THIS IS WHAT ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING THIS SATURDAY NIGHT!

This Saturday 3^rd March, at The Telegraph on Orchard Street in Newcastle (behind Central Station), I have another live music event lined up.  Equipment hire and sound engineering is again being provided by Sessions Newcastle after their flawless work at my last gig at The Telegraph on Friday 3^rd February.  The YouTube video playlist from Photo Dave of David Johnston Photography can be found on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL41516C6F0C7B6130&feature=plcp

Artisam by Photo Dave 3rd February 2012

This Saturday I intend on clipping you right round your ears with four quality live acts.  The Style Pile, Emergency Door Release, The Shake Appeal and Honey Chrome will all be doing me the honour of performing for me at The Telegraph.  Doors will be open from 7.30pm and the entry to this event is payable at £3 on the door and is held in The Telegraph’s function room upstairs.  If you’re a Facebook user details of this event can be found on this link.

http://www.facebook.com/events/318489318195064/

Joanne Robson of The Style Pile

The Style Pile

Possibly the most mysterious act on the bill on Saturday are The Style Pile, formerly Ginger Snap & The Style Pile and also Chrome Attic, yet the only one of the four acts that I have seen play live.  Read my Tangerine Christmas blog for my take on that gig.

https://mallazmalcolmwhite.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/a-tangerine-christmas/

Despite the several name changes, The Style Pile are a reasonably well established act locally, especially around Heaton, which is like Newcastle’s hub for the cool cats and creative types.  The Style Pile are a highly energetic Funky Ska act with a cool Acid Jazz feel and honestly do put on an epic performance.  Fronted by the exceptional vocal talent of Joanne Robson and supported by an incredible band that consists of Hal McCutcheon, Eddie Hughes, Andy Strong and Dan Deltodesco, The Style Pile are guaranteed to leave a lasting impression. You can hear a couple examples of what The Style Pile are capable of doing by clicking on the song titles below.

‘If You Want Me to Leave’

‘Your Own Boss’

And then get yourself over to their Facebook page and click the like button on this link

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Style-Pile/181677578554592

Emergency Door Release

This gig also marks the launch of Emergency Door Release’s much anticipated debut EP ‘Who Are We?’

This Indie Pop Rock act based in Newcastle have been very pro-active of late, obviously recording the EP, supporting Dave Giles at The Cluny on Valentine’s Day and planning their first UK tour.

Beach balls, catchy riffs and energetic performances, this emerging band comprising of James Rooney, Adam McMeiken, David Lloyd and Daniel Mokhtari, has it all!  They are promising a memorable show and if you’re lucky you might even catch one of their promotional EPs.

Emergency Door Release

I briefly touched on the talents of Emergency Door Release late last year in this blog;

https://mallazmalcolmwhite.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/fuck-christmas-songs-this-is-what-you-should-be-listening-to/

But for a more in depth review from someone else (a second opinion, if one will), then check out this review;

http://hiddensounds.blogspot.com/2012/01/emergency-door-release.html

Just remember who got there first, aye?

And then get over to Facebook, where you can listen to to the title track from the ‘Who Are We?’ EP, and give them a like too.

http://www.facebook.com/EmergencyDoorRelease

The Shake Appeal

The Shake Appeal

Bringing some raw, funky, jumpy vibes will be South Tyneside based Alternative Rock group, The Shake Appeal.  This five-piece band are made up with Georgia McRae, Joseph Inskip, Jordan Johnston, Phil Morgan and Matthew Cowey.

The Shake Appeal are another band who have also been making a mark on the North East live music scene, performing with Bleech at Independent in Sunderland and at Trillians Rock Bar in Newcastle in recent weeks.

Have yourself a slooshy of some of The Shake Appeal’s older tracks on the bandpage tab on their Facebook page on the link below, and if you like what you hear then click the obligatory like box.

http://www.facebook.com/TheShakeAppeal?sk=app_178091127385

Honey Chrome

Unwilling and/or incapable of being defined by any specific music genre, Honey Chrome are an off-beat, original band dripping with individuality (you won’t see shit like this on VIVA or whichever shit chart music channels are still popping these days).  Honey Chrome’s very experimental mish-mash of so many musical styles and influences has more diversity than an equal opportunities employment firm under the watchful eye of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs themselves, yet surprisingly works effectively and with epic results (like a peanut butter and ham sarnie, go on, try it, it will blow your fukkin dome!).

They play loud music, whatever loud music they want, using guitars drums and keys played through a great big, fuck-off Bass bin.  This is not just some gang of twats trying to be different and banging as many styles into a track as they can though, this is highly intelligent music.  Music that would be lost on those narrow minded, pretentious little cardboard cut-out, shit-bits who lurk on Newcastle’s (or any other) Indie music scene.  Fusing Drum & Bass style beats, with epic Rock guitar solos and sticking the musical herbs of Punk, Rock, Grunge, Rap and Electronic Kraut-Fuzz into this mix, makes the perfect musical cake, although that cake might not be to everybody’s taste, some will love it.  If you don’t, you could always fuck off and find a different bakery…

Honey Chrome are also shrouded in a distinct element of mystique too.  The band is made up of mR mATTIS, a psychic doctor able to heal the sick and communicate with the dead using old mixing desks.  Stevie, The Squire Tulip Keeper of the Beat, who was once voted Belgium’s favourite tap-dancer, and the world’s angriest Buddhist, Dan.  Also, Honey Chrome are supported by the sublime Horrorshow-esque artwork of Stegorek, unbelievable talent!

Check out their videos on their website, especially their media and info sections and you will see that this band a different breed altogether!

http://www.honeychrome.co.uk/

Tracks like ‘No More Come’ and ‘Fractured Days’ certainly stand out for me. So click on their titles to see the videos.  The like their Facebook band page, seeing as that’s the trends these day.  Here’s the link;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Honeychrome/163839323697264

So be there, or be a beige squaure, £3 quid for four bands is a pure fukkin bargain!

WHY I DECIDED TO LEAVE DOWNTOWN LESTER BROWN

On Monday 5^th December I parted company with Downtown Lester Brown, the band that I started earlier this year.  The main reason behind my quitting the band, both as a band member and their manager, is that I feel the band’s arrogance outweighs their ambition, although this mainly applies to Ben and Richard.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the text message that I received on the Saturday following the gig I had organised on Friday 2^nd December at The Telegraph.

The Telegraph - Friday 2nd December 2011

The Telegraph is a small venue and for my gig it was only about a quarter full, only thirty-five or so people attended the gig.  Obviously I felt disappointed at the turn out.  The crowd Downtown Lester Brown attracts has seemingly been getting smaller the more gigs they do.  I feel that the more gigs they do the more followers they should acquire.  That would denote some level of success.  But to be pulling smaller and smaller crowds each gig, is stepping towards failure.  So to receive a text message from Richard the following day claiming to feel “like a god after that”, I was highly dissatisfied.  It shows a terrible lack of ambition as well as a ridiculous amount of arrogance for someone who had just played a gig in front of a handful of people.

Unfortunately this was not the first act of unwarranted arrogance from Richard, let alone the band.  Richard cancelled a gig that I had arranged, to go to another gig.  The gig I arranged was set to be Downtown Lester Brown’s debut EP release.  At that point Richard claimed to be too big to play at venues of that stature and Ben also stated that that gig was unimportant as it was a free gig and not one where we would earn any money.  When a band has just started out, every gig should be important but to cancel a pre-arranged gig to go see another gig shows a lack of dedication and ambition.  As well as the arrogance shown by Richard thinking he’s too big to play small gigs of the stature that I was arranging, as it’s “not Wembley”, and Ben’s attitude of it not being important as we weren’t getting paid, there is the wasting of the time and the effort I put in arranging gigs in the first place.  Ben is also the self-proclaimed “voice of a generation”, although he’s not saying a great deal with tracks such as Each To Their Own, which despite being free was only downloaded twenty times.

Despite that arrogance though, they totally lack ambition.  When I put the band forward for the Battle of the Bands, in Redcar, Ben didn’t want to do it and claimed it was pointless because his last band, the generic and unoriginal Casino, always sucked when they did them.  I had to convince him that it was a good idea and the winning isn’t important.  It’s an opportunity to play your music in front of people who might not otherwise ever get the chance to hear it.

Another massive issue for me was the style of the new material.  When I set this whole thing up I had a specification that I wanted to work towards.  I wanted to create a band with a fun attitude that would play psychedelic, up-beat music that would get people dancing and in the mood to go out clubbing because, after all, if you’re playing Friday and Saturday night gigs then your demographic is the pre-clubbing market.  Unfortunately neither Ben nor Richard has enough attitude or edge and, due to Richard having too much influence over Ben, we’ve ended up with songs with whiney vocals and songs crying over girls.  Too many of their new songs are songs that you can’t dance to.  The psychedelic guitars, such as the style in Empty Heed or High Definition Jazz Kitten have been dropped and I feel the music is heading in a more mainstream direction.  They’re heading back down the same route as their old band Casino.  I also have major concerns that all of the lyrics Richard writes are wet, too tame and basically shit.

After getting back from a short break in Amsterdam near the end of November, I was basically told by Ben that my input in the sound of the band is no longer wanted as I can’t play an instrument so know fuck all.  At this point I told them I would work with them for one more recording and the promotion of that release, and after that I would leave the band and concentrate solely on managing the band.  I am aiming to set up my own independent record label in the new year and was hoping to commission a Downtown Lester Brown album through my label.

As part of my role in managing the band, I sent the tracks from our EP away online for some independent reviews.  The reviews basically supported the things that I had been saying from the start.  Tracks such as Empty Heed, High Definition Jazz Kitten and Man On The Run were reasonably well received.  Those were three songs that Ben wrote before the band took off and before Richard had gotten involved.  Each To Their Own was unanimously panned for being generic wannabe-Beatles stuff, but that was an unrecorded Casino track that we used when we first started and has now been dropped.  Dufresne’s Escape bombed.  I had said that I thought the vocals were weak and let the track down because it’s just Richard whining again.  All the reviews seemed to agree with me and one even went as far as to say the vocals “ruined” the song.  However, Richard also sung on Fun & Games and there were several reviews raving about how good he was on that track.  On Fun & Games Richard sings with a bit of grit.  When we recorded it I was blown away.  Unfortunately that’s the only track he’s done like that and at the last practice I attended before leaving the band, he was whining on a new song and opened with the lyrics, “I was feeling down..” and went on to do the crying, “Why? Why? Why?” throughout the track. It was typical Richard Gilroy music; it wasn’t anything new or original.

I also have concerns over plagiarism in some of the new songs, and the legal ramifications that could come from that.  I wouldn’t want anything to do with the recording of Be Someone, another of Richard’s tracks, as that’s basically Breakfast at Tiffany’s and also the exact same guitars are in some crap pop song that I heard on whichever mainstream shite radio station Wor Colin listens to.  I also expressed concerns over several other songs.  There are only two tracks that I would want recorded, Mallaz Beats The Devil and Eesh’s Jam.

So after Richard’s “god” text, I have decided to quit Downtown Lester Brown to pursue other ventures.  I’ve got my next Telegraph gig on Friday 3^rd February 2012 and hope that the next couple are successful enough to start looking for bigger venues.  I’m going to be starting a new band after New Year and I am also going to be setting up my own independent record label in 2012.  I’ve also got the art to keep me occupied and several other ventures that I’m looking into.

I have processed Downtown Lester Brown’s debut EP, ‘Love & Other Diseases’, and that will be available to download from Boxing Day 2011.  As for the physical copies of the EP, I am not sure if or when they are going to become available.  That’s now down to the band to give me the green light to get them manufactured.  Also, as far as I’m aware, they don’t have anything at all book for before the Battle of the Bands, in Redcar, on 10^th February 2012.  There was some doubt whether they will actually attend that though.  Ben was telling me that the band had all basically agreed that it would be pointless as they wouldn’t win, I shit you not!

I wish Downtown Lester Brown the best of luck for the future.

REFEREES SHOULD BE MADE TO EXPLAIN CONTENTIOUS DECISIONS!!!

I feel losing 3-0 to Chelsea today is a very harsh result.  It was a highly entertaining game with plenty of action, but that’s all overshadowed by some shambolic refereeing by that fukkin muppet Mike Dean.

Mike Dean – Prick!

Four minutes into the game he dropped a massive bollock when Demba Ba was brought down by David Luiz when he was clean through on goal.  The referee gave the free-kick so had no option but to give Luiz a straight red card.  The fukka didn’t though!  Mike Dean bottled the big decision and only showed the yellow card.  That’s a fukkin shocking decision that he wants strung up for!  A key decision like that, four minutes into the game.  If he makes the right decision and sends him off, then Chelsea have to play practically the full game with ten men.  There’s no way that he can’t send Luiz off!  He obviously hasn’t got the nerve to make a big decision like that and in my opinion shouldn’t be allowed to referee.  This isn’t just a game, it’s fukkin football!!!  Referees who make dubious calls like that should be made to explain their contentious decisions immediately after the match.  I would love to fukkin know how Mike Dean can justify not sending David Luiz off.  We all know the rules.  Ba’s clean through on goal, red card!  No two ways about it!  Mike Dean hasn’t got the bollocks to make the big decisions!  Ridiculous decisions like that can cost teams dearly.  Referees should be punished when they fuck up like that!!!

He’s just a shit Coloccini!

Then, there’s the first goal.  A stray Chelsea long ball floats out for a throw-in and the referee awards Chelsea the throw-in.  I’d need to see it again but it didn’t look like it got near anyone.  The referee claims it came off one of our player’s heads.  If he’s called that one right then it’s an excellent decision and well spotted.  If he’s dropped a bollock again, he wants castrated!  Chelsea went and scored straight from that, thanks to some sloppy defending.  We allowed Juan Mata to slip in behind the defence on the throw-in.  Mata dinks a little cross in and there’s Didier Drogba in acres of space in the box to nod it past Tim Krul.  I don’t think there’s a lot Krul could’ve done.  1-0, Chelsea.

Like I mentioned earlier though, it was a thoroughly entertaining game.  There were chances galore!  Before the Chelsea goal, Tim Krul saved a Frank Lampard penalty after Yohan Cabaye brought down Daniel Sturridge.  Sturridge was running riot down the right.  Ryan Taylor was really exposed at left-back for us and we were really missing Jonas Gutierrez.  That Sturridge is some player though!  He’s class, simple as!  Tim Krul was on outstanding form, as usual, and made several world class saves to further support my claim that he will be better than Peter Schmeichel ever was.

At 1-0 we were still pushing and, before the total collapse at the end of the second half, were very unfortunate not to score.  Ba hit the post.  Sammy Ameobi looked spritely coming off the bench and had a shot cleared off the line.  He’s got nee fear that lad!  He went at it against Manchester City and he showed these no respect today, he’s as game as a fukkin badger!  Shola Ameobi, also off the bench, hit the bar and you just knew we were gonna have no luck at all!

Young Sammy – FEARLESS BASTARD!

At the end, we went into total collapse and Solomon Kalou and Sturridge both scored in sloppily conceded goals.  Tim Krul was furious, and rightly so!  After his performance, he didn’t deserve to concede three goals.  He was my Man of the Match again today.

We picked up a few injuries and even ended the game with ten men after Steven Taylor went off injured.  And that was after Fabricio Coloccini went off injured and was replaced by James Perch, who is absolutely shite.  And Shola had come on for Hatem Ben Arfa.  I’m assuming that had to be through injury because, at 1-0 down, you don’t take Ben Arfa off in a shrewd tactical move.  Hopefully it’s nowt too serious.  Our squad now looks dangerously thin.  We’ve lost our two centre-backs, who’ve been a class act all season.  And James Perch is shite!!!