“They’re a bit like Pavement,” my accomplice tells me as we find ourselves a space in the crowd in the upstairs area of Gulliver’s.
It’s a small venue with a big crowd, so the air is uncomfortably warm, but that doesn’t deter the fans at this show.
I am mainly here to see my favourite vegan/feminist/socialist band of the moment Colour Me Wednesday, who are on top form tonight, even featuring DOE front woman Nicola Leel as guest bassist which is a cool bonus.
That said, LVL Up, who I am less familiar do not disappoint.
They are indeed a tad Pavement-esque, which is no bad thing, equally at home delivering jangly guitar melodies as they are walls of distorted bass with appropriately blase vocals that sit over the top of it all.
Sub Pop Records have a good reputation for finding and presenting musical gems to the wider world and I’d say LVL Up are definitely a band to watch out for and it’s been something of a privilege to see them while they’re still touring the small venue circuit.
If only their name didn’t read like a text message.
Recently I finished reading Armada by Ernest Cline, best known as the author of ‘Ready Player One’, which I have to admit I’ve yet to read.
To give a fairly spoiler free overview of this novel, it’s the story of a teenager named Zack Lightman, a video game and science fiction addict who one day spots a spaceship from his favourite videogame Armada in the sky.
Upon sighting this ship (a Sobrukai Glaive fighter), Zack ponders if he is losing his mind or if his father’s conspiracy theories about video games and science fiction movies might have had some truth to them.
At times, reading Armada feels a bit like reading a movie, not least because this book has its own soundtrack in the form of Zack’s father’s ‘Raid The Arcade’ mixtape, the tracklisting of which is conveniently given to us at the end of the book.
‘Raid The Arcade’ is very much up your street if you like your rock classic eg. Pink Floyd, Queen, Van Halen, AC/DC etc. and a couple of kindly souls have put this playlist together on Youtube for those of us who wish to immerse ourselves in the world of ‘Armada’.
The way this story is set up, it allows Cline to both indulge in science fiction cliches, but also to be thoroughly critical of them, giving us the best of both worlds.
‘Armada’ has been criticised by other reviewers for borrowing more than a little from other science fiction stories, but given the nature of the story, I find this to be forgivable as it is afterall supposed to be a book about fans of science fiction and the notion that their favourite movies and video games and so on might be real.
The ever recurring references to movies and TV shows such as Star Wars, The Last Starfighter and Battlestar Galactica are another way in which reading ‘Armada’ can often feel like reading a movie.
Another notable feature of ‘Armada’ is that it includes cameos from various esteemed figures from the scientific world, though I won’t say who in the name of keeping this review spoiler free.
In my opinion, ’Armada’ achieves the feat of blending the far-fetched with the plausible and the serious with the silly.
The dustjacket provides us with some nice artwork detailing the schematics of an ADI-88 interceptor, which bears resemblance to both the starfighters from ‘Buck Rogers In The 25th Century’ and to X-wing fighters from Star Wars.
I get the impression that ‘Armada’ is a book aimed at fans of video games and/or science fiction as it very much turns the idea that such things are a waste of time on its head.
Personally, I haven’t been a gamer in any meaningful sense since the 1990s, however I’ve been a science fiction fan from childhood to the present day and I was able to enjoy this book without getting too lost in any of the video game lingo.
In conclusion, I’d recommend ‘Armada’ to fans of video games and/or science fiction and/or classic rock, but perhaps not so much to people with little to no grasp of such things.
Legitimate dissent is vitally important to any community that doesn’t wish to be bound by groupthink.
A group in which people are keeping their true feelings repressed for the supposed greater good of the community is a group whose unity is superficial, not substantial.
Such a group probably shouldn’t really be a group and would be better off splitting off into smaller groups that reflect their mindset more accurately.
If a group wants to increase its membership (formally or informally) then they need to put the effort in convincing people of the validity of their group, not create some false impression of unity by process of shaming dissenters.
It’s also worthy of note that bigger groups aren’t necessarily better groups.
As Margaret Mead said:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
I’m not particularly convinced of the contrasting notion: that a large group of thoughtless, reactionaries can bring about effective change… though such groups do seem very adept at obstructing it.
You can call legitimate dissent “infighting” if you so desire, but that doesn’t make it any the less legitimate.
That’s something you have to demonstrate, through argumentation, not through dismissal.
Dead Wolf Club, for those unaware, are a rather intriguing and more importantly rather good band hailing from London.
I first became aware of this band when they played at The Compass in Chester, after which I promptly purchased their eponymous CD.
Needless to say, I was rather excited to hear they were returning to play the same venue again about a year later, armed with their new 4 track EP, available on glorious green 10” vinyl no less.
For me, Dead Wolf Club achieve the seemingly contradictory feat of being both energetic and shouty while also being contemplative and thought provoking, by which I mean I’d be equally at home sweating in a mosh pit at one of their shows as I would be staring out the window contemplating life, the universe and everything while listening to the same songs crackle out of my vinyl player.
Another appealing quality of Dead Wolf Club is that, in this the age of super polished pristine production, they are refreshingly raw, bringing to mind the glory days of 1980s noise-pop.
The combination of jangly guitars over energetic bass and drums reminds me a little of Dark Star, with vocals alternating seamlessly between the soothing and the shouty, perhaps best evidenced on opening track ‘Flood’ which builds from the former to the latter.
The same stands true for the guitars, which alternate between the jangly and the fuzzy.
All-in-all, I’d highly recommend ‘Healer’ to anyone looking for new music to get into, and I’d recommend checking out Dead Wolf Club on the live circuit if you haven’t already.
This is a video about the important issue of anthropocentric climate change.
If you don’t know much about this issue, New Scientist have an article entitled ‘Climate Change: A guide for the perplexed’ in which they explain the situation, including dealing with some of the most common myths about climate change.
See below for link.
Recently at their 41st summit, the G7, a forum of the world’s seven leading industrial nations announced plans to phase out fossil fuel by the end of the century.
While I’d like to be happy about this, with the window of opportunity closing as fast as it is, it seems to me the end of the century simply is not soon enough.
Back in 2006, NASA’s climate expert James Hansen said:
“We have a very short window of opportunity to address climate change. No more than a decade at the most.” (Sawin, 2007).
Biologist and environmental activist Beth Sawin likens climate change to a housefire or to an infection or to cancer, in that it is something that can be dealt with in its early stages, but if it is not dealt with, it will get to the stage where it will be too late for human intervention (Sawin, 2007).
I’ll post links below for anyone who is interested.
Palm oil is a type of fat found in the pulp of oil palm trees.
It is a common ingredient in food products such as cookies, crackers, certain sweets etc.
Palm oil is not an animal product in the sense that it isn’t a by-product of slaughter or something milked out of the teets of animals or anything similar, but its production, when done on an industrial scale, can destroy the habitats of animals such as orang-utans.
Bornean orang-utans are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources as an endangered species, numbering only 55,000 with around 5000 being killed every year.
Sumatran orang-utans are not merely an endangered species, they are listed as Critically Endangered, numbering only 6,300 with 1000 being killed every year.
As such, the responsible sourcing of palm oil should be a matter of concern for vegetarians, vegans and others concerned with animal welfare and environmentalism.
Deforestation of course also contributes heavily to anthropocentric climate change.
Palm oil is also a human rights issue with a number of companies employing child labour in its production and forcibly remove native peoples from their land.
Below are some links providing information on palm oil as well as the Rainforest Action Network’s petition.
This video is about people who claim not to be bigots, but still seem to keep the company of bigots.
It’s not escaped my notice that certain people who profess to support social justice seem to compromise their principles heavily when it comes to certain friends of theirs who are either obviously or subtly bigoted in their political views.
Such people will often try to frame their friendship with bigots as somehow being tolerant, presumably attempting (badly) to appeal to the social justice principle of tolerance.
Whenever someone attempts to mount a defence like this, I feel compelled to question whether they even know the first thing about privilege and power, and further, whether they understand what social justice actually is.
Treating bigots as though they are a disenfranchised demographic is nonsense for two main reasons:
1. Bigots are not a disenfranchised demographic. On the contrary, they are a privileged psychographic.
2. Tolerance has an aim, specifically EQUALITY. Since bigotry is completely incompatible with equality, it cannot be tolerated.
Another argument runs along the lines of, “How can we change people’s minds if we aren’t welcoming to them?”
This prompts me to ask, what efforts are you making to change the minds of your bigoted friends?
Like most people, I have friends who from time to time will use language that I consider to be bigoted or express political views that are bigoted, however, being bigoted is not a comfortable experience when you’re in my company.
I do not “agree to disagree”, at least not on matters of social justice.
Friends of mine who are bigoted get CALLED OUT.
I should add as well that I have enough sense to gauge whether or not a friend of mine is a decent person who happens to have a privilege blindspot or if they’re just an outright hate monger.
In the latter case, their friendship with me is likely to be short-lived for reasons which should be, but apparently aren’t obvious.
In a lot of cases, I don’t see such efforts being put in by people who claim to support social justice yet befriend bigots.
It’s also very VERY important to note that an environment that is friendly to bigots is, by default, hostile to those they are bigoted against.
One of the aims of social justice, especially online, is to create safe spaces for members of disenfranchised groups.
Welcoming bigots into what are supposed to be social justice groups violates that safety.
Bigots are already welcome in our society. You can readily hear bigoted jokes, bigoted political views and bigoted slurs being expressed in public spaces and they go UNCHECKED.
Bigots already have their space. They don’t need to be welcomed into other people’s.
As such, your tolerance of bigots is not noble… it is spineless.
This is my review of the book ‘Tomorrow, I Will Go Dancing’ by Dominic Berry, who has been described as “Manchester’s premier Queer Vegan Poet”.
I enjoyed the book very much and would recommend it to anyone regardless of their sexual and/or dietary preferences.
I particularly enjoyed the references to He-man And The Masters Of The Universe in poems such as ‘Beast’, the lampooning of McDonald’s in ‘The Happiest Meal’ and the celebration of vegan dining in ‘My Favourite Meals’.
The book reads like an autobiography told through poetry, sometimes humorous, sometimes painful, sometimes comforting and Dominic welcomes the reader to either read the body of work in one sitting or dip in and out of his timeline however they fancy, preferably with a slice of vegan cake.
I saw Dominic perform at the Chorlton Vegan Festival and found him to be an engaging live performer who strikes up a great rapport with his audience.
Anyone who’s interested should check out Dominic’s website: www.dominicberry.net
Addendum
Myself and several others will be having a herbivore hangout tomorrow (Tuesday 26th May) at 9pm British Summertime if anyone would like to watch. We have a full house of participants, but if anyone would like to participate in a future hangout, please feel free to contact me.
Topics we will be discussing include environmental veganism, fruitarianism and controversial animal rights activist Gary Yourofsky.
Gray Songs is a rather talented chap hailing from the town of Burnley, who describes his album ‘Messages’ as “a DIY recorded album of ballads and songs about my own feelings and opinions.”
For someone such as myself who thinks the ability to home record and self-release via the internet are two of the greatest gifts to the creative musician, this all sounds very promising.
While he has drafted in the help of a few friends here and there, Gray has performed and recorded most of this album himself.
The vocals and the prominent bass guitar suggest the influence of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, but there’s also some more introspective acoustic songs such as ‘My Disease’ and ‘Whisper’ on offer here.
There’s some rather nice guitar playing on display, especially the lead riff on ‘The Call’ and the acoustic twiddling on ‘Whisper’.
Lyrics are on top form throughout proceedings as well, particularly ‘Thankyou’, a tribute to the late great Wiz of Mega City Four. “A hero and influence is gone and I just wish I’d said thankyou.”
‘December’ seems to lament with poignancy the passage of years. “December, December, who are you to call on me?” It also features some rather nice lead guitar courtesy of Robin Denton.
‘Messages’ was released back in 2009, but it arrived with a note assuring that a new album is coming soon. I for one am certainly looking forward to it.
Captain Andy 