Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] You are tuned into views from the sea on. You call that radio?
[00:00:12] Live from the forestry on the isle of Inverkithcay.
[00:00:20] You call that radio. It's sponsored by Nikon.
[00:00:27] Today's video. Very special guest.
[00:00:30] It's Nikon.
[00:00:34] The weather has been around about 23, 24 degrees in Scotland this week and everybody's looking a little red faced today.
[00:00:52] But it's been good, it's been good.
[00:00:55] I finally had a week off, well, a week to do to write book and the weather has, has affected that.
[00:01:08] So I was feeling guilty for not writing my book and I was feeling, when I was trying to write the book, I was feeling guilty for missing the sunshine and I felt bad for my friends who were having to work during the sunshine.
[00:01:24] So I ended up doing a bit of nothing.
[00:01:28] I did go for that walk into the sunsh and then I just realized that sometimes it's okay to just exist.
[00:01:40] When.
[00:01:41] When did we start feeling guilty for just existing?
[00:01:50] So I've not done much, although I have done a couple of things for the YouTube channel and I'm going to share some of them with you.
[00:02:01] Today we're going to be talking about why the right wing have absolutely zero tunes.
[00:02:13] Why is it far right and a music put onto that.
[00:02:20] We'll be talking about festival season because I missed out in Knock and Gorick. This is the first festival season that I'm opting out of pretty much for about 14 years or 20 years. I don't even know. It's been a while.
[00:02:38] So I'm going to be asking did festival season ruin my wife or can festival season ruin your life?
[00:02:44] I'll be chatting with that and then we'll get into talk about things you're not supposed to talk about politics and football.
[00:02:54] They say never talk about politics and football because people get pissed off and unsubscribe.
[00:03:02] Hopefully, even if you disagree with me, you can just quietly disagree or comment why I'm wrong.
[00:03:12] Always up for the comments. I like comment on Spotify, comment on YouTube or you can just give me a phone and shoot shout me.
[00:03:21] I don't mind.
[00:03:23] Rosa going to be asking, can working class musicians even exist these days?
[00:03:30] There's been a lot of talk about the rise of the Nepo babies as the death of the Gyro babies occurs.
[00:03:40] So we're going to be talking about the bad things that are happening in the music industry for working class musicians. But we're also going to be talking about the. Oh, is that the piano finished?
[00:03:53] We're also going to be talking about some ideas of how to save the music industry as well.
[00:04:01] And I hope you enjoy that. We'll finish with Breath of the Week.
[00:04:06] Sorry. We'll start the show with Breath of the Week.
[00:04:10] Breathe in for eight.
[00:04:13] No, hold on. Sorry, I always get that wrong. Breathe in for four.
[00:04:20] Breath hold for eight.
[00:04:28] And breathe out for 12.
[00:04:37] Magic.
[00:04:39] Let's begin the show.
[00:04:41] This is Views from the Sea on. You call that radio? And it's only possible thanks to the support of the patrons.
[00:04:48] And if you want to sign up, you can go to patreon.com callthatradio.
[00:04:55] We're going to be offering some festival tickets very soon.
[00:05:00] We sent one of the patrons, Mark, to a Mexican restaurant for a free meal.
[00:05:07] We're giving away a few free meals over the next week and some concert tickets as usual.
[00:05:15] And, and also thanks to the patrons for, for allowing me to work on the Jinx Lennon tour and the Becky Wallace tour.
[00:05:24] It was a lot of fun. A very busy week the week, the week before last, just getting all that together.
[00:05:30] But yeah, we've got some, some cool things to announce very, very soon and I hope you enjoy today's show.
[00:05:39] Views from the Sea. You call that radio?
[00:05:44] Welcome to today's episode of the Far Right have Nations where we discuss why these right wingers have zero understanding of music, dance, joy, happiness, or how to throw a decent party.
[00:06:02] This is Fuse from the Sea on. Youn call that radio like and subscribe.
[00:06:14] Wow.
[00:06:28] The Unite the Kingdom rally has proven what everyone has known for a very long time, that the the far right is nations.
[00:06:38] Despite all of the fan donations and billionaire backing, they couldn't get one decent artist to play Gamondbury Festival.
[00:06:53] You can see there's plenty of normal, if misguided, human beings in the audience flinching at some of the notes these guys were hitting it with.
[00:07:06] And I've heard people blaming the time constraints, the pressure to play in front of a big crowd, or even the sound engineer, if there was a sound engineer.
[00:07:21] But once again, all of these issues land squarely with the organizers who had plenty of money and time to make this work better.
[00:07:31] But you must trust me when I say I can prove, and I quote, a law, that these artists are actually very, very bad and nowhere near ready to stand in front of 2 million people.
[00:07:49] But Tommy Robinson himself, that there was millions marching on the streets.
[00:07:54] Now the thing about the events in the street, any events, whether this is a normal gig, a festival, a protest, or a festival of flags, protest is it. The organizers always round the numbers up the way the police usually round it down the way and the media say whatever their billionaire owners tell them to say.
[00:08:22] Now, having worked and performed at many, many festivals over the years, I've looked at the pictures and some of the pictures look like this.
[00:08:33] I've seen bigger queues at Queen's park on a sunny day for the ice cream van.
[00:08:41] But to be fair, I've seen other pictures where there seems to be thousands more than that.
[00:08:47] I think, on balance, I think there was thousands and thousands of people there and they just got scared off by the murder.
[00:08:57] They get scared off by all the murder, the cold blooded murder of you'll never walk alone.
[00:09:09] And you can see there that Tommy Robinson actually says cut.
[00:09:14] Tommy Robinson's had enough.
[00:09:17] And either that's because they ran out of time, which is that's the organizers fault, despite having billionaire back budget and loads of donations, or it could be that the singing is horrendous and everybody is cringing, or it could be that they've picked the wrong crowd to sing you'll never walk alone to on the day that Celtic won the league. And I'm sure that would explain why at least a few Rangers fans left.
[00:09:49] Because I mean the actual gig itself, we're talking 300, 400 people there.
[00:09:55] But I would say on balance, I reckon there was tens of thousands on the original march.
[00:10:02] But the music was so shite that everybody just went to the pub.
[00:10:08] Oh, you know, weather spins. Sorry.
[00:10:12] But I suppose the there's good and bad in this. The bad news is that tens of thousands of people wanted to march in the first place.
[00:10:25] And the good news is they're shite at putting on music events and everybody just goes to Wetherspoons.
[00:10:33] And the reason is because there's no actual real musician would want to be associated with this.
[00:10:42] If you just look up how many acts have sued Donald Trump or threatened legal action because he's tried to use their music.
[00:10:54] And the same goes for Nigel Farage, the same goes for Tommy Robinson.
[00:10:59] Anybody that sort of dabbles with the far right, no actual good musician wants anything to do with them.
[00:11:08] And the reason for that is because good music brings people together.
[00:11:14] And I know this was called unite the Kingdoms, but it was actually far about uniting everyone.
[00:11:23] It was about uniting white men with union flags over them.
[00:11:33] And that's just one type of person in the United Kingdom.
[00:11:39] And music's about bringing everyone together.
[00:11:43] Doesn't matter your race, your sexuality.
[00:11:46] It just matters that you are out to dance and have a good time.
[00:11:52] No hate, just love and the purest music is born out of love or anger against the system that pushes people down.
[00:12:08] And that's the saddest fact of all, is that people went to Wetherspoons.
[00:12:15] The guy that runs Wetherspoons, he encouraged everyone to vote for Brexit.
[00:12:20] Everyone agrees that Brexit went bad.
[00:12:23] Even the Brexiteers will say Brexit went bad because we didn't Brexit Brexit enough.
[00:12:30] They'll say stuff like that.
[00:12:32] But everyone agrees it was a bad idea.
[00:12:36] And after 14, 16 years of Tory austerity, they bring in Starmer, the definition of a charmless man who has no moral fiber, no backbone.
[00:12:52] He's actually convinced the far right that he's a far left communist.
[00:12:57] And everyone on the left considers him right wing neoliberal.
[00:13:05] Everybody hates that guy. And he's only been in charge for two years, but he is hated.
[00:13:13] And now what you've got is all the conservatives that ruined the country joining reform.
[00:13:22] And everybody's voting for reform because they want change, even though it's the same thing, the same people wearing the same colour of rosette, the blue, the color blue, the union flag.
[00:13:40] They want to talk about immigration again.
[00:13:43] They never want to talk about billionaires.
[00:13:46] Nigel Farage hasn't been seen for a week because he doesn't want to talk about the £5 million he accepted for his inverted commas security.
[00:13:59] These people that stir up hatred are making a fortune.
[00:14:06] They are promoted by media, by newspapers, who are funded by the same billionaires who want you to hate your neighbor, who want you to be afraid, who want you to feel fear, fear over fairness, everybody's skin.
[00:14:28] The cost of living is going up. There's more pointless wars and genocides happening all over the world that's affecting the cost of living.
[00:14:36] Yet the billionaires continue to rise and fascism continues to rise.
[00:14:46] Hatred continues to rise and I don't blame people for getting caught up in it.
[00:14:54] Everywhere they look, all they hear is the immigration conversation and occasionally something about gender.
[00:15:03] But it's culture wars, never class war, and there's never any good music to soundtrack these kind of protests.
[00:15:14] Because the billionaires are not your friends.
[00:15:18] The billionaires are not your DJs, the billionaires are not your guitarists, your singers, your MCs.
[00:15:28] The billionaires are not your friends.
[00:15:33] The billionaires are not your friends.
[00:15:39] The billionaires are not your friends.
[00:15:44] Rebellionaires are not your friends and we don't fuck.
[00:15:54] Rebellionaires are not your friends.
[00:15:59] The billionaires are not your friends.
[00:16:04] Rebellionaires are no Your friends should invaded and get lost in the post production.
[00:16:17] Your envy wasn't lost in the post.
[00:16:20] You're not invited.
[00:16:23] I just made a 20 minute video that has deleted itself.
[00:16:28] Now the last time this happened, I spent about three hours looking for it. So I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna make another video.
[00:16:37] Cap, cut.
[00:16:39] Cap cut.
[00:16:41] Anyway, let's try it. Let's try again. This is a new thing. A new thing on Views from the Sea where I answer the questions of the. You call that radio Patreons.
[00:16:52] So Big Al asked me, did festival season really ruin your life? And he's getting that because I said, I don't know where he's getting that from.
[00:17:01] Okay? He's getting that because I said I'm not doing festival season because it's ruining my life. I said that on the ideal podcast, I think, or something.
[00:17:10] And the new thing is, is if someone's a patron, if you call that radio and they ask me a question via the method, the Patreon, I'm going to do a video. That's my new vow.
[00:17:21] That is my new hang.
[00:17:23] We limit to one once a month or something like that. But anyway, dead festival season ruin my wife.
[00:17:30] I don't know.
[00:17:32] I don't think so.
[00:17:34] I don't think so.
[00:17:36] But in order to know for sure, you would need to live two different lifetimes and two alternative timelines to see what had happened without festival season.
[00:17:52] Maybe without festival season, I would have been an accountant in London with property, happily married or maybe unhappily married. Maybe the stress of the marriage and the job would have killed me young.
[00:18:13] You never know.
[00:18:15] So I think that festival season was a good thing. The reason I'm taking a year out of festival season is because I'm a bit burnt out. I'm tired, I'm trying to write a book, I'm trying to run this and I'm. And I'm doing new freelance stuff as well, which I'll tell you more about another time. But anyway, I am gutted because right now knocking Gorick has started and knocking, or it was always the beginning of the festival season.
[00:18:43] It's, it's the, it's an amazing weekend. It's where all the, the people who seem to just vanish over the winter come back.
[00:18:55] So it's almost like they get powered down through the winter. You never bump into them at Tesco during the winter. They just vanish for about six months. And then you see them at Knock and Gorick and that's. Then you see them every week for about. For about four months and then they vanish again. So. Knocking Gorick's always a special one. I think we've played it nine times out of 13 years or something like that.
[00:19:20] And I, I have that fomo, I have that fear of missing it because I know that everyone's gonna have a great time and be the Theory's on this weekend as well. They've got an amazing lineup.
[00:19:31] So, yeah, I'm a wee bit, a wee bit sad that I'm not there this year, but it's also good to just be chilling and working on other things this weekend. So I'm gonna. Yeah, no key is special and I'm sad not to be. In fact. Shouts to Shoggy Mungo and John McMustard who released a song called Disco Ball Sombrero.
[00:20:03] Where actually get name checked, it says in the shilling tent with Tibetan Monks and Mark McGee.
[00:20:09] And that is the tent that we usually play.
[00:20:12] So that has rubbed that in a bit. So for people that don't know, I've organized my own festivals. I have run stages at other people's festivals and I've performed in a band, two bands and cameoed in other bands. So maybe 18 years. Been doing this for and up to 14 festivals a year.
[00:20:35] And there's a lot of traveling involved, there's a lot of hard work involved, a lot of performing involved and a lot of other things involved. And it can get quite exhausting.
[00:20:46] So I just thought I'd try a year.
[00:20:49] I thought I'd try a year at Bearded Theory. Two years ago I was recovering from illness and I was so, so, so rough at all that I had to take an extra day. The rest of the band drove in the Thursday, stayed in hotels or whatever and I made my own way. One about seven trains to get there and I felt so unwell. I ended up doing the gig at the Convoy Cabaret.
[00:21:26] But I've watched some videos back and I sound terrible, I look terrible.
[00:21:32] Ended up fighting with a fan during my set.
[00:21:36] We made up. It was cool. It wasn't my fault.
[00:21:39] Maybe talk about that another time. But that's the only thing that's ever happened by the way. Just it was a one off.
[00:21:47] And yeah, you know, you can get, you get summer sometimes, but it just rains every single weekend and you're just constantly soaking and cold and tired and it's exhausting, but you just push through because it's fun.
[00:22:01] I love, I love a nice sunny day where a pint of thistles. I don't even drink cider, but just the first one of a sunny day out of thistles and watch a band magic. I love watching finding new music that I've never seen before. I love famous bands that have that. I love singing along to that. I love when it gets dark and the lights come on and there's dance music and drumming bass and I love the campfires later on where you just bump into random strangers and friends and you jam by the campfire and the sun comes up and it's amazing. I love it. I love festival season so I can't say it ruined my life. It made my life, enhanced my life. I've enjoyed every single minute. Not every single minute but in general it's been a positive thing.
[00:22:57] The amount of amazing people to perform on these stages when everybody's having the time of their life is an amazing feeling.
[00:23:08] Sorry for saying the word amazing so much. I need to get new power and then the organizational. So like I used to organize the Loch Lomond Boat Party Festival. I used to run a stage at audio ship called the Bimbap Ship Role stage.
[00:23:26] Used to run a festival called Jock and Doris and there was Wee Soar Fest and there's been loads of things that it just consumes your entire life. There is never a.
[00:23:36] You've got to travel and run a festival or perform a festival for about four days and then you're back trying to fit in seven days of reality. It squashed that in three days and it's just. It's exhausting. I just thought I'd try something new this year and not do anything.
[00:23:56] Maybe I'll do one quite fancy Eden Festival this year cuz Eden festival are shown in Scotland gave it two in the morning and I like the idea of all the the festival people and their festival glad rags doing their festival things.
[00:24:11] At 2am the Scotland game starts. That sounds unique, iconic even.
[00:24:19] So I might go Eden.
[00:24:21] I've got to pick one that I'm going to go to.
[00:24:24] I've missed Noki because that started maybe Eden. Great lineup. You've got Charlie tuner from Jurassic 5, you've got she Drew the Gun Kona Mustard Bomb Scare. It's a cracking lineup and there's loads of yeah, I think I'm going to do Eden or Kelbourne. Kelbourne Garden party is probably the the most beautiful setting for any festival. You've got the graffiti castle, you've got the. The long walks, you've got the beach plateau, you've got these big hills, nice walks by the lochs and secret stages. It just Looks beautiful and at nighttime and the beautiful view of the.
[00:25:07] The sea next to largs.
[00:25:10] So I'd maybe do that one.
[00:25:13] I used to run a stage at Kilburn, a pyramid stage for about nine years. It's a skinny now. It's a skinny now that took over and they seem to be doing a good job with it.
[00:25:24] So Kilburn or Eden or Back Dun the Rabbit Hole, which is probably the biggest maybe without going into it back then. The Rebels under new ownership based are on a stage there and my band played a quite a big. We played loads of times there as well.
[00:25:46] So I feel like they'd maybe be quite good to go back there. I've still got a bit of PTSD from the last time.
[00:25:53] I did go back last year, but only for a couple hours because I had a broken foot.
[00:25:57] So I just went played my set and then watched Doss and Meryl streak and then went Ham. Jenny gave us a lift. But that is a very rare. I had a broken. My foot was actually broken. In general, we were never the type of band that would do that. When we went to a festival, we wanted all the fruits of the festival.
[00:26:19] We wouldn't haggle over money or that. We'd haggle over can we play Friday night so we could turn up fresh, stay sober, play a good set and then enjoy the rest of the weekend.
[00:26:30] And when you're doing that 14 times, 14 times a summer, that's a lot. It's exhausting. Takes it you. But it's so fun. It's so fun. You push through and we come off stage. You just. You're just energized by the soul that exists within music festivals, independent music festivals.
[00:26:53] Everybody just seems happy. Everyone's colorful and energized.
[00:26:58] It's no like. It's not like a Tommy Robinson rally. The right wing has nature. This is different. It feels good, you feel love.
[00:27:07] And that energizes you no matter how tired you are.
[00:27:10] So I'd maybe go back to back then because back then I feel like there's some demons to exercise by going back there. The lineup is incredible and it seems like the new owners have totally revitalized the. The beautiful Kudross estate.
[00:27:25] So it's either that or Linda's Farm Festival. I love that because that's over 18s. They don't even pretend to be family friendly. They just get right on with the banging tunes.
[00:27:37] And it's. It's just over the border. It's Newcastle meets Scottish people. Geordies and Scots together.
[00:27:44] And they've always got some big names and they've got some Don does a great job in the Dingle Dell tent and stuff as well. And Ru and that.
[00:27:54] So Lindisfans is also in the picture. I've not really thought about.
[00:27:59] I'm just thinking it loud. They're the four that are sticking it to me is because I've already missed Noki. So Nokia would be there, but I was worried I'd go to Nokia and then I would just go another festival and it would just spiral and I just end up going to all the festivals.
[00:28:14] And if I'm going to do that, I might as well just brought a band with me and get paid for it.
[00:28:18] So coming up is Eden, Kelburn, Backdoon and Lindisfarne.
[00:28:27] Lindisfarne, though, is clashing with spiritual. As you can see if you listen to this no ideal podcast. I've just stood up and showed my spiritualized T shirt off.
[00:28:35] Spiritualized and Super Furry Animals are playing Queen's Park. It means city festival the same weekend as Lindisfan.
[00:28:42] So I might, I might rather go to that.
[00:28:47] Less effort.
[00:28:49] I could just go to Winter's Fun and they'll drink. But I'm sick of the traveling.
[00:28:53] I'm sick of the traveling at this moment.
[00:28:56] But we'll see how it goes. We go. But to answer your question, no, I don't think festival season ruined my life. I think festival season enhanced my life, actually.
[00:29:06] And here's a picture of me wearing a bin bag with Mr. Motivator.
[00:29:12] That must be about 14 years ago. I was backstage, the main stage. I've been playing a gig with Signal and I met Mr. Motivator. And I also met Badly Drawn Boy. And then something happened.
[00:29:25] I was going to keep this story for my book, but the books are wee while away yet, so I'm going to tell the story to the patrons.
[00:29:35] So if you, as a thank you for supporting the Patreon, if you want to hear my Mr. Motivator Badly Drawn Boy story, then send, sign up patreon.com forward slash. You call that radio. And also if you're a Patreon, you can just ask me a question and I'll do a video on it. Just say, I dare you, I dare you to do a video on that and I'll do it.
[00:29:59] And I think, I think that's. I think that's it.
[00:30:03] And that was it.
[00:30:05] Maybe festival season was the friends we made along the way.
[00:30:12] Festival season didn't ruin my life.
[00:30:16] Festival season was my life.
[00:30:25] They Say you should never talk about politics, football and religion.
[00:30:34] I talk about them all the time and nothing really happens.
[00:30:38] However, if you talk about Scottish football and Scottish politics, then you definitely lose a few subscribers.
[00:30:47] So.
[00:30:49] But I'm doing it anyway. Why not?
[00:30:52] Because I want to talk about Pure Morrow shopping and I want to talk about Celtic winning the double.
[00:31:00] And I'm going to try and find a thread of thought that links them together for people that don't know. I know, I know not everyone's from Scotland, but I don't know that not everybody gives a shit.
[00:31:16] Peter Murrow was Nicola Sturgson's husband. First former First Minister of Scotland and she had a husband called Peter Murrell who spent an estimated £400,000 of an independence fund.
[00:31:38] And he bought some weird shit like this isn't your typical political scandal.
[00:31:47] No drugs, no prostitutes, nothing like that.
[00:31:50] But he's spent like 2 grand in a salt and pepper grinder.
[00:31:57] He bought the Grand Theft Auto computer game, you know, a pair of goalie gloves. I don't know if he bought goalie gloves, but is that kind of random? Got a camper van as well here. Yeah, he got it, the famous camper van.
[00:32:13] But it just seems like the guy loved a shop.
[00:32:17] He just loved his shopping.
[00:32:19] He took retail therapy to a whole new level.
[00:32:25] Is that the Amazon delivery driver must have just been, must have been at the door every, every couple hours.
[00:32:34] And these now quite rightly in prison awaiting his sentencing, which is good.
[00:32:44] I like the fact that Scotland still jailed the politicians.
[00:32:48] I think America should pay attention to that.
[00:32:52] You know, just, just jail them when they break the law.
[00:32:56] I probably, I mean, I wouldn't imagine it would be too long, but I stuck him in the jail. Stick the politicians in the jail more often if they went to jail. If you made it illegal for them to lie and they went to jail for lying, maybe, maybe hangs could get better. All of them. All of them.
[00:33:16] And now the other controversy is that did Nicola Sturgeon know that he was buying all this stuff?
[00:33:24] She's been pictured where a thousand pound pen that he bought a fancy bag they also bought.
[00:33:35] Somebody commented, my wife knows what I had for breakfast tomorrow and we've been divorced for 17 years.
[00:33:44] So that's the kind of comments you're getting.
[00:33:48] And I don't really have a strong opinion on it, to be honest. I think that it's possible she knew and it's also possible she didn't.
[00:33:59] £400,000 is a lot of money, but it was over 12 years.
[00:34:07] They're both Wealthy people, they're both minted with high, high powered jobs and big, big, big annual salaries.
[00:34:22] And also politicians at that level, they don't really pay for anything, you know, I mean it's not like everything's on the expenses.
[00:34:31] I would imagine when they go to a restaurant beyond the house, I mean it's not quite the Queen's level. I mean it's not like the Royal family. I don't imagine the Queen ever carried a possibute there to pay for dinner.
[00:34:46] So I, I think it's possible she did know and I think it's possible she didn't know.
[00:34:54] And anybody who's sure of either of those things or acts sure of either of those things is just basing that off of gut feelings and gut feelings are allowed.
[00:35:10] So you, you can bar on me or gut feeling.
[00:35:15] I've heard a few theories that the timing was deliberate because it was on the day or the day before that the Scottish Parliament voted for another independence referendum.
[00:35:34] And I don't know, I don't know if that's the case because surely if you wanted to damage independence you would have timed that to happen before the election, do you know what I mean? Because of the Scottish councils have voted. I think it's the most pro independence, the most, the biggest amount of pro independence mps in history.
[00:36:03] So I think if they wanted to time it for that, they would have did it.
[00:36:08] Oh, so it doesn't make me not want independence.
[00:36:15] I don't care. It doesn't affect independence.
[00:36:18] It makes me trust the SNP less but I didn't really have a lot of trust in them.
[00:36:24] I don't have a lot of trust in any political party.
[00:36:27] I think power corrupts and voting the way your pals tell you to vote is never going to end. Well, there's not really any independent thought in being in a political party.
[00:36:41] So I am still pro independence.
[00:36:45] Even more so if we jail our politicians, can you imagine England jail and Boris Johnson?
[00:36:53] Him and the entire Conservative Party should all be in jail for everything that happened over lockdown.
[00:36:59] And your MICHELLE MOANS and oh they people they got billions and billions of pounds in contracts to to sell dodgy PPE that didn't even work.
[00:37:12] Why are they not in jail?
[00:37:14] So it doesn't affect still up for independence a hundred percent.
[00:37:22] What I'm not really up for is spending £5 million and investigating this.
[00:37:27] But I think that was to try and catch it Nicola Sturgeon and they didn't find anything.
[00:37:32] So I think that she will get off scot free.
[00:37:38] Possibly because she didn't do anything wrong.
[00:37:41] You know, if your wealthy husband buys you a bag, I don't think that's. I don't think that's a smoking gun. People are making it to be.
[00:37:49] She could have been involved. She could have been involved. There's no doubt.
[00:37:53] I don't know. You don't know.
[00:37:56] But in the balance of probability, I can just hear saying, oh, they're new salt and pepper shakers. How much did they cost?
[00:38:08] And Peter Murrows, look, a tenor in Amazon.
[00:38:15] I don't know.
[00:38:16] I think it's more likely that then I'm going, I spent two grand on assault and pepper shakers and I stole it from the Independence Fund. And the custodians, like, yes, buys a bag, buys a bookcase. That money, I don't know, I don't know, but I don't know. Who knows, who knows, who knows?
[00:38:45] The corruption of politics knows no end.
[00:38:48] You can't trust these people in general.
[00:38:52] But can you trust Scottish football referees?
[00:38:57] I don't think you can trust them either.
[00:39:00] For people that don't know, Celtic won on the last day of the season, the last kick of the ball and there was a pitch invasion.
[00:39:12] And can you trust Scottish media to report fairly on it? No. No, you can't. You can't. You can't do that. I think the refereeing decisions all season have been diabolical.
[00:39:24] You win some, you lose some.
[00:39:26] A couple of decisions went in Celtics favour, no doubt, but the actual uproar has been sour grapes from both hearts and Rangers and neutrals.
[00:39:43] They've been doing in England or the commentators done in England that I've never watched Scottish football. They've all got big opinions on it as well and they're trying to attain the title, but they can't taint it.
[00:39:57] It's been a fairy tale return from Martin o'. Neill. It's actually been quite emotional, actually.
[00:40:02] It's kind of reminded me, you know, my father passed away and seeing Martin o' Neill coming back, my dad would have loved that. You know, it's been quite an emotional year.
[00:40:12] You know, Martin Neal came back after Brendan Rodgers left.
[00:40:17] He settled Team Dune and then he left after a month and we brought in Wilfred Nancy. I said we. I've just given it away.
[00:40:26] There's a few unsubscribers again, but Wilfred Nancy was the worst Celtic manager statistically in history of all time.
[00:40:36] He was sacked after a month or so and he came back about 11 points behind and just went on a run of playing Absolutely terrible football, begetting those late goals and grinding results.
[00:40:51] And I think he should just retire in the sunset, build a statue.
[00:41:00] I think it's just a. A fitting ending to a remarkable man's career.
[00:41:07] I don't know, it's been a breath of fresh air seeing him back. The way that he deals with the Scottish media is incredible.
[00:41:15] And on the subject of Scottish media, they have been winding up Hulse fans and Rangers fans by saying they may get their points deducted and they're not letting go of the fact that Celtic have won the league.
[00:41:30] But in general, I did know a guy who was a paparazzi for the deal record and I remember saying to him, you know, is there a bias against Celtic?
[00:41:42] And he was like, well, all the Rangers fans think there's a bias against them and all the Celtic fans think there's a bias against them. So in general, I don't think they're deliberately being biased because then they would lose half their readers.
[00:42:01] And I don't know. I think each journalist has got their own agenda. There'll be definitely journalists who are. Who are anti Celtic or even anti Catholic, there's no doubt about that.
[00:42:12] But I think we live in an age of clickbait.
[00:42:16] So it's all about sensational headlines that make people click the link so that they can sell adverts. And that's just media now. That is all media is.
[00:42:26] And I suspect that half the journalists in general are just chatgpt stuff now.
[00:42:34] So, yeah, the media landscape is on life support right now and the referees need their ass kicked.
[00:42:49] And I don't believe, like a lot of Hearts Major fans are saying that there's a conspiracy for Celtic to win.
[00:42:59] Harts lost.
[00:43:01] They won five points, the last 21 points possible. So they didn't. They got beat.
[00:43:08] And it's not refereeing decisions over the course of the year that caused that.
[00:43:13] But I understand how absolutely devastated Hearts fans will be and how devastated Rangers fans will be.
[00:43:22] But remember the way that the. The newspapers followed Russell Martin a bit after he'd left, taking pictures, him wheezed half in the water.
[00:43:33] That was weird.
[00:43:35] I think paparazzi and journalists are weirdos in general and they're just wanting people to argue in the comments, so try not to take any notice of them. I would say anyway, that that is the views from the CEO and you call that radio on Scottish politics and Scottish football. Feel free to disagree in the comments, you know. Yeah, I like a wee argument in the comments too.
[00:44:00] So that is. That is the life we live now. It helps engagement.
[00:44:06] So. But yeah, I probably lost a few subscribers for admitting certain things there.
[00:44:13] I know it's quite volatile out there. It's the Wild west in Scottish politics and Scottish football, but I think it's okay to comment on it. I think I can talk about politics, football and religion if I want.
[00:44:28] And if you don't like it, fuck off the win with you. Bye.
[00:44:42] Can working class musicians even exist?
[00:44:48] Will they even exist in a year?
[00:44:53] I know that things are going to get much worse before they get better, I can tell you that.
[00:45:00] You know, it's bad when the biggest YouTubers, the successful ones, are pointing this. I mean, obviously we've been talking about this and you call out radio for years, but you get Ricky Beetle did a video about how the music industry is full of rich kids.
[00:45:19] And the sentiment that he correctly stated has been echoed by the likes of Anthony Fantano and Justin Hawkins Rides Again and many more. And it's good to see that the conversation is getting mainstream. It's tragic that we need to have these conversations, but the current state of the music industry is in disarray. So what we're going to do is going to moan a little bit about all the bad things that are happening and then we'll end up with some positives about what can be done to fix it all. This is views from the CEO on. You call that radio like and subscribe.
[00:46:07] First of all, why should you care?
[00:46:12] Why should you care?
[00:46:14] Because good music comes from a struggle.
[00:46:19] The best music comes from people who have had to struggle through life.
[00:46:26] Now there is a.
[00:46:29] I'm not saying Nepal babies don't have to struggle, but if you're born with famous parents who are already successful in the music industry, that's not in your 16, 17. You've not got relevant tales of struggle that people can enjoy.
[00:46:54] I want music to be angry, unique, be have some sort of storytelling to it.
[00:47:08] I am not going to enjoy the lyrics of A Millionaire's Win.
[00:47:16] I'm no.
[00:47:18] And also I'm not that old that I can enjoy going to a stadium to watch an already famous, already famous band's 50th comeback tour either. I don't want either of those options now. There's also a place for these people.
[00:47:38] Absolutely.
[00:47:40] You shouldn't not. You should be excluded from the arts because you were born accidentally born into wealth.
[00:47:52] But there needs to be a mixture of different people from different backgrounds saying different things.
[00:48:03] Otherwise the future is bland.
[00:48:07] The future is going to be bland as fuck.
[00:48:12] Now why is this becoming a big problem now.
[00:48:18] Basically the politicians that run. I hate to bring politics into this, you know, people, oh, it's a music podcast. Why are you bringing politics in it?
[00:48:26] If politics was to stay out of music, then the music podcast can stay out of politics.
[00:48:33] But there is a major cost of living crisis.
[00:48:37] Ricky hitting a good point. Where it was, you could work in a bar, pay your rent and still have money to do your music.
[00:48:48] Nowadays you need two jobs just to pay rent, just to keep your head above water.
[00:48:55] There's no time.
[00:48:57] Time is a luxury.
[00:49:00] How are you going to if you've not got any savings, if you've not got any money, how are you going to afford that guitar?
[00:49:07] How are you going to afford to study?
[00:49:10] How are you going to learn your instruments? How are you going to play gigs and learn the art of stagecraft, performing, songwriting?
[00:49:23] It doesn't matter for Nepal babies because they have a team of songwriters, the best producers, the best PR gurus working for them.
[00:49:36] This is a big problem.
[00:49:39] Another problem is that the kind of people who support the underground music scene tend to be working middle class people who like to go out for a pint and enjoy the local music scene.
[00:49:56] They people don't have enough money to go as much as they used to.
[00:50:01] Younger people don't seem to be going it at all as much.
[00:50:09] So there's a, we have a situation here where there's at this current, we just leave things as they are and just destroy the music industry forever.
[00:50:21] Just let the grassroots scene burn.
[00:50:26] All your favorite bands started in these wee small venues. The good ones, I don't know, you personally might like shit music but all the good music started in these small venues.
[00:50:39] These venues can't afford to stay afloat. Not the independent ones. All your big franchises owned by mobile phone companies and Ticketmaster and big giant breweries, they'll be okay.
[00:50:56] But independent venues, they can't afford to keep the lights on and pay the bill. So what they have to do is they haven't put the price of pints up because of the rates to hire these places, the expense of gas and electricity because politicians keep going to war in the Middle east and energy suppliers like to make money.
[00:51:24] The cost always goes up. I never cost never goes down. I don't know if you've noticed that, but the cost never goes down for anything.
[00:51:32] Working class musicians especially are being attacked from so many angles. The ways to make money as a musician was selling music.
[00:51:43] People don't buy music anymore.
[00:51:46] They don't really buy music anymore because it's all in a handy app called Spotify for a tenor a month.
[00:51:53] And they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't like paying the artists, not the smaller ones.
[00:51:59] You used to make money on touring, now you can't really do that anymore because the cost of petrol is through the roof. The price of hotels is through the fucking roof. Because the price of everything goes up, but people's wages never do.
[00:52:17] The price of tickets can't go up because people are scared. So you gotta keep your tickets around about a fiver or a tenner max, if you're just establishing yourself.
[00:52:29] The other way is record labels.
[00:52:36] Record labels don't exist anymore.
[00:52:38] The major ones do. And what they like to do is just sell about 50 versions of a Taylor Swift album or maybe bring out a brand new version of an Elvis Presley album which is just the same, it's just got a different cover because I'm not taking risks anymore.
[00:53:00] They're just wanting to print money with people who are already successful or famous or on a new pop star who's got millions of pounds and family with connections already behind them.
[00:53:16] So you're not going to get Saint and even if you did, they would bump you anyway.
[00:53:22] So what does that leave you with?
[00:53:24] 2 more options.
[00:53:26] Funding.
[00:53:28] Funding.
[00:53:31] Working class people aren't taught about funding.
[00:53:36] Most working class musicians either. A, don't think funding is available.
[00:53:39] B, don't know how to do it.
[00:53:42] And see, I mean, I've never had any funding.
[00:53:46] You didn't fill out a form for a start. That's filling out forms.
[00:53:53] And if you do fill out the form and you're fine with that, and you're able to do that without any training, you don't know the language that the funders speak.
[00:54:03] So the chances of you getting the funding, next to nothing.
[00:54:07] Because every year the pot gets smaller.
[00:54:11] And the more that the DIY scene gets squeezed out, the more people are applying for it. So more people are applying, there's less money. So who does the money go to? It goes to safe pairs of hands, people that have had funding before.
[00:54:29] People, some of them are actually quite friendly with the people who decide who gets the funding.
[00:54:36] Not great.
[00:54:38] It's not great.
[00:54:40] The, the chances of you getting funding are not good.
[00:54:46] So that leaves you with the, the fifth option.
[00:54:49] Be rich, be born rich, have rich parents.
[00:54:59] Or you could sell merch.
[00:55:02] How are you going to pay for the merch?
[00:55:05] Get another job, get a third job, get a real job, get a part time job and then get an Extra job so that you can buy merch, buy a bunch of T shirts, buy a bunch of CD and vinyl that people probably won't buy.
[00:55:23] So what you gonna do? How and how do you let your, how do you let people know this is available?
[00:55:29] Advertising, pay for advertising. So musicians, it's quite simple. What you want to do is get a couple of jobs to afford you the luxury of learning how to play your instruments and learn how to perform on stage for free.
[00:55:47] And then what you want to do is get another job so that you can buy all the equipment you need.
[00:55:57] Buy T shirts and CD and vinyl that people may not even want.
[00:56:02] And then you want to pay for a radio plugger, you want to pay for a PR guy, you want to pay for a tour booker, you want to pay for a marketing expert who will get you through the algorithm. Maybe.
[00:56:25] We're, we're is going to be AI people.
[00:56:33] You seen Tommy Robinson rally last week they had an, an AI guy, an AI cartoon.
[00:56:44] And now it turns out that Spotify is actually doing a deal with the major record labels so that they can actually, people can make AI remixes of famous songs. That's all we're gonna see.
[00:56:57] The death of culture is going to be very poorly animated AI remixes of rubbish.
[00:57:06] But it's cool. I've got a couple ideas, a couple ideas that we can make things better.
[00:57:13] I think first of all, let's start with not making things more difficult.
[00:57:19] So right now you've just got, like I said, there's, you're gonna attack for lots of angles.
[00:57:23] Things like Radio Scotland has sort of brought in these commercial radio people.
[00:57:31] So you're getting less Scottish bands played in the radio, less grassroots artists played in the radio. Let's stop trying to make license payers money into commercial radio.
[00:57:43] Either that or just stop the license fee completely because it's not working, not working at all. But I'm going to end it with some positivity. I've got some ideas, I've got some ideas. Rather than just moaning. I'd like to hear your ideas in the comments if anyone else has got good ideas. But I think a good way to start would be the universal basic income. There's been some trials in Ireland and apparently it's bringing a lot of money into the economy, the local economy. I think they trialed it with 2000 artists and it seems to be going well.
[00:58:16] I think everyone's got to remember that the UK is a miserable place to live. Always has been, maybe getting worse, but it's always been miserable.
[00:58:25] Let's not look at it through rose tinted spectacles here. It's a miserable place with the weather and everything.
[00:58:30] Usually the weather, usually the Tories.
[00:58:33] So. But what's good about that is that you usually get good art out of that. So if we don't have art then there's, there's no reason, there's no reason to live here or visit here.
[00:58:44] So let's get the universal basic income on the go for artists so that we can actually have people from poverty making good music.
[00:58:55] So I think that's a good start.
[00:58:57] What else can we do?
[00:58:59] Okay, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just freestyling here, right. But I got a couple ideas down ban stadium gigs for comeback tours if you, unless you've. You haven't played for 10 years.
[00:59:14] Because I do worry that all these big stadium gigs that are charging a grand a ticket are stopping people supporting the local venues and the local scenes.
[00:59:26] So I mean, that seems a bit harsh. Maybe. I'm just throwing some ideas out here.
[00:59:34] Two, if you're a venue that platforms an artist that place to less than 50 people, who then goes on to sell out a capacity, say the size of the bar seal over 2,000 people, then that small venue gets free gas and electricity for a full year, terms and conditions apply. But why not? Would that not encourage small venues to platform emerging artists?
[01:00:06] And here's another one, zero council tax for people that pay to go to over 32 live gigs per year.
[01:00:16] So I mean don't know if everyone would make 32 gigs in a year.
[01:00:21] But I think a lot of people would definitely try to avoid paying council tax because not only is this a cultural disaster what's going on just now, but this is an economical time, an economical disaster we're sitting on here.
[01:00:38] The amount of money and tourism that live music generates is just about to get thrown away.
[01:00:46] So if somebody's willing to go to 32 live gigs per year, they're using public transport or they're paying petrol or they're buying from the local takeaway on the way home, they're buying drinks while they're there, they're maybe out for a meal earlier on in the day. All these things, that's lots of different taxes. You're going to get it back. So somebody goes to 32 live gigs per year, no council tax for them.
[01:01:12] I think that's fair.
[01:01:16] And, and that, that was just a couple ideas. I had a couple ideas, but I think universal basic income's got to be the main one.
[01:01:24] And let's just start having these conversations. Feel free to join in in the comments. Let's figure out how to fix this before it's unfixable.
[01:01:33] Save the scene. Vote. You call that radio by hitting that subscribe button. Bye.
[01:01:38] This is Fuse from the CEO and you call that radio like and subscribe.
[01:01:47] You call that radio is sponsored by Mekon and the reason there's absolutely zero adverts or sponsorship is thanks to the generosity of our patrons at patreon.com/forward/ you call that radio. If you've enjoyed today's show, then please consider joining the gang over there.
[01:02:08] I hope that you enjoy the rest of the sunshine and I hope to see you soon. Bye.
