Our first every visit there was as a three piece band, with good old Alex Maguire on drums and Lee Farrow as manager / driver.

We got very lost for long time with Aaron doing his special trick of asking directions and then not listening to the answer! Although I never really blame him for that because I have the same problem… as soon a I ask a stranger for directions and they start to try and work out a route, I literally wish they would drop down dead so I could leave as soon as possible. Their advice always goes unheeded.

Finally…

Happily we finally found our way to the venue after asking in a kebab shop called “Ali by by”. Those of you that know us well will understand why that caused such gay fun, and for those of you that are just getting know us it’s because hilariously we have a song of the same name as that kebab shop! I’m such a card ;-(

We usually played is Eathbourne music venue ‘String Bendy’ for a very nice promoter named Chris. In fact I think Chris is the best and nicest promoter we have every worked with, which honestly would not be hard because a large percentage of them have been cock rings. Chris has a kind of 1950’s look with slick back hair and leather jaket, a bit like that film reviewer you see at the start of high-brow Channel four film premiers. Obviously Chris is much cooler looking than that guy and  not so much of a pretentious wanker. (I just said that for effect, I really quite like the film guyas well.)

Eastbourne Music Hub String Bendy

String bendy is a very strange venue and fire hazard. It is hard to find because it has not sign on the door and you have to walk up a long set of metal steps to even get to even find the place. It looks like the back of a row of shops if that makes sense, all rubbish bins, dirty brick and random windows. It’s when you get inside that the magic happens, and when I say magic I mean not-really-magic.

It’s basically a rehearsal studio but the strange manager bloke tries to make some extra cash by putting on gigs in the evening without the aid of a beer or late music licence, hoping against hope that his remote position will keep him safe from the long arm of the law. Unfortunately this plan often backfires and we don’t go there for six month due to closure, only to be recalled when our friendly manager find another loop-hole to abuse. He reopen his doors for a short time to the underage drinking youth of the Eastbourne

You’ve got to have one of these kingpin maverick types in every town. (Apart from Pinner, because those stuck up shit heads would start a committee.)

So the song here is the live version ‘Boss Boss’ filmed on one of our many visits to the Eastbourne Music hub:

*Side Note* I though of a great name for a G.A.Y band yesterday: FAG MACHIN

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It all started when I was born, you see I have had Red / Ginger hair all my life and at different points it has been a blessing and a curse.

Blessings of Color Hair Red

Irish women love you
Err………

• You stand out in a crowd and your mother can find you if you get lost at a theme park.
• All Gingers are clever and full of virtue.
• We can all cook potatoes to perfections.
• Very viral.
• You can grow your hair for a rainy day and sell it to Le Mayor when times get tight. Then you can use that money to buy medicine for yourself or your children.

Curse of Color Hair Red

Bigger boys sometimes come up to you in the street saying “Little ginger CUNT, gonna take your money!” And you scream “But this is what mummy gave me to buy ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ game, because I’m good and eat my carrots” they always take the game anyway.

Color Hair Red – Meet my Ginger friends

You can imagine my delight when I came across two like minded music making Gingers one night at a party, while drinking absinthe and doing shots of Vodka in the eye.
Their hair was flaming red and they came from a town called Feltham which I had only herd about in the movies. Feltham is like Compton if you where to exchange the Gansta Rap for Chase and Dave.

These two troubadours of flaming hair were called Aaron and Scott, and we decided right away to form a musical group to campaign for the rights of Ginger people every where with the trusty slogan “Color Hair Red.” Our collective would be aptly titled THE GINGER POWER TRIO.

Through the mist of our burning Vodka soaked eyes, and a strange unworldly feeling from the absinth we wrote our first and only song called Color Hair Red:

Color Hair Red – Ginger song Chords and Lyrics

C
Your head stands out in the crowd
F
Unique, Unique, Unique,
C
You say your Ginger and Proud
F
Unique, Unique, Unique,
C
Your head looks like the top of a fag
F
Unique, Unique, Unique,
C
They said that Ginger was bad
F
Unique, Unique, Unique,

Fuck you Beethoven this is proper complicated shite! (More lyrics for the Color Hair Red song can be found by listening to the pod cast below.)

Color Hair Red – The Aftermath

In the morning we kind of forgot about the band and were much more focussed on being sick, and having our stomachs and eyes pumped at the hospital. Things did not look good for the Gingers of the world after that as THE GINGER POWER TRIO where out of action.

Nothing happened for a couple of months but one day when Aaron was round my house we set ourselves the challenge of recording the Ginger anthem in one hour and here is the result:

Right Click Download to Claim you Copy of – Color Hair Red

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Since recording this potentially number one-for-ten-weeks single things have once again gone quite on the Ginger power front, but you can rest assured that where there is a Ginger in trouble, the GINGER POWER TRIO will not be far behind.

Playing music rather than actually helping…

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First Celebration Factor - Family Gathering (No Videos)

Gift List

Birthday Train reference material - Here is a list of the wonderful presents that were wrapped in paper and presented to me on the historic day this year:

• Johnny Cash Book - From love of my life
• Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD - From love of my life
• Reggae Reggae Sauce book - From Sister Becky, Andy and Hendrix
• Reiss Clothing voucher - From Nan and Grandad Cooper
• Bottle of wine - From Nan and Grandad Smith
• Chocolate Sunday Maker - From sister Becky, Andy and Hendrix
• Pair of brown trousers - From Reg and Caroline Ward
• Travel sickness writs bands - From Reg and Caroline Ward
• Black belt - From Nick and Rita (Leather not Karate)
• Creative Vado video camera - From Mother, Father, Besty and Dolly
• Stripe blue shirt - From Mother, Father, Besty and Dolly
• Middle Eastern Sweets - From Nick and Rita
• Meal at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons - From love of my life

Why I was on Birthday Train?

As you can see everyone was super generous and I am eternally grateful that people thought about my candles burning.

Let me now turn my attentions to last item on the list which for the non french speakers reads like total gibberish and utter nonsense, ‘Meal at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons??’

This translate roughly as ‘house of four seasons’ and is Raymond Blanc’s legendary two Michelin star restaurant in Oxford. Raymond Blanc is a personal god to me, like the really old brother I never had. I love him because he is nicer than any other chef and he is so passionate about food it makes everyone want to eat it all up and stuff face.

As you can imagine when Emily (Love of my life) told me she had booked a table I went bananas and started vomiting with excitement!

The video below entitled “Birthday Train” is the first in a series about the experience and shows our journey to the restaurant, because like all the worlds best you have to make a great deal of effort to actually get there. First hoping on the Birthday Train and traveling for an hour to a baron little station where you then have to call a  cab, driving a further 20 minutes right into the Oxford woods, finally reaching an astonishing old manor house.

I think you can see the excitement in my face:

Birthday Train Video

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I always wondered if old Jack Penate ever used that advice again, so when I saw him after a show in Brighton I decided to ask find out. The drunken results of my prodding are below.

READ ABOUT THE AIRHAMMER ALBUM HERE

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This was the first interview I ever conducted…

“beNME is a musical experiment that started with name and ended with a death.”

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As a pro busker at south Kensington station I cannot tell you the number of tourists that walked past me on a daily basis and they came in all shapes and sizes: Black, White, Irish, Oriental, Russian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestites, Mute, Tall, Fat, Skinny, Heterosexual, Hindu, Buddhists, Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Amputees, Sikh, Muslim, French, Tourettes and Down’s syndrome.

Wow, there is scope for controversial music videos and more controversial music videos in that list!

As a percentage of all these hundreds and thousand of tourists I would estimate that maybe two percent of them were blind. This made me feel strange at first and I started to worry that I had some deep seated hatred for the visually impaired which was uncontrollable.

But then it struck me, because I realised that what was eating at my little heart strings was not an irrational hatred for disability but my inherent money saving gene fostered in childhood by my father. Yes I was subconsciously thinking “If I was blind, I would save the money on travel, as mostly visiting new countries is about seeing things you haven’t seen before”.

As soon as this thought crossed my mind I realised how ridiculous it was and I could feel the controversial music videos coming on.

It was a very silly idea as its obvious there is a lot to be gained form a new country even if you can’t see it. Relaxation, hot weather, the sounds and the smells………. not to mention the fact that you would probably have a full vision family who would be itching to see Big Ben and Buckingham palace etc.

My stupidity is once again shown up when you look at Fulham football club and their successful blind stand. Ignorant people might say “Why on earth would a blind person go to a football match? It’s a ruddy waste of money”. But at Fulham they have commentary in the stand and the crowd noise is supposed to be incredible for the heightened senses of the blind.

Of course this whole “controversial music videos” post could backfire causing such unrest, uproar and hatred that a band of vigilantes target and peruse me to the ends of the earth in a noble quest take my own eyes in penance for the flippancy I may have displayed here. Although I’m sure the rest of you more rational people will understand that we all have these strange little thoughts from time to time. It’s defiantly bests to get them all out in the open before they start to well up and mutate into bigotry.

Controversial Music Videos Galore - So what is the song all about?

In the song below I take the part of my formerly ignorant and short-sighted self and revisit the past to see what the world is like. There will also be a second part to I reach philosophical enlightenment on the issue and understand the value in blind travel. In the end my character will move on and spend his days creating Controversial Music Videos for profit and fame.

Click here to view the embedded video.
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Anyway I would be glad to get your views on this blind or not so leave me a comment and let me now what you think. Could this work stand up against the great Controversial Music Videos of the past and is there any chance that I might be the new Madonna?

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Anyway what are songs brown? In my opinion the best brown thing of all time has got to be HP sauce, but right after that would no doubt be the enigmatic James “The-Sex-Machine” Brown himself. Everything about James Brown is brown, his name is brown, his skin is brown, and for me his music epitomises Songs Brown.

As avid readers of this Blog will know I’m a huge fan of the Rocky film franchise. This illogical interest in Sylvester’s best work came at the age of eleven when round my best friend’s house I happened upon the empty VHS box when rifling through his possessions. I was instantly hooked and search the entire house (including his momma’s panty draw) for the tape, but it was nowhere to been found! Oh boy that pissed me off good and proper. He’s not my best friends anymore for that.

It was just like the Iphone recently; so beautiful, so alluring, but unattainable because I’m not on the right fringing network. Fuck you Apple, even though I love you more than life.

From that day it was my quest to find the Rocky movie and watch the blasted thing. I soon took a day off school for one of my phantom headaches and went to Brentford High Street to hire it out and have me some delicious breakfast in my favorite café. I thought the cafe family really liked my but I realise now they where only being nice in order to get their grubby paws on my hard earned childhood pounds. In those day I would only every eat Sausage, Bacon and Chips but they just stood by and watched me gorge myself on killer food!

After breakie it was off to Moonlight Movies (the local independent video shop) which was constantly being terrorized by Yardies. In those days they actually rented us videos on real tape, how barbaric that seems now, but back then I went with it hook line and sinker.

Unfortunately I was once again thwarted as the video vendor informed me that I was too late and the first Rocky film was in the grubby hands of another and would not be back for a whole thirty minutes. Like an impatient little blighter I decided to opt for Rocky IV instead.

Be an active communist at the time I thought rocky IV was a great piece of historical documenting, and better still the soundtrack was full of Songs Brown, by which I mean James Brown had wormed his way right into the film and recorded the unforgettable Living in America for the soundtrack Clearly a totally classic which deserves to go down in musical history next to Beethoven of Bach.

You have to love James and the songs Brown sung for us over the years; my only regret is that he never sung a patriotic song for the UK that we could all whistle on the way to work rather than that putrid and degrading national anthem that the bitch Queen wrote for us. Bitch! (I like her and the song really.)

Can you answer this rocky trivia?

1. What is the name of the Russian president they take the piss out of in Rocky IV?
2. What part does Stallone’s floozy play in the film?
3. Rocky has a dog and two turtles what are their names?
4. What clothing company does Rocky promote when he is watching his best friend die?
5. Which Rocky film made the most money? *Clue* This is a trick question……

Songs Brown, songs yellow, song blue, songs red. Is there a name for the phenomenon of colourful music and does everyone get colours when they listen? These are a couple of unimportant questions we should try and answer over the coming weeks. So until next time my lovelies. Have a nice life.

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