Backing Tracks, Cabinet Backs and kicking the facts about REAL MUSIC.

One of the more bemusing recent internet scandals was over a controversial photograph of Black Veil Brides on the Warped Tour taken from behind their guitar amps. Instead of having the standard black hardwood casing on the back of the cabinet, the cab was open, revealing that there was - gasp - nothing inside. Judging by the response online, the Oz-like unveiling that the amplification onstage isn’t really what’s pumping the music out into the great beyond evidently came to the surprise of many. Like Dorothy’s lament of ‘oh, you’re a very bad man!’, The Brides (as I’m sure they’re known) were inundated by a social legion of latent audio experts with cries of ‘sell outs’, ‘poseurs’ and ‘that’s not how you credibly amplify a guitar signal through a festival PA across a 40,000 cap site’. But unlike Oz, BVB didn’t reply with ‘I’m a Humbug’, instead opting for a pithy Twitter retort that likened their onstage set to the singer’s tattoos… something obviously a part of a show. The truth of the matter is that the revelation that those cabs weren’t being used to do very much at all surprised a grand total of no one who has ever played music on a stage bigger than that of a pub. So far, so internet.

Yesterday a character called J Willgoose Esq of dance-rock duo Public Service Broadcasting was upheld by The Independent newspaper’s online service to, seemingly unwillingly, represent the ‘keep music live’ guard and challenge the use of backing tracks in live music. You can read the article HERE. Maybe the accompanying photograph of him behind a sequencer should ring alarm bells that his technological broadside is being taken way out of context but in the article he decries acts that rely on hidden laptops, stating that 'live music should have an element of risk and an element of danger'. Well, on the subject of risk and danger, he’s presumably never tried running a laptop on a keyboard stand onstage at some of the dives we’ve played. The article proceeds to wildly scrawl big, thick, clumsy lines from his statements, (originally quoted in Q magazine) across to Deadmau5's DJing and then over to Coldplay’s use of sequenced strings. From there the article has been copied and pasted by various internet music sites as a kick-off for discussion about backing tracks in live sets and it’s off to the races for everyone who has ever wanted to bloody the noses of us cheating, no-good laptop-using BASTARDS.

Of course, in reality the difference between enhancing your line-up with the advantages of new technology and ‘playing to backing tracks’ is infinite in its scope. But on the internet, we don’t bother ourselves with such pesky notions as perspective. It’s a lot easier, and more fun, to stick your thumb up or down at the subject, like some cyber-Caesar staring at a gladiator who’s just used a futuristic laser gun to kill a lion. A fairly recent thread on the UK’s leading punk forum about backing tracks uncovered an overwhelmingly negative response to the concept. The trouble with all this discussion it it is indeed the concept that is met with mistrust, rather than the result. In my experience, at a gig most of the audience don’t know, and don’t care, how either an amp or laptop is specifically used in the live context. And yet when confronted with the question ‘do you approve of backing tracks?’, or presented with a funny photo of a hollow cab, the response is to suddenly appropriate the staunch Rock n Roll purism of a 1974 Led Zeppelin roadie. And yes, we’ve all seen the amazing live performances and, true, those lads didn’t need bloody backing tracks or fake amps. But they didn’t need cut scenes where Jimmy Page stopped shagging a 14 year-old long enough to dress as a wizard and climb mountains either but we had to put up with them didn’t we?

Like The Independent's liberal associations around J Willgoose Esq’s original interview, I may be drawing broad lines between these two stories. But while the specifics are different, much of the reactions are not. Underneath Facebook re-productions of the articles in question are a litany of comments decrying ‘cheating’, ‘fake musicians’ and the lack of this, that and the blinking other in music today. While the hankering for the straight-up spirit of Rock n Roll is charming, it’s all slightly misguided. And more often it shows internet commentary at its frothy-mouthed worst, passing absolute, Sword of Damocles judgments over intensely multifaceted topics while on the toilet at work. In 140 characters or less.

There are a number of reasons why the spat dummies over ‘that’ photo are ridiculous. It may well just capture an unorthodox onstage amping set-up that the guitarist or the sound engineer have devised, with all the guitar going through onstage wedges and in-ear monitors. For a whole host of very sensible audio reasons, their amps could be at the side of the stage. In that, frankly very likely, case, I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to have a guitarist standing in front of nothing like a kid with a tennis racquet. On the other side of the coin, perhaps the guy from BVB is miming and he can’t play guitar at all. Maybe he prefers to survey the crowd with a cold, steely glare and pick out the bevy of hot rock tottie he’s going to denigrate just seconds after his final fake chord rings silently out from his empty cab. Who knows? Unless everyone’s been keeping their profound expertise in the art of onstage festival audio design from me, there’s no way to conclude the specifics of that guitarist’s set-up from that photo alone. But it’s a perfect photo for anyone with no knowledge of this subject to confirm a prejudice they already had about a particular band being 'fakes'.

Jimmy Page, yesterday

The cabs are up there to create a strong onstage visual. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Rock n Roll is about that. And if that’s not punk, tell The Ramones to stop dressing like each other. It’s just part of the show. You can argue it’s giving the crowd value for money. From the coolest indie band to the grandest metal band through the whole spectrum of Rock n Roll, there’s more dummy Marshall cabs onstage than there are MySpace Band Profiles gathering dust in cyberspace. Hell, we’ve done it ourselves. It’s only because these particular cabs have no back on them that anyone on the outside is let into that little secret. If the issue is that every cab in the vicinity of a band has to be projecting live, pure, old-fashioned MUSIC then what about those bands playing in front of their silent amps in their videos hey?! Like every band ever! Fakes!!! WHO ARE WE TRYING TO KID!?!?

The upshot of this whole thing is that the photo struck a nerve with people and sums up a lot of feelings about that band’s reliance on image over music. The photo was taken by the drummer from The Bronx, a tremendous band and one with a lot of credibility. He took this image and used it to illustrate that he didn’t have a lot of respect for BVB, and possibly to make a statement about the booking of that particular tour, for reasons we can probably guess. Fair enough. But, judging by the resultant online uproar, I didn’t perceive that many of the commentators fully understood the context of what was being said with the image. And I disagree with that in principle because it’s a tabloid tactic to twist an image into something else because that’s what you want it to represent. Ultimately, I’m uneasy with the fallout of that photo, as straight-forward as the intentions may have been behind it.

To put it another way, if you want to rag on that band, don’t rag on their dummy amps, rag on the fact that the shameless painted buggers charge their daft fans for the pleasure of meeting their greedy arses. But that’s another blog.

I cry foul of the reaction to this photo because it feeds into this naïve and, frankly silly, notion that the only way to be credible as a band is to go up there, stripped down and ‘do it live’. It’s a lazy exercise in limiting the parameters of what you appreciate in a live performance so that anything that falls outside that becomes somehow substandard. It’s exactly the same mentality as people that call out DJs for ‘playing other people’s records’ because they’ve never considered the fact that the art form is ‘playing other people’s records’ in a way that connects with people and works a dancefloor into a frenzy and the myriad of other intangibles that goes into the art of being a DJ. And further down the spiral, it’s the same mentality as people that decry all electronica, pop, dance music, or whatever isn’t played by white people with guitars, as ‘not real music’. It’s a limited way of looking at music that begins and ends with what you can be bothered to understand. And that leads me neatly into my issues with the inferences thrown up by The Independent via the comments of J Willgoose Esq.

Of course, from the article we don’t know to what exact extent J Willgoose Esq is knocking backing tracks. He might very well hear Sonic Boom Six play live and go ‘oh no, THAT’s OK, I was talking about those OTHER backing tracks’. But that’s the problem with where the article takes his discourse. The resultant broad discussion about the subject means that without calling specific bands out, it’s akin to saying that all bands with double-bass pedals are cheats because they should be able to do it with one foot. And it makes bands like mine feel slightly ‘got at’ for using loops and samples as part of our live show. And with articles like this, that perception is only going to get worse. With the sum of the article being ‘guitar good, laptop bad’ we fall upon the ire of the internet musical commentators who turn off their Cream albums long enough to scream that using backing tracks over their pure, white, unpolluted live music is, and I quote, ‘boring and cowardly’, before moving on to the next round of Candy Crush Saga.

J Willgoose Esq, about to kick a sequencer off the stage.

That's not to say that there aren't bands who use backing tracks to prop up a bad performance. But they're just bad bands, like there have always been bad bands, with an iPod running in the background. And the crowd will pick up on that, whether they know why or not. An obvious backing track is just another symptom of an overall lack of quality rather than the cause of the problem. And it's the band's job to make the tracks work. Last year I saw a show by the pop side-project of a leading post-hardcore band's singer, whose set came across as uninspired and insipid and was panned by the magazines and punters alike. The set was shackled to glaring, pre-produced tracks. The reliance on the tracks was just one aspect of the larger problem of a badly-conceived live show that lacked any onstage spark and utilised a skeleton crew of a band that looked like they didn't want to be there in the first place. Meticulously-produced audio pumping out into the room or not, listening to the grumbling fans leaving Sound Control in Manchester with disappointed faces, the fact that the band had misused backing tracks was just one of the complaints about an overall lacklustre product.

J Willgoose Esq rightly posits that 'there should also be room for improvisation, even if only in small measures. How else are you supposed to be able to tell a good performance from a bad one?' The thing is, the aforementioned pop band were the exception that proves the rule. I’ve rarely seen a band so dominated by backing tracks that there isn’t room for improvisation, in small measures or not. Certainly the mammoth productions and tremendously talented backing bands of most leading pop acts don’t fall into that category. And for any act out there simply miming to pre-recorded backings - maybe some Pop Idol also-ran that’s playing a few shopping centres - I’d credit the crowd with enough intelligence to be completely turned off, without even necessarily knowing, or caring, why. Conversely, if a band like The Streets or Enter Shikari or Hadouken! or Skindred even Sonic Boom Sodding Six, use backing tracks in a way that’s fun and inventive and enhances the show then the crowd forget all about all the ‘cheating’ going on and enjoy the show. As long as we don’t talk about it. It’s kind of like an audio Fight Club.

The most galling facet of the anti-backing tracks mentality is that it misses out a whole aspect of music that has come into play with the availability of software like Ableton Live which allows synched backing tracks to be accessible to all bands, not just those with elaborate stage sets and multitudes of expensive equipment, as was the case not too many years ago. This technology allows bands to be creative, adventurous and integrated with their use of backing tracks from day one. Lest we forget, when acoustic guitars were first amplified, members of the music community saw that amplification itself as cheating. Yes, there were Luddites that would see me climbing onto the stage with anything less than a double bass projecting out notes with my bare, swollen digits as fraudulent. Absurd, but no more absurd than the notion that all use of backing tracks onstage is dragging the music away from a position of honesty. Seeing backing tracks as ‘cheating’ robs one of the opportunity to appreciate backing tracks, samples, loops and electronic elements being used in a way that is as interesting and inspired as any guitar solo. Listening to James talk to Skindred for hours on end about the specifics of their set-up is enough to convince even the most ardent skeptic that this is a very involved process indeed. Fucking ragga-metal FRAUDS that they are.

Ask yourself where the music on the backing tracks comes from. You don’t walk out of the studio and get presented with a burnt disc with 'cheat mode' written on it in Sharpie and hand it to the soundman. Integrating tracks into your set takes time and skill. We work for hours in rehearsals on our arrangements like any band, but for us, the instrument of the laptop is another layer in that process. Making the performance emulate what is there on record, but still allowing for the 'live band' sound to come through, is a major factor of that development. Playing along with the drums to a click is no mean feat in itself but creating triggered loop points within songs which allow for improvisation and formulating segues is every bit as demanding as it is having a bass, guitar and drums vamp on a blues riff for a few bars while the vocalist talks. In fact, I’ll go there. It’s WAY more demanding than that. That’s well easy! And that’s the total and utter Billy Bollocks of the whole debate. For any band using backing tracks in the way we do, it is more involved, demanding, and dare I say it, difficult than it was when we didn’t use them. And the bottom line is that our current music, and lots of other music that dares to deviate from the bass, drums, guitar archetype, wasn’t written to be heard ‘stripped down’. Far from running scared from that exposure, we were thinking bigger. As big as technology allows.

Sonic Boom Six, today, in their magic backing tracks factory, preparing to cheat the music world.

As a final case in point, Coldplay is a band named in the article as a band who have come under fire for their use of backing tracks. Like them or not, Coldplay is a band that can play. And SING. No matter what’s added, you’re going to be able to hear the performances of the incredibly talented principle four musicians, without a great deal of trouble, which Chris never meant to cause you, of course. And I for one would rather hear that accompanied by all the grandeur that the live arena and technology allows, and all the creative elbow-room that entails. If I wanted to hear them, or us, or any decent band stripped down and ‘real’, then there are always the acoustic performances. If the crowd are singing along at the show I think most of them agree. But attack them for using backing tracks on a blog and a lot of that same crowd might grit their teeth and bang out things like ‘cheating’, ‘boring’ and ‘cowardly’ before watching Charlie Bit My Finger.

People talk about backing tracks, and dummy amps, and equate them with ‘faking it’. People harp on about technology reducing the art of live pop and rock music. I think the opposite is true. Music technology is increasing the scope of live music performance. Music technology can enhance production of the live experience in the largest arena and the smallest toilet venue, as long as artists and sound engineers are willing to be inventive and creative with it. I give the crowd credit. If the music is stifled by the technology, they’re gonna hear it. If it adds to the music, they’re gonna cheer it beyond all the lip service we give what we consider ‘real’. That’s the bottom line. That’s the art. Bear in mind that The Beatles apparently stopped playing live because they could no longer emulate the sounds that they could create in the studio. It's hard to picture them making that argument today. The scope that this technology presents us with is only as limited as our imaginations and this should be celebrated and embraced. It should be appreciated at the very least. Keith Richards said ‘Rock n Roll is music for the neck down’ and that’s certainly the philosophy I endorse. Appreciate a band on the basis of what’s presented to you out in the crowd, not from a stolen photo behind the curtain. And, whatever you do, don’t read the comments section.

Until The Sunlight Comes...

Barney x

I still don't know when it's gonna be out... but it's good!

Hello!

It's taken someone to remind me that it's been months since I've done a blog to even realise it wasn't a week ago. The last few months have gone by so fast, I think it's really a symptom of having the main thing you do in your life preparing for the release of something that's going to happen in the future. Every day you're looking forward to what's going to happen tomorrow that sometimes you forget to think about today. And it's important to think about today!

Anyway, the vast majority of questions we've been having recently have been about the new album, what direction it's going in, when it's coming out etc.

I'll let everyone know where we are now. First of all, the album is 99% finished and it's going to be out next year at some point. At the moment, we're actually speaking to different labels and people and have just signed to a new management deal (which you can read about HERE) and we're deciding what to do with ourselves. Because we had the line-up change back at the start of 2010, we really wanted to take the time to make an album that was going to re-establish what Sonic Boom Six was rather than hurry out a continuation of what we'd done before. I think we went the right route, because the album, coupled with a spell of festivals over the summer where we debuted the new material, have certainly been met with a lot of enthusiasm by those that have heard it. There's lots of question marks going forward in terms of performing the new material live and how much old material we'll be doing too but it's good to have a challenge. Hopefully we'll see a lot of you on the October tour and we'll be playing a nice selection of new stuff with a nice amount of the ones you know and love in there too.

A lot of people have been asking are 'Sunny Side Of The Street' and 'New Style Rocka' going to be on the album. Never say never, but the plans are that the new album is a full, fresh set of songs, the first of which will be the single 'For The Kids Of The Multiculture' which will be available on October 10th and you can hear a few little previews from HERE.

One thing that's REALLY been drilled home to me over the last few singles is that you can't please all the people all the time. 'New Style Rocka' was met with enthusiasm from the majority of fans and was all good. 'Sunny Side' we expected more of a backlash (there was a bit of 'going mainstream' grumbling but not a huge amount) but we actually had kids and fans that hadn't been in touch for years telling us how much they dug it, as well as quite a bit of other stuff that was attracted by it. We love the song and the video but, to be honest, with what's being going on politically since the coalition got in power, our heads simply wasn't in the place to write songs that don't address what's going on around us more directly with more energy across a full album. There is a tune on the album called 'Flatline' which has a very interesting back-story and I can't wait for you guys to hear it. Remind me to tell you about it when it comes out.

There are a few questions in the mailbag, but it's all looking a little scant. Get on it people, barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk you know the drill. I'm not doing this Formspring thing, I'm staying on here like a Luddite.

Kev asks Coheed & Cambria, yay or nay?

I really don't know. I know that song that sounds like a girl singing when it comes on in clubs and it's nice enough. I saw them at Reading on the Lock-Up stage one year but I was so off my head on goofballs if you'd have struck a match I'd have burst into flames. I remember a man with an afro that was well good at guitar. You could be talking about Mungo Jerry. I have an album by them that is red and has a Roman Numeral four on the front and is still in it's cellophane wrap. That's as far as it goes. So yay nor nay really.

Anonymous asks When are you coming back to the States, mainly Florida? 

We hope to get back over to the States next year. Our priority now is basically re-launching the band here in terms of having the new material and having the line-up and live show 100% representing our new stuff and sound before we come back over. But that should definitely be done in the early part of next year. We're always talking to people over there so we have plenty to do there... and plenty of burritos to eat. We will definitely be back to LA, New York, Boston and hopefully Florida, we promise!

Have you thought about putting your music in the video game Rock Band? 

We've spoken to a content provider company about this over the last year and decided to wait for the new songs. I'm pleased to say we're currently sorting three songs from the new album to be downloadable content on Rock Band. That's definitely happening, 'For The Kids Of The Multiculture' will be up there first, as soon as we can make it happen.

Last question, are you going to release any more of your albums on vinyl?

Definitely, when there is the demand there. The great thing is we own the rights to the vast majority of our old material on a label level so once we get our feet on the ground with everything we'll be looking into re-issuing older albums in different formats and vinyl is one we're most fond of...

Lastly is this peach of a question from James Rodger Brown. And I promise, this is the full question your man James emailed me...

i can't remember if i have ordered sunnyside of the street and t shirt bundle?

Firstly James, grammatically that isn't a question, it's a statement. But I get what you mean. I'm afraid that I don't deal with the mail order side of things. You'll have to check your paypal or email the Boom shop. Thanks for the mail though mate, it's surely made a few people smile! :)

OK, that'll be that. I might have to start reviewing films on here or something because I need something other to talk about than where we are with the record. Mainly I'm still banging about on Twitter and Facebook to answer questions but if anyone needs some longer answers send some questions in yo!

Also, I did do a video blog when Mouthwash split up that you can see HERE if you haven't already checked it out.

Safe

Barney


I don't know what to leave you with so here's a picture of me and a dog.

Alright, I'm back! Hip-Hop, Record Labels and STOODUNTS!

Hello fellow earthlings!

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!

Safe

Barney x

I'm well aware that I'm never going to be on the 'Cool List'.

Well, well, well!

Sorry it's been so long. Life rolls along whether you're rolling with it or not... Salut to those that came over to the UK shows recently, we’ve really enjoyed pulling a lot of the old tunes out of the box and giving them a play with. We've been recording our version of 'Totally Addicted To Bass' with our old pal Christophe this weekend which has been great fun and the first time that we've actually recorded with James. I can't wait to hear it mixed actually. There are tons of dates coming up including France, India(!) and a European tour with Less Than Jake so we're certainly keeping ourselves busy. Anyway, enough of my yackin, let's get into those questions...

Tim Johnson asks…

Aite man! so, what was the story with Grimace?

The story of Grimace! OK, Grimace was a ska-punk band that lived from 1997 – 2001 and involved Laila, Neil and I and had our good friend Dave Kelly on guitar and a parade of different brass sections (Ben C ended up on sax in the final line-up) We started out when we were in our teens and friends at school and were playing funk-rock, ska, pop-punk stuff influenced by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, No Doubt etc. We were playing general band nights rather than punk nights but we started to get a few gigs at ska nights and with bands like Vodoo Glow Skulls and Spunge which introduced us to the ska and punk scene and really turned our heads. As we got into more US ska-punk like Dance Hall Crashers, Less Than Jake and Save Ferris we went more into a US sounding ska-punk thing. We had a couple of songs on some compilations like Know Your Skalphabet and Compunktion, from which the tune ‘Push You Back’ is probably our best tune. Laila actually sung a duet with Alex from [Spunge] on their second album after playing with those guys. Cos we’d just been rock kids who kind of fell into the ska and punk thing by mistake, we didn’t really come from a punk place so we had difficulty fitting in with the scene at the start and by the time we’d figured it out, we had become a bit burnt by it and felt very disillusioned (which is what ‘Play Inna Day’ was about). Musically, we’d discovered hardcore punk, reggae and drum n bass and I got really into hip-hop so Grimace quietly died a death. We were adding these elements into Grimace once Ben had joined and some of the stuff on the final Grimace demo ‘Demonstrate’ is re-recorded on the first SB6 EP. I think we needed to go out and figure out what we were then come back to the punk scene and do something different.

The rest of the story can be followed just by going and checking out the discography on the Sonic Boom Six site HERE! If enough people ask for it I'd be happy to upload the Grimace discography at some point.

Aaron Lohan asks (well, challenges!)

I've loved a lot of the support bands you've toured with but I
challenge you to take a hardcore band on tour, and if you do, which
hardcore band would you like to take on tour?

Hmmm, sorry to be ‘genre-dude’ but it depends on whether you mean hardcore-punk or hardcore hardcore. We did a tour with Chief in support in 2008 who are my favourite hardcore-punk band around. I think that hardcore-punk bands work really well alongside us and it’s great to play festivals with bands like Strike Anywhere and Paint It Black. We asked The Steal to come on tour a long time back and they couldn’t but one band I’ve really got my eye on at the moment is Our Time Down Here. Those guys supported us in Southampton and we leant our gang vocals to their album and we’d love to take them out one day if we could. You can hear them HERE.

If you mean more in the realms of ‘proper’ tough hardcore like Madball and Judge and stuff, I don’t know if that kind of band would be right for our crowd, much as I love it personally!

And finally, a couple off Kev H

Managing your own label between you guys, being all self-reliant, and constantly touring and merching, doing all that full time, if it's not in bad taste mentioning money, you guys must crunch alot of numbers?
 

Hell yeah. At the moment Neil actually does the accounting but the whole thing is very much run by us. The operation is divided into a division of labour. In theory, we divide like Voltron and we all do different things within the unit that divides the work into manageable chunks and makes sure that we’re all playing to our strengths towards a common goal. And all that. For instance, I'm shit at business and can't drive so I don't go near the money or the steering wheel but I write all the lyrics and lots of the music and Neil does the opposite so, in theory, we all meet in the middle somewhere... in theory. :)

                            
Double Header! It seems this band you're in, more than any other I've ever seen, are totally open to talking to fans & wasting time listening to drunk people tell you they loved the first album. You've got all this vault stuff on your website and are the 2nd most prolific poster on your own forum, and are merch standing it at every gig... Why and how do you put up with it?

Well, I can only speak personally here but I think it’s basically to do with the whole idea of Sonic Boom Six, which was to be a punk band that embodies a lot of different ideas without trying to draw too much attention to that fact. I personally just think the ‘rock star’ mythos is out-dated, corny and narcissistic. I don't dig on that whole Motley Cru thing in terms of that kind of hokey rock-star image, even when people do it ironically. I remember being totally bummed out meeting Red Hot Chili Peppers outside their gig back in 1995 and I’d made a birthday card for Flea and he basically just pushed past and knocked it on the ground. And this is someone who always likes to go on about how punk he is. I tried to give it to his security but they all just shoved past. Who knows whether he got it. Whereas, not long before that year, at the same venue Pantera had come out and hung with the kids and Dimebag was a proper nice bloke and that meant a lot to us.
I don’t see that remaining aloof brings any mystique or air of mystery to a band in this day and age. I like to interact with our fans because being pragmatic and down-to-earth was definitely always an aspect of what SB6 was about. Pricking the bubble of ‘the cool’, which is generally just something that reminds me of 6^th Form common rooms. Like the ‘cool list’. Something journalists write about for kids to read that need to re-affirm their coolness by liking something that a magazine that they sell in Asda tells them is cool. I’m not losing any sleep over it but it’s total bobbins isn’t it? Fuck it. Act like a nice bloke that you’d like to hang out with, not ‘cool’.

As Babar Luck so consistently points out, it's nice to be nice.

Rightio, I'm aware there are another few questions on another specific subject but they'll have to wait until we've got all our ducks in a row to be able to speak about the thing they're asking about! As ever, keep those questions coming in to barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk

I'm off to see Inception in a bit. I like Leo DiCaprio but Christopher Nolan's Batman films - apart from the odd flash of brilliance - haven't been for me. It remains to be seen what I think about a film that he isn't making about a character that I'm irrationally demanding about. I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised!

Barney x

Recording Session for The Punk Show BBC Radio 1.

He're we are right now at the BBC studios, doing a session at Maida Vale for the punk show. The engineer, Nick was a delightful fellow and, unlike every other session we have ever done, he didn't seem like his priority was kicking us out of the door. He was a suave, debonair don and he made our songs sound great.

We recorded 3 songs off City of Thieves as well as a super duper exclusive new, mad-as-a-hatter, cover version. With a string section. Yikes! The canteen was great too. Lunchtime beer. Laila's favourite.

Speak soon, loony tunes x x x

-- Post From My iPhone

Our time down there

Yo!

Last night we stayed at peter miles's house. It was fun because hardcore punk troopers Our Time Down Here were there recording their album and we joined them to provide crew shouts across the whole shebang. It's sounding excellent! If you like Set Your Goals, Kid Dynamite and New Found Glory (and who doesn't?!) check them out yeah.

We also got to catch up with Crazy Arm, whose amazing album has been picked up by righteous uk label Xtra Mile Recordings! Which is awesome news.

Down at Pete's we also got to see the fully coloured in chart from our album. Here it is for the world to see...

Beautiful! Speaking of the album, they have arrived and we are on our way to pick them up now. Hallellujah!!!

Barney x

-- Post From My iPhone

In da studio

Hey guys

Even tho it's our Manchester gig today, we're in oxygene studios with christophe doing some b-sides. They are sounding really cool. Dancehall dub and dancefloor skacore.

Keep on truckin x

-- Post From My iPhone

We're on tour.

Ooooh

I'm here in the Homestead and I've noticed I've neglected the blog a bit. We've been having such insane trials and tribulations with the CD situation that things have been on top of us a bit. But, it does seem like there are other labels and companies having problems with the same company so, once we get our new CDs in our hands, I think we'll be able to get everything sorted.

Anyway, yesterday we rehearsed 2 new songs we're gonna be doing for b-sides and comps that we're gonna record tomorrow. One Ben wrote called 'Game Over' and one I wrote called 'This is Real'. They are dancehall reggae and ska-core respectively and there isn't an original note in either, but they're fun like that, B-Sides. We're recording with Christophe who did the Turbo EP and Sounds to Consume. We are gonna record tunes of Laila's and Nick's for the next B-Sides session we do. Neil is unavailable for comment write now but who knows if he will try his hand too.

The gigs have been going well, all very excited about the way the new stuff is going over.


















The other day, Laila and Ben and I did some vocals for our friend Ian Britt on his wonderful new record which is going to feature all sorts of Manchester music luminaries. Ian is one of my bestest friends in the world and you can check out his music HERE.

I hope you're all very well!

Barney x

My first blog!

Hello all y'all out there.

This is the new, proper Boom blog which is gonna be the new place to keep up with us. We're just gonna be posting all sorts of thoughts, goings-on and anything that takes our fancy up in here. We're gonna link it to the other sites and so on but, until Myspace allows external blog feeds, we're gonna have to treat those seperately. So think of this blog as the shenanigans and opinions and following us about and the site news and myspace blog as the boring stuff like ticket buying, cd releases and official announcements. Booooo.

OK then, today we're supposed to be in the States but we couldn't go. Bah. Instead we're up at Ben's recording some vocals which are for another band's record on a duet between Laila and the certain singer of a certain Bostonian ska band. I'm not gonna say exactly who it is in case the song doesn't work out but from where I'm sat it sounds really cool. So that's something to look forward to innit?!

Ogley Dogley.

Barney x