Quarter Life Crisis

‘We’re at The Beginning of The End of Humanity’ according to Gallows front man Frank Carter. Yeah, it might be the end of my humanity Frank, but not the end of yours having signed that £1m major record deal. Prick.

It’s a proven theory that where there is hardship there is a birth of great music. The recession of the early eighties spawned the explosion of some of the most socially significant bands of all time such as The Specials, The Jam and Crass.

So, when I heard Progressive Punk band Gallows, were ‘writing something that has some historical, political and social relevance’ I literally pissed my gloomy recession pants with joy. There has been no need for a socio-political album within my adult life. Well, a proper anti-capitalism LP wouldn’t have gone a miss, but I’m not sure how that would have stacked up against Razorlight, Spice Girls and P Diddy albums during the Blair boom years.

Anyway, amidst one of the darkest recessions in recent history, Frank Carters right, it’s time to make that defining album. The question is, are his £1m major record deal prog-punk outfit the guys to deliver it? The answer is, I very much fucking doubt it.

I was full of optimism for this album until I read a blog written by Frank himself. In which he endlessly tries to justify his £1m sell out, by claiming ‘part of the reason we signed to a major label was because they felt we had to say something. With our debut album, ‘Orchestra of Wolves,’ we owed it to ourselves to go out there and write something that was relevant.’

A poor excuse in my opinion. It’s like Mel C signing a £1m record deal and claiming that her half arsed attempt at saying, ‘Oh,. Being homeless is really bad and stuff, yeah’ was an attempt to give something back to the industry. What a load of bollocks.

It get’s better though, as Carter shamefully blather’s on in his sixth form politics style, plucking theories out of the sky that are less believable than an Hollyoaks story line.’When did things start to go wrong?’ he asks. ‘Hurricane Katrina was a good start’ he continues. ‘Off the back of that, people started losing faith, and the whole economy began to collapse, and then it pretty much went from bad to worse.’ Fucking hell, here’s me thinking this kid didn’t earn that million quid, but forgive me if I’m wrong, the drastic economic plight was more to do with subprime lending in America which ultimately ended in a pot of ‘Oh shit, all the assets are worth fuck all but somehow we need to be accountable for the amount of money we borrowed’ and then the governments stepped in to bail the banks out. It had nothing to do with a Natural disaster, we are not playing Sim fucking City here, this is real life shit Frank.

Come on Frank. You said you had something ‘Historical, political and socially relevant’ to write. Surely you wasn’t referring to this statement ‘Kids are having kids – how do you expect a child to teach their child anything about growing up? They don’t know what they’re doing . They can’t be responsible to teach somebody else what’s right or wrong when they’re having kids at 13 years old’. So what’s pioneering about these claims? I don’t get it. It’s hardly the ground breaking work of someone like Public Enemy or Crass. It’s hardly fighting against racism, economic justice, or peace is it? Your just telling me what’s happening, your not giving me answers or solutions. Ex Big brother contestants with limited brain capacity can tell me what’s going on. A six year old can tell me what’s going on. I seriously doubt you needed to repay that million quid record deal by spouting this shit you fucking moron.

I know why you don’t have the solutions Frank. It’s because you don’t understand the fucking cause.

I’m not one to bleat on about politics. Why would I? I mean, the only common ground I share with the politicians who govern and run this country is the mild intrigue of what an asphyxiation wank would feel like.

This said, I, like other ‘normal people’ of late, have found myself having to take more of an interest of what’s going on outside my little bubble. The economic downfall and post apocalyptic style predictions are affecting us all. The price of my flat has plummeted, banks are being bailed out by my taxes and for the first time, the job that I thought was bullet proof 12 months ago is now under threat.

With this new found interest it’s become evidently clear that know one really seems to know exactly what the fucks going on. Know one knows how bad this recessions going to get, know one knows when there will be signs of recovery, know one knows how many jobs are going to be lost and embarrassingly for the government, Allistair Darling doesn’t quite know the exact extent of the national debt, to which the ‘International Monetary Fund’ had to point out to him no later than two days after his budget was announced.

It’s a fucking joke, and amidst all of this, us, ‘normal people’ are being dragged into a big name calling, bullshitting and propaganda exercise where the people we confide trust in continue to tell us all exactly what to think and don’t care what lies, slander or spin they use to convey their message in the process.

Today, Labour minister Peter Hain was the latest high profile politician to speak out as he wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper, entitled, ‘We Need To Wake Up And Take BNP Poison Head On.’

He writes, ‘Unless the rest of us get our act together, the British National party could easily win three seats - and quite possibly six or more - in June's European elections. To win in the north-west it needs just 8% of the vote, barely 1.5% more than it got in 2004 - the days of near full employment and before the credit crunch; in the West Midlands only an extra 1.6%; and in Yorkshire and the Humber just 4.3% more. Recently the party has won council seats in byelections, polling - according to the BBC - an average of 14% in 60 wards: close to the threshold necessary to get a seat in almost every European constituency in Britain’.

Harmless statistics I hear you cry? He continues with, "Winning European seats would secure an unprecedented platform, and entitle the BNP to draw down hundreds of thousands of euros from Brussels indirectly to buttress their full-time personnel and organisation. With unemployment and job insecurity rising, with some major construction sites appearing to bar local unionised labour, and affordable housing in short supply, these are classic conditions for the BNP's racist and fascist politics to thrive."

Upon reading this statement, I must admit I had to laugh. I mean, come closer kids, let’s put a bit of meat on the bones of patronisation here and break this statement down.

“Winning European seats would secure an unprecedented platform, and entitle the BNP to draw down hundreds of thousands of euros from Brussels indirectly to buttress their full-time personnel and organisation.”

In 2008 Peter Hain conveniently forgot about £103,156 of donations to his party contrary to electoral law, employing that he was to busy in his government role to notice the substantial contribution of cash. He later resigned . Now regardless of what the BNP stand for, least they are not buying their way to European seats like this prick was.
With unemployment and job insecurity rising, with some major construction sites appearing to bar local unionised labour, and affordable housing in short supply, these are classic conditions for the BNP's racist and fascist politics to thrive."
I’m actually amazed by this statement. So, correct me if I’m wrong Mr Hain, but the reason for the rise in unemployment, lack of affordable housing, and lack of jobs for unionised labour all come as a direct result of fuck ups by your government and the reasons behind the far right uprise are a direct result of the governments unrivalled incompetence. And now that you have triggered this said uprise of a fascist organisation you expect me, to vote for your party????? Fucking hell – these politicians must have an extremely low opinion of us ‘normal people’ if they think we are about to buy this shit.

Peter Hain? You claim the BNP to be an evil fascist party? I can only imagine what it would be like to live under such a fascist and evil government where every man, woman and pensioner has to carry identification cards, everywhere they went and failure to do so would result in police officers armed with tear gas, tazer guns and truncheons reprimanding them. Imagine a society where a peaceful protester is assaulted with his back turned and was to later die in hospital. Even worse, what if the person carrying out the assault was a member of the police force.

Imagine a society where you couldn’t walk down a street, pick your nose or fuck your mrs in a back alley without the moment being ceased on a surveillance camera in which the footage could be used at any time to benefit the government. Even worse, they tap your phone calls and even monitor how much rubbish you put in your bin. I’m getting fucking scared now.

Imagine seeing an extreme act of negligence at work that resulted in the death of a child. Bad enough right? What if you blew the whistle on the parties involved in that act of gross negligence. What if your whistle blowing resulted in you being reprimanded and sacked because you spoke out? I don’t like this fascist regime one bit.

Imagine a fascist government who could invade countries and declare war illegally.

I don’t believe that the BNP could be that evil.