10 Ridiculous Music Predictions For 2012

Good evening, I'm pleased to report that the festive bollocks has finally ceased, and despite the commotion of the sales the British public seem to be returning to their normal lives. Well at least until New Year's Eve anyway.

Unfortunately after resting for a couple of days, my brain has become a bit of a creativity wasteland. However I did manage to write this short piece whilst attempting to get the creative juices flowing again.

So what can we expect from 2012?

As you probably know apparent to some nutters' beliefs the world will end next year. So if we had one year left to enjoy music what would the industry create? Brilliance, or complete and utter chaos?

Here are some pretty ludicrous music predictions which could just happen before hell freezes over.

1. Jools Holland's neck to finally reappear.

2. Shaun Ryder to reluctantly collaborate with Ann Widdecombe for a charity release of Total Eclipse of the Heart, as the result of losing a bet to his manager.

3. Bono and Geldof to set up their own money lending site, with profits going towards putting on another fucking Live Aid concert.







4. Mark E Smith to write a best-selling children's novel.











5. George Michael to declare himself bankrupt and request to retrain as a driving instructor.






6. New X-Factor judge line-up to consist of Michael Bolton, Brian Harvey, Tina Turner and Kate Nash.







7. Shane MacGowan to win Strictly Come Dancing.








8. Alex James to produce a cheese so potent it initiates a mutant rat infestation, forcing the entire South East to be cordoned off for 3 weeks whilst being fumigated.





9. Michael Stipe, Chris Martin, and Phil Collins to form the world's smuggest (and most useless) super group.



10. Bruno Mars to win NME's Godlike Genius award. (That one being slightly more plausible judging NME's coverage of music these days.)

There you have it. If any of this were to actually happen I shall certainly be ready to embrace the 2012 apocalypse, judging from this I think the earth could do with a clean slate.

Christmas Eve Of Destruction

Admittedly it isn't one of my best ideas to start a blog so close to Christmas; a time when everyone is preoccupied with the seasonal festivities or "getting pissed out of their face" as we'd call it any other time of the year.  As usual social network sites have rapidly become unbearable too, (hence why I am taking refuge writing this) constantly inundated with the voices of cynics and their bah humbugs, or even worse are the ones who smugly post about how awesome their wrapping skills are or about how much they're enjoying the food or alcohol or in the most gut-wrenching of cases; time spent with their partner.

Surprisingly I'm not against Christmas, I do think it's great to have an excuse to spend time with family, it's just the commercialisation of it all that gets to me.

It seems as if over the festive period we allow our brains to rot away, 'tis the season of course; the season to zone out in front of the TV like the living dead consumerists we really are. TV knows that we'll all end up doing this. Yes, TV is clever. Or more so the companies who year after year manage to fling some godawful shite our way in the form of annual advertising campaigns, successfully dividing the opinion of the nation, and becoming the conversational highlight in the average mundane office job. This year has certainly not been an exception.

From the John Lewis advert featuring a typical middle-class little boy, and its song choice of an extremely whiny cover of The Smiths' Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, the advert was destined to win the hearts of David Cameron and other like-minded idiots who would shop in the store. The horrendous Littlewoods car-crash of an advert, wasn't any better, if the song wasn't bad enough it was the fact it taught kids that their lovely 'muvvas' have a spare grand to spend on Macbooks and Xboxes and D&G watches. Then there's smug faced twat Jamie Oliver on the Sainsbury's ad, showing us how to buy fresh ingredients at just 4 times the price of buying a ready meal, and how to cook them in under 7 hours allowing us adequate time to gather round the fireplace, singing festive songs and marvelling at how Grandma's behaviour is getting rowdy as she sips at her 3rd glass of sherry. Speaking of TV chefs, I dread to think how much Gordon Ramsay will be paid to present his live cooking show tomorrow.

Yes the adverts are truly abhorrent, but the worse thing for me is actually the films. Christ, the films! How many more times can they show Miracle on 34th Street, Love Actually and It's A Wonderful Life? Just how many more remakes of A Christmas Carol can actually be accomplished before the earth ingests itself out of despair?

If a picture paints a thousand words then a video must paint a hell of a lot more, (I was going to figure out the frames per second and times by the duration, but I'm too lazy and maths is most definitely not my forte) and this visual reference generally sums up my feelings towards Christmas TV.

I spend a lot of time brooding but I'd say Christmas TV definitely brings out the worst in me.

Anyway I shall try and end on a high. I'd be lying if I said there were many Christmas related punk songs I enjoy, or even that many in existence (bar the overplayed and genre questionable Fairytale of New York) but this rather brilliant cover does the job for me. Merry fucking Christmas.

"Without people you're nothing"

I couldn't let the day pass without another mention of Joe Strummer.

I started off the day listening to a community radio station based in Detroit-Windsor, who were hosting an entire 24 hours dedicated to entirely to Joe. They were shocked to be hearing via facebook that they were attracting listeners from places as far away as California, so when I posted my location I instantly received an 'amazing' response from them. I think that word just sums up the wonders of this age of instant communication.

A personal highlight for today was just seeing all the tributes pouring in on my twitter news feed. Seeing just how much the man means to so many people is phenomenal, there's no other way to describe it. Amongst the slightly chaotic tributes I somehow managed to get retweeted by Strummerville which added to my general motivation of the day.

I read a piece on The Clash Blog yesterday about how Joe would not be happy with the state of the world right now, and as usual I couldn't agree more with it. But the fact that on a day like today so many people can stand up and give their views on a man who helped to make the world a better place, and that we can access these views and instantly communicate with like-minded people all over the world stands for a little glimmer of hope.

Sadly, and rather annoyingly there were no events taking place in my home city of Birmingham. This is something I plan to change next year, there's no way I'm letting the 10th anniversary pass this city by quietly.

This one's for you Joe, thanks.

‎"Don't forget you're alive. 'Cause sometimes when you walk around the city and you're in a bad mood, you can think, hey, wait a minute, we're alive! We don't know what the next second will bring and what a fantastic thing this is. This can get easily forgotten in the routine of life, and that's something I'm trying bring to my attention at all times. Don't forget you're alive, we're not dead, you know, this is the greatest thing."

Do you wanna make tea at the BBC?

Print is dying. Journalists are the third least-trusted professionals, falling only behind politicians and estate agents. Hardly an optimistic attitude to have drilled into your brain in the first ever journalism lecture, but I guess that's what makes us British - getting the fragments of hope smashed out of us before we start building our careers. Providing us with the mindset to get our heads down and 'get on with it.' Or just maybe providing some of us with the will to fight back, to stand up and be counted and most importantly to fight for what we believe in.

I could write for days about my passion for punk music, my love of The Clash, and how seeing Mick Jones playing a whole set of Clash songs exactly three weeks ago was the best night of my life - but I think all will become apparent in due course.

I watched a documentary on channel 4 last night - about a man who was a compulsive hoarder, he'd collected 34 years worth of newspapers and stored them all in his modestly sized bungalow. He had to crawl under a door frame to get to his kitchen as the newspapers were stored that high, he slept in a chair, and it took him half an hour to get from the kitchen to the front door. But what really fascinated me was the way in which he refused to tell people he lived in the house, he responded that he merely 'existed' there. I suppose that's how I feel right now, I don't feel that I'm living yet, I've not even scratched the surface of the earth. This is something I am desperate to change.

Why today then? Why on this inexplicably mild Thursday 22nd December would I finally decide to push aside the procrastination, and raucously scramble away at the keyboard of a beaten up laptop? Two reasons: Firstly, because I'm in my final year at uni, and things are starting to get a bit serious now. Secondly, and most importantly because today is special to me (and millions of others.) Yes, today marks the 9th anniversary of Joe Strummer's untimely death, and if there's one thing I have learnt from him which I can take through to the end of my existence then it's the 'get up and go attitude' he kicked into the faces of anyone who would listen. Today is perfect.

Here it is then; general colloquialisms hopefully slotted in-between some half decent articulate writings about things that matter to me: A girl.

"Let's do it."