Kidda

Kiddas’ Ten Commandments for the DJ/Producer

2010-02-19T14:26:00.000-08:00

1. Neither slave nor master to technology be. It is heresy to suggest one DAW could ever begat a finer tune than the next, for without its maker, any music software could create a tune as well as you could catch fog.

2. For those that worship at the ‘Detroit Museum of Proper Dj Techniques And That’ -Thou shalt not fear progress. To deny that which is digital, denies evolution, technology is rich and the future of the party is safe outside the ancient realm of vinyl. May authenticity be judged by those who shake their shit at the weekend and not by those blinded by their own colon.

3. Thou shall ‘geek-out’ in moderation. Dialogue tween creators is paramount. But lo, the punter has meagre request for such detail. Did anybody give a fuck about what Michelangelo’s chisel looked like?

4. Let wine be thine spirit for writing and water for mixing. Booze does your ears in and makes stuff sound well tinny and even a cup of coffee can turn ears to mush. Oh, and don’t smoke weed – unless you’re a 15 year old bellend. Man.

5. Thou shalt not create music to bolster that which feeds the ego. Carnal practice gained from such creation is a path well-trodden and tiresome. To inspire ‘the dance’ into frivolous mêlée is the only way to truly manifest ones satisfaction.

6. Only a great tune ever begat a great remix. A polished turd still smells like shit.

7. Thou shalt not fall fowl of that which is cool, as that which is cool is little more than a shape-shifting veil behind which lies a needy child (and some fancy sneakers). An occasional embrace of Pop should negate such tendencies.

8. Thou shall leave around 6db headroom pre-mixdown.

9. Thou shalt not allow fashion nor trend to guide ones output . Apply Vocoder, Auto Tune and Side-Chain Compression with reckless abandon if the creator so wishes. Leave such concerns to those who watch too much Ugly Betty (also see Commandment 7).

10. Be Brilliant.

Funky Admin.

2009-09-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-12T02:02:00.000-07:00

2009-05-12T01:41:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-05-12T01:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-10T05:03:00.000-08:00

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!

XYZ October

2008-09-30T03:06:00.000-07:00

‘Selling out’ is dead stock lingo in my book. See, I’ve been getting a few questions about integrity versus cash, art versus commerce, good versus evil, the usual narrative arcs that turn up when the worthy and just of this world start banging on about creativity, talent and other such myths. Seems like a synch-worthy artist is a sacrificial lamb to some areas of the music press, holding their righteous sword of pop truth aloft, swinging at those that dare to challenge the sanctity of their most precious commodity, musical expression. Yawn. But one man’s sell out is another man’s bread and butter and while some relish the thought that artists exist in a psychedelic bubble of scandalous self indulgence, each on a creative rampage leaving a trail of rock ‘n’ roll clichés and tired pitfalls in their wake, the truth is I can’t afford a pair of shoelaces, let alone the bibles that hold these standards so dear.
With the value of music slipping faster than Jacko’s feet in a Pepsi ad, creative survival has become a paramount concern to artists. Where the struggle to hit musical nirvana, tattooed into pops forearm forever, the starry eyed genius scrabbles around for change to replace his guitar strings. Labels lose their artist focus along with the huge advances; another Roller is spared its date with the swimming pool. Acts flicker on and off the radar in matter of months as the next label offensive is launched to stave off financial cardiac arrest. There’s no option but to roll with the punches and as the industry is knocked sideways, sideline screams of ‘Sell out!’ fade into round two. But what sounds like the final death rattle of integrity for the music industry to some, is a window of opportunity to others. In a business that’s looking more like the Wild West than coke’n’cars glory of its former years, a hilarious, lawless mess with everything to play for. Art and commerce have always been an intriguing blend. Jeff Koons’ latest work costs more to produce than he can actually sell it for and the KLF burnt a million quid, whether a purge of guilt or just a daft idea, you do whatever it takes to make sense of your place in the world.
I know what makes me happy and I know what keeps me awake at night and for all of those self-appointed bastions of culture and their concerns about artist integrity, there’s only one voice that should ever ring true. That little tune I made in the front room on dodgy headphones has now gone all around the world and zapped back to me through the telly. Like magic. It means I can continue, which is all I ever wanted to do, integrity intact, unlike the pitch on a shampoo ad which I declined. I‘m mostly bald see, and not being a fan of irony, really couldn’t get along with the idea. Precious slaphead.

XYZ - May 2008

2008-09-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

A great man once said “it’s mostly tha voice that gets you up”. Well, yeah mostly, but for me it’s the guts that get me off. Cos the voice is the just the front end of everything else inside; portal to the truth, access to the soul. Or at least it’s meant to be.

Singers, singers, so many singers, there’s so many songs and so many voices nowadays that it’s easy to lose the plot as a punter. The smoke and mirrors of the industry clouds our judgement as we’re told that Duffy is the new Amy, Amy is the old Adele and Joss Stone is just a fucking joke that killed the Flake ad legacy.

We lurch down this well worn primrose path, all pissed on pop, giggly off Heat, swathe after swathe of singer/songwriters fly past, slapping us in the face with their ‘License to Motown’. All souled out and authentic as a good fuck; nods to Northern Soul, Reggae and Hip Hop are ladled on like varnish on the tarnished and battered hull of pops’ mighty Ark.

See, I have a love for pop music but a passion for soul, not ‘Soul’ as in it’s literal HMV/Virgin (or Zavvi…wtf?) ‘Urban’ category sense. When somebody opens their mouth and you hear that indefinable truth, well, that’s the shit right there.

In the extreme, Will Young singing “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone” is like me singing “I’m black and I’m proud”. Obviously, severe market forces were at work on that one, but equally ironic is Diana Ross singing the greatest ‘coming out’ song ever (ermm…’I’m Coming Out’). So for the same reasons I don’t believe Amy ever when back to black. Amazing voice, great story but a whole load of showing off and tragedy does not a Nina Simone make. Ditto the ‘other lot’, apart from Beth Ditto. Uncut heroine.

Sure enough, everybody’s got make a living and go for theirs, but let’s hold off on handing out the Award for Eternal Greatness when it’s just a fancy lick of Dulux to the career.

My Favourite Sushi Game

2008-09-05T01:29:00.000-07:00

Keeping It Real

2008-08-28T04:03:00.003-07:00

Some ones been giving indie a bad name and while I generally relish any kind of bile leveled at those fine protagonists of pap, casting their gangly, jangly shadow across an overpopulated musical landscape; lets not get bogged down in terminology, as indie is, for the most part defunct by the fact it’s ‘major’.
Howls of ‘mortgage indie’ berate those bands on a quest to sell out and cash-in , puking pops pick’n’mix cocktail all over the shop, two parts brit-pop, one part 80 ‘s drive time, a dash of 90’s Seattle and a lovin spoonful of sugar for the bitterest pill of cynicism. Nevermind.
Authenticity and the music industry have never been mutually exclusive, quite the opposite, but all that is a well trodden path in this column, everything is not as it seems and y’alls should know better. To have a passion for something does require a level of criticism, panning for musical gold, sifting crap from cream is all part of the fun and while some records are built like a PowerPoint presentation for the benefit of a bank balance, this fretting over it’s origin, form, credibility to find its actual worth, only distracts from whether the song is good or not.
As much as Baddona and Cowell dress it all up in lights, cameras and re-invention, engaging us in an all out assault on the senses to sell the songs, is all part of the same argument. We know more about an act than we do their music, spilling onto tabloid pages before a chord is struck, distorting the ‘voice’ and romancing us with a cinematic version of events - building a story to fit the market. In the same way, ‘keeping it real’ is an overrated angle, keeping it right is mostly forgotten.
Guitars have bloated the scene for several years, to the point it’s like the only way to make music, that rock’n’roll standard ad infinitum and in another throw of the postmodern dice mutate into nu-rave and artrock, becoming so angular it might slit its own throat. Maybe these voices of descent (‘landfill indie’ was also a good one) wanting something ‘real’ might be missing the point but blow a wind of change. I’ll hold out on a revolution for now but whatever the future holds, guitars or not, can we just have some more fucking cracking records please? Like mine, available in all good stores now (hmmm, might not get away with that).

XYZ - August

2008-08-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

Noel Gallagher’s a dick inee?, asking J-HOVA for a scrap round the back of the cow sheds for the hearts and minds of a 150,000 strong army. There was only going to be one outcome, but he should have read the Hip Hop Instruction Manual before waging war on an entire culture.

Page 1. Point A. ‘We know how to rock a party’.

Having said that Hip Hop is in a bit of a state, like the way rock went in the eighties, messy, well trodden and full of more shit than the Pyramid stage swill on Friday. A culture, which in at its core is inclusive, allowing all to partake in all of its many faceted outlets, now looks more like a Happy Meal promotion. The all singing, all dancing way of the dollar. No great surprise there, it’s just the final, predictable chapter in a beautiful story of talent, empowerment and politics. But as we turn the final page to find out whodunit – Who Stole The Soul?...I’d like to think it’s as yet unwritten.To have Lil Waynes ‘Lollipop’ the full stop to thirty summat years of the most focused and determined art form in my lifetime is just plain daft.

For all it’s pointless, skewed notions of what empowerment is, the sexism, occasional racism and lambasting of all those other ‘fears’ as truth, the language of hip hop will always remain an essential forum. There’s never one defining argument as a thousand voices respond and bring it to the cypher. Self-policing democracy in action, but for those who hold the spotlight, some remain silent. Yo, Bum Rush The Show!

Some declare Hip Hop dead before claiming the crown to its saviour, only clamouring for the same flattering glow of those dead presidents that Fiddy counts in his (fucking) Candy Shop. But for every blustering gob-shite, there’s a Rising Styles or Slip Jam B that doesn’t need to roll on chrome 22’s to prove its worth. Keeping hope alive, like.

No doubt, the ‘hip hop moment’ of Glastonbury was the first few chords of Wonderwall. See, Noel forgot the second rule in The Manual too –

‘We know how to do ‘beef’’

,and while that frustrated little man and his band of hairy Muppets ,dummies flying everywhere, demand ‘their festival’ back (that bloke from Kasbian wants his say too – see you in the comedy tent!); Jay Z performed hip hop to all of its glorious strengths and weaknesses. Elating, empowering, funky and yes, occasionally pointless

But, don’t look back in anger, eh boys.

XYZ Magazine July 2008 - Good Work 303!

2008-07-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

It’s the 20^th summer of love this year and while there have been washouts, dropouts, too many over-cooked realities and dodgy clothes; it remains the last true musical revolution in recent decades.

Idols and glory - pop in a nut shell. Walls littered with posters of the latest god/ess with a guitar, Stage-front, spouting those incisive, unifying ditties about unrequited love, the ‘square peg in a round hole’ of teen angst or just how nice it all is to be lucky, lucky, lucky. All good stuff but there’s always been something a bit daft giving it up for someone who doesn’t even know you exist. God knows, I’ve done time thinking I was Prince, Mick Jones and the Beasties (imagine Adrock pogo-ing in paisley and before you know it, the word ‘cock’ will pop in there). The fabulous, formative years spent appropriating words and chords, moulding your little identity into a tangible lump of fierce opinion, sexuality and a dash of tenderness are essential to all punters.

Then acid house turned up, all exotic, open minded and faceless. Now, electronic music weren’t new or anything, Chicago, Detroit and New York had been knocking out this stuff for years and, for most, the idea of dancing to something with no human identity was a bit mental but in the space of a year, ubiquitous. The adoration given up to that rock’n’roll standard now bounced around the warehouse. Where there was once just an audience, transformed into a united single minded mass, in turn unlocking the creative and political potential of the crowd…it scared the authorities shitless. Good work 303!

The story always ends the same, money to be made, see. Exclusivity, dress codes and duff drugs buffed and splintered the harmonious blob into a shiney smiley con or ‘Flaceeiiid!’ But as the last squeal echoed from the speaker stack, it’s musical legacy was left to run wild and flourish, before this dissolves into a Powerpoint presentation of Darwins’ ‘Evolution of Electronic Musique’, let’s just say there’s nothing ‘nu’ about glowsticks.

Kidda an' Ting

2008-06-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

I dun a remix of that Ting Tings song...all Baltimore/bassline and whatnot. Damn fun. Click the pic and shake what your gene-pool gave ya.

animation ...WTF?

2008-05-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

So, the Falklands war, right... the Belgrano (Gotcha!), Simon Weston, sheep and Thatchers lame pop at that 'New World Order' shit (that stuff's ubiquitous...keep your eyes on the prize kids,no doubt), and she still got votes for another term.
Fuck it, Argentina is clearly on fire.
Where Banksy gave the art world a new street ho to pimp (Brangelina so on his dick forever) and while he's still one of the sharpest minds on the block, Muto rocks the best. Muto makes a fresh new box to work outside of, the worlds not a canvas, it's a massive flipbook. Incredible.
I'm lookin forward to an animated battle between Nike and Muto over their visual copyright held at Cleveland Centre car park, Middlesbrough...bound to happen, and I hope they make a fucking fortune.

"let's talk about me!"...again.

2008-05-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

A little movie about me, how I made an album, why I made an album and how tapestry can give you callouses. Shot on the cusp of the worlds worst flu epidemic (to ravage our gaff, anyhow) my 'nasal flow' was also offset by a delightful pallor, only obtained by exploring that well trodden wine/fags axis the night before. Come 7pm that evening, I was stuck to the sofa like a mouldy Wrestlers hotdog, hallucinating that Eastenders was actually taking place in the front room as I drifted in and out of consciousness...oh, and everything fucking knacked.
I don't think I ever got over it, nothings the same anymore and as I watch this little movie, I remember gentler times. You could leave your front door wide open and not have to worry, the local bobby would give you a clip round the ear if you gave him any lip and twenty Marlboro lights cost £1.20. Ah yes, March 2008 , I'll remember those days for the rest of my life.
This was all shot and edited by my good friend Collina 'Greenie' Greenwell...hollaaaa!

Under The Sun - The Bacardi Diaries

2008-05-29T02:45:00.000-07:00

My song on a proper telly commercial and everything!...well i'd be more enthusiastic about it if I actually got a paid, but I haven't yet (the PRS will come through in about 20 years or something) EMI and my record label put paid to any idea of us having a secure household for once...that'll teach me to go sampling other peoples records, won't it now.
Still, very nice of Bacardi to stick with it and it'lll no doubt do wonders for promotion and whatnot...still waiting on that bathful of rum though?
Turns out it was directed and produced by HSI (my animation agency/buddies in our fine capital) from their LA offices (by Joseph Kahn...he did the Wu Tang - 'Gravel Pit' video,a bit like the Flintstones but more sexist and with more expensive furs) which was weird cos I was trying to find out who was producing it as it was on-going and it was right under my nose all a long. Fine job too...

that 'Smile' video

2008-05-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

Just finished animating and directing a video for the first single 'Smile', just waiting for the comments from stupid motherfuckers on Youtube going 'that's just a rip off of Napoleon Dynamite!!!!...I can't believe!!!'. 10 out of 10 cocknose, it's called a homage , go read a fucking book or something.
Despite only taking 4 weeks on one machine whilst juggling a four year old with a passion for stuffing Hama beads up her nose (just like I did when I was four, not Hama beads, those ceramic ones that slide up the cavity all nice), I think it does the job and makes people smile...does what it says on the tin, innit.
See, Ive been out of the animating thing for a while (not through choice, just market forces or whatever they call it) and mostly spending most of my time juggling Hama bead-riddled-kids, making music, indulging in extreme tapestry and occasionally sleeping. But it's got me back into it all again, you know all visual and shit. So hopefully my record label would like me to do another one (basically giving me the opportunity to pay myself to make a video for me) in order to hold off court action from the loan company/council/inland revenue or pay off some of the bills that make up the snuggly duvet of debt I roll into every night. Hmm all cosy warm and panicky.
Anyway, I do hope you enjoy the video and it makes you smile (and not through gritted teeth like I have to).

Motown Jackin' Mix

2008-05-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

Did a mix a while back for Kiss FM's Joe Ransom show. Got some Motown acapellas and sonically sellotaped them onto some other records to varying degrees of success...the mix is actually better than it's title, but I was in a hurry...have a listen

XYZ Magazine April...The Great Pop and Roll Swindle

2008-05-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

I do and so does Johnny Rotten, but then he’d lost a shit load in the deal. Rotten left, and Sid self-destructed along with the band. No fun, no fun at all. Reduced from an incendiary force to a sad, smacky circus in only two years; and so is the way of the music industry .Forever. Cheers Malcolm.

But if there’s anything barks loudest from the swathe of bullshit sound-bites, and all that retrogressive “You kids don’t know how it was back in the day” misty-eyed punk crap, it’s that question.

We know full well that in the main, pop music is a process of manufacture. From Motown to X-Factor, the plan has been to get some kid in the studio with somebody else’s song, book that flight to the Seychelles and watch the royalties roll in. It’s an industry after all.

But a good tune is a good tune. Almost undeniably so, and I could bang on about music and the ‘capitalist factories’ that churn it out until some Bacharach/Holland & Dozier/Ashford & Simpson number pops up out of nowhere and takes me somewhere else for a bit. You know that ‘hairs on back of neck’ stuff. Lovely.

But my beef lies with that great big distorting wedge between fantasy and reality; everything we invest our hearts and imaginations in only to be dashed on the shabby rocks of reality.

Every year The Brits turns up and I clap my hands. Not generally in appreciation for a particular talent, just for watching humanity dissolve into a bloated keg of self importance, all faux-humble and whatnot. Tee-hee. But this year it left a bad taste in my mouth.

For one, there was serious lack of the good pop folk of Britain making right royal dicks of themselves. All that ‘meedja training’ has no doubt has put paid to the Brandon Block brilliance of yore.

But just what fuck is all that Brit school stuff about?

Nobody more than me supports the funding of Arts in education. To hear people prattle about lottery money and hospitals is a major worry. Like we should just turn up to the call centre/coal face to earn a wage, have kids and that, before snuffing it without once thinking, aspiring or looking outside the confines of our own consciousness for inspiration or just ‘summat else’. Warhol to Leona Lewis, it’s the difference between being a donkey and human being. Period.

But never has pop music stooped to become so transparent. Not only do we know it’s a music factory but we’re also invited to watch it. The ‘kids’ in the audience at the Brits were mostly from that Brits Academy, a school funded by the British Music Industry to develop young talent. For them, an investment in potential profits. For the kids, a fast-track to fame and fortune. So the winners look down into the audience all grateful and humble thinking about how they were down there last year, wide-eyed and hopeful, the audience looks back thinking ‘that’ll be me next year’. Like walking round a battery hen farm, the whole process from the egg to supermarket shelf is laid bare.

What a shame. The best pop music comes from nowhere, sweeps you off your feet, wines and dines you for three minutes then dumps you. But now we just have ‘the product’, the joy and mystery sucked out of it from the off. Plaudits and pundits all hail the emperors’ new clothes, but it looks like knock-off Nike to me.

Dorothy pulls back the curtain and Willy Wonka shouts ‘You lose!You get nothing!’

Ouch.

Pop music has cheated on me and broke my heart, but I’d take her back tomorrow.

XYZ Magazine June

2008-05-29T00:51:00.000-07:00

more bile...politikin'

Rock Against Racism is back (re-branded as Love Music Hate Racism) and I’m hoping it’s not too little too late. I’m hoping it stays in the limelight and doesn’t disappear in a flurry of articles destined for the recycle bin.

As we ride culture’s tin-pot carousel, spewing its hilarious tat and knock-off rewards, why not sit back and enjoy this return to politics in music as its hijacked by the blur of our own sinister status quo…brought to you in HD, 5.1 surround sound, of course.

Big Brother rallies to win the hearts, minds and votes of a planet and the Battle of the Birkenstocks takes place on a global yoga mat. Therapies, meditation, conspiracy theories (and other ‘faiths’) pull the plug on these fine communities as self-preservation descends like a giant fair-trade Bag For Life, smothering the good folk in an all encompassing ‘victim fog’. A wailing soundtrack of modern life commands all to ‘chill the fuck out...now!’ This cast of millions, who once had their eyes on the prize, lose the plot and the credits roll.

God that film was rubbish, get a round in.

In the last twenty years the swing from human to global politics has been huge. A concern for the global community over societies still prevalent ‘isms’, now occupies the majority of punters brain-politic and, while such concerns maybe honest and true, the scale of these problems is so great and non-specific, a certain punch has been lost from the fight.

As confrontation is perceived to be at the heart of all politics, too often I hear ‘I don’t really do politics’; opting for a lifestyle of liberal trappings y’know, Fair-trade coffee, awful hemp clothes and Coldplay. All have this element of ‘invisible politics’ where you can pay to feel involved; commerce replaces protest and (thankfully) your own voice is untraceable.

The argument that music and politics don’t work is as conclusive as that age-old ‘frapaccino vs latte’ debate…pointless distracting guff. No doubt, ‘yoof cultcha’ never had it so good, Nokia,GTA4,MSN,Bit Torrents and you even get rubber johnnies from school. So, while I don’t hold my breath for a new dawn in social politics following LMHR’s latest big push, the brattish holler of ‘Mum, can you start this revolution for me?’ would be a start. At least it proves there’s a voice out there.

XYZ Magazine May

2008-05-29T00:19:00.000-07:00

...second bile-ridden XYZ mag installment.

In the extreme, Will Young singing “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone” is like me singing “I’m black and I’m proud”. Obviously, severe market forces were at work on that one, but equally ironic is Diana Ross singing the greatest ‘coming out’ song ever (ermm…’I’m Coming Out’). So for the same reasons I don’t believe Amy ever went back to black. Amazing voice, great story but a whole load of showing off and tragedy does not a Nina Simone make. Ditto the ‘other lot’, apart from Beth Ditto. Uncut heroine.

Sure enough, everybody’s got make a living and go for theirs, but let’s hold off on handing out the Award for Eternal Greatness when it’s just a fancy lick of Dulux to the career.