds in the history of rock and even though its component parts are so few, it is still a delicate balancing act every day to make sure that there is enough of the signature crunch and chug to keep it faithful without tipping the sound over into modern high gain territory. Speaking of signatures, we’ve got a new piece joining us for the next few months, the prototype of the Steve Jones signature series Les Paul Custom and a very impressive item it is too. Word got back to me from the rehearsals in the US that this instrument was preferred over the actual 1974 original and I can see why. Some signature series guitars are issues of standard instruments with the addition of various features that an artist likes but others, like this one, are careful re-creations of a famous instrument, lovingly crafted with an eye to detail. From the tarnished hardware through the colour of the paint job (a wonderful copy of a shade of white that has faded to pub ceiling nicotine yellow) to the subtle but effective relic-ing around the neck and headstock, it not only looks like a guitar that has served its time but it feels played in too. That is a problem I find with some relic guitars, they look authentically beaten up and worn in but once you pick them up it is obvious that you are playing a brand new guitar but not with this one, it does genuinely feel used. The frets may be wider and not quite as flat as on the 74 original, which I suspect may an attempt to play safe and appeal to a wide a potential market as possible, but Gibson have certainly got a nice low action out of it. I’m very impressed and will be looking forward to playing as many of my favourite powerchords on it as possible between now and September. June 2nd 2008 Here’s something to while away the waiting, getting all irate about the slow speed of one’s broadband. I guess I now know why my provider is always careful to use the phrase UP TO 8meg…Here’s the site www.speedtest.net and here is my result (yes I know the date is wrong but I lost the link and had to redo it later)- Bugger. 24th May 2008 It has been said that there is nothing as sad as a seaside town out of season and the person who made that statement must obviously be blessed with a happy fulfilling life because I can think of plenty of things sadder than Margate in December, no matter how grim it might get. But then perhaps I’ve just got a morbid imagination. It would explain a lot thats for sure. Anyway, today’s seaside town is the city of Constanza on the Black Sea coast of Romania. We reached here after a three hour bus ride from Bucharest airport, passing through Eastern Europe peasant towns seemingly provided by central casting and pausing for a short time at the smelliest toilets I’ve ever had the displeasure to use. These facilities are also the only toilets I’ve ever used that have had their own armed guard. Now what is all that about? Answers on a postcard to the usual address please. So, it may be out of season but there is some sunshine about and the town of Constanza is beginning to prepare for the summer. Our hotel is one of many located on a spur of land that appears to have at one time only been reachable by passing through some kind of toll booth. This certainly doesn’t appear to be in use now and leads to speculation that it is perhaps a throw back to the days when the Party members wished to keep the masses at bay, even when on holiday. What is Romanian for Viva La Revolution? Speaking of the revolution, or an attempted revolution to be more accurate, apparently Constanza was the port that the sailors from the battleship Potemkin surrendered to in 1905, after their mutiny failed to spark the planned uprising in the Russian navy and the subsequent revolution and overthrow of the Tzar Nicholas. Check the 1925 classic silent film Battleship Potemkin for a Soviet take on these events, although I am informed that the massacre on the steps of Odessa (one of the film’s highpoints) may never have actually taken place. Opinion on this is divided though. This mention of cinema leads me nicely into in last weeks trip to Norway though, as the town we were staying in, Haugesund, is the venue for the Norwegian International Film Festival. I guess that explains why there were vintage film projectors in all the corridors in the hotel we were staying in and the fact that each and every room was named after a famous film. I was therefore overjoyed to find out that I would be staying in the James Bond wing of the hotel and was given the You Only Live Twice suite. Quite a result I reckon, at least I got something from the Connery era, although I was hoping for a replica of Little Nellie somewhere in the room. Probably not as much as the bloke in the Goldfinger suite was hoping for some dolly bird painted gold on his bed though. Other points of interest in Norway were a record shop called Shabby Records (where is my camera when I need it?) and one of the biggest buildings I have ever seen in my life, which is used for making oil rigs apparently. Finally, the gig itself was in a town an about an hours drive away from Haugesund and took place in a marquee at some kind of village fete. Audience comprised of some of the most monumentally pissed up people I have ever seen outside of the Helsinki-Tallin ferry, and if you have ever been on that you will know what I mean. How the Norwegians ever got across the North Sea and up the Ouse to establish the city of York all those years ago I will never know. 8th May 2008 Thursday afternoon back at the ranch. Still not much going on, got a couple of two day trips out to Europe booked in for later this month and I’m pleased to report that my presence has been requested for the whole of the summer by the Sex Pistols. That doesn’t start for another four weeks though and there are endless days to be filled before then, otherwise one may find oneself eating a Flake and staring mournfully out of the window. There are always those little jobs that need doing around the house and garden of course, although I have a chap with much greener fingers than me who comes round to do the garden end of things otherwise I’d be incapacitated with hay fever for weeks. I mention this because it was while making Andy the gardener a cup of tea yesterday that I made the decision to do something I’ve been putting off for a while. For reasons too dull to go into, my CDs are all kept in the kitchen. This is a temporary arrangement that has been ongoing for the last two and a half years and its non-permanent nature is reflected by the fact that the discs are just stacked up in no particular order. Anyway, I was studying the unruly pile while waiting for the kettle to boil and wondering where the hell the James Bond 30th Anniversary Collection 2 CD set was located amid the chaos. I would have no option but to search from scratch. It was obvious what had happened though- slowly and stealthily, a couple of dozen of the most popular CDs had made their way to the top of the pile and they were in constant rotation while the other 400 or so were virtually ignored because it was too much of a drawn out process to firstly locate and secondly dig out anything else. How had I got through the last two years without the occasional listen to Locust Abortion Technican by The Butthole Surfers, New York by Lou Reed or even Runaway Horses by Belinda Carlisle (by the way, anyone noticed the similarity between the first track- Leave A Light On- and Spanish Bombs by The Clash? Just me then, obviously…). If I had every CD I own copied on to my iPod then I could excuse the fact that the source material was in a state of disarray but I haven’t. I can’t spare the computing power and I only use it in the car anyway so the physical CD is still the medium of choice around the house. It was obvious that a sort out was needed and rearranging them in traditional alphabetical order was the way to go. I’ve done this before and it is the most effective solution and is about 90% successful, any other filing system seems to have too many grey areas. Filing by genre, for example, is a dead loss- one man’s rock could be another man’s pop and what about someone like Neil Young? Everyone’s Rockin’ would have to go in Rock ‘n’ Roll/Rockabilly and Trans would be in Electronica. Plus, I feel it is disrespectful to an artist to bracket his/her/their work and as for the genre ‘World Music’ well, that’s just patronising. So alphabetical is the safest and most logical way to go as it keeps the artist’s work together. You can have separate sections for compilations, soundtracks, classical and so on and you can alphabetise within these sections, which is probably why record shops use this system. Unfortunately though, record shops aren’t as fussy as me and this brings up a couple of anomalies (the 10% of this system that isn’t successful) but before we get into that lets establish some general principles, with the examples of the record shop, bookshop and the telephone directory as our guide to filing correctly. But with one very important exception. The word ‘The’ is always ignored. For example, The Racontours are filed under R and not T. Solo artists are NOT filed by surname as is traditional. PJ Harvey will be found under P not H. The reason for this will be explained later. Artists whose name forms part of a band name will also be filed under the first letter. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers therefore goes under T. Artists with a name that has a leading number will be filed at the beginning of the collection in numerical order. Therefore 8 Eyed Spy will come before 24-7 Spyz. However, artists who choose to spell the number eg Five Star or Hundred Reasons, will be filed alphabetically. The smart arse who said “What if you had a techno band whose name was a number but they spelt it in binary?” can fuck off. And their imaginary band will be filed in the numeric section, probably at the end. Once a section has been established for an artist, then all releases by that artist will be filed in order of release. This includes compilations. The only exception to this is when an album that has long been withheld is given a release years later in its original form (or even purchased as a bootleg) then it should be placed in the correct place in the time line. Artists whose name is a symbol will be filed in accordance with the phonetics of how they wish have the symbol pronounced. However, the famous example that most of us are familiar with will just go under the letter P. Speaking of the letter P, this brings us nicely to the explanation of why artists are not filed under surname. That man Pop- Iggy Pop to be precise- has had a long and varied career both as a band member and as a solo artist so a problem would arise when trying to keep his work together if we used the surname rule. There would be a large section under P for Pop, Iggy. But if we put the first two Stooges albums in there in order to obey the chronological rule then the alphabetics all go wrong, the collection would go from O to S and then back to P. Also, to make things worse, Raw Power is credited to Iggy and The Stooges (as are all those French releases like Rubber Legs etc) so that should really go under I. But you can’t have three separate sections for one person, it may be technically correct but its artistically disturbing. The easiest solution I found was to have two sections- one under I for Iggy Pop and one under S for The Stooges. Raw Power etc then nestled reasonably comfortably in the Iggy section even though it should really go after Funhouse in the Stooges section. But if you did that, then the S section would go from S to I and then back to S again (The Stranglers come after The Stooges) so something was always going to be wrong and this method stopped the alphabetical system from becoming too bruised. Its just me that’s losing sleep over it. Mind you, it also means I’ve avoided having to separate the Neil Young and Crazy Horse albums away from the Neil Young section too. Plus I don’t want to come across as anally retentive or anything do I? That’d be a nightmare… 28th April 2008 The new issue of Guitar and Bass magazine is out and it distresses me to report that this month’s column has been savagely edited. Its all my fault for exceeding the previously agreed word count by nearly a third and being naive enough to think that said word count was just a general guideline instead of an enforced limit. Anyway, the published version was robbed of most of its character as a result. But luckily I have this space here that needs to be filled on a fairly regular basis. So here for your delectation and delight, or just mild interest, is the unedited version. It reads much better I feel and stands as a lesson to myself that in future I must be much more ruthless with my own editing methods before even thinking of sending the damned thing in… So, the first tour of the year is now over. I haven’t done a UK club tour for years and it disappoints me to report that of all the venues that I was already familiar with only Oxford Zodiac has improved since the last time I was there. I have also had to re-familiarise myself with something I haven’t seen at a gig for a long time (in the loading bay at least)- stairs. I know that there were plenty of burly local lads lending a hand but you don’t a good team spirit going by not joining in do you? Oh, my aching back etc etc…Anyway, all this sweat and effort put us older members of the entourage in a wistful mood and we realised, as we blew the froth off a couple of cold ‘uns late one night, that there are a whole bunch of things that you don’t see at gigs anymore. So, being blokes (and reasonably organised blokes), we made a list. As you do. Beercrates didn’t make it as I’ve found out that they are still thriving at club level. Here’s the top 10 as voted for by the blokes in black- 10 things you don’t see at gigs anymore 1- Fighting Thank god for that. Perhaps it was due the kind of bands I used to like but when I was going to gigs as a punter, during the 80’s, it was always kicking off somehow. And not always in the audience, a friend of mine got a right good shoeing at a Dead Kennedys gig once- and he was doing monitors. They still sell alcohol at gigs and some of the music is more violent than ever but only once in the past 18 years have I seen a band stop playing to try to calm a situation and that was due to the pit security starting it anyway. If you believe the tabloids then the nation is crippled by gangs of violent youths. Well, I spend a lot of time around large gatherings of youths and I haven’t seen it. Lets keep it that way, shall we? 2- JC120s Where have they all gone? Stages used to be knee deep in these and despite having the worst sounding ‘distortion’ control in the world, artists as diverse as Andy Summers and James Hetfield used to swear by them. Fads and fashions for gear come and go but eventually one usually trips across some maverick who swears by a laughable piece of kit that everyone else dumped years ago. But not the JC120. This transistor driven Roland combo seems to have disappeared into the ether, its shimmering cascade seemingly silenced forever. Perhaps all those African bands that you don’t hear of anymore, who were last enthusiastic users of this item, took them all home with them. 3- Gobbing During November 2007 I was involved with the Sex Pistols UK tour. These dates were prompted by the 30th anniversary of the album Never Mind The Bollocks and I was initially worried that it also might be the 30th anniversary of the audience spitting at the band. I even bought a couple of pairs of surgical gloves as I thought they might come in useful for handling instruments that had become ‘slippery’ all of a sudden. No need though, the audience was neatly divided into the younger “Eww, gross..” generation and their parents, who are now estate agents and car salesmen and are above that kind of behaviour. So we can consign gobbing to the dustbin of history. Good thing too. 4- Dry Ice Not to be confused with smoke. Smoke is a crucial element for making the beams of the lights stand out in a suitably dramatic fashion and therefore the smoke machine- and its stealthier sibling the ‘cracker’- is still standard issue. Dry ice is the heavier stuff that looks like smoke but never rises further than the knees. No self respecting 70’s rock band would be without a suitably atmospheric number where this stuff was allowed to tumble over the stage edge. You know, Stone‘enge and all that. Probably banned by the HSE these days (dry ice that is, not atmospheric epics). 5- Loads of Par Cans Speaking of lights, Par Cans have become very much a bit player these days. Digital technology has meant that one programmable light can do the job of 20 by moving around and changing colour at the Lighting Designers whim. The days of huge banks of lights (known as Par Cans) each flashing their individual colour on and on ad nauseum can relived by staring at the cover of Queen’s Live Killers album or watching Iron Maiden’s promo clip for Run To The Hills (as if you needed an excuse!). 6- Fretless Basses The 80’s again. A gig wouldn’t be complete without one of these swooping and bubbling away, everyone from Pino Palladino to Mick Karn to New Model Army to the bloke from Stump had one. My mate Pete considered it so crucial to have one on hand that he pulled all the frets out of one of his spare basses with a kitchen knife. The workshop I was an assistant at the time charged him a fortune to re-fret it once sanity had prevailed. I haven’t seen a fretless since. 7- Singers climbing PA stacks They were all at it once some bloke called Bono had made this crowd pleasing manoeuvre popular, although I had seen Lux Interior from The Cramps do it first a few years before. Now PA cabinets are smaller, modular and more often than not hung from the roof, I suppose opportunities are radically diminished. Jake Shears from Scissor Sisters is fond of getting up on the sidefills, I bet he would relish the chance to scale a giant stack of black Lego to serenade some bird on the balcony. Actually, on second thoughts, perhaps he’d just enjoy the climb. 8- Curly Leads If older readers had strayed a little too far onstage back in the day, the end of one of these would spring out of the amp and smack them in the arse mid solo. So you can understand why they are no longer popular. Even the fashion for all things vintage hasn’t extended to the curly lead, not even among the most retro of bands. Brian May bravely modelled one well into the 90’s but according to his website, even he hasn’t used one in over 10 years. 9- TU12 tuners A neat bit of patricide by Roland/Boss. The TU2 is now the standard stage tuner and lets be honest, it is a much better product. Built like a tank, nice bright LEDs and it mutes so you can do away with the A/B box or volume pedal you needed to silent tune with a TU12. In fact does anyone, anywhere still use a tuner with a needle? 10- Silver gaffa tape Once upon a time it was all you could get and everything was covered in it and looked a mess. These days black is the norm (of course) and a whole spectrum of colours is available, including glow in the dark versions. Military suppliers Silvermans will even sell you a camouflage roll. Careful where you put it down though, you might not be able to find it again… 10th March 2008 The new issue of Guitar and Bass magazine is currently in the shops, this one contains my second column for the mag and I would like to say, right now, without fear of contradiction- because its 100% true- that the version that I submitted for publication did not contain the words ‘dance merchants’. I would never refer to an artist that I have worked with in such a flippant, disrespectful way. For the same reasons I have never referred to David Grey or Badly Drawn Boy as a ‘tunesmith’ or Bush as ‘post grunge wannabes’, I would never refer to the Prodigy as ‘dance merchants’. Firstly because I’m not interested in that kind of hack phraseology and secondly because I don’t believe they are accurate descriptions of peoples talents. When I was offered the opportunity to write for this publication, I was worried about what I would, or would not, be allowed to say and I was told that it would be “your column, your words”. Well, the phrase ‘dance merchants’ is not my words so apologies to the Prodigy. 3rd March 2008 I got caught playing air guitar by the postman today. Being 43 years of age, its not something I do very often anymore but occasionally, when in a good mood and the music is right, I might pick up the invisible axe for a bar or so if my hands aren’t otherwise occupied. Like when waiting for the kettle to boil for example. Anyway she (yes, I know I said postman but ours is a woman) had a package that I had to sign for and had probably been hammering at the door for a while. I couldn’t hear her as I was in the kitchen making pancakes while listening to Metallica and she could probably hear the noise too which is why she knew for certain that I was in. The solo during ‘Creeping Death’ is one of my favourite Kirk Hammett moments and I was with him all the way and it was only when I triumphantly stepped back from the imaginary wedge line that I have in my kitchen that I noticed a figure waving at me from the front garden. If you take a couple of steps to the left from my front door and stand in between the rose bush and the flower bed (if, for example, you wanted to see if there were any lights on or anyone actually home) you then get a great line of sight through the window, across the living room and into the part of the kitchen bordered on three sides by the oven, sink and worktops. Or the ‘stage thrust’ as I like to call it. After I had sheepishly hit standby (aka pressed pause) and signed for my package without meeting the post lady’s eye and retreated back in doors, it occurred to me, to my horror, that I would have been almost but not quite side on to her for the whole solo and therefore she would have not been able to see my fretting hand at all and would have only been able to see the elbow and arm of my picking hand. Which was waggling away frantically at round about groin level as I matched Hammett note for note…I live in a small village and you know what they are like. I may have to put a notice on the church message board explaining the circumstances and assuring the good people of Suffolk that I wasn’t having a you know what. Although come to think of it, listening to that horrible satanic heavy metal music is probably a bigger crime round these parts than being caught having a quick one off the wrist anyway. 20th February 2008 Well, ain’t it a funny old game and no mistake? Last month I tipped my hat to The Twang for going off the beaten track during their upcoming UK dates. Seven weeks later I receive an emergency phone call asking if I can take over backline duties as illness has forced a crew member to leave the tour. So it was that I found myself inside Frome Cheese and Grain last Thursday, with a stack of unfamiliar gear and a cheat sheet in my hand. The Frome Womens Institute Morning Market had to finish before load in could commence, so this was an excellent opportunity to purchase home made marmalade and yummy cakes. A splendid start to the day, a fine way to start a tour and something you won’t get at Brixton Academy thats for sure. These new commitments meant that I had to miss the works outing to see Megadeth in Norwich, which was a shame but all is not lost as a smattering of two handed tapping is visible during The Twang’s set, which is a fact that took me by surprise. I had expected some kind of shambling indie nonsense from a band that the NME has said are ‘the best new band in Britain’ because lets face it they say that quite often and the subjects of this accolade are usually pretty ramshackle and tiresomely inept. However, if one can envisage a mixture of the Happy Mondays, Captain Beefheart and Simple Minds, then add plenty of whammy bar action, an occasional suspicion of shoegazing and even a fleeting appearance of African style guitar then you get a kind of idea of where the band are coming from- to my ears at least. Unusual and interesting stuff. Last nights gig at Reading University was livened up by a complete evacuation of the building just two minutes before stage time- audience, band, crew, and barstaff all turfed out into the same freezing car park due to a defective smoke detector. The gig eventually went ahead an hour later after a mass sing along in the cold, the all clear from the Thames Valley Fire Service and an extremely orderly re-opening of the building. Well done to the staff of the SU for a faultless fire procedure. Nice to know that you are in safe hands sometimes isn’t it? 29th January 2008 I notice that the person who climbed onto the stage last night has posted a clip of himself on YouTube. Someone has added a comment to say “U got what u deserve” and apart from the appalling text speak I have to say I agree. The day that I come to your office and stamp on your computer or come round to your house and tap dance on your furniture, smashing all your treasured possessions is the day you can get up onto my stage and stand all over the FX boards OK? It’s not you who will have to attempt to repair the damage you cause, its me. That takes up time and resources that I don’t always have. Stay where you are supposed to be, that way everyone benefits. You don’t look like a dickhead, the gig won’t have to be stopped because you’ve broken something, the Saint Johns Ambulance crew won’t have to stop treating people who are genuinely in distress to attend to the injury you sustained when security threw you back down and perhaps someone could use the space on YouTube to post something genuinely interesting. Like film of a two headed kitten or something. 21st January 2008 A day off in Sheffield, just a stones throw from Meadowhall with its small but well stocked model shop, as used by the Prodigy model club for its first round of kits I seem to remember. Those were the days- 4 guitars, two amps, no FX and NO STAIRS. Had to suffer my first set of stairs in years at King Tuts a couple of days ago. Still, I was mummys little soldier and didn’t complain- I used to work at the LA2 you see, so I know all about stairs and their wily ways and had mentally prepared myself. The physical preparation got overlooked however so I’m not saying it didn’t hurt I’m just not moaning about it. Apart from the events of Bristol, which we won’t go into, all is well. Band are rocking the house every night, the guitar tech feature that I wrote for Guitar magazine is in this months issue (vol 19 number 2. Cheap Acoustics on the cover. Available from all good newsagents and a few crap ones) the second column is also in the bag and I’m currently working through the list of blog subjects in my notes to decide which ones to put here and which ones to save for the magazine. Therefore I regret to inform those readers who are eagerly awaiting “10 things musicians do that piss their roadcrew off” that I have now earmarked this for a magazine column and you will have to pay to read it. Or wait until I get round to scanning it and putting it on the archive page, which may take a while because I’ll have to wait until IPC Media have turned their back. Anyway, time for dinner and TGI Friday is the nearest unfortunately so I need to decide which kind of crap meat dish I least object to having covered in cheese. Tough decision. 4th January 2008 After a couple of false starts in December 2007, one due to health reasons and the other due to extremely bad planning by some foreigners, Stone Gods are getting ready for their debut UK headlining tour. So it is that the new year begins with a quick round of rehearsals in Norfolk. Upfront preparations have revealed the fact that due to the number of different tunings, we will need 17 guitars to perform just over an hours worth of material although that number does include spares (and we can only keep it down to that number by drastically retuning a few once they have been used). So, two of my four string motherfuckers have had the dust blown off and been drafted in to make up numbers. The Rickenbacker has barely been used since 1991, when it was edged out into second place by the arrival of one of the same model in black and the Jazz has not been used in anger since the last Skyscraper gig in 1996 and currently has a busted switch. Funnily enough I broke this switch while using the Jazz at a session in a studio called the Chapel, which is where a band called The Darkness later recorded their album. This band later split and became Stone Gods…blimey, Kevin Bacon can only be three more steps away surely. So, of course, it starts to rain just as the transport staggers to the loading doors but having had a close encounter with the pond on the way in I would have thought the vehicle would laugh off a bit of rain, not allow it to come seeping in through the roof all over the gear. Vans these days are puffs, they just don’t build them like they used to. And another thing- the long ones are too low and the higher ones are too short, why don’t they make a long, high one? We wouldn’t have to de-stack the cabinets to get them onto the tail lift then. Still, the good news is that stage left has got all the acoustics (including the 12 string, thank god) and that I don’t have to do any of the driving in Johnny Europe as I've never done it before, my responsibility ends (but then starts again on the way back) at Harwich. Good thing too, I’m a bit suspicious about all this driving on the other side of the road business- I tried it on the A11 on the way down here, it’s a bloody nightmare. 19th December 2007 Been sitting around with my feet up this week, swilling tea and perusing the latest issue of Q magazine and I’m pleasantly pleased by what I’m seeing. I don’t mean up the front end with the tittle tattle and reader’s letters but further on toward the back, after the reviews and obligatory plug for Glastonbury but before the ads for CD storage. The latest round of tour adverts contain plenty of words that I haven’t seen on any tour itinerary for a long time. Words like Lancaster Sugarhouse for example. After what seems like years of UK tours consisting of London/Manchester/Glasgow/Birmingham and that’s yer lot, it seems like some brave souls have decided to go further afield to bring their message to the masses. The February 2008 tour by The Twang has dates in Frome, Falmouth and Bangor while Lincoln Engine Shed seems to be appearing in the schedule of most acts of the ‘indie’ persuasion. Athlete are visiting Folkstone and Warrington and poor old KT Tunstall seems to have drawn the short straw and will be playing in Grimsby this coming April. Once upon a time, not long ago, you would never dream of going up to Scotland and not playing Edinburgh and Dundee (and perhaps Aberdeen too) as well as Glasgow. I first saw the Clash at Bridlington Spa and I see that is making an appearance on someones list of dates next year as well, so its not like the venues have gone away. There is no excuse except sheer laziness for not going to Southend Cliffs Pavilion, Hull University or Northampton Roadmenders. I know touring is expensive but lets face it, the amount of money that gets wasted on a daily basis in the music business would keep dozens of bands on the road indefinitely and if CD sales fall any further, making money from touring could just become vital. I’d love to see UK tours lasting for a month again, and my tax office would be over the moon too. It may take a major change in behaviour from the top down but if artists took a realistic look at how their money is spent, sacrificed just a small degree of their comfort and surrounded themselves with competent, efficient personnel then there is no reason that a long tour at theatre level upwards could not turn a profit (or at the very least not make a loss) and you would get to see what the inside of Skegness Embassy Theatre looks like…how good would that be?! 10th December 2007 Is it just me or does anyone else have a major aversion to having their photograph taken? I don’t mean the kind of photos that have some other point of interest eg guitars, cars, landscapes and so on which just happen to have a person in them too, I mean the kind where you go somewhere to be specifically lit for a formal photo. This has happened to me this week as I have, in the parlance of mobsters everywhere, been given an offer I can’t refuse. I have written a few features for Guitar & Bass Magazine over the past couple of years- in fact, the latest article I have written should be appearing in next month’s issue- and they have now given me the opportunity to write a monthly column. A whole page all to myself to spout off about anything that takes my fancy as long as it is roughly related to guitars, touring or gigs. A little bit like this place actually but with a bit of editorial supervision. They also need a mugshot of self to stick at the top of the page as readers like to put a face to the name apparently. Hence, I find myself in a subterranean lair just off Croydon High Street in the company of IPC Media’s house photographer who is valiantly trying to make me not look grumpy and old, what with the camera never lying and all that. I suppose the problem is that in my minds eye I see myself as an older version of what I looked like in my early twenties, the lines and creases have appeared and the jowls might be beginning to think about dropping a bit when they can be bothered and of course the luxury lions mane of healthy hair is now an ancient legend but essentially I think I am the same young guy with a few years added, thats all. It always comes as a total shock to see photographs of oneself and find a total stranger staring back…have I got Dorian Grey’s bathroom mirror? Because I see myself every morning and I don’t look like that, this bloke’s camera must be broken. But no, its that context thing again, in the mornings there is always some shaving/brushing/washing activity going on that detracts the attention from the pure image and I’m sure that we all unconsciously move our heads to find the best angles. No-one stares at their reflection in the mirror unless they are trying to conjure up demons or achieve transfiguration, surely. Anyway, the powers that be veto a full length shot and insist on a close up and I try to go for an abstract angle but they aren’t having that either and we eventually use a guitar neck as a prop and the best shot IMO is the one where I get to hide behind it…cowardly I know but I don’t think that enough computing power exists to digitally enhance me to the degree necessary. First column should be in the February issue by the way, final choice of they photo used stands with the art people and they are not going to want some gruesome troll shot ruining their layout. Hopefully. 19th November 2007 Easyjet flight 214, Glasgow to Stansted. Sodding hell, I’m knackered. Have run myself a bit ragged so far this month. Between the short notice Keane gigs, the Sex Pistols and the running backwards and forwards to Norfolk on every day off I’ve been left with barely a minute to catch up with myself. This flight is the only way to get back to the studio before the end of rehearsals today, the seatbelt light has just gone off and this stewardess is about to charge me four quid for a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. The Sex Pistols tour is now over and god bless Glasgow because last night was a storming performance, like a proper old fashioned gig like your mum used to make- a good old sing along with plenty of spitting, beer throwing and blood. I wouldn’t usually approve of any of the last three but it seemed to be a fitting end to the whole thing, albeit a strange way to show your appreciation. I have final proof that the magic of guitar playing is all in the fingers too. Over the past two weeks of line checks I have tried my hardest to sound like Steve Jones. I have been playing his guitar through his rig, even playing his parts in his songs during the crew band soundcheck but it still doesn’t sound right. The minute he starts playing though, its all there. I wonder how frustrating it is for those people who buy exactly the same gear as their heroes in an attempt to sound like them, because if you haven’t got their hands, then it isn’t going to sound the same. Or maybe I am just crap, I dunno…So the next item on the agenda is the final few days of rehearsals and rig building in Norfolk. We have gone through most of the multi channel heads on the market and the pick of the bunch seems to be the Diezel Herbert so that has to be incorporated into things. Plenty of programming to look forward to as well as a dozen guitars to set up once string gauges have been decided on. Might be able to schedule a lay in for sometime later in the month. 7th November 2007 Sorry to harp on about the past all the time, it must be annoying for younger readers. Rest assured that I’m not 100% happy about it either, it gives me the uncomfortable feeling of being like a grumpy old granddad in the corner, party hat askew, muttering away to himself about the old days while the whole family ignores him and gets on with Christmas. Must check myself for musty clothes and the faint odour of urine when I get a minute. Anyway, about thirty years ago when everything still looked like the opening scene in Bagpuss, I lived in a small town oop north. Our nearest major record shop was Sydney Scarborough which was confusingly located not in Scarborough (or even Sydney) but not a million miles away from there- and only 15 miles from us- in Hull. If you had a shiny 10p piece, or were one of those posh folk with a phone in your house, you could ring a special number (I can still remember it- 0482 211411) and hear ‘Sydney Scarborough’s Record of the Week’. Not sure if this service is still available but if it is I bet its now £1.00 a minute plus a connection fee…The record of the week was usually by somebody like The Real Thing, Boney M or a selection from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack until one week in June 1977 when my 10p disappeared into the slot and I heard ‘Pretty Vacant’ by the Sex Pistols. Of course I was aware of their work but only in the same way as the rest of the nation i.e. through what we read in the newspapers, and they just said that they were nasty, spiteful people that made an un-listenable racket. I had never heard them on the radio (because they were never played during the day) I was too young to know what the NME or Radio Luxembourg was and the last single that I had bought was MaNaMaNa by The Muppets. So I was therefore astonished to hear a completely catchy pop song. It was easy to sing along to, the ‘we’re so pretty, oh so pretty’ was not only a fantastically arrogant thing for these so-called ugly, horrible people to say, it appealed to my emerging adolescent attitude problem. That week, I spent all my pocket money and most of one afternoon in the phone box listening to Pretty Vacant. I made my best mate David Hankins listen to it but he didn’t like it (we started to drift apart after this) and when my other friend Mike Redford (no relation to Robert) told me that his big brother David considered himself a punk rocker and he was going to be one too, I had no choice but to confess all about Pretty Vacant and from that moment on I was lost- never to be a doctor, lawyer, mine worker, lorry driver or shop assistant. I would never buy a Top 20 Greats compilation album from Woolies ever again (even if they did have dolly birds on the front) and even when Pretty Vacant charted and was played on Radio 1 (no swearing in it, see?) and my mum said she liked it, I wasn’t put off. I wanted to play in a band and write songs like Pretty Vacant. The following months would contain many significant events- discovering The Clash, The Damned & John Peel, the release of Holidays in the Sun, throwing a tantrum because my parents wouldn’t buy me any straight jeans, trying to sneak Never Mind the Bollocks into the house because it had a swearword in the title- all character building stuff, the details of which I won’t go into in case I ever want to release one of those ‘weren’t the 70s ace’ type memoirs that clog up the music reference section in Waterstones. All of this though, is leading up to yesterday. Because on 6th December 2007 I found myself in a rehearsal studio in London awaiting the arrival of the four people who made a record that changed the course of my life. One doesn’t find oneself in this position very often and, being a professional and all that, I couldn’t give a shit about celebrity status. I’ve met hundreds and they have all been thoroughly normal human beings and I have treated them accordingly. Having said that, there must have been something so deep rooted in my history with this band , a nervousness that I couldn’t even acknowledge even to myself, that made me over compensate and therefore decide that “You sound terrible, have you got the flu?” was a suitable opening line to the first band member I met. Luckily he had got the flu, so didn’t bat an eyelid. It was a short rehearsal, just a chance to check out the gear really. Holidays in the Sun was first- a quick kick drum intro set the stage for the first powerchord and when it came I was astonished to hear that it sounded exactly like the record. It was a different guitar, a different amp and an overdrive pedal that was not designed and marketed until 20 years after the band first split up but it was THAT SOUND. If you have the album you will know what I mean- the classic combination of Les Paul and Marshall from a time before high gain technology sucked all the articulation from a chord. EMI and Bodies quickly followed and I was reeling, holding onto my workbox for support. I was worried that they were going to do Pretty Vacant next as I was reasonably sure that I wouldn’t be able to make it through if they did but I was lucky, I had a version of No Fun as a breather. Then Pretty Vacant was next. If you ever have a part of your personal history come and slap you around the face, then it is usually in the form of an ex-partner or some long forgotten debt that you end up having to pay. Pretty Vacant came up to me and said “You’d put me on the back burner hadn’t you? Off you went with your Killing Jokes, Metallicas, Soundgardens, Husker Du’s and whoever and you had forgotten what I mean to you” and it booted me in the groin, gave me a black eye and wandered off. Fair comment too…its been 30 years since the phone box and although Never Mind The Bollocks has never left my playlist, I think that the fact that one of its tracks lead me ultimately to where I am now had slipped by and it had become simply music. Being in a room for less than 40 minutes with the Sex Pistols had reminded me that music isn’t simply music but is a way of life, a mindset, and an inspiration. Which, funnily enough, is what a lot of people were saying about them 30 years ago so that hasn’t changed even if the waistlines have. Ghandi once said that a child’s mind is a fire to be ignited, not a pot to be filled and that is certainly what the Sex Pistols did to me all that time ago. There has been a lot of disinformation, lies and speculation and their story is now a familiar ‘rock n roll legend’ but if you strip away all the crap the music still stands as a powerful life changing force. And I’m working with it for the next two weeks. How good is that?! 28th October 2007 Sad news today. Paul Raven, bassist with Killing Joke, Ministry, Prong etc passed away last week, apparently of a heart attack during recording sessions for a new project. I’ve been a massive Killing Joke fan since I was a teenager so I was delighted to have crossed paths with Raven a few times back in the early 90s. He had a reputation of being a bit of a maverick so I was surprised to find him friendly, courteous and polite when I first met him during 1991 when the band I was a member of supported Killing Joke at Brixton Academy. He had made his home in Toronto at the time and as we were due to tour the USA/Canada soon after, he gave me his home phone number and insisted we get in touch. Over the next couple of years, he would always drop by whenever we were in playing in Toronto and he was always enthusiastic and encouraging. We got particularly wasted the day we opened up for Soundgarden in Toronto, that was the day he took me to the leather maker who made all his guitar straps as I needed an extra long one- which I’ve still got. There was a riot outside the gig that night as well, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t related to his presence, but you never know! There was some discussion of him doing some re-mix work for us but this idea was rejected by our record company, which was a great disappointment for me. We eventually fell out of touch when he moved from Canada and I left the band so didn’t go through the US as often as I used to. Very sad to hear of his passing. At least he was in the studio, making a noise, right to the very end. 18th October 2007 I’ve had a couple of rants about aircraft recently but today’s events can’t be ignored so if I am allowed to indulge myself one more time, then I promise to return the anorak to the cupboard and not return to the subject for a while. So, congratulations are due to the Vulcan to the Sky trust as their 10 year long effort to return one of the last remaining examples of the cold war classic Vulcan bomber to flightworthy status has today paid off. Avro Vulcan XH558 took off from the runway at Bruntingthorpe airfield in Leicestershire at around 12.30 and completed a short 30 minute test flight, the first time it has flown since 1993. Since being retired from RAF duty and subsequently purchased by a private individual, this aircraft has undergone the most complex restoration in aviation history at a cost of nearly 6 million pounds, most of which was raised by pledges from the public and private donations. This amount has raised numerous criticisms within historic aviation circles (money could have been better used elsewhere, more deserving causes etc) but in the end, people will only part with their hard earned cash if a project arouses their interest, so if they are donating to XH558 rather than any other restoration then the fact is that seeing it fly again is a much more exciting prospect than any of the alternatives. Which is a shame for all those persons working hard on various other projects around the country, my admiration goes out to them , I wish them the best of luck and I will still be making donations to keep XL426 running at Southend airport. Also, if anyone wants to restore either of the Migs at Newark, I’ll chip in for that too. As for XH558, only time will tell if that famous shape and the astonishing noise of those four Rolls Royce Olympus engines will pull in enough revenue from the general public to keep her in the air (consensus seems to be that a private sponsor will be needed to make up the deficit) but whatever happens one cannot take away the enormous engineering achievement that has taken place despite the financial difficulties that have dogged the project from the very beginning. So please do the VTTS people a favour and go and see this remarkable aircraft for yourself next summer. If you are not impressed by one of the best noises you will ever hear, I’ll give you your money back. 2nd October 2007 It is that time of the year again when the quiet roads of the English countryside become filled with a slow moving selection of vicious looking agricultural machinery. The uses for these items are as mysterious as the array of prongs, blades, wheels and forks that grasp toward the oncoming traffic like Freddy Kruger’s gloves as imagined by the crew from Monster Garage. The harvest terror is completed by a range of offensive smells courtesy of the muck spreader as it re-nourishes the ground after the assault and although this can make going outdoors unpleasant at times, at least it makes a change from blaming the dog for your own odours. Anyway, in my area, my favourite items of vicious looking machinery and their associated smells can be found in the vicinity (i.e. mostly above) RAF Lakenheath. Despite the RAF prefix, this is actually home to the Liberty Wing of the USAF and its F-15 C/D/E range of ground attack and air superiority aircraft. What I like about Lakenheath is the fact that the A1065 runs right alongside the base and most of the length of runway 06 is visible from a number of easily accessible points around the fences. A chap, like me, with a reasonably efficient camera can spend a pleasant day in the sun practicing his skills and revelling in all the reheat action. And by the way its not ‘plane spotting’ OK? It’s photography, a very respectable hobby- the subjects just happen to be aircraft. So, as the runway is so close to the road, this means that incoming aircraft make their approach low over the adjoining fields (public land) and over the road, wheels barely missing the top of the Eddie Stobarts heading toward the A11. So there I was last week, having a lovely day, getting some nice profiles of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing coming back in for lunch when I decided that it might be good to try to get a head on shot for a change. Legend has it that the base don’t really like people standing directly under the approach so I was mindful to keep slightly to one side of the approach lights, unfortunately so was the pilot of the final aircraft. I have to say, its all very well being macho, spreading ‘Jet Noise- The Sound Of Freedom’ stickers on my toolkit, going to see Motorhead live, singing “noise is for heroes, HEROES!!” along with The Damned and buying afterburnerclimaxxx.com for my own future use, but when the pilot of this aircraft decided to come around for another approach and so gunned both engines while directly over my head at less that a hundred feet, I almost shat in my pants. I’ve never heard, or felt, a bottom end like it. I don’t think I’ve ever truly had my fight-or-flee adrenaline reflex kick in before and I’m ashamed to say that the flee option won out- I found myself cowering in the long grass 20 metres away. It was absolutely brilliant and utterly terrifying at the same time. I’m still in two minds whether I’d do it again. If Ampeg, Ashdown, EBS, SWR, the all new Trace Elliot or whoever really wants to be the maker of the sound that will kill the competition stone dead then they need to get down to their nearest air base and have a listen because that’s the kind of sound quality we want. And I’m never going to be satisfied standing at the crowd line at an airshow again. Its much too far from the action… 26th September 2007 Oh oh. The X files people were right. The truth IS out there- www.myspace.com/skyscrapertheband 20th September 2007 At some point in the next couple of years we can expect Ebay to become over run with second hand wireless equipment. It may seem like a bargain but don't touch it with a bargepole. The ongoing expansion of mobile phone networks and the switchover to digital TV (expected to be complete in all areas by 2011) has proved to be too much of a cash cow for the government to resist and they are putting up the rights to broadcast on certain frequencies for sale. These frequencies include some bands that up until now were reserved for concert and live performance. The recent sale of four licences (the bandwidth of which is long way from your guitar beltpack) raised £2.2 Billion for the Treasury so you can see why the government is looking hungrily at what other frequencies can be turned into revenue. The mobile phone industry is awash with cash and is pressing hard for the communications regulators OFCOM to make our stretch of turf available to them. OFCOM, unfortunately, is not staffed by technicians but economists and businessmen so the impact on equipment users is not their primary concern. The mobile phone and broadcast lobbies are just too powerful and their resources are so massive that a huge chunk of our available bandwidth is due to disappear sometime soon and if your wireless gear happens to operate in a part of that bandwidth, then it will be illegal to use and you will have to replace it. Not so bad if you have a few hundred quids worth of entry level equipment but potential disaster for pro users who have invested many thousands of pounds. Most pro level gear is programmable fortunately so you should be able to work around the frequencies that will become denied but the narrow slice of the airwaves that will be left for concert and performance use will be woefully inadequate for large scale events, especially when the clipboard crews all get their wellies on. So, allow yourself a hollow laugh when you watch the repeat of the Live Music Awards and notice that they are sponsored by Vodafone, as it is the greed of them and their rivals that are going to make the staging of not just large events but live music in general much more difficult in the future. 10th September 2007 Airlines that offer routes around Europe are bringing in new baggage restrictions about now. This is going to limit baggage to one item per person, at a maximum weight of 23KG. A guitar in a flightcase generally weighs around 18KG, an amp head of such a species as Marshall or Mesa Boogie comes in at around 30KG and bespoke racks and items like cable trunks could weigh anything, depending on what you need. So hopefully this is going to put an end to the situation where agents, mindful of nothing except their percentage, will book a band into Copenhagen one night and Milan the next. There are few things more depressing than turning up at the airport at 6AM to try to check in a stripped down backline that, even at a bare minimum, still consists of 20 non-standard items (watching a rack slide down the chute at the baggage carousel with one of the lids missing is one of those things). I also think that it is pretty disrespectful for pen pushers to expect an artist to reproduce songs that they have carefully recorded and mixed with whatever the Hungarian/Finnish/Portugese promoter can provide- but that's another issue, so back to airports. I'm an aircraft fan. I can still remember vividly the first time I took my first trip on an aircraft and one of these days I'll have a jolly good blog about the time I pulled 4Gs over the Isle of Wight but it has to be said air travel is about as much fun these days as signing on. In fact airport terminals have much in common with the benefit offices of old and I don't buy into the fact that it is all the fault of Al Qaeda. Much as I hate to think that people would capitalise on tragedy, I suspect that the airlines and the companies that run the airports have seized on the current security situation as an excuse to take the piss. Take, for instance, the longer check in times that they claim is due to the extra security measures. I have lost count of the number of times that I have been faced with a huge queue and one check in person struggling to cope alone in a huge row of empty desks. I suggest that the longer check in times are merely due to the fact that the airlines will not employ more front of house staff. Security has been tightened I agree, but have the airports taken on more staff to deal with the extra workload? I think you can guess the answer to that...I recently changed planes at Gatwick en-route from Dublin to Spain and despite having gone through the full security screening at my airport of departure, I was forced to do it all again in the transit terminal. Needless to say there was a huge queue to get to the one x-ray machine that was working in a row of three. I asked the hatchet faced old bag who was ordering people around what was the problem with the other two and she replied that there was no-one available to operate them. It also raises the question of whose security procedures do they not trust that they feel it necessary to do it again? Dublin's'? Or their own? Suffice to say, it took an hour and a half to get through it and I not only nearly missed the flight but the woman at my departure gate had to the nerve to have a go at me for boarding at the last minute. Due to the piss poor catering facilities at Dublin airport and the delay in transferring I hadn't eaten since the night before so she was lucky she didn't my carry on bag wrapped round her fucking rosy red features of her little fucking face (© Steve Martin). If security is so important why, when you check in at Terminal 3 in Heathrow, do they tell you to leave your oversize bags on a trolley in the corner after they have been tagged but when they are still in a public area (and in danger of being nicked too)? While we are on the subject of Heathrow Terminal 3, I also note that they are making passengers take off their shoes for a separate x-ray once you are through the main security screening points. 210,000 people per day travel through Heathrow (source TimesOnline August 2007) so split between the four existing terminals that is 52,500 passengers per terminal. Now, lets be generous and say that the first flight is at 6AM and the last at midnight, that is 18 hours, which works out at 2916 passengers per hour. Lets be even more generous and say half of those are arriving and not departing, that leaves 1458.33 persons per hour go through the shoe x-ray machine. So how many seats do Heathrow provide for people to sit on while they put their shoes back on? Three. No wonder there's a fucking queue you morons. And why the hell is 2 bottles at 100ml any less dangerous than 1 bottle at 200ml? Can anyone explain that to me? Also, it's the 21st century. We live in the age of microchip technology, keyhole surgery, magnetic imaging and so on. The CIA is using super sophisticated spying devices and the Hubble space telescope can see hundreds of millions of miles into far off galaxies. In the light of this, am I being asked to accept that there is no technology in existence that can tell the difference between an explosive device and a bottle of Evian? Or am I being asked to accept that there is but no-one can be arsed to pay for it? Personally, I accept that there is and no-one can be arsed to pay for it because it is too profitable to sell you everything that you chucked away all over again when you are airside. Speaking of which, what about all those bottles, cans and containers over 100ml that are being sold to you on the other side of security, have every single one of those been carefully screened before being allowed in the outlets of the departure lounge? Finally, because its getting late and we saw earlier how being hungry can affect my mood, what is the deal with carry on bags? It is now written in letters of fire that it shall be one bag only per passenger so how come you can weigh yourself down with as much shopping as your credit card can stand once you are through? The great Bobby Fleckman once said 'Money talks, bullshit walks' but at airports these days the forces of incompetence, inefficiency and cynical commercialism are busy making sure that the two are pretty much interchangeable. Except Stansted, which is ace because its 20 minutes from my house. 27th August 2007 Festival season is nearly over. Got one left in Spain on 8th September and then the Visqueen can go away again for another year. Last week contained the penultimate festival of 2007 and was a game of two halves, as we have been from Tel Aviv, Israel (temperature around 92F) straight onto a plane to Tromso, Norway (temperature around 42F and chucking down with rain). I have never been to either of these places before and it has to be said that Tromso wins hands down, despite Tel Aviv having the obvious attractions of an ocean side resort. Like most mediterranean cities, Tel Aviv still seems to be in the process of being built but the parts that have been completed seem to be crumbling already. It is dirty, overcrowded and even the seafront hotel strip could do with tidying up. There are too many rude people and there are too many guns. According to the lady who was translating for us (who wasn't rude, by the way) the rest of Israel don't like Tel Avivians either so that eased my conscience a little. So, onto Tromso, which is way up north at the top of Norway. I've never been inside the Arctic Circle before and apparently Tromso is an Aurora Borealis hotspot so I was disappointed to see that the weather was cloudy and overcast. In my ignorance I did not know that the lights are only visible in winter. There is always a strange kind of underlying atmosphere in places like this, where you are close to the wilderness. The surroundings can sometimes have a foreboding presence. You feel like you are being allowed to exist here, tolerated perhaps- as if Balrogs from the mountains and Krackens from the sea would rear up at a moments notice and devour whole communities. If they could be arsed. Perhaps that is why there seems to be a kind of a grudging respect for nature; you can buy all kinds of lethal hunting equipment and at the same time also get the very best in survival gear. The Norwegians still catch whales too, apparently for 'research purposes' although the reported appearance of whale burgers on the menu seems to suggest that these 'research purposes' only stretch as far as testing how nice whale burgers are. Still, if you were in possession of a festival pass you were entitled to 50% off the bill at all the restaurants in town, which came in damn useful in a country where a round of four small beers costs 26 quid. 30th July 2007 I've been at a loss for anything interesting to say for a while so I've had a look at my list of things to write a blog about and at the top is 'Giving Away Setlists'. This addition was probably prompted by being abused by someone from the audience at some point which, I feel, is a little harsh. But then I would, wouldn't I? Audience members probably just see some anonymous surly roadie who won't give them anything at the end of the gig because he loathes and detests the whole of humanity, but said audience members don't quite understand the situation from the other side. So, firstly here is an explanation of why you usually get ignored when you are screaming 'CAN I HAVE A SET LIST PLEASE?' at the top of your voice at the end of a gig- The first few minutes after a gig has finished, when the house lights come up, is probably the busiest time of the day for a backline technician. A gargantuan struggle is about to take place-think something along the lines of Godzilla Vs Destroyer or those dinosaurs in One Million Years BC- as, in front of the very eyes of what remains of the audience, the main departments involved in putting together a large gig i.e. sound, lighting, set and backline, are all going to try to get their gear out of the building as fast as possible. This is a crucial time for the backline crew because even though they were the last to put their gear in place on the stage (which is usually due to waiting forever for everyone else, most often the lighting department) they are given no time to safely make sure that various delicate items like FX boards, cabling looms and other accessories are out of the way before the lighting and sound crews descend on the stage. This situation is complicated by the presence of what is known as 'local crew' who are persons from whichever city you happen to be in who are brought in to supply the lifting/pushing/carrying manpower required for the whole thing to happen. Like the Uruk Hai from Lord Of The Rings (who they frequently physically resemble) these persons were bred for a single purpose, which in this case is to get the job finished before the pub shuts. They have no time for niceties and will usually immediately start pulling on cables, unplugging stuff, rolling cases around and blocking your way. Hence, the backline technician has his hands more than full with ensuring the safety of his gear to be pulling up setlists from the stage floor. I do sympathise with the person whose life may not be complete without a set list. I have a Metallica one on my wall and I also have Joe Strummer's handwritten lyrics for 'Police On My Back' (complete with his bootprint) that were rescued from a gig and now live safely in my house. I can also recall being the disappointed shouter at many gigs in the 1980s. But as I now know the reasons why I was ignored I can live with it. Anyway, at the risk of making a rod for my own back, there are ways of maximising your chances of getting the setlist of your choice. 1- Ask the security persons. They will still be in the pit at the end of the gig so if you ask them if they can get it for you, sometimes they will either do it anyway or ask the crew if it is OK. Those onstage will rarely ignore security and a quick nod is easy for them to do without jeopardising the safety of their gear. Your chosen security person can then do the tricky bit of trying to get the gaffa tape around the setlist up without tearing it. 2- Say something funny. I may be speaking personally here but if someone shouted out something amusing, I'd be a bit more inclined to try to find a spare few seconds to give them something. TRY to find a spare few seconds, I said... 3- At arena size gigs, if you have bought a programme then have a look to see if the names of all the roadcrew are printed somewhere inside. Then during the changeover (the bit between bands) try and work out who is doing what. At the end of the gig, try shouting their name instead of just 'oi, give us a setlist' most people will look up if they hear their name being called so if you manage to make eye contact then, half of the job is done. Having said that, I'm going to ignore anyone who shouts my name out now... 4- This one could be a bit hit and miss and will definitely be a miss if you do it at the wrong time. But, if you are at a smaller gig where you can get to speaking distance to any of the crew before the show- and that doesn't mean during the changeover or when they are obviously working- then if you are friendly and polite and ask nicely then you may get your setlist/drumstick/plectrum at the end if security haven't thrown you out. Sound crew seem to spend large chunks of the day sitting on their backsides staring at laptops, they will be your best bet to try. Good luck and be careful out there. 9th July 2007 This week I have been accused of the fact that the content of these here blogs has tended to be more than a little towards the negative. Now, to be honest, I'm as happy as the next man when I'm having a moan but I was slightly wounded by this accusation as I can recall waxing lyrical about subjects as diverse as BBC costume dramas, Dinosaur Jr and the Eurofighter Typhoon. I've also got a special page dedicated to slagging stuff off here. So, after having a quick count up I've actually found that of the blog entries that display a positive or negative content, the balance is almost 50/50 (10 scathing indictments to 9 enthusiastic endorsements) and the rest contain no bilious content whatsoever. Therefore less than a third of the total are complaints and I can walk down the courthouse steps a free man. This leaves me with a choice today though. We have just endured a couple of festivals and I can either up the negative content by pointing out the absolutely appalling stage management at the Oxegen festival in Ireland or I can make the pos/neg scores equal in some way. Luckily one of my current employers is on hand to help with the latter as I have been impressed beyond words by the amount of energy Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters has put into his performances this weekend. You aren't going to see any of Muse wallowing in the mud in a bath towel or dressing as a Tartan Ninja. I like to see a front man getting in people's faces and with the spirit of Iggy Pop and David Yow nodding approvingly in the wings, Jake Shears- part contortionist, part spaz dancer, part over enthusiastic gym teacher- pulled out the stops to entertain and as a result the scruffy buskers that made up most of the rest of the bill seemed even duller than ever. 21st June 2007 Cor...shredding became unfashionable for a long time didn't it? Now I'm old and grumpy and don't care for fashion any more, I find myself getting quite interested in Megadeth. I was already familiar with some of their work: I'd owned So Far So Good So What since about 1989, I saw the 'Clash of the Titans' Slayer/Megadeth gig at Wembley the same year and once, when I used them as a reference in an interview, I ended up having a fight with one of the blokes I was in a band with. So Megadeth were obviously pretty controversial to holier than thou/non-more-indie bands from North London. That alone is reason to like them if you ask me but there is more to it than that. First though, some background for those among us who haven't been reading Kerrang since issue one- Megadeth were formed sometime in the mid 1980s by former Metallica lead guitarist Dave Mustaine and were part of the original so-called 'Big Four of Thrash Metal' (Metallica/Slayer/Anthrax/Megadeth). All of these artists went on to great things but while the others achieved a level of respect outside the genre due to various reasons i.e. Metallica's worldwide success, Slayer's punk rock roots and uncompromising attitude and Anthrax's association with Public Enemy, Megadeth have never had this kind of kudos. Probably because they have never attempted to court 'alternative' credibility. Still, that didn't stop them from outselling all their contemporaries- except San Francisco's finest- to the tune of 15 million records (and counting). Apart from Metallica, the 1990's pretty much killed heavy metal for most of us. Which was fine, it needed putting out of its misery anyway. My renewed curiosity about Megadeth though, started a couple of years ago at the Download festival. They were on the bill and for some reason they were in the middle of the ill fated 'indie' day. After hours and hours of various shamblings by pasty faced youths it was great to see someone come on with sharkfin guitars and a drum kit in a cage. It was a pretty uncompromising performance and drew the biggest crowd of the day. I was impressed but apart from scrounging a Dave Mustaine signature plectrum that day, it took me a year to do anything about it. While taking advantage of the Aussie dollar/UK pound exchange rate, I bought a load of CDs while in Sydney and Megadeth's Greatest Hits was one of them (limited edition with live DVD included of course). I was already familiar with the song In My Hour Of Need from way back in 1989 but all the rest was new to me. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the band has never really deviated from being- as one of their old t-shirts said- 'The State Of The Art Speed Metal Band' and they have carried on making some pretty enthralling rock music while I had been looking the other way, put off by the trad metal façade. For example, the opening track of this compilation is Holy Wars (The Punishment Due) which seems to have three movements in three different tempos and features some fearsome right hand rhythm action. The Mechanix is a controversial song as it is a hangover from Dave Mustaine's days as a member of Metallica and is almost exactly the same as Metallica's Four Horsemen. Except it is at least twice as fast (Mustaine co-authored the song and claims the right to use it to his own ends). Also included is A Tout Le Monde which is a song that gained infamy in 2006 when the perpetrator of the Dawson College shootings claimed that the song convinced him to perform the attack (a new version of this track is included on the current Megadeth album and IMHO etc etc is remarkably superior to the original. MTV banned the video too, which is usually a good sign). The best track on Greatest Hits though, is Hanger 18. Full on from the word go, the arrangement constantly shifts and is probably the best showcase of the interplay between Mustaine and fellow guitarist Marty Friedman. Highlights include the great twin guitar vibrato in the verse, like some kind of jacked up, caffeine mainline Thin Lizzy, a thunderous climax that manages to take up half of the song without releasing any of the tension and all of the ELEVEN guitar solos. Even if you don't particularly like guitar solos you have to tip your hat to the amount of self belief required to not only record a song that contains eleven guitar solos, but to then have the balls to release it as a single. It's not all good news with Megadeth though. I could do without the clichéd sci fi heavy metal artwork for a start and I can't admit to liking everything the band has done (big deal. I don't like everything Neil Young has recorded either but it still doesn't stop me from being a massive fan). Looking back over the back catalogue, the hugely popular Sweating Bullets doesn't really do it for me and I can also leave behind the band's versions of Alice Cooper's No More Mr Nice Guy and the Sex Pistol's Anarchy In The UK (which is the only dull spot on the aforementioned So Far So Good So What album which also contains the fantastically titled Into The Lungs Of Hell and the awesome PRMC baiting Hook in Mouth, another personal favourite). I also admit that it can be an acquired taste, much of the band's output is not an easy listen and one has to sometimes work to get inside the frequently dense arrangements but, of course, that makes it all the more rewarding when the ear finally tunes in. On a last note, there are far too few artists of Dave Mustaine's ilk tackling social and political issues and he should be commended for his commitment to addressing these subjects. As 'emotional hardcore' seems to be the current way that men with distorted guitars have of showing their anger, so Megadeth's brand of socially aware, old skool speed metal is more vital than ever. 5th June 2007 Christ, ebay is fast becoming a waste of time. When I first registered to use it, back in the early 00s, it was a nice place for intelligent people to buy and sell. Transactions were carried out via email and therefore people were polite and courteous. Now that Ebay have 'made the buying and selling process easier' and have introduced a 'user friendly interface' - i.e. no brain required, click here- as well as the checkout facility, things have gone downhill. Any fool with no concept of spelling, punctuation or grammar can now hassle you. Usually because they haven't read the item description but sometimes, even though the answer is contained within the description, because they have but still want to ask the question anyway. For example, I recently sold some dummy amp heads. These look like real amp heads but they contain no electronic components inside, they are merely for show onstage. To make sure there was no confusion, I included the following in the item description- PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE BIDDING- This is not a fully functioning Mesa Boogie amp head. There are no valves, components or any other circuitry inside the chassis. It is not broken, in need of repair etc. It does not make a noise of any kind, no matter what you plug into it. It is merely a prop that was used onstage to make the guitar stacks 'look right' hence the power light comes on but that is all it does. Please do not bid, win the auction and claim that you didn't know it was not a working amp head. Thank you. Pretty clear I thought, but this was the first question I got from a potential buyer. Note the lack of a hello or hi or even a thanks at the end- the amp is damage? what problems has this amp? can be mended, repair? Even though every fibre of my body was screaming 'READ THE FUCKING ITEM DESCRIPTION YOU MORON' I merely encouraged him, in a nice, helpful and polite way, to re-read it to familiarize himself a little more with what he was thinking of buying. There were two of these dummy heads for sale, one was in slightly worse condition than the other. I mentioned this fact in the item description and explained that I had not put up a multiple item auction as, due to the condition of one, they were not identical. It didn't stop this person though- you are introduce two similar auctions for this amp... but the question is. this a different amp, or it is an error, and you sell only one amp? Oh dear. Finally, for these items, there was this- hi there.i am determined to get one of the amps.what price do you think yourl get? could i have a rough estimate so i know how much cash i need to raise.thanks. So now I am apparently clairvoyant too and can let him know the result of the auction in advance. At least he said hello and thank you. It took a few weeks and a long lie down before I felt well enough to put up a couple of keyboards for sale, these were quite valuable and I had none of the original protective packaging left and I was too busy to fit in a day of deliveries so I recommended that they were collected in person. This would also give the buyer a chance to try them out and satisfy themselves that they were in full working condition. Once again, one of them was in slightly worse external condition than the other so I put them in separate auctions. It wasn't long before this arrived- Hello,My name is XXXXXX. I am interested in your item. The problem is that I am a little confused because I've seen another item exactly like yours. Please take a look (inserts link to item description) Please let me know your last price. Let's skip the 'please read the item description' part of my reply and move onto this last price business. What I think this poor soul means is a cash price. There is a lot of this around, buyers send you a message asking what price you would take for the item. Surely it is implicit in the fact that you have put it up for auction that you want to see how much you can get for it. If I had wanted to put a figure on it myself I would have put a classified ad up. OK, so at the end of an auction the final price may be less than what a cash buyer was willing to pay but that is my tough luck- it was my item and my choice to gamble on putting it up for auction. That doesn't stop people from getting very annoyed when you turn a cash offer down though. I recently put up for auction an item belonging to a well known band and was happily not attracting any bids when I received this message (all names have been changed to protect the unfortunate)- 27/05/07 From: POTENTIAL BUYER (62) To: XSELECTRONICS hi, what is your phone number as I have a few questions and I'm not a big fan of bouncing emails back and forth, if you prefer to call me, my number is 07888 XXXXXX and my name is David I was working so I never got the message at the time but that is obviously not good enough for some people as during the meanwhile- 27/05/07 From: POTENTIAL BUYER (62) To: XSELECTRONICS Hi again, I emailed you yesterday regarding this incredible item, you haven't replied yet and I really need to speak to you on the phone with my cash offer! what is your phone number? my number is 07888 XXXXXX Fuck that. I've got an auction to run- 29/05/07 From: XSELECTRONICS To: POTENTIAL BUYER (62) Sorry, but this sale is on an auction basis and I would prefer to let the auction run its course. If you have an amount you would like to pay, then please feel free to bid that amount. Thanks for getting in touch. Blimey, some people don't like to be told no, do they?- 29/05/07 From: POTENTIAL BUYER (62) To: XSELECTRONICS Unfortunately if I can't do a deal before the weekend, I have another item I will be buying and will no longer have the funds for this as well so I was giving you the opportunity to actually sell this item to a genuine cash buyer while I have funds and not wait another 7 days only to have some psycho fan ruin this auction in the last 30 seconds! Due the increased number of dead beat bidders I tend to find people prefer to talk with a real person over the phone and not turn away the genuine buyers, there are only a few of us about it would seem and the rest of ebayers just think this is all a fun game where they can have anything they ever wanted, or at least win the auctions for these items and then when they come back down to earth and the buzz is over, they will happily walk away guilt free and not be penalised by ebay in any way and all you have left for your troubles is leaving them bad feedback only to have them ruin yours by leaving it for you and ebay lets them!!! GOOD LUCK!!! Oh dear. I'm sorry that he feels that way but we did want a block of flats and not an abbatoir...Anyway, fast forward to June 5th and obviously no-one wanted to buy the item anyway because it eventually went to a lone bidder for a hundred quid. I was rudely awakened the next morning by my ex-partner ringing my mobile to tell me that some weirdo had telephoned her house at 10.15PM ranting about ebay and that he wanted to speak to me...she gave him short shift, as you would do when your kids had just been woken up by the phone. 05/06/07 From: AUCTION WINNER (7) To: XSELECTRONICS Hi, I just won this item and tried to phone you on 01XXX XXXXXX and the female there wouldn't pass on your number to me but said that she would give you mine. Can you please contact me tonight regardless of how late as I'm up all hours anyway and would like to collect tomorrow if possible! My numbers are 07886 XXXXX or 01761 XXXXXX Cheeky bastard. And where the fuck did he get that phone number from? Turns out Ebay will give your personal contact details out...all someone has to do is ask them! 06/06/07 From: XSELECTRONICS To: AUCTION WINNER (7) Firstly, thank you for pissing off my ex-partner by disturbing her after she had just got the kids to bed. I'll look forward to having that held against me when I need to speak to her again. Secondly, it will not be possible to pick up the item today, for three reasons. 1- You have not paid for the item yet 2- I will have to get some times and dates from the people who are storing it when it is convenient for them to let you in. 3- I notice that you ignored the instructions in the item description to get in touch before bidding if you have a feedback rating of less than 10. I therefore consider your bid to be null and void but have left the decision to let the sale go through or not with the band's management. I will be in touch with further info if it is appropriate. I got a notice from Paypal a couple of hours later that the item had been paid for and not long after that I got a reply...and it started of well but soon goes down hill. 06/06/07 From: Mike Adams(AUCTIONWINNER@XXXXXX.co.uk) To: XSELECTRONICS Firstly, may I apologise for phoning your ex-partner, I obviously wasn't to know that you no longer reside at that address, as you haven't updated Ebay with this information so until you do, that is your official phone number and address with regards Ebay.To answer your questions:1. I have paid for the item through Paypal and was only trying to get in touch with you to see if you preferred cash on collection.2. I am very flexible on collection date/time and can easily fit in with your guys who are storing it, whatever is convenient for them just give me their phone number/address and I'll sort it out. 3. My bid is most definitely NOT 'null and void' as you did not delete my bid (You only stipulate "Bidders with a feedback score of less than 10, please get in touch before bidding or bids will be deleted without warning" You neglected to mention the sale would be 'null and void' if such a bid were to not be deleted by yourself and become the winner!) I also do have a feedback of over 10 and lastly we did contact you twice right in the beginning from my business partners Ebay account when I first saw this item. The username was POTENTIAL BUYER and our message read "Hi again, I emailed you yesterday regarding this incredible item, you haven't replied yet and I really need to speak to you on the phone with my cash offer! what is your phone number' my number is 07888 XXXXXX" This is my other phone number and you can phone me on it right away if you don't believe me! I will also be emailing you from that POTENTIAL BUYER Ebay account, just to give you further verification that it was from myself you had contact.You not only replied telling us saying "Sorry, but this sale is on an auction basis and I would prefer to let the auction run its course. If you have an amount you would like to pay, then please feel free to bid that amount. Thanks for getting in touch." you went and published my private phone number on your listing! As you did not stipulate in your listing that contact must be made EXCLUSIVELY through the Ebay account I would be bidding under, your terms have been fully met!I have therefore, done absolutely nothing to contravene your terms and conditions in any way, thus renderring this sale a fully legally binding contract that both parties must adhere to, as you will obviously be aware with your impecable 7year Ebay account and 100% feedback! You obviously run your account by the book, so kindly forward me your correct phone number so we can complete this transaction, without the involvement of third parties such as Ebay, the Courts or the even the Newspapers! I needn't remind you that you are representing the band's management and therefore the band themselves! Failure to go through with this deal would be a VERY costly mistake! You have a legal obligation to complete this transaction and I will need the phone number of the persons currently storing my crate. Please respond within 24 hours, or else I will have to start procedings to claim what is now legally mine! I am a very genuine Ebayer and a very decent bloke and frankly I was completely shocked by you unwarranted tone in your email to me. I just want to get this sorted and I'm sure we can laugh about this after! OK, I know that I shouldn't have done it but I really couldn't resist. Perhaps I should have been a school teacher- 06/06/07 From: XSELECTRONICS To: Mike Adams (AUCTIONWINNER@XXXXXX.co.uk) Dear Mike/David, Thank you for your prompt reply. Before we move onto to collection details it may be beneficial to clear up the following points- > I obviously wasn't to know that you no longer reside at that address, as you haven't updated Ebay with this >information so until you do, that is your official phone number and address with regards Ebay. That is true, I agree. But that information has to be requested from Ebay, it does not form part of the seller profile. I find it extremely discourteous that this information should be used without thought. Just because you are the winner of the auction does not give you the right to intrude on peoples lives. When I trade on Ebay, I respect the fact that persons may not be in a position to receive messages or act on the result of an auction immediately. That is why I use Ebay's message service or email. > I have paid for the item through Paypal and was only trying to get in touch with you to see if you preferred >cash on collection. But you told me in your email of 5th June, that you were calling to try to arrange a collection today. My preferred methods of payment were stated in the auction- paypal or cheque- the accountants prefer some kind of paper trail that they can refer to, hence cash on collection was not stated as an option. > My bid is most definitely NOT 'null and void' as you did not delete my bid A bid that was entered at 20.14.17PM, four seconds before the end of the auction? How would that be possible? > You only stipulate "Bidders with a feedback score of less than 10, please get in touch before bidding or bids >will be deleted without warning" You neglected to mention the sale would be 'null and void' if such a bid were >to not be deleted by yourself and become the winner! Perhaps 7 years on Ebay and the existence of Sniper sites should have alerted me to the fact that people would get round that by waiting until the final seconds before bidding. I assumed people had the same sense of fair play that I have. Still, thank you for the tip, I will make sure that disclaimer is included on all future auctions. > I also do have a feedback of over 10 and lastly we did contact you twice right in the beginning from my >business partners Ebay account when I first saw this item. The username was POTENTIAL BUYER. Yes, I had a look at your feedback rating. Four of which were negative from within the last six months. But if you chose to contact me under one name and then bid under another, how am I to know? >you went and published my private phone number on your listing! Yes, for that I do apologise. Unfortunately though, there is no way to edit the question when you reply otherwise I would have deleted the number. > As you did not stipulate in your listing that contact must be made EXCLUSIVELY through the Ebay account I >would be bidding under, your terms have been fully met! I'm afraid that I do not see the relevance of this, nor do I understand the point you are trying to make here. > I have therefore, done absolutely nothing to contravene your terms and conditions in any way, thus >renderring this sale a fully legally binding contract that both parties must >adhere to, as you will obviously be >aware with your impecable 7year Ebay account and 100% feedback of 63! Unfortunately none of the sales on Ebay are legally binding. I personally believe that they should be- I have suffered a number of ruined transactions- but the international nature of the thing will probably make this difficult to implement. As you pointed out in your message of 29th of May, buyers " will happily walk away guilt free and not be penalised by ebay in any way and all you have left for your troubles is leaving them bad feedback only to have them ruin yours by leaving it for you and ebay lets them" If a legal structure were in place, I would think that one of the first laws to be enforced would be to clamp down on persons who attempt to disrupt auctions by offering cash prices for items while the auction is still ongoing. Anyway, your item can be collected from- A Trucking/Storage Company Nr London Your contact there is Edward Miles. He can be reached on 0208 XXX XXXX He is expecting to hear from you to arrange a collection. He did ask me to mention that they are heavily involved in the upcoming George Michael tour and a large number of their trucks are expected to return over the next few days to prepare for this, so access may be difficult at certain times. I will leave it to you to liase with Edward on this. Enjoy your item and congratulations on grabbing a bargain. Regards XSELECTRONICS Its not good enough though, he's still going on about it- 06/06/07 From: POTENTIAL BUYER(63) To: XSELECTRONICS Hi again, I have won this item under Ebay username AUCTION WINNER and I am replying to your email just to prove that I did contact you right in the beginning of the auction. I have paid for the item as well now, so all I need is the address and phone number for collection my phone numbers are 07888 XXXXXX and 07886 XXXXXX 06/06/07 From: AUCTION WINNER (7) To: XSELECTRONICS Hi again, I have emailed you at xselectronics.co.uk and paid for this item as well now, so all I need is the address and phone number for collection my phone numbers are 07888 XXXXXX and 07886 XXXXXX Obviously a spoilt child who is used to having everything his own way. Note how he denegrates other ebay members for ruining auctions by not paying but seems oblivious to the fact that he is doing the same by offering to buy before the end date. He's right on some points though, there are people on Ebay who seem to revel in winning auctions but not completing, especially psycho fans of certain famous bands. Is it just coincidence that Ebay have recently introduced the 'Second Chance Offer' which is a means of offering an item to bidders who did not win? You are required to register a credit card to sell on Ebay, I suggest that it may be a good idea to extend this to buyers too. When you enter your maximum bid price this is pre authorized from the card but is only debited if you should win. Anyway, back to thick people. Remember the keyboards that were strictly collection in person only?- Hi, I am bidding from XXXXXXXX. Would you be able to pack and post via Royal Mail parcel post if I win? Has anyone started the website www.stupidebayquestions.com yet? 25th May 2007 There is currently a series showing on the BBC called The Seven Ages of Rock. The episode shown last night was dedicated solely to Jimi Hendrix. Quite right too, an artist of such talent and influence as Hendrix deserves a detailed examination of his career. Unfortunately this was not it. Here is Hendrix's life as presented on this programme- 1.Born 2.Joined the army 3.Played the chitlin'circuit & New York 4.Went to London 5.Played Monterey 6.Released Electric Ladyland 7.Played Woodstock 8.Played Isle of Wight 9.Died Admittedly all the main facts are there and as an overview for the uninitiated this could perhaps suffice but a screening time of 11.45PM seems to suggest that it was not aimed at Mr & Mrs Punter. Furthermore, the inclusion of Charles Shaar Murray as one of the main interviewees would seem to indicate that the makers of this programme were aiming for something a little more in depth than the main facts. Charles Shaar Murray is the author of Crosstown Traffic, which is not only the best book on Hendrix but is arguably one of the best books ever written on the subject of music and popular culture. Less than half of the book ends up being directly about Hendrix himself but by placing Him and His music in the proper sociological and cultural context, Murray manages to say more about Him then a direct examination of His work ever would. So, the inclusion of CSM lead me to believe that this programme would be taking a similar approach. Not only was I disappointed at the lack of Murrayist analysis but also at some of the other omissions. For instance, the viewer could be forgiven for thinking that Hendrix played solo during his time in England as no mention was made of the other members of the Experience. Similarly, the Band of Gypsies were ignored too. And if Are You Experienced and Axis, Bold As Love were not worth mentioning, you can forget Rainbow Bridge et al. Also falling off the radar were more difficult subjects, such as Hendrix's disillusionment with the power trio format and his growing love of jazz (there were lengthy sessions with Miles Davies, recordings of which exist but have yet to see the light of day) as well as the admittedly tricky subject of Hendrix in relation to the emerging black power movement in the late 1960s. But, to be fair, I wouldn't have touched that one with a barge pole even with someone as intelligent and perceptive as CSM holding my hand. I would also like to have seen, during the section of the programme devoted to the Electric Ladyland album, some mention of the fact that Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) has become the perfect example of expression and soulful guitar playing. It has cast its spell over two generations of musicians, so much so that a cover version is not to be attempted by the faint hearted. Stevie Ray Vaughan's lifelong attempts to nail it has come the closest to succeeding but one can imagine that even he lay in bed racked in agony over the slightest fault in its performance. With that benchmark seemingly unattainable, then in a perverse way perhaps Stevie's death at an early age was his greatest tribute to Hendrix of all. 30th April 2007 Monday afternoon and I am safely nestled back in the bosom of the village after four weeks trolling round Johnny Europe. There are cobwebs in my kitchen, sootfall from the chimney on the living room carpet and no hot water. There is also a pile of vulgar demands for money on the doormat. I can't understand how I use that much electricity, I've only spent three weeks here in the last four months. Bastards. Anyway, local gossip is that the village butcher is retiring after 46 years and not only have I missed the switching on of the wind turbine up at the pub but the 'bring a friend' afternoon at the WI too. Its not all bad news though, the nice people at Amazon have sent me new albums from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Dinosaur Jr, so that should make the unpacking and endless rounds of clothes washing a little easier. Got plenty to be getting on with though, Ebay sessions, flightcase and FX board designs as well as putting up a magic eye so I can watch Discovery channel from the safety of my bed as well as the sofa. Need to buy a car too, had an unfortunate interface with another vehicle in the last one...if anyone can sell me a black Subaru Impreza with a big shopping trolley handle on the back for next to nowt, with free insurance chucked in, please get in touch. 15th April 2007 Here's a thing. In Germany, the St Johns Ambulance are known as Maltesers. 9th April 2007 Ischgl is a small town, high in the Austrian mountains. When I saw the name in the itinerary I never gave it a second thought but, at the end of last night's load out, I was given a day sheet which contained the following words- 'Truck pulls into the service bay of the cable car, the gear goes up in the lift and is loaded onto the cargo gondolas and taken to the top of the mountain. At the top station it is transferred by Snowcats with cargo buckets to the rear of the stage' Clearly this is going to be quite an unusual gig. April means the end of ski season (apparently) and to mark this occasion the local tourist board annually promote a series of huge gigs/parties at the top of the slopes and this year Scissor Sisters (who I am currently on tour with) are one of the main attractions. The gig takes place in a hollow in the mountains, known as the Idalp. It is at an altitude of 2320 metres above sea level and is a 20 minute cable car ride from the town. It is also in the open air but despite the snow still being thick on the ground it is not too cold thanks to the brilliant spring sunshine, although that sun had not yet found the energy to fully clamber over the surrounding peaks when we arrived onsite at 8AM this morning. The view from the stage is spectacular, mountain peaks on all four sides with some of the rock formations beginning to show as this years thaw starts to take hold. Due to the ski runs closing at 5PM, the event was scheduled for lunch time so load in commenced with condensation on the breath and flightcase handles and catches still cold to the touch. Obviously these low temperatures bring tuning problems into play- the metal of the strings contract sending everything sharp but after leaving the instruments in the safety of their cases until the last possible moment, it is not so cold that the wood could react badly. Constant tuning is the only way to help everything settle down but there is a mild panic when I return from a late breakfast to find industrial strength outdoor heaters have been brought in to warm up the stage area, one of which is firing straight into guitar world. At 1PM- stage time- 5000 skiers in various lurid outfits have assembled and despite one or two good natured snowball attacks, things go without a hitch. Everything is back down and in the truck by 4.30 and then a fondue beckons. This cheese feast is punctuated by explosions from the mountains- the local authorities deliberately cause small avalanches in order to avoid the build up of snow that causes the big, fatal ones. Two of our crew bring disgrace to us all by not being out of the danger area in time and have to be evacuated by toboggan. VIP status is obviously not enough to save you from man's attempts to control nature. 14th March 2007 So. Discovery Wings has now become Discovery Turbo and there is now nowhere to go for wall to wall documentaries about British V Bombers and full colour footage of red hot carrier flightdeck action. Its been on the cards for a while I suppose, I began to suspect something was up when programmes about powerboats and the channel tunnel started turning up when it was still called Wings. Its not going to be long before its turned into some crap 'lifestyle' channel like Men & Motors. The precedent for this has already been set- Bravo used to be a cool retro channel showing original Avengers, Persuaders, Sweeny etc and look at it now: a rubbish moving picture version of FHM magazine. I had hoped that the satellite channels would become the refuge for minority interest programming now that Channel 4 has gone downmarket and while there is still plenty of sharks, nazis, oil rigs, custom bike builders and repeats of Top Gear to be getting on with, I feel that the re-branding of Discovery Wings is another step down the dangerous road of submitting to so called 'market forces'. As anyone who has small children can tell you, one of the worst things you can do is always give people what they demand. 9th March 2007 With the noise of the A11 still ringing in my ears, I arrived back at the studio to find, to my shock and horror, a bike spanner- A BIKE SPANNER!- on the workbench. I know for certain that there are only two cycles on the premises, both of which are out in the garage. One is a Raleigh Shopper (the chaps are all the wrong shape to use that) and the other has had a puncture for about ten months. I can also count out the ridiculous theory that someone has brought a bike all the way into the studio just to raise the handlebars. Therefore, while I have been on my travels, someone (almost certainly a muso) has been trying to crack a nut with a hammer and has been using a bike spanner to work on guitars...one of this band will never live to tour this album, because I'm going to gut them like a pig and bury them under the patio. Actually, now I come to think of it, there is no need because a much more subtle and cruel punishment is already underway, as everyone seems to be on a detox diet. This is quite a surprise coming so soon after the non-smoking thing. I have been kind of joining in as the special soup is delicious but I have to draw the line at denying myself basic human rights, my life would fall apart without toast and strong tea in the morning. Anyway, moving on, it is time to Bring The Noize as guitar tracking starts this week. The Diezel VH4 is back in action as are the old faithful Marshall Plexis. The new Mesa Stiletto Ace will be making a large contribution to proceedings too, I think. Most of the last few days have been spent experimenting with mic placements. The poor studio assistant drew the short straw and he gets to sit in the live room, in front of the cabinet as it blasts, listening to instructions from the control room in his headphones. A delicate ballet then begins as the microphones are moved around, centimetre by centimetre, looking for the magic sweet spot. Multiply the number of possible positions by the number of mic combinations by the number of cabinets and you have a pretty long process to go through before they are ready to roll tape. I've been here for four days and its still going on. And finally (as the newsreaders say) some news for fans of the Black Shuck guitar. Shucky is back. Louder, dirtier and meaner than before. He's now got a battery operated heart with a colour to match its new home. 3rd March 2007 Long time no write. Been a bit busy so haven't had time to sit and think for a while. Last month's Mika UK tour started with a cough and a splutter (literally) as the first gig in Brighton was cancelled due to ill health. The tour bus spent most of the afternoon orbiting London on the M25 awaiting further orders but eventually we ended up back in the centre of town, in the kind of hotel where one needs a degree in physics to get the shower working. The tour was originally booked months ago, before the number one album and single etc, and although most of the gigs had been upgraded to larger venues this was not possible in Birmingham and Leeds. As a friend of mine was fond of saying- 'Its time to put 10 pounds of shit in a 2 pound bag'. He was American but as the UK is in the EU I guess that should be 10 kilos of shit but it doesn't quite sound the same. Getting a full size piano on the Cockpit stage while still giving everyone room to move about was a challenge. Best gig of the tour- Manchester. And not just because of the Abduls kebabs afterwards, although that helped obviously. Hotel of the tour- Malmaison Glasgow. I'm just a sucker for free broadband and a deep bath. 6th February 2007 Extra curricular activities have a long history in the touring industry and although some modes of behaviour, the kind involving Rolls Royces and swimming pools or small mudsharks have thankfully been consigned to the dustbin of history, a little closer to home things have become more sedate lately. I toured with the band Skyscraper in the 1990's and they not only had a very active Bridge club but also used to carry a flightcase filled with nearly 100 sets of vintage Top Trumps. More recently, The Prodigy had a model making club which took place during the hour it took the lighting crew to focus. This developed, with the encouragement of the band, into a full blown competition. First prize went to a 1/72 scale Citeron 2CV that had been lovingly weathered and distressed. It also came complete with a minature For Sale sign in the window. In French, of course. The Mika roadcrew are taking the cultural route at the moment and are thoroughly engrossed in the 1976 BBC production of I, Claudius. This true tale of the intrigue and excesses of the Roman nobility contains all manner of despicable behavior and has plot twists (usually of the blood soaked variety) that would stretch credibility in any contemporary soap opera. This is all wonderfully recreated by a who·s who of British luvvies and is acted out in front of some of the best cardboard sets that the BBC workshops have ever turned out. One has to pay close attention though as events move quickly sometimes. For example, the poisoning of Marcellus takes nearly half an episode to unfold while the nine year marriage of his widow to Agrippa (a vital plot detail as he is Ceaser's best friend) and his eventual death in similar suspicious circumstances is mentioned casually in a subsequent narration. Taking notes is recommended and a quick trip to the loo can mean losing track of the whole thing. Bloody marvellous stuff. You just can't imagine the Big Brother crowd having the necessary attention span to deal with it...we had to keep pausing it to check with each other that we hadn't missed anything. And we are dead clever and that, innit. 25th January 2007 Continental Airlines Flight 28. Newark, NJ to London Gatwick. 3 quid for a half pint can of Heineken. No wonder the plane was half empty, christ...On my birthday as well. Bloody pikey airline- the Easyjet of intercontinental travel. 16th January 2007 Waking up in Norfolk again. Sharon the cat is promenading up and down the landing yowling indignantly and scratching at the door. The room I occupy is right above the Arga cooker in the kitchen downstairs and is therefore the warmest of all the bedrooms in the house so Sharon is obviously pissed off at being shut out of her favourite resting place. Got a busy month going on, I’m splitting my time between recording sessions here and promo gigs with Mika and I’ve got a lot to do today before heading back to London. Things are coming together in the live room, pretty much concentrating on drums. There has been a lot of experimenting with different cymbal types and various mic positions and techniques. There was an AWACs overhead yesterday so the USAF is obviously keeping a close eye on goings on too…Drums aren’t my area of knowledge really so I’m leaving them too it while I’ve been out in the workshop putting together a spares kit so the chaps know where things like strings, batteries, valves, spare FX and cables are if they need anything on the days when I’m not around. Most of the gear is still in its touring state as it hasn’t been touched since last Autumn so I’ve going through the various workboxes and spares trunks, separating out anything that might be useful during the recording. Its also a good way of chucking out all the useless stuff that tends to accumulate in the bottom of cases (eg sweetie wrappers, toys, empty cigarette lighters, Sharpies with the lid missing, rolls of gaffa with about 2 feet of tape left). There is also a load of drum skins hiding in one of the cases somewhere out in storage so they will have to be traced before it gets too dark to see out there. Need to re-string and set up a few guitars too. Hopefully someone will be in a fit state to play them at some point, the sports games on the Nintendo Wii seems to have given most people shoulder pains. There has also been a mass movement to stop smoking which is quite brave. Time for breakfast anyway- and I must remember to duck at the low beam at the top of the stairs… 21st December 2006 The military war machine infastructure- not just there for the nasty things in life www.noradsanta.org/en/default.php 18th December 2006 The 10 best gigs we've ever seen. The first three are in order, the rest are kind of interchangable. And only one gig from any point in the last 16 years... You young 'uns aren't trying hard enough. 1. The Clash at Bridlington Spa (1979. London Calling tour) 2. Metallica at Hammersmith Odeon (1989) 3. Dinosaur Jr at The Mean Fiddler (1989, Blast First Week) 4. Killing Joke at Sheffield Poly (1982. Whats This For tour) 5. My Bloody Valentine at the T&C (1991) 6. Nirvana at Reading Festival (1991) 7. Sonic Youth at The Mean Fiddler (1989, Blast First Week) 8. The Damned at Sheffield Top Rank (1979. The Ruts supported)** 9. The Birthday Party at Leeds Tiffanys (1981) 10. Neil Young & Crazy Horse at Finsbury Park (2001) Near misses- Loop at Kilburn, Motorhead at Astoria, Thin White Rope in Belgium, a whole Soundgarden tour, Play Dead at Leeds Warehouse, Buffalo Tom at The Falcon, Screaming Trees at The Greyhound, Hawkwind at Oxford Apollo, Young Gods at T&C. **actually I can't decide between this one, because it was the first time I saw them and my mum had made me a furry jumper like the one Captain Sensible wore or the later one at Hull City Hall where a gang of skinheads set off the fire extinguishers in the balcony all over the band as they played. 5th December 2006 I was going to have a moan about this on the Shitlist page but I suppose it is not the actual manufacturers fault that their component has been used in a stupid way so it doesn’t really count. Anyway, Gibson have a new line of Les Pauls out which is fair enough but they have decided to put a locking jack socket on it. Not only that, but the little latch which unlocks the plug is on the upper side (closest to the strap button). The problem as I see it is this. Lots of artists of my acquaintance who don’t use wireless swap guitars by unplugging and keeping the cable in their hand. Other people may do the same or may not want to add an A/B box so they can use 2 cables. Whatever the reasons for using only one cable, virtually everyone who plays guitar runs the cable through the strap and down to the socket. Plus, if you really care about your gear, you use an angle plug. So the little latch which frees the plug is now hidden by the plug and the cable so you have to twist the plug round out of the way, move the cable and operate the latch all with one hand. In a hurry. On a dark stage. With everyone looking at you.. And laughing at you struggling and swearing because it’s a funny angle for your wrist. And so on, I think you know what I am getting at. Convenience and ease of use is what we like you fools. 26th November 2006 Speaking of the telly, why is it just me that thinks Dog Borstal is a really funny name for a programme? 19th November 2006 So, the X Factor is back on TV and pop has eaten itself again. This kind of thing has been going on for a few years now- Pop Idol, Fame Academy etc and it really has to be the ultimate cynical promotion and marketing opportunity. This is evil genius at work in front of your very eyes and I can't believe people fall for it. The film industry does this kind of thing with their test screenings and the car industry has what they call Customer Clinics where they ask you what you want from a vehicle before they even design it, just to make sure it appeals to as many people as possible. Anyway, just in case you happen to be reading this in some fortunate part of the world where X Factor is not going on, here's how it works- Viewers who fancy their chances as a pop singer can apply to audition for the programme. There are a lot of these and they are gradually whittled down to the last fortunate few and every week each contestant sings a different song and the people watching vote for the one they like and the contender with the fewest votes each week gets kicked off. This goes on (and on) until there is just one ultimate winner. Fame and chart success usually follow. There are a number of ways in which I find this grossly offensive- *It involves absolutely no risk to the music business at all and it removes the need for record companies to nuture and develop new talent. No more boring days listening to demos or, god forbid, attending gigs. It neatly removes the need to search out talent, they will all come to you. * "Apply to go on the show- anyone can be a star!" Then get rid of all the crap singers by humiliating them on TV- leaving behind all the ones you can make the most cash out of. What sickens me is the way it is presented as giving anyone a chance, as if the production company and the TV station have this altruistic urge to unearth undiscovered talent. *The voting process. You can vote by phone or by text, all at premium rates of course. Where do you think all that money goes? The result of all this is that there is a ready made market for whatever insipid shithead wins. The public have done the record companies work for them, eliminated all the risk, they have paid for the whole process, and are about to pay again when they go out and buy the record. If it didn't annoy me so much I could almost admire the genius that thought this up, maybe it's the same guy who invented the Poll Tax or removed a single olive from the in flight meal? 10th November 2006 Blimey, the things you find when you Google yourself- www.feederweb.com/view.php?template=normal&page_id=73 Nice photo... www.prodigy2006.ru/archives/75 Anyone who can speak Russian and can translate, please get in touch (anyone who can hack in to their server and photoshop out a few chins, please also get in touch). 26th October 2006 Just been driving to the off licence while listening to Give 'Em Enough Rope on the iPod. I know that the first album and London Calling are the acknowledged classics but the opening trio of Safe European Home, English Civil War and Tommy Gun on this album kills me every time. English Civil War also contains (in my opinion) the perfect guitar solo- 16 bars of Chuck Berry licks with a key change in the middle. AND its got a decending bassline underneath it. I mean what more do you need? I bet you all do air drumming to the rolls in Safe European Home as well...I do and nearly came off the road and through the front window of Buy Rite. 17th October 2006 www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1004061iggypop1.html 18 pages long but its worth reading them all. The bloke who wrote this snubbed me at Heathrow airport once. 24th Sept 2006 On a quick 10 day spin around the former Soviet Union with the Prodigy. I've been looking forward to this for a while, despite the fact that it involves 5 internal flights on various Russian domestic airlines (you know, the ones with the worst safety record in the world). It's been an interesting trip though, the first gig was in Ekaterinburg (or Yekaterinburg or Sverdlovsk- most places seem to have three names, I suppose these are the old Russian name, the Soviet era name and the modern name) which is the city where the Czar Nicholas and his family were executed after the revolution. The house they met their deaths in was demolished on Yeltsin's orders so I guess eventually even the government were embarrassed by the events around the country's rebirth. We stayed in St Petersburg for the last couple of nights, our hotel was just off Nevsky Prospect, the main street, and I have to say, we may as well have been staying on Oxford Street. It was the same designer goods and mobile phone shops you can see in any city in the world. For a city which is UNESCO listed because of its history and architecture its pretty disappointing. Its been the same in all the places we've been, it seems that the chance to forge a unique national identity since the fall of communism has been totally wasted, the corporations are well settled in and its now beginning to look like everywhere else. We are in Moscow today, I've seen a lot of construction going on as we came in from the airport and its the same anonymous glass towers...Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect it to be like Funeral In Berlin but I'm quite shocked at how quickly it has become westernised. We hear a great deal about how the country has become so corrupt and that all the industries and commerce are in the hands of gangsters while the ordinary people are struggling to live below the poverty line. There was a lady sitting next to me on the plane who was a doctor, she said she earned 3000 rubles a month (£60). If that is the case then who is filling the restaurants? Who is driving all the new cars (there are a lot of BMWs and big 4x4s around)? Who is buying the designer gear? They can't all be Mafia surely? 11th July 2006 In 11 days time it will have been exactly 12 months since I stood in the same place I am now doing exactly the same thing. Feeder are back in Milan, at the San Siro Stadium supporting one of the biggest bands in the world. This year it is the Rolling Stones, last year it was U2 and although the headline acts may have changed the onstage temperature is similar. Hence, the space blankets are in full effect as we are trying to shield the gear until the afternoon sun has passed safely overhead and the stage is in the shade again. Actually, come to think about it, the temperature is not similar- last year it was worse. U2 had a huge video screen that was made up of long aluminium strips, this reflected the heat of the sun directly back onto the stage making things very uncomfortable for a while. I’m a pale English bloke, so I’m not good at being in the sun. Hats just make me hotter and a bandana is just so un-Suffolk. Better just to run and hide until things cool off. The Rattlesnake Inn is full of good food so that seems to be the best place to wait things out (and in accordance with legend, there is Shepherds Pie on the menu). Got a flight out of Milan back to the UK tonight so won’t be able to see any of the Stone’s set, need to pack down and leave for the airport sharpish. We have more gigs with them later this month so hopefully one can get a chance then. 14th July 2006 I've just flown from Liverpool to Finland in an ex Russian military cargo plane. Our turboprop driven Antonov AN12 (none of those is the actual one by the way) is now operated by an air charter company based in the Ukraine. I've only ever done this once before, back in 1997 I flew with the band gear from Lithuania to Moscow. On that occasion there were no seats and hence no seat belts, no facilities and we just sat on the gear during the flight, including take off and landing, while the aircrew stood around smoking. Today's flight was a little more luxurious in that there was a pressurised passenger compartment with seats and tables even though seat belts were optional. We also had to provide our own sandwiches, crisps, mars bars and cans of cider. The manufacturers of the aircraft didn't seem to waste time and money on optional extras though, everything is basic, functional and seems to be made from volcanic rock or pig iron but as it was designed to carry tanks I guess strength would have been the primary concern. Don't know why our pilot was making such a fuss about 5 tons of backline then? Suffice to say, I thought the whole experience was fantastic. I watched the take off, the approach and landing while standing in the cockpit doorway but I was too shy to ask the scary Ukrainian aircrew for a go in the pilot's seat. We have to go back to Stansted the day after tomorrow so maybe I can pluck up the courage then. 2nd July 2006 I've recently re-read a book called Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad. It is a collection of profiles of some of the biggest US underground bands of the late 1980's (Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Husker Du etc) and I enjoyed it more this time around and I have no hesitation in recommending it very highly to anyone, even if you have no interest in this kind of music. It is a fascinating insight into the way the so-called alternative music scene was run before Nirvana opened the whole scene up ready for corporate take over (each band's story ends as they make the move to major labels). You don't get bands like Big Black anymore. And can you imagine any of Good Charlotte turning up at Heathrow for their debut UK tour tripping and with a bag full of acid stashed in their luggage (Butthole Surfers)? This book is full of revelations which range from interesting- Sonic Youth's early career was bankrolled by an aging pair of Swiss art patrons- to a fact that I found stunning, which was that Dinosaur Jr hated each other. I mean really hated each other. I bring this up because back in the late 80's I worshipped Dinosaur Jr and I would weep in the streets with joy when they released something new. It was through them that I learned to appreciate melody in music again as well as finding a renewed appreciation for what had by then become a guilty pleasure- the guitar hero. What I feel has made this band legendary is the guitar playing of J Mascis. It is difficult now, in 2006, to convey how unfashionable the guitar solo had become at the end of the 1980's. Kirk Hammett had respect because he liked punk and hardcore and everyone, of course, loved AC/DC but apart from that solos were for blokes who worked in guitar shops and watched Satriani and Vai concert videos. J Mascis singlehandedly rescued the guitar solo from the realm of the ridiculous and brought it back to credible rock music. The guitar breaks on the first three Dinosaur Jr albums were a combination of the raw cack handedness of the Stooges' Ron Ashton and the wind-in-the-hair epic grace of Neil Young. They were not the result of studio quality FX processing and scientifically precise multi tap delays, they sounded like they had been pulled kicking and screaming through a half serviceable junk shop valve amp full of mould and spilt coffee, via a car boot sale of gnarly analogue stomp boxes joined together with plastic tape, TV antenna cable and dog spew. You could virtually see the Electro Harmonix logo tumbling from the speakers. The sonic quality of the album You're Living All Over Me (1987) betrays how quickly and cheaply it was recorded but the songs themselves shine through the murk, Mascis is not only the new guitar (anti) hero but is also a stunning songwriter. His fragile vocals murmur quietly while the electric onslaught continues to cause chaos around him and the result is an astonishing blend of punk aggression, pop melody and firestorm guitar solos that sounds like the bastard offspring of The Cure and Motorhead. The follow up Bug (1988) is just as good but with better production and also contains a bona fide indie classic- the single Freak Scene- but we knew what to expect by then so the impact isn't quite as great. It couldn't last obviously and after the departure of bassist Lou Barlow, the quality began to dip even if the success kept coming. Each of the four subsequent albums has amazing moments and the band were bigger than ever but I guess it was not big enough in major label terms and the band fizzled out around 1996. Not all is lost though, Mascis has released two albums under the name J Mascis and The Fog (and did a fantastic gig at Shepherds Bush with Ron Ashton as special guest) and as with many things these days, the original Dinosaur Jr are now reunited, touring and an album is on the way apparently. So there you go, for the first time ever someone has written about Dinosaur Jr and hasn't used the word 'slacker' once. Apart from just then. Bugger. 19th June 2006 Now that one of our boyhood dreams has come true and we are walking around with our own personal walkie talkies (i.e mobile phones) I've become aware of a downside to the communication revolution. It has allowed those people who haven't got their shit together to make life hell for the rest of us. For example, years ago if you said you were going to be on the 5 o'clock train and your partner/mum/mate/son or whoever should meet you at the station, then it was your responsibility to make sure you were on that train. Nowadays you can get on which ever train you like and ring the poor buggers so they have to drop whatever it is they are doing to come and get you or plan their afternoon around the fact that you could be back at any point after 5. People will just ring you whenever it is convenient to them and then get really upset if you don't pick up- especially if you haven't answered their text message that they know was delivered only 5 minutes before because they got a "received notice" It's a gross invasion of your privacy. The so called flexibility the mobile has given everyone is detrimental to efficient planning I think, people just make it up as they go along- dragging everyone else into their chaotic little world. Some people also seem to have this strange idea that it can absolve them of their responsibilities too, just because they leave you a message or send you a text then they have successfully passed the buck, regardless of the fact that you may not be in a position to receive or act on any messages. Come to think of it, this applies to email too. I am sick and tired of hearing "Well, did you not get the email?" used as an excuse (this is a band management classic). Persons who work in offices seem to have a particularly hard time understanding that out here where people get their hands dirty, not all of us check our emails three or four times a day. A friend of mine who was busy with pre-production once sent out an email saying that he would be away from his computer from 6PM and would not be able to read any mails etc until the next morning. He was woken by his phone early the next day because he was late for load in as it had been brought forward an hour. An email had been sent out about it the day before...at 6.48PM. 29th May 2006 Airshow season starts this month. I was at Southend on Monday for my first look at the Eurofighter Typhoon in flight. It was chucking it down all morning and my hopes were not high but it held off for most of the afternoon and despite some low cloud it was a magnificent display- my legs were shaking, I was so proud. I know it is 10 years too late, I know its not stealthy, I know it has over run its costs and production schedule (par for the course for aircraft development) but watching it writhe around over the Thames Estuary was amazing. It really is one of the most manoeuvrable aircraft I've ever seen and it hasn't even got thrust vectoring engines. I can't believe we are cutting back on the number of these we are manufacturing just so we can buy a downgraded version of American technology instead- i.e. the pug ugly F35, which looks to me like a squashed badger...if badgers were low observeable grey instead of black and white. Kudos to the pilot too as I guess a plane is only as good as the person flying it. Eurofighter is a shit name though isn't it? 20th May 2006 These posters on the Tube really piss me off. London Underground are warning us that verbal abuse of their staff will not be tolerated and they will prosecute offenders and press for maximum fines. It seems to have slipped their notice that if they ran an efficient, reliable and punctual service then perhaps their staff on the front line wouldn't get abused. 22nd April 2006 Clever woman, my mum. I was about 9 when she spotted ‘Number 1 of a great new magazine for boys’ on the shelves of our local newsagent and she knew I’d love it. She was right. The name of this publication was Speed & Power and just in case the title or the collage of a pair of F102s interceptors and a blood red powerboat on the cover didn’t give you a clue to what this magazine was going to be about, then the subtitle spelt it out for you in big outlined capital letters- CARS PLANES SHIPS SPACE SCIENCE FICTION. In was in these pages that I first learned about the Japanese bullet train- although shortly afterwards, the Shinkansen Series 0 (to give it its correct name) would become a Top Trumps round winner with its top speed of 200kph. I am pleased to report that the Series 0 is still running on Japanese railways even though it has been surpassed a number of times by newer, more aerodynamic versions which have pushed up the top speed to around 300kph. Despite the improvements in technology that have now lead to the arrival of the digital revolution and improvements in engineering and manufacturing, rail companies in the UK still deliver their trains- reeking of piss, shit, vomit, spilt beer and rancid microwaved snacks- packed beyond their capacity and woefully late. Meanwhile, in 2003, Japan Railways reported that the Shinkansen average arrival time was within 0.1 minutes (or 6 seconds) of the scheduled time. That average includes the delays caused by natural and human errors and is calculated from around 160,000 trips the trains made. Pretty impressive stuff. Get this too- the station platform is marked with lines and numbers which indicate where the doors to the carriage will be when the train comes to a halt and sure enough the train didn’t overshoot (or undershoot) by a single centimetre. To check this I watched very carefully to make sure there was no foul play, as I sipped my can of lemon tea which was delivered already hot from a convenient vending machine . We are in Japan again this week, which is obviously why I am going on about this. Anyway, three gigs in three days (Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo) with no time for shopping in between, which is quite lucky as it is easy to spend a lot of cash here. For instance, someone who I know came back from a Japanese tour a few years ago and discovered that they had spent the equivalent of nearly £700 on toys. Rare collectors items obviously but, blimey, its easy to get carried away. Great gigs, all sold out too. The Japanese fans are fanatical, if a little reserved. When you are used to crowds that are baying mobs (like most of them elsewhere on the planet) its a little odd to hear a reverential silence between songs. I have been over here with artists who have found this very unnerving and have had difficulty connecting with the audience, no such problems this time though as the bands presence saw them through with no problems. Many thanks to Marshall and Mesa Boogie in Japan for supplying us with all the equipment we asked for too, it makes the thing a whole lot easier having exactly what we need. 14th April 2006 I know its been out for nearly a year but I've only just got round to buying it so please forgive me- Size Matters by Helmet is a great album. Remember all those Nu Metal bands we were subjected to a few years ago? Well, Helmet guitarist/songwriter Page Hamilton is largely to blame for that but don't hold it against him as it wasn't his fault, they ripped off his style and his tone but unfortunately they had none of his finesse. Page is actually a very gifted jazz guitarist (he has a degree in it. I didn't know there was such a thing) he has played with Glenn Branca and was also the guitarist in David Bowie's band for a while. His most well known work though is with Helmet, a band he formed in the early 1990's. Despite a huge fuss being made over them at the time, they did well but never got the level of success I think they deserved, probably due to their unassuming appearance and because there was no cult of personality around them. Page developed a taut rhythmic style which was characterised by a stop/start fluidity that was astonishing to listen to (especially live) and is simple but complex at the same time. Its also easy but great fun to play along with but you (or I) could never have come up with it in the first place. The first album, Strap It On, is a basic blueprint for the two thug metal classics that followed (Meantime & Betty). The more melodic Aftertaste (1997) is my favourite but unfortunately the band split the next year. I'm late back on the boat but I'm glad they are back. And I want more.