No-one seems to care anymore viagra. Everyone has given up viagra price. There's no hope, and what's more, no sense of the whole or sense of cohesion. It's every man for himself in a fog of authoritarianism and stupid rules.
This isn't a description of Soviet Poland, circa 1985 viagra online. This is Britain today viagra price.
How did we get here ? When I was a teenager, growing up in the 1990s, there seemed to be a real sense of progress and destiny amongst people . We'd come out of the recession. Education was still free (higher and university) and this 'classless society' mantra really seemed possible (in part thanks to Maggie T, of course).
The government was dull and stupid, of course, and the seeds were being sewn for our future downfall . Michael Howard's 'Criminal Justice and Public Order Act' was largely stupid and wrong. It gave the state more powers than was just and moral . Something New Labour would later take up with a passion and determination never before seen .
But with the passing of this Act came a message - people may dislike something, but the State can always claim the moral high ground and trump everyone's hand. 'It's for your own good; the ends justify the means'.
Middle England ignored this Bill. They bought the Mail line that giving the police more powers is the answer. Give them bigger sticks, and the trouble makers and wrongdoers will fold .
Wrong. This approach never has and never will work. Because by clamping down on alternative scenes and alternative lifestyles (such as those of the underground and rave scenes of the early '90s and the old Squat parties and digs that came with that), you are effectively trying to homogenise society. And in so doing, you kill its heart and soul.
The same goes for attacks on the ancient English common law tradition of presuming a man's innocence until guilt is proven. The right to a full jury trial, where verdicts are delivered under unanimous decisions, were attacked by the Tories in the '90s and finished off with a coup de grace by Straw and Blunkett under Labour.
These Acts splinter society, and eradicate aspects to life and culture by forcing people to conform to what the state or certain lobby groups want them to be.
I write this piece because Mark Steel, the brilliant far left stand up comedian and Independent columnist, wrote this piece before Christmas. The piece is entitled 'Help save Christmas from the dreaded X-Factor'. I give you this very important passage from the article:
All that makes music powerful is systematically removed by the X Factor process. Anything dirty, painful, eccentric, scary, in other words individual, is scrubbed away, so if Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain or Eminem had ever applied, they'd have been chortled off in the first audition.
Once we had this man heading up one of many very interesting new genres in music and youth culture...
...Now you get a choice between this lady, and about three dozen indistinguishable clones. Lucky us.Mark Steel, wittingly or unwittingly, reveals a very serious problem in Britain today. Certain key elites, political or otherwise, have an upper hand not seen before in Britain since Feudal times. The brow beaten, brainwashed and belittled masses are force fed a diet of no choice.
You have no choice politically. You have no choice in what you see on television or within popular entertainment. Music has been depressingly hijacked by a small number of labels and interests who force feed us a diet of bland shite. Steel's 'X Factor' rant could not have come at a better time. Because this stuff really is that bad, and weirdly, it really is that 'popular'.
I think all of these things feed into why this country and its people have no sense of purpose or direction anymore. Contrary to what a lot of people on the right say now, it isn't all New Labour's fault (although they are hideously guilty of nurturing this state of affairs). It began under the Tories.
We see more and more legislation telling us what to do, think or say. We can get arrested and charged now for saying things to people that are not nice. When did that happen?
There are less and less freedoms. Fewer and fewer sources of real, authentic and interesting culture. There's no underground scene, outside of the aggressive and knife infested slums of London. Every decade up to the noughties had their thing going on. People felt part of a 'wave', regardless of age. Now people feel a wave alright - the wave of authority and conformity washing us up on the beach like an army of useless, overweight whales.
Let me quote Mark Steel again...
"Anything dirty, painful, eccentric, scary, in other words individual, is scrubbed away"
I love that quote. Because it is so fucking true. Music is such a true and potent barometer of the human spirit and of the heath and make up of any given society. And if you take away that which is authentic and real and passionate, what are you left with?
A Citroen Xsara Picasso, a shit job, a plasma pumping out 'X Factor' repeats, a husband who has lost all interest in life and a couple of kids who play too much Playstation.
So will the 'Tens' be another shit, directionless and authority-dominated decade? Or will us people grow a fucking pair and do something about this bullshit?
Let's crack our fucking heads together and work towards breaking the mold. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then let's play 'Zorro'.
12 comments:
brilliant
There's always been manufactured bands - the Monkees didn't meet up in some hip beatnik club, but were advertised for. The Archies were hardly Gorillaz. X Factor is just the result of 4 decades of meeja changes.
And while the naughties had no overwhelming underground movement, that's mainly because the internet has destroyed the traditional underground movements - why huddle in cold club listening to a new band when you can download an MP3 from MySpace?
The internet has changed society in a lot of subtle ways, perhaps not for the better.
And there are still underground scenes out there. In Manchester there's a occasional night called the 'Cabinet of Curiosity with Leonard Skully' which regularly has some curios on.
Modern life is rubbish.
But in fairness the cycle is a bit over ten years so I'm guessing were due something new soon. If anything'll provoke it it's going to be the Xfactor!
SBW
I've got some bad news for you, JD: I agree with you.
Top work, John, and a cunting miserable new year to you, too!
Although I couldn't vouch for the lack of underground movements in the 00's - career, marriage and mortgage took me well away from any contact with a 'scene'.
However, I career into this decade with no mortgage and no marriage, so things are already 66% better :-)
Cheers guys.
Obby (that's Obsidian, not Obo) - this 'age of the net' argument can only go so far. At the end of the day, music is music and a scene is a scene and staying in has always been staying in.
One factor I haven't mentioned might be over-dominant, over-anxious parents who don't want their kids to leave the house, so they grow up introverted, de-socialised and agoraphobic. Which, arguably, is partly because society has been homogenised and forced into a sardine tin by big government.
Ive told you before..LEAVE LEONNA ALONE..ALL RIGHT!!!!
What, the one who looks like a King Charles Spaniel?
Ruff RUFF!
This is a bit tangential, but is something that really pisses me off so -
Another insidious dampener on the live music scene, at least in London, has been the growth of the wannabe promoters. They form agreements with venues whereby they guarantee audience numbers, and to play these venues a band then has to go through them.
The catch is that the "promoters" do fuck all to promote the gig, they merely guarantee the audience numbers by making the bands guarantee attendees, with financial penalties for numbers under the contracted target - so a band plays, say the 100 Club on a Thursday night, for half an hour from 7.30 to 8.00, and if less than 60 people turn up and pay £8 specifically saying they have come to see that band - the band pays to have played! Four bands a night, nice money for the promoters, nice money for the venue with their over-priced drinks, a pile of shit for a band who can't market themselves sufficiently well to get 60+ people along to watch them for 30 minutes and then have to listen to three other bands they might not like.
So think about it - you're a band starting out gigging, and you need to play regularly to learn how to perform rather than just play your music - how many times will your mates come and see you? If the remnants of Led Zep reformed permanently, I'd go to see them maybe three times in a year....so how do you attract a following? You're not going to get it by playing the Dog and Duck in the suburbs with a shit sound system and enough room to swing a cat...so it's internet time, recording studios, MP3 downloads, and gimmicks. If you want to play live, get good at being a covers band, do weddings and birthdays, play familiar music for barn dances - but forget anything remotely original, live ain't the way.
Which is a fucking shame.
Great insight, Mr Rob. I didn't know that this went on at live venues as you described. It is, as you say, a fucking shame.
There aren't anywhere nearly enough good venues that play good live music and I find it desperately sad that, as ever in society today, money is so all-important a factor.
Living a pebble's throw from the Moors, I don't get so many live music venues, shit and badly managed or otherwise.
So I sort of get along by strumming my own guitar. That and having a dabble on my Pioneer decks.
Which is great in its own way in that it gives you pleasure, and that's the point of music I guess.
It just pisses me off when I see (well, hear about - I have watched exactly one episode of X-Factor, when visiting someone)what passes for talent being given access to an audience of millions, and then meet genuinely talented and creative musicians who scrape together a modest living from writing incidental music for TV and film for example....oh well, such is life..
The only way forward is to vote with your wallet, sadly. And other things, like fingers that operate remotes and tongues that give verbal support.
I advocate the boycott wherever possible and appropriate. It's a shame that some fellow 'libertarians' I know of seem to think this is lefty and anti-capitalist. Twats.
It is sad that cool, talented people have such a hard ride, where X Factor types get to join the endless ranks of Zed Lister celebs and the musically 'recognised'.
I recently discovered the existence of an 'artist' called 'Lady Sovereign'. It was a resoundingly depressing experience.
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