Monday, February 21, 2005
It's a big building where sick people go to get better, but that's not important right now.
Yeah baby! Müf recording went really well over the weekend, even if we didn’t quite get all the vocals finished. I was anxious about doing the vocals as I haven’t sung on anything since my days in am-dram musicals (and AWU backing vocals), but I loved it. Gave it the full-on Band Aid sunglasses-on-and-headphones-over-one-ear treatment too. Quality. All the other parts sounded great, and I did two different takes of a solo for one of the tracks, and we're using them both cos it sounds wicked. May prove problematic to play live (I may have to evolve a new set of arms), but sounded great on the initial mix. Boo-yaka-sha!
My amp died on me almost as soon as we turned it on at the studio, but luckily for us we know some very cool people who lent us their amp for the day - and subsequently for Tues and Wed this week for the Müf gig and the White Sunday gig I have at the Fez. Take a bow, Rebus - you are fine and noble gents, I don’t care what anyone else says(!).
I read my last post - the "pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming" time/place scenarios" comment made me think of the scene in "Airplane!" where Stryker had to ask the guy next to him to pinch him. Funny. I love that film, and the expression "Looks like I picked the wrong day to give up amphetamines/sniffing glue" always comes in handy, too.
My amp died on me almost as soon as we turned it on at the studio, but luckily for us we know some very cool people who lent us their amp for the day - and subsequently for Tues and Wed this week for the Müf gig and the White Sunday gig I have at the Fez. Take a bow, Rebus - you are fine and noble gents, I don’t care what anyone else says(!).
I read my last post - the "pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming" time/place scenarios" comment made me think of the scene in "Airplane!" where Stryker had to ask the guy next to him to pinch him. Funny. I love that film, and the expression "Looks like I picked the wrong day to give up amphetamines/sniffing glue" always comes in handy, too.
Putting the bang back into recording
location: bleeding ear studios, Reading
Saturday 19th Feb 2005
It was midday when Müf arrived en masse at Bleeding Ear Studios. We had 2 days to record 4 tracks. This is going to be a bit of a recording diary, might be a bit too much detail for those who've recorded before but hey! Day one the aim was to do the bass and drum tracks, we only had the drummer for one day so needed to get it all down. Still, we've had until about 5pm when Rob (who's recording us) was heading into London to see Three Litre.
First impressions of Bleeding Ear were that it's changed a hell of a lot since Sonic Undermind recorded there. We were one of the first bands he had in... well he was in the band! Since then it's improved massively. Rob's now got a new pro-tools rig to record on and there's a live room for the drums, or sticking the cranked up guitar cabs in.
Getting the drum tracks down involved basically setting up the drums in the drum room, micing them all up and making them sound nice - which led to some artistic debates about what drums should sound like between Rob (who's also a drummer himself) and our drummer Iain. "Don't fight the drums!" We got there in the end though and the drums sound amazing. I've made that sound really easy but that entire process probably took an hour.
To help get the feel of the tracks Sam, AK and I played guide guitars for the songs in the control room (Iain could hear us through his headphones in the drum room). It was all relatively straightforward. Couple of takes for each song and it was done. In fact it went so well the guide bass was actually good enough to keep on two of the songs. Then we re-recorded the bass for two songs that needed redoing and we were done for the day!
Sunday 20th Feb 2005
Sunday was guitars and vocals day, so only AK and me were needed. We got there on time, got set up, all ready to go and DISASTER! AK's amp blew up! Ok, it didn't so much blow up as just stop working really quietly and unimpressively.
Where do you find a replacement Marshall at midday on a Sunday? Luckily we managed to get hold of Steve from Rebus who had a very similar amp. He said we could use his amp but he was on the train on the way back from Leeds. D'oh. He suggested we see if Alex from Rebus could pop round his house and pick it up for him. Which we did and he did! Total life saver. In the end with all the ringing round we'd done and heading up to Wokingham to meet Alex and get the amp we only lost about an hours recording time.
So, back to Bleeding-Ear and we crashed back into it. Recorded the distorted guitar for all the tracks then did the clean channels. Rob experimented with some distant micing on the guitar which sounded absolutely great for one of my distorted channels. I think I'm getting used to recording now, this time it was relatively painless. I got really good takes first time for a lot of it and with feeling! After the initial "argh, no amp!!!" stress it was a really nice day.
Last thing to go on was vocals, we only had time to do the vocals for two songs because of our lost hour but the two we had sound amazing, I didn't know Alex could sing that well to be honest.
I can't wait to hear the finished result. In the studio it was all sounding better than I ever thought it would!
Friday, February 18, 2005
Müf recording
Recording the Müf EP this weekend, very excited. Working with Rob is always a fantastical experience, plus all the songs are pucka too, and I always feel very at home in a recording studio environment so it should be a good weekend all in all! Had an odd moment yesterday when I was trying to remember the name of the girl that I wrote "Schmindie" about - except we're changing the name of the track to "Georgina by the morning light" (subject to band approval), brought back some odd-but-good memories. I hope Georgina likes the song, she was very cool all those years ago when we were seeing each other and essentially the lyrics just capture the feeling I had at the time that I'm sure will always stick with me as one of those "pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming" time/place scenarios.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Müf gigged at the Cellar Bar in Bracknell last night, with some awesome bands - Shomaha were amazing. Kinda atmospheric, ambient, dark prog/trancey rock. Really tight and nice guys to boot. Mike and I decided that it was a cool gig for our second outing, although I think we all feel frustrated that the performances aren't doing the songs justice. I think I still have a lot to learn as a "frontman" (Eeewww! I get horrible images of Steven Tyler flashing up whenever I use that term. Not that I think Steve is horrible, but it's just not my style!) in terms of talking to the audience, etc. but at least we weathered the storm of not having a great sound (they don’t have monitors in the cellar bar, you rely on the sound bouncing back off the back wall to hear yourself!). It's an awesome "Cutting teeth" venue, one of my favourite local venues to play, I think I've played there five or six times now and apart from lugging kit up and down the stairs it's always been a good experience.
Looking forward to the 3B's gig now, I feel like I've got a few gremlins out of my system and will be able to put on a better performance at the B's. Now that I can remember all the lyrics, I'm much more relaxed about everything - apart from my amplifier which seems to be a bag of shite unless I have the master volume on full and moderate everything through the individual channel pots. Wolfie was telling me that you can get a power breaker which means you can have your amp on full blast all the time, to get the full Marshall tone out of it, and control the volume levels away from the amp itself. May have to investigate this as tone/volume issues completely wrecked the start of the set last night.
Managed to triple book myself this weekend: Müf are in the studio to record our EP, but I'm rehearsing with White Sunday 2-6pm on Saturday and even tried to schedule some drummer auditions for Red Antennae on Sunday! The Müf recording takes precedence, but as White Sunday are making our debut with the new lineup and new songs at the Fez next Wednesday I really need to rehearse with them on Sat! I can lay down guide tracks, etc in the morning and then let Ian and Sam (and hopefully Mikey Hefflehoff) do their thang before doing my rhythm and lead parts on Sunday morning. I've never recorded my vocals before, so I'm looking forward to that - will need to bear in mind that when we play the songs live my phrasing and accentuation tends to fall in line with whatever the guitar part is doing. This means that I need to work out if I want to have a totally free vocal part (which will be hard to re-produce live) or if I want to record it as I will play it live. Dimebag Darrell gave an interview once where he went into the ins and outs of his recording philosophy - he was always aware that whatever he played in the studio he'd need to be able to reproduce live, and he talked about juggling a sense of artistic licence with an obligation to the fans to be able to give a great live rendition of any tracks that he'd done. I think my own attitude to this is that I'd always want a live show to offer the audience something new, otherwise they may as well just stay at home and listen to the CD. Not sure how my dilemna fits into this though, as if I give it 100% on the vocal take, I'll always struggle to live up to it live. Still, art is struggle, mais non?
Looking forward to the 3B's gig now, I feel like I've got a few gremlins out of my system and will be able to put on a better performance at the B's. Now that I can remember all the lyrics, I'm much more relaxed about everything - apart from my amplifier which seems to be a bag of shite unless I have the master volume on full and moderate everything through the individual channel pots. Wolfie was telling me that you can get a power breaker which means you can have your amp on full blast all the time, to get the full Marshall tone out of it, and control the volume levels away from the amp itself. May have to investigate this as tone/volume issues completely wrecked the start of the set last night.
Managed to triple book myself this weekend: Müf are in the studio to record our EP, but I'm rehearsing with White Sunday 2-6pm on Saturday and even tried to schedule some drummer auditions for Red Antennae on Sunday! The Müf recording takes precedence, but as White Sunday are making our debut with the new lineup and new songs at the Fez next Wednesday I really need to rehearse with them on Sat! I can lay down guide tracks, etc in the morning and then let Ian and Sam (and hopefully Mikey Hefflehoff) do their thang before doing my rhythm and lead parts on Sunday morning. I've never recorded my vocals before, so I'm looking forward to that - will need to bear in mind that when we play the songs live my phrasing and accentuation tends to fall in line with whatever the guitar part is doing. This means that I need to work out if I want to have a totally free vocal part (which will be hard to re-produce live) or if I want to record it as I will play it live. Dimebag Darrell gave an interview once where he went into the ins and outs of his recording philosophy - he was always aware that whatever he played in the studio he'd need to be able to reproduce live, and he talked about juggling a sense of artistic licence with an obligation to the fans to be able to give a great live rendition of any tracks that he'd done. I think my own attitude to this is that I'd always want a live show to offer the audience something new, otherwise they may as well just stay at home and listen to the CD. Not sure how my dilemna fits into this though, as if I give it 100% on the vocal take, I'll always struggle to live up to it live. Still, art is struggle, mais non?
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Azzurri as zur can be.
Groan.. Back at work after a weekend away in Rome - what an anti-climax! But what a great weekend, after eventually getting over to Rome (don’t ask..) a fine weekend was had on the lash with 9 other attendee's. Hotel was good, beer was good, banter was top drawer (plenty of cach-tawru from the lads) and the rugby was great. A Welsh backline willing to take risks, create chances and improvise without fear of making mistakes. It's amusing to note that England seem to have been reduced to living off past glories whilst fielding a side without heart or confidence - that's where Wales have been for the past 20 years, so here's to 20 years of English mediocrity! Can't really see it happening, but it's a nice thought!
In Rome - what a beautiful city - they have a blanket ban on smoking indoors in public places, pubs, bars, etc. and as an ex-smoker (fairly recently, and Mike has been noting my lapses so far!) I'd have to give my full backing to a similar ban in the UK. OK, so if the weather is bad, then it's a pain to have to go and stand outside for a fag, but overall I hope they do ban it in public places (apart from Impact rehearsal studio…) - I can imagine it being deeply unpopular with hundreds of thousands of UK smokers, but they say that all progress meets with great resistance at first.
Grappa - a drink that is made out of a by-product of the wine-making process, similar to Absynthe. It tastes like a heady mix of petrol and vomit, with the same after-taste as the former, and the same result as the latter. I've been informed that there are some nice Grappa's available, but judging by the alcohol-tolerance of the person that told me that I'm guessing that his opinion should be discarded out of hand. He's probably only trying to get me to drink some more of this foul, evil, stomach-purging effluent of Satan's sweat-glands, anyway.
Exploded myth No.1: Italian cuisine is superior to English cuisine. We had some lovely food in Rome, but come Sunday morning when we all had considerable hangovers and needed a fry-up (SOP for a Sunday morning), we found the indiginous attempts at "l'Art du fry" to be sorely lacking. They were judged and found wanting. Not good. What kind of fry-up comes without baked beans? An Italian one, apparently. English men and women raise your heads and your hearts, do not let the jealous, bitter voices of the continent tell you that you are anything other than world leaders in certain gastronomic fields. 3 rashers smoked, 2 sausages grilled, two eggs fried, two pieces of bread also fried, liberal sprinklings of mushrooms, half a tin of beans (baked) and a mug of tea (standard issue - milk and two) - that's all you need to get yourself a Michelin star on a Sunday morning. The physical health risks are FAR outweighed by the positive mental effects of such a feast. Plus after a night on the booze your body needs sugar and fats to replace those sucked up by the alcamahol.
Last night I finally regained my hearing, I spent the weekend listening to what sounded like a small child firing a toy laser gun in my left ear, and asking people to repeat themselves. I was worried that I had done some permanent damage to my ear (see earlier post re; Lara "glass shattering" Nuham) but it all seems OK now. Just in time for me to rock out with Müf tonight at the Cellar Bar and try and re-do the damage! I have my plugs this time…
Tonight should be awesome, the Müfer Thuckers sounded great in rehearsal last night and I'm looking forward to rocking out as hard as I can at the Cellar Bar in Bracknell. Which reminds me, must finish the lyrics to our new song before we play it tonight!
Last minute? Moi? Bien sur!
In Rome - what a beautiful city - they have a blanket ban on smoking indoors in public places, pubs, bars, etc. and as an ex-smoker (fairly recently, and Mike has been noting my lapses so far!) I'd have to give my full backing to a similar ban in the UK. OK, so if the weather is bad, then it's a pain to have to go and stand outside for a fag, but overall I hope they do ban it in public places (apart from Impact rehearsal studio…) - I can imagine it being deeply unpopular with hundreds of thousands of UK smokers, but they say that all progress meets with great resistance at first.
Grappa - a drink that is made out of a by-product of the wine-making process, similar to Absynthe. It tastes like a heady mix of petrol and vomit, with the same after-taste as the former, and the same result as the latter. I've been informed that there are some nice Grappa's available, but judging by the alcohol-tolerance of the person that told me that I'm guessing that his opinion should be discarded out of hand. He's probably only trying to get me to drink some more of this foul, evil, stomach-purging effluent of Satan's sweat-glands, anyway.
Exploded myth No.1: Italian cuisine is superior to English cuisine. We had some lovely food in Rome, but come Sunday morning when we all had considerable hangovers and needed a fry-up (SOP for a Sunday morning), we found the indiginous attempts at "l'Art du fry" to be sorely lacking. They were judged and found wanting. Not good. What kind of fry-up comes without baked beans? An Italian one, apparently. English men and women raise your heads and your hearts, do not let the jealous, bitter voices of the continent tell you that you are anything other than world leaders in certain gastronomic fields. 3 rashers smoked, 2 sausages grilled, two eggs fried, two pieces of bread also fried, liberal sprinklings of mushrooms, half a tin of beans (baked) and a mug of tea (standard issue - milk and two) - that's all you need to get yourself a Michelin star on a Sunday morning. The physical health risks are FAR outweighed by the positive mental effects of such a feast. Plus after a night on the booze your body needs sugar and fats to replace those sucked up by the alcamahol.
Last night I finally regained my hearing, I spent the weekend listening to what sounded like a small child firing a toy laser gun in my left ear, and asking people to repeat themselves. I was worried that I had done some permanent damage to my ear (see earlier post re; Lara "glass shattering" Nuham) but it all seems OK now. Just in time for me to rock out with Müf tonight at the Cellar Bar and try and re-do the damage! I have my plugs this time…
Tonight should be awesome, the Müfer Thuckers sounded great in rehearsal last night and I'm looking forward to rocking out as hard as I can at the Cellar Bar in Bracknell. Which reminds me, must finish the lyrics to our new song before we play it tonight!
Last minute? Moi? Bien sur!
Friday, February 11, 2005
It's tricky...
Sometimes I don't write anything here because I've got nothing to write about.
Now I'm so busy that I don't have time to write anything!
Busy rehearsing with Müf etc and getting ready for a couple of gigs and recording next week but also organising Berkshire Live Aid.
Now I'm so busy that I don't have time to write anything!
Busy rehearsing with Müf etc and getting ready for a couple of gigs and recording next week but also organising Berkshire Live Aid.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Songs for the deaf
I'm slightly concerned at the moment, I think that years and years of aural abuse has finally caught up with me. Stonepark played a gig with a girl called Lara Nuham last Tuesday at the Cellar Bar in Bracknell, we weren't very loud cos we were running off the laptop (which means that we don’t have to compete with the volume of a drum kit), but Lara's band were at full gigging level and unfortunately her mic technique wasn't as good as her vocal technique, which meant that on a couple of occasions she almost shattered my eardrums. Well, this morning I felt an audible "pop" in my left ear, and it feels like someone has stuffed it full of cotton wool, with a loud hissing noise drowning almost everything else out. Am I teetering on the verge of total deafness? I wouldn't be surprised - I'll be wearing ear plugs for anything louder than a TV from now on. Hope it goes away, but with a Müf rehearsal tonight and gigs-a-plenty coming up, I may not be able to give it a chance.
Oh well, I wish half the people I deal with would shut up, so at least if I go deaf I won't have to listen to them anymore?
Oh well, I wish half the people I deal with would shut up, so at least if I go deaf I won't have to listen to them anymore?
Monday, February 07, 2005
Magnanimous in victory
Well, what a scene! Me, a nervous wreck for the last ten minutes of the match and unable to celebrate in the Bier Kellar because the owner of the Coppid Beech R/bout hotel was in the bar at the time, and seemed unhappy that England had lost! I really wanted to go up to him and do a celebratory Ace Ventura "Can you feel that, buddy? Huh? Huh?" routine - but it's never a good idea to bite the hand that gigs you.
Not a great game on Sat, Wales edged a shaky encounter that could have gone either way - both sides missed opportunities, but thankfully Gavin Henson had a big game and kicked that penalty to seal it.
I'm off to Italy next weekend for a stag do that will be taking in the Italy vs. Wales match. Will be a hard match, will be a hard weekend but I'm looking forward to it all! As they say "When in Rome - do as the Romans do" so we'll be holding vomitariums, enslaving Persians, and denying the influence of ancient Greece on our own arts, traditions and culture.
Not a great game on Sat, Wales edged a shaky encounter that could have gone either way - both sides missed opportunities, but thankfully Gavin Henson had a big game and kicked that penalty to seal it.
I'm off to Italy next weekend for a stag do that will be taking in the Italy vs. Wales match. Will be a hard match, will be a hard weekend but I'm looking forward to it all! As they say "When in Rome - do as the Romans do" so we'll be holding vomitariums, enslaving Persians, and denying the influence of ancient Greece on our own arts, traditions and culture.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Huh? What did you say?
So, a while ago I decided I needed some earplugs. Eventually... and it took a while... I got some. Ok, so I've been thinking about it for about 3 years and they only arrived this week.
I got some ER-20s from Green Leopard. They mainly specialise in made to measure plugs but I couldn't really afford that. These basically are designed to reduce noise by 20 decibels with a really flat reduction over all frequencies. Some plugs apparently tend to mainly attenuate the higher music/speech frequencies. That's the theory anyway.
Anyway, we all know (or should know) that going to loads of gigs and playing in bands is bad for your hearing. I'm sure we've all woken up with someone ringing loud bells in our hears and had it continue for days. So I was interested to see what difference they'd make. Yesterday was the first time I'd had cause to use them in anger. First at a rehearsal with Müf at Impact, then at Bar Oz - Ok, ok Colorz Bar it is now - I hate that name.
Rehearsal:
Oh my god... I can hear everything! Ok, it's all a hell of a lot quieter so it 'rocks' less but I can actually hear all the notes all the instruments are playing rather than it all kind of mushing into a dirty blurry mush of sound where you can just about pick out various bits. For any of you familiar with Impact we were in room 1. I'm not a huge fan of room 1, it might be big but I find it difficult to get great sound in there. This was fine though. Even if it wasn't beneficial for my hearing I'll be wearing them in future just because it's so much easier to play when you can hear what everyone else is doing so well.
Colorz:
Similar thing here really. Can actually hear all the instruments and things better, ears don't feel pained through it being a bit too loud. Plus, you can actually hear people talking to you a lot better than without them in. Which is bizarre but a great benefit.
Only downside is that I feel a bit like my deaf Nan must always feel - she's always asking if she's shouting. Everything's so much less noisy that I really can't tell how loud I'm talking. And as I tend to mumble a bit anyway I probably overcompensate.
So far, so good. I should really have been less lazy and got off my arse and got some decent earplugs years ago.
I got some ER-20s from Green Leopard. They mainly specialise in made to measure plugs but I couldn't really afford that. These basically are designed to reduce noise by 20 decibels with a really flat reduction over all frequencies. Some plugs apparently tend to mainly attenuate the higher music/speech frequencies. That's the theory anyway.
Anyway, we all know (or should know) that going to loads of gigs and playing in bands is bad for your hearing. I'm sure we've all woken up with someone ringing loud bells in our hears and had it continue for days. So I was interested to see what difference they'd make. Yesterday was the first time I'd had cause to use them in anger. First at a rehearsal with Müf at Impact, then at Bar Oz - Ok, ok Colorz Bar it is now - I hate that name.
Rehearsal:
Oh my god... I can hear everything! Ok, it's all a hell of a lot quieter so it 'rocks' less but I can actually hear all the notes all the instruments are playing rather than it all kind of mushing into a dirty blurry mush of sound where you can just about pick out various bits. For any of you familiar with Impact we were in room 1. I'm not a huge fan of room 1, it might be big but I find it difficult to get great sound in there. This was fine though. Even if it wasn't beneficial for my hearing I'll be wearing them in future just because it's so much easier to play when you can hear what everyone else is doing so well.
Colorz:
Similar thing here really. Can actually hear all the instruments and things better, ears don't feel pained through it being a bit too loud. Plus, you can actually hear people talking to you a lot better than without them in. Which is bizarre but a great benefit.
Only downside is that I feel a bit like my deaf Nan must always feel - she's always asking if she's shouting. Everything's so much less noisy that I really can't tell how loud I'm talking. And as I tend to mumble a bit anyway I probably overcompensate.
So far, so good. I should really have been less lazy and got off my arse and got some decent earplugs years ago.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
5/8 Monster
Silent effusion,
Personal confusion
Sick form of role-play,
What else can I say?
I turned my back on me
Felt hope escaping,
Life suffocating
Found "try harder"
Wasn't an answer
What was my destiny?
If I should fall on my face,
I'll fall just as hard as I can
Got to fight it
Can't deny it
Must keep trying
Trying not to die and
Find my way out of misery
If life was easy
We'd all have Lamborghini's
We'd go insane
If everything's was the same
So this is the way it must be
copyright Müf 2004
I'm chuffed with "If life was easy, we'd all have Lamborghini's" as a lyric.
Personal confusion
Sick form of role-play,
What else can I say?
I turned my back on me
Felt hope escaping,
Life suffocating
Found "try harder"
Wasn't an answer
What was my destiny?
If I should fall on my face,
I'll fall just as hard as I can
Got to fight it
Can't deny it
Must keep trying
Trying not to die and
Find my way out of misery
If life was easy
We'd all have Lamborghini's
We'd go insane
If everything's was the same
So this is the way it must be
copyright Müf 2004
I'm chuffed with "If life was easy, we'd all have Lamborghini's" as a lyric.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Knees, squeeze, DRIVE!
The greatest sporting event known to mankind kicks off this weekend; the Six Nations. True to form, I may have to miss some of the best games while I'm travelling to and from gigs, I was pissed off to learn that England vs. Wales kicks off at 5pm, I have to be heading off to the Coppid Beech hotel in Bracknell for an evening's musical discharge, I'm hoping that I can catch all the game and still be soundchecked on time (before heading to the swimming pool/sauna/jacuzzi! It's good to play at swanky hotels!).
England are now without Johno, J Dubbya, LBND, Back, Greenwood, and are blooding two new caps at centre, who are 18/19yrs old. After some great performances against the Kiwi's and the Saffa's in the Autumn, this could be the best chance Wales have had to beat England since Rod Timber let Scott Gibbs dance his way to the line at Wembley in '99. Come on you Dragons! Any team hard enough to let two of their props perm their hair and expect to go unpunished should do well at some point.
Ireland will probably win, will probably provide the key men on the Lions tour this summer, and will probably be the most popular winners of the grand slam since LBND provided the post-competition entertainment when he was captain of England.
Sport = good. Only the rules change.
England are now without Johno, J Dubbya, LBND, Back, Greenwood, and are blooding two new caps at centre, who are 18/19yrs old. After some great performances against the Kiwi's and the Saffa's in the Autumn, this could be the best chance Wales have had to beat England since Rod Timber let Scott Gibbs dance his way to the line at Wembley in '99. Come on you Dragons! Any team hard enough to let two of their props perm their hair and expect to go unpunished should do well at some point.
Ireland will probably win, will probably provide the key men on the Lions tour this summer, and will probably be the most popular winners of the grand slam since LBND provided the post-competition entertainment when he was captain of England.
Sport = good. Only the rules change.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Sick as a parrot.
Someone somewhere (curse these faulty memory circuits) made a good point the other day; Rodney Marsh, the footie pundit (and ex-player of course) made a joke whilst on air about David Beckham that involved him being stupid, but because it made reference to the Tsunami disaster, it cost Rodders his job on Sky Sports.
"Dave Beckham has turned down a move to Newcastle after learning of the damage caused by the Toon Army in Asia"
Now, big Ron Atkinson lost his job for making a racist remark whilst still on air, that's a straight red card, no questions asked. But was Rodney Marsh making fun of the Tsunami disaster or David Beckham? OK, so being flippant about such a cataclysmic natural disaster may arguably warrant the "Neil Back" from a position as a broadcast reporter/journalist/pundit, but this was a natural disaster such as might come crashing down upon any of our heads in this mortal life. Surely the only way to deal with this sort of geographical sword of Damacles is to stride purposefully onwards regardless? The only other option open to us, it seems, is to cower under our bedsheets on a daily basis for fear of getting struck by lightning as soon as we step outside the front door?
Maybe I'm missing some key salient points here - I assume that there is a clause on broadcasting contracts that says "Thou shalt not joke about current events of a mortal magnitude whilst on air", but that smacks of double standards. What if Ron Atkinson had spat out his racial bile to his fellow commentators when the mics were off (as he had thought they were at the time)? Would he still have been fired? These people are brought into commentary because of their expert knowledge of the game, not because of their socio-political skills.
It's just an interesting can of worms, although in my opinion football coverage has been a bit pony since big Ron applied for his P45. Rodney Marsh I can live without, but big Ron was class. A shame really. He's let the players down, he let his employers down, he let the fans down. But most importantly, he let himself down, the big sheepskin-wearing, sunbed-pilfering, cliché-throwing lummox.
"Dave Beckham has turned down a move to Newcastle after learning of the damage caused by the Toon Army in Asia"
Now, big Ron Atkinson lost his job for making a racist remark whilst still on air, that's a straight red card, no questions asked. But was Rodney Marsh making fun of the Tsunami disaster or David Beckham? OK, so being flippant about such a cataclysmic natural disaster may arguably warrant the "Neil Back" from a position as a broadcast reporter/journalist/pundit, but this was a natural disaster such as might come crashing down upon any of our heads in this mortal life. Surely the only way to deal with this sort of geographical sword of Damacles is to stride purposefully onwards regardless? The only other option open to us, it seems, is to cower under our bedsheets on a daily basis for fear of getting struck by lightning as soon as we step outside the front door?
Maybe I'm missing some key salient points here - I assume that there is a clause on broadcasting contracts that says "Thou shalt not joke about current events of a mortal magnitude whilst on air", but that smacks of double standards. What if Ron Atkinson had spat out his racial bile to his fellow commentators when the mics were off (as he had thought they were at the time)? Would he still have been fired? These people are brought into commentary because of their expert knowledge of the game, not because of their socio-political skills.
It's just an interesting can of worms, although in my opinion football coverage has been a bit pony since big Ron applied for his P45. Rodney Marsh I can live without, but big Ron was class. A shame really. He's let the players down, he let his employers down, he let the fans down. But most importantly, he let himself down, the big sheepskin-wearing, sunbed-pilfering, cliché-throwing lummox.
