sleeping with the NME

i finally take my seat in the NME offices and relax at the desk.

sadly, this is not the first day of a new job plying my wares for the UK's premier weekly music magazine.

instead, i have been summoned to their HQ in Southwark as part of a focus group.

much less rock n roll than i'd anticipated, it seems obtuse that these sterile offices were home to a music juggernaut that makes and break careers and has been key in hyping and tastemaking bands and scenes.

but it was early evening and perhaps every hint of excitement and joyous musical rebellion had clocked off at half 5 - regardless, the small group i was joining soon settled in the bland surroundings and were further relaxed by the offer of beers and pizza.

i for one had it clear in my mind as son as i'd had the call-up that i was keen to let NME know where they had been going wrong.

i admitted to have given up on NME many years ago, around the time Arctic Monkey's debut album was released and the front cover heralded another feature on them for the third time in a month, the bands assualt on the mainstream was well and truly underway and the over-saturation left me jaded.

they had once been the most exciting and heralded new band around, but as the magazine churned out another article i wondered if there was possibly anything more that i needed to know about Arctic Monkeys, and thus i turned my back on the gospel according to NME



finally given the appropriate platform to make my feeling known i did not shy away from voicing my dissenting opinion on a frustratingly overwhelming reliance on lists

on the occasions that an interesting cover feature has lured me back over the years, i've often found that good quality articles have now made way for a ridiculous array of lists on almost every conceivable nuance and sub-category of music.

i fully expect end of year polls and speculative new year/ new bands runthroughs, yet is seems all too often that so-called journalists have taken an easy option of compiling a handful of brief opinions and assigning each banal blurb a numerological value.


even of the 3 issues sent to each of us for research purposes, we were subjected to 3 lists.

top ten buzz bands of the great escape.

top 25 band logos.

and 16 pages of NME's top 70 cult heroes.

apart from my moan about this brazen lazy journalism,Other topics breached included our feelings towards a number of regular features and a discussion on whether Lady Gaga and other 'pop' acts deserve to be on the cover of NME, or deserve to be featured at all (I believe they do), a general consensus that the 'funny' cartoon is possibly the most hated part of the magazine and a lively debate for and against Popjustice's 'Peter Robinson Vs' interviews (for which i was firmly and vocally for).

As well as existing features, we were given a sneak peak at possible contributions, of which the most offensive was a sloppily thrown together piece on how to achieve Alex Turner's 'look', shouted down and derided by everyone in the room for turning what should be a respected music magazine into the indie Heat.

as a newspaper columnist perhaps i should not draw attention to the plight of print media, but it is obvious to all that the sheer quantity and variety of information, opinions and recomendations available online has seen publishers suffering, and those conducting the session were equally interested in how we recieve and percieve new music and recommendations in this modern world where the internet is usurping a former great's all-powerful hold.

Even though I hadn't been called upon to shape the future of NME with my own journalistic talents, it was still a unique opportunity to witness the market research and pitches that everyone involved hopes will keep NME vital and interesting in the 21st century.

Having read the magazine religiously for around 5 or so years from the age of 17, and having NME itself shape me in some of my formative years, it felt right that I could try to return the favour.

toys

for those that felt drawn to looking at my geeky toys on display and felt pleasant waves of nostalgia waving through them, i've got another site that you may wanna take a brief look at

i recently stumpled upon Jason Vorhees' exhaustive toy blog via branded in the 80s

and boy, was that an eye-opening experience, as Jason recounts obtaining practically every retro toy that he has had the good fortune to lay his eyes upon, and takes the whole act of collecting very seriously, whether it is items he has won on ebay, found in toy store bargain basements or at yard and garage sales.

now, i would like to firmly stress to my girlfriend, if she is still reading, that i have not got the intention or the disposable income to go scouring the planet for every single toy ever created

my focus is primarily to rebuild my childhood memories of overactive imaginations by picking up action figures from the 80s and 90s that me and my brother would have played with, and then as we have both aged chosen to discard, if we'd have just hung onto them instead of foolishly growing out of them then this nostalgia-trip would be much simpler, but as it stands, it now means that any car boot sale or charity shop could be holding an articulated holy grail of mine

of course i could just max out a credit card on ebay, but where would be the sheer joy in a few clicks, a bulging 'my ebay' summary and somewhere in the region of £2 postage for every figure, nah, i'm kicking it old skool and gonna wait for these prized figures to find me


but Jason's blog has stirred up some vivid memories of old figures that had been lost in my densely populated cranium, anyone else remember army ants, supernaturals and troll warriors?

acceptable in the 90s

whilst i was quite tempted to post up another superhero offering, i decided against it since i was afraid of offending those less inclined towards comic books

but i can't promise a break at all from general geekiness

and for that, we head to my attic, which has been designated as the geek pad in my house and which i finally got round to starting decorating while my girlfriend was away in india, yep, it was back to colour swatches and once again looking at a whole bundle of similar colours, trying to figure out which particular tone would be best

on monday, it took a step closer to completion as i got rather creative with a couple of shades of red, a paintbrush, and my right hand

(i am sworn to secrecy as to the complete look, but their is a sneak peak right here)

on tuesday, once the (splattered) paint was dry, i took up the plastic sheets, took down the protective wrapping and put the exceptionally priced ikea glass cabinet in its rightful place, stood back and felt proud


my brother had already been round to help put the cabinet together as i was far too excited to leave it boxed, and a fortunate trip to a charity shop resulted in the purchase of quite a few retro action figures, perfect to kickstart my little nostalgic collection, but having the wall painted, the cabinet in place, and the figures standing to attention made all the difference

(before)

courtesy of my brother's fabled idiot blog

(and after)

and sat proudly on the very top shelf of the cabinet is the beautiful animated style Princess Leia statuette that my girlfriend bought me as a present a couple of years ago, it had spent too long in it's box, and since moving into our house i have been super-keen to get it on display so that it can be fully appreciated

there is still plenty of work to be done before the geek pad is complete, but this week it has definitely taken a huge step in the right direction, and i have spent this very night not just blogging, and updating my contributions to byford365, but also scouring ebay for some film posters to grace the walls of my (ahem) penthouse surely my effort redecorating must have upgraded it from being 'just' an attic

facing another crisis?

ok

so what exactly is going on with the DC universe then?

i'll have to admit one thing, for the amount of people that the 'reboot' has got riled up, i dare say that all of them, plus a few more, will be curious to see exactly what's going on with september's relaunches

like i said yesterday, i'm hardly up-to-date on current events in the DCU, i'm aware that the latest mass-crossover-type-thing is called Flashpoint, and that it involves The Flash

and word is he's been dipping his toe into the timestream and sodding things up considerably

the fact that Flashpoint concludes just before these massive changes get underway is unlikely to be a coincidence

and news has already leaked that Superman and Lois's marriage will no longer have happened as a result of Flashpoint

which raises a couple of bigger questions

how much will we see undone? and are DC establishing a new status-quo for their universe?

personally, i can't imagine that they would.  whenever comic book stories hit a massive turning point it is usually assumed that a year down the line practically everything will be as it was before, unless you're a second string superhero, in which case the usual guarantees don't apply and you'll likely be usurped by a younger hero taking the same name, i'm sorry, but those are the breaks

but the big hitters?

Superman?

Batman?

yes, we've seen massive shifts (better known as cross-overs or money makers) in their lives before, but if you just go re-setting their careers by a number of years, what would that mean?

would Superman never have faced off against Doomsday and died?

i'm more of a Batman fan myself, so perhaps Knightfall would have been erased from history, but would we go further back?  would Tim Drake ever have become Robin, would Jason Todd? is Dick Grayson still the Boy Wonder?!

no matter how DC plays this, and it could prove very interesting, i can't imagine that we'll see a complete striking of the DCU's complicated continuity from the books, not only would it be insulting to long-term readers, but it would be a complete about-turn from a company that have always seemed to embrace it's rich history (even if it does shrug off or ret-con portions of it on a whim)

people that have complained that the books have become too complicated to follow, and this is mostly down to the fact that massive cross-overs of late seem to have been drawing the world closer together, with knock-on effects that occur through-out an entire universe and run through multiple books, instead of allowing character their own threads that only occasionally tangle together, which may seem a great idea to get people interested in other books they don't usually shell out for, but isn't particularly easy on the wallet or on more casual or first-time readers

i for one, had always been fascinated by DC's past that i had missed out on, and enjoyed reading stories that referred back to them and would treat myself to back-issues or collected trade paperbacks as and when i could, it made the history richer when i could witness it all for myself firsthand

i don't view it as a messy continuity, i prefer to see it as legacy, and believe that there are writers out their such as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and James Robinson that will draw upon DC's rich tapestry of past goings on and almost forgotten characters

and even rebooted, how long could a 'simple' universe last before someone starts to complicate things, comics will continue to be published monthly and stories need to be told

perhaps we do need new comics that welcome new readers, but lets do it without alienating readers that have already dedicated their own time to following the lives of superheroes

green lantern's gatling crotch

so, DC comics caused quite a hubbub last week didn't they?

now, i can hardly admit to being over-qualified and up-to-date on everything comics, heck, i'm still stuck languishing somewhere in post-Final Crisis and pre-Blackest Night 2009, but this thing right here is the god-damn internet, so why shouldn't i channel the news via my own blog and spout out my own opinion??!


for anyone that may have had this news bypass them, DC comics are re-setting themselves, apparently pretty much re-setting everything (although the confirmed facts are almost non-existent), what we do know is that there will be 52 comic book titles that will be relaunched (and renumbered, starting with 50 #1s) and rebooted in september.

and it seems that there will be changes, with a lot of talk about how these comics will take us back into the earlier years of the superheroes careers, with an emphasis being on foregoing decades of convoluted continuity in favour for easier 'jump-on' stories that are much friendlier to newcomers

which, doesn't seem a bad idea, by any means, the general consensus is that DC fear they are not capitalising on movie adaptions and big screen heriocs by having such muddled histories that the casual reader can't or won't get to grips with

recieving the most attention so far is the re-booted Justice League America, which has already had an artwork reveal that sheds only a little light and raises more questions.

the talk of the town is that character costumes and origins may be tweaked and redeveloped if neccesary, and indeed, in the JLA we appear to have a much (much much) younger looking Superman and a re-jigged costume causing quite a stir, infact the whole team do certainly appear younger than they have in comics of late, it seems nobody is still really sure what's goin on with Wonder Woman and Green Lantern is overcompensating with his (ahem) thought-made-form armoury.

i've got a lot more i want to say on this subject, more opinion and speculation basically, but i shall return tomorrow to do that rather than leave you with a hugely lengthy blog

but before you hear what i have to say, let me give you Hitler's take on the whole debacle.

meeting a hero.

perhaps it is slightly old fashioned to pass on a demo CD to someone.

i like to think of it as nostalgic instead.


and this is the story of how, with clammy palms, i handed over my CD to Eddy Temple Morris yesterday:




so perhaps my own self-promotion has been a little bit lax of late, perhaps my own musical work ethic has been a little lax of late, i have become accustomed to the truth of the mater that these things will happen when moving into a home, my own home, with the other half (well, half hers too actually)

the spare bedroom has one blue wall and one white wall that i have taken it upon myself to paint, the remaining wall is still that nasty possible-magnolia-really? colour that it has been since we moved in, i would have painted it except she has talked about stripping the textured wall paper from the walls and i don't want to have painted it all for nothing

and yes, the room does actually have four walls, but one is entirely taken up by fitted wardrobes, although i did once consider painting them

but this isn't a case of decoration, this is more a matter that i fully intend to move all my kit into that room and it become my little haven to hide in and create whilst she watches television downstairs, but for now the computer still sits around downstairs, leaving my creativity rather stunted when she turns the tv on

plus, once you consider all the time i actually end up watering the garden, cleaning this, washing that, cooking something, and a whole bunch of other household chores that i hadn't really anticipated yet feel duty bound to complete so i don't end up living in a complete shit hole, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to fire up the machine and start manipulating sounds

and with all this repeatedly happening since last september, why should i waste an opportunity to burn a number of tracks i am proudest of and pass them along to one of my all-time musical heroes?!

Eddy TM would be DJing as part of Akira The Don's album launch party, and Eddy TM is a DJ that i have huge love and huge respect for, and i am extremely proud that he has played one of my remixes on his long running Xfm show, aptly named The Remix

so i pondered the structure of the CD, settling on an equal mix of original material and remixes, including The Enemy remix that he had already aired, and a rejigged Akira The Don track, since it only seemed appropriate

now, i have been training myself to not act like a complete fanboy when meeting famous people, but those that i hold in the highest esteem still cause an outbreak of hysterics in me, and it was no different when Eddy walked past me, i wasn't even facing him, and yet i felt his prescence (or perhaps caught him in the corner of my eye) and my heart skipped a beat

the plan was to grab a little chat with him and try and retain a sense of composure, but the gig moved swiftly and i would have felt that i was disrespecting the performer and Eddy himself if i tried to catch his attention and hold a conversation during a gig

and so there was nothing left to do but approach him whilst he DJed, seriously, the guy is a consummate professional, graciously accepting the CD from me and even holding a slightly disjointed rhetoric as he cued up and mixed tracks whilst observing that i wasn't going anywhere just yet

i introduced myself, told him how much i thought of him, allowed him to do what he had to do, and then continued to tell him that he had played a track of mine before, at which point Eddy took a little more notice, looking over the almost unreadable tracklisting in the poor lighting and acknowledging that, yeah, he remembered it

he then remarked that he thought we had met before, blimey! either he is an extremely gracious person making a lucky guess, but i believe that i saw recognition in his eyes, i didn't expect for him to remember at all,  it must have been a good couple of years ago at least, but i'll quite happily live with the belief that Eddy TM not only is a great DJ, but also a great human being with superhuman skills of recollection

we briefly discussed the artwork of the promo, that he loved, and that i admitted to half-inching and not really being able to claim as my own, and then i said i would leave him to it, he had a job to do after all, and i left beaming...

i hope that he will give it a listen and i hope that he will enjoy it, i would be bloody ecstatic if he saw fit to air anything from it but that is regardless, the most important thing is that he is something of a hero of mine and that in the two brief moments that i have been able to converse with him, Eddy has been nothing less than a complete gentleman and an all-round nice guy

and i couldn't ask for anything more than that when meeting a personal hero

Akira The Don - Music of the Spheres ft. Mary Turner (Hunchbakk's dirty elbows mix) by Hunchbakk

a tribute to Gil Scott-Heron

i can't remember exactly how long ago it was that i first heard Gil Scott-Heron's music or all the circumstances around it

i do remember that i was crossing the A10 on my bike, at the lights just outside the tyre place

i do remember that it was being played on my minidisc player (immediately dating my memories somewhat) and would have probably been part of a radio show that i had recorded so that i would have something worthwhile to listen to on my way to and from work, most likely either Xfm's Remix or Steve Lamaqc's monday night show on Radio 1

i do remember being so taken in by the track that i skipped the minidisc back to listen to it again, and used my clever little player's editing function to seperate the track and mark it as something of note and something i would want to revisit

i do remember being momentarily amazed by 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', simply in awe of, and fascinated by, everything about it

that ever so simple, almost tribal drum beat that sounds throughout

the spoken words, passionate poetry that was underpinned by the evocative percussion that built the sparse track into something oh so powerful and unbelievably unique

it was bold and daring and spoke to me in ways that no other music had done before


i didn't know that it was some 30 years old or so

i didn't know of Gil Scott-Heron until that point


i didn't rush out to instantly explore his back catalogue, but i looked into his past and his music and found something that i felt a real connection to

i couldn't name you all of his albums or recite you all of his lyrics, in all honesty, i have only probably heard just a handful of his tracks, but what i have heard was enough to inspire me


i do think the world is a little emptier without Gil Scott-Heron in it, but at least we still have his music and his influence that will long outlive him


with that in mind i decided to create my own music tribute to the late great Gil Scott-Heron, based upon the classic The Revelution Will Not Be Televised

i did try something else first, trying to create a looped up and sampled backing to sit under the vocals, but it didn't feel true enough to his spirit

it is quite simple in form, as perhaps it should be, and i hope that Gil Scott-Heron will never be forgotten

Giles Babel - go crazy (a tribute to Gil Scott-Heron)