ComEnts

If anyone was in any doubt about the value of this blog I will, from now on, bring to their attention an incident from Thursday at the festival. A girl walked past our camp saying "Why are they shouting bollocks? That's so last year, they should think of something new to shout." Indeed they should, but you are really showing your age there. No regular reader of Coments would have made such a faux pas. That's the kind of comment that would probably prompt bitter old festival goers to ask what you got in your exams. I still feel a bit sorry for the girl (a different one) who responded to the exams question with "Three A stars, three Bs..." and was greeted with a chorus of "F*ck off!"

In other chant related news the guys camping a couple of sites along from us started up a chant of "Chris Akabusi! which went down well. Especially after Alex from Rebus responded with "Awuga!". The response from The Akabusis, "No you dick, that's John Fashanu", provided a huge amount of amusement and the story was repeated up and down our campsite all weekend.

That said the chants of choice for the festival were definitely Goldie Lookin' Chain lyrics. "When I say guns you say wappers! GUNS!" "WAPPERS!" etc. The call and response version worked nicely, although it was a bit more risky than just shouting "Guns don't kill people, wappers do!" because there's always a chance you wouldn't get a response and then you'd look a bit foolish.

In a link that even Jim Bowes would be proud of, that leads me to the bands. It was the aforementioned GLC that opened the festival you see. They were one of the best things I saw. There's nothing like seeing 10,000 standing in the rain and mud wetting themselves with laughter. I saw them at Ashton Court Festival where you could hear absolutely nothing because of what appeared to be technical problems and they were rubbish. You definitely need to be able to hear the lyrics.

Other highlights included Jurassic 5. The section of their set where the MCs went off-stage and left Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark to show off their amazing skills was the most impressive musical display of the festival. There was amazing decksterity and some really cool gadgets but their talent can't be faulted.

Bloc Party were also very, very good. Special mention to them for being the band who looked the most happy to be there. It's an incredible change seeing them play to a packed Radio 1 tent after seeing them at the Rising Sun but they rose to the occasion.

I missed Auf Der Maur to watch 50 Cent get bottled and it was well worth it. The media seems to be saying that he was bottled off and didn't finish his set, everyone in the crowd seemed to think that he'd played to the end and weathered the storm (and it really was a storm of bottles). He fought back well though and I think everyone I spoke to afterwards had a lot of respect for the way he dealt with it. First thing he did when he came on-stage was hurl bottles back at the crowd! Good work Fitty. It was obvious he was in trouble when everyone was talking about him getting bottled off all day. When we were waiting for him to come on the kids heading towards the front, loaded with bottles, were getting cheered forward. It was quite an amazing thing to watch.

I would talk more about the bands but I missed most of what I wanted to see and none of it's really coming back to me at the moment. Maybe that'll come back in a later entry, anyway you can read about them on the NME site or something, this is the place for the more interesting stories.

The weather wasn't as bad as predicted, we were lucky (or early) enough to get a dry campsite and we were fine once we'd got that. There was mud but it wasn't enough to stop anyone having a good time. In the end it was mostly sunny. On Saturday it was so hot that Steve from Rebus' claimed it was nearly hot enough to melt the mud! Luckily this amazing prediction didn't come true and the heat did in fact just dry out the mud. It is true that some of the campsites did resemble paddy fields and I'm really glad I wasn't in one of those, that really would have been a nightmare.

Might post more about the festival if anything comes back to me.

Slack, moi?

OK - couple of new music projects on the go, so I'm slightly happier than I was in my enforced "resting" period.

Lost my phone on Friday, hadn't backed up any of my numbers so I'll be in a social coma for a week or two until I get people to mail me their details again. Hugely fucked-off about losing all the cool texts that I had saved, and the numbers of people whom I doubt I will ever see of or hear from again - but these things happen. In many ways it's like starting a whole new life from scratch, maybe I should look at it like that; I think I'll start a new life for myself as a bassist. No, wait - that's no kind of life!

Didn't go to Reading festival, went to Notting Hill carnival on Sunday instead. T'was good - think it has a big future ahead.

I wonder who the first person ever to shout BOLLOCKS! out at a festival was? Along with the inevitable "I remember when all this was fields." joke it's one of those enduring festival traditions that seems to be passed on year by year without anyone ever actually teaching anyone it. It's probably a natural instinct. When the first Homo Erectus struggled to light a fire to flame grill his mammoth burger* his friends danced around drinking cheap warm cider and shouting BOLLOCKS!

I normally see it as a challenge to get people to shout something new. Sometimes something new comes along all on it's own. There was the TIMMEH! respite inspired by the kid in a wheelchair from South Park. As an aside, if Matt and Trey are so aware of kids responses to disability why weren't Blue Peter before they introduced Joey Deacon? Ok, maybe they were and the mission to educate kids about disabled people to stop them taking the piss. And that's something I think we can all support. It just backfired badly. Who of around my age wasn't called a Joey at school?

Anyway, I was talking bollocks. Last year we were in a slightly enclosed bit of campsite and there wasn't quite the room for the mexican wave-esque spread of the shouts to really come past us. It was a mixed blessing. Yes, it was bliss to be free of the shouts all night but it did prevent spontaneous new shout generation (SNSG). Our greatest ever achivement, and I say our for SNSG can't be achieved alone, was getting half of campsite J singing Kum By Ah (my lord) as a round with each little group of friends starting at a different point. It's possible this came out of randomness but however it came about it worked. You do have to be a little careful with SNSG though, you'll find that your wittiest ideas will disappear into the ether but the most annoying chants will come back again and again, haunting you for the rest of the weekend if not every year you ever return to the festival.

*1. I have no idea if this is historically accurate or not. If anyone out there wants to fill me in on who the first humans ancestors to use fire were and whether there were any mammoths around then I'd love to know.
2. Mmmmm... Mammoth Burger
3. Actually they flame grilled them a bit first and then just microwaved them when people ordered one.
4. Huh huh huh, I said Erectus.

Ticket
Tent which I should probably check is still in working order after last year
Money
Sleeping bag
Loo roll
Bin bags
Token spare clothes that I will pretend I'm going to change into when smelly/wet but will actually just put on on top of my clothes at night when it gets cold
Waterproof

Why are soft cases for guitars also known as gig bags? As I was packing up for rehearsal yesterday I was thinking that just about the only time I wouldn't use my soft case is when taking my guitar to a gig because of the risk of damage. In fact I only bought the hardcase for taking it to gigs.

I am confused.

My resolution to keep up regular postings to this blog didn't last long did it. Sorry. Will try harder, and probably fail but I'll be feeling bad about it.

Another jam for potential new project today, got a drummer coming along so it'll be interesting how that works out.

Some names for potential new project have been bandied about, we did decide on one for definite on Friday and now I'm not sure I like it. I'm worried about getting stuck with something that sucks as much as Sonic Undermind (the name only, the band was great).

Whatever it is, and whatever the line-up for whatever band I end up being next is, the most important thing is the story. The answer to the "where does the name come from?" question. Thing is, I think the story is a lot easier to invent than the actual name. Perhaps that's just me.

Reading festival next weekend, I tell you what, the normal weekends are scary enough at the moment, festy is faintly terrifying!

As regular Coments readers will be aware (yes I'm still deluding myself that someone might be reading) AK and I both found ourselves rockbandless for various reasons in the last few weeks and we decided that the sensible thing would be to go have a jam. We roped in a makeshift rhythm section for the evening and booked the room at Impact, as you do.

Jamming with a new bunch of people is always a bit weird. After a few years with Sonic Undermind we've all got to a place where we're very much on the same wavelength, people can just play off each other and see where things go. About 45 mins into yesterdays rehearsal I was starting to think it was going to be a difficult transition. It's amazing the difference drums make though, within 5 minutes of the drummer setting up we were playing something that was recogniseable as music, it was great. After 2 hours just jamming stuff out it was obvious that certainly got the core of a gigging band, some idea of the kind of style we were evolving into and elements of 3 or 4 songs. Credit to the rhythm section too, made our job easy.

It's really nice to get back to just jamming and writing new songs rather than rehearsing stuff I've been playing for years. It's also nice that it feels like a progression for me in terms of what I play. I'm still playing like me but I've got different things to feed off. AK's a very groove orientated guitarist which is fantastic for me as a rhythm player, I can feed off the lead rhythm as well as the bass and drums. I also got to play a bit of lead stuff.

Anyway assuming this becomes a proper band we are kind of intending to document our trials, tribulations and general rise and fall on this blog.

Mission 1: Find a drummer. Yesterday we were playing with Iain Kidd (formerly of Red House amongst others) who was really good but unfortunately he's not available for another project/long term in Reading so we'd like to find someone permanent.

If you happen to be a drummer who can play a bit and fancies jamming with us to see how things work out get in touch. mike@sonicundermind.co.uk Our influences should be fairly obvious from our favourite guitarists that we posted a while back on this blog.

This is yet another blog entry inspired by the debates on Berkshire Live. It's something that's come up many times and probably will again and again.

One of the problems of being a reviewer in a relatively small close-nit community like the Reading band scene is that you are inevitably going to end up reviewing bands with people you know in. This is a no win situation. If you say the band is good people assume you are just kissing their arses, if you slag them off you are going to piss someone off. In general, and there have been exceptions, I try and be constructive in all my reviews whether I know the band members or not. I don't see that there's much point in really slating a band, even if they do happen to be really bad.

I think for me bands with people I know in generally comes into three types:

1. I've got to know the people in the band because I really liked the band and then met them later. For instance Return to Zero, Rebus and Yankee 99er.
2. Bands where I knew one or more band members before I saw the band and then really liked them when I saw them. eg. Pete and the Pirates.
3. Bands where I knew one or more band members before I saw them and then didn't like them. eg. Well, you see this is the difficult category to review.

All I can say is that I try my best to be honest in my reviews and any bias that might appear is totally subconcious. I haven't given a glowing review to someone I thought sucked, and when I don't like a band I'll generally try and say it in a nice way, but that's true whether or not the band contains people I know or not. Possibly I should be a bit harder in some of my reviews but it's not really what I'm like.

In the case of the review in question this time (Pete and the Pirates at the BBBs) I know full well every time I review them I'm open for comments about bias because one of the Petes in the band is my brother. Problem is, they are in my opinion genuinely the best band currently playing in Reading and I want to tell people about them. I would be the same if my brother wasn't in the band, although on the plus side that does help me get little detail points to put in the reviews.

I don't even think that Graham who made the comment about this review was really that serious, he's such a joker, but it was still worth talking about.

As I mentioned earlier I ordered the Modey Lemon album after listening to Jo (Caged Baby)'s CD. I was excited to see it had arrived this morning, and I was looking forward to listening to it.

After a morning of meetings I finally get a chance to sit down over lunch and listen to it.

Guess what?

The fucking thing has that annoying copy protection so that it doesn't work in a computer. So, despite me paying for it I now can't listen to it when I want which is right now. In my opinion that makes it a faulty product and I should be able to quite justifiably get a refund. Ok, so copying cds is bad, fine. So do something useful about it. Sign better bands, make CD prices more reasonable, whatever. Introducing CDs we can't listen to is insanity. I'm hardly likely to spend more money buying something I can't listen to am I? No. And if I knew in advance it's quite possible I wouldn't have bought it and spent my money on something else instead. The most stupid thing about it is that it doesn't even stop people copying it, just makes it slightly harder. So all they have achieved is pissing their customers off without making their product secure from copying at all.

In fact if people can't play a CD on their computer, and they listen to most music on their PC, aren't they more likely to not even bother buying the thing and just download it? What's the point of paying for something you can't use? It's the most ridiculous, short sighted, illogical commercial decision I think I've ever heard.

It's like saying "oh, people are speeding in our cars, let's make them without an accelerator so they can't speed."

Are the shit for brains record company wankers who thought this twattish scheme up totally devoid of any common sense or logic?

I am not happy. Who do I need to write to to get this idiocy banned?

Mac daddy:
Mates with cool houses, big gardens and swimming pools.
Barbeques. And steak.
Getting our own studio sorted out.
Writing lots of cool new songs.
Forming new bands with certain other blog writers
The new football season.

Slack doddery;
The weather. Hot and wet (good if you're with a lady, no good if you're in the jungle).
Being at work 1st thing Monday morning.
Bad attitudes.
Smoking too much.

Wax on:

1. The people who are trying to organise flying in from Europe for the last Sonic Undermind gig.
2. Booking a jam for potential new project.
3. Thinking of band names.
4. Going to see Pete and the Pirates on Saturday (the tour is going well so far apparently).
5. The amazing number of pretty girls in Dublin.
6. The Guinness at the Guinness Storehouse (Well worth a visit).
7. Wednesday Afternoon Blast 1386 marathon.
8. Sun dried tomatoes.
9. Ordering the Modey Lemons CD.
10. Spider Solitaire

Wax off:

1. Bank balance after Dublin.
2. Always getting a cold after landing at Heathrow.
3. Not being able to go to Access All Areas on Saturday.
4. Difficult band members.
5. Reading Festival Ticket not arriving yet even though everyone elses seems to have.
6. Railway lines flooding causing delays.

There was a news item on telly last night about how a group of "citizens" had got together to try and stop graffiti - which had clearly been ruining their lives - by asking the media and the music industry in particular to stop condoning graffitit, to stop making it appear "cool". There was a moment of brilliance when the official representative of the "citizens" was put on camera link with a real graffiti artist (called Rough, I think) who managed to completely undermine the position of the anti-graffiti group in two or three succinct and well-put statements. The official rep stammered and blundered his way through the rest of the item.

The "anti" group's main point seemed to be against tagging, which was rightly described by an expert as being on a par with canine territorial pissings and of no value whatsoever: the defence from graffiti supporters/artists was that this wasn't graffiti, it was rubbish and was no justification for moves to eliminate or persecute "real" artists. They brought out the historical significance of graffiti through the ages, and the relevancy of it's underground political expression and creativity, to which the only response from the "anti" brigade was that they wouldn’t like any graffiti at all on the walls off their homes, or on the streets where they live.
Now, fair play - I wouldn’t want to see the inane sprayings of some crack-addict 12yr old all over town either, but that's the problem, isn’t it? How do you stop kids being kids? What has history taught us about demonising something to stop it being attractive to children? Hmm? Something about red rags and bulls?

How cool is the mural on the Central Club opposite the Diab-Oracle? And the art under the bridges along the Kennet is also something that definitely improves the lives of those who have reason to wander around those parts. I want to see more large-scale art projects of an "urban" (God, I hate that term. It basically means "under-privileged", doesn’t it?) nature, as long as the quality of the art is good. But that's the problem - defining what is good and what is not. Now, imagine someone telling Lemmy from Motorhead that he wasn't allowed to sing because his voice wasn't "good". Problems arise all over the place with this issue.

Anyway, the whole news item seemed like a bunch of elderly, middle-class people who were rather hoping that MTV, Hollywood and the British Film Board would all see sense and ban the use of graffiti in all the various mediums, so that teenagers would stop thinking that graffiti was "cool", and would stop doing it. The cretins. That a bunch of adults can club together and work as a team to be THAT stupid amazes me. If they want to get rid of the graffiti in their street, then fine - easily done with some more paint and a chat with the local neighbourhood watch scheme. But to think that people feel the need to express themselves creatively and skillfully (and in the case of most good graffiti - eloquently) because they saw it on a J-Lo video? How can they be so stupid? You may as well assume that Radiohead were inspired to start writing music after seeing all the drunk and homeless buskers in Oxford tunelessly bawling their way through such classics as "Herrfurrnerr *hic*" and the classic standard "Pissed me'sel again."

As you might remember a while back I had a bit of a rant about certain things garage rock (apparently it's not called that anymore, whatever annoying jangly guitar music is supposed to be called) and how I found a lot of new rock bands totally uninspiring. Jo from Caged Baby promised he'd make me a CD showcasing some stuff he thought I should listen to, to at least confirm that I didn't like it... well something like that anyway. He gave it to me at a Club Velocity and after that we went to the After Dark, in the morning the CD was gone! I've found it now. Here's a blow by blow report of what I thought. The concept was that it's a collection of mainly new English guitar bands beginning with The.

Sicko - The Rocks

I actually quite like this one it's properly nasty sounding. The singer's voice sounds like a cross between the guy from Suede who I hate and Kurt Cobain who is great. Not sure I'd go out and buy it but I like it.

It Could Have Been So Different - The Mig...
Not sure if that's the full band name... seems to be cut off.
One of those songs that you can sing countless 60s songs over. Boring guitar, annoying singing. I'm not a fan.


Time Killer - The Hells

I did wonder if there were going to be any songs on this that I really liked. This is great. It's a bit rocky and a pit punky, same kind of vibe of the Mudhoney stuff I've been listening to recently but more catchy and better put together.It's actually got a hook, I think I'll look out for their album. I've decided I'm going to link to the bands I like. http://www.thehells.com/

It's On - Sludgefeast

What a disappointment. Surely Sludgefeast should be making really heavy slow grindcore? Is there a difference between this and The Hives? If there is I can't see it, well, the Hives probably look funnier and they have a bass player called Dr Matt Destruction which is extremely cool.

Primitive - The Parkinsons

Bizarrely someone's already put this song on a compilation CD for me. I didn't really like it then but I do respect it. There's some interesting stuff going on here I just can't imagine a situation where I'd think, "oooh, I really fancy listening to the Parkinsons."

What Made You Great - The Electric Shocks

First time I listened to this CD I thought this was easily my favourite track. It's not so good after repeated listens but still one of the better tracks on here. It's got a really poppy vocal on it but the backing is occasionally quite nasty in a good discordant way. That combination reminds me a little bit of Supergrass. http://www.theelectricshocks.com/

The Moonshine - The Rattle-Snakes

I think this is my least favourite so far. It's absolutely horrible. Actually the band they most sound like is The Offspring! Even then it's only The Offspring when they got boring.

Baptised in Fire - The Grips

When you are listening to a song for the first time and you check how long it is after a minute because you are already bored it's probably not a good sign. It's not offensive like the last one but it's boring which is arguably an even bigger sin!

Bad Feeling - The Beatings

Oh god... three bad ones in a row. The CD's starting to feel like an endurance test.

Scotch Love - The Paybacks

This one kind of kicks off like a soul track which is really cool. I wish they'd kept up that vibe or integrated it with the rest of the song. Unfortunately it descends back into the same kind of 3 chord bad guitar sound with a shrieking guy singing mediocre lyrics over it thing. Better than the last three is about all I can say...

The Beat That Kills - The Flash Express

They've stolen the first 5 seconds of Electric Ladyland to open the song? I'm sorry but you couldn't kill a 150 year old man with an extremely weak heart with that beat. Not even by him laughing really hard at the bit with the clapping. I'm also willing to put money on the fact that they don't start a riot every time they try it. It's actually quite a catchy song but the lyrics are so ridiculous you can't take it seriously.

Street Survivor - The Flaming Sideburns

I want this band to be great because their name is so good. They aren't.

Jesus Died So We Could Ride - The Speed...

I think that if I hear one more week, weedy, messy, jangly guitar sound like this I'm going to start trying to staple my own forehead.

Furious Desires - The Hotwires

Ah, this is better. The guitar is a bit more distinct. Still a bit weedy and fuzzy and the singer has some annoying oooh ooooh ooooh bits but in general the song's pretty good. The Hotwires were going to get a link but they say on their website that they are "London's only true rock and roll band" the arrogrance of which annoyed me so much I decided not to.

You Bug Me - The Modey Lemon

This is really, really, really good. It's got some really cool Dr Who sounding keyboards on it. The vibe is that Queens of the Stone Age rocking vibe but in a more lo-fi way. I really like it. The Modey Lemon are definitely getting a link and I'll probably check out the album as well. http://www.themodeylemon.com/.

Track 01 - Melitzer

Melitzer are one of those local bands that I associate with Caged Baby and Floodshock... maybe because they are. This is recorded way, way quieter than anything else on the CD and it's actually quite hard to know what's going on. The bass is excellent but the rest of it is a bit dicey. If it had a real drummer rather than a lame drum machine and you could hear the guitar and vocals it'd be good. Assuming the guitar and vocals could live up to the bass...

So, that's it. I think I'm going to try and hunt down the Modey Lemon and The Hells Albums that these tracks come from. I think it was quite successful in the end. OK, I didn't like all the tracks but I did really like some of them and any time you find a couple of bands you really like must be a good thing.