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Lo-fi, lo-down and dirty rock. Blues so thick you could stir it with a stick.
Where else to showcase their charms?

Why a tasty kebab shop of course..

Download for iPod (71.6 MB)

Filmed by Will McConnell
in Belfast, January 2010

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Some people will tell you alcohol is no good.  They’ll say it’s bad for your health, it’s a waste of money, and nobody likes a drunk.  Those things may or may not be true, but I refuse to believe alcohol never does anything good.  Two nights ago I was standing at the bar in a way too crowded Spring And Airbrake waiting to see Hayseed Dixie.  I would have been waiting for quite some time, because I was in the wrong goddamn bar.  Turns out last minute they changed the venue to the Limelight, to accommodate The Maccabees, who had been shunted out of somewhere else.  I have a sneaking suspicion that had I been there to see The Maccabees, you would all be much more interested in reading this, but I have no idea who the fucking Maccabees are and I wanted to hear some bluegrass.  Anyway, how exactly did booze get me out of this predicament?  Well there I was at the (wrong) bar, mixing up a Jack and a Becks to form the most potent and delicious of boilermakers when some fella next to me exclaimed, ‘Jesus man what are you putting in your beer!?’
‘Whiskey,’ I told him.
‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘if you do that to all your beers you’re in for some night.  I suppose you don’t have work tomorrow?’
‘Actually I do,’ I said, ‘but fuck them – they can deal with me.’  Laughing, he asked me who I was there to see.  I told him I was there to see Hayseed Dixie, and he gave me a puzzled look.  I assume you can figure the rest of the story out for yourself.  And so you see – that goddamn boilermaker saved my night.  Who knows how long I would have stood in Spring and Air listening to some shitty indie music wondering when the hell Hayseed Dixie would go on?  Not only that, after I asked the barman if I was indeed at the wrong show, he told me yes I was, and that he would take me over to the Limelight to make sure I had no trouble getting in.  I told him that was cool, but I wanted to finish my drink.  So I hurried the bugger into me (a sure sign of the direction my night would take) and he took me over to the Limelight, whereupon he gave me another Becks and another Jack, completely gratis.  I fashioned my second boilermaker of the night, gave him an appreciative nod and made my way towards the stage, where the support band where finishing up.

Incidentally, this show was not an assignment for Bandwidth, but since I have been dubbed their ‘rock n roll correspondent’ I decided it would be wrong for me to miss it, and went on my own initiative.

[Editor’s Note: Ian dubbed himself our ‘rock n roll correspondent’.]

Hayseed Dixie formed, I believe, as a bluegrass/country tribute band to AC/DC, and grew from there to the band as they are now – playing a mixture of rock n roll cover songs and their own material.  Their sound is so alien to anything I’ve ever encountered that at first I found it hard to get my ears around it.  A few songs in though, and on to my third boilermaker, it would have been impossible to not be affected by the band’s energy and enthusiasm.  Standing four abreast across the stage (no drummer, ya see) like a police line-up in a chicken rustling case and playing everything from guitar and bass to banjo, mandolin and fiddle I guess this shit is either going to be right up your street, or right off your radar.  I love country music, and though I’m more inclined towards the outlaw stuff, any kind is cool with me – bluegrass included.  And as strange as it sounds, a bluegrass (or ‘rockgrass’) version of Ace Of Spades works.  Really.  And although it is cool to hear all the classic rock tracks they cover, I’d say I enjoyed their own stuff just as much.  On top of being balls out awesome musicians they also came across as seriously cool dudes, who were very surprised and gracious about the reception they have always received in Belfast.  When they finished their set a couple of the guys came down to sign stuff and have photos taken.  I decided to buy a CD and get it signed, and only realised then I was totally tapped, so I settled for shaking their hands and telling them the show was awesome.  I’m not sure if they were perplexed because I didn’t buy anything, or want a photo or a signature, or just amused by how hammered I was, but they didn’t seem to know what to make of me.  Then again, very few do.

I spent my last two quid on a beer in Katy’s and I guess I should be glad that my lack of funds broke the vicious cycle of boilermakers I had fallen in to.  Because I then marched off to a cash machine, lifted a twenty and went to Annie’s.  By this point I was functioning on instinct alone and I just sat very quietly at the end of the bar sipping a whiskey.  I don’t know how many boilermakers I had, but on top of all the straight whiskey I think even one more could have been disastrous.  I went to sleep that night and saw a strange light at the end of a tunnel, blinding at first.  When I managed to fully open my eyes I realised it was just sunlight coming through my window, threatening to set fire to my brain like the whiskey soaked rag that it was.  I felt like I hadn’t slept at all.

** Scene Missing **

Mere coffee and painkillers weren’t going to get me through work, so I broke out the big guns and had a smoothie.  It did the trick, but by the time I got home I just wanted bed.  So, just go to bed, right?  Wrong.  Not for a dedicated arts journalist like me.  My assignment: a performance of the play ‘Rhinoceros’ by the Queen’s drama department.  If you’re anything like Larry, you might be wondering what the fuck I’m doing going to see a play.
‘What the fuck are you doing going to see a play?’ asked Larry.  I don’t follow exactly what Larry is on at any given point – I merely distinguish between ‘up’ and ‘down’, and unlike our last outing, I’m not talking about his penis.  Anyway on Tuesday he was ‘up’, and he wanted to know why we were going to see a play, instead of partying.  I told him he was a filthy philistine and we were going to see a play because I damn well felt like seeing a play.  Except I didn’t.  I didn’t figure on having a wicked hangover, and all of a sudden the whole idea seemed like folly.  Larry told me he wasn’t going and I told him I didn’t give a shit.

[Editor’s Note: It was not Ian’s decision to see Rhinoceros.  Will was supposed to go, but couldn't due to unforeseen circumstances.  See postscript.]

When I got to QFT the first thing that struck me was how beautiful everyone was.  I mean that as literally as it sounds – I have never been surrounded by so many beautiful people in my life.  This was not as fortunate as it sounds, because I felt exactly how I looked – like an ugly refugee who, less than 24 hours earlier had been mixing whiskey and beer and singing along to a bluegrass version of Green Day’s ‘Holiday’.  An impostor with a hangover and no knowledge of theatre whatsoever.  A goddamn loser.  So I had a beer.  Fuck it.

When I was shown to my seat I had to walk along the front of the stage, in front of the audience.  It hit home just how ballsy those students must be to get up there, because for three seconds I felt as awkward and exposed as I’ve ever felt in my life, and I was just walking to my seat.  Anyone who says acting is easy can kiss my ass.  So when the lights went down, I was already in a position of awe, but still hung over and still not used to the format since I am, essentially, a film guy.  It only took about two minutes for me to forget all about that, though.  This play was absolutely fucking class.  The material is a classic, which helps, I guess, but the actors totally nailed it and judging by the audience reaction I wasn’t the only person who thought so.  It was genuinely funny, and not the kind of funny that makes you think ‘oh, that’s funny’ but the kind that makes you laugh from the gut before the thought that it’s funny can cross a synapse.  What, proper funny?  Yes Tommy, proper funny.  I would go into more detail about why the show was so good but I’m not a goddamn theatre critic and I’d probably just end up talking about the frequent cleavage shots I was treated to from my second row vantage.  And that would just be far too crass for a cultured theatre-goer like me.

Maybe the whole experience happened just the way it should have.  Hayseed Dixie came just long enough after the weekend that I was ready for more serious drinking, and I saw Rhinoceros with the subsequent hangover, which only further proved how fantastic it was, because when I go out in the pissing rain with a bitch of a hangover, and come home glad I did, whatever it was must have been pretty fucking good.

PS – You might have noticed this article doesn’t have an illustration.  It is actually Will who does my illustrations (yes, he has another fucking talent) but recently he has allowed his artistic vision to spiral out of control.  For this article he insisted he could get a photo of a real live rhinoceros wearing a trucker cap and a t-shirt with a confederate flag, and promptly took a plane to Africa. Tragically (but unsurprisingly) he was gored by one of the beasts and is not expected to recover.

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Get that mixtape here…

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Track listing
1 yes
2 ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart
3 of walking abortion
4 she is suffering
5 archives of pain
6 revol
7 4st 7lb
8 mausoleum
9 faster
10 this is yesterday
11 die in the summertime
12 the intense humming of evil
13 pcp

A long, long time ago a Welsh band who had their glam rock leanings pulled their act together and released what many music fans may call one of the best albums ever written. Ironically many wont classify themselves as strict Manic Street Preacher fans partly due to the pish that followed The Holy Bible, namely This is My Truth Tell Me Yours, Lifeblood and Send Away the tigers. The change of style was so dramatic that many modern Manics fans may even look upon the Bible as one of those early albums where a band struggles to find their sound, which is fairly tragic to say the least.

Regardless, the story of The Holy Bible, released in the summer of 1994, will forever be entwined with that of the long since gone/lost/dead Richey James Edwards. Later revived with a posthumous crediting for Journal for Plague Lovers, which arguably rivals The Twilight Sad’s Forget The Night Ahead for the best British release of 2009, Edwards’ touch is all over the Bible. His tortured character has drawn many a comparison with Kurt Cobain’s throughout the years as both rose to heights neither envisaged nor probably ever wanted to achieve. Cobain can rightly be recognised as by far the better performer and all round musician (by all accounts Edwards couldn’t really play the guitar), yet the Manics at the time were seen very much in his image, his artistic creation almost. Nevertheless, the two could’ve both laid claim to the ultimate title of the tortured genius.

Stepping away from the more polished sounds of Gold Against the Soul, something that gives The Holy Bible a bit of an edge is the many sound bites throughout the album, strategically placed throughout to enhance the rawness. A running theme throughout the Bible is the rising danger of the increasingly powerful consumerist, totalitarian state and its twisted notion of freedom. From ‘ifwhiteamerica…’, to the ‘I think you are the devil itself’ soundbite and throttled bass intro of Archives of Pain, Bradfield, chief tune writer, manages to echo Richey’s thoughts into music from the very beginning. Meanings are turned on their head, inverted to give this morbid, nihilistic approach to life, such as the ‘all I preach is extinction’ line in Archives after ludicrously praising serial killers and war criminals.

The same rules apply to the hit single from the album, Faster. Complete with soundbite from an adaption of George Orwell 1984, Faster may be best remembered from an excellent performance at Top of The Pops, of all shows were they donned the stage clad in a mismatch of army and navy regalia. Along with Revol, almost Faster’s little brother, the two are the most standard rock tunes on the whole release.

There’s obviously a multitude of songs related to human suffering throughout history, a nod to Richey’s History degree he complete sometime earlier, such as Mausoleum, Archives of Pain and the almost terrifying The Intense Humming of Evil. Again the soundbite, played under thundering industrial drums, gives way to a truly horrible noise which can only be described as ‘flickering’, or ‘flitting’ – either way it would be easy to feel nauseous listening to it. Based around a concentration camp, Richey explores the naivety in some victims who couldn’t grasp how evil man can possible be, seen in the lines ‘you always mistook fists for flowers’ and ‘in block 5 we worship malaria’.

In contrast to the horror of these songs, This is Yesterday has to be one of the more beautiful songs on the album. A basic riff and drum beat runs throughout, with solo in the middle, the lyricist appears to be trying to deal with some of his own crushing depression. From the lines ‘someone somewhere soon will take care of you, I repent, everything is falling apart’, and ‘why do anything when you can forget anything’, it’s no surprise that Edwards wouldn’t make it to the American leg of the Bible’s tour.

It’s a shame The Holy Bible was never followed up with another one of equal standard. In later interviews James Dean Bradfield once said that, had Richey stuck around of course, the plan was for the next album to sound something like Pantera meets Nine Inch Nails meets Primal Scream – an unbelievable mix that, sadly, would never come to fruition. Instead Everything Must Go came out and the Manics, unfortunately driven by the hit machine Nicky Wire, picked up from where Gold Against the Soul left off and achieved a lot of commercial success. It’s almost as though The Holy Bible was a fleeting passerby, a one-off almost and one which ultimately proved to be a poisoned chalice for Richey Edwards.

It’s doubtful another lyricist like this will make it into a mainstream band, and so it’s doubtful that another album like this will ever be made again. Admittedly, the intensity of the album can be a tad daunting at first, perhaps owing to Edwards reading around 5 books a week at the time of writing, but once you get a feel for the album, there really is nothing else around like it. Some songs could literally bring you to tears. Maybe poetry’s the next closest thing, who knows. All that matters is that it was once here and now it’s gone.

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Download The Bandwidth Mix Tape Vol.3
2x m4a tracks, zipped (80.1 MB)

Valentines Day is upon us! Poor? Sad and single?
Never fear, the first Bandwidth seasonal mixture tape of 2010 is here! Download 14 free and exclusive Valentines Day-themed tracks from Northern Irish artists.

Featuring especially recorded tracks lurve themed cover versions from Dolboro Dan, Kitty & The Can Openers, Panda Kopanda, A Plastic Rose, Heliopause (and many more..) and all totally free to download on the Bandwidth site.

SIDE A

Download SIDE A
————————————————————-

Dolbro Dan – Shower Your Love (Kula Shaker)
Kitty & The Can Openers – Lovecats (The Cure)
Strait Laces – Romantic Issues
The Flora, The Fauna – Owner Of A Lonely Heart (Yes)
John D’Arcy – If You’re Not The One (Daniel Bedingfield)
Junior Johnson – Empty Chairs (Don McClean)
Aaron Shanley – Think I’m In Love (Beck)

SIDE B

Download SIDE B
————————————————————-

Panda Kopanda – Vienna (Ultravox)
Heliopause – Lily (Smashing Pumpkins)
Daniel Larkin, Before Machines – Truly Madly Deeply (Savage Garden)
Niall Harden – Octopussy (The Wedding Present)
Deci Gallen,The Jane Bradfords – Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree (Glenn Miller)
Cara Cowan – With You (Chris Brown)
A Plastic Rose – I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (Elvis Presley)

A Plastic Rose w/Chris McCorry – I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (Elvis Presley)


Download for iPod (30.8 MB)

Download the artwork:

Artwork by Trisha McNally
“I Can’t Help falling in Love With You” filmed by Will McConnell

The Bandwidth MixTape is distributed free under creative commons licence

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There have been rumours of a Sopranos movie circulating for a while now.  Nothing substantiated, and I’m not in the business of spreading gossip, so if your only concern is whether or not the rumours are true you can piss off to some inane celebrity blog instead.  The rumours got me thinking, though.  And as usual, bitching.  I don’t want a Sopranos movie.  That probably makes a lot of you think I’m an idiot.
[Editor’s Note: Everyone already thinks that Ian.]
And people who know me are probably kind of confused, because I’m a big Sopranos fan.  I’ve seen every episode at least twice and I still insist it is the best TV show of all time.  I am assured that this will change when I finally delve into The Wire, and Mad Men is trying very hard to change my mind, but for now I’m still very much part of Tony’s crew.  So how come I don’t want to see a big screen adaptation then?  Simply put, because The Sopranos is not a fucking movie.

Things like The Sopranos don’t come along often.  Like a solar eclipse, it depends on a few different factors all working perfectly.  And as well as the writing and the acting and the set design and all that obvious stuff, the format has to be perfect.  If David Chase had written a novel instead of a pilot TV script it probably still would have been great, but it wouldn’t have been The Sopranos.  First of all it would have been impossible to explore so many different interconnected storylines.  That’s obvious.  But think about it – in a book, no James Gandolfini or Edie Falco or [insert Sopranos actor here].  No wacky dream sequences.  No kick ass soundtrack.  Jesus, no titty dancers!  It just wouldn’t be the same.  But now I guess you’re thinking, well you could do all that stuff in a movie, so what’s the problem?  Well I’ll tell you, because not only do I telepathically predict your arguments, I think up answers for them.

The Sopranos found its format.  That’s why it was so perfect.  And when they stopped making the show it was a creative decision rather than (as is more usual) a financial one.  The show hadn’t become stale.  They weren’t losing ratings.  They just realised that Tony’s story had found its natural point of completion and by God I was proud of the writers when they recognised that and stuck to it, rather than continuing on for (what would have been) assured success and monetary gain.  That’s integrity.  And that’s why The Sopranos is better than 99% of the shit you will see on TV.  But make a movie and they would just be forcing it.  I have no doubt that if they made it, it would be great, but it wouldn’t be honest.  If there was more to say, or more to explore, they would have made another series.  But they didn’t.  Making a movie now would be the same as if they had dragged out another series.  It wouldn’t be true to the story, and because of that, it wouldn’t be The Sopranos.  Just like The Simpsons movie was The Simpsons, but it wasn’t The Simpsons.
[Editor’s Note: What the fuck does that mean?]
I champion originality in cinema so I guess I just always want to see new ideas, rather than old ones just thrown into the microwave and nuked back to a soggy version of their previous lives.

All that being said, I have relaxed my opinions somewhat.  In the past I have done a lot of bitching about remakes and sequels, but I’m feeling very Zen these days and now I don’t mind so much.  What always pissed me off was the laziness of just leeching off the success of some other movie rather than coming up with something new.  But it struck me that this laziness doesn’t bother me so much if the remake / sequel in question is good, and also that this whole deal has been going on ever since people started telling stories.  I put up a blog about my excitement over the new Clash Of The Titans movie (badass and high camp in equal measure – gotta love it!) so I guess if I wanted to be really committed I’d have to complain not only about the fact that the film is a remake, but also about the rehashing of all the ancient myths that the film is steeped in.  And even I’m not that much of an arse.
[Editor’s Note: Really?  I’m not convinced.]
No, I’m rather looking forward to Clash Of The Titans.  And Ironman 2.  And I guess The Wolfman looks pretty good.  Hell, I even liked the most recent Star Trek movie.  So I suppose all of these remakes and sequels should be judged on their own merit.  The sad fact is, most of them are shameless cash-ins, but those that are will be obvious and phoney and no one will remember them anyway.  I’m holding fast on The Sopranos issue though.  A Sopranos movie would be like… A Godfather TV spin off.  Jesus, think of it!

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