The three close....

I worked the most hideous shift... the most hideous fucking shift that can be worked if you're a bartender.

Yep, I'm talking about the 3cl.

You start at three in the afternoon and just keep going until closing time.

Which was four in the morning.

Then we had to clean up.

That is in total about 16hrs.

I'm only 24, and already, I'm beginning to get a little too old for this shit. A shift like that completely kills me. I think I prefer splits.... at least that way you guaranteed get a break. But Saturday was just fucking mental. It was jam packed with people, and they were all looking to get as off their chops as possible. More kept coming in. More kept getting ruder as the night went on...

It shattered me and I lost my temper with one couple. It's the first time I'd done it in months, and I felt really bad about it, but my sympathy is limited if you are wilfully rude and I've been working nearly ten hours straight.

It has to make you wonder why people act like that... alcohol isn't enough of an excuse and people blaming everything on drink is as far as I'm concerned just lazy.

It's a lively and ongoing debate across the country; what is to be done with our boozy nation? Apparently we now consume more Vodka than the Russians. Now that's a scary thought, isn't it? We now drink more Vodka than a nation famous for its fatalistic pickling of its population. The owner of the JD Wetherspoon chain Tim Martin has weighed into the argument too, blaming the visibility of celebrity drinking culture in particular and just cultural problems in general as the reason why there has been an apparent escalation in booze related violence.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/2008/03/should_celebs_carry_the_can_fo.html

From a personal point of view, Saturday was a boozy punch up that threatened to and did happen a couple of times that night. I've had violence threatened upon me, I've had to physically defend myself in the bar, all of this while I've been working...

It's quite clearly a problem that's not going to sort itself out any time soon, and nor is it as simple as saying "they started it," and pointing the finger of blame at famous people. Famous people have always been pickling themselves and finding ever more glamorous ways to destroy themselves for the benefit of their viewing public. One only has to look Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse and the way that the public still continue to watch with morbid fascination their terrifying descent into new drug and alcohol induced lows.... no, Mr Martin is right that the problem we have is a cultural one. How are we going to get around the fact that even with an option for it, there is no 24hr drinking, rather six til about four in the morning at the weekend and only at the weekend? If we want to get rid of the boozy fights, the lairy antics and the terrifying crowds of pissed people wandering up and down the high streets of the UK we have to seriously think about ways to stop this all pervading belief that you only live for the weekend.

First Gig Jitters...

I haven't experienced first gig jitters in a while. Not since I joined Girl 13 actually, and to be fair, the my first gig with the band was the biggest of the bands life at that point. Played at the Ponty Muni hall and actually full of people, it scared me a little. The rest of the band took it in their stride, and within ten minutes of actually being there I'd calmed down. This was all stuff they'd seen before, and to be fair, so had I so it was just another day at the office. They were calm because they'd done it all before.

Kalmar is a totally different proposition. We are untested as a live band. I know that that is a totally academic point; the three of us have played as a collective before, and we were the ones that worked the best together; that's why the band was born in the first place. I'm totally sure that this will not prove to be anything of a different experience from gigging with Girl 13, except that there will probably be fewer or no fights, and we'll actually spend the evening in each others company rather than pissing off and being nowhere to be found for ten minutes.

But the point remains. This is a different band, following a different blueprint for success, necessarily so because Girl 13's obviously didn't work. R.I.P and all that, sad to see the good old days gone and everything, but hey... Kalmar is such an awesome band to be in. It's fun, we challenge each other, we're on the same page, and we're writing good songs that are getting more and more complex every time we step into the practice room. We're in the honeymoon stage of band formation where we're writing on average two new songs every week (we timed our whole catalogue of material today. It clocks in at an hour and a quarter). This is what worries me.

We have our grand designs in the practice room, but will it all fall apart on stage? Will we play everything note perfect but look wooden and gauche? Will we be completely uncharismatic? Will we find that the music we're playing only works in the practice room and we're not competent enough musicians to do it live? Will I severely fuck up a song that Mike and Coran have got down to a T? (And will we never ever be welcome in the lovely pub to the left here ever again? Yes, this is where the battle begins in earnest).

These ladies and gentlemen are the pre-gig jitters. Everything is still new enough to be scary, and it's doubly scary because we have so much forward momentum now that it would probably take more effort to slow the whole process or stop it than it would to just keep moving in the direction we're going. We've invested so much time and effort in being the best we can be as musicians and delivering music we believe in heart and soul that of course we can't help but be scared.

When next Thursday arrives, we'll have our answers. We'll have a played a kickass gig and we'll bed the ghosts of failure and Girl 13 forever. Till then, I'll just sit here and quietly worry and practice furiously the tougher parts of the songs we'll be debuting to the City that have been wondering what the boys in the band have been up to.

When I was a child, I was never afraid of an ass whupping...

Ok, so as an opening title, that's not strictly speaking true. I was afraid of getting my arse kicked by the playground bully, and I hated fighting, but that was just how it went. If you got in a fight, you stood up and defended yourself. I was tried of my older sister emasculating me every day and sorting out my troubles with bullying kids. So I took up martial arts and learnt how to fight as well as excellent ways to avoid such confrontations... I didn't then care that people would call me a coward from walking away from a fight, because I knew better.

But the fact remains... you stood your ground and threw punches, even if they were terrible and were going to make no difference.

I have read an article on the Telegraph online

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/06/nguns106.xml).

I cannot even begin to imagine what sort of lives these children and teenagers are living; I grew up in the suburbs of a quiet midlands town where nothing ever happened officially ever. At the time of course, it felt like a war zone, but everyone feels like that to some extent while growing up, and people who say that their teenage years were not some sort of battleground are just plain lying; even if the struggle is within yourself, it's still a struggle. But every problem could be solved by chucking a few fists about and at the very worst, someones mum going around to see someone else's mum.

The knowledge that it's only a matter of time before a police officer in a major conurbation will have to shoot a child wielding a weapon is one that makes me immensely sad. I could go on about the declining state of youth, the lack of strong father figures (to the point where David Beckham is seriously called a good role model to children), where did the parents go wrong, etc etc... There's no point. Everyone in the world has heard these arguments ad nauseaem, and if we're totally fair, it's no big surprise. One only has to look at the Favela's in Brazil to know that we don't have it that bad.

It must be heart wrenching to be an armed police officer in this country though; You are armed because you live in an area that is armed, and the violence has escalated to the point where criminals will no longer listen to the stern words of a police officer, or even his night stick. All they will listen to is the barrel of the weapon pointed in their face.

It must be heart wrenching going to work and wondering if today is the day you shoot a twelve year old child.

It must be heart wrenching being those children, who already at such a young age have gotten to the point where they feel like there is no other answer than to pull the trigger.

This HAS to stop.

Assistant commissioner to the Metropolitan police John Yates has said that the attitude of Police officers and their unwillingness to take rape claims seriously are contributing factors to the appalling conviction rates in rape cases, which is at a ridiculously low level, just under 5%.


He's said detectives don't apply the same professionalism to rape as they do to other serious crimes. He blamed police for too often greeting complainants with a skeptical manner, and said officers "must absolutely accept the victim's version of events unless there are very substantial reasons to do otherwise".

Do the police seriously have to be told this? SERIOUSLY?

You may cry miscarriage of Justice at me all you like, and innocent until proven guilty, but this is a totally different sort of crime, and most of the people you hear using that kind of language will be men. I'm not a man hater, I am a fucking man. But this gets severely under my skin. "But when you start using guilty until proven innocent in one case, what's to stop you doing it to others?"

I'll tell you what. Common fucking sense.

Rape is a crime that is almost exclusively feared by almost only one half of the population. Rape is a crime that happens to almost only one half of the population. Rape is a crime that is perpetrated by almost exclusively one half of the population. And, sorry to break the news fellas, but rape is a crime that ALL men are able to commit. Apart from one or two very bizarre and admittedly disturbing cases, men are the perpetrators, and they come from all walks of life, from all ages, and all nationalities, all creeds, etc etc etc. I am capable of rape. My buddies in the band are capable of rape. Women are 99.99% incapable of that.

That may not make sense as to why we should treat rape differently to other serious crimes, but I'll attempt to explain. When a system of life like the patriarchy is so strongly in place, innocent until proven guilty just doesn't work. No one will ever try to insinuate that a child deserved to die in a horrific murder case because he wasn't careful, or left his mums side, and as such was asking for it. No one will ever insinuate that because a guy bought a big house that he was asking to be robbed. However, a women wearing a short skirt can apparently be invitation to rape. A woman kissing a guy on the first date can be an invitation to rape. Eye contact can be an invitation to rape. How fucked is that?

What other crime is there that asks the plaintiff, or complainant, or the fucking victim to stand up and be cross examined about her past sexual habits, whether or not she owns sex toys, whether the children she has are all from the same father... so that means that a woman seeking justice for a horrible fucking crime committed upon her has to endure pointless and irrelevant questions about her sexual history and have the most intimate details of her personal life scrutinized and have lawyers attempt to smear her character. What is the point? Part of the anti rape literature points out that the accused never has to take the stand about any of that.

Isn't that also missing the point?

The fact is, you could be the village bike and have fucked every man from Cardiff to Beijing, sucked strangers off in the street, worn indecently short skirts or no skirt at all, and could have a veritable United Colors of Benetton advert as your litter of children. People's past character matters not one bit, nor does their sexual history.... (mild mannered family men and clerks and accountants none of whom would have ever hurt a fly suddenly raped pillaged and murdered in the Vietnam War, past character be damned. Would they have gotten off in court if they had just proven good character enough?)... None of that changes the fact that if she is raped, someone still forcibly took carnal knowledge of her without her consent. If she said No, then it's WRONG.

Anyone reading this will be thinking one of two things. "Right on!" or "You can't make one law for men and another for women."

The person thinking the last thing will be a man. Let me get your attention buddy. When was the last time you walked down a street somewhere and feared being raped?

Was that answer never?

The worst you will ever fear is a good kicking. And you have no idea how lucky that makes you.

And if you'd like to open your eyes.... see this here http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/

Fallen Heroes....

Last night, I was at the open mic night in the place I work and I started to get unfeasibly excited. A guy that played the open mic night all the time when I had first started working there was once again playing. He'd been on Hiatus for ages and ages, and I knew like everyone else who'd seen him before that the only reason he'd been away for so long is because he was working on putting together a band to help support his sound; this was a sound that was at the time so vast, so incomprehensibly good, containing ethereal vocals, decency, humility and grace that he would need a band behind him because he was just that good.

The Open mic progressed in the same way it usually does of a Sunday. Everyone else plays, the headlining band plays, then I play... it's something of a little vanity project for me. I get to play sticky sweet acoustic ballads about love and loss that just wouldn't fit into the band... The songs are in general too angry and all about my exes, and when we get together and play I have to stop being selfish in order to write good music. While I'm there, I plug the band and play "crimes," which in turn lets the Sunday night lot know that I'm made of sterner stuff and not just a teen angst complainer in the form of song... and everyone goes home happy. There was however a palpable buzz from the people who had gathered to watch this musical collective unleash what was surely to be an epic swirl of soaring vocals and huge cavernous sounding guitar work....


...And we were all horrendously disappointed.

Before, I watched a lion roar. Now, I saw that same lion with his mane shorn and his throat ripped out. There was no roar. There was just a formerly great musician and his backing band of pub standard session musicians.

Proof that if we are not careful, the mighty can fall if we listen to our own P.R. and bullshit. I like to think of myself as humble. I obviously wouldn't be pinning all of my future on this band if I didn't think we weren't good enough, but after last night, I no longer think that being cripplingly self doubting is a bad thing. I think it keeps me honest. And I think we're all like that actually... Mike and I give the impression of being either difficult to approach or just plain arseholes, but it's armor... or at least it is for me. What if you get to know me and don't like me? And good god... what if you don't like my music? I put 100% of myself into that, it's the most honest thing I do!

That's what keeps me honest. If I constantly doubt my abilities but still push as hard as I can and try to be the best musician I can be and put everything I have into it, then it means I still have something to prove, to me as well as everyone else. I'm never going to stand there thinking "I'm so great I never need to try..."

The minute you do, you should put down your guitar, stop singing and leave the band you're in. You've just turned into a cock, and you do not deserve the opportunity to make music.


News on the band front.... we have another gig confirmed! See www.myspace.com/thekalmar for details, but it's the 13th March, The End in Cardiff. Cheers Jeff, we owe you one buddy!