Musical Advent Calendar - Recap Days 21 - 24
By the time you read this, it’ll be Christmas Day. Music Towers will have shut up shop for a while (at least until we’ve put the finishing touches to our 2008 Almanac), and will have settled down to watch the Dr Who Xmas Special with a big bottle of gin. Later on you will find us wandering the streets, drunkenly singing the four songs you can see below. We might be dressed as Santa, we might possibly just go naked - in either case, it won’t be pretty, but gosh darn it will be entertaining.
Have a very merry Christmas, from all of us here at Music Towers. We just hope that someone got us that White Zombie boxset we’ve been dropping hints about over the last month….
Day 21 - ‘Christmas Is Awesome’ - Rueben
Day 22 - ‘Merry Christmas Baby (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
Day 23 - ‘Happy Christmas (War is Over)’ - John Lennon
Day 24 - ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ - Twisted Sister
Musical Advent Calendar - Recap Days 16 - 20
Have you done your Christmas shopping yet? We have. We’re so up on Christmas like you would not believe. We’ve taken to striding about our office dressed as Santa Claus. Local children are terrified when thye see us struttung up and down the high street like a gaggle of red-clad drunks. It’s amazing.
ANYWAY - here’s the last five days of our splendid musical advent calendar - we really love Joel Moss Levinson’s bitchin’ song we used yesterday.
Day 16 - ‘Last Christmas’ - Wham!
Day 17 - We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ - Weezer
Day 18 - ‘Fairytale of New York’ - The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl
Day 19 - ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ - My Chemical Romance
Day 20 - Christmas Kicks Hanukah’s Ass!’ - Joel Moss Levinson
Reasons Not to be Christmassy: The State of the UK Record Industry
Bah-chuffing-Humbug. I my mind, Christmas isn’t a time of merriment, it’s a time to reflect on how this year was a bit crappier than last year, and how next year already looks like it’s going to be bloody awful.
Christmas TV these days seems to kick off with a teenager saying
“I have been through so much to be here’
If I hear one more, I will have to start burning effigies of Simon Cowell in Trafalgar Square. This year I was unfortunate enough to watch about 8 episodes of the blimmin’ X-Factor. No longer content with being an X-Men spin off, they ditched all the original characters (The Beast, Angel, Marvel Girl, Cyclops) for a bunch of sniveling cretins.
It is an endless guilt trip of how they will commit suicide/murder a puppy/murder the rest of their family if they don’t get to put out a flaccid Christmas single before fading into annonimity again. Maybe with these reality TV shows they should just skip the singing and dancing and have a crying competition.
For the fifth year on the trot, an X-Factor contestant has done a smaltzy cover and bagged the Xmas number one. Simon Cowell has single handedly ruined Christmas. Again.
Christmas in musicland is also ruined by the annual realisation that the industry is smaller, more disparate, more desperate then ever before. As my tax return deadline comes into view, I notice the shrinking of clients budgets in glorious excel spreadsheet technicolour.
While Alexandra Burke cries ‘Halleujah’, I’m taking stock of 2008 and am finding it a miserable experience. Some of the major players are struggling to exist, with the infrastructure of the UK recording industry crumbling faster than Zimbabwe’s economy. It seems like we’re approaching the tipping point.
The UK’s largest independent distributor, Pinnacle, and previously largest-cheesy-pop-that-goes-in-Tesco’s distributor, EUK, are both in administration. Past giants in retail are now minnows, with Woolworths, the biggest retailer of music of the 90s, twitching in its death throes. This time last year we had Fopp and Virgin Megastores, but now there is just a struggling Zavvi and a loss-posting HMV. It’s got to the point where the music industry can’t sell enough records to support a single high street chain.
My local high street has more Sushi bars than stores where I can listen to or buy music. The last 8 years have trained a whole generation that music is something to be had for free. Electronics outfit, Maplin’s, sell a terrabyte hard drive for £70. Who needs Peer 2 Peer? Just pop round this afternoon and take ALL THE MUSIC THAT WAS EVER RECORDED on one hard drive.
The recent industry conferences in London all seemed to be called things like ‘We are all really feckked - does anyone have any ideas?’ or ‘Can we get someone a bit famous to charm an MP, maybe that will help?’. Nobody did have any ideas, but the MP was a bit charmed by it all, so maybe there is hope. Although the sea will rise before there is a music tax included in the license fee.
Oh, but the live scene is booming you say? In 2008, the live scene reached the apex of a ten year boom; from here on in it is down down down, so grab a decent bobsleigh. In the last 12 months the UK has been lucky to have a pretty strong pound, $2.1 to £1 this time last year, to just $1.4 to £1 now. This means that those dollars you pay Kings of Leon for their umpteenth miserable festival appearance might just double.
Most of the profits from the last few years has been shipped out of the UK in the form of giants Live Nation or AEG. And I can’t remember the last time a live events company put any money into developing acts, as instead they’re saving all those pennies for gut-busting deals with Madonna or Jay Z. As our money goes stateside by way of those colossal artist fees and share dividends, UK acts, and in turn those medium-sized shows, dry up. Big tickets get more expensive, and control in in fewer and fewer hands. Across the board, old hands get let go as younger, cheaper, and easier to shag command staff get hired.
With the country approaching two million unemployed, I think punters’ casual spending on a round of £4-a-pint beers might be replaced with a renewed vigour of smuggling in some booze. People will start skipping behemoths like Glastonbury, as it is rubbish and a bit samey anyway. We spent most of the festival at the campsite watching people trying to do handstands.
The long and the short of it is that during a time when more than ever before, more music is being created, listened to, carried, watched and moshed to, never has it been more impossible to make a living from it.
Which, unfortunately, was what I did up until up until now. Bah Humbug.
Musical Advent Calendar - Recap Days 11 - 15
OHMYGODTHERE’S
JUSTTENDAYSTOGO! No, we don’t know why Christmas makes us so exicted here at Music Towers. Maybe because we know we’ll be getting that White Zombie boxset we’ve had our eye on for the last few weeks. Or maybe because there’s a Doctor Who special on TV. Or maybe because of the vast amount of mince pies we’re going to eat. Or maybe it’s the mulled wine. Or the mistletoe! Or the fact we’re going to get dressed up like Santa and ruin someone’s office party. Or that we’re going to hire a snow machine and set it off in our garage.
Or maybe it’s because the best is still yet to come on our amazing Musical Advent Calendar? There are some real gems coming up in the last ten days. In any case, here’s the last five entires, which you may have missed if you’ve been out Christmas shopping or something.
Day 11 - ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas (Rave Mix)’ - DJ Cool
Day 12 - ‘It’s Christmas And I Hate You’ - Paloma Faith & Josh Weller
Day 13 - ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)’ - The Darkness
Day 14 - ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ - Girls Aloud
Day 15 - ‘Someday at Christmas’ - Stevie Wonder
More reasons to be Christmassy
Did you come to the big Music Towers ‘Oh Christmas!’ party last night? It was amazing. The police turned up. There was blood everywhere. People danced till they hurt, and everyone who could get sexy, got sexy. Jon Bon Jonas and Death & Glory stole the night with a sing-a-long ‘Love Hurricane’, and John Doran of The Quietus and our faves, Beef Warehouse, kept the tunes spinning till late, late doors. If you missed it, then you are an idiot.
But hey, the real reason I’m bothering you this evening is to let you know of the recession-busting sale going on at Xtra Mile Recordings. They’re knocking a shocking 20% - TWENTY BLOODY PERCENT - off some of their records till December 18. Included in this sweet little Xmas shopping shortcut are Million Dead, Lights Action, Reuben, Jonah Matranga and Frank Turner. That’s him in the picture up there. He’s got a new single out, ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ which those of you with magic radio boxes might’ve heard aready. We tupping love it here at Music Towers.
Watch the video for ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ by Frank Turner:
Frank Turner is also touring the fuck out of 2009 - he’s all over the place alternately with The Levellers, The Gaslight Anthem, and Anti-Flag. You ought to buy some ticket - BEAT THE RECESSION!
Musical Advent Calendar - Recap Days 6 - 10
The results of Days 6 through 10 of our Musical Advent Calendar, presented for those who might’ve missed a day.
Day 6 - ‘Christmas Duel’ - The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
Day 7 - ‘Dick in a Box’ - Saturday Night Live and Justin Timberlake
Day 8 - ‘Heavy Metal Jingle Bells’
Day 9 - ‘Christmas Tree’ - Lady GaGa
Day 10 - ‘No Presents For Christmas’ - King Diamond
Are you as excited as we are that it’s NEARLY CHRISTMAS!?!?!?!?!!!
Musical Advent Calendar - Recap Days 1 - 5
What do you mean, you don ‘t read Music Towers every day? Are you some kind of cretin? Man, you used to be cool.
Well, since it IS getting near Christmas and all, we’ll forgive you. And to show that we really mena it, here’s a recap of all the wonderous Christmas videos from our Musical Advent Calendar (it’s up a bit and on your left) from the first five days. Enjoy.
Day 1 - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ - HemorRhage
Day 2 - ‘Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy’ - David Bowie and Bing Crosby
Day 3 - ‘8 Days of Christmas’ - Destiny’s Child
Day 4 - ‘City of Christmas Ghosts’ - Goldblade ft. Poly Styrene
Day 5 - ‘NOT the Cliff Richard Christmas Single’ - Beau Bo Do’r, Doghorse and Eclectech
Office Parties: OUT. Rock’n'roll parties: IN
We love Christmas here at Music Towers. We’re running a video advent calender at the moment up there in the video box - go on, look up and to your right a little bit. Every five days we’re going to collect them all so you can catch any that you’ve missed. Think of it as an early Xmas present.
Speaking of which, Christmas is also the time for parties. We’ve all been to office parties before, and I think we can all agree that they suck harder than an elephant given a bowling ball-sized gobstopper. You get drunk with people you wouldn’t normally socialise with even at the barrell of a gun, eat some stale crisps, get off with that girl from accounts, and pass out on the bus home and are late for work the next day becasue you woke up at the bus station in Ealing with a hangover that rates alongside Hurricane Katrina in the damage-stakes.
Well, we here at Music Towers want to put a stop to Bad Christmas Parties. So much so that we’re throwing one of our own. On December 11 - next week, calendar fans - alongside our friends Beef Warehouse (that’s them there in the picture up at the top) and BigSexyLand, we’ll be throwing a FREE party over at new venue, South Of The Border. It’s right in the heart of Shoreditch, mere minutes walk from Liverpool St Station and Old Street tube. If you’re going to be about next Thursday, drop us an email to david at musictowers dot com to RSVP!
TOTP is back….but just for Christmas
Silly old BBC. They really don’t “get” how to do music on television. Apart from Jools-bloody-Holland and that abominable Switch yoof-ting of theirs, their schedules are alwatys a bit barren. Okay, so there’s a documentary every now and again, but it’s all a bit tokenistic.
Which is why we’re heaving a big sigh of relief here at Music Towers now the Beeb has announced there will be a Top Of The Pops Xmas Special. The corporation had previously decided against giving the once-mighty pop show its traditional Christmas Special, a tradition that continued last year even though the weekly format of the show ended in 2006.
Simon Cowell, the power behind the X-Factor throne, had offered to buy he dormant brand off the BBC, which helped generate pressure from everyone from MPs to bands to the public for the show to get its Xmas Special banck. So that’s one good thing we can thank the high-waisted trouser’d one for.
TOTP will also get a New Year’s Eve show for the first time ever. DOUBLE-WHOOP.
Shows this week- KEVIN MONTGOMERY
- VILE IMBECILES
- PEAR SHAPED IN FITZROVIA
- DARREN HAYMAN
- PREGO
- 40 WATT CLUB PRESENTS: BETA RAYS + VENETIA & THE VOLTAGE + SANCHO PANZO
- ACOUSTIX FT ROKHSAN
- ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING ~ JOE WOODHAM ~ NICK HARRIS ~ MATTHEW WHITE
- REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
- REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
- THE OXJAM SESSIONS
- GRACE NOTES
- GRACE NOTES
- COMEDY FORUM
- THE CLIENTELE
- HATCHAM SOCIAL
- 40 WATT CLUB PRESENTS: THE LONDON AGREEMENT
- BENET MCLEAN - NEW ALBUM LAUNCH
- DESOLATION
- SMOKING HEARTS
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- Music Towers features
- What you mean, you haven't seen...The Computers
- Album: Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
- Festivals need your help
- Interview: Scars on Broadway - part 2
- Top Ten songs about the Credit Crunch
- Never Mind ‘Team GB’, Here’s Tiger Leaping
- Interview: Scars on Broadway - part 1
- Suicide Silence: "Every night is full of violence"
- Reviewed: Metallica and the Death Magnetic experience