This Is Uncool

BASE JUMPING Madness

I saw this film this morning. It’s amazing. It made me think about just how different we all are. I wouldn’t jump off the bottom board at the swimming baths…

I first met David Henshaw when he was working behind the bar at Oporto in Leeds.  I was there with my friend and colleague Adrian Sinclair, I can't quite remember why we were both in town that night but we thought it would be nice to go to Gary Stewart's always excellent Gas Light Club.  One of the acts had dropped out at the last minute and the David said he'd be happy to step in. So the lad stepped behind the mic with his guitar and left us speechless.  The song he sung was 'Oh Father'. We booked him straight away to play on our station East Leeds FM which he did and the rest of the staff were also hooked.  Over the summer it was my job to book the numerous live events that ELFM took part in and whenever I could I got David (Joseph was always busy) and he never failed to impress.

We were all dead chuffed when an email arrived from Joseph & David with a link to their new EP 'Rise Up The Sun' (a perk of the job for sure), aaaaaand its never been off my stereo since.It's full of depth, delicate beauty and bombastic romance.  Leeds yet again displays it's home to some of the best music in the country. Turn off your TV's and head to your local venue, or switch on ELFM.

I left this one a while to see if it would settle with me, but it hasn't, I think?

From the start let's be clear I LOVE, really, really, LOVE The Stone Roses. I am the sucker who will buy magazines because they are on the front of it.  I even bought the first John Squire album, but not the second.  I've also been an avid follower of Ian Brown over the years.  Throughout his output there have been non-too subtle digs at John Squire. Even on his last album 'Always Remember Me' tells of how Squire  "walked yourself into the wilderness".

I truly believed that The Stone Roses would never reform, ("far too many demons now to ever exorcise"), and there was something beautiful in that.  They were like The Clash, The Smiths, hell, The Beatles, a band that you dreamed of reforming but in your heart you know that it destroy the magic if they did. 

Despite the fact they did release arguably one of the best debut albums of all time, the fact that it took another five years to release an album that didn't scale the same heights and broke up so acrimoniously, it always felt that they never reached their full potential.

But why now?  Well it's cash isn't it? Ian Brown is going through a divorce and in the press conference did little to deny this. Squire and Rennie never really made any money out of The Roses first time round. Manni has always been the most vocal about his desire to get the group back together and he has had ten years as part of Primal Scream, it feels that he is doing this for "the right reasons".

But while all my artistic sensibilities are telling me this is a bad idea and maybe nothing more than a cash in by a band needing a payday the fan boy in me was thrilled to see new photos and footage of them together again, I'm even considering buying NME!!!  I haven't got tickets to the Heaton Park gigs, but will probably go and see them as part of a national tour, the pull of hearing 'Waterfall' live is too great.

So R.E.M split up after 31 years, which has prompted much comment from the media including this artical by Luke Lewis. The main theme being "They sucked longer than they ruled" at that their musical output has been poor since 1995. I'm not really going to argue against this.

My issue is that Luke Lewis's argument is that there recorded material is below par but with no acknowledgment of their importance and continued artistic success as a live band. He says...

"It’s no great tragedy. Sometimes bands lose their creative fire and never get it back. No wait, not sometimes. Always. It’s the cast-iron law of creative endeavour, and we shouldn't mourn it." 

This itself is very questionable, but to say that bands relevance and right to exist rests entirely on the strength of their most recent work is rubbish. How many artists are out there who's new albums are no where near their creative recording peak but are still the most engaging, enthralling and important live performers? Loads. Prince, Springsteen,  Van Morrison... The list goes on.And if any of them has given up because they released a bad album their careers would have ended years ago and we would have been denied some truly special live experiences from artists who have learnt their craft.

Surely - if we are going to purist about this - an artists worth should be rated on their ability as a live act, especially in these times when the success of live music far out weighs that of recorded.

As I write this First Blood is on the ITV. The 1980's really was the decade of the all action American action hero, a one man killing machine going against all the odds. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone pretty much ruled the roost with Bruce Willis chipping in to make up the numbers.

There is always a certain tone to these films, bleak amoral with stock good versus bad setups. And man were they violent. As a one man army the chosen job of the hero was to largely kill everyone in sight, without remorse or a sense anyone killed didn't deserve it. All with saying as little as possible. Romance in the film wasn't even that necessary as this wasn't a genre that need to appeal to women or a mans' feminine side, these were films for men staring men, killing men.

Schwarzenegger believes the popularity of these films stems from the 1980's man being threatened by the rise in powerful women, masculinity in crisis. Maybe. But it's no coincidence that the traditional action film waned when the video game came into maturity. No longer did men have to watch the one killing machines save the day or fight injustice.  They could do it themselves.

Unlike the modern day equivalent, the Borne series for example, where the protagonist is a one man killing machine but is tying to make sense of his own identity and a moral sense in a world without any, the 80's versions are thankless, bloodthirsty and gritty movies where the strongest win.

To say they are all bad is unfair, their simplicity and leanness makes them very watchable. In fact it's their economy that modern Hollywood blockbusters could learn from, with most of them weighing in at under two hours unlike the modern, bloated counterparts that are rarely under two and a half. This is maybe because they didn't need to explain their moral position as these were seemingly simpler times where the enemy was behind a wall, us versus them. Unlike now when the moral landscapes and the enemies that inhabit them has become so much more complicated.

Rambo is actually an anomaly in all of this as Rambo takes on a set of small town cops who abuse their power. It, thematically anyway, sits with that other great 80's movie genre, Vietnam and how America fucked it up, but aside from that it fits all the rules of the 80's action genre.

So go back and watch some of them, I think you'll be suprized by their bleakness and violence, that without plot development seems incredibly graphic but very visural and dare I say it at times entertaining. My dad still loves them, and he can't be totally wrong!

Ed.

Not Neccaseraly Reccomended Viewing:

'First Blood' Vietnam Vet is harrassed brutaly by the Police of a small town. Rambo takes his revenge.

'The Running Man' Arnie is put in a futuristic distopic game show where convicted criminals (he has been framed of course) must survive death to win their liberty. Currently I think this show is looking less unlikely as a concept by each year!

'Robocop'

Another distopia where a multi-national company who run the police build a half-man/half-robot from a dead cop but they fail to wipe out his humanity.

'Predator' Arnie, jungle, alien, fight!

My wife Andrea and I are basically obsessed with The West Wing. We are currently on Season 7 (the final one), for the third time. You should watch it, here's why...

1. Aaron Sorkin. Creator and head writer of TWW made sure that the dialogue is the centre piece of the entire show giving the actors scripts which I'm sure were gifts to perform. As well as being intelligent, witty, and full of pace it's also laugh-out-loud-funny. While Season Five saw the scripts struggle with the loss of Sorkin as writer, the writers soon got their act together and made sure the last two seasons were gems.

2. The Cast. Probably the best ensemble of screen actors who deliver characters who have depth compassion. They both heroic and tragic all at the same time. I could make special mentions but this really is a team effort.

3. Martin Sheen. Oh, all right, but he's the man, the dude. Sheen plays President Jed Bartlett as a man who struggles with the compromise of power, a man in constant dilemma with both his strong moral convictions, his political and physical strength and what is the best thing to do for the American people. JFK meets FDR he constantly swings between a man with all the gravitas of the most powerful man in the world and the vulnerability of a man who is just trying to the right thing.

4. Tommy Schlame. Director of the first four series Schlame is the king of the walking one shot and proves the TV experience can be as exciting and as imaginative as film.

5. It's Clever. And it assumes that the viewer is too, all too rare in television.

6. The Theme tune. Stirring, grand and emotive, just like the show itself.

7. It's A Liberal's Dream. If you're a Conservative this might not be the show for you, if you're Lib Dem, you should watch this and feel ashamed at the party the betrayed you. It's a "what if" world that Sorkin has created. Also, if Obama hasn't watched this series and taken notes I'll eat my own bleeding liberal heart!

8. Big bird and Lovejoy are in it.

9. Toby is always drinking coffee!

10. After seven seasons you still want more. I'd be lying if I said Andrea and I aren't holding out for a return where Sam Seaborn is president. Come on Sorkin you know you want too.

11. You never have to watch shit TV. With approximately 7,560 minutes of  TWW to watch you never have to watch Gok Wang ever again. And when you finish? Give yourself a week off and start again.

12. Great Female Characters. No simpering victims, heartless Femme Fatales , alright there is a tart with a heart, but I don't know a woman who has watched TWW who doesn't want to be CJ.

13. It makes you like the USA. We think we are clever because we are old and cynical but TWW makes you admire the hope in which the USA obviously still place in the Presidency and politics.

14. It's quotable. Lets face it we all love being able to quote stuff, it makes us look clever. "When the President stands in this building, nobody sits", "We'll read them, we're readers".

15. Josh & Donna.

I really could go on and on and on, but if you haven't watched it DO IT! You're life will be better. I'm going now as the  TWW is on and I'm really not lying.

No this is not a blog disputing the importance or the creative fruits of Radiohead, that is for others to decide. No, this is a blog about the effect they have had on teenage boys who play guitar.

I work a lot with this group of floppy haired youths and man, they LOVE Radiohead. "What's the problem?", I hear you cry, "surly better that than Rihanna". Well yes to a point the issue is that they want to be Radiohead and with it all the weight and importance that comes with it. My genuine issue with this is that while I have problems with kids playing the riff from Kamma Police I find it pretty painful when they attempt to write like them.

What I mean is that when there is a fear of humour or lightness, that to put that in music would be seen as artistically less worthy.  But you can't start at OK Computer, as writer you have to get there through a journey.  Radiohead learned the form of songwriting before they broke it, in the same way expressionist painters learned naturalism before distorting it.

This isn't saying that they shouldn't be ambitious, but the ability to write a well crafted three and a half minute pop song is a real skill and one that RH mastered (Creep anyone?). It's OK to be silly, glib, light and even juvenile with songs when your sixteen, sooner that than glum faced, self importance, in a minor key with no sign of a melody in site. I'm not sure that young people thinking that darkness and sadness is more creatively real is the way to go.

So Radiohead, it's not your fault really, but please put out a pop song for god sake, your good at them,  and let these kids off the hook for a little while!

I've spent some of this evening looking over old blogs from my old band Ubernoise.There were three of us in the band me, Si (who I run the studio with) and my wife Andrea.  It was always a bit odd really as I never really wanted to be in a band, just produce, but our album 'Other People's Mouths', was actually pretty good. I'm being falsely modest, I'm bloody proud of it. You can still buy it here not that we'll see any of the cash from it but never mind!

It was 2006 when everything happened with us and while that was only five years ago so much as changed. In the blog I mention the new phenomenon of Youtube, Knarls Barkley getting to number 1 on downloads alone, oh and the blog was on myspace!!!

I wonder what we as a band could have achieved if the tools that are at the desposal of bands now were available to us? Would we have been so reliant on a label with no money, and no influance to get our music to the people? God knows to be honest, but it was funny reading back on how damn hopeful we were.

Our last comment on our wall was two years ago, although apparently we had two plays today. Anyway if you can face going on myspace here is where the memory of Ubernoise still reside, and looking back, they weren't all bad...

http://www.myspace.com/ubernoise