Fishing for Holllywood

Stranger things happen of course, afterall we inhabit a planet filled with miracles and disaster, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some sharp suited movie Joe with a fondness for the marching powder buzzed by this old blog of mine from time to time. Hell if nothing else, the hunger of their egos would make this a nailed on certainty. More nailed than a whale God with rare jewels for eyeballs, and bones crafted the calcified souls of super architects but let us get back to earth. Im straying too far from this post.
Can I just say, nay plead with the remains of a quickly greying youth to not be tricked into believing that a reboot/remake of American Ninja, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, They Live and Commando would be good idea. They won't, and you can take that to your overstuffed Century City banks (which if not careful will be remembered for the dosh they made rather than its art). Which would be a shame because while financial reward is itself very nice nothing will dim the glow of producing great work, be it movies, books or music.
Remakes might sound like goof idea, we all remember the glory glory years of the 1980s where it seemed most films were touched by gold but while we know a remake of something like Jaws would be awesome if we were able to capture that creative spark of 1975, we know (with a good del of sadness) that we never will. The most world's most famous shark is born, and attempting a reboot of such an iconic movie would be like mining for gold in a sugar field. Impossible.
Come on, we've seen enough remakes by now to realise that making them is disaster waiting to happen. Move on Hollywood, studios will be making remakes of remakes next (something that would surprise me not in the slightest). Mark my words: movie remakes only serve to dilute the magic of the original.

Here are some personal favourites of mine that ought be left well alone:

American Ninja
They Live
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Cobra
Point Break
Commando

Mess with these 80s cult classics at thy peril! In fact, better yet, don't mess with them at all. Ever. Lest the ghost of the late Steve James Cpl. Curis Jackson return to karate the movie directors.

Sharing Nirvana

There have been a lot of tributes and eulogies written for Kurt Cobain on this, the 20th anniversary of his death, some very honest in the grim reality of suicide, others relying on sensationalist bullsh!t (to 'click~bait' their cheap articles). Me? I was (shotgun)bang in the thick of it: a 23 year old metalhead who after witnessing Gun n' Roses go from L.A. dive bar to Wembley Stadium thanks to the stunning Appetite for Destruction, was now seeing Nirvana throw a sonic nailbomb into the Platinum party. (And even for a fan of bands like Motley Crue and Poison, it was comical watching glam rockers cut their girly hair and attempt a shot at grunge music).
Grunge music was a venomous shot in the 90s arm after the bourbon soaked gems of 80s hard rock, and the awesome thunder of bands like Metallica and Slayer. To a creative twenty something, seeing the almost anarchic madness unfold before my eyes was was very exciting. Up until then, mainstream radio was reluctant to play what was labelled 'heavy metal' and most imagined fans to be long haired, shabby morons headbanging to a tuneless racket (no matter how much I tried 'educating' them with Motorhead's 'Ace of Spades').
The fact I am a poet/writer who, like Kurt, was also using alcohol and drugs whilst shrugging off the norm, made me understand him even more. Hell alive, take away the magazine covers and arena tours, we could have been the same lost kid, looking for a voice. Neither of us afraid to write about misery and death, me with my poetry, Cobain with his beautiful music (and it is beautiful. Afterall, agony has a unique glamour all of its own.
Nirvan were a great band, 'Nevermind' a permanent rainbow's arch.
I was thrilled (at first) when Nevermind shot them into the wider universe in 1991. It was the new Back In Black, Master Of Puppets, the fresh faced De Niro, eager to show a previously ignorant world just how pretty and hard (or pretty hard?) we liked it. This melodious slab of screeching guitars and orchestrated catastrophe topped with singed vocals was King. A shabby Elvis come to show that angry music could indeed win over the doubters. Heavy metal, punk, grunge, call it whatever, it suddenly became accepted, cool even (insert shocked smiley here). Nobody groaned when Nirvana came on the radio, or pub jukebox.
Here was a band lifted straight from the pages of Metal Hammer, suddenly appearing in 'serious' music magazines and even the 'Art/Culture' sections of broadsheet newspapers (where is that shocked smiley again)? It didn't stop there either (of course music fans know grunge didn't start with Nirvana but we won't go into that here), and soon Pearl Jam, Soundgarden et al were sharing the limelight.
A shame it was so short lived but then, and without being too overly dramatic, life's highs (both natural and chemical) and butterflies always find the quickest path to the morgue. Savour the good times for they are fleeting and seldom hang around to see an encore. So it was with Kurt and his boys (although the boys/songs remain). I was drinking in a pub in my hometown in west Wales when I heard news of Cobains suicide in 1994, and it soured my drink some. I always knew Kurt was a reluctant rockstar, you didn't have to be a genius to know that reading some interviews but suicide? By shotgun? It seemed so vulgar, especially after that gentle accoustic performance on MTV Unplugged.
Some would say it was a fitting end . After Kurt's suicide, the banshee guitars and murderous drum solos could retire back into denim covens where Lemmy was God, and trendy pop lovers could breathe a sigh of relief again as dance floors reverted to monotonous digital, pulse~like tunes. Poetry in music was gone, its chief bard, a shabby Shakespeare dead by his own hand.
And you want to know something? The young Dai Jakes was glad (though not by the frontman's passing obviously). Glad because I wasn't really happy sharing 'my' music for long. Initially I was proud to have the worlds ear cocking its head to grunge and heavy metal, it proved we were more than Jack Daniels soaked ruffians but it also felt like an invasion of privacy. I had something good, something cool and while it was nice sharing, it did feel good to have it back again.

Now we plum haired, coffee eyed darlings of the leather nights can go back to making magic between ourselves.

Toodle pip for now!

Festival Snores

A man in mud yesterday

Glastonbury music festival is sh!t. There, I have said it seeing as everyone else is either too fooled by it or too afraid to speak out through fear of being labelled 'uncool'. And its not just 'Glasto' but festivals in general. I went to the Phoenix festival in 1995 and had probably the worst three days Id ever spent in jolly old England (and believe me, there's been a few.) Sheer purgatory.
These things are nothing more than people desperately trying to cling on to a rapidly disappearing youth. Its not even about the bands anymore as capitalism runs rampant with company brands and logos splashed over everything. Like I said, sh!t.
Ive heard Glastonbury described thus: "a brilliant celebration of performing arts, the circus field, the comedy tents, all kinds of stuff going on." Yeah and lets not forget the botulism from bad, overpriced food, open drug dealing, spotty cretins thieving from tents, risk of ebola from visiting the toilets and locals lives being made a misery while the party is in town. A party which doesn't even sound right because the sound quality at festivals is generally pretty poor. I think ferret sound engineers from Outer Akinzaboola are involved.
Even my beloved former 'Monsters of Rock' event has morphed into the dreadful sounding 'Download' festival (and stretched over the obligatory 3 days.) Im not suggesting festivals have always been bad but for the past 15 years or so they have certainly lost the plot. Oh and for what its worth, I have always thought the artists that have appeared at Glasto have been more miss than hit. Just another 2 cents to consider. Now I realise this will be almost blasphemous to some people so Id better sign off as there is only enough sacrilege a man can take in one day.

Bass Ache FM

Okay everyone and their pet alien knows that I am a metalhead. (I suspect my brain is actually made of some kind of metal too, lead probably.) Ive been listening to heavy metal since 1980 and for me, nothing comes close to the raw power and imagery it produces. Country music is its closest genre (country musicians make those appalling 'gansta rappers' look like children), and although I do like country (NOT the Shania Twain type), it is to the devil horns my allegiance lies. Play it loud, play it plowed!
Anyway I was surfing my radio app on iPhone earlier and found a German station dedicated to 'hardcore trance bass' music. Intrigued (and tired of talk radio) I tuned in and gave it a listen for thirty minutes. Now Mr Jakes is not going to rubbish another style of music because quite frankly it never achieves anything (other than the complainer looking like a mouthy tool), but I will admit that this music is not for me. Perhaps I listened twenty minutes too long or something because I enjoyed the odd beat and rhythm here and there but could never suffer longer than say 10/15 minutes. It started to sound all the same and indeed I even came away with the conclusion that 'trance bass' is the sound of real insanity. This my friends is what lunacy sounds like. Have a listen for yourselves.

The Wine Is On The House

Excuse the cheap title, its a sunday and I feel lazy.
The world and its cockles know that singer Amy Winehouse died yesterday (July 23rd) and most of the people were deeply saddened by the news. A young woman, blessed with talent in abundance, gone too soon to the rock gig in the sky. Although I am a keen supporter of hard living, I do feel for her family and loved ones who are left with broken hearts. I know only too well what its like to lose cherished people to drink and drugs, and even when you expect it, its never easy when the curtain does eventually fall.
Personally speaking I would have loved to have met up with Amy and shared a few shots but thats for another time now.
What is annoying however is the medias obssession with this Club 27 rubbish. Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain and now Amy all dead at age 27. *Cue Twilight music* Is it only me who thinks its simply coinsidence? I dont believe that somewhere in the Afterlife there is an exclusive club for tarnished rock stars. They all indulged in drugs and had the money to do so freely, thats what offed them so young. Not some hokus pokus jinx of an age.
Straying slightly, this news does reinforce what I hhave always believed; talent always comes at a price. Its a damned shame that Ms Winehouse had to pay after only two albums. Her music was not my usual cup of tea but I could listen to it at times without switching to something harder. Something harder. Yes the tick which allows some of us to conjure up great words and music always drives us toward the Something Harder nail.
Amy's tune 'Rehab' covered it perfectly I feel. When her family and 'handlers' tried telling her to seek some help, she not only dismissed the idea completely but released a massive "F**K YOU" to them. Publicly. (I did it myself with my poem "The ChampionLand". I went to rehab but there was no way I meant to get sober and Im still drinking to this day).
Yes its sad whats happened but my sympathies lay with her family. This young lady wasn't stupid, she knew what she was doing as all us boozehounds do. We realise death is creeping up on us but its our life.

Music: The Magnificent BeLIEve

Horror writer Stephen King says that he loves Metallica, AC/DC, Anthrax, etc but he never cared for Black Sabbath. And Im the same. Confession time: I am a massive lifelong fan of heavy metal but I have never owned a Sabbath or Led Zep record. Doubt ive even picked one up in a record store. Sure ive heard the music, and like some of it (tho not a big fan), but my metal collection that I started nearly thirty years ago (!?!) has been just dandy without Physical Graffiti and Master of Reality among its ranks. And I had to Google both bands to find those album titles. A lot of folks buy albums simply to join the same miserable queue. They fall into the trap of thinking they must like a band because everyone else does. This is the only way I can understand how the God awful Beatles were so popular. People just liked them because others did. Why? Humans are herders.

Looks fun!

The mind tricks people into believing the music is good. Of course someone will try telling me that they actually like a certain popular band but I take it as a huge pinch of salt because of the Trick. Afterall the mind is for the most part a mystery. Its easy for it to have you believing you feel the sound when you most likely do not.
And it probably happens in my beloved metal scene the most come to think about it. There are a lot of theatrics and imagery involved with certain bands, Slipknot for example, and I have no doubt that some fans are only attracted because its the current 'in' trend.
Naturally im not saying every fan of Led Zeppelin or The Beatles *puke* has been conned by their whimsical minds but I am saying a lot have. And its not exclusive to music.