Friends, Heros and Foes!

I got confirmation today of our accommodation for the Rebellion Festival, which is a relief and it turns out that we are placed really near the venue this year which is fantastic. What is not so fantastic is that I feel there may be some misunderstanding of some of the agreements we had struck with the organisers, which is a bit depressing and wearying. I will have to try to get this straightened out but I was hoping for a smoother ride in the days leading up to the event.

We’ve been getting increasing amounts of MySpace Friends requests and I haven’t had enough time to go through them all. I take my time, I check out everyone’s site that makes a request and only when I am sure that they are true believers do I accept them.
I’m really fussy, I’m sure most bands accept them all just to get the numbers up, but not me, I want to feel it is a real fan base.

But it is difficult, if the Carpenters were still around today I might request to be their friends as I have a soft spot for their ultra-clean, dumb girl and boy next door trash. Yet they may have looked at a request from a punk rock band and said, this is a joke, just deny it.
So I get requests from greek electro pop boys and from the United States, a vocal impersonator who can sing in the style of every artist or group from Frank Sinatra, U2, to the Pogues and Elvis Costello. Then there’s a famous Latin American dancer from South America and Canadian comedians, and I agonise over whether to deny them or not.

I like to think our music could be enjoyed by just about anyone, because we have good tunes and people’s perception of musical styles is not so rigid in other parts of the world.

To deny someone because they don’t look like the sort of people who would be into our music is both confirming my own prejudices and ghettoising our MySpace site to just punk fans.

But then again, they might just be trying to get their ‘Friends’ numbers up, making it look like they have a big fan base.

Very hard, anyway requests from punk rock record labels, recording studios and promoters I have never heard of are dumped unceremoniously.

Take a look at the Neurotics ‘Friends’ at www.myspace.com/theneurotics, see what you think.

1963

I so wanted to be Captain Video, I wanted to be a hero and as I watched his adventures I could almost believe it was possible. When the show was over, the Odeon ejected us out through it’s doors on speeding spaceships, and streaking Galaxy II star fighters as we raced the girls on their white stallions (Captain Video was a mixture of sci-fi and a western) through the Town Centre weaving in and out of startled shoppers as though they were merely debris in a meteor field. When finally we would run out of breath propulsion at the bus terminus and there I would board my protobus 804, destination – Bus Fair and then the outer rim, Pear Tree Mead.

However, the feature in my head on this miserable morning was an entirely different thing. The room darkened, but darkened too much, it went completely black. The pale yellow screen turned to dazzling white and then lifted high into the air and shrunk to the size of a court order.
I peered up at it, it looked like a window far away.

I’m in a jail, a dungeon or something like.

I’m imprisoned, trapped.

I have lost my freedom!

I positioned myself a little to the left so the sun shone directly onto my face, I could see dust made up of the skin cells of former inmates abseiling down the ray of light towards me. It was true, once released from a period of captivity, a part of you always remains.

I could hear a slow drip drip drip of water somewhere in dark and when I put my hand down I found a puddle and an empty tin cup on its side by my foot.
I had become startled at my new environment and kicked it over. I could also hear the sound of children playing, a long way away outside the window, how I wished I could join them. How I wished I could be them.

I couldn’t see any thing and I desperately needed to, so I located where the ray of light fell on to the floor exposing a grey flagstone and I thrust my hand into it.

NO, NO NOOOO, it can’t be true, not me, not now, this shouldn’t be happening to me.

There like a follow spot in a theatre had fallen upon it, was a wooden hand, and all it’s fingernails had been pulled out.

Complete panic gripped me as I clattered purposelessly around in the dark trying desperately to find a wall.

Then I spotted it, a very thin line of horizontal light on what I perceived to be the floor, it was light coming from somewhere outside, it was a door. I ran over to it, located what felt like a handle and placed my hand clumsily upon it.

I instantaneously flicked my arm back again, the handle was already turning. The door opened very suddenly and there stood the silhouette of a huge man with blinding light behind him.

Get up, he shouted.