Funky Admin.

For my upcoming trip to Australia, I've been given some press questions to reply to, just so they can get a handle on what a well rounded and multi-faceted individual I am. I don't mind doing stuff like this and labelled it 'funky admin', while not being a complete waste of my time, it is still a kind of hoop to jump through in order to carry on.
So I've just spent the best part of the day replying to these 'lifestyle' questions with headings such as Fitness/Health, Cars and Smutty (i.e. groupie shagging tales) and figured it was worth posting, it reads like a manual for modern life and one you should all adhere to.

Hobbies – Mostly child-rearing, deep sea macramé and extreme ceramics. Shouting at the telly is another fave pastime and shouting in general is an omnipresent part of daily life. Fishing is a pointless joy but, to be straight, I’m way too busy writing the summer hits of 2010 to give a hoot about much else.

Cars - Don’t have one and never really envied anybody’s ‘fly whip’ aside from Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Michael Knight’s funky little K.I.T.T car.

Fitness/Health - Used to run quite a lot but found it dangerous as the tedium would sometimes overwhelm me to the point of sleep. I would occasionally wake up, jogging through central London at 4 in the morning after nodding off some eight hours earlier in Brighton. It cost me a fortune in train fares and therapy, so sacked it off in favour of ‘jacking my body to the sound of the underground’ (or summat). I used to ride a BMX in the eighties and do various ‘tricks and stunts’ on it. I like food, a lot and anything that comes out of my kitchen is bona fide delicious, I can do staples like chilli, lasagne and roasts, but also push the envelope a bit and make a killer quiche. While that’s not the usual confession of a dj/artist, I think it was Joe Strummer that once said “with a guitar and words you can start a revolution, but give a man a ready-made short crust pastry, and that’s half the battle won”. Believe.

Sport - The worlds least competitive man - ever. Football’s a complete joke and Rugby’s like a pantomime with all it’s fake blood and whatnot. What a load of guff. I watched this guy break the High Diving world record on Youtube yesterday, that was pretty cool – His name was Dana Kunze, which is double cool but that happened in 1986.

Video Games - Financial restrains have meant that I’ve missed out on the next generation consoles, having said that I used to enjoy nothing more than shooting virtual Aliens/Eastern European Terrorists/Cowboys and Zombies right in their stupid faces using an array of increasingly complicated weaponry. The Iphone (an upgrade hand-me-down from a good friend) is enough to sate my gaming needs nowadays but look forward to blowing the teeth out of a whole bunch of 3d idiots in the near future. Guitar Hero is good too, but I figure it’s probably more beneficial for folks to buy a real guitar and get on with actually saving the world through song than pretending to.

Smutty – Ain’t no smutty stories over here I’m afraid. I’ve never felt the need to slip into some pathetic lothario/misogynist/idiot role, I’m incredibly happy with my ten year relationship and five year old daughter and not nearly daft enough to jeopardise all that for a nudey roll around with a complete stranger. Also, the audience are your mates not something to take advantage of, no matter how much they go for that distorted perception that you’re in some way superior. We’re all in it together, so I’m not about to dive into the crowd, c*ck in hand, to live out some cheap thrill that Led Zeppelin did so much better way back when you could drag women around by their hair without recrimination. There’s much more interesting dialogue to be had in clubs anyhow...read on.

I had an argument with celebrity telly chef and all round b*llend, Aldo Zilli on NYE this year (I don’t know if you guys are aware of this doofus, but he’s relatively big over here, well ,more like a tumor on the face of British TV Cheffery, I suppose) . He insisted that I stop playing jacking/bassline/electro/Baltimore/house and stick some Abba on...Unfortunately for him, I don’t carry any Abba which really made his p*ss boil and it all ended in a flurry of curse words. Ah boo boo. In the unlikely situation that this happens to you, I’d recommend you never let on that you recognise the offending celeb, as doing this will:

a. Completely disarm them so they’ll get all ‘playground’ on your ass, which is just good game and hellafunny.

b. Make you look like you’ve got your head jammed further up your arse than they have and therefore you take the higher ground in the ego stakes. Win!

I was a bit annoyed at myself for not pulling out the ‘I don’t tell you how to cook, so don’t tell me how to DJ’ line, but that’s what hindsight is for and look forward to using a similar quip in future.

After a recent gig in Brighton a very nervous looking dude came up to tell me him and his girl were big fans and been into my stuff for a while and love the album etc. Turns out he was waiting all night for me to drop ‘Under The Sun’ so that, on bended knee he would propose. She said yes, which is a relief for me professionally, but I did suggest he wasn’t so hasty to go through with the wedding as loads of people I know have split up this year and I think it’s catching.

Fashion – My general line is that I look like a 65 year old man in the wardrobe of a 19 year old tw*t, having said that, I’ve managed to up my game in recent years thanks to internet shopping. Being 6’6” and a size 13(uk) shoe, I find it hard to get clothes that fit but thankfully America comprises of much bigger humans than over here and I can now get tees that not only fit, but look OK and sneakers that give me that faux-sports look, like I go running and work out a lot. There are a few staples like Nike Air Max Lights – the finest of all Nikes in my opinion, not least for their comfort, colour palette and use of materials and hats (various) all Kangol, from Lahinch wool caps to bucket hats for summer. I don’t do ‘cool’ as it doesn’t tangibly exist and if you begin to subscribe to what is and isn’t cool you’ll end up chasing your tail. It’s a one-way street, you might love ‘cool’ but ‘cool’ don’t love you...it’s way too cool for that.

Teddy Bear

It’s probably some DNA memory inside us all that sucks us into the festivals year on year, a congregation intent on getting out of the loop for a while and exploring new ways of living...y’know, sitting round fires, making a racket and drinking mead, furtive ground for forming new social ideologies... if only we could remember. The notion of hedonism has been hijacked and capitalised so y’all don’t have to worry none about anybody else or that weird politics stuff neither. With the G20 protests looking more like some ironic poll-tax re-enactment, people filming people , filming one person putting a window through , only a triumph for news anchors and digi-cam sales; politics in music has never seemed such an unlikely proposition.  It’s not without exception as even Lily’s having a pop (‘fuck you very much!’), but I’m not holding my breath for a Fascist Groove Thang  dubstep re-rub and as far as festivals becoming a forum for exploring real social change, I fear we’ll still only be one nation under T-mobile.

Back To The Future (Again)

Despite thirty odd years of post-modernity - y’know, the cultural pick’n’mix mash-up from wherever and whenever to make summat new – over in the ‘dunces corner’ of criticism are frustrated calls for ‘something original’, mumblings of ‘theft’ and the purity of real music, as if some genius will emerge from the lab , holding aloft the musical DNA for a new, untouched genre. Hooray!, but for the fact it goes against the real creative ebb and flow, cross-pollinated and  irreverent way music is born. Magic. Indeed, if you don’t know your past, you don’t know your future, which is why Lady Sov is doing The Cure, Flo-rida re-rubs Hi-NRG and ‘chicks-wiv-synfs’ queue up for pop glory, a vague obsession for the 80’s hot on the heals of last seasons obsession with ermm... the 80’s. No change there then and nowt wrong with a bit of pop fun, no matter how it ends up on your DAB. 

You Look Like A Dick

On a recent trip to the continent I was described by one promoter as ‘cool’, not that it’s a problem, but a little flag popped up and kinda got me thinking, on account of the fact that I mostly look like a 65 year old man in the wardrobe of a 19 year old twat. So, it dawned on me that it’s been a long time since any concerns of being, looking, sounding or smelling (?) ‘cool’ have been anywhere near my to-do list.

  As much as self-deprecation is a comic buffer to the ego, ‘cool’ is the symbiotic parasite to creativity, one can’t seem to operate without the other. A mountain of Art School applications and cheap Strats lie on the path to that unobtainable, untouchable edifice of the ‘id’. Not to say that nothing good ever came of taking a trip along that particular primrose path. Tonnes of great art and music has been spewed from cool’s daft gaping maw, but it’s claimed more casualties than victors. Brandishing their tools – be it ‘the six-string phallus’, paintbrush or pen, they hose their audiences down with hot arcs of liquid creative riffage and attitude, in the vain hope that some of it will stick enough get them beyond the velvet rope and into the knickers/underpants/consciousness’ of the masses.

  Of course it’s all completely subjective as one cats’ cool is another dudes’ fool but there are unspoken rules, the first is a bit like Fight Club and not to talk about it, unlike the Coolbrands website which is all they do (top of the list? – Aston Martin. Urgh).  Second is to ‘Not Give A Fuck’ or at least look like you don’t, but beware you don’t protest to N.G.A.F too much or the audience will ultimately N.G.A.F and your efforts will fall on deaf ears.

  Other tools to consider along the way are sunglasses - disarming accessories that detach you from the punters enough so they can’t see that you’re actually bricking it or just have wonky eyes. Cigarettes always seems to do the trick if you can handle the Emphysema, repeat prescriptions of Ventolin and short life span of course...which neatly bring us onto death. Oh Death!, you don’t have to N.G.A.F as legions of historians and journo’s will do it all for you and the grander the exit the better. Car crashes rate fairly well, but overdoses and especially suicide, adds gravity. You could even end up a legend. Imagine that!

   I like to think that stuff’s ‘good’ rather than ’cool’, art that succeeds in its attack will always flaw vanity and preening, but if there’s a few good songs along the way, I couldn’t G.A.F.

P.S. ...in a note to the Editor, if my column is to ‘straddle’ a feature, could you pop the photo of me at the top of each page so that I will be engaged in an endless kiss with myself. Now that would be cool.

XYZ February

February right, all miserable and bastard cold, statistically a time

for reaching for a pint of vodka and a bottle of aspirin chaser, but

before mooching off this mortal coil, spare a thought for those who

have to sing for their sushi.

 So much saline is spilt in the name of pop nowadays, the top ten is

starting to feel like an afternoon at the crematorium and indicative

of a wider problem than just the uber-drama ladled onto those telly

shows. In disbelief, contestants collapse under the weight of a

result, so grateful of praise they jump around like a dog that didn't

know it could bark.

 Of course it's the most cynical and daft way of starting a career,

but the real circus began on the launch of that inevitable Christmas

winner.

 In a battle for bandwidth an offensive was launched at a Burke by

35,000 burkes. Some Facebook group takes the higher ground rallying

for the 'real' version to claim the Christmas crown, debunking Burke

as just the 'product of a competition', inadvertently starting another

competition. Duuurr...good work 'book worms. Cohens' publishers reach

for their paying-in books.

Music stirs passion but to stab the flag of intellect into it renders

it the soundtrack to some dumb bun fight between those who apparently

know and those who apparently don't.

 The smug instigators congratulated themselves on the blip they became

on the meeja radar. All a bit me, me , me but such is the way of the

internet, that big mouthed, democratic show-off that turned up summat

years ago, making the world so tiny and brilliant but giving us no

idea of how it would sate our needy excesses.

 As incredible and unifying a human tool it's become, from the 'book

to the 'space, we're all given a voice, fraught with the doubt in ever

being heard... "please listen to my demo!" and as we tread water  in a

sea of ego, there's little difference between us and that Eggnog kid,

but like a great man said 'Follow The Leader', for those three

minutes, she leads. From the intro to the verse, left turn at the

chorus and over the bridge to the exit. You've only got four minutes

to save the world but lose the Kleenex.

Nice One, Badass!

Once the dust has settles on such a great victory, the landscape never looks like the Utopia you were fighting for , but it’s a start and hopefully the effervescent fizz of support that rippled across the globe keeps its head and isn’t just the hangover cure for that petulant cowboy’s eight year piss-up.  But like the most compelling pop stars, Barak has a voice that sounds like ‘the truth’, shot through with history and legacy; but in the same way Cowell peddles his Christmas Pop Wimps, it’s been a competition about hitting the right note at perfect pitch (or maybe not, as it’s all panning out). For once I’m holding off on the usual cynical diatribe and will just thank those whose decision to go out and vote indicates a swing toward actually giving a toss about something and contrary to our apathetic times. Whether it was a vote to hand over one hell of an in-tray to the right administration, a naive little bump of Prozac to keep the nation buoyant, or just cos it’s not another bloody-minded golfer, it was the right one. 

On the cusp of America getting another chance to prove itself as ‘land of the free and home of the brave’, musicians and other divvies queue up to tap dance their way into Obamas’ glow of victory, where appropriation is the order of the day and gimps like Katy Perry (a person whose themes of gender and sexuality are as cack-handed a proposition as inviting Goebbels to a Bar mitzvah.)  just throw up that token peace sign and ‘smile’. Ugh.

Still, it’s a great end to a weird year when Winehouse became synonymous with tedium, Jigga took Glasto and the world got a bit daft with money. Business as usual then, and guaranteed there’ll be plenty more strange fruits to fuel this corner of XYZ next year. On that note I want to say thanks for (erm) reading me and as I’ve realised over the last year that, very simply, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, you’re fuck all without other people. I hope the new year serves us all well. Now go and be brilliant. 

Money Talk Will Be Boring

It’s the end of the world apparently and like grabbing a fistful of prophecies from Nostradamus’s Naughty Tombola, scientists, philosophers and those ‘money idiots’ queue up, fat marker in hand to tag their names onto the grotty train to ‘I Told U So’.

Best grab your loved ones and an armful of Red Bull and head for the hills, cos if the crunch don’t get you, the icecaps will. With only a remote control to guide us , wave it anywhere near a telly and a whole spectrum of fear and blame will come coursing through that hire-purchase LCD to light the way, but check the Daily Manual for further instruction.

From what you’ve done with your kids, now swapping their Go Go’s for ASBOs , to how crap you’ve been with your cash, good advice comes second to a decent horror story. Oh, and then there’s that delicious hot potato of what you eat.

See, you get a phantom dispensation for eating overpriced offal and fine wines concocted by a scientist, so feel free to point that fat finger and call to take away the takeaways and Turkey Twizzlers. All of this is done in the best possible taste of course and to maximum panto-dramatic effect, cos we all love telly, innit! goodies vs baddies and that.

But the ‘money idiots’ have been out to lunch for too long leaving us all with a twelve figure hangover (400 billion…shit!, think how many packets of Monster Munch you could get with that) and not one sachet of Resolve in sight. The smoke and mirrors of international finance will deliver a masked blow to most over the next couple of years and it’s interesting to watch the rest of the world play catch-up with the recession that has happened in the music industry for nearly ten years. Surely it would be daft to release a record in such a climate, let alone start work on a second? But historically the entertainment business has boomed in tough times as punters strive to escape. Let’s face the music and fucking ‘avin it!