Zangers,

The ABH show on tues night was a lot of fun. You can see it here.

Barowclough and Joel the Custodian both got up for some ABH rap performances and then there's Catriona Heatherington's wild poetry in there too, which took me back the Doors' live albums I used to listen to all the time as a kid. 

Also, I dreamt about about the new Birmingham New Street train station last night. It was quite something.

BB

Zangers,

Its been a long time with no correspondence, so I'll fill you in on everything.

-The Army of the Broken Hearted are performing with guest appearances by Barrowclough and Joel the Custodian tomorrow night at the Bulls Head in Moseley.

-The New ABH album is sounding good, and I'm just coming towards the end of a short book to go with it. These days, when you make a record, everyone just thinks you're looking for a career as a rock star, so we're reduced to writing books to go with albums, to show that we mean what we say.

-Florent are working on a total rock album right now. Selina Blakeney is half way through a full length album, and Barrowclough is sitting on a second Zang EP.

-Its true that Waler have moved on from Zang having deconstructed the music world to the point that any kind of record label seemed superfluous. I'm just mastering their new ep now. It's really good. You'll be lucky to get one though. It's not for sale or up for free download or anything. I'm not totally sure, but I think the deal is that if you want one, you just have to get in touch with them somehow and show them that you care...

-I'm reading Mutiny! by Kester Brewin. Only a third in but I'd recommend it. So far it's quite fascinating.

-I've got a few brilliant ideas that I can't tell you about right now.

That's all.

BB  

One of the most fascinating things about The Beatles is that they somehow managed to capture the zeitgeist of the 60s whilst in many ways representing its very antithesis. Their music and image weren't very sexually sugestive, they didn't have a particularly raucous sound or political message and they didn't really exude an image of recklessness, unlike many of the other iconic bands of that era such as The Rolling Stones, The Doors or Jimi Hendrix. Even during their later years, in their more 'far-out' period, they maintained a love for a kind of twee-ness that seemed at odds with the music that many of their 'credible' contemporaries were making. Its strange to think that songs like Tomorrow Never Knows and When I'm Sixty Four existed side by side on the same album.

Such a great video that I had to share it. Some DIY punk "screw-the-industry-standards" brilliance. If only more of this stuff existed these days. Oh wait...

"Sheer indulgence from start to finish"

I saw this book advertised at the train station the other day.
If this was the 1950s, I can imagine this quote would be intended to be derogatory. Today, it's actually meant as an endorsement of this book. Either way, its very telling about what's inside.
Its clear that indulgence is now to be seen as a positive attribute.