Ginger joins Brides of Destruction
By Kris | January 24, 2005
As announced by Tracii Guns on the Brides of Destruction website, Ginger has gone to LA to work with the band as a second guitarist and to assist with writing their next album.
Ginger will be sending over a statement later in the week (as soon as he sorts out an internet connection etc.), which we’ll send out as soon as we get it.
DVD statement
By Kris | December 1, 2004
We’ve got an update from Ginger following everyone’s comments on the DVD situation: “Thank you all so much for your support and ideas. We still haven’t given up hope of releasing a DVD, we have just given up hope of releasing a DVD on the Gut label. The day the industry stops us fulfilling our dreams is the day that we cut off our cocks in public. Try as they may this industry can only slow us down.”
And Every Time The Chaos Starts…
By Kris | November 30, 2004
Ginger, Jon Poole and Hot Steve – Acoustic Tour – November 2004 · Words by Hot Steve ·s © Nigel Palmer
Newcastle – 26th November 2004
Sometimes you know I hate being right. London to Newcastle on a Friday up the M1!. Nightmare!. Set off early? I stressed all week!. I’m not gonna say a thing!
However, it’s always good to be reunited with the boys after a bit of a break.
Soundcheck – what song should we play?
These acoustic shows are almost getting like an SAS raid on the venue. Plough in just before the doors open, to have a soundcheck to steady my nerves and confirm my fears regarding the P.A system. Try to get a sound from whatever guitar the main man has got from eBay that week. It also means we sit there while a lot of people watch us trying to guess what song to do for a start. This particular time sat there on the lonely stool we were greeted by an excited Geordie gentleman forcing a cup of tea into our faces. Blimey Charlie it’s a Danny! Being shell-shocked by the journey and trying to find the venue all in a matter of seconds it seemed we were then greeted by Mr. McCormack who I hadn’t seen for ages.
Supposed it was inevitable really that out on our travels we would bump into ex-members here and there but meeting Danny was a strange one. Memories of him when he was in the band came flooding back, some good, some bad, but most of them totally unforgettable. After leaving the venue to find the hotel out in the sticks, it was a weird feeling in the car, as we all must have been thinking basically the same things.
We return to the venue to the sounds of the mighty Plan A drawing the line. It seems like we have no time at all to compose ourselves, which is a very important thing for me, and then bang, we’re on!
I honestly have no recollection of the first half of the set at all. And it’s not until Danny is up on stage that I can start imagining what we must look like from the front.
After a can’t-hear-the-guitar-in-the-monitors incident – message to soundmen, don’t play with our monitors during the set. We might as well not bother doing soundchecks if it’s gonna change so radically when we get up there to do the gig. Rant over. So there I am giving my stool up to Jef while I look over and Danny’s playing bass and Mr Poole on the drums. Woah! Hang on! This is a crazy lineup. It then dawned on me. The previous week I had been asked to sit in the rehearsals for the Ginger birthday gig. Which features Jon Poole, Ritch Battersby and Willie Dowling and of course Ginger. Next Wednesday we are in rehearsals with Jon Poole, CJ, Stidi and Ginger. So there I am on stage with Jon Poole, Danny McCormack and Jef Streatfield and Ginger. All three major lineups within a week! Trainspotter Wildhearts fans out there work that one out. Step up Mr. Bam I believe for the full set!
The evening is very hazy after that and I can only really remember bits and pieces like Jon and Danny’s bonding session which started with the ubiquitous piss drinking, hopefully soon to be phased out of the shows altogether, and the lasting image I have in my scrambled head is of Jon being led out of the venue by a very excited Danny for a ‘bonding session’ in the clubs of Newcastle on a Friday nite. The rest of my evening was finished off by an all out drinking assault with the Plan A mob before leaving to hopefully find Jon and Danny at some club or another. Jon probably died later.
York – 27th November 2004
I think I can remember Jon coming back to the hotel; at least he is there in the morning when we get turfed out at the last possible moment by over-excited TravelLodge staff. It isn’t until we get into the car to visit family in the area that we notice something’s missing! Quite a large portion of Jon had possibly not made it back from Poole and McCormack’s big nite out as he resembled a large white chocolate malteser with all the colour drained out of him. It’s at times like these when you have to decide if you should be concerned for the welfare of your mate or just relentlessly take the piss and tell him how bad he looks. We return to the venue to collect our gear and head to the magic Primark to stock up on socks and pants for the forthcoming tour. Hey! rock stars go shopping too you know and there’s no-one on earth who can argue with 5 pairs of socks for 2 quid! We buy a rather natty pair of converse boot style slippers each and go back to see if Jon has pulled through from his own private hell!
We then jump in the jeep and start setting the rock n roll world to rights like we tend to do on these jaunts; we actually do it rather well, even if I do say so myself. The only trouble with this was the high possibility of us actually running out of petrol, which is the basic requirement for the internal combustion engine to propel us to the next gig. We really were holding our breath as we pulled into the most welcome sight of a BP garage on pure fumes. Never have I been so pleased to see the glowing Ginsters display and the smell of sweet unleaded petrol! Mmmm! petrol.
We get to York to find that our accommodation for the night, (which is a delightful drunken stagger across the road and just past the kebab shop) has been double booked due to the UK Snooker Championship in town that week. Bastards.. Literally in all of York and the surrounding area there was no room in the inn. Even the Virgin Mary couldn’t get a room. The chilling consequence of this was that someone has to drive after the gig. Someone has to stay sober! Ginger heroically steps into the breach by agreeing to drive to Selby after the show to the closest digs.
The set started with ‘One Love, One Life, One Girl’ and from that moment the evening takes on a melancholy feel; there’s a special bond that I have with that song as it was my absolute favorite when we were demoing songs at 2khz studios all that time ago. It means more to me now as I actually have one love… and the one girl… aww
The night before I could remember really enjoying the show even though things went wrong and we didn’t really play that well. This time I didn’t really enjoy much of the night due to our dour mood but we played like demons. Now I’m into doing some sort of trade-up to the ‘really enjoyed it and played really well’ meal deal. The amount of joy I got from playing at the Leopard in Doncaster this time round being how I would like to feel a lot more often but not at the expense of having a soul crushing nightmare gig the time before. We played a solid and thoughtful set and while I would have liked to have a blast on stage I was quietly happy with our performance. Prior to our slot we were treated to the wonderful one-man-band Robochrist. A man whose sideboards graced our screens in the Dingles party in Emmerdale the other week. And then another who I wont go on too much about but who seemed to have a different concept of an acoustic gig from everyone else.
For a start there was a drummer who for these gigs isn’t really required. The idea is a sit down stripped down look at the songs at their bare bones level and definitely doesn’t warrant carrying a Marshall cab onto the stage and a bass rig. Lads. If I was a bit harsh I’m sorry but you gotta understand that this is a completely different vibe. It’s about dumbing down and cutting out all the fat of the songs and watching them stand or fall. And you wouldn’t have taken ages to get the van out of the car park!. Hilarious. Get the drummer to stay at home or get him to carry your stuff, strip it down and rock with acoustic guitar blisters the next day.
It came to me that we should get a backdrop made up for next year. A big one with a massive lighting rig, a wall of marshals and a drummer! We could just sit there with our banjos in front of a silent backing band. Then we fold it up and put it in the back of the car! Genius and we don’t have to pay, feed or smell him.
We arrive in Selby and get together to reflect about the evening while watching Miss World which features an American jock introducing a selection of the world’s most underwhelming women. Fixed grins at the ready and loads of talking about saving the planet while getting their hair and nails done. Not my cup of Bovril. A less than average display of eye candy. Never mind Miss World, I just want my girlfriend. She rocks my world!
It came to me later that the ultimate gig is very hard to actually play. What you need is to have all the right ingredients for the perfect show; but this game being fraught with perils, they never actually come together. The best crowd was obviously Newcastle; when Danny got up and the Endless Nameless lineup played a few tunes I couldn’t hear anything, the audience were really loud. Trouble is we played a bit ropey that night. So I would pick the performance from York, with the crowd from Newcastle, and the food from Newport. I guess you could piece together the ultimate gig like this so that’s probably how live bands do albums. By collecting different parts of different gigs you could have the classic live performance. As we all know the greatest live album is very ‘fixed’, an absolute crushing blow for me was when I found out Live and Dangerous isn’t the same gig as it ends as it starts. Ah well it will all strike back in the end!
Newport – 28th November 2004
Sunday! wrote Mr. Kipling!
Today will actually turn out to be one of the weirdest days of my acoustic career. First we have to detour to the home of rock guitar tech legend Hot Steve to pick up some recently refurbished kit for the tour. My housemate gets the fright of his life to see Jon and Ginger in his living room in the morning after a particularly heavy night with the Donny massive.
We jump in the car and head for the Wales! Stopping at service stations is still a bit confusing for us types. After miles of driving really wanting to stop and walk around and buy exactly what we think we want, we just wander around aimlessly in the queue for Burger King, before deciding on a sarnie and a packet of crisps, before stopping at the newspapers not knowing what the hell we want after all! I buy the paper with the nicest pictures and the football results, to see how the mighty ‘Rovers got on. Ginger on the other hand buys this bloody great white cuddly monkey!? Any decent record company / management would hopefully come up with an idea like this to plug the record. Great white monkey geddit! [Great White Monkey is the name of the acoustic album on sale at the gigs – Ed] Knowing our luck we’d get a bloody great albino gorilla at a show that eats all the cd’s and fling his own shit at you when cornered!.
TJ’s ah! In my somewhat checkered career I have graced the venue a few times and in recent times have had really bad guts which is a shame as the venue has very basic toilet facilities at best and it’s always been an idea to ‘hold on’ until the first services or gwasthenau or whatever motorway services is translated into welsh! Answers on an email to hotsteve@thewildhearts.com if you please.
Gwen and Ginger
Tonight’s promoters are the lovely Gwen and Stiky who have been supporting us for ages and were the purveyors of my fine birthday cake in Winchester. They welcome us with a fond kindness and an absolutely stunning chilli! Top notch!.
We retire to the hotel to collect ourselves and for me to start panicking big time about the recording that we are due to make that night. It’s not looking good when we return after a brief encounter with one of the most unhinged hotel receptionists in the country, and support band Plan A are having a tough time getting the usually mental Newport crowd going.
I blame Jon usually for a lot of things.
He’s got into everyone’s head with some quote about talcum powder, which fucks with people’s heads like every in-band joke usually does. And this one is no exception. Blank welsh faces all around.
Before I know it we are on and up there on the stools of rock to what appears to be the second soundcheck of the night, but this time in front of hundreds of people!
A few run throughs don’t really get any better results so we just leave it to fate and that’s when I start to relax… at long last!
Givvy on the mic
The rest of the night was fine. A chance to forget how to play ‘Unlucky in Love’ with Givvy on the mic. The aftershow lunacy that prevails is normal to say the least. Watching people get progressively more smashed on the rider. Drink all ours and then sneak some more in when we have to chip in and buy some more. This is why I love being opening act scum.
Plenty of time to drink everything before the headliners (who walk around all day not getting pissed as they have a job to do at the end of the night) are able to sit down to enjoy the last two cans of warm lager as all the ice has melted and no one bothered to refill the cooler!
It’s goodbye to the Plan A boys and then off to the digs
Job done.
Now it’s back to carrying heavy stuff and not washing for days. Ah ! touring
Hot Steve
xx
DVD update
By Kris | November 25, 2004
An update from Ginger on the DVD: “We are sad to report that the proposed DVD, intended to feature a live show, a documentary and a complete promo video archive will now no longer go ahead. GUT records have pulled out of the venture. No official reason has been offered as yet.
Due to the limited time left to arrange alternative finances the project will have to be shelved.
Thank you so much for your videos, DVD’s and MP3’s, intended to be used on the documentary. The band intend to continue to look for financers to fund the documentary. The live video, however, due to be recorded at the forthcoming London show on 8th December, will be impossible to film. We apologise to everyone.
In the meantime, look forward to the documentary.”
Ginger on BBC 6 Music
By Kris | November 21, 2004
Ginger will be appearing on Phill Jupitus’s breakfast show on BBC 6 Music on Wednesday 24th November. The breakfast show runs from 7am to 10am (GMT) although Ginger shouldn’t be appearing until after 9.
You can listen to the station live on the internet using: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/ and the homepage for the breakfast show is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/presenters/phill_jupitus/home.shtml
Ginger Birthday Gig
By Kris | November 12, 2004
Ginger has arranged a special one-off gig to celebrate his birthday. He’ll be playing at the Marquee Club in London (1 Leicester Square) on December 17th. The band will be completed by Willy Dowling, Rich Battersby and Random Jon Poole. There will be no support act, instead the band will be playing two sets. Tickets are available from TicketWeb for 11 pounds.
Tour updates
By Kris | November 7, 2004
A few more changes to the upcoming tour dates, both for Ginger and The Wildhearts. From the acoustic shows, Preston and Bristol have both been postponed, hopefully to be rescheduled in the new year. The remaining acoustic dates are as follows:
13 November – Doncaster – Leopard
14 November – Mansfield – Mill
26 November – Newcastle – Archer
27 November – York – Cert 18
28 November – Newport – TJ’s
There’s also been more Wildhearts shows booked; here is the full list of dates for December.
03 December – Sunderland – Ku Klub
04 December – Wrexham – Central Station
05 December – Preston – The Mill
06 December – Belfast – Limelight
08 December – London – Astoria
09 December – Manchester – MDH
10 December – Glasgow – Garage
11 December – Sheffield – Leadmill
13 December – Cambridge – Junction
14 December – Bristol – Anson Rooms
15 December – Wolverhampton – Wulfrun Hall
Ginger Says – The Changing Face Of Rock
By Ginger | November 3, 2004
“The more that things change the more they stay the same”
If, like me, you are old enough to remember music before Nirvana, or ways of finding out about bands without the aid of the internet, or waiting to seeing ‘how your favourite group moves on-stage’ without having the dream shattered by MTV showing ‘how your favourite group mimes on video’, then you will see this current wave of interest in rock music as nothing more than an example of fashion running out of ideas. Again.
It has chased the past for ideas under the banner of ‘retro’ (or Nu-Retro, as some shlong swallowers will no doubt name it), until it has ran into its own anus.
Those without original idea have caught up with themselves in their tireless search for something to rip off.
Plunder without incrimination until someone finds out, they say, which would hopefully be ages away, giving them time enough to think up something original.
Surely?
Of course, as stated on these very pages in the past (go check), Rock was always going to come back into fashion. Rock music has always represented quality, in sound, presentation and performance, and trends will always level out in the presence of quality, the ‘retro’ that will always be hardest to move on from.
Fashion was destined to meet rock and a marriage in both Heaven and Hell was inevitably going to take place.
HEAVEN: The whole image and sound being a gold-mine of ideas for a gaggle of new designers/musicians to plunder the endless depths of.
HELL: Rock has been around for longer than any other genre of contemporary music/dress. Where the fuck are you going to go when THAT well has dried up?
And drying up it most certainly is. Great news for us ‘older’ people for whom rock music has ultimately paid most handsomely anyway. Feels good to back a winning horse, right?
Gloating aside… (nah, fuck it, there’s always time for a little more gloating when it means seeing clueless opportunists squirm in discomfort…)
Okay, gloating NOW aside… let’s take a look at how desperate the art of eking has been made to look since Rock left it’s underground haven and came unto the light of mass public acceptance.
NU-Metal. The genre that reinvented Grunge as a new way of complaining about the same old shit. Misery for prepubescent teens. Feeding the unhappiness of those still too young to buy into anything more positive but old enough to buy ‘album/t-shirt’ after ‘album/t-shirt’ after ‘album/t-shirt’ of every faceless bunch of major label Pinocchio’s currently being thrust at a TV set near you. A genre destined to die quickly due to the inevitability that its audience would out grow out of it just as soon as they developed a fully rounded sex drive.
Goth: The perfect soundtrack for those kids who grew up and didn’t develop a fully rounded sex drive. Music whose main property is to stick ugly cider drinking people next to other, like-minded ugly cider drinking people, and have them bond under the misguided pretence that they have style. For those not ugly enough to naturally gravitate to ‘Goth’, the look fortunately involves black lipstick and badly made high-street clothing brands favouring black fashion. For those too stylish to fully understand how to look bad in black, try baggy PVC trousers.
Punk: The home of the middle class rebel, who’s only sworn enemy is ultimately the middle class parent that offered to put them through college. Music is secondary to the fashion, based on the original concept of ‘Punk’, ripping previously un-ripped clothing and fixing the tear with safety pins/loose stitching and finally stenciling a slogan on the back of said garment (slogan must read as a statement against establishment, such as ‘destroy’ or ‘anti-something’, or ‘anarchy’, a popular favourite). Fortunately these styles can be obtained in ‘Rock’ clothing shops (situated on most high streets and areas near the coast), conveniently involving none of the originals link with personal expression. Sadly the music is either a bad pastiche of Discharge, or the more commonly known exponent of the ‘punk’ (or nu-punk) soundtrack, Pop/Punk (Avril, Blink 182, Sum 41, Busted… yeah Busted). The search for a less mainstream sounding form of sonic representation leads, ultimately, back to ‘Goth’ and ‘Nu-Metal’. Resulting in…
Cyber-Goth: A plastic, shrink-wrapped version of Punk meets Goth fashion with a heavier soundtrack indicating a more serious demeanour. Red and black striped, fake hair extensioned fans of ‘metal’ hobble about on built-up footwear, claiming an alternative lifestyle while pouring money into largely expensive fashion, more money, in fact, than the three above-mentioned styles combined. The soundtrack resembles dance music for people that can’t dance mixed with industrial tinged Heavy Metal for angry people that still live with their parents.
And now let’s introduce the newest addition to this crazy phase: Classic Rock.
This is Rock music that visually resembles early ’80’s Denim/T-shirt/Leather jacket/fallen curly-perm sporting bands such as Def Leppard, mixed with a slight ‘glam’ edge as favoured by Guns and Roses (i.e. with optional eye liner and Motorhead/MC5/Iggy t-shirts), while sounding like Rock music played by people that appear on the front of musician magazines. This is a relatively new genre that has no embarrassing exponents of the style, so far. But such is the excitement being shown by ‘World-renowned’ ‘A&R’ ‘Gurus’ that the cringe factor is literally days away. Resembling the more Blues based, back-to-basics traditions of Rock (AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and soon to be name checked UFO) it has yet to be seen to be a failure, so anyone already starting out in music that needs an image/style pointer, go buy some Free, Bad Company, early Aerosmith albums and get copying. See you in the bank.
Indications point to a well-worn theme usually revealed when the life-span of trends are observed, namely the inevitable stripping of superficiality in favour of a more ‘authentic’ direction. As previously mentioned, a trend will seek added ‘quality’ with which to twist the final precious drips of loyalty from it’s consumer.
It stands to reason that the next step in the current evolution, or milking, of Rock music will be AOR.
Similar in intention to the blues based ‘Classic Rock’ genre, as noted above, in as much as it is aimed at an audience older and more stable than the teenage market. The music industry are finally waking up to the fact that the years following ‘the teenage years’ are actually more plentiful.
They’re smart, that’s for damn sure, but we’re smarter.
Any musicians want to hit the big time at any cost? Then here’s my lucky tip, my dead cert, my winning horse, my no-lose situation. Take it or leave it.
Write a bunch of catchy tunes with the minimum of chords, form a (loosely) Blues based band, similar to the ones that you will soon see taking over your TV and radio. Add an extra element of Pop. Then, and this is very important…
GET A FRIEND TO LEARN TO PLAY KEYBOARDS
It should take him no longer than six months, in which time you will all have all longer hair (essential) and will have been able to assemble some great tunes.
If writing a great tune is difficult then ask an older teacher/grandparent to cast their mind back to the late 50’s/early 60’s, write down a bunch of titles for you to find, then go and rip ’em off. Seriously, just copy the fuckers, no one will ever notice, the gap from then ’til now being so long. Shit, even if you did get found out you’ve already banked the cash, and logic dictates that the people who wrote it will already be dead anyway.
Regardez vous those history books people. Wank, wank, money in the bank.
Why not stick it to those lazy cunts in the industry that are about to follow the natural evolution of a trend (purely because thinking of how to do it with any originality takes brains and time, the two things that people in this business have very little of) and second guess their next move?
But when you get signed and are given the cheque then that money better be used wisely, like booking studio time to write essential material and set a more exciting future for us all, or investing the cash into forming your own label in order to help bands that are being criminally ignored all over the country. No ‘high interest accounts’ or expensive cars please, this is not technically ‘your’ cash.
This is a ‘Monkeys Paw’ type of offer, and if you go thinking you’re ‘really onto something’ or that your shit smells like the heads of babies then you will drink the warm juice of Satan’s big pink tap, for eternity. I swear this to be true. Maybe not any day soon, but as sure as God made greedy little A&R men you WILL be swallowing Ol’ Red’s toxic custard in that infernal basement should you follow the hideous tradition of forgetting your own past, come V-Day. You mark my words.
To summarise, then, second guessing the idiots running this show, how difficult could it possibly be? They honestly think they know what’s best for you the public? Well, then why not show them that they are freekin’ A. This is our world too, and every success story that has existed has been a product of following simple technique. And technique is nothing but whatever tried and tested formula that has proven most previously reliable. Like a trend, technique involves keeping an eye in the present and a foot in the past. No one that ever succeeded was smarter than you, they were just a little more in touch with their technique. More in tune with current trends. More familiar with their history.
History is never wrong, remember this. It is the reason for every new thought and every modern advance. History has the largest, deepest carpet under which a host of unsavoury confessions are swept, the biggest one being the admission that everything has been done before.
The present exists on a basis of mass consciousness, and the future depends on eternal continuation. And there will always be continuation, even when there is a drought of original thought. Continuation does not depend on originality only on the dependency of evolution.
No matter how dire a situation appears to be the human being will naturally look forward to the future, as the future is where dreams live. And there is money in dreams.
So while the suits continue to cruise, wearing expressions indicating that they just signed an act so enormously talented that you will, in turn, offer eternal gratitude to their record labels savvy, we can take a leaf out of the history books and beat them at their own game. We could be that signing. And you read it here first.
Oh how we would all laugh.
If only until the next trend.
Haha… keyboard orientated pop/rock for an older audience?
Last one there is a rotten purist.
Ginger
Wildhearts – Song Vote
By Kris | November 3, 2004
The song vote has also now closed – thanks to all who took the opportunity to cast their votes, Ginger comments: “Thank you to everyone that took part in voting for the new set list. Great choices. This should be a very memorable tour for us both.
We are delighted by the amount of new songs in there, a sure fire sign that the band ‘still have it’. It will also be a pleasure to play some of the older less played tracks featured in the closing vote.
If you can’t vote in a great future for America then you can vote for a great night for Britain.
December looks likely to ROCK much more than any other Month of 2004. What a fine, fine way of ushering in a new year and shaking hands with the present one.
It’s been a great ride, see you on the other side…’till then let’s party like it’s nonsensical Prince song. Alrite.”
John Peel
By Ginger | October 27, 2004
We have a message from Ginger following the sad death of John Peel.
“It with great sorrow that we find out that John Peel is dead.
Without John Peel, music would not have the scope that we all enjoy. He gave meaning to making music as a personal statement. He championed so many great bands that we would never have heard (you have your own, mine is Big Black). He didn’t give a fuck about acceptance, and because of that everyone not only accepted his lead but embraced it. Now Radio One is officially shit. It is a truly sad day. It feels like a really individual friend has gone and there is no one like him to go to. The world of music will never be as exciting and intriguing without him. The original maverick has gone, and everyone out there (yeah, you) should put their balls on the line like he did, in everything that you do.. He showed that there is nothing to fear in being an individual. Remember this for the rest of your lives.”