Posted by Mat on Wednesday 12th August 2009 11.40pm
1/ People who buy 1 ticket to a gig. Get some mates will ye.
2/ Couples who call each other babe. “Am just going in here Babe.” “Ok babe”
3/ Being called “Hun” (short for honey). I would rather you call me a nasty F@*#ing C@#t.
4/ Crying. Do not cry to me. I am likely to just look uncomfortable and walk away without saying a word.
5/ Loud gigs. That may sound odd being a promoter and all, but there really is no need for gigs to be so loud sometimes.
6/ Text speak. Its not even shorthand anymore. Its devolved into the most lazy mis-spelt language that is almost indecipherable. I did some supply teaching once. Actual essays were handed in with text speak as normal English. Obviously being a caring teacher I passed everyone and went on to the next school.
7/ Local government. Just because obviously.
8/ National government. Just because obviously.
9/ Facebook updates. The little red box pops up, but the excitement is short-lived as its just some random application you surely never added, telling you so and so thinks they are prettier than you. Also facebook telling me I am single with adverts every 2 pages. Haha
10/ Buses that don’t have the Metro on them in the morning.
11/ Not being able to use apostrophes while writing this blog as it breaks the site.
Yes Glasswerk being finger on the pulse kind of guys and gals have now swerved Facebook, its old news; it’s all about the Twitter now.
I think the general idea is that you subscribe/follow a person on twitter and you get to enjoy all their blog updates throughout the day. Basically any kind of nonsense that they decide to let loose on the world – it’s a longer word count version of Facebook status updates… which is pretty much the only reason I use Facebook at all anyway.
Also on the plus side it doesn’t seem that twitter reads your every word – scanning it for hidden subversive messages allowing the CIA and FBI to assess for terrorist activity. So other than the fact that it is on the interweb, your messages are vaguely private.
So anyway join us on twitter. We promise to not actually flood your inbox with silly nonsense, just news, reviews, interviews and other musical related info. Its just convenience to save you actually having to browse the web – get notified when we put something cool up on le website, simple!
Posted by Lee on Saturday 28th February 2009 02.03pm
It's Saturday afternoon and due to the pleasure of not being in work, it's just me and the Sky remote.
In a desperate attempt to not watch Everton v West Brom on Sky Sports I end up flicking onto Scuzz, which has an hour of music dedicated to "GNR v Metallica" - this sounds like a far more interesting battle if you ask me!
This got me thinking about which band are better? As it stands today, only a hardened Guns N' Roses fan would say it wasn't Metallica. However that's not really the point is it? Maybe it’s only fair to compare both bands in their pomp.
I'm sure you may have different definitions of when Metallica were at their best, but for arguments sake I am going to stick with the Black Album era, as this coincides with when GNR were at their peak.
The last ten or so years haven't been kind to GNR and has only serve to cheapen the memory of them really. Many people may point the finger at Axl Rose... you won't get me admitting that one of course... I've seen how Axl Rose can freak out on people!
But in terms of chart ‘hits’ Gun N’ Roses are clearly on top. GNR have released 16 singles in the UK, with 12 of these reaching the top ten. Only 4 of Metallica’s 22 UK singles in the UK reached the top 10. However Metallica have been more successful with their album releases in the UK, notching up 3 number one positions, with GNR making number one twice in the UK (although Metallica have released more albums).
Both bands released a long awaited new album towards the back end of 2008, with Metallica making number one with Death Magnetic in every country but Japan. Chinese Democracy, which took 15 years to make, could only manage number 2 in the UK, although it did do better than expected considering the amount of bad press it received.
For me, the way to decide this one is to look at the best songs from each band.
According to itunes the top 5 are as follows:
Guns N’ Roses Sweet Child O’Mine
Paradise City
November Rain
Welcome to the Jungle
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Metallica Enter Sandman
Nothing Else Matters
The Day That Never Comes
One
The Unforgiven III (good song, not sure I would say its top 5 though)
For me, Metallica are by far the better band. They have been more consistent over the years, and I could happily listen to all the tracks off each album again and again.
However Guns N’ Roses clearly produce better hit songs. It’s difficult to go on a night out without hearing at least a few of the Gun N’ Roses songs! Looking at the GNR top five, it makes me want to dig out my copy of Use Your Illusion I & II. Although I probably will get bored looking for it and end up sticking the Black album on instead...
Interestingly GNR and Metallica did a joint tour in 1992 (whilst both in their peak), supported by Faith No More. The tour never made it to the UK, but that would have been a brilliant gig! Maybe seeing both bands live on the same day would have been a more fair way to decide who was best?
If you are still undecided however, I thoroughly recommend reading either of these two books:
Posted by Mat on Thursday 12th February 2009 12.07am
Gordon Brown get a fu**king spine will you. Okay I wasn’t that bothered about Barack being voted in as the first black president – new dawn and all that. Not that I was opposed to him, just apathetic. Now though, he has made me sit up and take notice. Where else and in what other sphere of real life (apart from the houses of parliament obviously) would anyone be rewarded for failure? How can Obama come straight in to office and read the riot act to bailed out banks, while Gordon meekly asks them to consider not inflating their wallets. With one eye on the electorate and the other on his mates making huge sums of fiddled money.
How can the bank executives not see that giving out bonuses after being bailed out to the tune of over half the company’s stock, is beyond the pale? I mean the banks were about to go bankrupt themselves, so what exactly are the bonuses based on? Who was able to foreclose on the most mortgages? Who was able to give away the most money in loans to people who have no income? Who was able to construct and continue to propagate a system that was bound to implode at some point?
I do feel sorry for them. They are the unlucky ones who didn’t manage to make their £100million and get out before anyone noticed. There is the argument that the bonuses are not all multi-thousand pound fat cat benefits, but are mainly for the grass root staff; the cashiers and branch personnel who need that money as it makes a big difference to how they survive. Fair enough, they are like 90% of us in the UK and are going to find the recession a struggle. So can we all have bonuses please? My company makes money, but I don’t think I make enough so can the government give me some extra bonus? Or even better I will just willy nilly splash the cash and let them bail me out, then pay myself an extra pat on the back. I obviously will have deserved it.
All this is probably what you are all thinking and is not news to you. But, I can write it down and make people read it – it’s like therapy. YOU need to read, get angry and then go and pelt Gordon Brown with bricks wrapped in monopoly money.
Yes you did read that one correctly, the title of this article is about my love for a widget...
Now to be fair you may be confused, as initially I was. In my mind a widget was something to be found in a can of Boddingtons. However at some point between 1998-2008 widgets stopped appearing in beer cans and the word was hijacked by web-type people. You are more likely to find widgets these days on Myspace or Facebook! I'm not quite sure when this changed happened though...
Now that I have waffled enough about introducing my new found love, it may be best to introduce her to the world...
My new found love is for the widget which Amazon has developed for their MP3 store, which we now use on content pages on Glasswerk. It uses keywords to display MP3's relating to particular artist. Which you can then use to preview 30 second clips of the tracks.
If you haven't spotted it already, one should be on the right hand side of this page...
For example, as this is my blog I am taking this opportunity to include 'Metallica' as the keyword (you will just have to go with me here if you don't like Metallica...).
If everything works as nature intended then you should be able to preview some tracks, view the album covers or maybe click on the link to buy a track from Amazon.
To be honest I am more of an itunes fan, it just works better with my iPhone. But unfortunately they don't make one, so I will have to give Amazon MP3's a try!
Hope you think it is pretty cool too, let me know if you have any problems with the widget!
