Nick's Blog
Punk Blog
24/6/2008 @ 11:36
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Here is #4 in our occasional series where I take a swipe at a cultural sacred cow. So far, I've dissed "The Rocky Horror Show", I've railed at the works of Dennis Potter and given a big "meh" to the entire Star Wars canon but now it's the turn of
SACRED COW #4: PUNK ROCK.
Homer Simpson once said "Rock music achieved perfection in 1974, it's a scientific fact" and back in the halcyon days of the mid 70s it was hard to argue with that statement. Music was uplifting, challenging, complex and had elaborate album covers to go along with it...OK, so I'm painting a picture of an ideal music climate that ignores "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" and Mud's "Tiger Feet" but leaving them aside, the 70s saw a succession of talented bands trying to do better: They had people who could play their instruments and other people who could sing in key and hold a note.
Punk changed that. With punk, you didn't have to be able to play a note and being able to sing was a definite disadvantage. It was noise, pure and simple and not a nice noise at that. Guitars not tuned and relying on distortion to cover up the incompetance, one note bass riffs, drum patterns of the like that Meg White would feel comfortable with and as for the singing, well, a sackful of cats being drowned whilst the National Fingernail & Blackboard Orchestra plays along is a near enough description.
It was ugly music and the look was ugly as well. Pre punk was all about long hair and decent hair care products, silken flares, billowing shirts and...well, let's leave that aside for now. If that was an unappealing look, then Punk came along and made it worse. Green hair, safety pins through noses and skinny black jeans on even skinnier people. Lovely.
The music was ugly, the fashion was ugly and the mood was ugly as well. Now I'm a big fan of music about the healing power of love along a concomitant timeline and energy curve but punk was about hatred, violence and carping about how unfair everything was. When it wasn't really.
"God save the Queen...the Fascist regime!" sang one Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols; a band that has done more damage to the British music industry than any other. Really Johnny? The Queen's a fascist and we all live in this opressive regime? Get real! Do you have the vote, Johnny? DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE? What's that? You do? How's that fascist? And does the Queen boss you around on her regal whim, Johnny? Does she make you work in a forced labour camp? No? Does the Queen make the trains run on time? Did she invade Albania? Does she rule by direct personal decree and send out squads of blackshirts to quel any opposition? What's that Johnny? Did I hear a little squeaky "no" from you? So is she the head of a Fascist regime or are you just ranting and raving like a pathetic whiny self obsessed dickwad who's quite content to fleece money off a paying public who have been conned into thinking you're a rock god with your pseudo-revolutionary "ooh look at me sticking two fingers up at the queen from the safety of the Top of the Pops studio" poncing about?
Punk was a marketing con perpetrated by Malcolm McClaren and Vivienne Westwood who took a lack of talent and dressed it up as the must-have statement of rebellion for those who couldn't be bothered to do well at anything. If it was just a fad of the time I wouldn't mind but it's gone beyond that. For punk changed British music culture in a way that hasn't been beneficial.
Before punk, British rock music was defined by artistry and technical ability but since punk, virtuosity and innovation has been reviled. You won't find decent guitar solos in modern rock music and you certainly won't find any powerful voices either. Where are the new Claptons or Becks? Where is anyone with the vocal range and power or a Robert Plant, Ian Gillan or dare I say it, Rod Stewart? Once, we worshipped musical brilliance but now we worship anything that's marketed as moody and cool. For the British music business, 1977 is the Year 0; nothing came before it (except for The Beatles and The Rolling Stones) and music is either punk influenced or disco influenced. No middle ground. Technique is nothing, style is everything. Punk was a noisy fart of a phenomena but thanks to music journalists such as Julie Birchill and Paul Morley we've had it pushed to the forefront and it's stayed there; the idol for which the can't-dos can worship at. For an act of defiance and rebellion, punk has achieved an ironic uniformity and conformity. If a new guitar hero capable of playing sublimely was to burst onto the music scene now, he'd be a bigger rebel than Johnny Rotten and Sid Viscious ever were.
Bird Blog
10/6/2008 @ 10:57
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Not long ago, I bought a digital radio. Great, now I can listen to old episodes of "Round The Horne" on BBC 7 but that's not all...there are literally dozens and dozens of new radio stations hitherto unknown to man on digital....the trouble is, most of them don't work. So you see a station such as "Mega Rock" and you think you'll get pounding metal or prog and instead there'll be nothing: "Service Not Available". So I've missed out on that, on Polish Radio UK, The Zazz, Cruise Radio and even Gaydar (I know what that's going to be about but still, I'm curious to see what content a specifically gay station puts out...I'm thinking it won't be wall to wall Village People). But none of them are available on my radio.
One station that is is Birdsong. Now I thought "Birdsong" would be some uplifting pop oriented station where every day is the breakfast show non-stop. "Hello and you're listening to Birdsong FM broadcasting across the Thames Valley and Hertfordshire West and here is the La's and 'Here She Comes'...popadoodledandy!"
But if you thought that, you'd be wrong. Birdsong is literally the sounds of birds chirping. Non stop. 24 hours a day with no continuity announcers, no adverts and no one telling you "ah, the sound of the Thrush there, currently a non mover at number 3 in our birdsong chart and here's a request from Billy in Sutton who says 'I think the Skylark is the best bird ever' and that's from Billy, age 12 in Sutton so here we go Billy, just for you...it's the Skylark! Keep it here, 99.9 Birdsong FM!" But no, no announcers, just the sound of birds going "cheep" all day without any context. It would be nice to know not only what bird I'm listening to but to know whether it's in a forest, or whether there's a lake nearby. It does help build up a mental picture of what I'm listening to...much like reading the lyrics to an album you've just bought.
One other weird aspect to Birdsong is that you can cleverly set all your digital radios around the house to it and then invite people over. They'll think the local birds are being a bit hyperactive or they might say "I think you might have a couple of sparrows trapped in your kitchen." For extra surrealism, have your digital radio playing out in the garden and have artificial birdsong drowning out the real stuff...or else witness the sight of a local wren trying to make love to your digital radio. The possibilities are endless.
I think they should do "Punchup Radio"; just have the sounds of fights kicking off and in progress.
Blah Blog Blah Blah
02/6/2008 @ 15:36
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My mum's daft as a brush sometimes. I phoned her today to have a chat and apart from taking up 15 minutes explaining to me that Season 5 of "24" is the best thing ever and that by extension Season 6 will be even better (even though conventional world wide wisdom says it's a crock of shit), she also proved that sometimes the two of us speak in a language that only appears to be English.
I was explaining how Spawn of Nick was feeding a lot in the last couple of days.
"He's feeding a lot..." I say. "We think it's a growth spurt"
"A what?" She replies.
"A growth spurt"
"A growl spart?"
"No, a growth spurt!"
"A what, a grim sport?"
"NO, A FREAKIN' GROWTH SPURT!" yes, I was yelling at my mother at this point.
"Sorry, what's a grump start?"
"LISTEN: G.R.O.W.T.H. S.P.U.R.T."
"I don't understand, what's one of them?"
"Where the baby grows a lot in one day. Surely you must remember me having them or was I grown perfectly in a pod?"
"If you're going to be sarcastic to your mother, then I won't tell you about the last series of 24"
"I think I can live without that!"
I think I'll save the story about how we can have an argument whilst agreeing about the same thing for another time.
