Another Url, Another Planet

'Whatever happened to The Gaddafi Brothers?' asked my brother. 'If only they'd kept at it,' he said, 'they might have made a name for themselves.' I checked with Ronnie: 'They played one gig at Caistor Youth Club and split up.' This is a picture of a typical audience member:

Suitably inspired, Ronnie went on to play bass in GAS-S! 'We played three gigs, made an unnerving, feedback-drenched, god awful sound and bowed out, unknown.'

In later years, Ronnie and me would play in a number of equally forlorn bands together. But The Gaddafi Brothers and their honorary father's demise reminded me of my own earlier claim to fame.

Back in 1985, instead of studying hard for my A-Levels so that I could go to university, I was watching Stardust and dreaming of becoming a rock star with my mates. We played one gig outside our small home town, supporting Ghost Dance at Cleethorpes' Submarine, opposite the pier, and left for London shortly afterwards in a Toyota Hiace converted to hold our guitars and amps as well as sleep the three of us. We arrived in Poplar in the East End and met up with Dunc, who we knew from school, and who was now an anarchist. Dunc had told us on a previous recce that he could get us fixed up with a squat to live in.

I remember one gig we played at a pub nearby (The Buccaneer?) where the audience totalled the barman and a couple of people playing pool in the room next door. I also have a memory of spending the day recording our demo tape in a studio only to come home and find all our stuff in black bin bags outside as we'd been evicted. Still, we got a much nicer place by the canal instead.

By far our biggest gig, however, was at the Libyan People's Bureau, which a bunch of anarcho-punks had occupied as it was empty following the shooting of Yvonne Fletcher. I don't remember much about it, other than feeling quite terrified after soundchecking with our cover of The Jesus And Mary Chain's The Hardest Walk and one of the friendly new inhabitants warned us 'If you play that song tonight, we're gonna kill you!' And the stage was built out of Green Books. Listening to the thrash punk the DJ was playing, we decided to play everything quite a bit louder and faster and make a run for it as soon as we finished our set.

We escaped with our lives and our guitars, and it can't have been long after that we decided we weren't really cut out to be rock stars after all and headed back up north to the relative safety of home.

The Jesus & Mary Chain - The Hardest Walk from teokalz on Vimeo.

I never thought that this day would ever come
When your words and your touch just struck me numb
Oh and it's plain to see that it's dead
The thing swims in blood and it's cold stoney dead
It's so hard not to feel ashamed
Of the loving living games we play
Each day

And I'm stuck in a shack
Down the back of the sea
Oh and I'm alive and I'm alone
Inside a sick sick dream
Oh is it me?
Is it me that feels so weak?
I cannot deceive but I find it hard to speak

The hardest walk you could ever take
Is the walk you take from A to B to C

I walk
Oh honey I talk
Don't want you to want me
Don't want you to need me
Don't want you to need me
Don't want you to need me

And I walk

A long time ago, back in January 2010 in fact, Dan Lynch's band 20lb Sounds released their song Jimmy Carter (20lb Sounds) / CC BY-SA 3.0:

This is our first original release. It's called Jimmy Carter and as you might expect it's about... well... Jimmy Carter, the former US president. We didn't set out to write a song about him particularly, it's just that someone came out with the line "Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer", and it had to be put into song. After a quick trawl of his Wikipedia page we were turning up all sorts of gems. Such as Jimmy Carter is the cousin of Motown Records suprimo Berry Gordy, he's also won a Nobel Peace prize and even a Grammy award. Mad huh?

All those nudgets of trivia found their way into the lyrics. It was originally just the main riff but then other sections were written to make it a bit more interesting as a full song. It's hard to know what to describe this as, it's almost country blues, but somehow not. There's a bit of harmonica thrown in there so watch out for that too. You can't beat the old gob iron.

This is licensed under CC BY-SA because it's our own original work. You can download it, share it with friends, give out CDs and generally help us spread this music as far as possible. We need your help to make this work.

Enjoy!

I have been enjoying it ever since. One thing perturbed me, though: Dan is a Liverpudlian and supports Liverpool Football Club. Surely the song should have been about the one time Liverpool footballer Jimmy Carter and not the former US president?

As the song is released under a Creative Commons licence, I realised I could rewrite the lyrics and do my own version. And here it is, my tribute to Jimmy Carter the ex-footballer, based on his Wikipedia entry:

(There's Only One) Jimmy Carter by dmarsd

(There's Only One) Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter is an ex-footballer
He made his name in south east London
Signed for Millwall from Queen's Park Rangers
He ran down the wings in tight short trousers

There's only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!

Jimmy is a man with honours
He won Division Two with the Lions
But the winning stopped when he signed for the Scousers
King Kenny's dream turned Sourpuss nightmare

So Jimmy signed for his boyhood heroes
But his Arsenal days would soon be numbered
He went out on loan to Oxford United
While the Gunners' team won three cups without him

There's only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!

Then Jimmy moved and played for Pompey
But they were shit and there were no more trophies
Back at the Den for one last shot at glory
Jimmy hurt his back and it was end of story

There's only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!

Whatever happened to Jimmy Carter?
You can still buy his print for less than a tenner
And with the change you can get his football sticker
And sing with me 'There's only one Jimmy Carter!'

There's only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!

Enjoy!

Rather than just sit idly by from the comfort of my western sofa (made in China?) and passively watch world events unfold on my computer screen (made in Taiwan), I decided to do something. I was also rather worried about standing accused of not doing my bit by Jan Wildeboer (seemingly made backwards in Holland like the cheese).

So, with my brain (made in the UK), my authentic fake Harmony Sovereign acoustic guitar (made in Korea), my Samson microphone (made in the USA?) and the lovely free software Audacity I decided last night to re-write Billy Bragg's lyrics to Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards (as Bragg often does himself to reflect current times) and this morning I recorded my version of his classic song, which is a long-time favourite of mine. I've been privately playing and singing my own version of it for several years, so you'd think I'd be better at it by now. But in mitigation, I wasn't allowed to learn to play the violin when I was eight years old because I was told I was tone deaf and when I was fifteen my then headmaster at school refused to allow me to sing The Streets Of London in assembly because I was singing flat. I also have a disability when it comes to remembering song lyrics and I almost always fall to pieces when confronted with a microphone and a the prospect of an audience. My version is also a little slower (and therefore longer) than the original. So you have been warned!

So here's my rendition:

We’re not going on our Winter holidays in the sun, cries crony Blair ‘Cos on the Sixth of October highway leading on to Tahrir Square BJ Clinton’s missus spies a rich friend who's crying Over Luxor's disappointments so she talks over and she's trying To sympathise with him But she thinks that she should warn him That the USA can't stop this revolution

In the Middle Eastern states the citizens demand To know why they're still the target of Strategic Air Command And they shake their fists in anger And respectfully suggest That we fuck off and let them sell their own oil instead

The Iraq War now is over, but the death toll keeps getting higher I'm scared to death of suicide bombers and frightened of friendly fire And I don't believe we can ever win An endless War of Terror While our politicians are arms dealers

From folk protest to popular product*, I wonder what my use is I text a friend, my homeopath and my antipodean masseuses While looking undercover For anyone who might be listening I'm looking for a News of the World reporter

Music sales are hijacked by pirates that have posted Even after closing Wikileaks their website is re-hosted You can be active with the activists or Get bed bugs with the Tweeters I'm waiting for the great leap forwards

One leap forwards, two leaps back Will Facebook get me in the sack? Waiting for the great leap forwards

Well, here comes the future and you can't change it If you've got a blacklist I don't wanna be on it Waiting for the great leap forwards

It's a mighty long way from rock and roll Singing songs in your bedroom while signing on the dole Waiting for the great leap forwards

If no one out there understands Just walk like an Egyptian and fill out the claim forms Waiting for the great leap forwards

In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune But this is virtual reality, we just use auto-tune Waiting for the great leap forwards

So join the struggle while you may The revolution is just a podcast away Waiting for the great leap forwards

*Line ripped from the title of my old mate and bass master Aaron's dissertation on popular music, culture and ideology 'From Protest To Product'.

Special thanks must go to Tone Deaf Music without whose brilliant customer service in replacing my broken bridge pins none of this would have been possible. They also do a fabulous range of Spongebob Squarepants guitars, so when the revolution is over and you've finished watching The Story Of Stuff to find out where all your stuff comes from and goes (and at what cost), you can go out an treat yourself.

P.S.

In the name of Freedom, here is the song in Ogg format: Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards (alternative version)

Recently, I've been spending time going through dusty boxes and transferring to my hard drive demo and rehearsal tapes of my old bands. Such was the lack of acclaim and clamour for more - strangely reminiscent of the actual times themselves - I decided now would be as good a time as any to upload my own version of one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs, recorded live and mixed today. That's what Sundays are for, right?

I didn't always like Bob Dylan. In fact, I hated Dylan for years, mostly because my Dad liked him, that and his terrible, whiny voice and repetitive, boring chords. So naturally enough, the first Dylan song I ever got into was Masters Of War - a finer example of dear old Bob's whiny repetition it's hard to find! But the words - and later I began to learn to appreciate the voice and the music, too - are filled with such meaningful venom, as appropriate then as they are now:

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

It was probably not until 1999 that I first heard Shelter From The Storm and the "Blood On The Tracks" album. That's the time I remember trying to figure out how to play it. I heard it on FlashForward the other night and with the weather we've been having lately it reminded me of a storm I encountered in August. It's a while since I played it - or played anything for that matter - and my finger tips were raw by the end of it.

I didn't realise back then that it's an open tuning, so my version is a little different from the original and slower. And my voice is obviously nothing in comparison to Dylan's, which I hear now very differently. But I enjoy playing it and this is probably the best I've sung it!