The more things change...

Tony Blair's face dominates the front page of The Guardian this morning, but, perhaps something of a commentary on the election so far, it is partly obscured by a builders bum.

The online election section of the paper houses the same story but unfortunately omits the picture. It seems there is more than one political fish to fry... or at least more stuff written about the election since this morning to bother wasting space with pictures.

The headline story of the print Guardian has been relegated to halfway down the online page by afternoon and evening updates, no matter how hot something comes off the presses, the net is always rolling.

Updates and new headlines are divided into simple categories like 'Labour Campaign' and 'Media Coverage' and inside those they are tracked by time. There are 3:45 bloggings and 7pm exclusives.

The online edition is suitably chunked and pumped with links for quick skimming and easy access. The more stories are reduced to juicy tasters or controversial soundbites the bigger the menu that can be fit on a page.

The amount of information that can be reasonably held under a compacted 'election' banner without the exact science of turning broadsheet pages getting in the way leaves the physical paper at a disadvantage. Election coverage is filed on pages one and two, pages four to seven, 25, 26, and 27. There is no way all this coverage could be junked into one section a la online without giving readers a severe distaste for it or simply boring them.

Tomorrow's paper will reveal its reports as exclusive headlines but anyone with a PC and a phone line will have been able to read them for hours. But by then those stories will be half way down the online page.

California, here we come

Material for interview with Josh Schwartz

Did you predict The OC being so successful?

Are you a fan of the finished product?

What do you think are the elements to The OC's success?
-Why and how do you think audiences in the UK or anywhere else outside of California for that matter can relate?

Who picks the show's soundtrack? How was it picked? Was there a concious effort to avoid the acoustic rock of series' like Dawson's Creek?

Do you think creating any sort of 'teen drama' come with its own cliches? the character or plot points that are 'must-have's'

If you could have complete control of the show where would you take the characters next?

Tell me about your other projects?
-How long have they been gestating?
-Any relation to The OC?
-Any thoughts about a 'Friends'-generation series for the grown up OC cast in years to come?

Do you worry that The OC is all you will be remembered for?

Do you ever worry that such success so early in your career could mean you forget what real life is like? Do you worry about running out of inspiration?

What did you do with your first royalty cheque from your work on The OC?

Follow-up material

Can you reveal any more in jokes that might have appeared through the series?

Any info on where the story could go next?

How do you stay away from cliche?

Do you feel like a famous guy?

THE CHARIOT-Everything is alive, everything is breathing, nothing is dead and nothing is bleeding

Ex-Norma Jean screamer Josh Scogin is now driving The Chariot, and this thing is out of control. There are elements of all this that came before with NJ but where they have got tighter, added groove and flex, these are listing, sinking ships of songs. The music always seems on the edge of collapse, any tunes that do emerge are quickly flattened by machine gun anti-rhythms and die. This is the soundtrack to a choking, the sound of fingernails. The God bothering is kept to a minimum too.

For fans of Ashlee Simpson. Apparently.

Monkey business

Getting yourself heard, interesting the men in suits, downloads, hits, causing shit-fits, creating buzz, the long hard road to becoming the next big thing. But doing it your own way. Talk to these people about guerilla gigging.


The Libertines -they made this
The Others- busking with attitude
U2 -how very punk rock
Embrace -spreading the love
Shuriken- queue and not you
Channel 4 'make their way to the mosh pit'. Apparently.
The Guardian on the trail of the guerilla gig
The BBC quote me happy
What Wired has to say
Lots of blogging. Only a few interesting ones.


Paint a picture, explain the history of guerilla gigging.

If music be the food of love who's eating alfresco? What bands are doing the do?

Who knew? Is the best way to share the good news web forums or other online trickery, txt msging, post-it notes or good old fashioned word of mouth?

Considering legal issues, negative stigma, equipment problems, and the temperamental British weather why is guerilla gigging still seen as an option? is it just because you look cool?

does it work?

is it old news already?

Read this book

Be all that you can be

I watch DVD's, I work two jobs, I play MP3's, I drink, i'm in debt, I came to this uni to get a good qualification. I am everything The Guardian wants me to be.


My chosen profession is a bitterly competitive one. A fierce, fast-paced one. I am given the impression of a jet black hostile environment where friends and enemies alike pat you on the back just to twist the knife in. An environment where i will not survive.

But before all that i need to pass my degree. A first would be perfect, a 2:1 something to shout about, a 2:2, most likely and a 3rd, well at least it would be a handy counter as to the years wasted achieving it.

i do not get up at 4 in the morning. i barely get up at 8 in the morning. my day is not spent jogging eagerly from lecture to library, i don't jog and i've maybe been to the library 14 times in two years. I don't like baked beans but i do eat Pot Noodle. i might be every student stereotype The Guardian wants me to be but my chances of that impressing them in a job interview are as slim as some of my 'debt-ridden' friends.

Who wants to impress The Guardian anyway, i'm sure Rock Sound and Kerrang love wasted dropout slackers with a chip for every shoulder.

I will work for peanuts though. Or CD's.

The point of a stereotype is that figment of easily associable ideas that create a recognisable concept. The point this misses are the million billion exceptions to the rules, look at me up late working like a clever anomaly, but only because i'm a week from deadline and i've got 7000 other words to write. I might be in debt as per the cliche but thats not why i'm eating crap, it's because it's easy. My point is that students are normal human beings, not some sort of people-in-training, only half-loaded with brains. If you're a studious person you will be a dedicated student, if you're the sort of guy who spends 53% of his time in the pub, you will drink a lot as a student. If you're Clark Kent, don't go pretending to be Superman.

95% of students say they are happy with life but exactly how much of that pie has got anything to do with actually being a student?

What percentage of keyboardists are happy with life? What percentage of 37 year olds, what percentage of people called Chesney, what percentage of journalism tutors?
These divisions seem just as odd to me as caring what a bunch of people who happen to be spending their time downloading hardcore porn or spending their loan on strappy shoes are like.

Maybe, we (yeah, i'm in the secret student club that none of the rest of you know about) are like a car crash, like a diseased alien car crash. Something the rest of the world, all divided into their own neat cliche-free categories obviously, wants to take a sharp stick to and poke until they know exactly whats going on. All from a safe distance of course.

DJ FORMAT- Triple Trouble y'all

A piece For Oxford life and times magazine Obscene-

Matt Ford looks excited, like the kid in the sweet shop. Tonight he will be playing music for two of his friends to rap over. His CD’s are on sale by the door, he sits there, under t-shirts and huge posters with his name on, but no one rushes him for an autograph, no one reaches out to shake his hand. Despite no one knowing his face, they paid money to hear his music. Tonight he’s headlining the Mean Fiddler in London in support of new album ‘If You Can’t Join ‘Em… Beat ‘Em’. Tonight his name is DJ Format.

“Even with my name over the door, you know, like ‘Live! Tonight! Sold Out! DJ Format’, I don’t feel like a famous guy,” he says, sitting between regular conspirator MC Abdominal and relative new kid on the block D-sisive, before the show. “It is strange when people do ask for your autograph, it’s flattering, but very strange. I’m still the guy that trawls through record stores looking for samples; I mean, I see the people that inspire me as the famous guys. I love that people enjoy what I do enough to do their research, to find out who’s behind it. I hope as many people as possible know the name and the music but not me personally.”

There is a test. Every slightly famous person has their own slightly crazy fans. “I remember at a gig in Cambridge one guy was desperately excited at the water I was drinking”, says Format, “like ‘Vittel water, that’s great water man’. Times like that make you want to shuffle away quite quickly but it’s usually cool”.

His face might not be in the magazines but reviews of his albums and shows are. Even Kerrang and Rock Sound have run ads for this tour.
“We don’t get kids that are purely hip hop kids, we are attracting a wider audience and maybe the sound crosses over in places. And I think the performance from these guys is so lively unlike most hip-hop, I think we bring more life to a show,” says Format.

“What attracted me to working with Matt was the energy and the tempo.” Explains Abdominal. “I think the sound has an old school vibe but the content is not your typical guns, drugs and bitches stuff, there’s an everyday Joe element, that I really enjoy so it must catch other people’s ears too”.

“I hear something that is really different in what Matt does,” says D-sisive, “it means a lot to me as a fan of the music these guys have done before I turned up that the music that follows maintains that edge. People on this tour have been telling me it’s their first hip-hop show and I think the easiness of it, the element of fun, really helps introduce people to something new.”

This is Format’s second album and Abdominal has been rapping for almost 10 years, even if these signs of success don’t make them feel the slightest bit celebrity is it good to finally get some recognition?
Abdominal says, “If I was doing this for the money I would have quit a long time ago. It is nice to get that record label support, I mean we’re still not dealing in millions, but it helps and we’ve seen the crowds get bigger and bigger”.

Format reckons he would play to empty clubs and the proverbial one man and his dog if he had to. “I’ve done it for too long, doing things myself or with record label support, touring, recording, putting my stuff out there. This is all part of me now”. D-sisive feels the same. “I’ve given my normal life away to do this now. It’s either music or it’s telemarketing”.

“We don’t mean any of this to sound corny or cliché”, says Abdominal. “It’s just that the music is what we do”.

And they do it well.

The boys arrive onstage to no fanfare but the fun definitely starts as soon as they do. New songs like ‘Separated at Birth’ and ‘3 Feet Deep’ play well alongside the older material that everybody’s singing along to. Format providing non-stop, laid back, old school beats, drum heavy riffs and some clever scratching for his friends to work with. Abdominal and D-sisive don’t so much stalk the stage like you’d expect, rather stroll around introducing everyone to their party.

Format, Abdominal and D-sisive laugh and joke and perform all smug-faced like they landed the lead role in the school play but absolutely gracious with it. Highlights include a freestyle session that makes the club feel even friendlier as we laugh along with Abdominal’s great mistakes, the two MC’s shining through ‘I'm Good’ and witty new tune ‘Ugly Brothers’.

They close with a crowd-pleasing sing-a-long through ‘Ill Culinary Behaviour’ before the MC’s depart to let Format finish up.They lap up the applause until midnight when the house lights shake everyone into realising what time it is, then they pack up and move on. Tomorrow is another day, another town and another date.

Any famous last words?

“Not really. Like I said, I’m not superstar DJ Format with a thousand contracts to oblige, with hundreds of products to plug. Just thanks for listening”. So, Matt Ford is just a normal guy, like you and me, except I can’t remember the last time a thousand people couldn’t wait to dance to the next song I played.

ATREYU+ Norma Jean+ He is Legend. Astoria, London. 16.05.04

Bands always disappoint. You can wait in shivering anticipation for a tour like this to come around only for rockstars to act like rockstars and Americans to be just like Americans.

But He is Legend are a revelation, by the end of a short set played by men dressed like tramps, dancing like fools, the Astoria is converted. Shake that thing!

Norma Jean have replaced a singer and added a grungier element to their sound but haven't missed a beat. They fill the stage with tantrum dancing and flying guitars, the sound- screams and hooks riding a death rattle wall of feedback- fills the room. NJ make the show feel like the tiny club dates they're used to playing, it feels like cathartic brilliance.

Atreyu disappoint. Members of the band could be seen before doors taking pictures of the blacker than black queue stretching round the venue, almost as if they themselves couldn't quite believe they had managed to get this big. And on tonight's evidence their success will need way more blind luck to continue.

From first track proper, 'Bleeding Mascara', the sound is the worst of the night and barely improves. The technical touches of 'Deanne the Arsonist' and 'The Crimson' are lost, leaving only straight ahead mosh behind.

The band plough through a lacklustre performance pulling all the right moves but seemingly finding no joy in them. Even synchronised guitar moves, party tricks and a cover of 'You Give Love a Bad Name' seem forced a little old. And wearing all white is the oldest gag in the book for bands so often dressed in black.

Atreyu are heralded as leaders of a scene, one of the few that will continue when fashions change but tonight they were outplayed, outclassed and simply undone by bands that are still hungry for that headline slot.

I hope Atreyu were nice to people on the way up.

SKIRTBOX+ The Bombjacks+ Mainline. Metro, London. 15.04.05

This is a party and people will cry if they want to.

The Metro basement is hosting the release party for Skirtbox's long delayed new album 'Bitter and Direct'. Having finally given up on finding a major labal home the band have chosen Allstar Recordings to showcase their evolution from skate punks to the poppiest of rockers.

Before all that there are some VIP party guests to meet 'n' greet.

Mainline sound like Somerset. Mainline sound like The Cable Car Theory. Mainline sound like Thrice dipped in Jack Daniels by Malboro men. The Bombjacks are back and get feet moving with Weezer harmonies, surf guitars and Moog moments. Neither of these bands will escape London support slot status but both produce perfect alterna-party tunes.

Skirtbox must be sick of looking at the inside of the Metro and apart from a happy happy joy joy performance from bassist Tom Wright the band do look a little bored. Maybe it's because these new songs aren't new at all, The band have been playing 'Heading for the Start' and 'For This Alone' for nearly a year. That doesn't stop them from being head-nodding rock, all of which would fit perfectly on any drive-time compilation if all drive-time compilations weren't shit.

At times Will Stapleton's voice slips into horrible Ville Vallo territory but after the initial shock it works quite well. His smooth croon fitting over Top Gun rock and 80's guitar solos.

Skirtbox could be your new favourite band, Skirtbox could be the new Ataris. Skirtbox should be able to leave High Wycombe houses for LA mansions by the end of the year. Typically, the lack of record label support and cold, hard cash could be crippling but nowhere near as much as performing like workmen rather than rock stars.

ego a go go

i can link now

duderecords is dead, long live everything else, go here be my friend

dude records is dead

dude records is the name of some japanese record label and they've actually released CD's and stuff so it is no longer my name.
i'm thinking of calling my new label (there's a laugh, not a very funny one i admit, but me actually completing something, ANYTHING! is worth a smile) moderate rock.
i'm not too concerned with the loss, my blogspot appeared to be the only one without the mystical ability to link. It wasn't just that i hate technology and it hates me, the section to put links in just wasn't there on my page. so i would include a link to moderate rocks blogspot where my pointless, aimless opinionating continues or moderate rocks myspace page where its kind of real deal looking but i have no link hole. shame.

don't call me i'll call you

HATEBREED-Zodiac,Oxford. 14.03.05

It's always seemed a little weird that after ten years of Hatebreed preaching messages of family, friendship and hardcore unity, their fans still insist on beating the shit out of each other. Gang vocal anthems like 'Live for This' and 'I Will be Heard' are screamed back to the band like blood oaths but the blood on show tonight is all too real.

Before the carnage begins the melodic hardcore of Caliban and the spit-soaked sludge of Crowbar do their best to impress. The pit monsters get the chance for a good warm up during Caliban's take on what's currently hot. The amount of energy the five Germans put into their performance explaining why they're so skinny.
Crowbar wander onstage like lost Spinal Tappers, like the mess of drunk hillbilly dads they probably are, and begin the most professional of amateur half-hours that the Zodiac has ever seen. They start, fuck up, start again, swear, sweat, and mumble and pretty much rule.

All of which is like a wafer thin mint before the three course meal that is Hatebreed. The squeal of feedback gives way to a three song set-starter and things never dip. The pit is a danger zone from the first note, frontman Jamey Jasta's seemingly never-ending vat of attitude and energy spilling into the crowd. Hatebreed rip into 'Straight to Your Face' and Jasta calls for a warzone. Oxford delivers.

'Call for Blood' and 'Perseverance' keep the tempo tipped maximum and an hour of brutal aggression punches past in what feels like ten minutes. They may be old hands at this but the band show no signs of age, no signs of pandering to any stream let alone the main one and despite feeling a little impersonal the perfomance is nothing less than absolutely professional.

STRAYLIGHT RUN + The Spill Canvas + The Junior Varsity. Zodiac, Oxford. 07.03.05

I'm getting too old for this shit. Everyone in the Zodiac tonight looks about 14, but they're probably only 12. The EmoYouth army are out in force, all sideways black hair and 'the biggest belt buckle wins' competitions, far too cool to salivate over the great line-up. Watching these kids grow up and try to get a job with all these shitty tattoos and fresh piercings is going to be interesting.

Anyway, on with the show. And Asa Dawson certainly knows how to win over an audience. The Junior Varsity frontman looks and sounds genuinely excited to be here but wastes no time dealing in patronising American pap, just zeitgeist-humping pop tunes. By the end of the short set the contagious smiles on stage have infected more than half the crowd.

The Spill Canvas are a completely different story. Nick Thomas leads his band through a set of acoustic heartbreak that's thick enough to choke on and despite some clapping along Oxford remains unconvinced.

Now, if you don't know the story of Straylight Run already you're avoiding all the right emo conversations. Abandoning ship (or being made to walk the plank) from Taking Back Sunday, John Nolan and Shaun Cooper decided to sail away to slightly lighter musical seas. The piano keys and vocal harmonies of their new self-titled album being the successful result.

Opening with a fine rendition of 'Mistakes we knew we were making' the band seem much more at ease than when they supported Brand New upstairs. It's a real rush to hear the songs that have been available for download for so long entirely cobweb-free and newer album tracks so full of colour.

There are reference points, especially to the sing-a-long stylings of Taking Back Sunday, but the pace is far more sedate. The electrolisised beats of 'Tool sheds and hot tubs' and bouts of instrument swapping providing suprises.

It's going to take a lot more than a few good gigs like this for people to forget the spectre of TBS thats hangs over Straylight Run but this is one small step in a run up for a giant leap.

PRESIDENTS OF THE USA. Astoria,London. 03.03.05

god.like.genius