November 25, 2013 by allendmiles

I Know, I Know, I’m Miserable by Paul Featherstone

Sigh. Do you ever feel just totally disconnected from your fellow man? That you are just down-trodden and furrowed of brow, whilst everyone else floats along on a candy-floss cloud of simple pleasures?

I ask because we now have this curious phenomenon of supermarket Christmas adverts being “events.” Is this something that has been brought about by the “buzz” that social media can now bring about or is it simply that sites such as Facebook have simply exposed how utterly ridiculous mankind has become in this century? I will touch on the latter in another article, but a quick glimpse of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et al would suggest that yes indeed, these are now considered something of a modern art form.

My Facebook feed exploded last week as it lavished praise on Sainsbury’s effort and how it had won this years “Battle Of The Christmas Adverts”. Honestly, hand to God, it was as though it was the name in an Oscars envelope. All the while though, I wondered exactly how as general public we had come to this point where people eagerly await the adverts from each firm like teens in line for the next Twilight flick?

Approximately 90% of the Xmas adverts I have seen this year don’t even tell me what products the company is selling and at what price? It’s almost as though I am just expected to blindly walk into the store that I think spunked the most money up a wall to wow me with their advert, in the blind hope that represents how cheap Quality Street tins will be there.

One can only presume that there is the hope that if they don’t feature any actual food on their adverts, then the customer cannot be angry when they find that they have accidentally served Shergar’s head in place of a Turkey in some kind of grim reconstruction of The Godfather that involves little party hats and crackers.

Now, some may call me a cynical…nay….miserable bastard for having such a viewpoint, and of course they are right to an extent. However, look at it the other way. Maybe I’m just disappointed that Christmas has slowly been boiled down to this- a cartoon set to a fucking Keane cover, designed ultimately sell you vastly over priced products that Wonga will probably end up charging you 2876% to afford.

There is still so much good that can be reflected in humanity at Christmas, do we really need advertising executives essentially flogging us huge quantities of food to remind us that being kind to your fellow man is what is really important in this world?

To put it in perspective, I saw more outpouring of emotion about the madness of war and the sacrifice of soldiers who leave their families to serve their country after the end of the Sainsbury’s advert than I did on Remembrance Sunday. Do we actually need a visual representation of a soldier returning home rather than the memory of those who didn’t to remind us of the price of conflict?

All of it, heart-tugging and a Trojan horse to deliver the seed of coming to buy, buy, buy. Don’t fall for it. I have come to expect better of you, dear reader. Slowly but surely the public had become gloriously cynical and was making companies jump through hoops to get their custom as the recession bit.

Now this, as viewers salivate and coo over the kind images of bunnies and kids opening presents the oldest trick in the book has sucked them all back in. I want to believe that it’s all a big celebration of the magic of Christmas but come on, it’s not.

It’s yet more of the romance and beauty of life just being sold and dressed up in a cocktail frock to be prostituted for a quick bit of cash.

As I say, that may make me sound like a Scrooge, but who believes in the magic of Christmas more? Me, who would rather firms just sell me their cheap food at Christmas so that I have more money to buy the gift that puts a huge smile on someone’s face and lets them know I love them or the person who thinks it’s okay to turn selling products into It’s A Wonderful Life?

Bah, Humbug indeed.

Paul Featherstone is 31 years old and lives in Hull. Most people call him “Fev.” He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of football and music and uses the word “c*nt” far too much in everyday conversation. He spends a lot of his time blagging his way into celebrity parties. He is to be commended for once meeting Jo Whiley and refraining from beating her to death with a big stick. You can read more of his vitirolic comments on http://twitter.com/FevTheRevoff

November 22, 2013 by allendmiles

Sleep Paralysis by Danny Gouldson

Have you ever experienced the loss of movement and inability to talk or scream out? Well I’m not talking about being wasted after a skinful down the local boozer, I am in fact describing two of the many symptoms of sleep paralysis.

The first time it happened to me, I absolutely shit myself! I didn’t know what the hell was going on, and I didn’t know if I would live through the night to find out. I remember it feeling like I had only just closed my eyes for a second, but then in an instant I was hit by this extremely loud buzz noise which echoed as it sounded, attacking my nervous system and jump starting me awake. My instant reaction was to jump up and out of bed, but as I tried to sit upright I couldn’t, I was physically rooted to the spot and no matter how hard I focused my mind on wriggling free, I was just left with a feeling of desperation and vulnerability.

I wanted to scream for help at the top of my voice, but I couldn’t, all I could manage was a feeble moan from the back of my throat while the build up of saliva spilled from the edges of my mouth. Little did I know this was only the start of things to come, because the moment I realised I still at least had control over the movement of my eyes, I looked down along my body to my feet, to try and identify what the heavy object was pinning my legs to the bed, and I saw a dark figure sat on top of me. The figure appeared motionless and transparent, and made no noises or indications to what his or her intention was, but my heart sank and began to drown in fear and dread. I could only assume I was going to be killed, for whatever reason this ghost had to want to reveal itself to me could only be for something horrible, otherwise why would it be sat on me? And why had it paralysed me, leaving me with only the function of my eyes in order to make me have to watch what it had in mind.

All I knew is that I had to escape from the dark magic that had me invisibly gagged and bound. I pressed and probed with my mind mentally wrestling to free my body from its trap, harder and harder I focused all of my energy to move, and then like the flick of a switch I sprang into life, so quick that I cranked my neck as I flung myself bolt upright off the bed and onto the floor. But before I got up to race out of the door I took a second as I noticed a feeling of calm softly sweeping through me and leaving me feeling almost invigorated, as if I had just been reborn. And so, as I sat there, in the dark, confused as to what had just happened to me, I took a breath, picked myself up and switched on the light.

Danny Gouldson is a 31 year old man-child, who resides on the dukeries in the City of Culture 2017. He enjoys discovering new hobbies but loses interest very quickly. He isn’t making any predictions for his future or any solid plans until he has experienced his full mid life crisis.

November 20, 2013 by allendmiles

Things That Rip My Knitting by Gill Hoffs

I’m going to try to avoid the usual suspects here of vaguebookers and homophobes, bigots and “I’m no (euphemism for arsehole), but…” spouters. Instead, here are some really quite specific annoyances.
*Please note, I did say ‘try’.*

Spitefully inaccurate headlines of the medical variety

You’ll have seen this kind of headline.
“Woman defies doctors to have miracle baby”
“Man defies doctors to survive terminal cancer”
“Boy defies doctors to walk again”
Headline writers and journalists casting doctors as nasty bastards who’re hoping, no, rooting for their patients to lead miserable lives then die, preferably horribly. It’s bollocks, of course. Doctors like that, the Harold Shipmans of the world, are few and far between. The people whose stories are highlighted in this kind of piece have usually been given advice on the usual course of their illness, the statistics relevant to their situation, and the common events other patients with a similar diagnosis have encountered. Do the women who have these miracle babies, the people who recover from supposedly terminal cancer or at least outlast their initially predicted death-date, or the kids who walk/talk/swim/sing unaided against the odds and their doctors’ reasonable expectations honestly think the healthcare professionals involved in their cases are trying to keep them down? That they’re spitting feathers at the news that their patient has had a baby or any kind of happy event, screwing the paper or primary-coloured-magazine into a ball and shouting obscenities at the poor sod who has had the fucking audacity to defy their order to remain barren or wheelchair-bound or die? Really?
If that’s what anyone thinks of their doctor, my advice would be to do one, pronto.

Double-decker prams

Or, as I think of them, dogbite buggies.
Not that I’ve ever seen a kid get bitten, in one of these awful buggies or anywhere else (thank goodness). But I reckon they’re an accident waiting to happen, one hungry puppy away from a newspaper campaign and tasteless jokes by shock jocks and scumedians.
I can see the attraction for parents and caregivers. A buggy that carries two kids, baby and toddler (or toddler and toddler), but with the width of just one grownup. Easier for public transport, doorways, and ramming your way through crowds, and – another huge annoyance – tipping the buggy onto an escalator so as to risk the kids’ wellbeing instead of waiting for the lift. Easier for parking in Starbucks between tiny tables while parents pretend things are almost the same as before, if not better (mm-hmm).
But the basic design of having one kid stacked above the other with the lower child just skimming over sweetcorn-speckled turds and glowing fag ends, its view of the world restricted by its sibling’s probably fragrant arse, makes me worry about it being at bite-height. Especially if it’s waggling toys or nibbling fistfuls of food.
I fully expect comments from people who have this kind of buggy and have never had a single problem, to which I say Good! I’m glad to hear it! But my loathing of this model remains.

The ‘only a joke’ ‘luv ya realy hun, u no dat, aw now i feel bad, soz’ fb posters

People who say THE most horrific or annoying or passive-aggressive things to people online BUT because they end with ‘xxxxx’ or the more individual ‘xoxoxo’ or my least favourite ‘lol’ (or for emphasis ‘LOL’) seem to think any anger or resentment will be cancelled out. My arse it is. Lol xx

Dolphins

Little-known fact: Jaws was originally going to be about dolphins. It would’ve been called “Snout.”

Dolphins give me the fucking creeps.
This confession may mean I’m forced to check my ovaries in at reception next time I go for any kind of woman-medicine, what with dolphins being some kind of totem animal for all bearers of wombs, but fuck it. They really, seriously, give me the fucking creeps.
Now, I should probably state for the record that I’m an animal lover who minces round ants on pavements and messes about with paper and woodlice in an effort to get the mini-armadillos out my house at night, and I’m in no way advocating the death of dolphins or the banning of them from TVs, films, and tattoo flash. But I do think instead of the assumption that I will love them because a) I have breasts, and B) they are smiley, friendly, shark-crushers with huge IQs and a decent line in acrobatics, people should catch a fucking grip.
These newly designated non-human persons can crush a fucking shark! How is that not creepy? Instead of rock-paper-scissors they play cartilage-bone-FUUUUUU! Don’t get me wrong – if I’m about to be eaten by a shark and a dolphin just happens to ram it with a bony snout then manoeuvre me to shore I’m not going to say “Hell no!” and swim off to a toothsome death. But equally, what is this odd love affair we as a species seem to have with something that smiles yet has no eyebrows and chitters like we’re the joke? Why not narwhals, the unicorns of the sea? (Not that I get the whole unicorn thing, either.) Or cuttlefish? Have you seen a baby cuttlefish? They’re fucking adorable!

I wouldn’t mind one of them for Christmas.

Gill Hoffs lives with her family and Coraline Cat in a horribly messy house in Warrington. Find her on facebook or as @gillhoffs on twitter, email her a dirty joke at gillhoffs@hotmail.co.uk, or leave a clean comment at http://gillhoffs.wordpress.com/ ‘Wild: a collection’, her word-mixture of sea creatures, regret, and murder, is out now from Pure Slush. Get it here.
Gill’s often-sad sometimes-grisly nonfiction book about the Victorian Titanic will be published in January 2014 by Pen & Sword. Feel free to send her chocolate.

November 20, 2013 by allendmiles

Ten Songs by Michael Bell

• 1: John Adams: Shaker Loops (Trembling and Shaking)
I realise that I’ve started a list of ten songs with something that technically isn’t a ‘song’ but as I grow older, the type of music I listen to and the effect it has on me has changed. This is a good example, because the best time I have to listen to music is during the 3-4 hours a night while I’m painting. This piece has a restless, rumbling pace and energy that makes me engage with what I’m doing and get down to business. Over the last 2 years I must have played this every day in my studio and I still haven’t grown tired of it.

• 2: Joy Division: Disorder
Considering Unknown Pleasures is probably my favourite album by anyone, ever! You’d think there would be a good story about how I came to hear it; the truth is it was pure chance. I bought it in an HMV ‘3 CDs for £10’ offer, after choosing 2 albums, I looked for something new and I saw a cover that really caught my eye, just a set of shimmering sound waves in a black void, I looked at the back and there were no track listings, just the band’s name and the album title. So I bought it, got on the bus, arrived home and put it on…….From the first few seconds of hearing this track I was hooked, like never before, by any other band.

• 3: Radiohead: Idioteque
This is a truly menacing piece of 21st century blues; savage, angry and desperate, all at the same time. I had this playing loudly on repeat when I had a moment of realisation whilst painting many years ago; I smeared, scratched and mauled a half-finished canvas into my first real painting ‘Caught’. Ever since then I’ve played this to remind me of that feeling of being excited by something I had created for the first time.

• 4: Andrew Bird: Hole In The Ocean Floor
Andrew Bird is an artist who I’ve only come across in the last couple of years, but he’s quickly become one of my favourite contemporary musicians. His work doesn’t really fall into any straight forward genre; it effortlessly draws from every time and style, with wit and faultless musical attention to detail. This track is my favourite from his last album ‘Break It Yourself’ which is a work of art from beginning to end.

• 5: Patrick Wolf – Wind in the Wires
There’s a strange irony around this particular song for me, as the lyrics talk about the encroaching grip and pace of the modern world and; A) This was that last CD single I ever bought and now that format has completely disappeared!. And B) I bought the single from an independent record shop, a once important part of our high street that now seems as antiquated as a blacksmith’s! Patrick Wolf’s more recent work has been a bit too cheery and bombastic for my taste, but this song typifies his brilliant early work, which mixed elements of classical and English folk with some electronic touches.

• 6: Washington Phillips: Take your burden to the Lord
6 or 7 years ago, I was sat in my car with mate Ian Allen, we were playing music, smoking and talking shite, like we normally did on an evening. I’d put on a mix CD from a music magazine (I can’t remember which one) and this was the last track, as it played we both sat there in a silent awe, taking in this strange, spooky relic from another age. I love it because it embodies a world view that doesn’t exist today, it seems that devotionally inspired art, of any kind, no longer has a place in our time, but hearing this is a brief reminder of the beauty that someone’s belief give to their music.

• 7: Tino Rossi: Catari, Catari
In an attempt to escape living in Hull/East Yorkshire, I briefly moved to York for a year, where I held down a truly demeaning office job and lived in a depressing bedsit. During this rather regrettable chapter in my life, I had two things that kept me sane, the visits from my girlfriend (now my wife) and losing myself in books from the library and music. Listening to Tino Rossi would always transport me, from my dreary surroundings, to world of smoke filled cafes on winding Parisian streets and black and white movies from the 1930’s.

• 8: Nat King Cole: Nature Boy
I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that (for me) Nat King Cole is the greatest male vocalist who has ever lived and Nature Boy is the best thing he ever recorded. For as far back as I can remember, I’ve known and loved everything about this song, the arrangement is like something by Rachmaninoff, perfectly setting the mood for the haunting lyrics about an ageless child who personifies nature and wisdom. This piece of lucid and timeless music is a real oddity, especially when you consider that it was recorded in 1948, by someone whose music is now often thought of as easy listening.

• 9: Nina Simone: I Loves You Porgy
I have to thank my wife Claire for opening up my taste in music to now include ‘musicals’ (although technically, Porgy and Bess which this is taken from is an opera, not a musical, but that’s splitting hairs). When we first started living together, we went to London to see Porgy and Bess at the Savoy Theatre, needless to say we felt very posh and sophisticated, but my strongest memory of the night was of us both welling up with tears when this song was performed.

• 10: Arvo Part – Speigel Im Speigel
I started this list with an instrumental work, so it only seems fitting to end on one. Words genuinely fail me when it comes to Speigel Im Speigel, how a composition can be so utterly simple and yet so moving is beyond me. It seems to me that Arvo Part was put on earth, to make being alive more bearable for those who listen to his works.

Michael Bell is a 30 year old artist, who lives with his wife Claire in Beverley. He exhibits his artwork under the utterly pretentious pseudonym of BAEL. His artistic output mainly consists of paintings that depict angry, naked people. His only claim to fame is that when he worked at GAP in York, Vic Reeves came in and asked him if they sold ‘Boys Pyjamas’? Sadly they didn’t. – His artwork can be found on his website: http://www.bael.co.uk

November 15, 2013 by allendmiles

Al’s Top 30 Albums Of All Time – No. 9

Number 9: Television – Marquee Moon (1976)

American punk was, for the most part, vastly different to British punk. It’s widely acknowledged that the Ramones debut is the first recognised punk record, but ten years earlier, the likes of The Stooges and The MC5 were making music so aggressive that it would make Black Flag look like a bunch of fannies, but that’s merely my opinion (To further extend my opinion, I believe that the first punk record was Bob Dylan Live 1966. Discuss.) The U.S. punk scene was arty and spiky, a reaction against the horrific boredom of records made by slurs on the music industry such as Chicago, The Eagles and Supertramp. A venue in New York became famous, you can buy T-Shirts with its logo on in fucking Top Shop. It was called CBGB’s.

The biggest stars of American punk and new wave would play there, Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Suicide, The Ramones themselves, and of course Television, the most iconic of them all and possibly the most surreptitiously influential band of the era. Everything about them was perfect, from the skinny angular image to the neat, well-chosen name. Marquee Moon could well be the most musically accomplished album ever made that isn’t a jazz or classical album. It is a punk record that doesn’t contain a single strummed chord. It is a record that plays to the head rather than the heart, the astoundingly visceral lyrics (“My eyes are like telescopes,” “I recall lightning struck itself”) matched so potently by the guitar work of two musicians who were at the absolute peak of their craft. Verlaine and Lloyd’s lines weave together like a scientific diagram of DNA, creating a intricate yet rugged tapestry which is often difficult to take in all at once.

The opening track, See No Evil, is a song that The Strokes have made an entire career out of ripping off, a terse, circular guitar riff which blooms magnificently into a solo after the second chorus. It is the only conventional song on the album. Venus de Milo and Friction both feature guitar work that is the sonic equivalent of watching thousands of fireworks cascading to the ground in perfect time, and Torn Curtain is the soundtrack to a film noir that was never written. To say that Marquee Moon plays to the head is true, but there is warmth and humour here as well, mainly found in Guiding Light, with it’s lighters-aloft guitar break and the line “Never the rose, without the prick.” Elevation, for my money the best track on the album, has the most gripping sense of physical movement of any song ever written, and a heart-stopping change of time signature over the refrain. And one of the best, if not the best, guitar solo of all time. And then there’s the title track. Oh, good lord, the title track.

Your average punk single lasted about two and a half minutes. Admittedly, Marque Moon the song was released across two sides of 7″ vinyl, but it was still breaking ground in the most obscene way. This is a song based on a jazz scale invented in 1958 by Miles Davis, it is ten minutes and forty-two seconds long, it is sung by a man, whose voice, by any conventional measure, is terrible. It has no business being released as a single. It is a masterpiece, and an essential listen to anyone who has an interest in post-war music.

The NME made their 10/10 review of Marquee Moon the front page headline, the only time that has ever happened. The band themselves succumbed to the pressure of being The Best Thing In The History Of The World, and their second album, Adventure, got absolutely slated in the music press, simply for not being as good as their first one. So after playing in front of rabid punk crowds for a couple of years, they ended up supporting Peter Gabriel in sit-down venues to endless booing. A band that featured a really bad singer whose vocals perfectly suited the music, a group of musicians with an almost telepathic understanding, and one of the greatest ever debuts followed by a record that couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. Hmmmm… Mart… have we got one of those?

Best Tracks: Venus de Milo, Marquee Moon, Elevation

Best Moment: 2:43 into Guiding Light. For the most-part, this is a pretty cold album, but this bit is lovely.

Like this? Try: Horses by Patti Smith, 1976

Allen Miles is 33 years old and lives in Hull. He is married and has a 3 year-old daughter who thinks she’s Elsa from Disney’s Frozen. He is a staunch supporter of Sheffield Wednesday FC and drinks far too much wine. He spends most of his spare time watching old football videos on youtube and watching 1940s film noir. He is the author of This Is How You Disappear, which is widely recognized to be the best book ever written. It is available here. http://tinyurl.com/disappear2014

November 4, 2013 by allendmiles

Ten Songs by Andrew Ware

Allow me to dispel a myth, when you hear people make statements like; ‘I heard Nirvana’s Nevermind when I was fourteen and it changed my life, man’ they are lying. Bold statements such as this are merely rhetoric, and I would wager that these moments of inspiration or epiphanies never genuinely take place. Something far more organic happens. We are born and at year dot we are exposed to music; be it on the radio, television or our parent’s record collections, and it bleeds into our psyche. At some stage very early in our lives we make the sub conscious decision that these strange and wonderful sounds are in some way important to us. So here are, in no particular order, ten songs that bled into my psyche and they are of extreme importance to me.

10. Steely Dan: Rikki Don’t Lose that Number
Pretzel Logic 1974
This was a favourite of my mother’s and was always on the record player on Sunday mornings. I didn’t realise how huge Pretzel Logic had been until I was much older and it’s easy to see why as this track is certainly accessible. Although Steely Dan probably fall into the genre AOR (Adult Orientated Rock) with the likes of Supertramp, The Blue Oyster Cult and Cheap Trick. Pretzel Logic, Countdown to Ecstasy and Aja have become favourites of mine. Driven by a sublimely smooth 4/4 bass line this track is perfect for when you’re tired of being confronted by your record collection.

9. Neil Young: A Man Needs a Maid
Harvest 1972
Neil Young is one of the few artists that have had a continued significance throughout my entire life. This track is the best song I’ve heard about male fragility. It begins with a rain drop piano intro and builds into a string driven masterpiece.

8. Van Morrison: Beside You
Astral Weeks 1968
People often compare song lyrics to poetry and of course this is nonsense. Lyrics are not poetry. They may at times be poetical but even the greats by such as Dylan and Morrissey are riddled with cheesy couplets and cannot be described as poetry. However, the lyrics on this truly sublime track are the perhaps the nearest song lyrics have ever been to poetry.

7. Field Music: You and I
Measure 2010
Field music are probably my favourite (relatively) contemporary act. This track is one of many I could have chosen from this record. For those aren’t familiar Field Music are like Maximo Park for adults.

6. Pulp: Your Sister’s Clothes
The Sisters EP 1993
My favourite Pulp song and a fine example of their fantastic brand of Sheffield disco pop. Pulp were a much weaker outfit after Russell Senior departed in 1996. The evidence for this is on this track as his beautifully sloppy violin accompanies a spine tingling chorus. The Sisters EP has long since been deleted but you can get this track if you buy the deluxe version of His ‘N Hers

5. Band of Horses: No One’s Gonna Love You (More than I do)
Cease To Begin 2008
This is a beautiful song. One of the more contemporary of my Ten Songs it has been catapulted into great personal importance as it was the track that my wife and I chose for our first dance when we were married in September. It was a perfect day and this is a perfect song.

4. The Dears: Ticket to Immortality
Gang of Losers 2007
Emerging around the same time as Arcade Fire, The Dears were perhaps my favourite band of this period. This is a plucky and melodic song and Murray Lightburn’s velvety vocal is, well velvety.

3. John Cale: Dying on the Vine
Artificial Intelligence 1985
This is a truly haunting song but hauntingly beautiful. John Cale speaks of being in Acapulco and trading clothing for wine and thinking about his mother. John Cale is an artist I know very little about other than that he was in The Velvet Underground and I happened upon this track by accident some years ago. When my bio pic is eventually made this track will certainly feature somewhere on the soundtrack.

2. Roy Harper: I Hate The White Man
Live at Les Cousins 1970
Harper’s Live at Les Cousins is the best live album of all time. Recorded at the intimate London venue Harper insisted that the gig was recorded in its entirety which is to the listener’s benefits as all Harper’s between song ramblings are included. Turn down the lights and it’s just like you’re there too drinking real ale in the thick clouds of blue smoke. I Hate the White Man is the stand out track from the performance and if you prefer studio recordings it’s also available on Harper’s 1970 album Flat Baroque and Berserk.

1. The Blue Nile: Let’s Go Out Tonight
Hats 1989
Hats is one of the many records I have to thank Allen Miles for recommending to me. This track is one of those songs that takes you back to a time and place in your life. For me this one is falling asleep against the window of a bus whilst travelling home from 12 hour shift on a Saturday evening in the winter of 2007. I would play this track on my ipod as I drove through the dark city streets debating with myself whether or not I should go out that night. This song oozes atmosphere and Paul Buchanan is quite possibly my all time favourite male vocalist.

Andrew Ware is 32 years-old and has a small dog called Oliver. He is a paid-up member of the Labour Party and used to play bass in semi-legendary Hull band Sal Paradise. In his spare time he makes his own wine and watches rugby league. He once claimed his favourite album was Electric Warrior by T.Rex, which was a complete lie. He holds a degree in Philosophy, but you’d already guessed that. You can find him at http://www.twitter.com/XavierDwyer1

November 3, 2013 by allendmiles

J’Accuse: Oasis by Andrew Ware

In 1992 something profound happened to me. I held a conversation with a school friend and we shall call the boy in questions Matthew, because that was his name. Matthew was telling me all about his hopes and dreams for the future. It went something like this; Matthew would leave school and gain a qualification in painting and decorating after which he would gain a job as a painter and decorator. Once established Matthew was to seek to buy his own home, settle down with a nice girl and have a couple of children. In Matthew’s words he would then be ‘set for life’. Listening to Matthew depressed me in a way that I never really got over from. As a 12 year old I harboured ambitions of forming a band and endeavouring towards global domination and therefore the 9 to 5 existence was of no interest to me. But, I think what depressed me the most about this conversation was that it was the first time that I really understood what it was to be working class. Matthew was typical of so many of our peers in that his parameters of possibility were distinctly narrow. The significance of that conversation in my own understanding of my own demographic was huge.

The realisation of ‘your place’ can be incredibly suffocating and overwhelming for adolescents. As the veil of social ignorance is lifted, usually at around 13, and you find that you are somewhere undesirable and for the first time you feel the bind of your own social standing. It is usually around this time that we reach out for our icons and for personify our own stifled identity or amplify our lost whimpering insignificant voices. And in 1994 I too had stumbled upon the age at which I was reaching out for social and cultural representation. Drowning in a sea of grey concrete in one of Hull’s most socially, culturally and materially deprived areas I was desperately seeking a spokesperson to voice my frustration and bewilderment. Like so many my age I was leafing through the pages of the then still credible NME and flicking through my parent’s tatty old vinyl records looking for someone to cling to.

It was a year or after my conversation with Mathew that I came across a little known Manchester band called Oasis performing the song ‘Shakermaker’ on a BBC 2 magazine show. They caught my attention with their raw sound and the song, which I had originally thought was a cover version, was certainly melodic. Although I had enjoyed the performance I knew that this band would not have a profound effect on me. It would later transpire that I was in a minority of 13 year olds who had caught that or subsequent Oasis televised performances because very soon Oasis were the talk of the playground. It seems my peers had their idols, their voice and those young, testosterone fuelled boys (yes, it was an all boys school) would cling to their cultural life raft for the next two decades.

Oasis were the archetypal working class ‘heroes’. Complete with a rugged arrogance and swagger they seemed to play out the factory line ‘What would I do if I won the Lottery?’ fantasies of working classes across the country. My peers adored them but by the time they had released their second album ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory’ in Autumn 1995 the act was beginning to wear thin for yours truly. You see, even then I had realised that behind the swagger there was very little substance. The band that so many had reached out for taken to their hearts had in fact misrepresented their people. My accusation then, is that Oasis let down a generation by promising so much but delivering so little. With their exploits and outbursts and general tomfoolery all they achieved was to sell the world a wildly in accurate caricature of the British, Northern Working classes. They created a label that was hugely derogatory for my demographic and to my absolute horror my peers seem to thrive on it.

The tragedy of the situation is that Oasis emerged from a time of change in the United Kingdom. The country was still dusting itself off from Thatcherism and a bright new dawn was on the horizon, a new dawn that would bring a decent minimum wage and relative peace in Northern Ireland. A working class band like Oasis had the opportunity to dovetail this and inspire that the down trodden youth. Oasis failed to do this. What they did in fact was reinforce middle England’s view of the working class youth as flippant, loutish inarticulate oiks.

I have many friends who are still avid fans of Oasis and my put my accusation to them they respond with something like; ‘Yeah man, but they’ve got tunes’. My view is often rejected but never refuted. And so it continues as despite their split it brings great pain to report that at present the biggest fan Oasis I know is my 17 year old brother.

If I was to sum the two decades that Oasis reigned I would say that it was like being at a party where someone that you utterly despise turns up and you have to endure all of your friends singing their praises. Eventually your jaw goes numb as you reluctantly grin through all of their boring anecdotes, for twenty years.

November 1, 2013 by allendmiles

Al’s Top 30 Albums Of All Time – No. 10

Number 10: Suede – Dog Man Star (1994)

Britpop is looked back on with a great deal of distain these days, and in on some levels that stance is fully justified. Atrocities like Shed Seven, Northern Uproar and Menswear are genuine contenders for the title of Worst Band Of All Time, appalling acts that blatantly rode in the slipstream of Oasis’s success and had absolutely no interest in making original music. So in many ways it is ironic that the two bands who are credited with starting the movement would be the ones who moved furthest away from it.

Blur, after gaining front page headlines for their singles duel with the Gallagher brothers, and the nauseating video for Country House, would stop pretending they went to greyhound races and ate jellied eels, as it was clearly a lie. Instead they bought a load of Pavement records and made the self-titled Blur album to no sales but huge critical acclaim. Meanwhile, in the midst of the afore-mentioned Britpop wars, in a gothic town house in the Highgate area of London, Suede front man Brett Anderson listened to some Syd Barrett and Kate Bush, consumed a mountain of acid and fell out with his guitarist. The result was the weirdest album ever made by a mainstream British band.

Suede’s first run of singles was practically flawless, and the B-Sides (remember those?) were, for the most part, as good as if not better than the A-Sides. It was on the flip of the So Young 45 that the first hints of Anderson and Butler’s wild ambition would be heard, on a song called High Rising. Starting off as a sparse ballad featuring the standard Suede themes of being strung out in a tower block yearning for a disreputable woman, about two thirds of the way through it explodes into an enormous swirling cavalcade of swooping guitars and enormous, multi-layered operatic backing vocals. It is one of the most ludicrous songs ever written, but Suede, like their primary influences David Bowie, Kate Bush and The Smiths, were always at their best when at their most over the top.

The first lyric on this album is as follows: “Dog Man Star took a suck on a pill, and stabbed a cerebellum with a curious quill.” So from the first line we’ve already gathered that appalling amounts of narcotics are involved here. Introducing The Band is actually a perfect pace-setter for this album; dark, warped and subversive, with a great segue into the lead-off single We Are The Pigs. This track is glam-Suede at their absolute peak. Stomping, arse-swinging and fierce; snarling guitar parts and squalling brass sections. Heroine continues the thread with its deliberate “Is he singing about girls or drugs” sleaziness, and The Wild Ones, nearly twenty years later arguably still Suede’s greatest song, has the kind of hopeless romanticism that you’d associate with Renaissance-era poetry rather than a pop song. It also features some of the best singing by anyone, ever.

Daddy’s Speeding collapses under its own weight and The Power features some wonderful spiralling lines from Butler whilst New Generation would provide the most accessible moment on the record. It is, however, the closing four-song suite that makes this album so far beyond any over music recorded in its era. The 2 Of Us is one of the stillest songs ever recorded, a snowy, echo-laden torch song that is completely without any sort of swing or groove, a massive departure for an indie band. Brett’s singing on this song is phenomenal, soaring and yearning, reminiscent of Scott Walker’s early Phillips albums, which he claimed he had never heard (that is surely a lie.) Black Or Blue is the druggiest song on the album, and one which has no place on a pop record, instead sounding like it should be part of a particularly creepy West End musical, Anderson’s disgusted shriek of “She understood the law” hilariously camp.

The penultimate track was reportedly what prompted Butler to leave the band. A nine-minute epic, The Asphalt World had apparently been edited down from anything from seventeen to twenty-five minutes, depending on which account you hear, an act which prompted Butler to record the remainder of his parts in isolation from the rest of the band. Allegedly the tapes which he sent in also contained whispered threats and insults, but as we already know, there were narcotics involved. The song itself is probably Butler’s finest recorded moment, his needling and pulsing guitar providing a claustrophobic canvas for Brett’s howled vocal about giving drugs to women and “time-honoured fur.” No, I don’t know either.

Still Life closes the set, basically because nothing else could possibly follow it. It starts off with an acoustic guitar and a discreet string section which gradually builds and builds until, at the two and a half minute mark, the song explodes and all at once we’re hit by an amazing operatic vocal and an orchestra the size of Wales. It is at this point that you realise they have left Britpop light years behind, and we are now in the realms of classical music.

Dog Man Star is the great unheralded musical leap of faith of its era. It is certainly a bigger artistic transition than Blur was after The Great Escape, and arguably even more so than Kid A was after OK Computer, and its tantalizing to imagine what Brett and Bernard could have go onto if they had stayed together. At the same time though, maybe its best that they finished it here. Dog Man Star walks a tightrope between genius and pretentiousness, and talk of twenty-five minutes demos with forty guitar parts would suggest that they very nearly fell off. It is no co-incidence that Suede’s next album, released after a two year break, would be a collection of brisk, bright, three minute pop songs, as if realising that this era was most definitely over, but it produced an intoxicating document of what can happen when two little drama queens take a mountain of hallucinogenics and have Brian Gascoigne on speed dial. It’s a hell of a record.

Best Tracks: The Wild Ones, The 2 Of Us, Still Life

Best Moment: The majestic coda which closes Still Life, and the album.

Like this? Try: Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush, 1985

October 7, 2013 by allendmiles

18 Stone Weightloss by Mike Waudby

33 stone…..how the hell did that happen? Well, with severe depression, slow metabolism and your best friend is 3000 calories a day worth of alcohol, pretty easy.

I was a ‘geek’ at school, got bullied both at home and in the classroom which really does have a long lasting negative effect in anything you wish to achieve. But this is not an x-factor audition so I won’t start whinging how bad things was and certainly will not call my weight loss a fucking journey!

My alcoholic sister was regularly beating my mum up, blaring music in her room till 4am (she still does, she is 42 by the way) and generally being an all-round horrible cow. I reached 18 and I could and should have moved out of my parent’s home by now but all I had was a shitty car valetting job and my best grade at school was a D, this plus massive confidence issues I decided to turn to booze. Booze at the time made everything better, my heart didn’t beat as fast when my sister kicked off, I found shit T.V slightly more interesting and being sat on your own wasn’t that bad.

I always wanted to become a wrestler, and despite drinking I was hitting the gym, by the age of 20 I was benching 300 pounds for 10 reps…. and had 20 inch guns (ok, of a lot of that was fat) unfortunately though I took some pretty bad nutrition advice so despite the huge strength gains, I also got huge weight gains. By the age of 21, I was 22 stone, I still went out and socialised and got stupidly drunk, drinking a bottle of whisky before I even went out. I was with Andy “Beast” Hawkins in Sharkey’s when a girl came up to me and said “Excuse me, do you mind leaving?” “Why?” I asked. “Because you’re making me and my friends feel sick.” Wow…….fucking wow, you just destroyed me while the whole pub heard, stared and laughed. That was the last time I went out in public, apart from going to doctor’s for 7 years.

My life now started with alcohol, I needed it, locked in my bedroom away from the chaos. It made……well, made me just less bored. Andy would visit now and then and we would drink and talk shit but other than that, it was just me for 7 years (oh, and whisky, beer and whatever was cheap) I would order my drink online and have it delivered. My God my maths was good, I could calculate in my head quantity, amount of units and compare all the prices within seconds. I got the most for the money!

Apart from watching TV for 7 years, there was the internet….in particular my female friends. I would talk to girls for hours on MSN or MySpace; one is even a page 3 girl now. In all there were 7, I kept them interested with my personality, unfortunately they had no idea I was 33 stone. I know this wasn’t fair on them but I was drunk and lonely. And it’s not like we were in love, we just had a giggle and talked for hours. Obviously they eventually wanted pictures and when I didn’t deliver, I don’t blame them for disappearing.

The eyes of a man who’d given up.

One night while listening to GNR with my headphones I thought what life is this? I had terrible pains where I put my body as so much weight was on it, even resting my arm on the armrest would result in shooting pains in my fingers, I was too scared to go to a gym as people pointed and laughed at me in the street so I thought fuck it, drunk 2 bottles of whisky (Jackobite….blah) 8 cans of Stella and as many paracetamol and valium tablets I could find. I lost consciousness listening to my fav band GNR. I remember waking up, no headache, no pains just a sickening feeling that I was still here and not dead.

I spent most nights after this continuing to get drunk and crying myself to sleep. I could go a lot deeper into my thoughts at the time but I’ll stop here and tell you what I did to save my life. One night, God knows what you call it but reality set in, I’ve wasted everything and lost everything, the only person that can do something is me. I ordered a cross-trainer off the internet, set it up in my room and gave it a test. Wasn’t bad, seemed to handle my weight. That night I didn’t drink. First time in about 9 years and fuck me it was hard! I woke up about 7 times that night like something was stabbing me in the chest and I couldn’t breathe. Weird shit but morning came and I got through day 1. Cross trainer time! Jumped on and worked a sweat up fast, wow I thought I’m doing ace, getting really out of breath though, and thought “best stop.” Reckoned I was on there for a good 10 mins…… looked down it was 2 min 22 secs. Oh.

Something clicked though, I think the thought of me being locked away and couldn’t escape to do something about my weight…..well, that’s not an issue now, I can do something and I fucking damn well did. I built up to three 1-hour sessions a day and didn’t touch a drop of booze! It took about 6 weeks for the stabbing pains/seeing black things move in the corner of my eye to stop but I was away, I was doing something about it. Saying that, it was mentally the hardest thing I’ve endured; why did I let other people affect me to the point that I ended up this bad? Why didn’t I punch that bully in the face? Many more things…. Every session on the cross strainer ended up with me taking my 4XL dripping wet t-shirt off and just looking down at my belly crying. But each time I picked myself up and carried on. My father who I fell out with years ago so admired and was proud of what I was doing he started talking with me again, and thank god he did because without his support I could have cracked up……even more! I smashed that cross-trainer’s bearings about 8 times with my weight and power, luckily my dad was an engineer and fixed it instantly as he knew how important it was.

It took 18 months for me to lose 18 stone, the demons in my head along the way were still there and now I had a major problem. Loose skin. I looked disgusting, everything I did I felt was a waste, doctor wouldn’t help me, I felt just as disgusting as I did when I was 33 stone. I started to leave the home again, fucking terrified but got back to my old gym and even found a local pub (Diet Coke.) I needed to do something, and I ended up paying for skin on my stomach and upper arms to be removed. Recovery was tough living with a mentalist; I couldn’t straighten up for 4 weeks so when I hobbled anywhere my sister used to try and scare me by charging at me. If I did jump up, I would have literally ripped my stomach back open. Anyway, I still wasn’t happy and my father agreed to help me (as I worked for him doing odd jobs) to pay for the 6 hour long op, where I was awake while Dr Fucktard rammed rods inside me and burnt my skin from the inside in an attempt to tighten it. What made it worse was I had no body fat left, which made it harder for him to ram his bloody rods through me. Longest op he ever performed, that. He got concerned saying he should stop but I looked him cold in the eye and told him I don’t give a fuck about the pain (believe me, it was torture) get on with it. Worst of all, during the op was his assistant, a pretty little blonde girl pinning me down while I was wearing nothing but see-through paper fucking pants. What had an effect on me though was this was the first girl to see me naked in 10 years, and I overheard her say to the receptionist after the operation “He’s real hot.” Me??? ME???????? Maybe I’m not that disgusting after all then.

Eight weeks later, the operation had been a fail, did naff all and coward here wanted the easy way out again, and did the same thing again only this time I woke up in hospital. Without speaking to anyone I grabbed my jacket and headed to my local (I had a crush on the barmaid) I sat in there and realised I couldn’t keep giving up, I’m stronger than this, so I went home I started researching how to train properly. I hit the gym hard! In fact I crawled out of that place and if I didn’t then I needed to train harder. My diet was terrible, still clean and nothing unhealthy just consuming 450grams of protein a day which I suppose is why I put the muscle on as I now know half of that protein was used as fuel (I don’t recommend this) as well as repairing my muscle as I didn’t eat carbs.
So, I’m a guy with a shitty job, obsessed with training and scared to take his top off. Not that appealing to women but my god I wanted one, 10 years alone took its toll! People would tell me oh, I bet you wanna go out and shag a load of birds eh?

In fact they couldn’t have been more wrong. I spent 10 years alone; I wasn’t after a shag, I was after a friend, someone to share good times with, and someone that would love me for me. I had hot girls paying attention but it just didn’t turn me on, I needed to know them, connect, and feel something and most of all trust them….certainly not these girls. Yeah I put pics on facebook posing but I was covering up all my bad bits, I needed to know if that girl would either think “That’s nowt, no one’s perfect” or “Ewww that’s disgusting.” If it was ewww then I would be back to square one again. So seeing as I had no confidence and I’d lost most of my friends, I didn’t go out round town, I thought why not try a dating site. GOT A DATE!!! She was a very attractive, tattooed girl with same taste in music as me. Told her all about me, she didn’t seem to care and was eager to meet. So off I went to meet her in Dram shop. I was actually shitting myself, I was sweating like a pig but she saw me and she liked it, in fact she was a bit full-on! I didn’t know how to respond. Anyways, we went on a few more dates, ended up at hers to sleep over. Yes I kept my boxers on and my t-shirt!! Ha ha, no hanky-panky but when I woke she had a feel! You just know! So, next night she actually begged me for sex, now remember this is the guy who got told to go home because I was so fat and ugly….. now being begged for sex…… awesome!!! I turned her down, didn’t feel right. Pissed her off, dumped me the next day!

I had a couple more dates, really nice girls but didn’t lead to anything then this one came along, arranged our first date at her home, no makeup and in her PJ’s (fanks for making the effort) but as I got to know her better this was just her attitude, take me as I am or fuck off. Fair enough! Morgan, her name was (now my girlfriend of 15 months.) She nicknamed me to her friends as Mr Muscles, which I liked but thought dude, you haven’t seen my loose skin. One evening she mentioned she wasn’t keen on hard muscular blokes…….honey, you’re touching the wrong places!! Anyway, six weeks in and a horse she was riding slipped with her on it and it smashed her ankle to pieces. I practically moved in to look after her. This was a massive sudden jump for me but you know what, to this day she does not even notice my loose skin and tells me my body is perfect as it is. This means more than anything to me, which is why I put up with the bossy cow (haha only playing.) We have our ups and downs but who doesn’t?

Right, I have a woman in my life, next step a proper career. Seeing as I’m gym-mad and had lost 18 stone it made sense to become a personal trainer. So that’s what I did. It’s more than that though, I want to help people with the mental and emotional sides of losing weight, I have the experience why not use it to help others instead of them having gastric bands? (Don’t even get me started on that.)

Mr Muscles… hiding the worst bits.

I’m still body conscious, I’m 6’1 232 pounds and around 15% bodyfat….I should look like a front cover model of men’s fitness magazine but I don’t due to my skin. Yeah, It really pisses me off because I train my ass off for it but then I remember there’s more to life! But one thing I will never stop doing: trying to correct what I put wrong. Yeah I was weak and did cowardly things but now I’m strong, seriously strong and nothing can stop me. I will fight for what I want to achieve in life till the end. And my confidence has increased too, I can walk into any rough pub and say that better be diet coke you put in that drink despite yobbish looking chavs looking at me like I’m some wuss. In fact one guy once said “You puff, can’t you drink?” Actually yes, I still enjoy a drink and I can still seriously drink, a lot more than you, you Jeremy Kyle watching….. I won’t mention what else I said but I am now barred from that pub.

Reality is, I do have to watch what I eat/drink but I don’t mind, I have awesome people around me, the guys at workout gym have supported me throughout; my girlfriend; I get loads of support and advice at Beverly Leisure Centre where Morgan had her physio. I have a lot to learn in life still, also in my job. But one thing I do have that other PT’s don’t, and that’s experience in weight loss, something you can’t learn out of a text book!

Sorry I haven’t been as witty and funny as the others that post on here (I do enjoy reading them) but this has been more of a mini life story about something pretty shit. I would like to finish by saying, try not to judge every overweight person as someone who is just weak and greedy. Yeah, you see a couple of big chavvy women gobbing it loudly, they clearly don’t have confidence issues and probably are just plain greedy and lazy but there are those who are shy, nervous and you probably have no idea how scared and uncomfortable they are with their appearance but there is something making them do what they do, and if that something went away, they probably wouldn’t look like that. That’s where I would like to think I can come in and make a change using my own experience. Getting a diet and simple training plan is straightforward, having someone to guide you through the emotional stress and to genuinely feel your struggle, that’s where I can hold their hand through the worst and eventually, kick some fucking arse in the gym!

Mike Waudby is 31 years old and lives in Hull. He is a huge rock fan and his favourite band are Guns N Roses. When he was a wee whipper-snapper he had a Vauxhall Nova with a number plate that ended CNT. His pet hatred is people who don’t put the weights away at the gym and he’s one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. You can find him on facebook here.

September 20, 2013 by allendmiles

Al’s Top 30 Albums Of All Time – No. 11

11. Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

So, I’ve just done Closer, and here is the second album in the Holy Trinity of albums to flagellate yourself to.

I get really pissed off when brainless Nirvana-acolytes say “Oooh, Kurt was too fragile to be famous, too sensitive. He didn’t want to sell out. He had to remain true to his art.” What utter bollocks. Your man here was a phenomenally gifted songwriter who knew exactly how to write something that would sell. The system did not manipulate him, he manipulated the system. In Utero is the sound of a grown man who had the world at his mercy deliberately throwing a colossal tantrum.

Nevermind was slick, arguably the slickest record ever made. Cobain was grounded in a lot of US hardcore racket such as Black Flag and the Meat Puppets, but he was also a fan of The Beatles and lots of tuneful 70s rock such as Cheap Trick and Boston. He knew how to write a melody. The edges of his natural spikiness were sandpapered off by Butch Vig and the result was an album of pop songs that incorporated the sound of buildings being demolished; the sound that made them the biggest cross-over band of all time. But no, he didn’t like that.

So what did he do? He started omitting Teen Spirit from live shows, and gave the follow-up album the working title I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. Then he hired Steve Albini to produce it, a man who’d been in bands called Rapeman and Big Black, the latter of which made a practically unlistenable album called Songs About Fucking.

Daft old Lou Reed aside, its difficult to recall another record that shows as much distain for its target audience as this one. Scentless Apprentice, for this writer the best song on the album, is such an incredible act of reaching into oneself, its very uncomfortable to listen to. If you read the lyric sheet, the words to the refrain are “Go away, get away, get away.” In actual fact they are recorded as “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG’WAAAAAAAYYYYYYEEEEEEEE!! GAWAAAAAAAYYYEEEEE!!! GAWAAAAAAAAAAYYY!” It is a track that has one of the best bombastic drumming performances in history, one that makes you realise that Dave Grohl is completely wasted in the Foo Fighters; the same with Milk It, Very Ape and the sarcastically-titled Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. The guitars sound like they have rust on the strings and Cobain’s vocals are sounding like he’ll be spitting blood when the songs finish. And Tourette’s, well…. its silly really, isn’t it?

His gift for melody shines through on All Apologies, Dumb and Heart-Shaped Box, but its no co-incidence that only three of the songs on this album were played on the seminal MTV Unplugged album; very few of these songs would work acoustically, they are all about the screaming, the racket, the catharsis and the sheer bloody-mindedness of a man who was in such conflict about what he had achieved that he would eventually blow his own head off. They were great. Someone should’ve told him.

Best Tracks: Scentless Apprentice, Heart-Shaped Box, Pennyroyal Tea

Best Moment: The disturbing line from Heart-Shaped Box: I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black. Best appreciated while watching the astonishing video.

Like this? Try: The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, 1994

Sitting On The Swings

Anger, Misery, Satire, Opinion, Iconoclasm, Sex and Football.