Shock

The League of Gentlemen has always been a very aquired taste, not quite your usual sketch show in that its not a really straight up comedy, the laughs are interspersed with moments of horror and tragedy. I never really took to it until I saw the live show, which is to this day still one of the funniest things i’ve seen, perhaps bar the tuneless ramblings of Ian Brown at The Stone Roses last live gig in Cork in 1995.  The most popular character has always been Papa Larazou but for me the best place to start with should always be with  Pop!…

BBC Radio 4 - The Bard Of Salford [LISTEN]

A new documentary aired this week on BBC Radio 4. Paul Morley tells not only the colourful story of John Cooper Clarke, but of the movement that first brought him to public awareness – punk. It wasn’t all buzzsaw guitars and three-chord tricks, but the DIY aesthetic of punk meant that anyone was encouraged to have a go, and that included poets. Of course it helped that Clarke, white-faced, corkscrew-haired, clad in black jacket and the skinniest of drainpipes, looked like a pop star as well. But his poetry was of the time, too – witty, acerbic, dipping with the angst and anger of life in a poverty-stricken northern town. 

Clarke lived the punk life to the full, appearing on bills with fans such as the Buzzcocks, the Clash and the Sex Pistols and, later, entering into a mutually damaging domestic arrangement with that icon of the alternative, Nico. Morley talks to Clarke, as well as fans like Lily Allen, The Arctic Monkeys and acolytes such as Mark E. Smith, Pete Shelley and Phill Jupitus. 

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I was pretty much raised by a television set so am pretty good (once my memory is given a little nudge) at remembering the hundreds and thousands of shows that i took in. So its with great pride I recall the dark and intricate, or so I thought at the time, series Captain Power And The Soldier Of The Future which ran from 1987 - 1988, after which the writers must have given it all up for acid house parties and the summer of love.

I do remember they sold rather expensive toy guns for a special section of each show where they claimed you could shoot the evil Biodreads on screen from the comfort of your own coach. This was of course rubbish but in the late 80’s we believed technology could do anything. In actualality these segments consisted of a huge battle where there were so many laser blasts and explosions you could very well believe it ws you that made that all import shot to save the earth from certain distruction. I personally made that shot on at least six separate occasions. 

  

Looptroop Rockers -  Livin’ On A Prayer [ZSHARE]

Every now and then you come across something so shit you simply have to share it, in this case its the world famous Looptroop Rockers covering Bon Jovi’s super-classic-optimistic-hair-rock anthem Livin’ On A Prayer from the life changing album Slippery When Wet.  Take my hand and well make it - I swear. 

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2 double passes to give away for this Wednesdays show with Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip show at Dublin’s Button Factory. Just tell us where Scroobius Pip got his name from? mail your answers to info@stateofshock.net 

DJ Yellow - Medium [ZSHARE]

I seem to be stuffing my ipod (Ipod Touch, cause i’m deadly!) with productions by French house and techno prodocer DJ Yellow at the moment, When it comes to house music his productions create a unique feeling. 

He’s been DJing since 1986 and has been involved with labels such as Yellow Productions, Poussez! and the Alienation & Intermission series.A good place to start is this track, Medium on the Wolfskull label is a simple groove with beautiful shimmering analogue synth lines that seems to sound even better on a sunny day such as this, in fact i’m off to enjoy it now…

C81 was a cassette given away on the front of the NME back in 1981, when the magazine was still seen as an important place for exposing new music. Shock’s guest on the 16th May; John Cooper Clarke compiled one curiously titled The Massed Carnaby Street John Cooper Clarke’s. Its rare enough to come accross one these days so thankfully here’s a link to download it.

Side 1:
1. The Sweetest Girl - Scritti Politti
2. Twist & Crawl Dub - The Beat
3. Misery Goats - Pere Ubu
4. 7,000 Names of Wah - Wah Heat
5. Blue Boy - Orange Juice
6. Raising the Count - Cabaret Voltaire
7. Kebab Trauma — Live - D.A.F.
8. Bare Pork - Furious Pig
9. Bourgeois Blues - Panther Burns
10. I Look Alone - Buzzcocks
11. Fanfare in the Garden - Essential Logic
12. Born Again Cretin - Robert Wyatt 

Side 2:
1. Shouting Out Loud - Raincoats
2. Endless Soul - Josef K3. Low Profile - Blue Orchids4. Red Nettle - Virgin Prunes
5. We Could Send Letter - Aztec Camera
6. Milkmaid - Red Crayola
7. Magnificent Dreams - Television Personalities
8. The Day My Pad Went Mad - The Massed Carnaby St. John Cooper Clarkes
9. Jazz is the Teacher, Funk is the Preacher - James Blood Ulmer
10. Close to Home - Ian Dury
11. Greener Grass - Gist
12. Parrallel Lines - Subway Sect

We’ve never been a huge fan of French duo Justice but their empire of noise continues to expand due as much to to an unrepenting yet well planned media barrage, as to the quality of their music. The Romain Gavras directed video for their latest release Stress raises the bar even higher.

Featuring a street gang clad in jackets bearing the Justice logo this comes off as a mix between Clockwork Orange and Le Haine. Subtle this promo is not. The gang go on a indiscrimant violent crime rampage. Attacking people, smashing cars & pubs. The video builds tension brilliantly and is undoubtably a powerful piece of work, although it does seem to cynically evoke imagery of the civil unrest in France back in 2005.  This promo will certainly cause controversey and in doing so raise the bands profile even higher. 

Mornin’ All
We’ve 10 passes to this Sunday’s Bacardi B-Live yoke with Cassius, Flostradamus, A-Trak and more.
We’ll keep it simple, first 10 to mail info@stateofshock.net with their full name win the passes.

RTE’s soccer analysis is getting better every week, especially for their Champions League coverage. Sometimes its more entertaining and eventful than the actual match itself!. Currently the highlight is the increasingly bitter sparring of journalist and unstable person Eamon Dunphy and former Arsenal man Liam Brady, along with the sideshow of Johnny Giles and Greame Sou(r)ness.

Dunphy’s outlandish claims which contradict the last are the centerpiece. As logic and reason are slowly replaced with a strange urge to go further and further into the realm of the rediculous. Not stopping until he is completely in opposition to popular opinion or indeed reality, making bold statements in the hope that he’ll be somehow remembered, to use his own parlance, as ‘a rebel’. Its almost come to the stage where the post match analysis needs analysis itself. Its amauter, its rediculous, its great fun, its Irish. 

“When you weed out the nutters, it’s around 80-20 behind Roy.” Eamon Dunphy

The studio panel reflect on Manchester United 1-0 Barcelona.