King Charles - We Didn't Start The Fire

You're Fired! And You're Also A Bit Of A Twat...

I’ve never written a review about a film or a television program. I’ve never really needed to, and I don’t know as much about films etc. as I do music, so it’s just never cropped up. However, last night was the first episode of the Junior Apprentice, and you know what? The younger they get the more repulsive they become.

Business entrepreneur, Sir Alan Sugar is the daddy behind this reality program in which the great commerce dealing individuals of this nation come head to head in a series of money making tasks. I was a regular viewer of The Apprentice when it first came out. Watching a collection of suit clad yuppies run around trying to flog barrels of dogs piss or a crate of pigs trotters makes for good viewing. The contestants persistently bicker behind one another’s back while reeling of cliché business terms to seem a lot more essential than they actually are. Relentlessly chattering over each other with their piercing voices fighting for centre stage, these stern-faced bull-shitters could start an argument with Helen Keller, but that’s what’s so entertaining! It’s not their ideas or lack of common sense that makes it good viewing, it’s the fact that these people are so self-absorbed with their own unjustified brilliance that they eventually combust into a whirlwind of useless ideas, squabbling ‘grown ups’ and sweat-stained Gucci suits.

Who doesn’t like conflict on television? That’s the whole appeal of reality tv, and that’s certainly why I watch it. But what makes the apprentice so engaging is that these people are no better than Big Brother contestants. They all end up in the same situation, fighting for centre stage while making an utter twat of themselves, but in brogues.

So with the first showing of the Young Apprentice I was dubious as to what age these business types start spewing out lines like ‘are we all reading from the same hymn sheet?’, and it turns out a lot younger than I thought.

Donning rather ghastly M&S junior suits and armed with a disjointed sense of entitlement, each one of these little cretins spouted out the same tosh as their adult comrades, bit in a higher voice. One little shit bag in particular, Jordan, frowned at the juvenile competition, claiming he was far superior than his GCSE taking rivalries only to be fired at the end of the show. Poor poor Jordan.

The rage that ensued within me hasn’t altered my perception or enjoyment of these reality tv programs, because I like to get cheesed off with these fame hungry cock-rags, it’s more of a reality check. These briefcase slingin’ young guns have already set their belligerent ethos in stone, and sure, a number of them have added rather fantastic achievements to their c.v before hair has hit their balls, but everything in moderation, yeah? You might even think that a finger pointing angry Jewish man might deter them from acting so big-headed, well I’m afraid not. Jordan still feels supercilious and still believes he should have emerged victorious, well Jordan, we live and we learn.

Guitar Music Back On The Rise?

Guitar Music Is Beginning To Flourish Once Again


Bubbling under the cultural radar of scene-ridden acceptance is a new bred of rock and roll bands. Shunning the short-lived fads of style-over-substance electro know-nothings and the copious other disintegrating sub-genres that have been and gone are a collection of guitar-based bands who are taking the underground by storm. And it’s just what we’ve been looking for.

It’s less of a back to basics affair and more of a progressive step into new-age British guitar music. The likes of Sound Of Guns, 12 Dirty Bullets, The Rubicon and Exit Calm are all wearing the regal branding of their past nineties guitar based heroes on their sleeve but they’ve bought it into a new age of thrilling supremacy, muscled-up guitars and hollering vocals that call to mind everyone from The Verve to The Music.


This is a revival that’s well overdue. These likely lads are banishing the post-oasis lad-ethos by creating something that’s got an irrefutable dance-music groove while retaining a flair of distinctly gritty Brit-rockness. It’s unashamedly idiosyncratic and thought through rock, with songs like ‘Architects’ by Liverpool’s Sound Of Guns blistering an audience with full-throttle riffs while ‘F at Man’ by 12 Dirty Bullets infuses that cockney wit of indie swagger with some brainy analogies that cast themselves deep into the sewer of social commentary.

Where the whole new-rave / electro thing kicked off with the Klaxons et al some 3 or 4 years ago, the guitar has taken a bit of a backseat, in a rather dubious and dumbfounded manor. And although Mumford and Marling have bought the whole folk revitalization into the mainstream, we’re lacking a certain bite. I’m not expecting genre-crafting pioneers or anything like that, but what we have here is a revitalised source of new visionaries who will hopefully put the guitar, the attitude and the over-powering strut back on the towering plinth of brilliance.

Little Feat

'Mungo Jerry!' Here's a wee summer playlist...

A boring and utterly predictable statement, i know, However, i decided to construct a rather summer influenced playlist for you to all download as inspiration hits me like the rays of sun currently pouring through the office window. Enjoy!

Tracklistings

1. Broken Social Scene - Texico Bitches
2. Camera Obscura - The Sweetest Thing
3. The Drums - Saddest Summer
4. Electric Owls - Magic Show
5. Teenage Fanclub - Baby Lee
6. Fun. - At Least I'm Not As Sad (As I Used To Be)
7. The Hot Rats - Pump It Up
8. The Indelicates - Sympathy For The Devil
9. The Only Sons - Lay Back Down
10. She And Him - Don't Look Back

Download Long Live Rock And Roll Summer Playlist.zip from FileFactory.com

I hope you like it guys!

GASLIGHT ANTHEM - AMERICAN SLANG

BLUE COLLAR HEROES BARE THEIR SOUL…

Brian Fallon became a rather understated sensation last year. The New Jersey band’s second album, ‘The 59 Sound’, was greeted with critical acclaim as their eponymous introduction to blue collar rock and roll, and that’s exactly what it was. A huge leap from their debut, ‘59 Sound’ bought fantasy and romanticism back into music. Embellished with lustful street-dwelling lovers who raced cars in the setting Jersey sun, it was a Springsteen-influenced audio movie depicting the working class American dream, and that was the easy bit…

Following ’The 59 Sound’ was always going to be a demanding affair. Fans of ‘Sink Or Swim’ were left divided by the polished production and theatrics of ‘The 59 Sound’ that saw this band mature from backstreet punks, guerrilla gigging in garages and hardcore venues to rock ’n’ roll visionaries who wanted something much more. And there’s nothing wrong with ambition in my eyes. So when we learned about the release of ‘American Slang’, their pertinently named third album, expectation was once again aroused.

After seeing Gaslight twice last year, once in Brighton and once at Glastonbury, I was taken back by a few things. Firstly their rousing character based anthemic rock ’n’ roll and secondly by Brian Fallon’s irrefutable charisma. He’s an a amalgamation of chivalrous 50s film star, polite and courteous, yet retaining a serious flair of desirability, but even better than that, Fallon is a rock and roll preacher who is here to craft stories of the legend of love in the urban jungle of N.J.

Title track, ‘American Slang’, opens the record with swelling guitars and a bubbling intensity that thrusts like a packed punch of power-punk and blistering guitars. ‘Stay Lucky’ could have easily slipped its way onto ‘The 59 Sound’. It’s typically racing solos ping above the gritty riffs of some acutely rockin’ guitars, but it’s purpose here is to provide eclecticism and diversity, as becomes clearer later…

Fallon’s always referenced great singers and bands in his past songs. Tom Petty and Miles Davis, to name a few, and it’s this that has always put them on a plinth for me. Fallon understands music. He understands where its from and where it’s going, and he pays homage to these past visionaries with various name drops, but by the time ‘The Diamond Church Street Choir’ kicks in with its soulful finger-clicking and graceful execution that we can begin to realise just how big this back catalogue of heroic musical veterans is. Elegantly Fallon swoons his way through this poignant anthem that reeks of New York soul, whole heartedly confirming that this record owes as much to the Motown collective as it does to The Boss.

‘The Queen Of Lower Chelsea’ continues in themes of nostalgia and tender topics as Fallon sings ‘American girls, they want the whole world, they want every last little lad in New York City’, and his heightened reference to a distinctly British term is a reoccurring premise as they record soon displays. References to libertines and London town make this album all the more accomplished. It’s a diverse experience, but it’s one that certainly understands the listener, giving us the punk they’re known for but adding something special, something that makes the Gaslight more than just a punk band, it makes them a rock and roll band.

‘Boxer’ is s fruity number, opening like a West Side Story street busk, accapella chirps are quickly extinguished by poppy guitars and drum sections in which Fallon pens hit wit upon subjects of adulation for his heroic elders and standing tall against the character-building beats we all endure, whether physical or mental.

The thing about Brian Fallon is that he wants to write songs about things that matter, and that doesn’t have to mean bogus political messages, nor is he trying to spray his ideologies or social stance upon any hum-drum carefree issue, he’s singing about the little things that matter. And although music can be used a method of influence etc. he feels its more about the romanticism of hope and lust, about the untold stories of every day men and women who craft the real movie scripts of our generation, and I think he’s right. So with that all said and done, the only other assessment to make is to say that the Gaslight have shown a leap of progression. ‘When We Were Young’ is an sweet ode to youth that bellows with the maturity that they’ve recently established, and although there are minimal hints of vague stagnancy (’Orphans’) they’re easily over shadowed by the heart that the New Jersey four-piece have poured into this profound third instalment of, what is soon to be, new romantic rock ‘n’ roll. Fallon puts it perfectly when he sings, ‘the clothes I’ve worn just don’t fit my soul anymore…’ perfect.