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Yesterdays news is still today's truth!

They only tell us what they want us to know.....An Anti Austerity Demo gathered outside the BBC headquarters in London the other weekend, ...


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MAKE SENSE OF THE SENSELESS ! / QUESTION THE QUESTIONABLE ! / SHOUT ABOVE THE NOISE !

Saturday 28 February 2009

TOPplers DIY FOR THE 21st CENTURY


This compilation See Dee is full of some great lo-fi rock’n’roll, for lovers of The Swell Maps. Jowe Head and Phones Sportsman pop up all over the place with their instrumental musings, there’s a great unreleased Nikki Sudden track Glam Rok Soxx, and Thrilled Skinny covering the Maps classic Read About Seymour, the Maps connection continues with The Cult Figures and Steve Treatment, amongst others with no Swell Maps connections are Paul Groovy & The PopArt Experience, who ’pop’ up with Andy Watch Out, a great slice of psychedelic punk released as a single in 1987. This is a truly great listen, which isn’t available here! But is available there! at Topplers website, for the recession/inflation/credit crunch busting price of 85p, yes that’s right 85 fucking pence! A bargain, I mean 16 tracks for 85p You cant go wrong, and I mean you can’t go wrong, even if you don’t like the Swell Maps, which is just wrong anyway.

JACOBITES - Howling Good Times (Vinyl Album Rip)


















It's been a while since I've posted any Nikki Sudden, so here we go with the Jacobites 1993 album Howling Good Times. Can't think of much to say that I haven't said before about Nikki, so I'll let his partner in crime Dave Kusworth do the talking, in an article that originally appeared in Magnet magazine.

"The first time I met Nikki Sudden, he was writing for ZigZag magazine. He came down to Birmingham, England, in 1980 to write an article on the Subterranean Hawks, my band with singer Steve Duffy (who’d later co-found Duran Duran and form the Lilac Time). Nikki said to me, “If the Hawks ever split up, we should form a band together.” He turned up with his guitar one day on my doorstep shortly after the Hawks had split up. He was that kind of guy, always there and ready to play at any opportunity.
I’d just got this band together called the Bible Belt, and somehow things came together in a strange way when Nikki asked me to play guitar on his second solo album. (The title of it is The Bible Belt. Ha!) We hung out together, started writing songs, listening to the Faces and Stones. I guess somewhere around then, the Jacobites were born.
Now Nikki is dead. He died on my birthday, just as we were planning the next Jacobites album to come out in 2006. I remember my girlfriend saying, “You went to answer the door last night.” It was as if someone wanted to be let in. I heard the news the next day.
We had our ups and downs, our ego things, but we’d always be back together after our solo projects. I’ve come to realize how much work he put into getting gigs and staging tours—nearly always on his own, with no help from hardly anyone. But at least he will be remembered, and the actual worth of the music, well, I find it hard to judge my own stuff half the time. A friend of mine said to me the other day that he honestly believes the Jacobites’ 1985 record, Robespierre’s Velvet Basement, is the best album ever made. Sometimes, I just can’t take that in. To me, it was just me and Nikki sitting around playing our songs to each other with a couple of guitars.
I hope the rest of the world gives a little more respect to Nikki’s stuff now that he’s gone, though I never liked that remark much. As Johnny Thunders said, “The only way you get respect is when you die, if you’re a friend of a mine.” Nikki is still alive to me, and I’ll keep playing those Jacobites songs and keep it alive. He did it for his late brother Kevin (Godfrey, a.k.a. Epic Soundtracks, Nikki’s bandmate in Swell Maps), and I know that’s what he would’ve wanted.
You don’t find a lot of guys who would’ve kept going for little or no money in this business for all those years. And you don’t find many who are into exactly the same music as you. He was a rock ’n’ roll soldier. I guess he went the way he would’ve wanted to go, but I think he thought it would be many years down the road."

Download Howling Good Times here! (includes free single)

Let's Build A Car!



One thing that pisses me off is people driving around in their people carriers. By definition they’re called people carriers, i.e. to carry people in, so how come that the vast majority I see on the roads have only one fucking person in them; the driver! While I’m at it, what about those off roaders, most of the ones being driven on the city streets look like they’ve never been off road since they rolled off the production line! And why the tinted windows? Are the drivers filled with so much self obsession and importance that they don’t want their passengers to be seen, or don’t they want us to see they’ve got no fucking passengers on board, just their massive egos! and carbon footprints!

Thursday 26 February 2009


“Let fury have the hour, anger can be power, do you know that you can use it?” - Joe Strummer
“Anger is an energy.” - John Lydon

Sunday 22 February 2009

LE MAT - The Waltz Of The Fool (Vinyl album rip)


I posted Le Mats one and only single ages back, so now here’s their only album. Recorded in 1982 over 10 days and on a budget of £2,000 it was eventually released on Friday 13th June 1983 by Whaam records. A very special album that defies all catogories; is it folk, post punk, psychedelic or prog rock, who gives a fuck! It is a unique and beautiful record both musically and lyrically and I should have posted it way before now, but better late then never. You’d be a fool not to have a waltz to it, so here you go!

HANOI ROCKS - Love's An Injection (12"Vinyl Rip)


What can I say about Hanoi Rocks? A truly awesome live band, who should have and could have been a household name in the mid 80’s rather than poodle haired rockers such as Bon Jovi, Poison and Motley Crue, infact if it wasn’t for Motley Crues Vince Neil killing their drummer Razzle in a drunken car accident, they probably would have been, (dunno if I should use the term accident, cos it wasn’t an accident really as with any case of drink driving the person doesn’t accidentally get behind the wheel pissed do they?) with their Glam Punk’n’Roll A tradgedy indeed, as the band never really recovered afterwards. Anyway if you wanna know more stick their name in yer search engine, and click here if you want a blast on this 5 track maxi 12” single released in Finland in 1982. Enjoy!

THE LEATHER NUN - Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) 12" Vinyl Rip


This here record is a classic example of a cover version that turn the original on it’s head and spins it right round. In 1986 Sweden’s The Leather Nun took fellow country folk ABBA’s cheesy but slightly dark pop tune about a women longing for a relationship and turned it into a sleazy ode to either homosexuality or a search for drugs, or both, by simply changing the word “A” to “My” (Gimme Gimme Gimme My Man after midnight) a stroke of simple genius and a brilliant record. Get hold of your man after midnight here and enjoy!

Saturday 21 February 2009

The money rolls in!


'Quantitive easing’ they call it; economic jargon for the banks printing more money to try and get us out of the financial shit we’re sinking deeper into. Government bail outs haven’t worked so now they’ve given permission for the banks to print more money, the parallels with 1930’s Germany grow closer still, and look what the final solution was there! In such a CCTV controlled and nanny state society there has been no equivalent intervention in the economy. While the market’s been free, peoples minds haven’t, now it’s time to re-dress the balance; Free minds and controlled markets may lead to a re-evaluation of values to ones with a bit more quality to them.

When you strip it all away! What are you left with?






Friday 20 February 2009

Doing it for the kids!


What kind of vicarious society have we become where the media think that we need to witness the death of a self styled celebrity culture whore, who’s sold their live and now their death to the cameras and the type face. I’m not here to make light of Jade Goody’s illness, because there are thousands of people living and dying with cancer who I’m sure would like to provide financial security for their families after they have gone, but they’re not in the position to be able to sell their stories to Hello magazine, because no one would give a shit about their lives as their not a so called celebrity, who found fame as a loser on Big Brother, then as a foul mouthed racist on Celebrity Big Brother. If Jades exploitation of her situation helps raise awareness of cancer all well and good(y) but that in itself will be another example of just how mindless the masses have become, if it takes someone like her to make them think. "The public gets what the public wants."

GALLON DRUNK - Live in Chicago 1/7/93


Crawling and drawling their way out of Camden Town, London in the early 1990’s came Gallon Drunk, with maracas shaking and the rhythm quaking, it was like The Birthday Party never happened. Sharp suits and cutting guitars, an awesome live band, I saw ’em once in 1992, when they tore Bowes Lyon House in Stevenage apart with their feral Rockabilly and Soul hybrid sound. For lovers of The Cramps, Gun Club and Nick Cave, this here eight song live set was recorded fittingly in Chicago, the home of the blues. Enjoy!

Tuesday 17 February 2009

RECESSION, FRUSTRATION!

Hats off and Hammers out to the sacked workers at the Mini factory for throwing eggs at the bosses and trashing some of the cars on the production line. "Smash it up Oooh, ooh, Smash it up!"

Sunday 8 February 2009

Lux Interior (RIP) a date with.....


“When I die, don’t bury me at all
Just nail my bones up on the wall
Beneath the bones let these words be seen
These are the bloody gears of a rockin’ machine.”
In celebration of the life of the bastard son of Elvis Presley and Iggy Pop that was Lux Interior, here's a live recording from The Cramps sold out show at Hammersmith Odeon, London on 13th March 1986. I know it was sold out, cos I couldn't get in as I had no advanced ticket, still I've got this great bootleg tape not to remember it by. Here's Side 1 and there's Side 2 Bad to the bone indeed. Great stuff! Enjoy!!

Saturday 7 February 2009

TOTAL WHITEOUT! the aftermath..

Well I say aftermath, but who knows, there could be more of the white stuff on the way. Whatever, lets look at it so far. Billions of pounds lost to a economy already in recession because of the authorities failure in being prepared to cope with ‘adverse weather conditions’ in relation to the transport network, and some peoples lack of resolve, and ‘blitz spirit’ when it came to the crunch. Schools closed, rubbish not collected. Who needs suicide bombers to bring a country and its infrastructure to a halt! Let’s see what happens when the snow starts to melt; I wonder how the drainage systems will cope especially after their failure to do so during the ‘adverse weather conditions’ a few years ago with the floods. Still at least the authorities have had a bit of time to make preparations and improvements, only time will tell whether it’s snowboards away, and surfboards out. Total wipeout!!

Tuesday 3 February 2009

"Workers of the world......"


These recent ‘wildcat strikes’ are all a bit worrying, but nothing that wasn’t expected. The workers are throwing Gordon Browns words right back at him. Too right brother! But when those words are “British jobs for British workers” I start to feel a bit uncomfortable with it all, because it all starts sounding a bit xenophobic for my liking, and also for Peter Mandelsons as well, saying the strikes were the “politics of xenophobia” Woa! Wait a fucking minute, it was his wheeling and dealings that put the workers in this position in the first place. Another concern I have is since when have the Unions supported far right policies? I always thought their fight was also against fascism, but yet a unite flag is flying amongst the union jacks, doesn’t mean their xenophobic though, or does it? Because a Union representative I heard being interviewed yesterday avoided the questions about this, and said they were just supporting “their members jobs” I also heard one of their members referring to the Italian workers as “Ities” Yes the media will no doubt distort and manipulate it for what ever ends, but it is happening. BNP leader Nick Griffin must be rubbing his hands in glee, especially when Labour MP and champion of the poor Frank Field expressed his concern a week ago that in a recent report there were 10 schools in Britain were pupils didn’t have English as their first language, and he felt this was “Bad, and fragmented society” mind you I don’t believe a word any of ‘em say, because the same Frank Field expressed concerns this week that the strikes were playing into the hands of the BNP and the far right” (doesn’t know what side he’s on, mind you they’re all the fucking same!) which they will; because the workers are in a no win situation thanks to New Labour and The New Europe. Well and truly shafted. Up the workers indeed. One last thing, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Hitler’s government in Germany started life as a NAtional SocIalist party!!!!

"A PUBLIC SERVICE ANOUNCEMENT", this time "WITH GUITARS!!"

Another email I recieved:
Can I urge you to sign the petition below against the 696 form? The form demands that licensees give police a mass of detail, including the names, aliases, private addresses and phone numbers of all musicians and other performers appearing at their venue, and the ethnic background of the likely audience (this is an 8 page document). Failure to comply could mean the loss of a license or even a fine and imprisonment.
One of the questions on the form requires the licensee to specify the type of music that will be performed, giving as possible examples "Bashment, R'n'B, Garage". Another question asks, "Is there a particular ethnic group attending?".
This will have massive implications on certain bands and ethnic groups - it may stop groups performing - the police appear to be focusing on the music enjoyed by black and Asian teenagers.
Fergal Sharkey (CEO of British Music Rights) said: "In explicitly singling out performances and musical styles favoured by the black community we believe the use of Risk Assessment Form 696 is disproportionate, unacceptable and damaging to live music."
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scrapthe696/
You can read more about the implications of this new law here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/how-form-696-could-pull-the-plug-on-the-capitals-music-scene-1028240.html ;
Please sign it - it is very important for CAN and Exodus work. Please forward to your friends.
Best wishes,
Ruth Daniel
Exodus Coordinator
Community Arts North West
Green Fish Resource Centre
46-50 Oldham Street
Manchester
M4 1LE
Tel: 0161 234 2987
Fax: 0161 234 2976
ruth@can.uk.com
www.can..uk.com/exodus
http://www.can.uk.com/
http://www.thetoolkit.net/

Monday 2 February 2009

"THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANOUNCEMENT !"

An email I recieved from someone I know:
"THERE IS AN EMAIL WITH SUBJECT LINE OBAMA ACCEPTANCE SPEECH FLOATING AROUND WITH A TROJAN HORSE ATTACHMENT. DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON!!! DELETE IMMEDIATELY. THE TROJAN STEALS ALL PASSWORDS AND USER IDS!!! SPREAD THE WORD TO EVERYONE ON YOUR EMAIL LIST."

Think of a number.......

+Fear = Public Opinion x Political Opinion = Government Policy!

MANIC STREET PREACHERS - 'Self Destruction Bruise' - Live @ The Astoria 20/12/94 (RE-POST) and 21/12/94 (*NEW*)


It’s near that time again when Richey Edwards did whatever he did. Officially he’s been declared dead, unofficially, who really knows? Me I’d like to think he’s still out there somewhere watching it all. If he is I wonder what he’s making of it. The closest we’ll find out is when the Manic’s new album is released this year, as it contains some of the last lyrics/words Richey wrote before he died/disappeared. In rememberance of a lost talent here's a re-posting of his penultimate gig with the band at London’s Astoria on 20/12/94. As a bonus for anyone who originally downloaded this and as an extra for the rest of you, here’s a copy of their final gig with Richey on 21/12/94 at the Astoria again. It’s a real slab of (auto) Self Destruction Blues, just listen to the sound of smashing equipment as You Love Us finishes.

TOTAL WHITEOUT!



The day London and the South East came to a standstill; The electricians were due to come today to rewire my house, but they couldn’t and my daughter didn’t go to school, all because of some snow. What the fuck! The ’authorities’ knew this was a possibility days ago with weather reports suggesting there may be heavy snow on the way, the worst since 2003 they were saying. Guess what I remember the snow of 03, and everything stopped then. “It’s the wrong sort of snow!” “The gritting was done too late“, “it’s the wrong sort of grit, because it doesn’t do anything if there’s a fresh snow fall.” Excuses, excuses, loads of money is spent researching embryos and how to prolong human life, but they can’t or don't want to find some sort of substance that is effective in melting snow on roads and railways, and keeping the country running. How can it be that the capital of Britain is effectively shut down because of some bad weather. This worries me. Especially when there’s the technology out there to modify the weather, and they are actually putting this into practice over our skies at the moment, ever heard of chemtrails ? (I digress, that’s a whole different post, that’ll be on its way soon.) I know it’s been bad out there, cos I’ve been out in it on my pushbike, great fun, glad I wasn’t driving though cos the roads hadn’t been gritted with the wrong grit at the right time, making them a bit slippy and it was gridlock on the main roads, got back and the Radio is telling people to stay at home and not to make journeys unless they are essential. I dunno……This worries me, I mean if people can’t carry on their lives as ’normal’ because of some snow, then what the fuck are they gonna do should some major disaster happen to the county. Another thing what do they mean by ‘essential’ ?some peoples jobs are essential to them, especially during the present economic downturn and threats of unemployment, all apart from electricians and teachers though.