"A special birthday present!"

A couple of days ago I received the following email. I enjoy getting spam mail when it is of this kind of quality, not just your ordinary, robot generated mailshots. It can provide real entertainment, especially when it is clear that it has been written by an idiot, for idiots. Anyway, I publish it, unedited, here:

Good morning Sir [Beames],

Firstly I am proud for offering you your congratulations!  Our Official records discover that you are celerbrating your birthday, and we are also pleased to announce to you that you are in order to recieve a present from the government.  As you may have heard, there have been many problems with tax issues in the recent past few days, and many people are owing our department money for taxes.  Some, however, such as, yourself, are owed money for taxis from us.  You yourself are currently owed up to £456.78, which I'm sure could make you a fabulous birthday gift!

In order for you to claim your prize, please reply to us, as this Goverment email address, and make certain sure to include your Banking Details, including a secret questions and answer, in case we need to contact you about your money.  We want to make sure we are talking to the right man!  So please also put in a phone number with which we can call you.

Please let us know if you have any questions for our team, and we can make the present as quickly as possible!

Yours Sincerley,

Victor Uwaifo

Head of Goverment Tax Refunding

London

Good, isn't it? I mean, for someone working for the government, Victor isn't afraid to use words such as "fabulous" and "present" or the phrase "We want to make sure we're talking to the right man!". He's also completely unafraid to misspell the words 'sincerely' and 'government' (amongst others). I am not sure if he meant I was owed money for taxis, or if it was a typo. Suffice to say, I don't take taxis.

Strangely, I did receive this the day after my birthday. I'm not sure if that's a coincidence, or if Victor has some information on me. I'm hoping it's the former. I don't want to wake up tomorrow with a note on my pillow.

Nothing arises suspicion like saying "please reply to us, at this Goverment email address". A line made more enjoyable when you see that the address is, infact: victor.uk.gov@gmail.com. I can only assume the 'g' in 'gmail' stands for 'Government'. Sorry, 'Goverment'.

Anyway, seeing as Victor is Head of Goverment Tax Refunding, I thought it only fair that I reply to him. This is what I said:

Hello Victor,

Thanks very much for getting in contact! £456.78 is a lot of money, and I could really use it at the moment! How come I am owed so much money for taxis? I am very glad about it, in any case. I am just setting up a new bank account at the moment (exciting!), so I don't have all the details yet - would you be able to send me a cheque like I normally get for tax rebates? You can send it to the address that I am registered to on your databases.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any more questions about this!

Yours sincereley,

Dan Beames

The ball is now in Victor's court. I hope I hear back from him soon. I could really use £456.78.

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Now we are Six

I must be supercharged; two posts in two days. I’m going away for a bit at the weekend I guess, so best to fit them in whilst I can. Just thought I’d stick my oar in on this one, before it gets stale.

If I have to listen to one more person on the radio saying that Radio 1 and Radio 2 are the same kind of station, I’m going to go punch someone. It’s fine giving your opinion, but it’s not fine if you’re basing it on either a) presumption or b) massively outdated evidence. I presume that most of the people saying this were in their early 40s and listened to Radio 2, which, they thought, sounds a lot like Radio 1. Fifteen years ago. No shit! That’s how demographics work! I bet if they listened to Zane Lowe churning out rubbish pop drum n bass they’d have a panic attack.

But the worse view that I heard over and over again today on my usual stalwart, 5Live – another truly wonderful station – was that 6Music was going a job already done by Radios 1 and 2. Bullshit. Radio 1 preaches its “In new music we trust” motto up and down the airwaves, but to get to most of the truly new music you have to listen to either a very precise 3 minutes of a show between 7 and 11pm, or tune in at the kind of time that milkmen get out of bed.

On 6Music, I have enjoyed listening to sessions from bands I’ve never heard of - at times when normal people are awake. I mean, fuck, I even fulfilled a boyhood fantasy and entered Maida Vale studios, to see a friend play a live track for a 6Music show (I stole the pass that I was meant to return, but I assume every musician does that on the first time they go there, so, meh). 6Music is a breeding ground for new talent, and a station that plays music that I can listen to more consistently than any other.

Not only that, but their output includes wonderful comedy. Adam and Joe’s show (currently on sabbatical) is one of the funniest programmes on the radio and the podcast frequently has me attracting funny looks in public when I listen. The fact that they have found a home there, is another reason that makes the station unique. They wouldn’t fit in on any other BBC station.

I won’t pretend I listen to it 24 hours a day, but I listen to it more than I watch BBC1. Or BBC2. Or definitely BBC3. And, I think at the moment that the internet and social media and networking encourage people to jump on bandwagons that, if they’d read about in the paper, they wouldn’t have given a toss about. It feels good to ‘stand up to the man’ (see my previous post on the RatM campaign) and indulge in some community spirit – see Twitter – it only take a couple of celebrities to speak out about something, and suddenly every cares about it more than their own lungs.

But this is something that brings me happiness. In the massive shitstorm that is music radio, it’s nice to have somewhere that feels like it’s run by people who care. Because if I turn on Radio 1 and Fern fucking Cotton is shouting something about texting in what shape your cock is, or how amazing a shade of green she saw on a cereal box this morning or whatever the fuck it is she talks about between piss-poor house tracks and shit-hop, and I can’t turn over and listen to Andrew Collins or Steve Lamacq (one day, I’ll write a whole entry on Steve, you god, you) or Lauren Laverne, I’m going to feel bad.

And I want to feel good, baby.

 

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Idiots.

This entry has been brewing for some time. Thinking about it, I suppose I mean that in two ways – I have been considering writing it for a few months, and also it has something that has played on my mind for years. Before the tirade, it seems sensible to point out that there probably won’t be much here that most people haven’t thought before, especially recently. But due to the fact I don’t ring into radio shows, I’m going to try and articulate it here as a method of expression/ventilation. I’m also going to try not to be sanctimonious and boring, but I can’t make promises. So, here’s the hot potato:

Politicians.

I’m not going to go into my beliefs in depth, other than to say I’d like to think of myself as a liberal. I’m not aligning myself with any party. I’m not a socialist, I’m not an anarchist, I’m not an anything-ist. As a rule, I engage in political debate on my own terms rather than stating allegiance to someone else’s policies. I admit that this is partly because my political knowledge isn’t as wide ranging as maybe it should be – I’m not ignorant, but I don’t read every party’s manifesto or familiarise myself with many MPs, which is to say there is more information available to me than I absorb.

However, the main thing that really sparked me into writing this was listening to a debate from the House of Commons. Let me outline it, rant a bit, make a smart-arsed closing comment and then I’ll be off.

There were some MPs debating something. What that something was doesn’t matter, but it was the standard deal. Gordon Brown said something, insinuating that what he was saying about it was amazing, then David Cameron said something, making out that Brown’s point would end up with the entire country dying of lack of money or something. This practise in itself is pretty sad. I would like to think that the leaders of our country wouldn’t have to resort to constant one-upmanship to elevate their status.

What really got my goat was that after Brown had made a point, there was a chorus of boos. This is par for the course, I know. But it wasn’t just boos. It was people shouting, in fact, no, screaming derogatory comments. First, the 5Live presenter had to apologise for the language, then the Speaker had to ask two politicians, by name, more than once, to control themselves.

I know that debates get fiery, and that when the blood runs high sometimes you get a bit carried away. But I can honestly say that the only time I would ever consider it appropriate to behave in the way that this men did would be when I was severely inebriated, arguing about football in a pub, probably with some Manchester United supporter called Gaz or something who was trying to convince be that Gary Neville was anything other than a monumental twat who I'd love to punch in cock. But they didn't possess my civility. These people were pathetic. I mean that. I want to say it again.

PATHETIC.

They behaved like rowdy school children, using the most basic and crude tricks they know to get attention and show objection. These are people who my mother and father would have gone out of their way to keep me away from as a child, and who I will keep my children away from. They have nothing to teach anyone, nothing to endear them to anyone. They are relics of a long out of date governmental system that behave like stereotypical public school boys. They also run the country. They need to grow up, because they are shameful, stupid human beings. There are worse.

Politics has been a dodgy business for centuries. But I feel like I have grown up in a country where racism, sexism and homophobia have been pushed into the margins. I feel like I live in a progressive state. I have seen landmark victories against these three evils, and now there seem to be people who are trying to champion them again, even if they claim not too. It is frustrating that our brand of democracy allows parties like the BNP to exist, but I understand it. The fact that people who I share patriotism with might actually give them their vote is far more painful. I don’t want to collate any of the barrages of terrible things said by these people, but I do want to cite something said by one BNP candidate: Nick Eriksen. Read it, if you want. It made me slightly ashamed to be a man.

I know that this is probably not the most coherent article ever written, but I’ve written it in one go, and without any planning. I’m sure if I took a week to write it, it would emerge a lot more articulate and better thought-out, but I’m not going to. I’m just purging, and that’s all it’s going to be.

I don’t plan immerse myself any more into politics, either. I’d rather concentrate on other things.

That’s it.

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Tommy Cooper's Hat

I’ll be honest with you, the Indie scene is not something that does that much for me. Back in the days of Oasis and Blur, there were a lot of bands that I liked around, but as I’ve got a little older it seems to mean less and less to me. I guess the want to ‘fit in’ has waned, and as my tastes become more diverse, trawling through hours of similar music is less appealing. I’m not even really sure what Indie means anymore, the definition seems to be more and more diluted. The genre seems to be fairly stagnant, with a few really great bands showing up every now and then to ensure it’s still a big deal.

So why am I writing about it? Well, I’m not one to write something that I don’t mean (or worse, lie), but I’m also not one to refuse a favour to a mate. So when my good friend John Chantarasak got in touch about putting a little write up together for his band’s new EP, of course I was going to. This, after all, is a man who sat at a drum kit behind me at short notice, with only two rehearsals and little reward. A good man.

It’s a hard thing to try and be objective about art when it has been authored by someone you know. It takes a skilled critic to separate personal feelings from good critique, and a good writer to differentiate these things and produce a decent piece about it. Needless to say, I am neither.

Stop it, stop it, you’re too kind!

But seriously.

The Fez EP is a collection of 6 snappy songs that showcase the band’s strongest suits. If you’re looking for the fabled three-and-a-half minute guitar-pop tune (pop ain’t a dirty word, get over it), then this is a good place to be looking. There is a little blur between songs, but after a few listens they do stand apart – they have enough hooks and personality to avoid melding together – and they sit nicely together, the running order feels natural. For a CD looking to introduce you to Fez, this succeeds.

The collection has been entirely self-produced with equipment all sourced themselves – that is not in a studio – and it has to be said, to good effect. Considering that this must be one of their first goes at producing a selection of tracks to a good quality, the success is marked. I will admit that I’m a bit of a sonic obsessive, so the lack of mid and bass on some of the tracks (did you mix this on headphones, boys?) hit me. But this isn’t a problem that can’t be fixed by a bit of re-mixing, and the recordings still sound a hell of a lot better than many other examples of a comparable scale. And at the end of the day, they bring across the songs clear enough to give you a feeling of what this band is about.

The lyrics don’t always jump out at you all the time (that isn’t a criticism) but when they do, there are some real catchy little bastards in there (that isn’t a criticism either), notably the “Rattle on, rattle on” refrain from Low Light. I’m a sucker for a line that don’t rhyme, and that one got me. It’s been all up in my head. The fact that there are no lyrics that stick out for being bad is impressive – I can normally find something to piss me off in most songs. I’m not saying this is lyrical genius, but the lyrics don’t annoy me, and they sit well in the songs. They do their job.

The music quickly establishes itself, and by the end of the disc you can identify a handful of influences that have shaped Fez’s sound. The Strokes were probably the first to occur, but it’s a nice blend of a whole lot of other stuff too that seems to range from garage rock to bigger stadium acts. The music remains energetic for the duration, and there is a good sense of dynamics, with the verses and choruses generally leading together smoothly and pleasingly.

Music like this, though, is best heard live, and so if you listen to Fez and like what you hear, I implore you to get to one of their gigs. And I don’t say that just because I know ‘em, but because when someone is bashing a drum kit and someone else is shouting and some other guys are making a racket with some guitars, the best place to hear it is stood in the same room. If it’s really good, you might get all tingly. And that’s what you’re after.

Have a listen to Fez on their MySpace page, which also lists their gigs.

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Sheep Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine for Christmas #1. I’ve been invited to this group about ten times. So I joined and tried to have a conversation about the idea with some of the other members. Their responses contained a large volume of the word ‘fuck’ as well as various other insults, often misspelled.

It struck me that talking to these people was very much like talking to politicians. They are adamant about every single point, yet if they spy you getting near a chink in their armour, they change stance. Their tag line reads “Fuck you I won’t buy what you sell me!” Very clever. One person said to me (and I reproduce all comments as they were originally typed):

“this is a stand up and fight demonstration against the crass majority thats musical taste is shaped by”

OK, so what are you against? People in offices making decisions about marketing? People like Simon Cowell who have the weight to send things straight into the charts? Pop music? I hate to break it to you guys, but Rage records are all put out on by big record companies. In face, in this case the same company that Simon Cowell works for… Sony. I doubt Rage would get much money from the single sales, and nor do they need it. My suggestion was, instead of buying a single, go to a local gig. Buy an independent album. Put some money into artist’s pockets and cut out the corporate machine. The response?

“no way could you get everyone to rush out and by an independent bands single without an expensive advertising method and no way would that band deserve all the attention and money they would recieve"

What a lovely sentiment. Apparently, if a band is small, they are automatically shit. You have to have sold several million records to ‘deserve’ and success. I do accept the point about advertising though, despite the fact it’s irrelevant whether anyone gets to the top of the charts or not.

It’s a nice sentiment to try and topple the X Factor’s dominance of the Christmas #1 spot, but let’s not pretend it’s a noble protest. I’d love to see these guys talk to Zach de la Rocha and tell him they were going to buy a 17 year old American single to protest about the consumerist British music industry. People kept talking about how ‘important’ this idea was, and how they were doing it because they ‘cared’ about music. And they said all this as if I didn’t, which is very clearly not true.

If you care about music, why not do this every week? If you care about music, why are you so preoccupied by the singles chart? If you care about music, why don’t you go and watch live music? If you care about music, why not buy a song that you like and don’t already own, and isn’t nearly 20 years old, by a band who haven’t released any new music since 2002? And the question I’d really like to ask them is:

If you care about music, why do you hate Simon Cowell?

How many people do you think gave thought up a considered answer to this? Not many, I’d expect. I’m not saying I like the man, it just seems like he’s demonised because he’s an easy target.

Let’s be honest, this isn’t any different to those groups on Facebook that are called:

“IF I GET 1 MILLON FOLOWERS MY GF WILL LET ME CALL MY SON SPIDERMAN!!!!!!!1!!! OMG”

People just take it as a funny idea, and follow like sheep. Except in this case it’s different. That child is never going to be called Spiderman. Unless the parents are actually fucking idiots. This just seems to be people assuming that by buying this single, they’re embodying the spirit of the song – and they haven’t even thought about how or why.

Hell, I hope they succeed. I hope they have to cut out all the swear words when they play it on Radio 1. I’m just happy listening to some good old fashioned Christmas music, I’ll stick Rage on when I’m drunk and fancy a play-fight with Joe Selwyn. And to everyone who would like to force me to buy Killing in the Name:

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Motherfucker!

I think that’s the right amount…

How d'you like them Apple(s)

OK, here’s the thing. Apple piss me off. I hate them. And yes, some of this hatred is definitely as completely irrational as the legions of Mac fanboys and girls that repeatedly slam their javelins into Steve Job’s USB port. In fact, some of my hatred is positively inspired by it.

I like PCs. But when nVidia announce a GPU, or Logitech announce a wireless keyboard, or LG break the news that they’re releasing a thinner monitor, I don’t thrust my hand straight into my pants. Nor do I spend hundreds upon hundreds of pounds to upgrade something that’s at best, a little bit better (or corrects horrifyingly obvious mistakes). And after said purchase, I don’t become a 21st Century Jehovah’s Witness. There’s little more annoying that when you say to a Mac disciple something like “No, actually, I have a PC.” and they smile, as if they’ve pitying a mentally disabled person. Because that’s the kind of thing Mac owners do. They pity the disabled.

Between upgrading my phone, Sony released at least five impressive updates on their range, but mine worked OK, so I sat out. Then when my contract came up for renewal, I went for a better model, and it was stolen from me a few weeks later. I think the moral of the story is clear. Don’t panda to advertising and consumerism, or people from Peckham will threaten you and steal your things. Ironically for this article, the only thing they didn’t take was my iPod. They must have already had the newer version.

If you’re wondering what inspired this tirade against Apple, it’s the announcement of their new line of products. They’ve updated a load of stuff, making everything faster, smaller, rounder and most importantly, shinier. In the promo material from their new Magic Mouse, I found some rather mystifying sentences. For example:

“You can’t help but marvel at its smooth, buttonless appearance.”

This seems to imply that when I see this product, I’m going to do something that, up until this point, I’ve never done to a mouse before. I’m going to marvel at it. Yes, marvel. At a mouse. I think I’ve only really marvelled maybe five times in my entire life. I think I may once have marvelled at an incredible clear night sky, when I was in the company of someone special, feeling very important in one person’s life, whist the seemingly infinite universe appeared to confirm the opposite, that no human endeavour is of any consequence, in such a vast, timeless cosmos that we happen to inhabit, all the time this exquisite juxtaposition exposing what really we mean by ‘spirituality’, and maybe even the notion of God. Mice rarely evoke these feelings. It goes on:

“Then you touch it and instantly appreciate how good it feels in your hand.”

To me, and I’m sorry about this, this just sounds plain smutty. I giggled quite a lot. Childish or not, it’s laughable advertising. Come on, when you read it, you thought of something dirty, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Yeah you did.

The next line I’m going to pick out I’m not really going to explain, because it conjured up some rather enjoyable images when I first read it, and I wouldn’t want to influence what occurs to anyone else on reading it:

“Inside Magic Mouse is a chip that tells it exactly what you want to do.”

I want to isolate that sentence from the rest of the text and just say it to people when I’m introduced to them. See what happens. They go on to claim that the mouse will work on:

“…nearly every surface — whether it’s a table at your favourite cafe or the desk in your home office.”

So, those are the two surfaces at either end of this vast spectrum that includes ‘nearly every surface’? Two different types of table? If I bought a mouse that cost £5 and I put it on a table and it didn’t work, I’d be shocked. Optical mice have been the norm for, what, about 8 years now? When was the last time anyone actually bought and used a mouse mat? The last two that I had were either part of a members pack from the ECB that I thought was cool, or one adorned with a ghastly picture of Kylie Minogue, that my brother gave me for a joke. We thought it was hilarious! A mouse mat of all things! That’s so 1996! If, for some reason, I spent £55 on a mouse, I’d want it to work on jeans at the very least. I’d probably want it to work if I floated it on the surface of my bath. Not just tables with slightly different veneers.

And finally, so as I can set up a short, smart-arse last line to my first blog post of a decent length in quite some time:

“When you combine Magic Mouse with the Apple Wireless Keyboard, you create a workspace free of annoying cables.”

Unless you’ve got an iPod.

Turned out not to be as good as I’d hoped.

A bit like the new range of Apple products.

PSYCHE!

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Don't worry, I've not lost a hand, and my Dad didn't kill Alec Guinness

It has been quite a considerable time since I wrote anything. This is mainly due to:

a)    Re-locating
b)    Lack of ambition/inspiration
c)    Not having a desk or chair
d)    All of the above are essentially the same thing

Fear not, though! This week I have found enough drive to:

a)    Write a new song, what I like
b)    Write a new blog entry
c)    Make too many a)b)c) lists
d)    And pathetic jokes

Tomorrow I will be picking up an impressively large desk, which I anticipate being far too big for my attic room, which should hopefully make me feel at least a little important. It should also make getting from bed to not bed (and vice versa) unnecessarily difficult.

I have managed to fool myself into thinking that once I have a desk, I will be more inclined and able to apply myself to things like writing and recording. This is almost certainly untrue, but hey. Everyone attaches false expectations to arbitrary objects to make themselves feel better. And besides, who doesn’t like new stuff? Idiots, that’s who.

Speaking of new stuff, I’ve just got a new screen, and it’s absolutely ace. Wizard, in fact. It’s massive, it runs at a wonderful native resolution (1920 x 1080, if you’re asking) and it means I can watch stuff in widescreen without wasting most of the screen as well as fit loads of internet/Word document/Photoshop/Logic/Ableton on. I love it. The icing on the cake is that it was made by Samsung, who sponsor the most wonderful football team in the world, who also happen to be top of the table.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on here. I’ve got a couple of half written posts about Daniel Kitson, Levon Helm and guitars, expect to see one of them within a couple of days. I might save the guitar one and re-write it after Thursday, as I’m going to see a band with one of the most sensational guitarists I’ve had the pleasure of hearing. It’d make sense to write about him if I’m doing the whole guitar thing. But yeah, I'm trying to get back on the horse.

Although I might need a decent chair first.

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