Vote!

Yes, we're veering towards that time of the political cycle when every serial handshaking, flesh-pressing potential member of the House of Parliament gravy train crawls out from the woodwork and smiles endlessly at anyone who may or may not be looking in order to win their support (and vote), and gain election to that most fabled of expenses accounts, the House of Commons.
I'm aware that essentially, most of them are cut from the same cloth, have pretty small differences in policy detail, and will happily promise you the earth which they can't deliver, but that doesn't mean you should just ignore them and hope they'll go away. As Paris here so eloquently puts it, you really should do your civic duty. The simple reason being, if you're not up to speed in some way with what's going on, you don't really have the right to complain about it any more. And the very best way to keep the MPs honest is to be able to call their bluff whenever you can.
Hopefully this time will be different. We can see after the leader debates that the format has given rise to the possibility of a real 3 party system, and however the 'old skool' Tory and Labour folks want to paint it, this is a good thing. Why? Because at the very least it is a change, and the one thing we have all come to realise in these harder times is that we simply can't continue as we have been. So change, in whatever form, is a necessity.
So get out, use your vote, have a say. Then you can feel justified indignation when whichever Muppets get in begin to make a mess of it all over again...

Have no fear, the biggest news stories will get just the coverage they deserve. Yes, the build-up has kept us all on the edge of our seats, there's been speculation, discussion amongst friends and relatives and expert opinion has been sought and dissected in heated debate across the land. The number of column inches devoted to the subject has been impressive, impressive enough to keep poor Cheryl and Ashley off the majority of the front pages (which must have really irked Ms Cole after trying so very hard to look fragile and vulnerable during her long, slow, 'let's keep it incognito' walk through the airport on her return home from LA, with only 48 of her closest friends, managers, agents and PR people for low-key company.) So, would Wayne Bridge shake John Terry's hand before the start of the Man City Vs Chelsea clash?
Just in case you thought you'd miss it, Sky Sports helpfully re-scheduled their ad break so they could squeeze in the comically and ironically named Fifa Fair Play Handshake (supposed to signify a stand against cheating...) and the biggest news story of the week could reach a bursting climax organically, rather than having to be replayed later. In super slow motion. Again and again.
In other incidental news, Chile is hit with a massive earthquake killing (currently) 122 people and triggering a Pacific Tsunami warning, the UK has lost it's 266th solider in a conflict no-one asked for, and RBS announces an overall loss of 3 billion pounds and awards 'top employees' 1.3 billion pounds in bonuses.

Climate Change - It's Not True!!

I'm almost certain that watching the Prime Minister's Questions in Parliament yesterday, I heard Conservative MP Ann Winterton declare that the current snow was proof that climate change was a myth. If it comes from the mouth of a sitting, elected MP, then surely we can take that as gospel truth and rest easy in our beds, turn up the heating, drain some more power from our coal-fired power stations and go for a drive in our 3 litre engined 4x4 SUV's. Break out the champagne corks! Everything's going to be OK! IT WAS A FALSE ALARM!!

(Ann Winterton, married to Nicholas Winterton MP, investigated and found to be misusing their MP expenses claim to pay for 'rent' on a flat they had bought outright. The flat had been transferred into a family trust to avoid inheritance tax. She also had the whip removed in 2004 for a 'joke' about Chinese cockle-pickers who had died in Morcambe Bay. And was also Shadow Rural Affairs Minister in 2001. Before being sacked for making a 'joke' about throwing Pakistanis off a train.)

It's So Easy

Should you have the misfortune to talk to anyone in the music industry at the moment, aside from the constant worry about where to locate the next paycheque and just what the 'new business model' is going to be (answers: 'in the post' and 'no-one, and I mean no-one, knows...'), there's much talk across the forums and generally about how empowered people have become by the opportunities the internet and technology have given them. You'll hear any commentator worth their salt trotting out the line 'anyone these days can make a record'. Which is certainly true. My band has just written, recorded, mixed and mastered a new album for the kind of money that back in the old days of Major Label domination would have got you maybe a day of studio time at Abbey Road. And whilst the general concensus amongst the people talking about it is that this ability is a good thing, you have to ask certain questions.

For instance, just because you have the tools to make a record doesn't mean you should. I initially got really excited at the Myspace explosion where the thought of bands being able to bypass the labels and communicate directly with an audience seemed like Nirvana. But after spending days trawling through page after page of bands playing everything from Rock, Metal and Funk through to Electronica, Jazz and Folk, my overriding impression was that 98% of the stuff I had listened to was actually tripe. The mighty John Peel initially coined the mantra to which I lived when he said that if he heard something he didn't like, the problem was him. If someone had gone to the lengths required to actually put a song on record, then clearly someone somewhere believed it had enough creative and artistic merit to be worth it, hence why JP didn't feel anything was 'bad' per se, just perhaps a matter of taste.

That noble standpoint has been superceded, though, by the new approach that says anyone can make a record. And the problem is, everyone does. The issue is not so much that these new records are being made, but the authors of the said works immediately seem to feel that the mere possesion of the resultant disc demands attention from an audience, real or imagined. And the sad fact is that the accessibility of new technology and home recording doesn't make up for a lack of talent. My previous statement that 98% of the stuff I initially heard on Myspace was rubbish reflects that. I was hearing stuff that just would never have been comitted to tape. Yet here it is, and whoever has spent 3 minutes concocting the piece will now expect and demand to be taken as a serious artist who will demand a serious level of respect. So 'Hooray' for open access technology and giving everyone the opportunity to be a part of the joy that is music. And 'Boo' for at the same time managing to conspire to make those same people a part of the problem. Go ahead, sit at your PC and loop endless beats and tracks. But please try not to expose the rest of us to it before it's reached anything like a refined level. There's only so much more bedroom music I can take...

People of the Decade

I was standing in the fine surroundings of my local supermarket over the weekend, waiting for my girlfriend to acquire her party provisions (wine, wine, some munchies and wine), trying desperately not to get in the way of the assortment of rambling folks scrambling for that third jumbo pack of toilet paper, when my eyes settled upon the magazine section. The Times was proudly listing their conteders for 'People of the Decade'. And the nominees were (cue drum roll...): Barak Obama, The Queen, Osama Bin Laden, Katie Price and Simon Cowell.
Now, the first thought that leapt to mind was something along the lines of 'you have to be joking'. A couple of heads of state are fair enough, but a terrorist leader, a girl who's breasts get as much if not more column inches than she does and a man who's been responsible for a sucession of terrible Christmas number 1's sung by glorified karaoke contestants? No way should they be contenders for a 'People of the Decade' award. However, as I continued to stare at the cover of the magazine, my reasoning was given a jolt, most likey initiated by the old lady hitting me with her shopping bag as she loaded up with a 4th jumbo pack of toilet rolls.
Firstly, consider the award title. 'People of the Decade' has no reference to 'Best People of the Decade' or 'Most Worthy People of the Decade'. It's just 'People of the Decade'. No inferrence is made one way or another. When you realise that, a whole other dimension is opened. Based upon impact on the decade alone, with no consideration of positive or negative tendancies, there's actually a pretty strong case for inclusion of all of these people. Which then results in a further question of just what kind of a mess are we in as a society and people when Katie Price has had a mammoth (mammary?) impact upon the decade. Her manipulation of the media for her own ends has made her millions, and could well end up as a case study of how to operate the world of celebrity when you start on pretty vacuous grounds.
Simon Cowell covers the same sort of ground that Katie Price does, but is actually more sinister. Whereas Jordan has made an admirable fist of coming across as someone limited who has made the most of whatever assests she has, Cowell is a far more openly clinical manipulator of the masses to his own ends. He occupies the position of someone who could probably do well in whatever field he chose, there's no denying his smart business acumen and ruthless streak, but what makes him personally so, well, ickky is the best way I can put it, is that he chose to exploit the masses for his job. And whilst there are many, many people who do that (politicians, companies, banks and executives), none do it whilst encouraging millions of people to watch in some sort of bizarre vouyeristic ritual. But it's that very thing which gives him his impact upon the decade, and makes us sorry collaborators.
Taking the award for ultimate bogeyman is Osama Bin Laden. For impact on the decade with minimal public phone-in votes, and no real need to extract his acres of cleavage whenever there's a camera near (not that that happens much), look no further than the man who hasn't been seen for nigh on ten years. If ever there was a maximum return from minimm effort, OBL's use of the media has been it. A fuzzy handycam sub-youtube quality clip every now and again, and the world media laps it up. None of the 'I'm on every chat show' kind of PR that Katie Price has to engage in. Just the odd 20 second video clip, and that's it for the next two years. Yes, Barak Obama and HRH have undoubtedely had a huge impact on world affairs and the man in the street, but have any had quite the resonance that OBL has managed? Certainly none of them on so little real work. And if the person of the decade really is Osama Bin Laden, what does that say about the state of the world as it is?

Sleepy Does It

There has been a severe increase in the time and demands on my beddy-byes. I've never been a particularly heavy sleeper, always retiring pretty late, but this last couple of weeks have pushed the boundaries. With some serious recording being done with the band at a studio about 150 miles away, I've been commuting back home to then spend all evening until about 2am doing more recording at the studio up here. Then back to the other studio the day after. And all this due to an imaginary deadline we set for ourselves. There's no record label pressure, no manager screaming at us, and no expectation from a rabid public awaiting the results of our endeavour. So why the heck are we pummelling ourselves? Because we must, and if we in some way miss our own targets, we fail ourselves. And that's the biggest fail of all.

Manflu Strikes!

I should really have seen it coming. There has been a tendancy for my life to follow a pretty obvious pattern in the last few years, and it goes something like 'Get up early, go to work, race home, spend evening playing music/rehearsing/at gigs/doing sport of some sort, return home, then break out computer and start doing all the admin/emailing/web posting etc. that needs doing for keeping bands working, go to bed usually well into the early hours, then repeat'. This pattern continues, normally allied to a less than perfect diet, until my body says 'that's your lot, I'm having a breather' and promptly inflicts crippling diseases upon me. Such is the current case as I'm off work with a head feeling like it's going to explode and a throat that's as sore as a Death Metal vocalist's.

You know you really need to re-organise your time in order to avoid these kinds of issues, indeed, it's no co-incidence that I've not blogged in ages because I'm so busy, but of course what will happen is that I'll get over the illness, and before I know it I'll be back in the manic rat race of a life I lead and not have time to think about re-organising my time. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to really consider how best to approach what I do and how I do it. If you don't see regular posts on here, you'll know I've failed miserably to sort myself out...