Billy, Johnny and Tommy

Who are Billy, Johnny and Tommy? They seem to appear everywhere throughout popular culture. Whether it’s Dylan’s Johnny mixing medicine in the basement, or Chuck Berry’s Johnny going across the town with his guitar, destined to be the leader of a big old band. The Fine Young Cannibals wanted to apologise to their Johnny, and wanted him to come on home, whilst U2 sing about a Johnny looking for spiritual enlightenment and self fulfilment and Dire Straits have their Johnny busking away like Chuck Berry’s, trying to make an honest living and get somewhere in life.

Bon Jovi’s Tommy is having problems with the union and subsequently losing his job at the docks, The Who’s Tommy witnesses murder, becomes blind, deaf and dumb, gets shipped around between social care and family members, gets sexually abused, becomes a pinball champion and then regains his lost senses, The Clash’s Tommy is a gun-runner, whilst in “Tell Laura I Love Her”, Tommy dies in a stock car race.

Meanwhile, Bob Geldof is telling Billy to take a walk, to take a walk, to take a wa-lk and get away from the town he’s trapped in, Paper Lace don’t want Billy to be a hero and don’t want him to fight in Vietnam, Bill Withers’ grandmother doesn’t want him to run so fast, in case he falls on a piece of glass, Sheryl Crow’s Billy likes to peel the labels of his branded beer bottles and waste his time away drinking and lighting matches.

Are Billy, Johnny and Tommy literary embodiments of the songwriters themselves, without saying “me”, “we” or “I”? Do they exist as a part of the songwriters personality or past? Or are they an attempt to allow us to connect to our rockstar heroes, no matter how far away their world is to ours? Are we supposed to associate with Tommy, because he’s blue collar like us? Because he, like us, has lost his job? Because we’re also down on our luck, and it’s tough, so tough. Or is it all a desperate attempt for people like Jon Bon Jovi to try and associate and connect with us, rather than us desperately trying to associate and connect to our unattainable hero.

Sitting in his mansion, does Bon Jovi secretly wish he was just like us, does he seriously wish he’d get paid off and have to live on Pek and beetroot sandwiches, bubble and squeak on Monday to Wednesdays, and a piece of fish with ammonia on, if you’re lucky, on fry up Friday. Or is being seen as a working class hero, in workman clothes a la Springsteen, just a great marketing angle?

The Who try to cover all of the bases with their rock opera, to try and make sure that something exists that everyone can find an allegiance with. Poor Tommy goes through the mill at the hands of Daltrey and rock paedo Townsend. Although we don’t all witness murders in mirrors and consequently lose the use of our senses, we all, as music lovers, have that primal lust that resonates through us when we listen to our favourite bands, or reminisce about the good old days when we hear a song from an album released many years ago. And that’s the key with The Who’s Tommy. He is deaf, dumb and blind, but he still has an association with the music, he doesn’t know what it is, much like the rest of us, but it stirs something wonderful up inside of him, something indescribable, yet wonderful.

Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, embodies all of our hopes and dreams, carrying our burdens on his back, along with his guitar, chasing a dream, trying to aspire to everything that we want. Johnny wants to end up with his name in lights in the same way that we might want to end up being married with a nice house and kids, in the same way that we might really want that promotion at work, in the same way that we might want to eventually meet the girl/boy of our dreams.

And Johnny B. Goode is not just exactly like us, he’s exactly like Tommy from the docks in “Livin’ On A Prayer”, he’s exactly like Billy from The Boomtown Rats’ “Rat Trap”. They’re all stuck in nowhere towns, all experiencing shifting social changes and upheavals, all having dreams to follow but with so many political and economical obstacles in their way. Johnny lives in a basic little log cabin made from earth and wood, he can’t even read or write very well. But he has a talent that can make him fulfil his wishes. Tommy may have a limited education, he’s definitely working class, he’s working in the docks, whilst the love of his life works in a diner. The pair of them work as hard as possible to get through life, they may not be the most talented individuals, or the most intelligent, but they’ve got each other and that’s enough. Whereas Billy needs to escape his town, he isn’t going anywhere and it’s running him down and holding him back, he needs to be free, to pursue his personal happiness. For Tommy, his relationship is more important than the music is to Johnny, cashing in his guitar, whilst Gina dreams of running away, just like Billy does, and just like The Fine Young Cannibals’ Johnny.

Sometimes it isn’t just about us, though. Sometimes, Johnny is literally a well known person called John, rather than a generic person who we can associate with. “Mysterious Ways” by U2 is said to be about John The Baptist, The Libertines’ “The Boy Looked At Johnny” is said to be about Johnny Borell from Razorlight, whilst other Johnny references are often attributed to John Lennon.

Maybe it’s a rockstars vain attempt at ushering in social change? Bob Dylan’s Johnny is too busy fucking about making drugs to sell, whilst Bob is standing on the pavement, thinking about the government and taking advice from the various passers-by about what the government has done to them and what the government is capable of.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe Billy, Johnny and Tommy are used as tools, the personification of ideas, to make us think, to make us have a bit more self awareness. Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, suggests that Johnny is an idiot. He’s down there in the basement, fucking about, destroying his mind, when he should be out on the streets, or at least out somewhere, educating himself. The Clash’s “Tommy Gun” illustrates Tommy as an idiot as well. A man waiting round at an airport, dealing in small arms, it’s eventually going to be his downfall, as Joe Strummer lets us know the errors of Tommy’s ways. And then we have Sheryl Crow’s Billy. Sitting around in bars, wasting his time, and going through bottle after bottle, whilst over the road, people are making an honest living for themselves, cleaning cars or working for record companies.

What does the future hold for Billy, Johnny and Tommy? Will we soon have songs with the lyrics, “Johnny’s caught an STD after fucking some lass off MySpace”, “Billy’s gone and bombed a mosque”, “Tommy has been unable to find a job, has started to suffer from depression and has taken up heroin, since losing his job to a Polish immigrant”, or will it be more like social messages, with, "Johnny's in the crackhouse getting a blowjob off some crackwhore, I'm on the pavement thinking about my carbon footprint".

Billy, Johnny and Tommy do exist somewhere, whether it’s in that milieu between our bedrooms and the television screen, or the space between our nine to five jobs and the arena, they exist somewhere in our imaginations as the people who we aspire to be, giving us hope, or as the people who we feel the same as, symbolising all of our inadequacies and fuck ups.

Maybe Billy, Johnny and Tommy are just like us, or maybe lyrically, they just work better than David, Steven and Michael.



Here's Marty McFly inventing rock and roll, as played by Parkinson's hero Michael J Fox.......

Saving Lives With Songs

This Saturday, it’s time to raise awareness about global warming, carbon emissions, energy efficiency and the rest of it, with Live Earth. Massive death bringing gigs in London, Hamburg, Sydney, Shanghai, Japan, Johannesburg, Rio De Janeiro, and the USA, Turkey apparently as well, will unite the world and make us change our lightbulbs and put felt in our lofts.

I could be the cynical type and say, “oh, but they’ll be flying to all of the gigs in planes and helicopters”, and, “oh, but what about all of the energy that’s used by the hundreds of miles of cables, the on stage equipment, the lights, the satellites, the televisions of 500 billion people watching”, etc. etc. etc. we could go on all day couldn’t we? It’s a joke in all fairness, that we still feel that we can change the world by making a giant carbon footprint this weekend.

The list for our very own concert in Blighty, is as follows:

Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Bloc Party, Corinne Bailey Rae, Damien Rice, David Gray, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters, Genesis, James Blunt, John Legend, Kasabian, Keane, Madonna, Metallica, Paolo Nutini, Pussycat Dolls, Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snow Patrol, Spinal Tap and Terra Naomi.

The thing I’m most dreading this weekend is James Blunt. When he comes on stage, and he plays “Your Beautiful”, if he introduces the song by saying, “This songs for Planet Earth”, I will unscrew my head and batter the TV screen until it smashes from the force of my balding detached cranium.

Several of the above acts must have a genuine reason to be playing, other than to save the planet. Genesis? Not sure if that’s with or without Phil Collins. They getting back together, are they? Are they announcing a new tour, are they? Do they have a new greatest hits compilation coming out? What’s with Duran Duran popping up everywhere as well, yes, we get it, her name’s Rio, she dances on the sand, great, fuck off please.

Paolo fucking Nutini, his chip shop owning parents have already done enough to destroy the planet with their battered Mars bars and pollutant friers, without him going on about wearing new shoes all of the time to make himself feel better. Horrible, selfish, exploitative cunt. Aye, let’s get a load of orphans in a sweat shop to make you some new crocodile skin loafers, it’s cool, as long as it’s going to make you happy Nutini, you twat.

So, possible new album? Possible new tour? Possible greatest hits? It’s practically all of them isn’t it? The whole event is about playing your hits, so when we do get a twat like Johnny Borrelle saying “this is a new one”, I’m going to be less than pleased.

But all of the shameless self promotion aside, imagine the CFC’s emitted from the tonnes of deodorant used by Madonna on the collosal stench of stale sex emanating from her worn out, practiced on undead vagina. It’s a shame that Sting is in the USA as well, I reckon he could have produced all of the energy needed with a tantric sex orgy to fuel the entire gig.

The only solution I can think of is looking to China and India. The fastest growing areas, producing huge amounts of carbon. I propose that humans should carry around cards stating their energy efficiency, just like buildings. The ones most guilty, along with the oldest member of each family (they’ll be dead soon anyway), should be rounded up and mixed together with a load of carbohydrates and suet to make a giant dumpling then put in an incinerator to create energy for all of us. Eye for an eye and all that, imagine how much energy these little yellow types must hold, after all the rice they eat.

I’m sick to death of it, personally. I reckon it’s too late. Do we really want to stop the joy that an Eskimo will have when he finally has to stop wearing tennis rackets for shoes and saw circles in the ice to catch fish. Let the ice melt man, give him a kebab, he’d be over the moon. They must be sick to death of wearing those parka jackets and looking like Liam Gallagher.

For my part, I have given up. I’m of the opinion that if the world is going to take me out, then I’ll take it out with me. The only power I have left now in the grand scheme of things, in my sad pathetic excuse for a life, is red LED’s. Every single TV in my house, I switch them all on and then put them on standby with my remote, because that red light emitting diode is the only power I have left in this world. That red LED is my Hal 9000, I’ll walk round my sitting room, dressed as a space man, talking to my red LED, plotting with my red LED, thinking of other machines we can plug in, putting on my food processor to create a new red LED, caressing my kettle, I will be Lord of the LED.

Just the same as when we have a hosepipe ban down south, I like nothing better than switching every single tap on in my house, switching the shower on, pulling out all of the plugs, then going out for a good 8 hours to chop down trees and burn fuel, before coming back to switch it all off. Fuck them, they’d do it to us.

Even if we get through it all and I end up having kids, I’m inevitably going to have to pay the price for my previous energy efficiency sins, so I’ll probably have to ram a wire and a plug up my sons arse and make him jog on the spot so I can watch Lethal Weapon II on ITV2, occasionally cracking him over the head with my walking stick and coughing phlegm on him, telling him, “go faster, the scene with Patsy Kensit’s right tit is coming up”.

We all know mobile phones will eventually get the blame in all of this though, don’t we? Let’s face it; they get the blame for everything else. Mobile phone gave me a brain tumour, mobile phone gave me ear cancer, mobile phone up my arse made me come. So what do we do, when a “new study” declares in 10 years time that mobile phone use is killing the Ozone? It’ll definitely be too late by then.

Maybe it is all just a sick PR stunt, Gore massaging his ego, becoming a hero, re-igniting Bush vs. Gore, and coming out as the popular one. I’ve got no reason to doubt that Gore’s intentions are worthy and noble, but it’s all still a bit sickening. He’s been campaigning about this stuff for years, so it’s not a fashion, he probably is honest, but I doubt very much that many of our popstars are.

Nevermind, it’ll all be over till next year, when we have Flood Aid, for the people in Hull, when we have a total washout next summer. I can just imagine Paolo Nutini in a little rowing boat, with his new shoes on, saving drowning pensioners, and then bargaining for their lives by forcing them to knit him some even newer shoes, the twat.

Bringing The Disabled Into the 21st Century

We just don't have enough handicappers on our screens, do we? Fair play to Ironside, and kudos to Hawking, but neither really excelled in the field of entertainment. Despite Hawking and his attempts at shagging the tarts at Peter Stringfellow's club, and Ironside saving the life of a black deviant, forcing the black to drive him around in his van and wipe his arse, instead of pursuing a life of rape and burglary. These things aside, they never really did anything to represent the wheelchair bound.

Former England football manager, Glenn Hoddle, famously proclaimed that karma had came along and put sinners into wheelchairs when they were re-incarnated. Obviously this is ludicrous, not the concept, but the idea that these people suffer. I personally feel we can do a lot to turn those frowns upside down. OK, I can't think of anything to make them walk again, but we can make them more acceptable, instead of them being outcasts and freaks.

For starters, for the most part, they live in houses without stairs. Personally, I don't trust people who don't have stairs, they're either lazy or up to something. I haven't worked out what they could be up to, but I just don't trust them, bungalow dwelling weird fucks. I've got my eyes on you. Let's stick some stairs in their bungalows, turn housing estates for the handicapped into assault courses. Let's leave "No-legs" Nora at the bottom of the stairs and her chair at the top, life is all about challenges and going that extra mile. Come on, you can do it, Nora! And once you get to the top, you can have a gold medal with the words "I'm not slow, I'm special".

Secondly, they don't make any attempt to doll themselves up. I know some right dogs who scrub up well, so why can't the cart-bound? Here's an idea, stop ploughing money into buying sports rims and flash seats for their carts and get the fuckers some make-up. Obviously get someone to do it for them, like. Some of them jitter all over the place and they'd end up looking like Widow Twanky or Adam Ant. Also make it anti-smear stuff, I've seen some of them in McDonalds before, poking themselves in the eye with straws. Trust me, a mix of Coca-Cola, eye liner and Sweet Curry sauce running down the cheek is not a good look.

Third, clothing. Now come on, have you seen the state of some of the cast offs these disabled's get dressed up in. Is there really any need? There's no excuse for looking like you're modelling for SCOPE, even if the charity is supporting you. Saliva all over your chin is also not a good look, so let's sort out a nice designer bib, maybe a diamonique bib, or even one of those nice tea towels you get at tourist places, one with a picture of Blackpool Tower or something, or maybe just one of them scarf come poncho things that pop stars wear. Honest, some of the clobber they're wheeling themselves round in, thinking they're some hot piece of ass, truth be known, I've wiped my cock on nicer threads.

Fourth, dentists. I'm sorry, but I can't bear people who clearly have too many teeth in their mouths. Get the lazy little fuckers along to a half decent dentist and he'll fix them up. Maybe even give them a couple of gold ones, make them look a bit more "street". How much more respect would Hawking get? Thugz for life, word.

Fifth, school. Yes, school the bastards, man. They wonder why the fuck they can't talk properly and grunt incoherently. They haven't even been taught how to talk properly for Christ's sake, I've no idea what their parents must've been doing. Unless of course, the talk and grunts is some spastics code that I can't decipher. Actually, it'd explain why Hawking is so intelligent, I suppose. He can't talk at all, but he's still capable of chatting up lasses in "Stringfellows" with his Commodore 64.

Let's move forward, look to the future and make our wheelchair bound friends more attractive. You hardly ever read about disabled's getting raped, that's because they're so ugly, nobody would touch them, not even a rapist. Let's all work together and try and make these hideous creatures more approachable and easier on the eye. Who knows, in the future, even "No-legs" Nora could be wheeling herself down the catwalks of Milan in the latest must have trousers or cut off jeans.

Let all of our handicappers be popular and stop Hawking from stealing all of the girls, as well as the limelight.

Scene And Heard - Local Reviews, Published in NARC. #16

URBAN CIRCUITS
Urban Circuits (album)
Out now

It starts off extremely grim, more like the soundtrack to a film, maybe with a man walking through the desert with lots of religious imagery going on around him.
I’m quite dumbfounded by all of this to be honest. I’m not entirely sure whether Urban Circuits are a really bad, ill-thought out joke, or if they are actually serious. Its lyrics are like sixth form poetry from pencil cases and toilet walls. I’m happy that this is a CD that I can turn off; I fear that if I ever went to see them live, I might get stuck in the venue forever, like some sort of bad dream. When they do a bit of melody, and put the spoken verse bullshit and sloganeering to one side, it is listenable. But as much as Ophelia is a brief respite from the crap, the rest of it is unbearable to me. Imagine a Gothic Gogol Bordello at times, or some drama students on crack at others. I’m sure that the pretentious music listeners will dig this, it’s doing nothing for me though.

Visit the Urban Circuits' MySpace


DIRTY WEEKEND
Red Mist EP
Out now on Matchstick Records

Boasting a CV of support slots for The Pigeon Detectives and Little Man Tate, Dirty Weekend are certainly the type of thing that the youth of today may listen to. It’s all pleasant enough. The only problem that I have is that the songs don’t quite have the riff or the chorus to hook me in completely. I don’t doubt that they work hard on their tunes, but they’re just lacking that little bit of something special at the moment. The songs are all pretty rigid in their structure, without much adventure or direction. The standard progression of verses and choruses is there, as well as the quiet interlude/guitar solo before the final, climatic chorus. I don’t think they’ve quite found their own sound yet. In King Of The Rats, we have Paul Smith-esque “accent rock”, whilst the ballsy vocals of Look At Me, with its almost ShitDisco stylings, only confuses me more. If they do find their own sound, they could have something.

Visit Dirty Weekend's MySpace

ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN
Gravy Is Gravy
Released as download only on 02.07.2007

The Gravy Is Gravy single is released on the 2nd of July. This is wonderful stuff. The duo infects my brain with all the post-rock pomp of a Godspeed You Black Emperor or a Mogwai. Atmospherically bouncing along with what could be an Alex de Large monologue over the top, it’s quite uplifting. I love the fact that it doesn’t go down the same route as a lot of spoken word songs, which can end up contrived and too arty-farty. It’s the perfect balance of everything that is right, sticking to what they know, without going over board and spoiling things, they’re right, “gravy is gravy, there’s no need for mayonnaise”. You could do a lot worse than getting hold of this.

Visit Antennas To Heaven MySpace and their website


THE MOSAICS
The Mosaics
Released 25.07.2007

Commercial radio friendly rock by numbers. This isn’t anything at all that a million and one unsigned bands across the country aren’t already doing. Do we really need another watered down Coldplay type band? There was once a time that bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp ignited something inside me, making me feel free and liberated and yearning for a new future. This modern take on British music puts me in an orange boiler suit and chains me to a radiator, whilst a laughing soldier takes polaroids of his comrade wanking on my forehead. Absolutely dreadful. I’m sorry if I offend this bands friends and pushy parent management, but please go and get some new ideas. I barely made it to the end of this album without losing the will to live. I have no doubt they have the talent, but they definitely don’t have the tunes. Glossy production and fashionista don’t always equal success if there is no substance, I’m afraid.

Visit The Mosaics' MySpace


THE BURNING DICE
Temper Temper
Released 24.03.2007 on Hello Trouble Records

Once it gets going, the single chugs along like a pretty little New Wave train, with its soaring vocals, like a young, fun Broken Social Scene celebrating the spirit of The Album Leaf. The second track, The European, is much more upbeat, an all out audio assault leaving you worn out and needing to have a sit down, slippers on and a cup of cocoa. Meanwhile, the final track, Jagalie, is the stand out song for me. I personally would’ve went with this as the single, slowly building you up from the dysphoria of being “trapped in a heart attack” to a state of euphoria with the closing hoe down.
Grab a listen at…

The Burning Dice MySpace



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Die Hard 4.0

We all want to be able to tell our boss to fuck off don’t we? Unfortunately, we’re not only bound by the bureaucratic protocol of our workplaces, we also have mortgages to pay, cars to pay for and pets to feed.

That’s why we admire the loose cannons of Hollywood so much. Confined by the ‘red tape’, the rules and regulations of the bureaucrats, the do’s and don’ts imposed by society, but Die Hard’s John McLane and Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs all give a big “fuck you” to them all.

Running around town with their phallic pistols, pointing their big metallic cocks at terrorists and crooks, it’s something that we’d all love to be able to do.

I watched Lethal Weapon last night, and it finally all fell into place. I’d never even realised it before, but it became so clear last night that Lethal Weapon is nothing more than a Reagan era propaganda flick.

The white man rejecting suicide and alcoholism to help a black family, evil sinners (prostitutes) throwing themselves from balconies or getting blown up, the evils of drugs procrastinated mainly by the Aryan antagonist, Mr. Joshua (maybe taking his name from the military leader who succeeded Moses) and the drugs fought with all the vigour of a Reagan “War On Drugs” policy.

The whole film is centred around Christmas time as well, the time of year when we celebrate the birth of Santa and the death of Christ, the ending showing the black family inviting in the oddball Christian actor (and his dog) for Christmas dinner.

The film actually stinks. It’s as if Reagan dusted off his Hollywood threads and got together to write the script. All of the themes are there. Reagan was a religious Republican, just like aforementioned racist, Mel Gibson.

And this is a similar theme with Die Hard, with real life Republican, Bruce Willis. Again the first two films are set around Christmas time. Hans Gruber’s rag-tag set of criminals, with their token black man (the computer expert) and the Aryan, “Karl”, mirroring Gary Busey’s “Mr. Joshua”, are just as evil as the fuckers who stick a bullet in Hunsacker in Lethal Weapon. It’s all highly original, McLane working alongside two black men, (the cop and the limo driver in Die Hard I, the short guy and the leader of the army people for a bit in Die Hard II, and the ‘buddy-cop’ style of the Lethal Weapon series mirrored with Samuel L Jackson in III), raging his personal war on terror, fighting against the criminals for the sake of family values and wanting to be with his family at Christmas (in both I and II).

Riggs and McLane are pretty much the same character and all the themes are pretty much the same. The Die Hard series shows the battles between Capitalism and Communism, with former member of the Volksfrei movement, Gruber (representing Communism) sticking a bullet in the head of Takagi, the leader of the capitalist empire, whilst Lethal Weapon does its bit with the free world mercenaries of “Shadow Company”, sticking the bullet in the capitalist money launderer, Hunsacker.

Die Hard plays on the “buddy-cop” premise, but not to the extent of Lethal Weapon; the big fat twinky eating cop stereotype of “Powell”, is not as much of a main character as Danny Glover’s “Murtaugh”. However, just as Powell reaches for his penis shooter when Karl comes back to life, Murtaugh and Riggs also do the exact same thing when Mr. Joshua comes back for one more “shot at the title” in Lethal Weapon. So where Lethal Weapon’s protagonists are equal throughout, Die Hard’s Powell does manage to get back a few redemption points by killing off a main character whilst beating his fear of ever using his gun again.

So that’s pretty much it. Two white loose cannons, plagued with their own personal demons, thinking outside of the box, working against the rule book and the law when necessary, using whatever methods they can to defeat evil, removed from their female counterparts but using this removal as motivation, accepting the help of a black, using corny one liner’s against the most dangerous men in the world, escaping inescapable circumstances, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.

But remember, the next time your boss gets you in the office and tries to give you a written warning for internet usage, or using your company mobile phone too much, or because you’re always late, don’t light a cigarette and tell them to fuck off, and don’t go blowing the building up. Leave that to Hollywood.

Lethal Weapon 4 was a horrible film, which destroyed the series. I do hope Die Hard 4.0 won’t do the same. Either way, expect cliches, stereotypes, one-liners and the inevitable heroics.