I finally got around to reading The Best Page in The Universe's appraisal of the Spider-Woman cover controversy, which had been recommended and derided to me in equal measure over the last few weeks. On reading it, I got exactly what I expected. To catch up, if you haven't already, you can read a rather more measured appraisal of the Spider-Woman butt controversy on The Guardian.
Parts of it I actually agree with. I definitely concur that once the internet furore among the feminist blogs got blazing, a lot of the criticism of the cover lacked the anchor of the image's context within the rest of comic art. But I consolidated that with the fact that sometimes an issue just needs a 'straw that breaks the camel's back' like this particular cover to bring it to wider attention. At the time, I certainly wasn't ready to take sides and, as with anything on the internet, tried to enjoy and learn from the intelligent debate around the issue, and ignore the ignorance.
But after reading the Maddox blog, I was left in the odd position of agreeing with him but utterly troubled by his means of making his argument - the shaming, blanket generalisations and attacks against people who object to 'this kind of thing' that I've seen time and again. If anyone vocalising unease with certain aspects of entertainment being too misogynistic, homophobic, racially provocative or whatever is going to be lumped into a group of grey, borderline-fascist do-gooders then I've got a few generalisations of my own about the way that a certain type of men on the internet tend to react to reasonable criticism. I've seen many of these arguments on my own Facebook wall recently when I voiced concern about a misjudged joke on a cartoon or bemoaned the commissioning of a TV show by a comedy actor who uses aggressive, sexualised insults on complete strangers. Frothing-at-the-mouth, PC bastard I am.
Knock knock. Who's There? Moist.
First is that argument about 'don't like it, don't watch it', that simultaneously skirts - and misses - the issue. Just as an American who uses the expression 'Freedom of Speech' to justify deplorable views will quickly be reminded that with that freedom of speech comes our freedom of a suitable response, you don't have to subscribe to a comic or own the DVD box-set to participate in a critical analysis of its content and influence. We have the freedom to watch what we want, just as we have the freedom to respond to it. The irony of the 'don't like it, don't watch it' brigade is that people who use that defence are so often the same ones to argue about how much influence the media - read, too much - has on the West in terms of our outlook, attitudes and lives in general. So why is it so hard to join those dots? If something misogynistic, racist, or homophobic is within our mainstream media, people object to the issue of its influence and effect of 'normalising' certain behaviour. You can minimise it by calling it 'taking offence' or 'being PC' if you must, but it can't be dismissed with 'don't watch it then' because, just like blaming drunk women for their own rapes, the culture it creates affects us all whether we like it or not.
Secondly, I think the straw man 'initiative' of drawing every image of Spiderman as Spider-Woman is the typical internet hardcore-gamer mentality; dodge the issue, move the
goalposts, jump on the attack and use a technicality to belligerently,
but entertainingly, shame the argument of the opposite party. Instead of
listening to their opponent's points and creating a coherent retort, they frame a nuanced argument as a 'game' in which they can use their Photoshop
prowess to 'win' rather than a debate where you can learn from each
other. Changing Spiderman into Spider-Woman uses a lot of smoke and
mirrors but ultimately proves nothing - whether I agree that the Spider-Woman cover crosses a line or not, I can clearly see the difference
between that and Spiderman in terms of the sexualisation of that image.
I can't believe I'm having to explain it, because we all know it's
there. There's a kinetic dynamism in the Spiderman images. There's a
sexual slither in the Spider-Woman image. It's the work of a great
artist that can bring that out. And I'm not saying I ultimately object
to a sexy female comic character in context... but spare me the bullshit
that it's all the same thing. I've read super hero comics since the age
of four. While you might be able to draw Spider-Woman in a pose that
looks the same as Spiderman, that doesn't make women any more equal or
make you 'right'. Engaging and sharing your views about the issue,
standing by your point while conceding ground, compromising and
teaching... that's what makes you 'right'.
The 'image game' can work both ways.
I don't want to tell people how to think. And I don't always agree with the leftist, liberal 'voices' he wildly generalises about in this article - but I'm really fucking glad they're there. And while you're going to get people like Maddox that dig their heels in, if the 'Social Police's influence is a drip-drip-drip of producers thinking twice before going with the lazy over-sexualisation of women in comics, or hiring people like Sam Pepper for TV shows, then I for one applaud them for their vigilance and pressure. Ultimately, the entertainment aspect of mainstream media is more interesting and enjoyable for all of us if women aren't lazily characterised as sex objects or damsels in distress. Paradoxically, Marvel's progressive use of female characters in many of their lines is one of the main reasons why their comics have been consistently kicking DC's arse critically for the past decade. Whether, depending on your perspective, it's a scandal or a non-issue that they chose to run this particular cover, what it has demonstrated, once again, is that a certain section of males are still shamefully unable to deal with valid accusations in a reasonable way.
The Sun's cover yesterday saw them rallying their friends in 'all faiths' that wear hijabs to stand up against ISIS. So, that's erm, Muslims then.
Tell
you what, if I was a British Muslim, I wouldn't waste time 'uniting
against ISIS' to appease a bunch of blowhards demanding 'whose side are you on?' In
fact, if I was previously planning on publically denouncing Muslim extremists (where and specifically how to do the denouncing, The Sun doesn't explain) I sure wouldn't do it now. The Sun's crass cover
image and self-righteous bullying in the guise of 'friendly urging'
certainly isn't a fair way to encourage anyone. It looks a lot more to me like a fait accompli to justify the unpleasantness that will be unleashed upon the brown people of Britain if they don't do as we say. It gives a new meaning to the phrase 'veiled threat'. It's that drunk guy at the pub that asks you why you've got them tunnels through your ears, or starts slavering over your girlfriend, but thinks it's OK because he's smiling when he does it. And after beating someone up he wakes up in the
morning as says 'well, I was just having a laugh, but he had to get lippy'.
If I was a British Muslim, I'd feel pretty unwelcome in my country
over the last few years and damn sick of the white 'silent majority'
going on about me, not quite silently enough that I can't hear. I certainly
wouldn't be waiting for them to tell me what it is they want me to do
for them, in order to disprove my allegiance to a terrorist organisation I never pledged allegiance to. The fact that this is 'expected' of Muslims by The Sun and its
white readers - on their own utterly arbitrary terms - is typically pig-headed of a newspaper whose lack of credibility or self-awareness has been exposed time and again... and yet for some reason people still draw comfort from
its bile. These are people who have shown no friendship, empathy or
tolerance of Muslim communities before this and have no real frame of reference for their culture or faith, other than what they contrive and distort. And now it's all 'we're mates right? We've always been mates. Well here's what I need you to do'.
A British person of all faiths, yesterday.
Tell
you what The Sun, How about we urge Brits of all colours to stand up
to racists? How about ridding ourselves of the 'Britain First' culture that reacts to
abhorrent behaviour from a Muslim with a racial slur, then reacts to the same behaviour from a white person with the word 'chav'? A culture you and the tabloids exacerbate, aggravate
and profit from? Then we can have an adult conversation about Islam, warts and all. Without us having to tolerate these printed hypocrisies day in,
day out, people might be able to distinguish the signal from the noise. The we can begin to talk through the specifics of what place misogynistic, illiberal and violent perversions of Islam have in this country
without tripping over ourselves to keep things tolerable for the
thousands upon thousands that go about their day, run their businesses, eat their tea, and worship Allah. I look forward to that day.
It goes back to the very simple statement I made to people complaining about the 'kid gloves' approach to Muslims in the Rotherham
situation; without racism, there is no anti-racism. The reason
legislation and political correctness puts ugly red tape all over this country is basically an attempt to redress the the balance of a system historically rife with prejudice, bigotry and, yes, flat-out racism. And that Catch 22 is significantly perpetuated by tabloids that rake this muck up out of everyday people's bins and
serve it back to them in the morning. This situation is
the utter mess we're left with. This is why we can't have nice things. Not because of Muslims refusing to denounce terrorists we've erroneously and arrogantly assumed stand for 'them' in the first place.
The subtle media whitewash of Nelson Mandela from political firebrand to cuddly, smiling Uncle happened well before his death. I remember a few years back (maybe it was his 90th birthday) watching a show with celebrities offering trite, gushing tributes to Mandela. I particularly recall David Beckham appearing and rattling on about Mandela's strength and how he was an inspiration to us all in utterly vague terms. I don't mean to rag on Beckham in particular, but I expressed interest at the time if he knew the first thing about the politics of Mandela, because he, or the show, certainly didn't relay anything of substance in that regard. The media's cultural inertia just told the UK that he was an innocent man who got put away for ages and was dead stoic and old and grinned a lot on telly. And that's about it. And while we've got the Tories and right wing media championing him along with the rest, it's good to remind ourselves of the opinions he did have that challenged the right. And if we consolidate them alongside the image of the smiley, benevolent elder statesman we were presented it might help us understand the importance of his contemporary political observations...
It's been another one of those days on Facebook and Twitter. It might appear like my psyche is currently entirely reserved for disdain towards the everyday trends that pop up on our social networks, but if you'll just indulge me this one more then I promise I'll leave it alone for a few weeks.
As far as Facebook goes, today's treatment of the news about Tom Daley coming out has been great as far as I can see it. There have been a lot of sarcastic tweets with people spelling out how his sexuality is of no consequence to them and quite a few congratulatory tweets lauding Tom for leading the way for other sports personalities. Of course, converse to the observations on my last blog (which I won't mention again today...) that's exactly what you'd expect of the circle of friends of the faux-punk, lily-livered liberal that I've been repeatedly assured I am over the last few days. If someone posts homophobic, or indeed overtly racist or misogynistic things, I'll generally just un-friend them. But of course, I know this behaviour exists. I see and hear it across the internet and across real life.
We all know it's there.
Do we really need 'best of's?'
Tom Daley, winner of today's internet.
Is it just me that is getting suspicious of these blogs that make compilations of the 20 worst tweets then post them to Tumblr as an example of all the bad things that are being said? I'm sure this phenomenon started well-meaning enough. First time I was really aware of it was the litany of disgusting tweets supporting the boys in the Steubenville High School rape case showcased on a webpage. The tweets were truly disturbing and a worthwhile window into a culture that castigates victims of rape if the social circumstances are convenient enough. It was eye-opening. But from there these tweet compilations moved into other territory such as sexist responses to Miley twerking to teenage idiot girls tweeting how they'd still like to shag Chris Brown after all the bad things he did. I clicked through one today, offering to lift the lid on all the awful things the UK public had to say about Tom Daley and was left feeling slightly confused about the practicalities of a list that basically comprised of a Twitter search for the words 'Daley' and 'fag'. And I was also left feeling slightly had.
Because you click and look at them don't you? It's a bit like rubbernecking at a car crash. If a car crash was a faceless pillock using text speak to present their bigoted worldview on their phone while they wait for a bus. But these aren't the kind of people who are going to be overly concerned about appearing on a Tumblr list of this sort. Quite the contrary. If someone's throwing the word 'fag' about on Twitter, chances are they're only going to be too happy to appear on that kind of a wall of shame. And I know, because I've just ten minutes looking at people attacking them on Twitter and they're just laughing at then AND getting retweeted by other bigots to boot. Whatever we're doing, it isn't working.
Maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age but now I can't work out
whether the people who make these lists are genuine... or just going for clicks, publicity and the chance of some filthy lucre for their own website in the name of social consciousness. Maybe a bit of both? I think we're just sharing them on our Facebooks without even wondering about the motives of those who have compiled them. And even if the motives are sound, I think they are, judging by today's response, misguided.
All those saying homophobic things on social media about Tom
Daley deserve to be called out. The culture of Facebook
and Twitter and other sites should be muscular in its disapproval and
express outrage and anger at these outmoded schools of thought. I absolutely
support the idea that this behaviour should be challenged and social
media is a place where that's not only appropriate, it's the right thing
to do. But whereas a criticism or challenge from someone you know, follow or speak to online might make you change your mind, a mass social attack from a faceless group of vengeful strangers who have seen your post displayed on another stranger's blog is likely to be much less persuasive. Frankly, they'll probably just tell you to fuck off.
We
don't need webpages re-presenting this dirge on a list to know it
goes on, furthering the oxygen of publicity and attention these
daftpots crave. And so, I'm not clicking any of these bloody 'look at all the shit things they said on Twitter' lists any more.
Until The Sunlight Comes...
Barney x
p.s. Don't ask for a link to the list. For obvious reasons!
With the verdict of the Ian
Watkins of Lost Prophets trial causing waves across cyberspace over the last couple of
days, social media has put me in mind of an upturned rock unleashing an army of
angry, confused ants. On her Facebook, Laila K described the day as
'intolerable' and I felt much the same. Yesterday, I was moved to have a
mini-rant about the concept of 'prison justice' and was alerted to Enter
Shikari Rou's BLOG, appealing for calm and the refreshingly sensible suggestion that this could be a chance
to understand the pathology of the criminal rather than spilling his blood in a public execution.
While I can empathise with the social media outpourings of anger and vengeance,
Rou’s angle on the situation is one that I lean towards.
What really started chapping my arse across the day (and the topic of this
short blog) was the proliferation of those 'prison justice' Tweets and Facebook
posts. You know the ones. They move from the speculative; 'ah well, he'll get
raped up the arse in jail', to the hopeful; 'I hope he gets raped up the arse
in jail' to the downright jubilant; 'FUCK HIM! DIRTY PERV! He's gonna get cut
into pieces then raped up the arse in jail'.
I've just logged in this morning and, for my sins, read a thread on the profile
of a Facebook 'friend' (note, someone I don't really 'know') and seen more air
fist-pumping with an arbitrary, and frankly terrifying, confidence that
Watkin's will get his just deserts.And those
desserts will not be served to him through a hatch on a plastic tray. Those deserts will not be delivered by a trial of his peers. They will not be reached
through measured, supervised reflection on his crimes, using cutting-edge psychoanalysis
and rehabilitation techniques. Oh no. Deserts will be provided by the lumpen
fists of a hero from Salford serving twenty-five years for violent criminal
affray. Let joy be unconfined!
The comfort that so many people clearly have with this scenario bothers me.
There seems to be an accepted consensus that there are these terrific
people in jail that are put there for no other reason than to punish wrongdoers
for the good of society. It's a fine concept until you consider that someone
has to do the abusing. Far be it from me to split hairs about the relative
evils between child abuse and blind, ugly, violence involving strangers and the
elderly but, by golly, someone has to.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure
there are loads of great blokes in jail. Top dudes you’d well have a pint with.
Benefit cheats, weed dealers, chainstore shoplifters, the Irish, that kind of
thing. But, and this is just a hunch, I
reckon the ones given nonce-bashing duty tend to be the ones that are a bit
handy with their fists, like. The kind of blokes that beat a stranger into a vegetative
state because they looked at their girlfriend sideways in some bar called Rios
in a seaside town. I have about as much faith in these men administering
society’s justice as I do in Boris Johnson re-distributing the nation’s wealth.
To me, whilst not as taboo within our Sarah’s Law Society, beating a man's
brains into the ground is just as perverse as urinating on a girl. And, yes,
the details of what went on in those infamous videos with Watkins go far beyond
the pale. But nothing can be bad enough that it's going to make me sleep any
easier knowing that Big Barry from Bournemouth’s got it covered. I don't want to give anyone the idea that I'm lying awake at night wringing my hands over the injustice of Jeffrey
Dahmer’s prison decimation at the hands of some Peckerwood with facial tattoos. But
neither am I looking on that as any real kind of justice and I’m certainly not foaming
at the mouth and cheering the idea on, slapping my hands together shouting “and
that's the end of that chapta!"
It'll be rate. Let Barry deal with it.
The violent criminal that kills a paedophile does it behind the same
cowardly smokescreen of self-righteousness and self-loathing that castigates ‘grasses’
and ‘rats’ within that culture. It’s not justice. It’s a self-serving excuse
for more violence and sociopathic behaviour that put them there in the first
place. To cheer it on is ugly, pig-headed and, yes, perverse and it demonstrates an elementary
misunderstanding on the nature, and proliferation, of violence within our
society. You’re cheering fighting fire with fire. If someone in jail for something as nefarious
as beating a stranger to death kills a paedophile, that's simply not something
a healthy society celebrates. End of.
So please stop it, internet.
For the last few days I've been
somewhat-guiltily avoiding the coverage of the Syria situation, making do with
stolen earfuls from Radio 4 in the morning before switching over to something
less weighty. After the nuclear weekend of Reading and Leeds, it’s taken this
old dog a few days to get back into the swing of things so I've been
distracting myself with my newly-acquired Netflix and being earth-shatteringly
un-fussed about Miley Cyrus looking a bit daft on the telly. But last night's
defeat of David Cameron in the House of Commons, and today's fallout from that,
has shaken me out of my Twerk-induced reverie and I've spent the past couple of
hours catching up on the details. I wouldn't feel comfortable waxing lyrical on
the specifics of global military responsibility in this particular fray, but I
can certainly say that I was as pleased as punch to see the House of Commons
voting against our involvement in it.
From what I've seen, the focus of the media
analysis tends to be on the back-bench discord rather than the global ramifications
of the decision. Today I've heard more talk of the 'high emotions' and
red-faces in Parliament and the subsequent implications for the Labour vs Tory
punch-up than of high-tech military conflict and the potential deaths of
thousands of human beings. Cameron's half-salesman-like, half-pouty synopsis
that 'it is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views
of the British people, does not want to see British military action' comes
across as oddly like that thing shamed celebrities do when they say 'I apologise
to those who were offended'. International War's place in this domestic game
of political one-upsmanship is almost farcical, like some dream you’d have on Christmas evening after
watching The Thick of it followed by Dr Strangelove then falling into a
deep pudding-fueled sleep.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"
But, for a lot of us, this is a big day. One doesn't want to overstate the
magnitude of it, but last time the British people didn't want to go to war, at
all, we did anyway. We remember the protests on telly, the statistics against
the war, the 'sexing up' of documents. Hell, many of us remember marching
against our military involvement in America's Crusade ourselves and it didn't
change a thing. The worst feeling at that time was the sense of hopelessness,
the loss of democracy. If the nation would have been all for it, while you
personally against it, it would have been one thing but it was quite another
when the Government openly ignored the will of the people and plunged our money
and soldiers into a warzone.
Today, not so. Even if the result of the vote was more the positive outcome of a decidedly political spat than a true manifestation of the 'will of the people', today brings a sense of hope. But hope for what? Hopefully it’s that after the lessons of the past decade, our leaders are going
to think twice about running our young men and women on global military errands
that the populous is against. This brings me nicely to answering a question
that I've avoided answering for some time. I could never quite find the words.
I could never quite establish a way to write what the song is about without
potentially offending people. Without potentially offending soldiers. Which is
perhaps why 'Gary Got a Gun' is a song, not a blog, in the first place.
Some of our fans in the armed forces have been irked by the song. Some of them
have alluded to it in Facbeook posts, others have written candid and
interesting arguments and accounts of their military experience. Ex-sqaddie
Philip Mudhir sent me a very convincing litany of why soldiers are heroes.
So, even if I can't please everyone with this blog, I can at least offer a
response to those asking for clarity.
First things first, and sorry to be a pretentious artist, but ultimately the
lyrics mean what you take from them. The song is the song and is going to be
there a lot longer than this blog. If someone hears 'Gary' as a song that
laments the hopelessness and injustice of our government sending young men out
to die in wars that the country is against because they don't have that much to
do with us, you're probably on the right lines. If you hear it as a pointed
finger and a shrug of the shoulders towards the newspapers and TV stations that
oppose our country's military actions while glorifying our army you're even nearer
where I was coming from. But if you hear it as a direct criticism to those who
choose to join the ranks of an army knowing that they will have to obey orders
that do not stand up to the scrutiny of their own morals then that's how
you hear it. I don't know that I ever meant to say that a soldier isn't a
'hero' but rhyming it with 'amount to zero' on the next line certainly
presents that implication. Lyrics, by their nature, are open to interpretation.
I only hope that our government's refusal to be drawn into another war last
night can put the context of the song somewhat into the past tense and even lend a little credence to the intention behind the song. Hopefully, now I can explain the song's genesis without being perceived as someone who, and I quote,
‘hates soldiers'.
Of course, when writing it, I knew the song would be contentious. It's such a
massively contentious subject. But the only part of it that I can say has been
actually misconstrued from my original intentions is that 'you amount to zero'
line. I'm not saying that I think they amount to zero. I'm saying that
with the flimsy justification we went following America into military action
over the last dozen years, it's questionable that the lives of soldiers are
worth very much more than that to those that are sending them into war.
And that song's been done a million times, many times much more articulately than I
could ever hope to achieve. But that's not where the idea of the song came from.
The impetus behind this song was an article in a
certain Red Top newspaper that distinguished itself from the other Red Tops
post-2001 by centralising itself politically and making its views against the
military action in Afghanistan and Iraq clear. While the other tabloids
were remaining obsequious to our colonial overlords and contrite in their 'support
for our boys', would moving into an anti-war editorial for this newspaper
provoke a shift in perspective towards our soldiers? The answer was, of course, no. Far from avoiding the issue, their tone remained at the least, supportive
and encouraging, and at the most, celebratory, lionising and downright
patronising. And when presented with an interview with the grieving mother of
another brave and valiant 19-year-old soldier, decrying his pointless loss of
life in a war we didn't even need to be in, I was wary of the editorial
tight-rope the paper was balanced upon. We hate the war. We love the soldiers.
This point of view is commonly expressed as 'against the war, for the troops'.
I understand that stance. I understand where it comes from. Joining the army
shouldn't have to mean that you're sent to do stuff that you are inherently
against. Those decisions are not a soldier’s job. But, taken literally, can it
be anything other than lip service? I've got to say it... if you're against
what the military have been asked to do for the last 12 years, how can you in
good conscience encourage someone to join the army? The fact remains that to
implicate soldiers as having any responsibility for choosing a line of work
where they will have to unquestioningly follow the questionable orders of their
superiors is still terribly taboo.
Our brave and heroic boy, whose actions we don't agree with.
Policemen were open to scrutiny. Teachers were, NHS staff were. We all know
that priests were. But in the mid-noughties soldiers, as a whole, were still
treated in even anti-war papers with a kind of detached reverence. Just like
'the gun thing' in America, people were afraid to go there. If it's Emperor’s
New Clothes, I just wanted to be that kid and point at it. I'm not saying that
the papers should be attacking and criticising soldiers every single day. I'm
saying if they were openly critical of the way our country was using
our military, it was somewhat duplicitous to have anti-war editorials on one page
then advertisements for 'Be The Best' and talk of being a hero on the next. The
caricature of a soldier as an unthinking heroic drone, ready to deploy his
orders for a government he devotedly loves, is as insulting to the soldiers
themselves as it is to the reader. If discussion about the
responsibilities, duties and opinions of soldiers was less controversial, would there be
more pressure on the people making the decisions using them as collateral
in the courtship of our Special Relationship with the US in situations like
Afghanistan? I wasn't talking about soldiers questioning orders; I was talking
about bursting the subservient media bubble that existed around the discussion of soldiers. And I was questioning the strong influence that subservience can have on the decisions of young men and women thinking about starting
a career in the very organisation the newspaper purported to oppose the behaviour of.
So, hopefully I’ve explained where I was coming from and maybe we can put this
to bed. Perhaps, if only for today, our army is once again our army. And
hopefully last night signifies a sea-change in the UK, and our spiritual, and literal, compasses can re-align towards endeavours that are less morally
suspect or at least more democratic in their scope. Of course soldiers can be
heroes, and I believe that the vast majority of them join the army to be heroes, to protect
and serve their country. I respect them. I just don't think that a lot of what
they've been sent to do over the last 13 years has been, in a moral sense, very
heroic and I think as much as anything, that's an injustice to them.
Until The Sunlight Comes...
Barney x
Gary Got a Gun (P.Barnes)
Gary got a gun, a camouflage uniform and a journey to a strange land,
Never even saw the eyes of the man whose shot left him bleeding into the sand
Out in the headlines they call him ‘hero’
But if they can send you to war just to settle a score then I’m sorry my friend you amount to zero
It was his life-long dream
Wanted to “Be the Best” like it said on the screen
So it’s straight into the infantry age of 18
6 months later takes a bullet for the team
Shot him down
Insurgent with a gun in an occupied town
Shot him down
And he’s hit in the side hour later he died and he’s homebound
All he ever knew
Was to follow through
Any order they would ask for him to do
Any place that they would choose to send him into.
Gary got a gun, a camouflage uniform and a journey to a strange land,
Never even saw the eyes of the man whose shot left him bleeding into the sand
Out in the headlines they call him ‘hero’
But if they can send you to war just to settle a score then I’m sorry my friend you amount to zero
And so the story goes
The photos of the troops and our super heroes
But every tribute to the boys it just propagate the lie
Of course he’s fucking brave if you’re sending him to die
Shot him down
A nineteen year old kid with an average background
Shot him down
The story should be “why the hell was he there in the first place?”
All he ever knew
Was to follow through
Any order they would ask for him to do
Anywhere that they would choose to send him into.
Gary got a gun, a camouflage uniform and a journey to a strange land,
Never even saw the eyes of the man whose shot left him bleeding into the sand
Out in the headlines they call him ‘hero’
But if they can send you to war just to settle a score then I’m sorry my friend you amount to zero
And poor old mum
Hangs his photo in the hall
And all the words they printed
They do not help at all
Gary got a gun, a camouflage uniform and a journey to a strange land,
Never even saw the eyes of the man whose shot left him bleeding into the sand
Out in the headlines they call him ‘hero’
But if they can send you to war just to settle a score then I’m sorry my friend you amount to zero
The worth that they gave to your premature grave was zero
If they can send you to war just to settle a score you amount to zero
If they can send you to war just to settle a score you amount to zero
If they can send you to war does it mean any more now they call you hero?
Like there seems to be no thinking in it any more just the latest buzz words to resonate with people.
Also having followed them on twitter for a while there is no politics
there either. People that actually believe in something campaign for
it. I can’t help myself rebloging or talking about…
Thanks for writing the column. Someone DM’d me and asked for my
reaction as it’s an open letter. I’ll try and I hope you take my points
in the friendly, discussional spirit they are meant in. It’s kind of
hard to know where to start.
The obvious one to me is what possible positive effect does having
politics as a ‘gimmick’ have on our career? It’s the actually the exact
opposite. ‘Virus’ was held off certain radio playlists for being too
political. There is no gimmick or bandwagon to jump on, it’s simply
something I’m compelled to do because the music that influences and
stimulates me is music with a message.
I never said I was a politician, music is my primary influence. Maybe
‘being nicer to each other’ is the most important politics of all, and
the only one I know for sure I support. Maybe the politics are vague,
and aren’t partisan and because my politics are vague and aren’t
militant. And lots of people feel that way too, and I hope that
resonates with people. Heaven knows, there’s enough punk bands with big
left-wing slogans out there to fill up that demand. What you find vague,
I think some people find sincere.
I’ve had numerous fans
complaining to me on Twitter when I have done political tweets
(especially during the riots) because they didn’t want to hear it. So I
shut up after the first day. We worked with the local groups with the
clean up effort and took part in the concert afterwards and tried to DO
things in that sense rather than rant on about it. Surely posting
pictures about what demo you’ve been at or pushing your political
opinions down people’s throats is more in danger of being a gimmick?
We
have always striven to be a band that puts the message in the lyrics
and keeps politics away from the live show in terms of talking about
them between songs. We feel that velvet glove approach works. We respect
bands that are more militant and we encourage activists to set up
stalls on our merch from anything from hunt sabs to anti-facism and they
have done in the past and will continue to do so. But we don’t do that
ourselves so it’s natural that to reflect that we don’t do it as much on
social networks.
A cursory look at our history will confirm that
there are numerous causes and charity shows that fall fully in line
with all our beliefs that we have supported, a lot, such as Love Music
Hate Racism.
Maybe the real problem is that you expect our
politics and political involvement to mirror yours. Sorry if they don’t.
I’m assuming nothing about you but we’ve stated MANY times that we
aren’t socialists, anarchists or even anti-capitalist in the full sense
of the term. But we are socially conscious and I think that’s the same
for a lot of kids out there and I feel that’s what makes our band
interesting.
Thanks for writing the column, it was interesting to
read, and I kind of see where you are hypothetically coming from,
especially if your political involvement strongly eclipses mine. It
might seem frustrating that we don’t do more. But for every one of you
there’s gonna be a kid that gets turned off by us pushing the political
thing harder, so I’m kind of sat in the position that I’m most
comfortable in, which might be fence-sitting of me. I get that. But I
frankly think your being unfair on us for the simple reason that the
accusation of ‘bogus’ posturing rings hollow when confronted with the
fact that there is no commercial or even artistic advantage drawn from
writing the kind of lyrics I do in the current media climate. I do it
because I’m compelled to it and because I know that there are people out
there that dig hearing a point of view that mirrors their own and is
unique.
I don’t just like them, I LOVE THEM. My favourite film of all time is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But I can watch a rubbish horror much easier than I can any other film and even a crappy one (like Freddy vs Jason) I will thoroughly enjoy. I watch a couple of horror films a week at least when I’m at home.
My favourites are the usual suspects really, looking up on the shelf there I can see The Wicker Man, Halloween, The Exorcist, Hellraiser, Nightmare On Elm Street, Evil Dead 2, Suspiria, Night Of The Living Dead which we all know are classics so there’s no point in going on about them.
A couple of films people may not have seen then… a favourite of mine is ‘Witchfinder General’ which stars Vincent Price (the best to ever do it!) as a demented witch hunter in Cromwell’s Britain. It has a weird, tense atmosphere (lots of stories about the goings-on behind camera abound) and is wickedly dark.
Another film from that era (60s & early 70s British folk horror) that is a favourite is a film called ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw’ where a group of kids get seduced into devil worship. It’s actually on YouTube HERE so maybe that’s one to watch tonight if you haven’t already!!!
There are lots of decent horrors in the public domain speaking of watching online, including the awesome ‘Dementia 13’ and ‘The House On Haunted Hill’. There is a great List of them on Listverse HERE and a more exhaustive list HERE.
The best site for watching Public Domain horror is Horrorteque.com hands-down! Bookmark that shit!
Another film that is one of my favourites is Werner Herzog’s 1978 version of ‘Nosferatu The Vampire’, starring Klaus Kinski. It was filmed (in English & German!) in 9 days and is a beautiful film. Kinski’s Dracula is a thing to behold. I actually prefer the version where they talk in English because having everyone in their second language gives it an even stranger air than it already has. My girlfriend once hired out a little cinema and me and all my mates watched it projected! It was a great birthday and everyone loved the film.
And finally, a guilty pleasure of mine has to be ‘Deranged’, a completely batshit crazy exploitation version of the Ed Gein story (which inspired Psycho, Texas Chainsaw and… Ed Gein!) starring the wonderfully-named Roberts Blossom as Ezra Cobb. It’s directed by horror make-up great Tom Savini (who also did the interesting Night Of The Living Dead remake). Here’s a wonderful trailer for it, if you like it, it’s actually on YouTube in several parts which are linked off the trailer.
Right then, hope that answers that! That was fun, I like talking about films, so ask away everbody!
Question from Brendy Robb on Tumblr. (Tumblr Reblog).
Hey guys, hope you’re having a nice long weekend.
Just listening to “back 2 skool” at work and realised that one
of the lines is “who pissed on a girl on the back of the tour bus?”
What’s the story behind it?
This was sent via web form from your Bandzoogle site
Hey man!
A few years back there was a big did he / didn’t he
kerfuffle about Oli Sykes from Bring Me The Horizon and their crew
ALLEGEDLY pissing on a girl in the tourbus and / or hitting her with a
bottle. I think it turned out he didn’t actually do it at all. The whole
story was doing the rounds on the internet and it became very tawdry.
There were people who clearly had no idea what had happened weighing in
and bitching about it. It was just very unseemly. On Punktastic.com in
the forums and I remember at the time thinking that this was about as
far removed from what attracted to me about punk as I’d ever witnessed.
One example of these wonderful pieces of prose is HERE.
People have mentioned to me that they perceive this line as a ‘diss’
to BMTH. I’m sorry it seems like that because that band is very good and
have done some great stuff for British heavy rock and also been
instrumental in helping loads of bands. I have no problem with them, and
I really enjoyed Suicide Season and it’s companion remix album. The
line wasn’t about them, so much as the mentality of the tabloid-style
speculation on ‘piss-gate’ and the whole circus around it. Back in 2007
things were happening in punk and rock in the UK that I was finding hard
to accept; a move away from the lefty ideals I loved like equality, DIY
and the punk gigs being ‘safe spaces’ to a vibe more reminiscent psuedo
right-wing of ‘rock n roll’ of the 80s. I loved Gallows, but I hated
the way the magazines portrayed them covered in fake blood, like that
was what signified punk. Maybe I was sore because bands like
Five Knuckle, Capdown, Freaks Union and the bands I loved from the years
before basically didn’t look quite enough like what the music magazines
wanted a punk band to look like. And I saw it happening and there was a
clear shift in fanbase and the emergence of a new crowd of younger kids
that really didn’t give two squirts of piss for the aspects of punk
rock that I loved. To me punk rock was about not giving a shit about who
was the prom queen, who was in FHM that month and who was the hardest
lad like at school. Not repackaging it all with added tattoos and
piercings. All the endearing things about the culture of punk rock to me
had just been ignored. That’s what the song’s about and to me, it
fitted in with the whole imagery of the album… city-centre rock clubs
full of selfish, boorish, preening little peacocks who don’t care about
anything but themselves.
I remember SB6 playing this party in
London and backstage was this young hardcore ‘crew’ doing coke and
calling each other ‘nigga’ and I was like ‘is this what this music has
become?’ Us and YM@6 were kept very busy trying to avoid them and I said
‘it’s like being back at school’ and the idea for the song was born.
And, while writing the song, this little episode of people squabbling
online about whether or not Oli had pissed on this girl (who ended up
looking like a fool too when all the conjecture was over) was just
another ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’ moments. What has this music
turned into when we’re arguing about this?
I guess over the last
few years I’ve come to accept that things move on and it’s all rock n
roll at the end of the day. I’m probably not as precious as I was then.
The good bands from that time are still together and doing great things
and the UK’s rock scene has had a massive shot in the arm from the
success of those bands. The lyrics to ‘Back 2 Skool’ still stand up
though I think, you only have to go to one of the trendier rock
festivals of the last few years to feel that ‘school’ vibe… the cocks of
the walk with the prettiest girls on their arms sneering at everyone
who hasn’t got the right trainers, the smell of greasy chips in the air
and the dim threat of violence ready to go off at any given moment.
"Back 2 Skool"
Who is the kid with the coolest trainers on?
Who’s getting ripped cos they got the label wrong?
Who said that he said that she was a slag
because she kissed with the boy on the bike and tongues’ll wag?
Who’s keeping up with the kid that got the tag?
I’m waiting for the bell again.
Well but you’re not it, yeah but you want it, tick and you got it.
Running to keep up again.
Well but you’re not it, yeah but you want it, tick and you got it.
Catch them once.
Now I’m singing the sound of all these songs upon the radio,
and now I’m laughing aloud at how the kids can be so cruel
and now I’m stifling down my screams
and shattered dreams to make the team,
I guess I’m back at school.
Who read the part of the picture book
where they swear they don’t care what you wear or how you look?
Down in the playground they’re dressed like lady muck.
Who pissed on the girl in the back of the tour bus?
Back in the disco they sing to the chorus!
It’s gonna be a party, what you gonna wear?
Everyone’ll be there, life just isn’t fair.
Sent out with the boys and the girls in the big wide world
and well I took a look and found my way underground.
And soon I knew you never leave the playground.
Catch them once. Catch them twice.
Catch them three times. Never gonna get them in the end.
A couple of rate interesting and timely little questions here…
Katy asks "1. What are your thoughts about playing some gigs recently 'for / to impress the industry' and having to plead with fans to come along and support you? Especially gigs when you clearly wern't over enthusiastic about having to drive alllll the way down to London to be there, (ie Barfly), but have to put on a great show to impress certain people..."
NOTE: If people are wondering what (we) are talking about, it’s no secret that for one reason and another we’ve been working hard to get our next record out on a label. The reasons for doing so and the differences between self-releasing and all that are all very interesting but that’s another discussion. Let’s just put it out there that our last few London shows have had some people from different labels and other industry people coming down and checking us out. At the end of the day, a show is still a show, so we’re giving everyone a proper go of it (so it shouldn’t really matter at all to someone in the crowd) but that’s one reason why we’ve been so adamant about people coming and showing support at the last few.
Well, first of all, we are always enthusiastic to do a gig and we enjoyed that gig and pretty much find a way to enjoy all the gigs we do one way or another. There was a lot of trouble with the PA at the particular gig you are talking about so maybe some of that came across but I thought everybody had a great time. Playing those kinds of things is actually really fun and different. We like a challenge. I was probably kidding to be honest!
My approach to this kind of stuff is really the same as it's always been in that 'it is what it is' is my general philosophy. As well as being a shallow hellhole full of crashing bores and egotistical bellhops, the music industry is a business with people in there that are doing a good job. There are certain hoops you've got to jump through and brass rings you have to grab if you want to have someone come and risk spending lots of money on promoting you. That’s the end of it. You don’t go to someone-else's house for dinner and tell them they have to take their shoes off because you do in yours. It doesn't work that way round. We've kept the whole thing relatively quiet but anyone that follows us closely could probably figure out what was going on with us over the last couple of months. If that can push people into caring about us and thinking further than their own concerns about us that's great, but they don’t have to. I never liked those bands that acted like the audience owes them something because they've got on a stage and played a gig. So we're going to try to get people attuned and into the idea that we're trying to find a new home for our record and consider where things are going without banging everybody over the head with it. We don't want to take anyone's support for granted and we don't think anyone owes us anything. The reason it’s taken a while is that we need it to be right and we thank everyone for being patient. But if you DO care then it's a cool time to sit up and get behind us at the moment, because we're really THAT CLOSE to make this thing happen.
2. How sucsessful would you like to be? I went to see Frank Turner at the Hammersmith Apollo a few months back. I remeber seing him years ago, on his own, on a barstool, with an accoustic guitar and an audience of about 40. This was a seated, over 5,000 capacity venue, with chilren, families and middle-aged women screaming 'we love you', but a sea of blank faces when Against Me opened the show. It was weird. Would playing sell out arena shows make you guys happy?
I too have seen Frank Turner sat on a barstool in front of next to no one and have seen him at Reading Festival where you can't get in the tent. We've had You Me At Six play before us and have a nightmare gig where their guitar broke and now they're HUGE. You've got to look at that and be inspired, not envious. It's cool to see.
“Would playing sell-out arena shows make you guys happy?” This question is a bit like at the end of Spinal Tap and Marty Di Bergi asks Nigel Tufnell if he could be a shoe salesman. The answer; “I dunno, what are the hours?”
It really is too hard a question to answer. Without hesitation I would say that if pretty much any band acquired that amount of success to headline that kind of show it would be a cool experience, obviously. But it's the other things that would come with getting your music out there to so many people that would be most rewarding I reckon. Having that many people singing that they're proud to be living in a land where we have the right to be who we are would be amazing.
Even if you look at interviews with me from 2006 I've always said that we are not a band that would be against being huge as a concept but I didn't realistically think that what we were doing was all that marketable because it was too crazy by design. That wasn't what we were trying to create. As time's gone on, we've evolved as a band and people and over the last few years we’ve had to think about where we’re going with this. Now I see the band differently than I did a few years ago in this regard. The new album is, in my opinion, heavier and more powerful than the old stuff but I also think it’s also hopefully more accessible. There's no shame in that, there's a skill in that kind of writing. But of course, you can’t always please everyone and even now I’ve noticed mixed reactions online to the new stuff from old fans. But we've always had that. Reactions have been very positive by and large. It's always difficult judging off a single before you hear an album anyway. It’s funny to me because I’ve seen kids citing ‘Piggy In the Middle’ as a classic dissing ‘Kids’ for instance but, to me, the riff and middle 8 on kids is heavier than any jog on the spot saxophone ska-core thing could ever be. It’s a different kind of energy and I love that youthful ska-punk madness but to be a big stage to see people bouncing to a rock riff is a different rush. That groove is completely different to our old stuff and, to me, way more 'heavy'. I read a Tumblr review the other day of us live when someone who was doubtful said he really 'got' Kids when he saw it live. If anyone’s got the impression we’ve tried to go pop, well, wait for the album. The raw and raucous energy of 'Ruff Guide' is another man's crazy mess. It's subjective at the end of the day!
Thinking about the old fans watching from the arena and losing that connection, it's weird. A lot of the times over the last five years, I've felt like our real fans have stood by us but we've, at times, felt like battered wives to the punk scene because it was so good to us as people and a band growing up. After people complaining 'Arcade Perfect' was too poppy we made (and wanted to make!) 'City Of Thieves' which was our love-letter to punk and in my opinion, our best album. But the best, punkiest moments of that album were ignored by our fans and largely not appreciated by the punk scene. In fact, all the kids that had loved Ruff Guide as teenagers and then got older didn't like 'City Of Thieves' but I have no idea what they were expected because if we'd have dropped an album with 'All In' on it in 2009 they'd have hated it. So, with that album, I realised that we were never going to please everyone. So we should please ourselves first and foremost and be what we set out to be when we started.
Sometimes you feel a huge sense of closeness and love for your fanbase and then sometimes you read some fan, or ex-fan or whatever, saying some stuff on the internet that blows your mind and you think ‘ah well, bugger what they think’. We literally have had messages telling us that our last few singles have got people back into us after not liking us for 5 years and then you get kids that used to love us talking about how we should have quit after Ben left. It’s all very hard to get to grips. It's impossible, you just try your best. With every person there are opinions about music that take in so many personal outlooks from their social circle and their age and fashion that change across time. Your band just slots into that. What represents heavy and underground and cool to a teenager in 2006 isn't going to appeal to them in the same way 6 years later if it's repeated, but the memory of it doing so the first time around will always remain like that. You just have to look to the fans you trust and believe in and take that with a pinch of salt. And remember to appreciate the good times that it does bring you!
Put it this way. I'd like to think that if a fan has ever enjoyed our music and what we've created at any point and saw us on stage now and we looked like we were genuinely having a good time and we were happy in what we were doing, whether or not they 'prefer the old stuff', I'd hope they could be happy for us. Call me an idealist but there we have it!
Happy talky talky happy talk. Talk about the things you like to do.
If you don’t have a dream. If you don’t have a dream.
First of all, massive apologies for being away from the blog for so long! Basically, this period of inactivity started with me wanting more time to answer a couple of questions and then having to wait to do so and basically weeks slipped into months. But no longer! As of today I'm back on the blog and back on the questions…
So, what have we been up to then?! First of all, rest assured we've been mad busy. Unfortunately, the end of last year ended up being a bit of a damp squib what with Laila's chest infection and a few cancelled dates but I hope you guys enjoyed our new songs and the 'Addicted To Bass' cover. A few people have asked if that song a good indication of where The Boom is going with the new stuff we're writing and I'd have to say yes and no. Yes in the sense that there is a lot more going on in terms of loops and synths than we've done before but we won't be playing it quite as safe with it in terms of the song-writing as we got away with that particular cover version. We're really stretching things out at the moment and some of it feels pretty far out there... I'm doing more vocals than I ever have before. There is a lot of stuff with me rapping and Laila doing the chorus's which are really exciting for us all and certainly represent enough of a departure and progression from the way we've done things in the past that at times it does feel like a different project. It's challenging and exciting to find ways to actually sprinkle in some SB6 in terms of a bit of ska or rock or the kind of lyrical content that will be a bridge from our new stuff to our history. It's still a bit of a mystery to us how the kids that have got into us via a frantic moshpit song like say 'Blood For Oil' will take our steps towards a more dancefloor-orientated sound but we're going to be brave and bold with it. We've just finished about 10 demos and we feel we've nailed the new 'Boom' and are heading into the studio at the end of this month to record a new single. We'll keep you up to date with it from in there. Exciting times ahead!
Right then, I better get stuck into some of these questions... first, a question from James Pitt..
"Just wondered if you guys had ever considered any other side projects that take you on a different style to SB6, something like a dedicated hip-hop/dubstep/d'nb style thing?"
Personally, I've contemplated doing a proper hip-hop thing and was really dead set on it a few years ago but my interest in current hip-hop has, unfortunately, really waned. Maybe it's being immersed in it for so long but I find it a challenge to get worked up about current music. I recognise it's good but I don't always get excited about it like I did back in the day. Much as I loved early grime stuff I'd say that in particular I'm not especially feeling the electro-crossover-pop UK hip-hop thing at the moment because, for me, it strays too far from what I like most about hip-hop; the lyrical content, which, apart from the odd punchline or two, just isn't really that featured. I really like Proffessor Green at the moment and I've had a few listens to Devlin and Giggs and enjoyed Maverick Sabre's mixtape but apart from that there's not much UK stuff I've listened closely too since Braintax and Jehst etc yet I expect there's loads of great stuff out there. For us, it's finding the time and the energy. There is a lot of emcee-ing inside me that's dying to get out and to say that I'm doing more vocals on the new SB6 stuff than I've done before is an understatement. As I said above, in some respects it feels like whole new thing in which stuff I’ve only been able to express a smattering of before is well more featured so that's really satisfying my creative appetite. One thing I would say is that I'm always up for guesting or emceeing on other people's stuff so if anyone has anything please let me know...
Laila has been working on some tracks in a 80s electro style with a mutual friend of ours (the guy that did the 'While New Were Sleeping' remix on Play On) that sound great. I'm not sure exactly what the plans are there but it's good stuff. James is always tinkering about with remixes and tracks and is currently working with Mark that used to be the vocalist of Myth Of Unity and also a band from Wales called Miacca whose stuff would be well worth checking out for anyone into The King Blues or Dirty Revolution. This one has come from quite a few of you but it's Dave Sharpe's I'll answer now.
"So my question is, what with seeing how tight knit the whole Rebel Alliance bands were (are?), I'm wondering why bands such as Random Hand and The Skints have left the label. I refuse to believe there's any bad blood, because why would anybody lie about that? Also, tying in with this, will there be any more Rebel Alliance signings in the future?"
Hey man, thanks for the question. This was a difficult one to answer because we're actually still dealing with things to be honest but as I did say I'd answer all questions in the blog, I'll give it a quick stab. There absolutely isn't any bad blood between us as a band and The Skints or Random Hand at all and, as intriguing as it may seem from the outside, it really is a case of this is boiling down to private business. Suffice to say, we found 2010 very difficult in terms of running the label and running the band, both financially and work-wise and as Rebel Alliance became bigger it got to be more work and require more finances. In terms of Rebel Alliance and it's output of bands other than SB6 in the future, we're going to take it one step at a time again and we're not going to feel too pressured to go this way or that or make any promises or statements that we can't keep. We certainly feel that what we were attempting to do with the label remains very important. A focal point like a label for bands and music in any scene is invaluable but with so many other challenges in terms of the music industry at the moment, just running SB6 is a task in itself right now. We thank everyone for their interest and support and wish those bands the best.
Stacey Jones in Devon asks "waht did you feel about the Student Tuition Fees debate? Do you think the protest action is right and works?'
Wow, that's a big gun. Well, me and Laila were actually discussing this in the van the other day before the full extent of the cuts and what was going on were revealed to the public (Laila's best mate is a Uni teacher and had told her some horror stories about what was happening in her department). Laila was very much of the opinion that not enough is done to encourage lesser privileged children to attend uni, or at least push them towards it. While I understand this viewpoint, I feel I need to be honest about my view on this and before hearing about the cuts I made the point that, in truth, I see the dilemma faced by the higher education institutes in terms funding and entry. And discussing tuition fees while completely ignoring this is simply not getting to grips with the issue. So many kids joined my uni course and dropped out which is a waste of time and money so pushing everyone towards university isn’t going to make anyone’s standard of living better. I think that the biggest challenge that is faced by the people running higher education is to engage and attract students that actually want to work hard and be there, which sounds obvious but, amongst the hoopla about fees and class (that a hell of a lot of people don't actually fully understand) it seems to rarely come up. Whether it's a working-class kid with a low level of education 'eased into' uni only to potter about for a bit and drop out or a middle-class 'gap yah' type having a 3-year party at daddy's expense they're both costing the education system if they aren't in it above the age of 18 for any reason other than to apply themselves to their course. That might sound a little stuffy but how else can you view further education in times where cuts are being made everywhere across the board? That's the problem with the myopic focus on fees and class and I feel that a lot of the coverage on the news doesn't always explore all the facets of the matter.
In principle, I'm totally and completely against raising the fees but I'd like to add the addendum that I acknowledge that more can be done in the area of money wastage in higher education. The obvious trouble with the raising of the finances it takes to get into uni is that it simply raises the stakes of debt and financial impact that the education will have in the life of a less-wealthy student to levels that may well prohibit them from attending. While for the wealthy it might be more of an impact on the wallet but it isn't life-changing. I believe it is a responsibility of the government and an adherence to the idea of a ‘United Kingdom’ to strive for the playing field of university-entry to be levelled. In my experience, there has certainly been no evidence that I've seen that someone from a wealthy background is any more likely to apply themselves in uni, many simply expect it, are expected to go and get that privilege without any consideration for what it entails. Financial inequality and class-based distinctions cause a huge amount of unfairness within the university system as a whole. So yeah, I think that university education should be accessible to all but I accept someone has to pay for it and I feel that does sometimes get ignored in hubbub. Ultimately, raising the fees is not the answer and that's the bottom line, especially when it exposes promises before the election as the blatant lies they were. What's that? What should we do about it?! I don’t know, but I know that while the government is spending the amounts that they do on military action overseas they should certainly be able to figure out how to tighten up higher education expenditure without turning universities into luxury consumer products for the highest bidder.
Anyway, as far as the protesting goes, I thought it was exciting and inspiring and heartening. I'm behind it 100% (maybe in that case 99%, the 1% for the guy that threw the fire extinguisher which compromised the credibility of the action somewhat in my opinion). I think that it's got the public standing up and looking at the problem at home in the way that a peaceful protest wouldn't. People argue that the violence compromises the message and a lot of the time I’m with that (smashing Burger King windows at a G8 summit in a ham-fisted jab at capitalism only harms the kid on minimum wage that has to clean that shit up) but in terms of something as palpable as education, people tend to be a little more magnanimous in their reaction to what’s going down. While it’s simple enough for the silent majority to sit there and caricature anti-capitalists as violent, loony, lefty wackos, it's another thing to say the same about such a culturally diverse and socially-accepted group as students. I think they shouted loud enough and expressed their anger in a constructive way and put across the disappointment a lot of people are feeling with the government's decisions at the moment.
Anyhoo, that's that for now, please keep the questions coming in a barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk. Best of wishes to Oli from the awesome Anti-Vigilante who is currently battling a serious illness and could do with all our support. Look out for our new single next month. Check out the bands Tree House Fire, Tyrannosaurus Alan and Clay Pigeon. I think that’s it!
All is as busy as ever in the land of the Boom. We're currently getting ready and rehearsing the set for the new tour, dusting off some old classics and spring-cleaning the tried and tested. We're gonna have sax on as many of the dates as we can manage and we're raring to go. Come and check out the dates HERE and grab a ticket if you haven't already. These could well be the last UK dates of 2010.
So, I've had a nice little mailbag over the last few weeks, time to get through some of these here questions!
First, I've got a few from Joshua Parker...
"I saw on your MySpace page, on the animated banner advertising City Of Thieves that it "includes the singles The Concrete We're Trapped Within (It's Yours), Back 2 Skool and Strange Transformations". Does that mean at some point you guys will be releasing Strange Transformations as a single?"
Hey Joshua. There was a plan to do that and make an elaborate video but unfortunately the timing/plans/budget simply didn't allow it at the end of last year. It would have been really cool to follow up 'Concrete' and 'Back 2 Skool' with it but, alas, it was not to be. We may well make a video for another tune from 'City Of Thieves' but it would be unlikely to be 'Strange Transformations' as I think only a really ambitious video could do that tune justice. We're going to be releasing the 'Rude Awakening' compilation on CD in France and Germany so we're thinking about doing a video for one of the tunes on there.
Also, in regards to your new sound, with the introduction of Jimmy T Boom and synths, will it be going the same sort of way that "Charge!!" was for The Aquabats, dropping the brass section or will it integrate both? I have a small idea after seeing you last at the Camden Barfly, playing "Bandito" and "Shockwave"?
This is a funny one because it was the plan to move in that direction with absolutely no brass but after playing with Robin from Random Hand at Slam Dunk and our sax player Alex in France we decided that we really loved having brass in there. We're actually rehearsing with a sax player this coming week (Dave from Kid's Can't Fly) who will be playing with us on a lot of the dates on our forthcoming UK tour and on the gigs that The Hostiles are playing with us, Lynsey will be helping us out. Our ideas change everyday but me and James have been speaking a lot about the new stuff incorporating a cross between heavy rock and ska with drum n bass and dubstep while using a lot of very minor hornparts inspired by the Latin American ska-core bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls that we played with over in the US. So on the one hand there is going to be more samplers and synths but still as much brass as we normally use. Anyway, our ideas change from day to day but one thing is sure, we're definitely very pro-brass section at the moment, whether it's deemed cool or not!
What will Ben C's involvement be with the band now? Will he help with songwriting or recording, or just general support of the band?
In terms of what we're doing at the moment, nothing really, but the door is always open. He isn't involved in terms of songwriting or recordings... Ben's living in the US and doing his own solo thing so there isn't much time and we're all happy and getting on with things. I'm sure we'll work together in the future again. Maybe sooner than people think actually! But that's all I'm saying for now...
Hey man, just a short one, but i was wondering if anything new was happening with Babyboom or if you guys were done with that as a side project.
Hmmm, that's a very well-timed question, nudge, nudge, wink wink. ;) We're playing a Baby Boom set at Rebelllion and that's it for now. We really didn't think of Baby Boom as a side-project anymore, it was really just Sonic Boom Six acoustic. But who knows what's going to happen there, we certainly aren't done with it but time and financial constraints make it a very difficult project to put the time into at the moment. In fact, it's nigh on impossible.
Farran Key asks...
With regards to militant anti-fascism, which i am in support off, do you think anti-fascism should widen its scope to include the unfair immigration policy toting Conservative Party?
Wow. Personally, no. I'm loathe to get too into politics because I always wanted our lyrics to speak for themselves and be taken how they're taken. But in a nutshell, no, I don't think it should include the immigration policy of the the Conservative's because, although it's not my idea of the appropriate take on immigration, I simply don't think it's anywhere near extreme enough (especially within the context of other country's immigration policies in Europe) to be deemed 'fascist'. I'd go as far as to say I think that deriding any attempt to regulate the entry of people with different citizenship into any country as 'fascist' is probably a bit idealistic and hysterical. But, much more than this, blaming immigrants for taking jobs, rising crime and anything else that the dim and feckless use them as a scapegoat for is ignorant beyond belief.
A big one from Николай Волков (!)
I fetl curious, and wanted to ask just this: what do you think of anarchy? (An' overall anarchy, not just the anarcho-communism "anarchy", which itself is something I dont like.)
I think it's an interesting concept to speculate about and use as a notion to build discussion around but, ultimately, I think it's pretty clear the boat's already sailed on that one and there are more relevant things to improve within our current way of life. A solid, academically-sound concept of humanity without church, capitalism and the law as we know it is useful as an ideal to strive for and maybe the thin end of the wedge in terms of the presence of civil liberties in the minds and hearts of the decision-makers of the world. However, in my head, it's our ambition that is at the heart of the way we live, not necessarily greed or bloodlust or power-hunger, just ambition to do something more than the next man. And that ambition is ultimately what has allowed us to sit behind computers and pontificate about anarchy... But yeah, I like the thought of it and will put my fist up in the air and weakly shout it but I don't really think of it as a legitimate possibility. In a nutshell, I think if the world had a little more anarchy, it would be a better place but I'm not holding my breath on seeing it as a full-on human reality any time in the next aeon and nor would I really want to.
Here's a few of Henry Raby!
It's been puzzling me for many years now, and I keep meaning to ask you whenever I bump into you or any of the other guys/gal. In the song 'Tell Me Something That I Don't Know' from Arcade Perfect, what does the line "I'm not a fucking hippie 'cos there's races I don't hate" mean?
Maybe it's just a rubbish lyric! The song is about my observation that in the UK music press, any bands that have a slightest message that deviates from songs about love or dancing at a disco are pigeonholed as 'political' bands, almost always in a negative way. I meant, "the fact that I don't hate other races doesn't make me a hippie" ergo, "just because I don't write songs about love doesn't make me political".
Also, what's your favourite comic book/comic book author. Mine's Neil Gaiman and 'The Sandman' (specifically 'Season of Mists')
Wow. Neil Gaiman and the Sandman 'Season of Mists', literally! It's as great as any great novel. I like Neil Gaiman's prose books too but nothing comes close to Sandman. I also love all the usual Vertigo suspects; Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, Garth Ennis's Preacher (the best ending to any comic series ever), Jamie Delano's early Hellblazer and Fables. I love stuff by Peter Milligan, Brian K Vaughan, Frank Miller, Alan Grant, and generally love Batman stuff. More recently, I enjoyed Y The Last Man and Grant Morrison's All Star Superman. If you want something that hasn't been overly-lauded, I think Grant Morrison's work on the first 50 or so issues of Animal Man in the late 80s is amazing, ahead-of-it's-time stuff. And I loved Watchmen obviously, first time around, but that's been somewhat played out now.
And 3rdly....what band that are still gigging that you have never played with would you love to play with?
I'd love to do some shows with Gogol Bordello because to see their live show every night couldn't help but inspire a band to work on that side of their show.
Alright then. That's it for now, please keep those questions coming in at barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk
If you haven't checked them out yet, I've just posted up the full series of 4 tour vids from our recent US tour below. They took me ages to do and I don't know if I'll bother again unless I get a bit more feedback you buggers. Please watch them with your head-balls and laugh at the abject ridiculousness of our little troupe...
It's good to be here in the US. The weather is treating us great and the gigs and the people have been awesome. Knock-Out have been an amazing help to us and a great bunch of friends to boot. Wish you were here! Rather than writing a big War and Peace style tour diary, I've decided to make some video diaries which present our little troop in all it's technicolour (or should that be technicolor) glory. I've put up a video diary of our first few days on Youtube. I'll be compiling another video very soon. Check it out and leave us a comment!
On the first show we played we dropped in on the Ultra Violet Social Club in Los Angeles, a venue that also incorporates a clothing store as well as various art projects. The whole co-op vibe of the set-up was amazing and Raul and Daniella, who run the boutique, were kind enough to show us round. You can check out the stuff they do from the shows to the shop over at their SITE. The threads all have a strongly DIY vibe as well as some really cool designs from Raul and clothing by independent labels like Bishop Park. There were also skatedecks designed by the Mexican artist Benjamin Estrada who has worked with a whole host of punk and ska and hardcore bands which you can see HERE. All this stuff is great independent stuff and well worth checking out. We also need to thank Clemente from Evokore promotions for helping organise the whole shebang and giving us such a warm welcome to the States.
Also worthy of comment is that Neil has finally got his first tattoo over in the Everett, WA parlour Sunken Ship Tattoos who also did some designs on Knock-Out and have inked such celebrated punk rock royalty as Micheal Graves. Check them out HERE.
Awesome. I've had a few questions coming in which is amazing so please keep them coming. A few of the more political ones I'll have to get my head around soon but it's been a bit sunny here for pontificating upon the finer points of political reform.
You must get called a "wigga" a lot Barney, as do I. Please, in your own special way, tell me a bit about what you think about all this colour in music shenanigans, like have any silly mings ever found you offensive and maybe about your habit of (almost oxymoronicaly) speaking/rapping patois?
My immediate reaction to that question is that it always seems to me that it's the people who make this into an issue that have the problem. Without putting too fine a point on it, I've never had anybody black or asian come up to me after a gig and complaining that I'm not authentic or whatever yet I've had kids write stuff on the internet about it and in the end, when you eventually meet them, they always seem to be white and from the home counties and the whole thing kind of answers itself. It's really their hang-ups about race, it's the belief that different races should act in a particular way. It's not really something I spend much time getting bent out of shape about. To put it another way, if someone was to utterly dismiss say, Eminem, simply because he's white most people would look at that person and say 'well, that's their loss and their problem'. Whilst I'm not going to compare myself to Eminem, I still think that it's pointless to dwell too much on the mindsets of people that you're never going to reach.
I think that ultimately pop music is powerful when it's an expression of one's self and the only way that's ever going to be potent enough for other people to be swept along in it is for it to be a true expression of something unique. In the sense that I am who I am and if I can express that through music, it's going to have to be in a way that relates to how I speak and behave. I personally don't think there is anything at all 'wigga-ish' about anything I do, but I do see that it incorporates stuff that has melted into my approach to music that came from living in a city and feeling comfortable in being involved in the hip-hop scene and emceeing at parties and things like that. If that's in any way remarkable, it's still part of me, so it's something worth expressing. I'm always going to be myself. If some people don't like that, it probably means that others will.
British music has a strong history of bands that mix different styles, sounds and patious, none more apparent than my favourite bands the Specials and the Clash. If people were scared of ridicule, then you'd never have the self-expression that places like Bristol, Coventry, Manchester and all these other cities that have had times that they have been breeding grounds for extreme periods of creativity have done so because of the mix of different musical cultures coming together and creating something new. The reason that Massive Attack, the Specials, the Happy Mondays, the Streets, the Prodigy and even Gorillaz work is not because they express simply a crossover of black and white, they work because they express something that is uniquely British in the social and cultural things that are going on there. So if I'm a 'wigga' to some of the punk scene, I'm glad of the fact that the part of that that is offensive is paradoxically the part of self-expression that I associate with simply being British. Not white and not black and something unique and interesting. It's great that within music is one of the places where those kind of barriers can drop down so when people go out of their way to put them back up, it's a little sad.
To be honest, it isn't only us. I've seen the same things thrown at other bands in the past. Sometimes it does bother you, just the other day I saw someone talking about the Skints and saying they are awesome except for the drummers ridiculous Jamaican accent. It's criticising the form not the function which, in art in general, is missing the point. Jamie may have a ridiculous Jamaican singing voice(!) but it happens to be absolutely amazing - one of the best voices I've ever heard - so to dismiss it because you're uncomfortable with it because of the hang-ups you have about your own sensibilities about race, it is really your loss. And it's not just ignorant, it's really sad.
Also, how many caps do you own, and why the transition from trucker to New Era?
Ooooh, a fun one! I've got, or at least had, about 14 different Boston Red Sox hats and various others but I do like my B on my head the best. I guess the transition from Truckers to New Era was just following fashion. It's like saying why did I used to wear baggy jeans and now I wear tight ones? I don't know, but everyone else is.
