Our introduction to The Proclaimers could have gone either way – we were a little late arriving for our interview slot (complete with scowling tour managers with AAA passes around their necks) and were frogmarched to the lads’ palatial dressing room in order to point a camera at them and ask them questions (the camera later decided to eat – and destroy – the footage, hence why this article lacks a video link). I wasn’t sure quite what to expect – perhaps a watchword on punctuality (delivered by the two of them in unison), a punch in the jaw (delivered by the two of them in unison), or worse.

What I didn’t expect was to walk in and find a Proclaimer – it can be difficult to tell which – doing a bit of ironing.

“You don’t do your own ironing, do you?” I ask.
“Aye,” he said. “Nobody else’s goin’ tae do it.”

You’re never sure quite how you’re going to react when you catch a Proclaimer undertaking basic household chores, but I must say it put me at ease.

Spot The Difference: The Reids in 1987

I had never been to the Apollo prior to this interview, and was more than a little surprised to see it standing there – in all its pomp and glory – in the middle of what can most charitably be described as the most haggard area of Manchester I’ve ever seen, and I live in Moss Side. I asked what the pair thought of the city, afraid that their only view of the town was this rather unfortunate and totally unrepresentative shithole.

“We’ve played in Manchester many times, first time in ’86 with the Housemartins, and subsequently on almost every tour that we’ve done,” Craig told us, “so I guess maybe ten times over the years. It’s a great city, a great music city. Fantastic.”

At that time, some three hours before the band would take the stage, some fans were queuing outside the venue – having had a career spanning more than twenty years and three decades, the Proclaimers have seen it all. Is there, at this stage in their career, a “typical” Proclaimers fan?

“It’s a really even split – and it has been from the beginning – between men and women, but obviously now, twenty two years later, there’s a much wider age range, y’know?” Said Charlie. “It’s great when you’re playing in theatres, because you get children coming in, so you get anything from six or seven year old children to folk in their forties and fifties, their sixties, whatever. It’s very broad. And in the last year, doing a lot of festivals, has helped broaden it as well. It’s a very wide range.”

Their reach has not only spanned the ages, but the continents – this year, the group went to Texas to perform at South By Southwest (better known as SXSW, a festival during which thousands of acts descend on Texas to find label representation). SXSW is typically considered to be an arena for smaller, unknown acts, which the Proclaimers are anything but. Did they feel out of place at all?

“That said, Metallica played two days after we got there,” Craig informed us, “launching their Guitar Hero thing.” The Proclaimers’ Rock Band franchise is not quite on the shelves yet – so why did they go? Craig spoke very enthusiastically about the event – “we’d wanted to play for years, and we’d had a couple of offers, but we’d always either been in the studio, or we’d been on the road somewhere else and we couldn’t do it, but this year we said we’re definitely going to make the time do it, and we had a great time. We probably did about seven or eight performances in about five days.”

With music being such a pervasive part of their lives – the thing they evidently live for – what do the band do for fun? What, if not music, could possibly fulfil the two? “Well if we do get a night off, usually it’s spent drinking,” said Charlie with a wry grin. “Drinking, going for a run, going to the football, most of the time we’ve been away, we’ve been on tour most of this year, but when you’re home, you mostly spend time with your family.”

Nothing that would surprise the fanbase, then?

“Nothing I’d tell you about.”

Craig chuckles. “Nah, I don’t think so. Really, you’re doing what you want to do day to day, just doing your job. This is a dream for most people, it still feels like a dream for us when we stand on a stage, y’know? This is what we always wanted to do. So most of what you do, going for a drink, going to the football, doesn’t beat being on a stage. No way.”

The Proclaimers are clearly enamoured with their profession, but I was interested to know if it still feels like they’re living the dream after all this time. Is it still a dream job, or is it now just a career?

“No,” Charlie muttered, without a second’s pause.
Craig elaborated. “It shouldn’t feel like hard work – I’m not saying that you never get times towards the end of the tour when you feel a little bit tired, but if it’s like that too much, you’re either not doing it right or you’re in the wrong game, I think. You should always feel like you want to be out there. I never wake up in the morning and not want to go to the next gig, I always want to go. Sometimes the gigs are better than others, sometimes the performances are better than others, but if you don’t want to go – if you’re struggling – you’re probably in the wrong game.”

Like most bands that have reached a level of success, the Proclaimers’ rise to power was helped along with a liberal dose of good luck – namely a support slot for the Housemartins in 1986, which almost singlehandedly launched their career and kept it in orbit for all this time. If that hadn’t happened, what might have become of the Proclaimers?

Craig and Charlie Reid, 2008

Craig isn’t sure. “Neither of us are qualified for anything else, not trained for anything else. We were unemployed for a long time before that Housemartins tour, I really hate to think what would have happened to us if we hadn’t got this – because we’d been unemployed for so long, we were so lacking in qualifications for anything, and I think it would have been really difficult.” The Proclaimers were not overnight sensations – there was years of touring and hard work before 500 Miles dropped and the nation’s affections followed. The group cannot have possibly predicted their success when they were living in Scotland, having been unemployed for years – right?

Craig is very direct in his response. “Nope.”

“We didn’t think that far ahead,” Charlie says, shaking his head. “We just wanted to make a living doing it. It wasn’t even about having hits. We thought we’d have a small audience, but we didn’t think it would be anything beyond that. Occasionally it has been, we’ve had the odd hit, the odd bit in films, and that broadens your reach, and that’s what’s kept us going, really.”

The fact that they are still going is a wonder in itself – they probably make enough in royalties from their hits to prevent them ever having to work again, and yet they still record and tour regularly. They have appeared on Family Guy, have provided soundtracks for major films, are scheduled to appear on The Simpsons, and you’d have to travel quite a distance to find somebody who couldn’t name one of their songs (at a later interview, two members ofmidwest-American jazz trio The Bad Plus – upon discovering I’d interviewed the Proclaimers – both knew the band and seemed genuinely impressed that I’d met them, and it’s hard to imagine a greater chasm than the one that exists between the music of The Proclaimers and The Bad Plus). So now that they’re here, is there anything left that they really want to achieve?

“All that stuff doesn’t even feel like an achievement,” said Craig. “You’re compelled to write songs and you’re compelled to perform. If you weren’t doing it full time, you’d be doing it part time. If you weren’t playing theatres, you’d be playing pubs. Eventually it’ll go back to that, inevitably, outside of the likes of Elton John and the Rolling Stones, for most people that’s how it ends up. The only ambitions – if there are ambitions – are to write better songs, and give better performances.”

The performance came later on that evening, once we had vacated the Proclaimers’ dressing room, thanked them earnestly for their time and shaken their hands (or one of their hands twice, it really is extremely hard to tell them apart), leaving them to go back to their business of signing CDs and ironing shirts. I didn’t quite know what to expect from a Proclaimers show. Being very honest, prior to seeing them, I wouldn’t have considered myself a “fan” – I knew and liked the singles that everybody knows, but I wasn’t sure what form a full-blown gig would take.

The audience, however, was almost exactly what I expected – and almost exactly what the brothers had estimated earlier in the day. At the bottom end of the age scale there were children whose parents were clearly fans, then the likes of me (of which there were approximately three), then some people who were a decade or so older than me, and then the kind of people I used to work with when I worked in a village pub – the type that was perhaps a bit of a rocker in the 70s, that now go out in denim jeans with a denim shirt and jacket, go to every stadium and arena gig within a twenty mile radius, and assure you that going to see a good quality cover band is in some cases better than the real thing (“I saw Steely Dan in ’76 at the Palladium, and honest to God, Nearly Dan are just as good”).

What I saw was a very professional, energetic, pitch-perfect rock concert. It was never going to be the Pistols at Free Trade Hall or Die! Die! Die! tearing up Manchester Walkabout last year; The Proclaimers weren’t going to pull the stunts that usually make a gig exceptional for me, because that isn’t The Proclaimers’ trade – what they do, they do exceptionally well. They played a healthy array of songs from their back-catalogue, the crowd seemed happy, and the band were into it. All well and good, I thought.

That said, I have never seen a change in dynamic like the one that occurred during the first five seconds of I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). The crowd had obviously been waiting to hear it the whole night, and when it got going, the crowd blew the entirety of its collective beans in one fell spurt. After that, The Proclaimers could have spent the rest of the night playing Andy Capp covers or ten-minute ambient dubstep wig-outs, and the crowd would probably have been entirely happy. Amazing what can happen when you casually drop your biggest single on a bloodthirsty audience.

Their modern works are certainly in keeping with their older songs; progress has most certainly been made, but it is impossible not to recognise the pair’s distinctive brogue – a refreshing alternative, when in my own iTunes library (populated by only my favourite artists) it can still be hard to tell singers apart. Now that the likes of Glas Vegas and Biffy Clyro are dropping major hits with Scottish accents, did the Proclaimers have any thoughts on why the Scottish accent has become something of a musical signature for so many of the country’s flagship acts?

“I feel that something culturally has changed in Scotland,” observed Craig. “And something culturally is changing in England too, with the Arctic Monkeys and everything. There was always occasionally people who would do it, like Ian Dury, who sung with a strong East London accent.”
“And Madness,” Charlie added.
“Madness as well. But I think something’s changing in the culture, specifically in Scotland. I don’t think people should or shouldn’t sing with their local accents, but if these guys are happy to do it, as they obviously are, and feel relaxed and natural doing it, I think that’s fantastic. I really like it.”

Scotland is not short on distinctive acts – Biffy Clyro are a major Scottish export these days, and are set to grace the Apollo’s stage mere weeks after the Brothers Reid. Is there a reason why the nation produces such recognisable, varied musicians?

Charlie seemed to think so. “I think there’s something about Scotland that keeps producing people who want to play music. I think it’s amazing. I don’t like that whole ‘we’re a small nation but we’ve produced so much’ thing, but certainly for the last thirty years since punk and post-punk, it’s all started happening. Scotland keeps producing so many acts, bands, individual artists, I think there might be something about Scotland that makes people like to play guitars and pianos, and like singing, y’know? And if you get enough of that, the more you get, the more it comes through. We used to produce fantastic footballers – we don’t produce so many of those now, but we still produce excellent musicians and pop stars.”

An early finish and a brisk walk through a half-deserted Manchester gave me time to process what I had just seen. And I can honestly say I had a great time in the company of the Reid brothers, both as hosts and performers. I cannot fault The Proclaimers. They put on a good, energetic performance and are clearly very happy with – and grateful for – their lot. They were very pleasant, enthusiastic gentlemen who conveyed a tremendous sense of pride in their craft. Would I call myself a Proclaimers fan now? Let’s just say I’m on my way.

And if you thought there wasn’t going to be a Proclaimers pun in this article, go fuck yourself.

John Tucker

Their covers are almost as interesting as their original works, which take the form of beautifully-crafted – and often dizzyingly complex – attacks on the senses, that provide an easy way into real, honest-to-goodness jazz for people like me, e.g. people who typically imbibe music in two to three minute servings, and never really stray from the beaten path (and certainly never wander as far away from the path as the Bad Plus do). I was interested to see what kind of people square their sights on the punk-jazz market. I sat down with bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King prior to their RNCM performance to pick the brains of modern jazz’s brightest sparks.

Making conversation with foreign musicians on the streets of Manchester is easy. With the Hacienda, the Ritz Ballroom, and the Factory Records office all within spitting distance (I hadn’t the heart to tell them what became of the Hacienda), the walk to the Cornerhouse – to make use of their cafe as an interview space – was more of a brief sightseeing tour for the duo, who expressed more than a passing interest in the notorious landmarks.

So where was pianist Ethan Iverson?

“He’s practicing,” revealed Dave, as he perched himself on one of the Cornerhouse’s miniscule leather pews. “It seems like he just practices this one piece we recorded two years ago. He still practices it several hours a day. We already recorded it, I don’t know what he’s trying to do. I think he wants to re-record it at some point.” This probably reveals more about Ethan than an interview would’ve.

L-R - Reid Anderson (bass), Dave King (drums), Ethan Iverson (piano)

At this juncture, Reid pulled the spoon from his espresso, ceasing the stirring momentarily to impart some worldly wisdom. “See this spoon? Just half of that with Nutella.”
“Oh yeah?”, enquired King. “That’s your new shit?”
“That’s my shit,” concluded Reid. Confused, I ask if the quiet bassist had taken to putting Nutella in his coffee. “No, no. It’s a little dessert. Just a little spoon like this, half of that with Nutella, a little bit of olive oil and some sea salt, it’s fantastic. You gotta try it.”

“It just seems so small, man.” David interjected, having clearly witnessed – possibly even tasted – this bizarre-sounding concoction. “You need about four or five of ‘em.” I had reservations, and questions. Would such a concoction even be sweet any more?

“It’s sweet, but the salt and olive oil… they’re distinctive flavours, but they go together quite well, I must say. Give it a shot.” He returns to his espresso, before a thought strikes him.

“You can always have another spoon if you want.”

Not convinced on the merits of the chocolate salt oil spoon, I decide to turn the topic to their music. Having been converted to traditional jazz fairly recently through The Bad Plus (after a jazz-loving friend sent me a CD containing their reboot of Nirvana’s “Lithium”), I asked how they felt about being a gateway to jazz for the uninitiated. They seemed flattered.

“Our whole energy is a celebration of improvised music, and anybody paying more attention to improvised music, or jazz, or whatever you wanna call it,” said Dave, Reid nodding along. “However you get there, we’re happy to be a part of that.”

So how much is improvised on record?

“Well, with our music, most of it is improvised,” said Anderson. “Like anything in jazz, you have a melody, and then you improvise and so forth. What we’re interested in is blurring the line – like if you listen to more traditional jazz where it’s like, ‘here’s the head, here’s the melody, here’s the improvisation’, we like it to be not quite so clear. Even though there’s just as much improvisation going on, we like it to be a more connected piece from beginning to end, rather than being like ‘this is the piano solo, and here’s the bass solo, and so on.”

“We tend to use different tools at different times,” added King. “We can use an avante-garde free thing, or odd timings, or something more strict, it’s like using the tools of our real-life experience rather than pretending we’re from just one school.”

For All I Care – their most recent outing – received some extremely positive reviews online, and not just from jazz aficionados; the first of their records to feature a singer (as well as the first to be comprised entirely of cover songs), the album was very well received. Was this something they were aware of? According to Dave King, apparently not.

For All I Care, the band's 2008 collaboration album with Wendy Lewis

“We hadn’t really noticed. It’s nice to hear it.” However, he acknowledged that the record was a departure for the group. “We’d done six studio albums and thought, ‘it might be nice to collaborate with somebody’, so we went all the way and got a singer, instead of, like, a saxophone player, or whatever. We toured that record a lot, and the response was great, but we never really noticed it. Every now and then we’ll be told of something either really bad, or really good, but we’re not paying too close attention to that. It can fuck with you. We appreciate being written about, but at the end of the day, we can’t change who we are.”

Reid seemed similarly unfazed by criticism, good or bad. “We’ve read our fair share of reviews, it really does mess with you – even the good reviews; it’s either too extreme, or it’s a good review but they don’t really understand what you were doing. We don’t really pay that stuff any attention.”

“We believe in what we’re doing,” King said. “We think there’s something there. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but it’s not total shit either.”

So how was the experience of recording For All I Care – and their departure from the norm, working with vocalist Wendy Lewis?

“Frankly, it was nice to have another person around after all these years of being a trio,” said Reid. “It couldn’t have been better.”

“I could see a volume two of that record with her,” King added; something to which I’m sure nobody would be opposed. “What was cool is that it remained our sound, we weren’t just backing up a singer. She wasn’t way out in front or anything, she was much more like an ensemble player. I remember we were doing this Wilco tune, it goes into these long improvisations, and she was just like…” at this point, King vacates his seat to take a knee on the Cornerhouse floor; he assumes a pose somewhat akin to The Thinker (if The Thinker had worn a wooly hat and had been covered in tattoos) and stays here for about five seconds, practically motionless. “She had this whole singer thing. It was totally cool.”

So does all this – all the touring, all the recording, all the kneeling by the side of the stage – does it all feel like a regular job to them now?

“We’ve done 9 to 5s,” said Dave, returning to his seat. “This may be cliché to say, but I’ve heard musicians say that what you’re paid for is the traveling. Sure, it’s 24 hours a day away from your home and family, and you can feel that as the weeks go by, but the show is always the relief; it’s almost like, ‘alright, I forgot why we’re out here.’”

Reid had similar thoughts on the matter. “And also, we didn’t have really have any opportunities to tour the world until we were all in our thirties; we don’t take it for granted. If you have a string of 5:30 wake-up calls, you can get worn down, but it doesn’t take long if you take a second to realize how lucky you are. Nobody tells us what to do, we’re not sidemen in some band we don’t like, this is our band, our music, and anybody who gets to do that has beaten some incredible odds.”

“Especially when it’s not commercial music,” adds King. “It’s a beautiful blessing, to be in somebody’s country and have somebody care. We spent most of our twenties, y’know, doing the underground thing, making records, playing New York, getting in the van, trying to get to Europe, and with this kind of music we’re lucky to be anywhere.”

This is the sentence I found interesting; if you didn’t know the Bad Plus were a jazz band, you certainly wouldn’t guess it from the sounds of their rise to power. Their touring ethos – getting in the van, releasing records themselves, playing dive bars – could have been ripped clean out of an Azzerad book. Although they are not a punk band (or even a punk band with jazz overtones, like Acoustic Ladyland) and their repertoire owes more to traditional jazz than the Dead Kennedys, do they recognize this punk-rock spirit in themselves?

“We feel a closeness to the energy of punk rock.” This is not a surprise coming from Dave; whereas Reid had a bit more of a librarian vibe, King looks more Black Flag than Thelonius Monk.

“When it comes to that, to touring, and getting in the van… that’s an important connection; we’re a ‘band’, and always have been, and that’s still not common in the world of jazz.” Reid continued: “We feel that’s really key; if it’s some guys who have barely played together, that’s fine, but that’s background music – if I’m going to care about a band, they have to have a sound that’s their own. In that sense, I think we’re really connected to punk rock, or indie, or whatever you wanna call that ethos.”

The Bad Plus admit that they’ve been extremely lucky to get to the position they’re in – I did wonder, however, what they could see themselves doing if they weren’t busy being an incredible jazz band. Having asked this question before, I expected the same answer – “nothing, I couldn’t be anything but a musician” – but I had obviously grossly underestimated the Bad Plus’ capacity for adaptation.

“I know immediately what I would do,” Dave blurted out without a second’s thought. “Probably interior decorator. I collect modern furniture. I got a bunch of decorating magazines in my bag all the time. I like interior design and things like that.” He exudes a sincerity and enthusiasm for this oeuvre that would be hard to synthesize, before conceding he may also pursue “some other form of creativity. Writing, or painting, or something. We all mess around with little things like that. Everyone does.”

“Yeah, something really impractical, like painting,” Reid nodded. Dave had other ideas.

“Fireman. You’d be a good fireman.”

“That’s what I wanted to be when I was quite young.”

Overcoming their urges to arrange furniture and put out fires, The Bad Plus managed to become a refreshing, progressive name in modern music – in light of this, I wondered what they would have to say about the changes underfoot in their current line of employment. Specifically, how people go and get their music.

The Bad Plus are extremely well represented on Spotify – the game-changing free music service that debuted last year – where all but one of their studio albums is available, in full, to enjoy for free, as well as their contributions to a handful of compilations and EPs. It’s all legal and paid for (using advertising revenue), but does this devalue their music?

Reid pauses on this. “On one hand it’s great, and very useful, to be able to check things out – people have been burnt too many times, paying eighteen bucks for a CD with one good track on it – but I don’t believe in it all being free; it’s absurd, and it’s not sustainable. Music has a value in people’s lives that material things don’t, like a T-shirt. They feel like they possess it in a way that’s different from other things, and that’s the beauty of it. But I don’t walk into a store and demand a T-shirt for free.” He sips on his espresso momentarily, before adding – “and if I did, we wouldn’t have T-shirts.”

“If we sell records, it enables a record label to get on the phone and try and get people interested when we visit a city,” Dave says plainly. “That’s basically the service we’re paying for when we hand our records over to these labels. We’ve done the DIY record thing, but the difference is having some people – in the sea of music out there – getting people interested in your gig. And that’s what a record label can do for you. That’s how we make our living, playing live, and that’s how we’ll connect most to people. Ultimately, jazz, improvised music, it’s really ‘live’ music – in the room, it can be a heavy thing; making the record is almost just so we can get out here.”

Reid gets the last, eloquent word on the matter. “There’s a whole industry that’s trying to sort this out, so it’s not really our job, but – and I think most music lovers do this – if you love a band, and you love music, y’know, just buy the record. It’s not that much money, usually. We don’t make any money from record sales, but it enables us to keep going, and keep making music, and keep touring. I think there needs to be some basic recognition of that. It sustains something you care about. That’s the way the world’s going too; if you want to eat organic foods, you go to the store and buy them, you don’t buy mass-produced, processed foods. Same thing with music.”

On that note, I shook their hands, thanked them sincerely for their time, and told them how much I looked forward to their show that evening at the RNCM (while subtly enquiring – with entirely selfish motivations – as to whether or not Heart Of Glass still appears on the setlist, a question that was met with an air of coy uncertainty). The Bad Plus clearly care a great deal about what they do, and I was eager to go and see them – partly because I had never seen a jazz band play live before, but mostly to see the pair, joined by their enigmatic pianist, practicing what they had so cheerfully preached over coffee.

I was stunned. Ten minute solos, music that seems to reach for miles, complete disassociation before a galloping shift back into synchronicity, The Bad Plus’ live experience is something I cannot really review honestly, as I have nothing even remotely similar in my own personal history with which to compare it with. And frankly, I’m glad. It was an eye-opener of the best kind, and I left feeling better for having seen them. They even played Heart Of Glass (proof, if proof was needed, that the Bad Plus are not just phenomenally talented musicians, but bloody nice blokes).

It is not often I am so utterly blindsided by a live performance these days, and it was immensely refreshing – even the etiquette of a jazz performance was new to me, where people will enthusiastically clap after a long and mind-bending solo, often clapping at three or four points per piece (something I got behind with gusto). I thought I’d seen the full spectrum of band performance – acoustic guitars on stools, forty piece brass bands blazing their way through military standards, ten-piece Canadian indie outfits, choirs, New Zealand punks running through uninterested crowds in a deliberate attempt to cause mayhem; I thought I’d seen the lot. But The Bad Plus experience is one that I can heartily recommend to anybody, if only because it is almost certainly not being replicated anywhere else in the world.

Do check out the Bad Plus. Keep an eye on them, and go and see them if you get the chance. Especially if you’ve reached the point where you think you’ve seen or heard it all. If anybody can convince you otherwise, it’s The Bad Plus.

John Tucker

One of Pulp’s lucky readers won our competition to take themselves and a mate down to London for this year’s birthday JD Set. Here’s what he had to say!

I was lucky enough to attend the 2009 Birthday JD Set, in East London’s Village Underground, and to experience some pretty amazing music while sipping on some delicious Jack Daniel’s cocktails!

The setting was about as perfect as you could get outside of Lynchburg, Tennessee. The Village Underground, ostensibly a large, empty warehouse off a side street in bohemian East London, had been transformed into a homage to Mr Jack, with the familiar branding all over the place, and huge photos of previous years’ JD Birthday Set performances. Glancing around at the portraits of the likes of Guy Garvey, The Flaming Lips and Patti Smith, it would be easy to feel as though you’ve missed out on classic performances. However, the line-up prepared for this special night was pretty remarkable, in keeping with past events; an indie who’s-who, and an NME fan’s wet dream.

Before things kicked off – and worthy of mention – we headed off to trade in our complimentary drinks tokens (plectrum-shaped, natch). Unfortunately, and as is usually the way with free booze, everybody else in the room had the same idea and we were in for a bit of a crush and a wait. Any negative thoughts were soon washed away when we tried some of the Jack Daniel’s cocktails on offer. I had initially just planned to enjoy the requisite Jack and coke, but to do so in this building on this night would’ve been sacrilegious. On offer were cocktails such as the splendid Moore County Mule (Jack, ginger beer, Cointeau, sugar syrup, ginger cordial, apple juice and a wedge of lime), which provided the kick its name suggested. Another, the simple Lynchburg Lemonade (Jack, Cointreau, lemonade) was a touch more refreshing but no less inebriating.

While the queues for the bar were kind of ridiculous, praise must be given to the efficient, friendly bar staff who had to spend the evening churning out the delicious refreshments. Every drink we had was prepared very well given the cramped and rushed conditions, and service was with a smile, even when payment, let alone tips, were far from punters’ minds. It seems funny to spend half a gig review waxing on about the drinks on offer – but when it’s Mr Jack’s birthday and the cocktails are flowing, who am I to skimp on the details?

Suitably refreshed (or just glad to be out of the scrum for the bar), our attention turned to the stage, where various members of the New Silver Cornet Band – of whom more later – were taking their positions. First up on the night’s bill was Jon McClure or, as he is known to his congregation, the Reverend (of And The Makers fame). Not being too familiar with his material, and aware of his swaggering ego, I was pleased that the opening track was a hearty rendition of Always On My Mind. This got proceedings off to a nice start, before playing a few ‘Makers tracks, getting the eager crowds’ heads nodding. A slight damp squib followed with the introduction of one time Sex Pistol Glen Matlock, coming on to play Pretty Vacant with McClure on vox. A good performance no doubt, but it felt slightly forced and definitely wasn’t as exciting as it could’ve been on paper.

Thankfully McClure’s set didn’t drag on too long, and was shortly followed by the appearance of Brett Anderson looking sharp and dapper. As a pubescent fan of Britpop stars Suede, the sight of frontman Anderson was admittedly quite exciting and his performance did a lot to lend some gravitas to the evening. After the indie swagger of Jon McClure, Anderson’s angelic vocals and calm, ethereal stage presence was very refreshing. Not knowing much of Anderson’s solo work, it was a joy to hear the likes of Trash, a Britpop classic, and a song which had lain dormant in my head for years and has now burst forth once more.

After five songs or so, Anderson was also finished and retreated before the emergence of Carl Barat, of The Libertines and latterly of Dirty Pretty Things. Dressed smartly and looking distinctly like the lovechild of Bryan Ferry and Oscar Wilde (now there’s a thought…), Barat had clearly been enjoying the fruits of Mr Jack’s labour as much as the audience had. This led to a few hiccups (not literally, fortunately), and the prolonged use of lyrics sheets for his set. To be fair to Barat, he was covering other people’s songs for half the short set, and he was clearly in his element when playing Libertines classics What Katie Did and The Good Old Days. Whilst I’ve never been all that bothered about them, I would still call myself a Libs fan and, having never had the opportunity to see them, seeing Barat that night was a nice box ticked for me.

As was the way of the evening, Barat’s set was over almost as soon as it had begun, and the end of the night was upon us. The final act saw McClure, Anderson and Barat uniting on stage to a hypnotic beat which slowly morphed into The Velvet Underground’s chilling Venus In Furs. Each taking turns on vocals, and Anderson beating a tambourine with gusto, the set was drawn to a fitting end. Three fine musicians had graced the stage and provided an evening’s entertainment to a merry crowd.

But that’s not the whole story. Supporting these figureheads the whole evening was the subdued and modest presence of The New Silver Cornet Band, so-called in reference to Jack Daniel’s own Silver Cornet Band from late 19th century Tennessee. Themselves a tad silvered – most notably Billy Block, sat proudly behind the drums – the band were all a good deal older than the night’s stars. And yet they played on for two hours as backing to each singer, even playing on in-between the sets, with the help of Rosie Vanier and the Silver Strings of Elena Agriros and Rosie and Edie Langley.

The New Silver Cornet Band is, in reality, various musicians drawn together for this JD Birthday event, with such merit as having played with the likes of Bob Dylan, Elvis and The Rolling Stones. And the initial performance of Always On My Mind was made all the more sweet by virtue of the fact that the band consists of Wayne Carson – the very man who originally wrote the song!

So, with a handful of Britain’s foremost indie Gods, a scattering of girls on vocals and strings, and a band with such musical history and heritage as to blow the rest of the room out of the water, this year’s Jack Daniel’s Birthday Set was something to behold. The entire night was never really more than the sum of its parts, but when the parts are of such a standard, who can complain?

Washing down great music with delicious whiskey-based drinks in the company of friends? That’s gotta be what Jack Daniel had in mind. So a very happy birthday from Pulp, Mr Jack.

Words and photographs by Paul Tucker

I make my way to the Academy upstairs balcony and despite the fact it’s freezing, I am offered an unparalleled view of not only the stage but the whole of the Academy, where I can see the hall fill up slowly with people (a lot of whom look very young – there seems to be an appeal to this band that stretches across a large age group).

The opening band, Peggy Sue, takes to the stage about 7.30 – an interesting 3 piece band with 2 female singers. Initially I found this band clashing horribly, but eventually they become something that is genuinely interesting to listen to. With only 3 people on stage and no bassist I had some initial worries that in the Academy they would sound musically hollow on such a large stage, but competent and insistent drumming filled any voids left by the girls up front who – while swapping between lead and backing vocals delightfully swapped instruments – there was that dull repetition I’ve come to associate with a lot of indie bands on today’s music scene.

Every song seems to bring a change of instruments – guitar, accordion, a second drum, and this does give a fantastic sense of diversity. Whilst the crowd seems to know nothing this band is playing, they nevertheless look to be enjoying this quirky trio.

Whilst Peggy Sue saw less than a third of the venue filled by the time the main event come on stage, there is little room to stand, let alone breathe – another sold out show for the Maccabees, and it’s easy to see why. Within minutes of coming on stage the hall is in a frenzy. The Maccabees seem very confidant on this size stage; they seems to have stepped their performance up a notch without missing a beat and with relative ease. Familiar tracks like X – Ray are met with rapturous applause (the most of the audiences love seems to be reserved for the singles), and after a few songs the Maccabees break into some songs from the forthcoming album. There’s a feeling this new material is a fitting move to be played in a venue of this size it seems darker and more percussive than previous material – the tracks from Wall of Arms are better suited to the larger venue than the more intimate tracks of Colour It In.

From where I’m stood, I’m offered an fantastic view of not only the band but the crowd, and it’s easy to see why the lads have been able to steadily move up in venue sizes – the band seems very comfortable playing a fair pace and there’s more crowd interaction than has been seen in previous years. There’s a sense that frontman Orlando Weeks is very at ease with his surroundings and less timid than he has been before.

My biggest reservation is that a lot of the more intimate material from “Colour It In” that I fell in love with, and made the Maccabees stand out in my eyes, seems lost in a venue this size. It may be the size of the venue, or Weeks’ increased confidence, but Toothpaste Kisses and First Love seem to lose their sense of vulnerability; whilst they are well received, I feel like there something missing that was present on the album – and in smaller venues.

Having said that, the first song of the encore puts to bed any suspicion I had that the boys have lost the vulnerability and emotional openness, displaying a level of tenderness and feeling that was largely absent from the bulk of the performance… What I’d felt to be a fundamental charm of the Maccabees.

A first-rate performance. I once again got to see multiple aspects of what make the Maccabees appealing and a good preview of what’s to come from them in the future.

Simon Jessop

Then - Papa Roach in 2000

But still, you go to war with what you’ve got, and my peer group at the time were left to pick one of the bands du jour. I went with Papa Roach. After all, they were mostly harmless, and at least pretended to be on the same page as the impossibly insolent little shits they claimed to “speak for” (from the comfort of their solid gold Lotuses and mansions in Beverley Hills). I could have done worse.

I’m not sure what compelled me to go and see Papa Roach live. Perhaps it was a misplaced sense of nostalgia – perhaps it was a Wellsian attempt to visit my past self and warn him of the inherent dangers of listening to such rubbish. Whatever the reason, I made a few calls, and before I knew it, my name had been added to the pestlist for their recent show at Academy 1. Now, I missed the support act, for a number of reasons. The primary reason being my all-encompassing fear of turning up prior to the doors opening and being seen in public with the sort of people who would queue to see Papa Roach.

I walked into the Academy – one of the better venues of its size in the country – to find I had entered some sort of time machine, and had been transported back to 2002. It warmed my heart to see so many youngsters who will no doubt cringe, as I have cringed, when they’re handing over their passport in five years’ time (once they’ve taken out the lip ring, ditched the eyeliner, cut the hair and altogether abandoned this silly nonsense) only to have customs officials in Germany make serious enquiries as to the gender of the person in the picture. But for now, I’m sure they feel like they are misunderstood and unique, so who am I to bash them. The frightful mundanity of the world is yet to fully envelope them, and it would be remiss of me to knock them for it (I refer exclusively to the younger members of the audience with this good-natured metaphorical ruffling of the hair – some people were old enough to both know better and father children who would, by now, be old enough to know better).

Now - Papa Roach in 2009, looking like a right bunch of tarts

Well, Papa Roach graced the stage, and frankly, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasn’t as familiar with the new material as I was with the material I had practically memorised as a youth, but Papa Roach have not strayed from their roots in the interim. A few tattoos have been picked up since the Last Resort video, as well as what appears to be the work of a professional stylist, but they cannot be accused of phoning it in. Almost a year ago, I had the misfortune of seeing Alkaline Trio, a band who clearly should just pack it in before they stop caring completely. Papa Roach have clearly been touring long enough to know how to whip a suggestible audience into a frenzy, and seemed to enjoy themselves as they did it. They may not be the most credible act in the world, and there is something a bit silly about them, but they’re great entertainers and I would heartily recommend their act to anyone who has ever had more than a passing interest in them, if only for the inherent nostalgia value.

Basically, Papa Roach know what they’re doing – they’ve been around a surprisingly long time. Infest was released a smidge under ten years ago. The scowling little shits in the Last Resort video are all adults now, and a good handful of them – unless they really did cut their lives into pieces – have almost certainly gotten proper jobs and houses and families since (unless they’ve all been living in hiding due to constant calls of “aren’t you that guy from the Last Resort video who scowled a lot”). Like a lot of people, I first heard Papa Roach in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (the modern equivalent of overhearing an exciting new band in a record shop). The youngest of the people who attended last night’s show would have had a hard time racking up a respectable score in aforementioned game, as they would have still been in nappies when it was released. This said, Papa Roach have aged very well. Their music will probably always appeal to a certain kind of group, and is imbued with a certain timelessness that makes it appealing to a certain type of person at a certain age. It’s aggressive, embittered, and is served up in a wholly acceptable pop-punk package. I can get behind that.

All I wish is that their fanbase wasn’t made up of quite so many startlingly young people. It’s enough to make a man feel twice his age. Or worse, twice the age of the pre-pubescent proto-punks that went cascading over the barrier last night like an unstoppable waterfall of baggy black clothing and greasy hair.

Ivor Marlow

Their new exhibitions, “Give Us Your Stuff You Gullible Twats” (as it has become known – the group are notorious for not naming their routines), was strongly hyped, in that it was the first piece that the group had advertised in advance – people whose wallets had been stolen at last year’s awards were contacted by the group, inviting them to the new show. Luckily, my bag was stolen from my car by the exciting new collective, and I could not wait to see what they had spent my life savings and overdraft on. I received a call a few weeks ago, from a public phone number.

“Was you one of them people at that thing last year?” I confirmed I was.
“Well we’re doing some art or something, innit,” said the voice on the phone, as he shushed some stifled laughter behind him. “Come down, and bring all yer stuff. It’ll be reet arty, mate.” I was given the address of their latest installation, and the time, and was told I could invite all my colleagues, but not the police, as they had shut down installations of theirs in the past. This was too hot an opportunity to miss.

About thirty people were stood before an unmarked garage in Longsight at the designated time, upon which was fastened a cardboard sign that said “Art and That”. The shutter, eventually, rolled up, and our first performer appeared. The piece had begun.

“Y’alright mate,” said the first of the actors in a thick Manchester accent, dressed in a tracksuit – tucked into the socks with a scarf and baseball cap concealing his face – and already I knew I was in for a treat. This very subtle nod to their earlier works was not lost on me, as all of their previous work had been performed in similar attire, tying together the previously established motif of urban decay. The garage door came down behind us as we were ushered inside, and before long the second member of the group come into view.

“Gie us all yer fookin’ stuff,” he yelled, brandishing a gun, to which he had affixed a kitchen knife using a piece of string. The intensity in his eyes was acted so convincingly I could have almost believed he was really a mugger – thankfully, my degree in contemporary theatre allows me to make such distinctions. As we put our belongings in the bag he provided, I nearly shed a tear at the beauty of what I was witnessing – live, interactive art of the most pure and noble sort. Not since Shakespeare’s day has art made such a direct hit with its public, and even then it lacked a certain éjaculer dans le visage de votre grand-mère. This was the real thing. Once all the belongings had been put in the bag, we burst into several rounds of applause.

“Youse lot is fookin’ daft, I’m tellin’ ya,” said the armed performer, whose carefully-perfected look of contempt masked his (undoubtedly swelling) pride in his craft as he observed our applause.

“I’m tellin’ ya mate,” the first of the two retorted. “These lot are fookin’ soft. I reckon I could piss on that one and he’d still clap.” I waited with baited breath – this was a bold and dynamic move so late in the performance; how would they provide satisfactory resolution to the concurrent plot after such a real and gritty final act?

“Aye, go on,” said the actor with the gun. “I bet you a tenner you can’t piss on him.”

We all watched intently – would he piss on him? Wouldn’t he? Would this final storyline prove to be a bridge too far? Was this the end of the Longsyte Wrekkin Crew? Luckily, our reservations were unfounded, and another round of applause erupted as the warm, salty sprinklings of real, genuine urine coated the editor of Contemporary Theatre Monthly. All clapped, all cheered; I cried a little at the majesty of it all, as the golden arcs of steaming piss cascaded down onto Rheese Morley’s tweed jacket, more than likely ruining it forever. Rheese clapped hardest of all, and for a moment, we all envied him.

The performers laughed, a tenner changed hands, and for the finale, our belongings were thrown into the back of a waiting van and the two drove off into the night air, audibly cackling. We clapped for as long as we could; I persevered as my hands seized up in the brisk cold of a Longsight winter night.

The brisk walk home provided me time to digest what I had just witnessed, as my bus pass was taken during the piece – and I have come to the conclusion that it was a work of genius. The strongest theme in the piece – by a group so known for staging photo-realistic robberies and muggings – was that of materialism. As I looked down at where my watch and ring had once been, I noticed that perhaps I had cared a little too much about the earth’s material pleasures, and had not tended to my soul in quite the way I should have. It is a shame that I had to be relieved of my possessions twice by the same group before I heeded their beautiful message, but I now see that what the Crew offer is a spiritual experience that no other theatre company can hope to replicate.

Some suggest that the Crew are not artists, but are actually a pair of “scally Manc twats” (Manchester Evening News) who see contemporary theatre graduates and professionals as easy pickings. There is a precedent for such a thing – it was recently discovered that contemporary theatre legend Hugo Storgen, who had directed thirty five groundbreaking surrealist works off the West End over the course of his twenty year career, was a mad tramp with no classical training who had wandered into a theatre twenty years earlier and had been announced as the director by mistake (it is still unclear how many of his “begging in the street and masturbating in the park” performances were intended as actual performance pieces, and weren’t just a tramp begging for change and having a tug in the bushes near a school; the debate rages on).

In this instance, I say this is an extremely cynical and blinkered view, and it is a position that no true connoisseur of the art would take. The pair are clearly artists – I am convinced of it, as their nose for satire is so finely tuned. They constantly attack the art establishment by spray painting cocks and balls on the Whitworth Gallery (some of the first signed Longsyte Wrekkin Crew installations were tragically removed from the side of the hideous gallery mere days after their arrival). They do not pull any punches on the issues of the day, lampooning them mercilessly by stealing bicycles (the environment), purses (the recession) and guide dogs (the growing problem of guide dogs being stolen). They live and breath their medium – could these men really just be a pair of criminals? I think not. Anyone who has seen one of their pieces, as I am lucky enough to have done, will know how fantastic their work is to both see and be a part of.

I hope I have not seen the last of the Wrekkin Crew. And from the look on their faces, as they joyously accepted our applause last night, I don’t think I have.

Jetty Bruntwicker

Black Spider, the support act, seemed a pleasing start to the evening – down and dirty rock, reminiscent of the music you listened to whilst growing up (if you had a certain kind of parent), good crowd interaction, strong riffs and good rhythms. They seem well in touch with their heavy rock roots. Having never heard them before I didn’t expect much, but was pleasantly surprised by their well-paced and engaging set.

The Wildhearts have been a love of mine for some time and, having not seen them live for some years, I was always going to be at a loss as to what to expect – frankly, I was blown away, and remembered the reason I fell in love with them to begin with. One of the most underestimated rock bands in the UK, if tonight’s performance was anything to go by – even with nearly 20 years under their belts – The ‘Hearts still have what it takes to take the country by storm.

From the word go, I felt an amazing surge of energy not only from Ginger and Co, but also from the crowd itself; the atmosphere was so fantastic I wanted to bottle it and keep it for when I feel under the weather.

The gig was made up of two sets, as outlined by Ginger in a pre-show preparatory statement – the first to be the new album played in its entirety, an ambitious plan, which had the potential to flop, however the Wildhearts pull it off with fantastic energy and skill. Looking round the room I see that for a lot of fans, the new songs are still pretty unfamiliar, but nevertheless they are accepted and chanted along to like old classics.

The newest album Chutzpah, whilst lacking the finesse of older Wildhearts material, retains the Wildhearts pop sensibilities and contains some sure-fire crowd-pleasers, notably the heavier Jackson Whites and Plastic Jebus, as well as the fantastically catchy You Are Proof That Not All Women Are Insane.

Refreshingly, Ginger genuinely seems to give a shit about the fans – passing out bottles of water and dealing out light hearted banter to the crowd, which only goes to emphasise the intimacy of such a fantastic band playing such a small venue.

Within minutes of the applause for Set #1 dying out, the Wildhearts retune and launch into a slew of old classic Wildhearts material, every member of the audience belting out every word and clapping and stomping along to every song.

The Wildhearts were on top form all night, and my only criticism of the show can be that it just wasn’t long enough – but isn’t that true of any amazing rock show?

It’s good to see Ginger and Co are back in gear and that Britain still can produce outstanding rock music.

Simon Jessop

Have you been to a gig lately? Got some pithy opinions you want published on the internet? Drop John an email at john@pulpmagazine.co.uk and fulfill your lifelong dream of being a music critic.

It’s Jack Daniel’s birthday – again! – and The JD Set is offering two lucky Pulp readers the chance to head down to London on October 8th for a very special gig featuring Brett Anderson, Carl Barât, and Jon McClure (Reverend and the Makers). Not only that, but they’re throwing in travel and accommodation! We’d love the lucky winner to write up the gig for Pulp as well – so you’ll even get your words in the magazine and on this website!

To enter, just click this link. You must be over 18. You’ll be redirected to JD’s age verification site, and then back to the Pulp site with details of the competition and how to enter. You’ve only got until September 28th to get your entries in, so don’t hang around. Best of luck!

Oh and if you see me trapped under a pile of leaflets and stickers outside uni, give us a hand?

Paul Capewell
Online Editor

Pulp 2008/2009 has been nominated for two awards in this year’s Guardian Student Media Awards!

Pulp, led last year by editor Holly Dicker, has been selected in two categories at November’s prestigious awards. The magazine, notable last year for its striking and unique design has been recognised as such, and is nominated in the ‘student publication design of the year’ award. And the website pulpmagazine.co.uk (2008/09 edition) has been selected in the ‘student website of the year’ category.

The full list of nominees is published in the Guardian’s Media section a week today – Monday 28th September. The awards take place in London on November 25th.

Congratulations to everyone who took part in Pulp last year, and here’s to another great year for Pulp!

Paul Capewell
Online Editor

Over the coming weeks as you get settled into uni, this website will host all of the great content from the monthly magazine, as well as exclusive features and Pulp’s world-renowned video content!

If you want to get involved with the magazine and/or website this year, be sure to get in touch with editor-in-chief James Harker or online editor Paul Capewell.

Finally, as James so succinctly says in his editorial for the first issue, remember that Pulp, and pulpmagazine.co.uk is here for you, every step of the way. We hope you have a great freshers period, whether you’re a new student or not, and that you get the year off to a good start.

Paul Capewell
(Online Editor)

I can’t remember the first time I became aware of his presence. It might have been the mounting collection of cigarette butts in the car park; it could have been the odd snatch of conversation heard through open windows; perhaps it was the sound of his hideous lovemaking.

But what I do know is this: a man moved into the flats where I live, and he was different to the other residents. In a relatively well-off neighbourhood, in a pretty affluent town, was my set of flats amongst an otherwise ordinary collection of semi-detached houses and leafy avenues. Avenues that house decent humans, with a modicum of respect for one another. This man was different to those other people.

Acceptable sounds; vile sounds

Sounds I have heard from neighbours include occasional baby sounds. Babies cannot be held accountable for their sounds. Or rather, they can – and fully. They are 100% responsible, but they are an accepted irritation. We put up with their wails just as we put up with the side effects of gravity, or how water tastes. Beyond these sounds, I can’t name many more besides the odd squeaking floorboard, or sounds associated with vehicles being manoeuvred.

But this man – and I’ll call him Jerry, simply because I don’t know his name – this Jerry was the source of a whole cacophony of sounds, nay, noises to which we neighbours would soon become very familiar.

Mostly it is his guttural manner of speech. One would think he has spent his entire life around people with a hearing problem; he shouts. Always. Always he shouts. Jerry does not know quietness. To play Chinese Whispers with Jerry would be to lose your hearing in one ear – possibly both.

Foul-mouthed

Jerry is not old. I would say he is in his early 40s. He is loud, we know this. He is also foul-mouthed. Filthily-mouthed. He has a potty mouth inasmuch as he simply defecates on language and order itself. It isn’t so much the swearing as the sheer disregard he pays to the words he attempts to form. And it isn’t a cockney accent. Nor an Essex accent. I don’t know what it is; it’s an amalgamation of these, but rendered offensive and unholy through his lack of care.

Jerry and Sal

I do not know Sal. I have not met her. But Sal lives with Jerry. I do not know Jerry’s real name, but I do know Sal’s. I know, because it is spoken by Jerry in the same way as he speaks most words: with volume, without care, and usually tinged red, with anger. Sal is Jerry’s lover. His boarder. His flatmate. The source of his sexual fulfilment; the provider of half his rent; the reluctant sponge for his rage.

Jerry and Sal don’t always argue. It is sometimes hard to decipher whether Jerry is in a good mood or bad, but it is easy to know when Jerry is angry. If I suspected anything like domestic abuse, I would intervene (by proxy, of course), but as it stands, mere shouting is just something Sal appears to put up with. On occasion, she gives as good as she gets, but this is rare.

Where’s my punk spirit?

Jerry was a punk. In many ways, Jerry still is a punk. Studied as a historical movement, it is easy, perhaps convenient, to look upon the punk movement as a cause for good; a necessary revolution. Look at those punks, with their extreme hair and bondage wear. But look also at those punks, those menaces to society. In particular, look at those men who, growing into their 40s still have the maturity they did when they were 20. The same attitudes. Anger.

Once I heard the familiar sounds of London Calling from Jerry and Sal’s flat. When I was younger, around 15, I held the ideals of punk – of Strummer et al, of 1977 and beyond – high above me, in wonder. Nearly ten years on, and in close proximity to the direct consequences of some of those people and attitudes, I find myself disgusted and loathing. Not every aspect of punk is negative though.

Where’s my punk spirit when I need it? Where’s Jerry’s punk fucking spirit?

Communal living

I can grow used to most characteristics of communal living. As a student I have lived in halls. In more adventurous days I spent months on end in backpacker’s hostels surrounded by social outcasts. Drug addicts. Snorers.

But I cannot get used to Jerry’s volume. I can get used to his anger. To his manner of speaking. But not the volume of it. Jerry has kept me up some nights. Sometimes he has friends over. Friends like him. Of course. Who else could be friends with Jerry but people like Jerry.

Where will it end?

I want the punchline to come. The joke’s gone on far too long. When will this character be written out of my life? It’s about time he faded into insignificance. It was unfair that he arrived, almost literally, upon my doorstep. But now it’s just cruel. I want to make his life hell. I want to wake him at 6am. I want to disturb him. I want to disgust him as he disgusts me.

Sometimes I get Hollywood movie-style visions of invading his flat like an army, taking Sal hostage with a view to releasing her, and torching the place, leaving Jerry trapped inside the walls of his own screaming. I want to inflict my pent-up rage upon him.

Karma

But I won’t. Because I am a good neighbour. I will put up with my proximity to the horrors of his very existence until some event transpires to allow me some respite. I believe, vainly, in karma. That silly attitude that falls somewhere between superstition and supermarket loyalty card. If I collect enough good points, I will get rewards in the post. But if I get one black mark against my name, with God as my witness, I will get my just desserts.

And if Jerry living in my flats is revenge for one such set of negative karma then I’d really like to know what I did to deserve him. It must have been pretty fucking bad.

Paul Capewell

Since PULP 08/09 ground to a halt, I’ve been at something of a loss as to how to spend my time – on an unrelated note, university has also broken out for the year and I’m now sat around, waiting to start my first “proper” year at university, without a job or anything to do, except look out of my window to a vast expanse of grassy nothingness.

So with that in mind, I created a mixtape for the benefit of our marauding readership (which, at this point of the year, consists of three members of staff and the people who keep being accidentally brought here on their never-ending quest for horrifying, unforgiveable porn) – however, this is the twenty-first century, so rather than fire up the tape deck or the CD burner, you’ll be pleased to know that the only real effort I put into this is staring you in the face (good liner notes are essential for any compilation regardless of the form it takes). Plus, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to write articles now that my contact with the outside world is limited to setting tripwires for the local children under cover of darkness.

So, allow me to present for your listening pleasure, House Arrest (Spotify link), a playlist for those as generally listless and unemployable as I am. It is mostly what I have been enjoying lately. Maybe you will enjoy it too. Here is the tracklisting, with needlessly long explanations.

Future of the Left – Arming Eritrea (from Travels With Myself & Another)

If I ever do get around to a Best Albums of 2009 piece, which I almost assuredly will not, colour me amazed if this album is not sitting pretty on top of the list by the time we’re pulling party poppers at new years’. Future of the Left are the best band to come out of Cardiff in a long, long time – their debut album was good, but they’ve really hit their stride with this one. This is the opening track, and it’s a belter.

Madvillain – Strange Ways (from Madvillainy)

I first heard this one on “Everyone”, a Manchester skate DVD that Dan Cintra put out (you can get it in Note for a fiver – even if you’re not into skateboarding, it is a unique look at Manchester, including some scenes shot outside our own John Dalton building; if you are into skateboarding, you probably have it already). I loved the film, and I also loved the soundtrack – it was diverse and refreshing, and this was a highlight.

The Smiths – Cemetry Gates (from The Sound of The Smiths)

Everyone has their own favourite Smiths songs, and this is up there for me – although it always seems to be neglected when people discuss their favourites. Possibly because it’s not as obviously flashy in the guitar department, possibly because it’s a song about a cemetery, who knows. Anyway, I certainly like it.

The Bad Plus – Lithium (from For All I Care)

The Bad Plus only recently popped onto my radar – I engaged in a mix CD swap with Ally Craig recently, and in exchange for an ill-advised and poorly-drawn CD full of naff pop punk and stuff he already knew, I received a disc full of stuff I’d never heard. I’d say I got the best of that exchange, and so would he. This was one of the tracks, and I immediately loved it. I love Nirvana a hell of a lot, and – having gone to a secondary school that had a suspiciously high number of atrocious Nirvana cover bands  – I appreciate that a Nirvana cover is not something that is easily done well. This, on the other hand, is brilliant – it’s unique, but doesn’t stray too far from the magic of the original. Lovely stuff.

The Black Keys – Strange Times (from Attack & Release)

I have a rich history of discovering bands through video games – mostly from the Tony Hawk series, starting with Busdriver’s Imaginary Places from Tony Hawk’s 2. This has happened a lot more since I began dabbling with Guitar Hero and Rock Band (as my real guitars gathered dust in the corner while I ebbed away the hours seeking approval from a digital crowd). The latest addition was The Black Keys’ Strange Times, which I discovered from Grand Theft Auto 4’s radio stations. I’ve liked the Keys for a long time but had neglected them until I heard this, and it re-awakened my love for bluesy punk-rock duets that are totally better than the White Stripes.

Bon Iver – Brackett, WI (from Dark Was The Night)

Plenty of people ignored Bon Iver because of the hype he gathered from the Pitchfork brigade. They were right to be cautious, as any gift horse from the Pitchfork stable must have its mouth very closely examined. However, their scepticism is misplaced – Bon Iver is brilliant, and if he continues to release material as good as this, he could be the next Elliott Smith. Or, if he doesn’t stab himself in the chest, the next Bob Dylan, without the annoying voice. I’m not hyping him up too much, but basically he’s better than Bob Dylan. Also, the compilation from which this song was taken – magnifique. Some big names on there, from Ben Gibbard to Feist, and it’s a dynamite collection.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – Radio Nowhere (from Magic)

I was recently bitten by the Boss bug and wrote about him at length, but if you still haven’t reconciled with The Boss and forgiven him for that extremely iffy set of music videos, now’s your chance.

Piglet – Little Bubble, Where Are You Going? (from Lava Land)

I limited myself to one instrumental track on this compilation as I’m aware that not everyone is appreciative of that kind of music, but I feel Piglet are the right band to represent modern instrumental rock music (you could deem them as “math rock” if the term hadn’t already been sullied forever by one great big pretentious circle jerk a few years back, surrounded by the artsy, throbbing, oozing dicks of every music blogger in America). They’ve only released one EP, Lava Land, but it’s sufficiently brilliant that they never have to release anything else – which is just as well, because it would seem they released this and then fell off the face of the earth.

Acoustic Ladyland – Paris (from Skinny Grin)

Punk jazz is not something that gets many people enthused, not least of all because it’s a relatively niche genre. That said, Acoustic Ladyland – who achieved a great deal of praise for the album from which this song was taken – are probably the finest (and maybe only) exponents of punk jazz in the world. Their songs are not traditional jazz, or traditional punk – they are somewhere in the vast chasm between the two, raised up on a modest pedestal to signify their dominance over a sparsely populated genre. Hooray for Acoustic Ladyland.

Yourcodenameis:milo – All Roads To Fault (from All Roads To Fault)

Yourcodenameis:milo were that rarest of things – a genuinely inventive and exciting new band that had mainstream backing from a major label. Their music was unpredictable, refreshing, and – especially on their debut album – had this incredible production that made their material immediately recognizable. Yourcodenameis:milo were a breath of fresh air and I immensely enjoyed both their live performances and records.

Sadly, in a world where Jarcrew are gone and forgotten, yet Hundred Reasons continue to squeeze out records and tours (albeit on an ever-decreasing scale; I hear the next album is being sold exclusively at car boot sales), creativity counts for nothing – Milo were bounced from Polydor to Virgin in a desperate attempt to find them the audience they deserved, it never came, and after their second album bombed, they packed it in. To add insult to injury, the lead singer joined The Automatic. If that isn’t a sad indictment on the state of British music, tell me what is.

Anyway, if you had an ear to the ground in this country around 2004, you probably heard this at some point – it was their biggest hit, and still one of my favourite songs that has ever been released as a single. Probably because it is the most unlikely candidate for a single release that I have ever heard – and yet, it works. It works perfectly. And nobody cared. For shame.

John Tucker

I had the pleasure today of spending three and a half hours of my precious time (ho ho ho) listening to Wired’s Chris Anderson reading his new book. Not to me personally of course, merely the audiobook of Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The book is along similar lines to his previous book The Long Tail, in which he described the concept which has rapidly become common parlance when talking about modern economics.

I must admit though, that I haven’t read The Long Tail, and I honestly wouldn’t have bothered with Free if it weren’t for one crucial fact: the audiobook was being offered up free, in its entirety via Spotify (to UK users only at this stage).

I like the idea of audiobooks. I love radio. Podcasts. The spoken word. Informative speeches and the like. But I rarely listen to audiobooks. On the odd occasions I have done, it’s been largely as a distraction from having hours to myself – usually when travelling, via train or plane, over long distances. Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything got a 13-hour flight last year off to a flying start (sorry). But aside from listening to whole chunks of audiobooks simply as a distraction, their practicality is lost on me. For the most part, I think I’d rather just read the thing.

But as I say: Free isn’t a book I would normally have read. A book which has its roots in web technology and global popular culture, fine – but served as side orders to the main theme of economics? No thanks. My attention span is short enough without bringing economics into it.

But Anderson’s book is far more accessible than that. He delves into the history of this concept of ‘free’, the development of it in relation to globalisation and mass culture, right up to the inevitable examples of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails giving away their music and smashing paradigms like ants underfoot.

Of course, writing about an audiobook as I am, I can’t talk about the book as purely text on a page: what I experienced was three hours of a man telling me what he thinks about something. And Anderson’s pace is relentless at times. Granted I shouldn’t have listened to it in almost one go, but I felt like I wanted to, to see what conclusions would be drawn from real-world scenarios that I knew a bit about already. But I must admit to tuning out occasionally – like I say, it is ostensibly a book about world economics…

Overall though, the book is engaging and at times thought-provoking. The hoped-for conclusions aren’t as concrete as one may have hoped; Free is more of a brief history and state of the union than an earth-shattering statement of intent. Having Anderson narrate his own book is a good decision: his tone is fresh and he holds your attention most of the time. I was occasionally left wondering where the line is drawn between hearing a speech, having a (peculiarly one-sided) conversation, and the traditional model of an audiobook. As the delivery methods merge, the line begins to blur.

But I can’t talk about Free without making mention to the controversy surrounding some of Anderson’s sources – or rather, his failure to cite their authors. In the past week or two, literature journal the Virginia Quarterly Review picked up on and reported several cases of what it believed to be plagiarism in the book. In a blog entry, direct comparisons were shown between Anderson’s text and Wikipedia articles in what amounted to a fairly damning indictment. In Anderson’s defence, he was quick to answer these calls, and has subsequently given his side of the story, resulting in a PDF of citations and references being made available. These should arguably have been included in the original book, but they weren’t and Anderson has put forward a fair explanation.

Finally, the main crux of how I ended up listening to Free should be mentioned. Astute PULP readers will know that I’ve talked about Spotify before. Spotify is pretty well-known to anybody who gets their musical fix from the internet: it is software which acts like an iTunes library that includes the vast majority of music available to buy online through other services. You fire it up, search for an album, and within seconds the music is playing. Downsides include only having access to music while tethered to a broadband connection (natch, although this is set to change) and that, while free, Spotify pops audio adverts into the playback stream – a 30-second radio-style ad every six songs or so. A premium subscription is available for £10 a month which strips your listening of any such interruptions, but at this stage it seems that most users are happy to put up with them in exchange for free access to the music.

I’m a big fan of Spotify and have been using it for almost a year, but today’s addition of Anderson’s audiobook is a new innovation – audibooks have until now been absent from Spotify’s library. But it worked beautifully – dividing into chapters allows the listener to take breaks (or to share specific chapters with other users), and the audio quality matches up with Spotify’s free service – ~160kbps. And this is important: one of the negatives of audiobooks bought online (at least for me) is their audio quality. An audiobook bought from iTunes is far lower quality (32kbps I believe), and this really detracts from the experience. The reasoning behind this choice could be said to be down to the delivery – audiobooks can be huge, and downloading ‘CD-quality’ audio files that number many tens of hours could be off-putting, as could fitting the thing on a portable player. But given the Moore’s Law evolution of connection speeds and iPod capacity, surely these factors are now null and void. Heck, iTunes even sells movies and whole TV series in bandwidth-destroying HD now.

I digress. Spotify’s presentation of Free was very satisfying and was completely in line with its much-vaunted music service and if this is a sign of things to come, I expect my enjoyment of audiobooks to improve tenfold. It has my blessings and I look forward to more being added in the near future. And Free itself was an interesting book, continuing Chris Anderson’s mission of deconstructing world economics for the 21st century.

Of course, the irony of listening to a book about free culture via a free service isn’t lost on me…

Chris Anderson’s Free was published in the UK on June 25th and is available now via Amazon; it will be available online free as an ebook and unabridged audiobook from July 9th. The audio version is available free to UK users now via Spotify.

Paul Capewell

But the celebrity death that genuinely surprised and saddened me more than any other, and thus the only one that I’m going to attempt to deal with at all sensitively, was undoubtedly the one that got the least attention – if any – in the UK, and that was the death of American infomercial king and renowned pitchman Billy Mays. Billy Mays may not be a name known to the majority of the PULP readership, or indeed to the British public at large – but I knew who he was. I had spent a week with him in 2003.

When my family moved to the flat just outside Cardiff – in which I currently reside, when I’m not in my apartment atop the Beetham Tower – we decided to get Sky television, which to us was this earth-shattering novelty (as opposed to the cumbersome, unwatchable mess it would later reveal itself to be). However, the equipment arrived and was installed a good week before our account was authorized, as a result of an administrative mishap – thus we only had access to the channels that were free. And they were the terrestrial channels plus the home shopping channels, with which we were unfamiliar.

For days, all we could see were adverts for the most comically atrocious jewelry – sold by fat women on QVC with patchy tans and fingernails like hockey sticks – sunglasses that transformed into a car, and products from the abominable Chef Tony that allowed fat Americans to honey-glaze half a ton of beef in ten seconds. That was all we could see and within a week we were praying for death. We were allowed a brief respite, however; once an hour, on one of the channels, came an advert for this stuff called OxiClean. The OxiClean commercial was actually an “infomercial”, the first of its kind we had ever seen – and we were utterly bamboozled by it. First we were shown a series of messes that no lone human could produce – a gallon of red wine on a white carpet, a shit the size of Gibraltar in a toilet – and then came this miracle man with a tub of white powder to restore the universal balance, all for the low low price of £19.95 plus shipping and handling. “But wait, there’s more!” he would cry, sweetening the deal to the point where, had the deal been any sweeter, it would have given us diabetes – we were utterly transfixed by the man on screen, bellowing at us to buy this magical powder and lift ourselves from a life of squalor, mess, and red wine stains on white carpets, giving big, boisterous demonstrations in massive glass tanks of water. That man was Billy Mays.

I can’t explain why I held Mays in such high regard – his larger-than-life character, his incessant bellowing; maybe I just found him an amusing and likeable caricature of a strange part of American culture, one for which I have a great deal of affection (while being simultaneously glad that the infomercial has yet to take indigenous root in the UK). And of them all, Billy Mays was undoubtedly the king – he gave you the distinct impression that the item he was selling would solve all your problems. A potato peeler from Billy Mays would be a revolutionary item in the world of kitchen appliances that would give you the time you needed to write the Faustian novel you’d been planning since your teens. He was a pitchman, but like no other – others would make a series of embarrassing, unlikeable quips or mentally berate the viewer into thinking that a rotisserie oven is exactly what their trailer is missing. Billy Mays, on the other hand, substituted greasy smarm with a beard that was as black as the back of the fireplace, a voice that measured on the Richter scale, and an enthusiasm for his products that was easily transmitted through the screen. Which may explain why Mays died a multi-millionaire. Others popped up, most notably Vince with the Shamwow and the SlapChop (and, some time later, the unfortunate propensity for beating the shit out of hookers), but none held a candle to Mays, not least of all because it would have soon been extinguished by the force of his voice. Even UK cult figure Barry Scott – famous for demonstrating the terrifying power of Cillit Bang – paled in comparison to Mays, a man who could have sold Nick Griffin a Qu’ran, had the fancy ever taken him.

Before he died, he was working on a show called Pitchmen, which looked at the life and times of Mays, as would-be pitchmen approached their lord and saviour for help in promoting their product. If you can find it – and by find it I mean download it, illegally, from the internet – I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so, because it’s fascinating television. And from it, you get the feeling that Billy Mays – for all the hype, and frankly deafening instructions to call in the next thirty seconds – really enjoyed what he did. He appeared on numerous talk shows and always came across as a nice man, in an industry that places very little emphasis on kindness as a virtue. Which may be why, upon news of his death at the age of 50, there was a real outpouring of affection in the US that would perhaps not be afforded for others of his ilk who lacked his charm and charisma.

Billy Mays died on June 28th 2009. May his voice deafen the Gods.

John Tucker

Billy Mays, deafening the employees of a McDonald’s drive-thru.

“Michael Jackson is dead.”

What?

“Michael Jackson is dead.”

WHAT?

Fast forward 20mins and we’re downstairs writhing around to ‘Dirty Diana’, ‘Blame It On The Boogie’, ‘Earth Song’ and the like. Yes. A whole Michael Jackson “tribute party”. Nothing but the ‘King of Pop’ for the rest of the night – A guilty pleasure for most, a wonderful, quite blatant excuse for others.

But tonight we do not mourn for the legend himself. That has not sunk in yet. As far as we know, he isn’t really dead. Or at least, not any more so than he already has been. Tonight we mourn instead for all the millions of fans who have been waiting twelve years for his return. TWELVE YEARS.

His much anticipated come back, the deeply ironic entitled “This Is It” tour announced on the 5^th March, was due to take place at London’s O2 Arena – a 50-concert residency scheduled to open July 13^th. The news triggered a virtual skirmish, with 360, 000 people registering applications before the ticket office even opened. On sale the following day, around £52 million worth of tickets were bought and the concert sold out at a box office record pace.

Fans who bought their tickets to the shows directly should be able to get full refunds and credit card companies do offer some level of protection. But what of those who bought theirs through other vendors, who chanced upon last minute competitions or astronomical ebay bids? What was last week’s or even yesterday’s (June 24^th) stroke of luck this evening has become a painful, costly thump.

And what of the company behind Jackson’s return, Los Angeles-based entertainment promoters AEG Live, who have already invested between £12 and £25 million into the tour. Not only faced with paying back the face value of some 750, 000 tickets sold, the company now has to fill its 20, 000-seat O2 venue for 50 nights last minute in Jackson’s stead.

Now nearly a week on from the icon’s untimely(?) death the media-machine has exhausted its tributes, exhuming instead old favourites: scandal and scepticism. Whether accidental, inevitable or suspicious, Michael Jackson’s death on Thursday 25^th June was a tragedy on many levels. He will be missed. Maybe even resented. He has left behind him a legacy and a mess in equal measure.

Holly Dicker

Blackpool:

You’ve not seen England until you have seen Blackpool in Lancashire.  This place takes the Great out of Great Britain and leaves instead a soggy verruca plaster floating in its sea. Blackpool used to be able to boast such wonders as having gas lighting in 1852 and once being the home of TVR (..until someone from Russia thought that the town was too basic and moved it).  If this doesn’t entice you then maybe you’ll be drawn by such facts as its status as the 11^th worst place to live in the country (or double first for the optimistic) and that it has some of the highest STI rates and teenage pregnancies in Europe! A desirable combination.

So what if anything would make you want to go to Blackpool for a cheap and cheerful holiday? Hospital stays due to alcohol are double the national average so you can afford to save on a hotel, as the STI and pregnancy facts show you will most definitely have something to remember the weekend by and you get to see donkeys in nappies (except on Fridays where they have a day off).  If all else fails, there is the self-gratification that you’re not one of the toothless ice cream-munchers that inhabit the place. If you do it right, you won’t remember anything and just end up with some amusing photographs, a doctors appointment and a stick of fractured tasteless rock ..what a weekend!

Phuket:

If Blackpool isn’t quite exotic enough for you, then why not try Phuket in Thailand – or as it is more commonly referred to by the Great British public “Fuk It”. This lively beach resort has all the bars and clubs of somewhere like Magaluf with all the exotic enticements of Thailand and the east.  If someone asks you where are you going on holiday you can reply, with no word of a lie, “Thailand” – which I’m sure you will agree sounds much more exotic than Benidorm – and that you are going to sample all the foods and culture that the area has to offer.  They don’t need to know you’re going to get wasted on cheap beer and curry while chatting up Thai shemales in your very best slurred, loud, overly gestured English.

There are also opportunities to expand your travel, by taking a trip to Bangkok, referred to by the Immature British public as “Bang Cock”, which is just a stone’s throw away. There is even an opportunity to expand your qualifications. In Bangkok you can get certified with not having gonorrhoea – an invaluable and multipurpose piece of accreditation for future employers, girlfriends and letting agents.

Inter-rail:

Want to use your degree? I am reliably informed that a degree is most definitely required to make sense of the Thomas Cook European rail time table.  With a smile on your face, a bag on your back, the ragged remains of your loan changed into euros and sealed in a plastic wallet, you can set off to explore all that Europe has to offer.  I was once told that the best way to explore somewhere is to get lost in it – when the platform change is announced in various different languages, or you can’t read where you want to be as the alphabet has changed, this is a definite possibility.  You will no doubt have the expected fun of slumming it in the big cities sharing with fifteen dubious looking Belgians in a hostel and every now and again referring to the film.  For the rest of the trip you can enjoy what is essentially one long commute.  Standing on trains in the sweaty humidity of others, frantically running to new platforms, dealing with people who want nothing more than to see you miss your transport, and just doing for several months what you will spend the rest of your life avoiding.

VolunTourism:

Fancy something new or off the wall? Why not join the world’s smartest business idea, volunteer tourism?  You pay your money to go somewhere to work for free, live in poor conditions, get malaria, befriend bugs, eat poor quality food, sleep with rats, dump in the woods, miss Facebook and generally be part of the poverty-stricken world that millions spend their lives working to escape from. When you eventually leave with a new-found appreciation for your previous life, embalmed with a sense of self-satisfaction, you can be safe in the knowledge that there are some plants or animals or endangered peace bats that will remember your contribution.  That you have experienced another culture and successfully rubbed your rich Western life in the face of those who will never possess it, and that you have paid for an experience more than they will earn in a lifetime… but, you gave something back right?

Jack Carnell

Mostly summer is a joyous occasion. A much loved and much celebrated time of year. But for many, summer is the season of suffering. Hay Fever is possibly the most infuriating ailment ever to plague Modern Man. It is a ridiculous involuntary overreaction to summer, a pathetic to near exasperating bodily curse. It is a cruel and evil punishment, not just for the Hay Fever victim themselves but for all those within an audible vicinity of the sneezing, sniffling and incessant blowing of noses. Every pocket and bag is stuffed with soggy tissues, which trail after the seasonal casualty like a disgusting homing device. Liquid oozes from bloodshot eyes and crusty red noses. A truly repulsive sight.

For the lucky, symptoms ease off around mid July just as the sun is at its strongest, making way for summer’s second round of vengeance: sunburn. No other nation loves sunburn as much as the British. To us, sunburn is a triumph. It’s a ”summer’s here at last, it’s fucking warm for once and I’m going to make the most of it by searing myself before it starts raining again”. We’re not used to sunshine, but feel like we should be. The rest of the world have their relationship with the sun pretty much grasped. We however still haven’t a bloody clue. Abroad, us Brits are unmissible, marked by a distinct array of pink patterns and weeping, blistering flesh. Sun cream is an alien, adulterous substance standing between us and what we have been waiting all year for, holding us back from the vitamin C and UV cocktail we pined over all winter.

Pushing the pollen and the peeling aside, now that summer is here, it’s time to enjoy it with plenty of beer, charred animal bits, beaches, parties and festivals. Have a great summer everyone, this is your editor signing off for the very last time.

Holly Dicker

Mad Tramp (Commission) – Oxford Road
Have you got a strange glint in your eye? Convinced that you are, in fact Raptor, Jesus’ sole living heir? Do you masturbate on the steps outside central library? If so, why not dive beard-first into the exciting world of homelessness? Meet interesting people, experience the ultimate independence and anything you make is yours to do with as you see fit – heroin is very cosmopolitan, why not get addicted to that? This is just one of many possible outcomes of an awesome career in homelessness. If you’re interested, simply go and sit in the street for a bit.

PULP writer (£35,423/yr) – MancUnion
Can you read and/or write? Due to the overwhelming number of complaints about this year’s PULP, MancUnion is looking for a clean slate for next year, free from the political saboteurs and Nazi sympathizers that brought PULP 08/09 into such disrepute. For financial reasons we cannot offer the 08/09 salary, so applicants will be paid a reduced salary of £35,423/yr plus free gigs, free albums and £1000 bonus for every article written for the website. Begins September 09. Contact jobs@pulpmagazine.co.uk if you’re interested in joining next year’s student magazine super-league.

You CAN live in a nice house or apartment. One that isn’t supporting its own sub-terrain of wildlife, smells or is located in a area infested with crack-heads, youth gangs and drug dealers. What you can’t now avoid is Council Tax and ignoring it simply results in court orders, fines and damaged credit ratings. So whilst you CAN live in a nice house or apartment, the likelihood is that you will be unable to AFFORD to.

2. Food instead of fungus inhabits the fridge

Remember what meat tastes like? I mean real meat that hasn’t come from a tin, foreign country or scraped off a rotating metal skewer, doused in garlic sauce (to hide the taste) and stuffed into stale bread. As a student, supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi were fine as long as you kept to the frozen section and avoided the festering meat isle and out of date “clearance” items. They were cheap and…cheap. But now you aren’t a student, you can and should afford to take a little more interest in your diet. Carbohydrates and miscellaneous animal parts are not long-term substantial food sources.

3. There is an 8am

No really, there is. And chances are you will soon have to be conscious, dressed and using basic motor functions on a regular basis at this hour of the day. This is called ‘working’, a concept the average student will have yet to experience.

4. Buckets are for mopping

They are not drinking vessels, stand-in toilets/vomit receptacles or fancy dress accessories. You fill them with hot water and washing-up liquid, maybe a splash of bleach and then CLEAN THE FLOOR with them using a stick-like instrument with a wig on the end of it, also known as a ‘mop’. The wig end is plunged into the bucket, rung out a little in the plastic net-like attachment and then wiped back and forth across the floor. Repeat this process until the floor is a uniform shade or pattern, i.e. clean.

5. Vodka-Redbull is simply unacceptable

As are all those luminous alcoholic beverages you used to ingest dressed as a golfer/twat/prostitute before swaying and puking your way to some student hell hole where the drinks were cheap and both music and girls guaranteed to suck hard. Beer now only comes in pints – maybe in a jug if abroad or in a keg at a festival. Cocktails are not £2 and in half-pint glasses, or £8 in a jug with a straw. Lambrini is not a wine. Anything from a carton that isn’t juice is just wrong.

Holly Dicker

It’s important to ease yourself back into home life – why not speak with your parents about introducing a few trappings of student living to make things easier for you? Spend a few nights worrying about an imaginary deadline before writing a dissertation in a cold sweat, find a bar with no customers to act as a surrogate to MMU’s union bar, and find a busy street full of leaflet-distributors to navigate six times a week – it’ll be like you never went away.

Don’t wait for the jobs to come to you – why not put on a suit, go into a high-rise office block, find an empty desk and start working at something? Perhaps somebody will appreciate your go-getter attitude and pay you, or simply forget that you don’t work there and pay you anyway?

Meet up with your old friends, or go back to your old local – seeing people who are destined to die poor and lonely will provide you with a much-needed morale boost.

Don’t just sit in your room, masturbating and crying. Put your free time to good use – make up things to put on your CV (after all, the only reason you didn’t work with underprivileged kids was because you were too busy, and you definitely would have done if you’d had time), learn an instrument, complain to PULP, or get really really good at videogames that you used to suck at. Your successful classmates will be laughing on the other side of their faces when they see how good you are at Diddy Kong Racing.

If none of this helps, delay the inevitable for a year or two by doing a Masters.

Ivor Marlow

Application/CV:

If you are fortunate enough to be applying for a job you want, have worked towards, have experience in, are enthusiastic about and is what you have got yourself qualified for, then you have no need to continue reading… The questions will be easy and be confident in what you have achieved.  For the rest of us, the application is the first step to getting the job that you don’t really want.  It is probable that I am not allowed to encourage lying on such documents. Instead it is advisable to spin the truth in such a way that fits the job your going for this week.  For example:

“I have spent a lot of time drunk with friends” can translate too “I get on extremely well with new people and enjoy the social side of work”.

“I don’t usually get up” becomes “I work well on later shifts”

Alasdair Cambell will be so proud.  Of course if you cant think of how to spin yourself an interview, put yourself down as disabled and go in with a limp.  Everyone has quotas.

The First Impression:

What to Wear/not wear (woman):
Since you don’t know whether your interviewer will be male or female, dress for either eventuality.  A pencil skirt and jacket always goes down well, try adding a fitted blouse for effect. You will look like a career driven woman.  If your interviewer is a man, you can also push out your chest or undo just one button.  I’m not trying to be sexist but us men are all the same.  You wont have to do this when you actually get the job, but as the old adage goes: if you got it, flaunt it.  Do not however show off too much or do something stupid like have clips with butterflies on.  If you need explanation as to why pig tails or assorted bobbles wont help then don’t job-hunt just yet.

What to Wear/not Wear (man):
A smart suit and if you can a slim fit shirt.  Be freshly shaven and pull out your best wit and charm.  You can look like a dashing young business orientated man of the world.  This again makes you eye candy for woman, who can glance at your bum in pants one size too small on the way out or means you can look like a perfect young nephew for them to molly coddle, tell off and generally place affection upon.  They will surly employ you over a middle-aged divorcee that’s slightly plump and balding?  If not then a job isn’t your only problem.

The Greeting:
You don’t want the job, and don’t want to be there.  However be careful to make sure that the interviewer can’t see the resentment behind your best school photo smile.  Halitosis is never a winner, so brush your teeth and give them a good flossing.  Your potential employer may spend a lot of time over your shoulder during training, therefore they don’t want your breath to smell like stale rat farts.  A firm handshake and a good posture will also make it seem like you have a backbone.  You don’t, you will kiss arse all the way to the top, or risk staying at the bottom.  They don’t like the idea you might take their jobs, so pretend your content with bottom rung for now.

Standard Interview Questions:

Re-cap of your CV/Application form:
This is when they check your CV with you.  Therefore it’s important to remember you’re truth spinning. The same excuses as before apply and if you’re stuck for what to say, just refer to your degree and how it has given you life skills, people skills, and shows your willingness to learn.

Relevant Experience:
Do you have any? Of course you don’t, you’ve just come out of University and unless your job relates directly to your degree or you have actually worked for it (who this advice is not for) then you have stuff all.  Therefore make it up, tell them just what they want to hear.  They will have so many crap interviews today if you make up what you have done they will be so happy that your not unbelievably boring they are unlikely to check it through fear of ruining their own illusion.  Remember, these people are bored and boring, so if you sound vaguely more exciting than they themselves do, then they are likely to be impressed.

Situation Questions:
This is often done in a role-play.  Of course not of a sexual kind, despite that I confidently assume that many people have an internal giggle at the innuendo.  All that actually happens is they pretend to be a customer in various moods and wanting different things.  Unfortunately they bare no resemblance to real life or a real situation and leave you longing for the childish idea of “role-play” to materialise and relieve the tedium.  If it did do you think you would be more in with a chance of the job?

Flexibility:
When can you work?  One answer and one alone will do, “when would you like me too?”  This is more truth spinning, when you actually get the job you can then say in your best English “I’m sorry I can’t work that day”.  They can’t drop you, they’ve said no to the rest now so if you get on your bosses nerves it doesn’t matter.  You’ll be gone in a year.

“Do YOU have any questions of your own?”:
No of course you don’t, you want to leave.  Just ask the three things they want to hear:  What are the training opportunities, are there any opportunities for overtime and what are the pension plans.  It makes it sound like you what to improve, work hard, and stay there until your dead.  Thus completing your giant web of falsification and giving you a pretty good chance of getting the job that you don’t want but annoyingly need.  You can ask something of your own if you want.  But don’t bother because unless its one of the three above they probably don’t know the answer.

The Close:

If you want a clue as to if you have the job – phone number means probably as they are happy to tell you personally.  Address, probably not. They can’t bare to tell you that you couldn’t even get a job you didn’t want.

So there you are, the after interview advice is go and spend some money on something that is relaxing and you enjoy.  You can do this by doing one final lie to yourself.  You have just been for a job interview, you have definitely got it, so can borrow the money you are yet to earn and pay your overdraft back later.

Jack Carnell

photos by Holly Dicker

The HR Fail Approach
Just start doing the job. Human Resources and wages departments are used to their own catastrophic balls-ups. Simply begin work wherever you like, making as many new friends as possible, then approach HR, asking why you haven’t been paid yet. They won’t have your file, but they won’t have many other people’s files either. If in doubt, cry like a child and scream “NOBODY EVER NOTICES ME HERE! WHAT AM I TO YOU?” Expect a paycheck on the 30^th.

The CIA Approach
Set up a network of spies within your chosen company. These operatives will work on commission for a share of any money embezzled into your bank account whilst at work. Be sure to use a false name like ‘Sorethroat’. Their primary objective is to get you employed at a high-salaried position. Once in, fire all of them publicly. Thieving swine.

The Cuban Missile Crisis Approach
Keep escalating your threats to the point where your interviewer believes you’re perfectly fine with mutually assured destruction. Best utilised with Russian companies. Quitters.

The Extraordinary Rendition Approach
Kidnap the boss and transport them across the border to a country with relaxed laws on mindless violence. Scotland should do it. Waterboard them ‘til employed. This has the benefit of being completely legal: your government does it all the time.

The Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Approach
Get a friend to borrow a gold Rolex and touch you in your special place. Take photos. Blackmail any manager whose hairy, bejeweled arm looks similar. They wont be able to remember if it was you that night at the hotel.

The Sleeping You Way To The Top Approach
Sleep your way in, around the departments, and all the way up to the penthouse corner office. Extra credit for breaking the glass ceiling metaphor.

Alexander Walsh

September 19th – Move from my flat in the valleys just outside Cardiff into Daisy Bank Halls. Living in a four-person flat with Ludicrous Chav called Louise, Indie Wanker Stick Insect called Mark and emotionally damaged young man called Andrew.

September 21st – Mark keeps me awake for the second night in a row by playing Interpol until 4 in the morning. Ludicrous Chav occasionally serenades us with Oxide & Neutrino, Andrew is never seen or heard except for the gentle noise of his plaintive weeping as I walk past his door. This never stops for as long as I’m there.

September 23rd – Sizeable tower of beer cans begins to appear in the kitchen. Slowly realize that I am living in a hellish cliche of 90s studentdom, that is less a flat and more my personal vision of the seventh circle of hell.

September 24th – Sick of flatmates. Mark’s mates kick the can tower over in the night then celebrate with some Interpol. It is not rebuilt for a number of days.

October 15th – Develop a superhuman sense of hearing that allows me to gauge whether or not the kitchen is occupied. In the ~7 months that follow, I am caught by the others less than a dozen times, reducing awkward small talk to a minimum.

November 11th – Andrew puts a Christmas card under my door at 4am. There is a kiss under his name inside. I begin locking my door at night.

December 12th – “We’re all going for a drink before we all go home for Christmas – well, except Andrew. You coming John?” “No.” The can tower is once again demolished.

January 4th – Move back to halls. Mark announces he is moving out in a few months to live in a 16-person hornet’s nest in Fallowfield, and there is much rejoicing. I take my rightful turn at demolishing his beloved can tower.

February 10th – Mark informs me that he intends to sell the can tower to a scrap metal dealer. Because scrap metal dealers pay megabucks for grotty unwashed Fosters cans from stupid student pricks. Eat shit, Mark.

February 24th – Andrew deletes Mark from Facebook.

February 26th – We are all interviewed by police – Stick Insect told Ludicrous Chav that his house needs a microwave, and jokingly remarked he may steal the one that Andrew brought. Andrew immediately dialed 999. At four in the morning. About a burglary that may happen a month into the future.

March 20th – Mark moves out. As a parting gift, he tells us we can keep the cans he has accumulated (to him, worth a fortune in scrap metal, to us, a cumbersome pile of rubbish that we now have to dispose of). Never felt such a strong desire to snap a human being over my knee like a twig.

March 25th – Move back to Wales for Easter; never been more happy to live with my parents.

May 1st – Move back for exams. Ludicrous Chav has put up a poster in the kitchen, featuring the words “Sing as if nobody’s listening, love as if you’ve never been hurt, dance as if nobody’s watching, live as if heaven is here on earth”. So aggravated by the sickly sweet sentiment and stuttered meter that I was compelled to ruin it; wrote “Hot Horse Cocks” on the back in foot high letters. Not sure what it even means.

May 20th – Louise invites twenty of her disgusting chavvy mates to live in our flat for what seems like forever. It is impossible to make pasta without tripping over a fat cankle covered in neon leggings or a coked-up chav who’s thrown up on his Fred Perrys.

May 25th – Contemplate burning the flat down. At this point I am beyond caring whether I personally escape the immolation – all they would find in the kitchen would be a few charred corpses, neon leggings and shell suits melted to burnt flesh, and a set of frantic scratches and broken fingernails at the bottom of a locked door.

May 31st – Decide against murdering everybody and simply move out instead, kicking the can tower to rubble as I went.

 John Tucker

September 19th – Move from my flat in the valleys just outside Cardiff into Daisy Bank Halls. Living in a four-person flat with Ludicrous Chav called Louise, Indie Wanker Stick Insect called Mark and emotionally damaged young man called Andrew.

September 21st – Mark keeps me awake for the second night in a row by playing Interpol until 4 in the morning. Ludicrous Chav occasionally serenades us with Oxide & Neutrino, Andrew is never seen or heard except for the gentle noise of his plaintive weeping as I walk past his door. This never stops for as long as I’m there.

September 23rd – Sizeable tower of beer cans begins to appear in the kitchen. Slowly realize that I am living in a hellish cliche of 90s studentdom, that is less a flat and more my personal vision of the seventh circle of hell.

September 24th – Sick of flatmates. Mark’s mates kick the can tower over in the night then celebrate with some Interpol. It is not rebuilt for a number of days.

October 15th – Develop a superhuman sense of hearing that allows me to gauge whether or not the kitchen is occupied. In the ~7 months that follow, I am caught by the others less than a dozen times, reducing awkward small talk to a minimum.

November 11th – Andrew puts a Christmas card under my door at 4am. There is a kiss under his name inside. I begin locking my door at night.

December 12th – “We’re all going for a drink before we all go home for Christmas – well, except Andrew. You coming John?” “No.” The can tower is once again demolished.

January 4th – Move back to halls. Mark announces he is moving out in a few months to live in a 16-person hornet’s nest in Fallowfield, and there is much rejoicing. I take my rightful turn at demolishing his beloved can tower.

February 10th – Mark informs me that he intends to sell the can tower to a scrap metal dealer. Because scrap metal dealers pay megabucks for grotty unwashed Fosters cans from stupid student pricks. Eat shit, Mark.

February 24th – Andrew deletes Mark from Facebook.

February 26th – We are all interviewed by police – Stick Insect told Ludicrous Chav that his house needs a microwave, and jokingly remarked he may steal the one that Andrew brought. Andrew immediately dialed 999. At four in the morning. About a burglary that may happen a month into the future.

March 20th – Mark moves out. As a parting gift, he tells us we can keep the cans he has accumulated (to him, worth a fortune in scrap metal, to us, a cumbersome pile of rubbish that we now have to dispose of). Never felt such a strong desire to snap a human being over my knee like a twig.

March 25th – Move back to Wales for Easter; never been more happy to live with my parents.

May 1st – Move back for exams. Ludicrous Chav has put up a poster in the kitchen, featuring the words “Sing as if nobody’s listening, love as if you’ve never been hurt, dance as if nobody’s watching, live as if heaven is here on earth”. So aggravated by the sickly sweet sentiment and stuttered meter that I was compelled to ruin it; wrote “Hot Horse Cocks” on the back in foot high letters. Not sure what it even means.

May 20th – Louise invites twenty of her disgusting chavvy mates to live in our flat for what seems like forever. It is impossible to make pasta without tripping over a fat cankle covered in neon leggings or a coked-up chav who’s thrown up on his Fred Perrys.

May 25th – Contemplate burning the flat down. At this point I am beyond caring whether I personally escape the immolation – all they would find in the kitchen would be a few charred corpses, neon leggings and shell suits melted to burnt flesh, and a set of frantic scratches and broken fingernails at the bottom of a locked door.

May 31st – Decide against murdering everybody and simply move out instead, kicking the can tower to rubble as I went.

 John Tucker

Przystanek Woodstock is loosely linked with the original American Woodstock Festival of 1969, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how. Michael Lang, one of the original event’s organisers, continued to recreate Woodstock Festivals on his own, one in ‘94, one in ’99, and another planned for the 40^th Anniversary this year. Separate from this, a man named Jurek Owsiak seems to have watched the special edition live DVD and decided to name his festival what translates as ‘Woodstock Stop’. Polish humour perhaps.

Flagrant copyright issues notwithstanding, this event is ridiculously huge – ‘the biggest open-air festival in Europe’ no less. The lineup is thoroughly international and at first glance it may seem difficult to recognise any of the names. This is a good thing. Not all music comes from Britain and America, you know. Ones you might know are Sham 69, The Futureheads and Guano Apes. 

Alex Walsh

Held on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, Petrcane is perfect for a chilled-out dance fest. As well as beautiful views and ideal beaches, Croatia has that advantage of being so far removed from everything you’re used to. As with much in life, the more obscure the location, the bigger the payoff for those that make the effort.

Why should you be interested? As well as a line up that includes DJ Yoda, Bonobo, Alice Russel, Hexstatic and Manchester’s own Riot Jazz, local promoters Ryan Hunn and Johnny Dub, the guys behind Hoya:Hoya, will be hosting one of the festival’s infamous boat parties. 

Alex Walsh

An Italian Reggae festival? Yes. Just… yes. If anyone can think of a better theme for a festival than pizza and high-quality ganja, do please start one. We had to include this, just to make people aware how beautifully complimentary ideas can exist together in this world.

Imagine lying in a field at the foot of the Alps, whilst Buju Banton (the friendly face of violent homophobic misogyny) sings horrendous things you can’t quite decipher. I have a strange relationship with Reggae and Dancehall. I love the music, get the lifestyle and the politics, but can’t abide with the subject that lies at the heart of so much of it. Look up ‘Boom Bye Bye’; then we’ll talk. Doing this in Italy means you can put the lyrics aside. Maybe. Ah hell, you’re never going to go. Grab a Bob Marley album, skin up and call Dominos.

Alexander Walsh

This is Bang Face’s third outing as an independent festival after establishing a good following at Glade. A London-based company, their monthly residency at Islington’s Electrowerks has taught them much about what their audience wants: bags of inflatable animals, masks, whistles and toys. Signs and glowsticks are also provided. Their themed events at other venues have proven fantastically wild and eccentric so we can only imagine what they’re planning for this. Needless to say, it will be everything we love about rave.

For line up visit their website, though the attraction here is the event itself and the twisted brilliance of the organisers’ sense of humour. Do look out for the unique Bang Face crowd behaviour – mosh pits are common at these events, which I’ll bet is a world of fun when accompanied by electronic music, but scary as all hell if you’re on acid.

Alex Walsh

British metal festivals have gone hopelessly downhill since those whining emo boybands got a hold of them. Bloodstock would quite happily burn itself to the ground rather than let the inauthentic play and I honestly salute them for their efforts. Stick your rockstar posturing; this is serious metal country.

Carcass and Arch Enemy headline Friday, Blind Guardian and Cradle of Filth take Saturday, and ‘it’s the final countdown’ Europe will jam that song into your head forever at closedown on Sunday. Fear Factory, Satyricon, Katatonia (with a K)… all good stuff, and brilliantly mixed together with the best unsigned acts working today. Of particular interest to Mancunian fans will be Bisonhammer, who beat all else in the Grand Central competition to earn a place on this bill. We always knew they’d do well.

When it comes to metal, Bloodstock reigns over any British rival. Go, if only to find out what the metal karaoke tent sounds like. Christ.

Alex Walsh

Glade started out as a dance stage at Glastonbury, becoming a festival in its own right in 2004. Since then it has gained a reputation as the ‘underground’ electronic music event, a high quality alternative to the more commercial Global Gathering and Creamfields. Having had no end of problems with Berkshire Council, and even with severe flooding in 2007, the organisers have moved it this year to its new Winchester home. The extra space and freedom has allowed the festival a more open-air atmosphere, stepping away from enclosed tents in favour of some bloody loud outdoor soundsystems.

Underworld and Squarepusher headline, followed by big names in every niche of dance imaginable. True to their roots, Glade allow other festivals to host stages, BLOC being responsible for the highly regarded Vapor Stage.

If you like electronic music, you belong here. Don’t miss it.

Alex Walsh

The ultimate in friendly events, its five stages are arranged around beautiful meadows and its own boating lake. The lakeside stage is solar-powered, or bio-diesel fueled if the weather doesn’t hold out. Activities are the real focus here, far more than the bands that are revealed on the day. Circuses, magic, ping-pong tournaments, film screenings, workshops and roller discos. A tranquil relaxation area features a spa, saunas and a hot tub. This is not a hardcore ketamine-fueled rave. Shambala is about tea, cake and adventures in the woodland areas. Sip cider in the beer gardens, watch a comedy gig, have a go at the survival course. End each day in the bedtime story tent.

If you’ve seen it all before at the big name festivals, this has the potential to be excellent. Now for its 10^th Anniversary, everything seems to be perfectly geared around you having fun, so drop the cynical student act and go laugh it up in a fancy dress rabbit costume.

Alex Walsh

It doesn’t get much more independent than this. Unity Day is essentially a community project, run entirely by volunteers. Financed by a set of fundraiser gigs leading up to the event, Unity Day stands out as an inspired project, loved by those who created it. Covering the whole musical spectrum, from ska to ‘filthy bassline sleaze’ (their words not mine), this seems to have something for everyone. With eight to ten separate stages, the exact line-up is still unconfirmed, but will likely be made up of those who have played their fundraisers. A point of interest to local bands, this festival seems very willing to accommodate you. No money involved of course but the chance to play an event like this should be grabbed with both hands.

Details are still thin on the ground so keep an eye out for this one closer to the time. It’s a DIY gem that more should know about.

Alexander Walsh

Beat-Herder is a very ‘Manchester’ kind of affair. The laid back attitude of its organisers has resulted in a thoroughly relaxed festival atmosphere. Independently funded and free of interference from corporate sponsors, the emphasis is simply on people coming together. That said, it still manages to avoid being an overtly ‘hippy’ event. You know, the kind with naked children running around in the mud.

Musically, Beat-Herder nicely balances their bigger names with the best of local talent. Reverend & The Makers, Beardyman, Dub Pistols and The Whip, share the bill with Filthy Dukes, The Young Punx, and Biscuithead and the Biscuit Badgers. These and many more will appear across eight stages, including one run by Manchester’s renowned Stumblefunk Soundsystem. 

words Alexander Wlash,
photos Holly Dicker 

2 – 9 July: Manchester International Festival

3 – 5 July: Beat-Herder, Lancashire

10 – 11 July: The Feel Good Festival, Rochdale

17 – 19 July: Cock Rock Festival, Cumbria

26 July: Jedi Music Festival, Southport

31 – 2 Aug: Kendal Calling, Kendal

6 – 9 Aug: Rebellion UK Festival, Blackpool

24 – 26 July: SuperSonic Festival, Birmingham

mid Aug: Unity Day, Leeds

27 – 30 Aug: Shambala Festival

29 – 30 Aug: Creamfields, Cheshire

ENGLAND

3 – 5 July: Coventry Godvia Festival, Coventry

4 July: Dance Island, Cambridge

4 – 5 July: Wireless, London

10 – 12 July: Oxygen, Ireland

16 – 19 July: Glade Festival, Hants

17 – 19 July: Soundwaves Festival, Brighton

18 – 19 July: Lovebox Weekender, London

23 July: The Secret Garden Party, East Anglia

24 – 25 July: Global Gathering, Warwickshire

24 – 25 July: The Wickerman Festival, Scotland

31 – 2 Aug: Stanton Calling, Hertfordshire

1 – 27 Aug: Edge Festival, Scotland

7 – 9 Aug: Big Chill, Herefordshire

14 – 16 Aug: Bloodstock, Derbyshire

21 – 23 Aug: The Green Man Festival, Wales

22 – 23 Aug: V Festival, Chelmsford/Staffordshire

28 – 30 Aug: Beachdown Festival, Brighton

29 – 30 Aug: Bang Face – Bang Holiday Rave, Suffolk

30 Aug: Get Loaded in the Park, London

EUROPE

1 – 4 July: Volt Festival, Sopron/Odenburg, HUNGARY

1 – 5 July: B’estFest, Bucharest, ROMANIA

2 – 5 July: Heineken Open’er, Gdynia, POLAND

2 – 5 July: Rock Werchter, Rotselaar, BELGIUM

2 – 5 July: Roskilde, Roskilde, DENMARK

2 – 5 July: Worldwide Festival, Sete, South of FRANCE

2 – 11 July: Rototom Sunsplash, Rivoli, ITALY

3 – 5 July: Ruisrock, Turku, FINLAND

3 – 12 July: The Garden Festival, Pectrcane, CROATIA

9 – 11 July: Bilbao BBK Live, Bilbao, SPAIN

9 – 11 July: Optimus Alive!, Lisbon, PORTUGAL

9 – 12 July: Exit Festival, Novi Sad, SERBIA

11 July: Dance Valley, Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS

16 – 19 July: Benicassim, nr Valencia, SPAIN

17 – 18 July: Positivus, Salacgriva, northern LATVIA

17 – 18 July: Pohoda Festival, Trencin Airport, SLOVAKIA

17 – 19 July: Melt! Festival, Grafenhainichen, GERMANY

17 – 20 July: Soundwave, Petrcane, CROATIA

11 – 15 Aug: Oya Festival, Oslo, NORWAY

12 – 17 Aug: Sziget Festival, Budapest, HUNGARY

20 – 22 Aug: Pukkelpop, Kiewit, BELGIUM

24 – 26 July: Benatska Noc Festival, Mala Skala, CZECH REPUBLIC

31 – 2 Aug: Przystanek Woodstock, Kostrzyn nad Odra, POLAND

31 – 2 Aug: Wacken Open Air, Wacken, GERMANY

21 – 23 Aug: Lowlands, Flevoland, NETHERLANDS

28 – 30 Aug: Rock en Seine, outside Paris, FRANCE

At the moment, I am currently preparing for my first exams since 2006 (well, not really the first, but seeing as my last MMU exam was conducted in a computer lab, on the computers, with no internet restrictions or supervision, with the answer scheme readily visible to those who had finished – and all those sitting near them – I hardly think that counts as an exam), and the first exams I’ve cared about passing since 2004. Some things never leave you – like the sense of blind panic as you wonder why you’ve left it until the night before to read up on things you don’t understand – but some of it definitely has to be learned afresh after a considerable break from learning; proper research technique, effective use of time, memory tricks, these things took a while to get back into.

Of course some things are completely new to me – university-level examinations are a cut above A-levels and GCSEs, and require you to think deeper. Googling for answers can only take you so far. However, that’s far enough for me, so that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s only foundation year after all. My technique was simple; download the last three years’ worth of past papers (the questions never change), pop a few key words from the answers into Google with boolean operators, and see which presents itself as the right answer. It’s like asking the audience on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, except the audience is all the world’s knowledge. It’s incredibly reliable.

In a few instances, the answer was a little close to the paper in terms of wording; but that’s easily done – scientific language is quite rigid and some things have to be expressed in quite a specific way to avoid ambiguity. Then came this question on a biological form and function paper:

I googled a few answers, and the top result was this:

See that? That, right there, is a word for word cull from Wikipedia. And believe me, I checked, the Wikipedia article came first. Astonished, I put it down to a brief oversight on someone’s part, assuming they would not make the mistake twice.

Followed swiftly by…

Apparently not.

We have been told all year that referencing Wikipedia is one of the single worst things you can ever do. Handing in an article referencing Wikipedia is a slap in the face, and infinitely worse than handing in an article with no references at all – in fact, you would be better off smearing shit on a slice of bread and handing that in. Shitty bread is more acceptable than an article that has been tainted by Wikipedia’s sordid documents.

So imagine my surprise to see this. But frankly, I think it’s great that the university is experimenting with alternative sources for their questions – it must get boring always using the same peer-approved books and journals. In future, perhaps other “alternative” sources will be considered. I’ve seen some extremely interesting scientific discoveries published in the union toilets, on the walls – “Karen sucked six dirty dicks” sounds like an interesting experiment in virus transfer and immune system response times, and I can’t wait to see the results of these tests, which I assume will be written on the same stall door so as to avoid confusion with the work on the next stall (although to help differentiate the two equally valid sources, the latter’s publications are written in shit by mad tramps).

Or perhaps – and this is a wild thought – maybe the answers will be plucked from the grossly expensive textbooks we were forced, at gunpoint, to purchase at the beginning of the year. Seems mad, I know, but I’ve had a glance through one of them and amazingly enough, everything in them has been scrutinized and refereed by qualified experts to make sure that the book contains the truth and nothing but. At least that way we may get some questions that weren’t taken from a source that is about as closely monitored as the graffiti in the union toilets, and about half as educational.

John Tucker (03/05/09)

In January 2009, a group of ten students occupied a medium-sized lecture theatre in the Geoffrey Manton building at MMU in solidarity with Gaza. After the two day protest broke down, those responsible were virtually impossible to trace; using our connections with the Manchester underground, a representative from PULP was blindfolded, disarmed, and taken to the group’s secret headquarters to meet their leader, the elusive “BLACK PANTHER” (pictured). We were granted a very brief window of time with him, and here is the result.

Written and edited by anon.

In January 2009, a group of ten students occupied a medium-sized lecture theatre in the Geoffrey Manton building at MMU in solidarity with Gaza. After the two day protest broke down, those responsible were virtually impossible to trace; using our connections with the Manchester underground, a representative from PULP was blindfolded, disarmed, and taken to the group’s secret headquarters to meet their leader, the elusive “BLACK PANTHER” (pictured). We were granted a very brief window of time with him, and here is the result.

Written and edited by anon.

Intended for: Pulp 7: Human Affairs
Reason it was not included: Wasn’t finished in time

TV Listings

BBC One

5.00 – Kidz Newxzzz – (WS) Kenzie D. Bosh tells it like it is in a new, lively format aimed at Generations Z-B2. Presented with a positive, “everything’s A-OK” style that’s appropriate to “yoof” audiences.
5.15 – Blue Peter – A sad episode of Blue Peter as the team are forced to bury the recently deceased Blue Peter dog with their bare hands. Will they get through the six inches of concrete before the stench of Rex’s corpse overwhelms them?
6.00 – BBC News – Everything’s rubbish and it will never get better.
6.30 – Regional News – People near you want to kill you, it rains 30 hours a day, and on a lighter note some kid won a competition and now they’re going to the moon.
7.00 – The One Show – The two most inherently dislikeable presences on British television team up to present a bunch of atrocious crap you don’t care about.
8.00 – Top Gear – Pillocks in cars.
9.00 – Louis Theroux Meets… Louis Theroux - The world is at risk of imploding as the levels of smug-twattery reach nigh-on unbearable levels when derisive pillock-journalist meets himself.
10.00 – The Contrived Zaniness of Danny Wallace - The latest in the long-running series, Danny Wallace and Dave Gorman or whatever decide to communicate exclusively via the medium of the bicycle bell for some stupid reason.

BBC Two

5.00 – Cooking With The Homeless – Hector Bluemantile takes to the streets of Longsight in preparation for his boldest dish yet, in which he plans to serve the remains of slaughtered vagrants to ten celebrities. Featuring Angus Deyton.
5.30 – Auctionroom Sweep – Dale Winton returns to present a new dynamic mixture of the traditional auction show and Supermarket Sweep, in which the public are given a sawn-off shotgun, a balaclava, and thirty seconds to steal as many priceless antiques as they can fit in their trolley before security wrestle them to the floor. Will they manage to grab the inflatable banana?
6.00 – The Biggest British Brains in Britain – Which country has the biggest brain, Scotland, Wales, England or one of the others? Chantelle from Big Brother rounds up a hundred people from each country and – in a revolutionary new surgical technique – weighs their brains on the high street. An average is taken, but who will win?
7.00 – Combo Breaker - Another quiz show, presented by that person you vaguely remember. Not him, the other one.
8.00 – Horizon: How Is Babby Formed? – Horizon special looking at how exactly babies are made, and startling new evidence suggesting that current scientific opinion may be wrong.
9.00 – Pinpoint – Rubbish American drama.
9.45 – Best of Dragon’s Den (R).
9.50 – The Aggregate – An investigation into the changing face of student politics in Britain.
10.00 – Mock The Week – A vehicle for four atrocious stand-up comedians, so transparent it’s being considered as a replacement for the Popemobile. Will Frankie Boyle – the poor man’s Jerry Sadowitz – offer more jokes about life i Scotland, or will he just get “topical” and make gags about the Twin Towers or something? I’m so bloody shocked.

ITV

5.00 – ITV News & Weather – Same as BBC News but slightly cheaper and with less good on-the-scene stuff.
6.00 – You’ve Been Framed – Old women falling in streams, cats dying in fires and babies who make funny faces.
7.00 – Moss Side East – Britain’s longest-running whistful Northern soap. Will Shannon find the knife that killed Kenzie? Will Ed’s secret remain secret, or will Marco become wise to his act? Will Loraine find a buyer for her and Marko’s secret love child? Or will she be forced to put it in a bag and throw it into the canal?
8.00 – Coronation Street – Seriously?
9.00 – Britain’s Got Dossers – Panto queen Simon Cowell, racist thug Cheryl Cole and androgynous frog-man-woman Pete Burns snigger at the mentally ill in front of a baying audience under the gossimer-thin veil of a talent show. Featuring a touching human interest story, but only about the ones who are “talented”. Some of the no-hopers have tragic stories too, but best not to mention that, or you may feel a shiver of compassion while three millionaires shout at them on national television. Presented by Dermot O’Leary.
9.45 – Britain’s Got Dossers Extra – Dermot O’Leary drives Simon Cowell to the houses of the poor and desperate so he can personally piss in their mouths. He holds their noses until they can hold their breath no longer, then lets loose. After they’ve choked down the last of the warm, salty sprinklings, they are required to thank Cowell and sing a comically atrocious song for the amusement of the nation.
10.00 – Wye-Aye Man – Ubiquitous Geordies Ant & Dec present a vaguely modernized rendition of Noel’s House Party. Subtitles for the geordie-impaired.
11.00 – Confidential Matters (1991) – Erotic thriller starring Rutger Haur as a renegade cop who doesn’t play by the rules. Corrupt businessmen are ruining the American dream, but can one cop bring down the modern-day mob? Featuring needless sepia-tinted sex scene with one of the girls from Saved By The Bell. Not the black one, the other one. No, the other one.

Channel 4

5.00 – Bruce Forsyth Presents Bruce Forsyth’s Heads Or Tails featuring Bruce Forsyth – Bruce Forsyth presents a new gameshow in which the public must toss a coin ten times in a row for a chance to win over £9000. Can they beat the laws of probability?
6.00 – Foreskins – Appalling youth drama. This week, Rory and Izzy are sick in a traffic cone after having all their blood replaced with heroin. May not be suitable for anybody born prior to last Thursday. Guest appearance by Cool Dude Indie Band.
7.00 – Come Dine With Me – Comical backstabbing and in-fighting combined with shoddy cookery.
8.00 – Jamie Oliver: You’re A Bad Parent – cheeky cockney chef chappy Jamie Oliver returns to remind you what a fucking terrible parent you are. Get that fucking pasty out of your mouth you fat bitch. You make me sick. If you weren’t too busy baking yourself inside a cake for the sole purpose of eating your way out, maybe your kids wouldn’t be perfectly spherical.
9.00 – Derren Brown presents The War (Live) – In his most ludicrous set-piece yet, psychological tormentor Derren Brown hypnotizes the whole of France into waging war on Germany.
10.00 – Channel 4 News – Coverage on the predicted war between France & Germany.
11.00 – The 100 Greatest Stand Ups Ever! – People who know nothing about comedy are invited to hold forth on their rubbish opinions and eventually decide that the greatest comedian of all time is, sadly, Frankie Boyle.

Channel 5

5.00 – New Zealand Hygiene Police (R) – follow Bobby Gauntlet as he investigates New Zealand’s worth public health offenders.
6.00 – Zany Pets! – Les Dennis provides amusing voiceovers for YouTube clips in between extended vignettes of the former Family Fortunes star sat in his dressing room, staring blankly at the wall as he drinks white spirit neat from the bottle.
7.00 – Roadkill Rescue – Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee straddle an unlit country road in hope of resuscitating a recently-flattened hedgehog. You’ll like it not a bit.
8.00 – Did Lady Di Really Die? – New tapes reveal a potential hoax in which Diana’s car was surreptitiously swapped with a decoy vehicle. Did Lady Di really die, or were the British public tricked with little more than a bag of sheep bladders and dog teeth in a white suit and a blonde wig? Latest installment in “atrocious conspiracy theory” season.
9.00 – The Man With Fifty Faces – The latest in the “Thruppence a Gander” series, hark at the weirdo! Look at him! Look! Aww, now feel sorry for him, all the while having a good long stare. Look! Look at him!
10.00 – The Elephant Man (WS) – Now watch this!

BBC Three

6.00 – Eat Things For Money – Youth reality show in which punters on the street are offered £10 to eat their personal effects on screen. Featuring Kenzie D. Bosh.
7.00 – Physical Deformities – Please welcome the return of the Victorian freakshow as people with physical abnormalities are asked how they feel by smug media twats with a camera. Not quite as classy as Channel 5.
8.00 – I Can’t Stop Spending! – Some irritating media tit tells you how hard it is for young Penny, who is addicted to designer handbags and lavish spending sprees on her father’s credit card. Made by people who wouldn’t spit on a homeless person if he was on fire, but will openly weep salty tears at the plight of these young cockmonglers.
9.00 – Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps (R) – Categorical proof that God exists and is punishing us.
10.00 – Conductor – Rubbish sitcom about British rail. “Starring” Sheridan Smith as a ticket collector who falls in love with a fair dodger. One of those shows where they think up the location before they’ve written the characters.
11.00 – Kill Yourself – Not a programme, more a recommendation. Or switch over to BBC Four to catch the tail end of A Question of Gramophones.

John Tucker (10/03/09)

The Boss; Springsteen in 2005

Musical Snobbery 101 dictates that – under no circumstances – can you admit that you got into an act after they enjoyed even the tiniest glimmer of success. It is the duty of the professional music snob to casually remark that he used to be into The Pixies until they released Come On Pilgrim, and to half-remember this awesome demo cassette he picked up at a flea market, containing original Broken Social Scene demos from back when they were totally post-rock. Imagine my pains in admitting that I was not only thirty years late to the Springsteen party, but my invitation came in the form of a greatest hits compilation.

For a long time I was dismissive of The Boss. I’d heard two of his earlier works – The Ghost of Tom Joad and Nebraska, neither of which are all that impressive – and, like every other person on the planet, the plethora of singles he released in his 1980s heyday when the acoustic guitar was set to one side in favour of big riffs and 100,000 seat arenas. So what, I thought. So what, the guy plays a few blues chords and pulls Courtney Cox out of a crowd for a dance, and suddenly the man’s a living legend. I didn’t understand why he was met with such widespread acclaim.

I now understand.

Greatest hits compilations are generally seen as lazy attempts to obtain money for old rope, bleeding hardcore completists dry without a great deal of effort. Some bands are good enough to include extra material – mclusky’s 3-disc mcluskyism set raised the boxset benchmark considerably, with an additional two discs of B-sides, demos, rarities, and their last headline show – but Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s greatest hits is simply a collection of singles from assorted albums. Lazy, right?

Well, yes. But frankly, you really should listen to this. Because that’s another wonderful function of greatest hits albums – it allows the inexperienced novice an easy way into the repertoire of somebody whose catalogue is as voluminous as that of The Boss. And if you’ve been operating under the same Springsteenian prejudices as I had been, you may want to invest in this – this record contains songs that can only really be described as “hits”, and I can safely say I have never been as wrong about a recording artist as I have about Bruce Springsteen.

Some of the singles are a bit eighties and will be known to you already, but for the most part, it’s an extremely impressive collection of pop songs. Anybody who appreciates a good tune, regardless of where it comes from, can easily cut these marvelous numbers loose from the tawdry sense of yankee patriotism that has come to envelope them over the years – images of hillbillies with five thumbs on each hand, eating chunks of catweasel with a bow knife, can be put to one side as the astute listener enjoys the selection of marvelous songs on offer. And they are marvelous songs; big, thundering, crowd-pleasers that should sit with pride on any connoisseur’s shelf, rather than being ashamedly hidden away in your iTunes library, tagged as an Interpol album so that nobody sees you listening to Bruce.

This will, of course, not be to everybody’s liking. Some of you will be so hardwired against Springsteen, through years of laughable music videos and redneck-pleasingly patriotic guff, that this album will not sway you. I understand that. But I can only advise that the reader, whose curiosity has been piqued at the idea that his or her own preconceptions of Bruce may be wrong, investigate the contents of this record at their nearest convenience. Maybe they too will understand, as I now understand, why Bruce Springsteen is one of an ever-depleting assortment of true living musical legends. I also understand what purpose greatest hits records really serve – they are excellent starting points for complete ignoramuses such as myself, who have too long ignored the likes of Springsteen out of some ill-advised sense of trepidation of big name mainstream acts. It’s rare I review anything, and rarer still I review anything positively, but this is a fantastic collection, and I recommend it with no reservations whatsoever.

For fans of: Neil Young, Ryan Adams, Cheap Trick, Mott The Hoople
Listen to: Radio Nowhere

To listen to the album on Spotify, click here.

John Tucker

Aged only 50, Jackson had been working in music since he was five. In those years, his music, his videos and his unique, if troubled, personality, have helped shape the culture that we live in today.

His music was the cutting edge of entertainment. It transcended the gap in race relations, revolutionizing genres for both white and black audiences. His image defined our modern idea of celebrity. His groundbreaking videos changed the way we consume popular music.

Music, film, choreography, media, sound-production, fashion, artist rights management, environmental awareness, charity… so many areas of our world have been influenced by his presence.

His work had quality, authenticity, artistic and creative excellence. It inspired so many who now take a professional interest in music, myself absolutely included.

And now he is gone. Humanity lost something great today. Goodbye Michael.

By Alexander Walsh

Others eschew the yawnsome polemic of “good” or “bad” and simply make videos that are totally fucked. This can often end in disaster, but will occasionally lead to the sort of gold-dust that follows here. Some of the following are brilliant music videos with bizarre and intriguing twists or concepts; others just are what they are and cannot be taken at anything more than face value. Enjoy.

5. Truckers Of Husk – Person For The Person
(dir: Casey Raymond & Ewan Jones Morris)

Truckers Of Husk are one of Cardiff’s many local flavours, as are the directors, Casey Raymond and Ewan Jones Morris – Raymond’s distinctive artwork has graced the posters and record sleeves of a lot of Cardiff’s finest. This living flick-book, set to the forthcoming Husk single, is – apart from being a great example of Cardiff’s “scene” (where everything is done “in house”; the band, directors, crew, actors and location are all Cardiff-based) – one of a handful of videos that I wish I could see in a cinema, on a big screen, where the nuances can be appreciated; for now, I shall have to settle for YouTube, and advise any curious parties to turn on the HD feature for best results.

In a sentence: Living people play out the flick-book animation of a mad man.

4. Radiohead – Knives Out
(dir: Michel Gondry)

As far as Radiohead videos go, the plot for this one is relatively simple – man in hospital visits sick wife. However, seeing as it’s Radiohead post-Pablo Honey (which is to say it’s Radiohead that’s worth listening to, after their rather disappointing false start) it wouldn’t be right if it didn’t have a vague sense of depressing brilliance, which in this case is provided by Michel Gondry. Based on a dream that Gondry had about his own wife, it predates his masterpiece – Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind – by a couple of years, but the style of the latter is evident in this. One thing at which Gondry excels is on-screen representations of thought; the inconsistent, always-jumping, always-changing pictures that flow through the mind in the blink of an eye and are often forgotten. This is what really makes this video worth watching; there are better Radiohead singles, but I don’t think there are better Radiohead videos.

In a sentence: Man goes to visit his wife, a life sized Operation game, in hospital, then there’s a skeleton and now he’s a mouse and wait what.

3. Morrissey – Ouija Board, Ouija Board
(dir: Unknown; probably Morrissey)

The song is pretty unremarkable, like everything else Morrissey has done without Johnny Marr’s midas touch – this track is a particularly bad example, as the backing band is apparently one of the demo tunes from a 1980s Casio keyboard. However, when you give your song this kind of promotion, it’s going to stay with people one way or the other.

I’m never entirely sure whether Morrissey’s tongue is in his cheek, but with this I think we can safely assume that nobody involved thought it was a good idea.

In a sentence: Po-faced Northern crooner visits a strange forest to engage in a bit of meddling with the living dead before returning to his mansion to find only Kathy Burke for company.

2. Cardiacs – To Go Off & Things
(dir: Tim Smith)

Cardiacs are a British institution, even though nobody in Britain seems to have heard of them. Sadly, it seems that their thirty year reign of terror is over, as lead singer Tim Smith (whose madness is manifest in everything Cardiacs release) suffered a heart attack a little over a year ago and it would seem that Cardiacs have been quietly discontinued in the interim. During their not inconsiderable lifespan, they played countless concerts to a dedicated and somewhat worrying fanbase, released over a dozen albums and still managed to maintain a position of invisibility with the British public

I have a special fondness for Cardiacs; any band that willfully and deliberately sabotages their commercial prospects with videos as fucked up as this deserves all our adulation. I count myself extremely lucky that I managed to see Cardiacs twice before they politely excused themselves. I found them incredibly abrasive on first listen, yet something about them kept me coming back for more until I was more or less hooked. Perhaps the same will become of you.

In a sentence: The longest-running freakshow punk band in the UK plays an early single over a series of harrowing, disparate vignettes of mental illness and messy eating.

1. Shorty – Coopie & Me
(dir: Tony Ciarrocchi)

I can’t say enough nice things about Shorty; a fantastic band that – after a brief line-up shuffle – went on to be US Maple, the album from which this song is taken (Thumb Days) is a very peculiar record indeed. Deliberately horrible-sounding guitars, Al Johnson’s demented warbling (those who have seen the film High Fidelity will recognize Johnson; he played the obsessive Captain Beefheart collector to whom Jack Black refused to sell a record) and an underlying sense of threat, I’m always kind of surprised and slightly sad that Shorty aren’t better known.

Especially considering this video they made, which is probably the strangest concept for a music video I’ve ever seen; I tried to sum it up in a sentence below (incidentally, don’t read it before you’ve seen the video; part of the joy is the element of surprise on watching it the first time) but there’s something missing. A strange, indefinable “it” that makes this video so bizarrely gratifying. Whatever it is, it makes the video a real treat.

Shorty are far from my favourite band, but this is the finest example of a music video I have ever seen. It perfectly represents both the song and the band, is thoroughly unpredictable, and amply rewards those prepared to invest time in repeat viewings. It is everything a music video should be, and those that are content to release tedious, horrid live footage as a music video – especially those that have the money and resources to do better – would do well to learn from Shorty’s glorious example.

In a sentence: A man with mental problems gatecrashes a children’s party and a women’s coffee morning with his unique brand of entertainment before cycling home to watch TV.

John Tucker

Will Astbury talks to outspoken frontman, Tjinder Singh, to find out a little bit more about the band’s new record and the messages spouted within.

It’s been seven long years since Cornershop have released a collected works for the public to peruse, but never fear; they’re back and awaiting your judgement.

The band have sat of the fence since recording ‘Handcream For A Generation’ in 2002, poised and waiting for the “right moment” to release the much anticipated ‘Judy Sucks A Lemon for Breakfast’.

Now the band feel that the music industry can cope once again with what they have to offer and you’ll be able to lay your hands on a copy of the record on July 27th. 

Talking about the band’s extended absence from our ears, Singh said: “To be honest with you, we were waiting for the right moment to release this record because, for the last seven years, the music industry has been all about white guitar music and black and white R’n’B.

“Now the music industry has come full circle so we think it’s a good time to come back.”

Singh’s distaste for the modern day music industry is easily identifiable on ‘Judy Sucks A Lemon’ and played a part in Cornershop putting this record out themselves rather than through other labels.

The opening track ‘Who Fingered Rock’n’Roll?’ which is probably the best song on the album, is a scathing rant, questioning how the UK’s music hierarchy organises what goes into today’s charts.

Touching again on his favourite subject, Singh said: “Lets put it this way, we had to wait for everybody to get bored of talking about their trainers and about how they met their girlfriend in a car park before we put out this record.”

Funnily enough, when I asked who the culprits of these musical crimes were, Singh declined to name names although he did seem to have some people in mind.

‘Judy Sucks a Lemon’ harks back to Cornershop’s classic psychedelic style and is a natural progression onwards from ‘Handcream’. ‘Who Fingered…’ even shows really positive punkier elements that were probably most prevalent on the group’s first album ‘Hold On It Hurts’ released in 1994.

The band won’t like being described as quintessentially Brit Pop but that is what they are. They still possess the same musical styling as the likes of Kula Shaker, Oasis and Primal Scream. I think the Indian element to their music adds to this comparison, as much of Brit Pop for me was about bands bumming The Beatles – not necessarily a bad thing – it just characterised the time and sound of the music.

The album does have one fundamental boob on it. It’s cover of Dylan’s 1967 classic ‘Quinn the Eskimo’.

When asked whether covering Dylan was a daring thing to do, Singh said: “I think it is daring – the Dylan version is excellent and the Manfred Mann version is great.

“On ‘When I was Born for the 7^th Time’ (1997), we did Norwegian Wood, and from all accounts that was pretty good so I’m pretty confident this is good too.”

Well I’m afraid by this account, Cornershop have done a pretty poor job of covering an excellent song. ‘The Mighty Quinn’ takes away all the charm of the original and it’s clear that the band stuck it on the album because they enjoyed playing it, aiming to satisfy themselves rather than any other listeners.

‘Judy Sucks a Lemon’ does have some gems on it though. Track seven, ‘The Roll Off Characteristics (Of History in the Making)’ is no exception. This anti-war, pro-people song is classic 60’s-influenced Cornershop, and the line: “war ain’t nothing but technical plip-plop” has a comic subtlety that reminds the listener of Lennon.

Singh produced the record and said his favourite tracks from ‘Judy Sucks a Lemon’ are the title track, the reggae influenced ‘Operation Push’, and of course, ‘Who Fingered…’

Commenting once more on the tight grip he and the band like to have on the music they put out, Singh said: “I produced the record and we release the music ourselves because we feel, with they way things are going digitally, and the way bands are signing away their rights, that we didn’t want to belong to a record company.

“It has been hard at times but we come from a fanzine culture and that is the way we have always done it. Bands have a duty to say what they think, not what they have been told to say they think.”

The band will be appearing at venues and festivals up and down the country this summer. Check out their website www.cornershop.com to listen to their music. If you like it, go and see them.

Words by Will Astbury

There’s a different atmosphere from what you’d expect a university art show to be, or an art gallery at all from that matter. Visitors seem both excited and genuinely impressed. Rightfully so – this is impressive stuff.

The interactive arts students have done well, experimenting with the alternative multimedia platforms available in this age of consumer technology. Plasma screens flick quickly through still images of visitors’ scribbles, creating an impromptu animation that evolves with the exhibition. Rows of old TVs show simultaneous short films of city-centre street scenes; audio displays highlight interviews with the real people of Rawtenstall.

You can’t help thinking how professional this all looks. The exhibition takes the same approach to art as the Cornerhouse installations: fresh, interactive, filled with low-lit rooms and wide, bright spaces.

Of special note in the multimedia category is stop-motion animator, Vivian Peach. Already well known amongst Manchester’s short-filmmaking community, her work with quickly decomposing and regenerating food continues to tread the line between being funny and a bit sick.  One passer-by by balks at the sausage roll animation, saying: “well I can’t eat that ever again.” Definitely the desired effect.

A trippy neon light show accompanies some damn good electronica; disembodied legs pose suggestively without the upper body’s knowledge; a ghostly, tattooed beauty offers us playing cards from an old cinema ticket window.

Sean Parry’s incredible paintings are unfortunately hidden upstairs, away from the crowds, but his hellish gothic style, of pirates bars and piles of worshipping naked girls, stop all who pass them in their tracks. Another painter, Yan Lan Huang, shows Lucian Freud’s impeccable eye for detail; her focus on subjects turning away adding mystery to her strong lines and delicate textures.

Perhaps the bells and whistles of the interactive exhibits attract more attention than the more traditional fare but that’s to be expected and maybe now encouraged. Embracing technology in the name of art is definitely the way forward and the artists of tomorrow seem to agree. More than a few school-parties have been brought to see what’s happening, and as ‘boring’ art’s most vicious critics, even they seem blown away.

Overall, this exhibition is fantastic. A good job well done by all who went into making it. As diverse and exciting as anything the Cornerhouse has to offer.

Alexander Walsh

PULP Magazine’s 08/09 year may be drawing to a close, but we are still looking out for your best interests, pulling in the best competition prizes for you to utilize upon your triumphant return to Manchester this September, ready for another year of UNRELENTING STUDENT WACKINESS!

We’ve scored a real treat for the beginning of the next academic year – the guys who brought you AQUAPOP, SORDID and YEARZ-OF-COUNSELING are debuting a new clubnight this September called INDIGNITY. Located at the Printworks, the entry fee is £10 – plus your dignity! INDIGNITY is hell-bent on being the most depraved, nightmarish, amoral clubnight that is still legally allowed to proceed! Just some of the events lined up include:

- Cavity insulation foam party!
- Smurf/Neon/Rave/Generic Fancy Dress nights where the costume musn’t cost more than 10p!
- Pointing at fat people!
- Race hate!

To help things along, there’s also great drinks promotions and competitions, where you can win bar tabs up to the value of £4.50 – by the time the evening’s out, your self worth will be lost forever, just like all the things you checked into the cloakroom! Competitions include:

- How much dogshit can you scoop up with your bare hands and eat in a minute?
- How many spiked drinks can you down before you’re so completely catatonic that you couldn’t even wank off a donkey?
- How quickly can you wank off this donkey?
- Anti-freeze beer bong!
- Quick, wank off the donkey! It’ll kill us all, you fool!
- Gorilla suit strip poker!
- And many more!

To celebrate the fact that bottom of the barrel has finally been scraped through, we have three pairs of VIP tickets to give away! VIP passes are extremely hard to come by, as they guarantee queue-jump privileges, a free mixer on arrival, and first dibs on an old favourite AQUAPOP competition – which has just been cleared by medics as “won’t definitely kill you but we strongly advise against it” – HOW QUICKLY CAN YOU DRINK TWO LITRES OF COOKING OIL?

Stomach pumps available from the bar!

To win them, all you have to do is email us with your full name and tell us, in ten words or less, just how much of your dignity you are prepared to flush down the toilet for free access to this absolute monstrosity. Entries should start with “I would…” (not included in the word count) and then ten words on the most depraved shit you’d be prepared to do to get in!

The best entries win the tickets and will be expected to perform the act on stage so please, if you say you’d disembowel a tramp and fuck his shit-filled gizzards, don’t look at us like we’re the weirdos when we hand you the semi-conscious vagrant and the tin opener.

This is sure to be the hottest fresher’s event of the year so we expect the competition to be fierce – if you think you’re the most depraved, soulless monster at MMU, send your entry to what@pulpmagazine.co.uk. Closing date is 25/06/09, so hurry! The winners will be announced here the day after, and we will then contact the winners to send them their prizes.

Good luck!

WARNING: STROBE EFFECTS IN USE

(Best viewed fullscreen – click the icon in the video area to expand)

Being a hitman is an excellent career for people who are determined, methodical in their work and enjoy problem-solving as part of their job. It takes the skills of both the armed robber and the pickpocket, and yet the hitman is neither – he is sly and elegant when needed, but other times he will straight up kill you with a cocktail stick through the throat when you’ve nipped to the toilet. If you are resourceful and patient, this may be the career for you, and allows you to meet a wide variety of interesting characters moments before you snap their spinal columns with a pair of bolt-cutters as they sleep.

What can I earn?

When you kill people for a living, you can more or less charge what you like, but when you’re first starting out, try and find out what the going rate is and significantly undercut it just to get your name out there. Once people realize you provide a quality service, you can bring your prices more in line with what you want. Luckily, you don’t need a lot of money up front to get set up in the murder business – a few pieces of necessary equipment will allow you to both protect yourself and offer a competitive service.

If you earn a crime syndicate commission – being hired exclusively by one branch of organized crime to dispose of opponents – then that can often be worth substantially more than freelance work, however it does come with the price of being a contact for organized crime. If the organization gets fingered by the law, you too will be fingered and there are few things more frustrating than getting fingered as a result of others’ mistakes (you’d be forgiven for being offended by the gratuitous use of the word “fingered” in this paragraph, as this word tends to have unsavoury connotations outside of criminal lingo – it merely means to be arrested and tried, and does not mean anything untoward, unlike the words “bollocks”, “cocks”, and “tits”, which hold identical meanings inside and outside of crime).

What do I need?

You will need a car and a valid driving license in order to be a hired murderer, as body disposal is a lot more difficult on foot.

If you are asked to dispose of the corpses you generate – most times you will – you will need a few good-quality bin-liners and a hacksaw, alongside a quiet place where you can work your sordid craft in peace. Once the bodies have been bagged up, take them to a tip yourself – cats are buggers for ripping binbags open if they’re left out, and binmen are a bit touchy; they wouldn’t shift my fridge freezer once, so I suspect they’re liable to get a bit funny about handling rotting dismembered corpses.

As for the actual act, you’ll need a lethal weapon, which we will come to in our case studies.

You will also need to promote yourself a little; this can be difficult, and for obvious reasons we advise against business cards – these can be expensive, when you can advertise on Gumtree for free. Place an advert, claiming you are not a hired murderer. This is a secret criminal code, so that people who want a hired murderer know to disregard the word “not” whereas any curious Jimmy Law-Bodies’ simply see a perfectly normal advert for somebody who isn’t a hired killer, just like all the others.

So you’re ready to be a hired killer, let’s assess some hypothetical scenarios. Let’s kick it off with an easy one.

Case Study #1 – Student
Criteria: Single, lives in a three-bedroom house with two very close friends who would notice his disappearance, wanted dead by a student from a rival university’s football team
Cost: Anything from £500-£5,000 depending on the client/target

Step 1: Monitor the target for a week – always get as much information from the client as possible. Know the target’s patterns inside out. Become him. Know what the wind feels like in his hair. Know his fears and ambitions. Know him as you know yourself.

Step 2: Wait until he’s walking home alone one day, leap out of somewhere and club that motherfucker to death with a cricket ball in the end of a long sock.

Step 3: Walk away.

This is what is known in the industry as a “rimjob” (again, this does not mean anything rude – it simply refers to somebody outside, or “on the rim”, of the criminal world and whose death is unlikely to cause inter-gang tensions, unlike the words “dildo” and “tromboning” which are relatively explicit in their meaning). You can make a lot of money from rimjobs, because these are often one-offs for disgruntled members of the public who – in turn – have no sense of what a job should cost. But you should not make a living from these, as they are unreliable by their very nature. Let’s look at something a little more high profile.

Case Study #2 – Drug Dealer
Criteria: Has robbed somebody of their drugs, naturally jumpy as he sells drugs for a living and also steals them apparently
Cost: £1,000-£10,000

Step 1: Knock on the target’s door. If he asks you what you want, tell him you want to buy some drugs. Use a lot of drug words to make yourself sound hip to his game – for instance, tell him you want a thrupenny (thrupenny bit is rhyming slang for “quite a bit”) of Bobby Davro (Bobby Davro is northern drug slang for ketamine) or some such thing.

Step 2: If this doesn’t get you inside, you need a way to get into the property. Remember, this is a man who sells drugs, he’s going to be on edge – it’s a naturally difficult line of work and we’ve all been affected by the economy. Calmly ask to be allowed in to view the goods. If this does not do the trick, offer to buy the lock off his door – most drug addicts are used to selling all their worldly goods and dealers are no exception. Ask for a demonstration, during which he will open the door.

Step 3: Either way, you are now face to face with the drug dealer. Bring out the cricket ball in the sock and kill him with a minimum of fuss. Take what you can/need to and get out of there.

So we’ve seen that this game requires a little deception and a lot of physical violence, but these are relatively simple jobs compared to the one that follows – this is the big daddy of the hitman trade, and will require every single skill we’ve discussed in this series plus a whole lot more. This is the top job.

Case Study #3 – Mob Boss
Criteria: In town for the weekend, heavily guarded, staying on the 14th floor of the Ramada Hotel, wanted dead by a rival mob boss
Cost: Price on Mob Boss’ head currently stands at £1m

Step 1: Get as much information as possible on the target, ideally discovering his favourite sort of food.

Step 2: Get a job at the Ramada that weekend. If they are currently not looking for staff that weekend, kill a current member of staff whose size and proportions loosely match your own and steal their uniform, then re-apply for the job; they will be much more impressed by somebody who has their own uniform, and they will have just lost a member of staff. If you do not get the job this time, simply put the uniform on and pretend you work there on the day, most people will not notice you’re new.

Step 3: Take a wheeled cart up to the mob boss’ hotel room. If you are stopped by hired goons, inform them that the mob boss ordered room service – his favourite food. One of two things will happen here – they will either believe you or they won’t. If they do, you’re golden and you can skip to step 6, if they don’t, compliment them on their jackets, asking where they got them.

Step 4: Open up the jacket seemingly to take a look at the label, curious to know the manufacturer so you can secure the garment as your own. This is to see what kind of guns they have on them. The tricky part is coming up next, which may require a bit of practice on tramps.

Step 5: Stab them until they are dead.

Step 6: Enter the mob boss’ hotel room with the cart – he won’t remember ordering the room service so tell him it’s free from the hotel. Note: something that happens a lot in the movies is something called foreshadowing, where you say something seemingly cryptic that gives away your true intentions, such as “it’s a gift from an old friend”. I can only advise against this, as – while it may make for interesting dialogue on screen – the targets usually get it a lot quicker than you would hope. Resist the urge to add a poetic twist to your target’s demise.

Step 7: Remove the cloth from the tray and set the meal down in front of him. He may have a food taster, in which case he is free to taste the food before the boss himself takes a bite. Eventually the boss will bite into the food. Ask if everything is to his satisfaction – at this stage, he may ask for a glass of water or wine. Don’t fetch it for him – not only is it not your job, but it means you have to go down to the kitchen and risk him seeing the two bloodied corpses outside his room. Best to just act as if you’re going to get them before you…

Step 8: Beat him to death with a cricket ball in the end of a sock. May seem crude for such high pofile work, but guns make a sound, knives provide an early visual warning, you really are better off with the cricket ball in a sock as it allows you a foot or two of distance in case they try to put up a fight. If anybody else is in the room, they will be so flabbergasted by what you’re doing that they’ll either die of shock, fall out of an open window to their almost certain death or patiently wait for you to finish, curious to see what you will do next. If anybody is left standing, give them the old cricket ball treatment or simply beat them to death with their own shoes.

Step 9: Exit the hotel via the fire escape. Do not clock out, and if you agreed to swap shifts with anybody earlier, do not honour your agreement and do not return for any further shifts or work parties.

Final Points

This is a difficult line of work, but is a lot more lucrative than any other branch of crime – if you can start bumping people off for a living, you’ve hit the jackpot, but be warned it is a competitive business and I needn’t tell you what can happen when hitmen get competitive.

I hope these guides have proven useful, and offered you a glimpse at some alternative ways to generate some extra cash over the summer – who knows, you may enjoy your new line of work so much that your degree in contemporary theatre takes a back seat to your murdering and stealing. Either way, I wish you the best of luck.

John Tucker