Parliament had a vote last week to decide whether or not there will be a referendum on whether we ratify the thrilling new European Reform Treaty. The parties all had their positions cler – Labour didn’t want a referendum, the Tories did, and the LibDems got the wrong end of the stick entirely, and thought they were discussing whether to actually be in the EU or not. Idiots.
Nick Clegg really has baffled me with his party’s ridiculous stance: “forget the treaty, lets have a referendum on whether to stay in the EU or not”… which is mental. Its like the LibDems have seen the polls and have thought “the public want to vote on something… so lets give them a poll on any old question, just not the important one”. It’s a bit odd to say the least, as no one (apart from some crackpots on the lunatic fringe) have actually said that being in the EU in general is a bad idea… its like two people arguing over whether they prefer Adam Hart Davis’s science programmes or his history programmes, only for a third person to suggest that rather than pick science or history, everyone decide whether they like Adam Hart-Davis in the first place or not… which is stupid, because that’s not up for discussion, as it goes without saying that everyone thinks he’s great.
I’m quite pleased with the result though – I don’t think there should be a referendum. I hate to agree with Ken Clarke because agreeing with a Tory is like intellectual self-harm, but having actually watched a bit of the debate-on-whether-to-have-a-referendum on BBC Parliament (because I was trying to do literally the most boring thing I could have been doing at that time), he said that people elect politicians to make the important decisions for them*, because lets face it… why should we listen to the man on the street? What does the Sun reading white-van driver know about the finer points and technicalities of managing European integration? If the man on the street was in charge, we’d have bought back the death penalty and would have constructed a giant wall around Britain with robotic lasers that automatically target immigrants. The general public are idiots.
I can, however, sympathise, with the crackpots who think more highly of the general public than I do, and think that the ignorant masses should get a say, as that’s what democracy is all about, isn’t it? If I was deciding whether we should have a referendum or not then, I’d have a caveat that the public should be informed. And if they want the public to be informed, then the general public must be engaged and interested. Which is more difficult than it sounds.
European-level politics are supremely tedious to all but the most enthusiastic technocrats. What do the public care about? The Common Agricultural Policy? Nah. Trade tariffs? Nah. Representation and democratic deficits? Not even that. There’s literally nothing in the new treaty that is even slightly interesting. Being partially colour-blind and only able to see beige and being partially deaf and only being able to hear Heart FM are the only things analogous to the contents of the treaty.
Hell, I’m a politics student and I haven’t read the new treaty, nor really know what it contains, because its so supremely dull, and I imagine I’m in the tiny minority who might stand a chance of being interested in this sort of thing.
I think if they want a referendum, they need to change the treaty to engage the people and reflect things they’re actually interested in. Which is why I think if there is going to be a referendum, the treaty needs to have provisions for reforming the Eurovision voting system**. Fuck qualified majority voting thresholds, that’s what the general public really care about.
Lets face it – the only European political issue that can really get people worked up is the annual outrage over the political voting during the Eurovision Song Contest – when Cyprus always give Greece 12 points, and the ethnic mish-mash of former-Yugoslavia all voting for their respective mother countries, and the Balkan bloc-vote, and so on. This is obviously in greater need of reform than the European Parliament, because how can it be fair that Malta, population approximately 4, have the same voting weight as Germany, population 82 million? Especially on an issue as important as who has the best song.
If the government wanted a referendum on the treaty that they’d be guaranteed to win, all they have to do is get into the treaty a clause weighting each country’s voting weight to be relative to their populations make up 75% of the points, and then satisfy the small countries by making the final 25% of the points awarded come from an equal number from each individual state – pretty much the same system as you have in the US government, with the House of Representatives having congressmen from each state relative to their respective populations and then the Senate having two senators from each state.
This could be a revolution in European politics as what goes on Brussels will become relevant to the people of Europe – come May 2009 they’ll be a tangible event that people can associate with an EU decision. So who’s with me?
(* Chomsky, in the introduction to Media Control, also gives barring the public from managing their own affairs as a definition of the concept of democracy… which makes me feel a bit better about things)
(** I know Eurovision has nothing to do with the EU, but the EU should take it on board as a core competency)
I went to another gig yesterday evening, to see Anti-Flag play at Birmingham Academy. Predictably, it was really good. I say “predictably” because I also saw them playing in Peterborough a week ago, so knew what to expect.
For the uninitiated, Anti-Flag are a highly politicised punk band: all of their songs stick it to the man in one way or another, and are effectively protest songs, with the choruses just being chants that you chant along with in agreement. As luck would have it, I agree with most of their politics.
So they have a pretty agreeable message – anti-war, politicians are bad, racism and sexism are bad, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, towards the end of the gig, one of the band had to go and sour the whole gig experience by revealing where the band’s philosophy comes from.
“Have you guys heard of David Icke?”, one of them asked in a bizarre bit of stage banter. The room fell silent, apart from me, who let out a rather loud laugh at the very notion of Icke being mentioned. “He’s a bit weird… but he writes some really good books”, they continued. “No… I didn’t hear that right did I? They can’t be talking about celebrity-crackpot-who-thinks-that-the-royal-family-are-lizards David Icke… can they?”
It wasn’t even a “Haha, he’s a crackpot” angle. They were mentioning him as if he were a credible source of… well, anything. They could have mentioned anyone else and my respect wouldn’t have dropped as much. They could have logically cited, say, Noam Chomsky or John Pilger as a good writer who reflects their political views… or could have gone back further to Kant or Marx… hell, they could have said that their political views are derived from the work of Kerry Katona and their credibility wouldn’t have nosedived so quickly.
Mortified, I tried to put this behind me and enjoy the rest of the gig… although it all felt a little tainted.
At the end of the gig, I saw one of the band milling around and meeting fans, so I decided to confront him. At this point, I was on a post-gig high, so I was rather animated, loud and sweaty, so rather than construct a well thought out academic argument, I ended up approaching Chris Barker, the bassist and, waving my arms in the air, cried “David Icke?! He’s MENTAL“.
Slightly taken aback, Sane replied, to my relief, “Yeah… I don’t know why we mentioned him… he’s pretty crazy!”. My respect for the band rose slightly.
Meeting fans is a necessary part of being a celebrity. Look how excited Chris Barker from Anti-Flag is at meeting me.
So… I guess it was all okay in the end, and the band aren’t hopefully that mental… although I now get a feeling my admiration of Anti-Flag and their music is going to be a lot more difficult to defend when confronted by critics moaning about my favourite bands. I imagine its a bit like a Mark Speight fan feeling obliged to defend Speight in the face of murder allegations.
My car’s cassette tape adapter finally broke the other day, meaning that I can no longer rock out listening to my iPod whilst driving along. This means that rather than listen to Reel Big Fish, or, er, The Economist Podcast, I’ve instead had to endure the radio.
As a young, cool trendsetter, I first decided to turn to Radio 1. I tried listening to this on a couple of journeys, but it made me feel old and depressed. The DJs spoke about the most asinine garbage: on Saturday afternoon – I’m not making this up – there was a phone-in discussion about what biscuits the listeners were eating at that point in time. The DJ read out texts from people who were (thrillingly) eating digestives, rich teas, custard cremes and so on, and then upped the ante by inviting a caller to speak live on air about the biscuits she was eating. Spoiler: it was a chocolate digestive.
The music was strange too. I didn’t realise I was so hopelessly out of touch – listening to the last part of the Top 40 yesterday was a bewildering experience, as I didn’t know any of the songs, or even recognise the names of any of the artists. Why had I never heard of the number one artist (“Duffy”) before yesterday? Surely if someone is famous enough to be number one they’d at least be a part of the public conciousness?
So for the past couple of days I’ve been trying a different tactic: I’ve been listening to Classic FM instead. Its significantly better because Chris Moyles isn’t anywhere near it. It clearly takes a populist stance, as despite knowing nothing about classical music, I’ve so far recognised about half the tracks I’ve listened to on there. Driving along to the James Bond theme tune is quite exciting, even if subconsciously it is urging you to drive fast and womanise.
The funniest thing though was listening to the Classic FM Chart Show on Saturday night. It was just like Radio 1 – there was a presenter playing the top selling singles, they even had jingles to introduce each track with the number of its chart position. The crucial difference with radio one though, was that whereas Radio 1’s jingles are something like “Number One… one… one…”, with lots of echo, over production and laid on top of a several sound effects, like most radio jingles are, to sound exciting, Classic FM’s jingle was just a man’s voice saying in the Queen’s English “Number One”. Classy.
I’ve had a rather hectic eight days – I hesitate to claim that I’ve been “busy”, because that would imply that I’ve been doing something worthwhile. I’ve been over-indulging in a hallmark of popular culture: I’ve been to see one of my favourite bands, Reel Big Fish, three times. Yeah, that’s right, three times.
I’ve travelled all around the country to see them – to the Cresset in Peterborough, the Academy in Birmingham and Rock City in Nottingham. Each gig had almost the same set list – starting with Sell Out, about half way through having “Good Thing” and “Your Guts (I hate ‘em)” segue together (just live the live album), finishing the main set on “Beer”, then having “Trendy” and their cover of “Take On Me” in the encore. They also played at some point: “Everything Sucks”, “Ban the Tube Top”, a cover of “Enter Sandman” and “She’s got a girlfriend now” (sung with the singer from Sonic Boom Six, introduced in almost the same way as the live album), “Where have you been?”, “Somebody hates me”, “Don’t start a band” and “Kiss Me Deadly” (just like the live album, introduced by saying “Here’s a song!”, before launching into it). One notable difference in the set lists was that in Peterborough they played “She’s Famous Now”, whereas at the other two gigs they replaced it with “A little doubt goes a long way”. They played some other songs too, but I was too busy rocking out to remember them. Last night in Nottingham, right at the very end, just as they were going off stage, Aaron played an impromptu riff from “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpians, bizarrely.
The support were good too. Sonic Boom Six are pretty cool – they stuck to the same “script” at all three gigs, getting the audience going by doing a “When I say ‘Reel Big’, you say ‘FISH’”, bit – and mixing in a couple of hip-hop bits. Streetlight Manifesto, who were also supporting, are also rather excellent – and rather ska.
So it will come as no surprise to you that I think they’re the best thing since sliced bread, and one of the best live acts around. And I’m still on the post-gig high right now.
One of the best bits, aside from meeting Aaron Barrett, the main bloke in the band last night, was knowing all of the words to all of the songs, and being right down in the pit for most of the three gigs, surrounded by hundreds of people all saying the same thing, in time, appreciating a charismatic group on a stage in front of us… without any fascistic undertones.
Contrary to popular belief, celebrities actually enjoy fans harassing them for photos and autographs.
It was excellent. Go and see Reel Big Fish, readers.
Last night I went to see a thrash metal band who’s name inadvertently sums up the city they were playing in: Municipal Waste.
Long time readers of this blog will know that I thoroughly detest Birmingham – almost everything about it is revolting, from its Escher inspired road network, to its grimy, litter-strewn exterior to the cretinous drawl of its inhabitants. We did have a minor victory this time, though. I successfully managed to flawlessly navigate my way in to the Academy, where the band were playing, without so much the aid of the satellite navigation. As we pulled into the multi-storey car park, the putrid smell of stale urine that follows you wherever you go in Birmingham, became the smell of sweet victory, even if it was accompanied by involuntary retching. As insane as it is to say, maybe I only now hate Birmingham for its people and not its infrastructure?
Despite arriving with plenty of time to spare, we neglected not to go for a drink in the nearby pub that was built into the corner of the multi-storey car park. Classy, is Birmingham.
“Welcome to the Metal Asylum”, said the vocalist from the first band, Toxic Holocaust, which pretty much set the tone for the night. They, and the next support band, Mutant, then proceeded to play their guitars, hit their drums and whatever it is that thrash metal bands do.
Municipal Waste came on stage at about 9pm – pretty early by gig standards, so I guess they wanted to get away from Birmingham as fast as possible too. I’m not terribly familiar with their music, having only known of their existence for about two weeks, but Bouff informed me that they were going to be “brutal” and they were going to “slay”. He wasn’t wrong.
Now, I’ve been to a fair few rowdy punk shows in my time – but this was thrash metal. The crowd surfers didn’t just crowd surf… they literally bought along body boards. There was also a horrendously brutal looking wall of death. I say “brutal looking”, because by this point I’d retreated back to just in front of the sound desk, as I’d reasoned that I needed my limbs to drive home.
The band were really good – I can’t really say more than that, as I don’t know the songs well enough to identify them, but the atmosphere generated made it decent. I think the band were incredibly clever for having a “theme tune” song that includes their name – there’s a chant of just “Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up!“. Which gives the audience something to chant before the encore too.
The next gig I’m going to see is Reel Big Fish. Followed by Reel Big Fish. Followed by Reel Big Fish. I can’t wait.
I went to a gig last night. No, wait, don’t scroll down! Its not one of those blog entries – there’s actually a story attached to this! I went to see veteran punk band The Damned with my dad (with whom I’d been to see the Sex Pistols a few weeks ago). I reasoned that I like punk, and I like my dad… what could possibly go wrong?
So the first of two support bands finish their (terrible) set and I ask my dad who the next band are. Casually as anything, he tells me that they’re a bunch of strippers.
“What the fuck, dad?”
Needless to say, it was going to be literally the most awful and awkward thing in the world. So I spent the duration of the “act” browsing the internet on my snazzy new phone, trying to forget that I was with my dad, technically watching what is apparently described as a “burlesque” act.
It wasn’t entirely seedy – well, sort of, anyway. It was compared by a piano-playing woman with an irritating voice, which she used to emit sub-Norton innuendo interspersed with dreadful songs. She also had a glove puppet of a sheep.
It was terrible on so many levels.
It reminded me a lot of when you get TV personalities who are inexplicably famous for being fun characters, despite not actually being comedians. Like Ant & Dec or Vernon Kaye – have all of the enthusiasm and bravado required for their job, but negligible actual talent.
Terrible.
Luckily, the actual band, The Damned, were pretty good, and inadvertently hilarious. Despite being arguably the originators of punk, they did the most un-punk thing and got a member of the audience ejected for throwing his drink at the stage. Excellently, thanks to the magic of technology, I got most of this incident on film – check out the video below. Things kick off about 30 seconds in when you see some liquid enter the screen from the left. The keyboardist, Monty Oxymoron, goes mental. The security had to restrain him, as you’ll see on the video. He then spends the remainder of the song drying his keyboards:
Last night I went to a gig. It was, er, (whisper it) slightly emo. By which I mean, there were hundreds of hilarious emo-kids there. I actually felt quite out of place, as aside from being somewhat older than a lot of the people there, I didn’t really fit in because my parents love me, and everyone understands me and my problems. And if I actually, had any problems, they’d be important adult problems, like worrying about money or politics or something – not the popular kids at school saying mean things about me or wondering if I’m bisexual, or whatever it is emo-kids cry about these days.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate emo. I quite like some vaguely emo bands (er, hence why I was at this gig), I just dislike the culture surrounding it as it seems to be the antithesis of punk values: spending hours on your hair so it swoops across your eye to hide your inner-pain just enough, and drawing tears on your face because no one understands you… and caring about sickeningly introspective topics rather than things that really matter. Oh, and I just think emo kids should cheer the fuck up.
The tour was badged “Taste of Chaos“, and was at Birmingham Academy. I think the fact that it was in Birmingham sort of explains why there was so many emo kids there – I’d certainly be upset if I lived in Birmingham. There were five bands on – I’ve described them in sub-headings below so that if you’re time-poor, you can skip the bands you aren’t interested in reading about.
The Blackout
I’d never heard of them before last night, but I can now confirm to you that they are devastatingly average. They were from South Wales, and the banter between songs was done in that sort of accent – as soon as they started playing though, they suddenly switched into a faux-Californian emo whine.
Their best (ie: only memorable) song included as the main lyrics: “We are the dynamite… demolition is our religion!“. I’m not sure what that means, but it strikes me as something symptomatic of all heavy-rock music that isn’t Bad Religion. Metal bands are just as bad as emo bands here: everyone is so angry, singing about death, destruction and so on… but why? What’s pissed them off? Its just anger for anger’s sake.
Gallows
Gallows were reason #1 why I was at the gig. I went to see them back in September, and they were really good. Sure, their music is as vacuous as everything I’ve complained about above, but they do it in a really decent way. And they do a Black Flag cover.
Their set was excellent, but I kind of got the impression that they were a bit tame. The singer likes to present himself as a right nutter: he apparently got an “NME are shit” tattoo after they voted him top of their “cool list” – he has tattoos of Alan Partridge – and will jump into the audience whilst performing. Both times I’ve seen Gallows (who are signed to EMI) live he’s ran around the back and suddenly appeared standing on the bar or on the balcony. Last night, he came on stage and said “I’ve been told we can’t have any circle pits or walls of death or crowd serving”, and then, the crazy rebel nutter that he is, encouraged the audience to break the rules! How hardcore.
It just seemed a bit tame – it’d be far more revolutionary and subversive for him to, say, spend a few minutes lecturing the audience on the evils of religion or nationalism or something like that.
But, er, at risk of sounding unprincipled, they were still ace. Being squeezed between two circle pits during the set made it all the more exciting.
Also, at one point, the crazy singer joked that The Used had pulled out of the show. I was a bit worried for a few seconds when he said this, as I thought the emo kids might get out their razor blades and it’d all turn a bit “Heaven’s Gate“.
Aiden
I’d never heard Aiden before last night… and honestly, I can’t remember much about them now. The only thing I can really remember was how horrendously emo the band looked. Check out these photos – look for the bloke with the white swishy haircut. He was the singer. The drummer was wearing a hoodie, but you wouldn’t worry about him stabbing you up in the street, as it was covered in rainbows and hearts.
Rise Against
Reason #2 why I was inexplicably attending an emo gig where I’d have fit in more with the parents and legal guardians at the back than in the audience at the front. Rise Against are a pretty excellent punk band – although they were pretty flat live. Maybe its because I didn’t know all of the songs – the one I did know were ace – or maybe its because during the set I got pushed to the front-right of the standing area, where the people around me were practically dead. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not a big fan of participating in ridiculous levels of jumping about and so on, but they were just standing there lifeless. Way to show your enthusiasm, miscellaneous emo kids!
The Used
The third reason why I was at the gig. And I can’t deny it – they are quite horrendously emo in what they do. Their album cover is a heart hanging itself. (Really). But I like them. And they’re surprisingly good live. As in, really good. The atmosphere during Take It Away was incredible, and it was pretty cool during one song where people who were crowd surfing forwards got to go up on stage. Hilariously, for some reason, the singer decided to throw one of the on stage people’s phones back into the audience- which resulted in about thirty seconds of a 15 year old emo kid looking shocked and upset waving his arms in a “what the fuck?” motion.
After the song had finished, the singer tried to make himself look like less of a twat by promising a free t-shirt to whoever returned the phone.
It was a surprisingly good gig. Yeah. That’s my conclusion. It was a good gig. But despite all this, I still felt like crying afterwards.
“…Except during the week when I’m actually a supply chain distribution manager for the third largest retailer of industrial printing solutions in the country, obviously.”
That’s right, on Friday Night, I went all the way down to Brixton Academy to see the Sex Pistols live, in one of the few gigs they’ve played since I’ve been alive. I went with my dad – he was the real fan. He didn’t just like them before they were cool – he liked them before he was uncool.
Its weird being at a gig where a majority of the men were bald – and not out of choice.
They were pretty good – I think they played every song they’ve ever done. Which isn’t that many. They also played a cover of… something that escapes me now, but I recognised it. They opened with Pretty Vacant, finished on God Save the Queen (complete with massive logo’d backdrop), before coming back for an encore, playing EMI and Anarchy in the UK. Then, oddly, coming back for a second encore and playing the only song they had left: Bodies.
The slightly disconcerting thing was how they’d completely sold out. Its not so much that they’ve obviously reformed for the money, or that they were playing at a corporate venue operated by a big multinational company, it was just that the t-shirts were on sale for twenty pounds and in the foyer area, there were X-Box 360s set up with Guitar Hero on them.
Their political direction was… interesting… too. They came on stage to the old-timey song “there will always be an England” and the amplifiers had England flags painted on to them. I didn’t think punk was supposed to be nationalistic – but then, I guess I didn’t think it was pro-life until I heard Bodies.
At another point John Lydon gave some insightful political commentary: “Who voted for that cunt Blair?”, he asked. In a crowd of 5000 people, there were a lot of liars, as no one put their hands up or cheered.
It was a surprisingly good gig though – the spectacle of bald middle managers forming a pit behind me, and some even flaunting the smoking ban was quite, er, something, to say the least.
The venue was pretty good too – there was a sloping floor so you got a good view pretty much wherever you stood. Its just a shame its in the middle of quite a rough area of London (we walked past Jean Charles de Menezies old house, and through the tube station he was shot at, excitingly).
I’ve been to two excellent gigs in the last week in the worst city in the world, Birmingham. It has been an experience akin to finding two expensive diamonds nestling deep within a cow pat (below the surface, so you’d have to scrape away some of the pat to get to them, getting shit under your fingernails in the process) – and the cow pat is surrounded by some difficult to navigate motorways.
Gig #1 – Against Me!
On Wednesday night, I saw Against Me! at Birmingham Academy. That previous sentence looks grammatically incorrect to those not in the know, because Against Me!, perhaps rather confusingly, have an exclamation mark in their name. They do a sort of folk/punk thing, and they do it very well indeed. They played lots of songs from their excellent new album, and were generally pretty excellent. According to the internet though, the singer has apparently been charged with battery, for smashing someone against a table, so we made a point of not looking him in the eye, in case he thought we were looking at him funny.
The support bands were a mixed bag too. Steriogram were excellent, and as it later turned out, quite famous in their own right. They do rapcore, and did the song on some sort of iPod advert. At one point during the set, the singer (rapper?) jumped into the audience, and carried on rapping whilst being walked around on the back of an audience member. Excellent.
The other support band though, seemed to insist on trying to make the audience hate them. Future of the Left, broke almost all of the rules of being the support band. Throughout the set they encouraged people to move forward and to dance – despite their songs including lyrics like “Tories, Tories, Thanks for the Tories!” and “Violence Solves Everything!” – not messages that are easy to get behind, to say the least. Worst of all though, at the end of their set, the singer sarcastically said “You’ve been a great audience! You get a C+, and that’s being generous!”, not just breaking rule three, but crushing it into dust.. “Fuck you, then”, is what all of the audience were thinking.
But Against Me! were ace.
Gig #2 – NOFX
Yesterday evening I saw NOFX in the main hall at the Academy. It was literally amazing. NOFX are one of my favourite bands (#2 on my last.fm), so it was incredible to finally see them live. As they began their first song, a pit seemed to form around me, and I involuntarily became a part of it. I lasted three songs in the midst of it, before realising that I was probably going to die of dehydration if I carried on – so forced my way to the bar (harder than you’d think in a sell-out 3000 capacity gig that is very densely packed) to get some water.
Rehydrated, I then faced the tricky task of getting back to somewhere with a decent view. I tried to muscle my way forward, pushing through groups of people by forcing my arms in between to push them apart and clear a space, breaking up many couples and groups of friends in the process. I didn’t want to be stuck at the back with all of the “friends who didn’t really want to go” – if there’s one band that I’d want to be near the front for, its Bad Religion… if there were two, it’d also be NOFX.
So I continued to force my way to the front, occasionally getting stuck behind an impenetrable wall of people. This seemed to annoy one bloke, who was really far too old to be at a gig like this anyway, who said to me “if you’re going in, move forward!” and then shouted “fuck off!” a number of times. “Lovely”, I thought.
As luck would have it, it was about at this point that the band decided to play their notably slower song Eat the Meek. So whilst everyone was swaying and waving their arms side to side in the air, I managed to slip through the pit area relatively unscathed, and managed to find a spot right at the front, slightly to the left (in front of guitarist/trumpeter El Hefe). It was here I remained for the rest of the excellent gig.
Aside from the music, the on-stage banter was hilarious. NOFX are notable for the humour, and there were some excellent comments like, “I love this country – you can’t hate immigrants as that’s not PC, but you hate every other city for no reason whatsoever!”, when they experienced booing after mentioning London. It got perhaps a little near the knuckle, when vocalist/bassist Fat Mike was, for some reason, taking the piss out of the Scottish. “Is there anyone from Scotland here tonight?” – the bloke next to me started waving and shouting – “are you here with the Make a Wish foundation?”, replied Mike, before doing a funny voice.
They did some of their best songs – Bob, Murder the Government, Leaving Jesusland, and so on. One of the best songs was actually a cover of Rancid’s ‘Radio’, which they play slower than Rancid do. They finished with “The Brews”.
The support were pretty good too. TAT played, who I previously saw supporting the Gimmies, and The Loved Ones were both good. The Loved Ones was particularly funny, as for some reason, a large number of people in the audience decided to throw their plastic cups at the singer. He taunted the audience for being a crap shot, so they just threw more. It was genuinely hard to tell whether he was pissed off or was enjoying.
Disclosure: I’ve been sent these to review for free by some very nice people.
Zuprowski Connection – Self Titled EP (Released 10th December)
Zuprowski Connection are a sort of metally-rocky-grunge-noise thing. And I really like this new EP. There’s some slow, gentle songs, and some more upbeat songs. One of them sounds a bit like System of a Down slowed down to half speed. I like the main powerful riff in the song ‘Thru Me’, but not the spelling of the title of the song.
Generally speaking, the band in places sound a bit like Nirvana if they had cheered up a bit – which isn’t a bad thing. The singer sounds a bit like Kurt Cobain, but then I guess so does every metally-grungy type band.
I like it though.
Mnemosyne – Except For Access (10th December)
Mnemosyne are a fast band. A fast band with a near-unpronounceable name. “Muh-nemo-seen”? “Nemo-sign”? Its hard to tell. And probably not that important. They’re a lot less grungy than Zuprowski Connection – by which I mean, not really grungy at all. The guitars are clean and the singer’s voice isn’t coated in gravel.
I like their new EP – its pretty decent. Without the lyrics it may risk sounding a bit like the a heavier version of the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack at times.
According to the press release, they released another EP a while ago called “Suggestive rather than Offensive” – I’m not sure about how suggestive this new one is, but it certainly isn’t offensive on the ears. Unless the songs are about holocaust denial and I’ve failed to pick up on that, or something.
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