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Live Review: ‘Loz Bridge and the Box Social’ supporting ‘The Boy Least Likely To’

Another fulfilling night at The Joiners in Southampton where we discovered some happy pop mixed with social blues and jazz.

A thin crowd were throughly entertained by the first act of the evening, Loz Bridge and the Box Social. Although sometimes it’s a bit disconcerting when the band sit and the audience stand but that's the case when it's their acoustic line-up.

Featuring Loz on piano, Andrew Foster on guitar/banjo and Matt E sitting on a cajon - a Cuban/spanish box drum which you play with your hands.

It’s a remarkable instrument which adds enough bass to the mix so that you are not too disappointed about the missing double bass player.

Also missing were my table and chair, glass of wine and a smoky atmosphere which would have really suited the mood as Loz and the band mix blues and jazz with a touch of modern day reality.

They had everyone’s attention with the haunting ‘Sarah & the Wolves’ a song about unfair dismissal and a subject rarely covered by bands like Coldplay, or even Radiohead.

And then you have ‘Witches’ which has the catchy “I hate my job” chorus and is no doubt the anthem for most musicians unable to make a living from their art.

My only complaint is that Matt E had to “sit out” the song ‘November’. I’m sure he could find something percussive to gently waft while Andrew Foster uses his effects peddles to wrap sonic landscapes around the crooning Loz Bridge.

Maybe he could just read a book. Something dark to suit the mood; Edgar Allan Poe is a suggestion.

Due to conversations with the above and others I missed all but the last song of the second act "The School" so can't really pass comment apart from my usual "more effort in the stage gear required".

The night's headliners were ‘The Boy Least Likely To’ who I was ashamedly unaware of but they were such a fun act they won me over very quickly with their infectious, good time stomp and harmonies which seemed to spark up the pleasantly full room.

Formed around the duo of Pete Hobbs (instruments) and Jof Owen (singer) this seven piece smiled their way through a set of merriment that quietly hides a dark and sinister side.

“A lot of our lyrics are sad anyway,” Jof told me, “that’s kind of our trick to undercut the upbeat stuff.”

They describe their music as ‘Country Disco’ which does it justice but there is also a pure and natural Englishness about their sound which might be why they are loved in America and little known in the UK.

According to Jof: “America seems to understand us a little bit better. They seem to get the tongue in cheek, they get that we are not entirely serious and the sounds that we use are because we think they are quite funny.”

It’s the kind of aural flavour that gets XTC such great respect but enough awareness among the general public and it fills their second album “the law of the playground” which has taken two years to release thanks to legal wranglings with their former record company.

In fact in the past two years ‘The Boy Least Likely To’ couldn’t have record any new tracks as their old company would have owned those as well. It is a valuable lesson to anyone who still wants to get signed to a record label and maybe the resolution of these problems brings out the big smiles on stage.

From the new album the best example of their dark side is the song “I box up all the butterflies” which says enough really. The lyrics are wrapped up in the shades of summer that only an English band can create while hiding the definitely un-politically correct content within.

They are definitely a band for the economic crisis as plenty of people need uplifting and even if the feeling only lingers then at least music, in this case, has done its job.

CD Review: Loz Bridge and the Box Social

The debut EP “Witches” from Loz Bridge and the Box Social kicks off with the stomping sing-a-long title track whose memorable and resonating chorus has the immortal line: “I hate! I hate! I hate my job!”

Loz Bridge's song is the natuarl anthem for the frustrated musician who needs a day job to survive and has to suffer the pain of the 9 to 5.

The former Suburbian singer wrote it from the heart and office chair and it is naturally an audience favourite although in this time of financial crisis I am sure many people will be singing along while hoping that the boss doesn't hear their true feelings.

The second song on the EP is the set opener China on which Andrew Foster on banjo and Matt E on drums drive it along with a true head nodding vibe.

Its a perfect EP to re-create the live experience and any new fan will be delighted with the purchase.

But for me this collection wins with the two songs that some people seem to causally pass by. Both “November” and “Sarah and the Wolves” are classic songs that ooze a blues/jazz feel yet hold a commercial edge.

They are also a place where Loz's piano and Andy Booth's double bass can add their charms.

Maybe its the age I've reached that sees me leaning towards these tracks but there aren't many people writing with this kind of feel and, if I had a record company, I would be pleading with Loz to deliver an album full of these songs.

However it is unlikely I could persuade him as the forcing of songs into straight jackets is something he did with Suburbian and now he says: “I made a contentious choice not to go in that direction. I'm keen to go in whatever direction is appropriate for the song. Either people like it or they don't.”

Either way you'll love this EP and, if you do hate your job, you'll have something to hum as the boss walks past.

Here's what they look like in the flesh...

I Spy A Super Villain

Oh Hollywood come hither! I bring you a script suitable for Bond or Bourne because there has to be a super villain out there toying with our security services, proving the extent of his or her evil abilities, because recently...

Two satellites have collided in space (first time ever) and also a pair of nuclear submarines have 'touched' mid-Atlantic (equally rare).

No doubt these two incidents have been demonstrations of a dastardly device created by an 'evil one' (possibly Dr Collido) just to prove how she, or he, can control our best machinery and make it look, well, stupid.

So if Big Ben strikes twice at one o'clock then no doubt our leaders will have given in the demands of the deranged Dr Collido.

And if, dear Hollywood, this scenario is too simplistic for our cinema goers, why not add a twist of science fiction with meteors flying over Sweden and Texas as seen below.

We could call the film: "Dr Collido's Moon Threat"

Sweden



Texas

Miracle Star seen around world

The first pictures of the ‘miracle star’ have been published on Share International’s web site and there have also been some videos surfacing in various forums around the internet.

This picture was originally printed by Norwegian newspaper Harstad Tidende and the others from places like Miami. Costa Rica and Pakistan.

The pictures show a bright object in the sky which some say “looks as big as a tennis ball in comparison with adjacent stars.” You can seen the full set here

The background to this story is fascinating as well as deep but if you are new to this story then here is a brief summary:

Share International’s editor Benjamin Creme says we are about to see the Emergence of Maitreya, a World Teacher, who can guide us to a much better future than the one we are on course for.

Although Creme has been preparing the way for the past thirty years there hasn’t been a right moment for Maitreya to appear.

However thanks to the global financial crisis, and its serious implications to everyone on the planet, now is the time.

And to mark the start of Maitreya’s Emergence it was announced by Share International at the end of 2008 that:

“In the very near future a large, bright star will appear in the sky visible to all throughout the world – night and day.”

Well they couldn’t have picked a better or worse time.

The good news is that 2009 is the Year of Astronomy, marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first peak through a telescope, so no doubt many eyes will be looking up at the celestial wonders above us.

However the bad news is that Venus is resplendent at the moment and, to be honest, it has fooled me on a number of occasions. (I have found the Neave Planetarium invaluable if I am unsure as to what star or planet is putting on a display).

This planet has also sparked wild debate on the Internet and where you find someone discussing a strange star in the sky you’ll also find someone pointing to Venus.
When I last looked the thread “STRANGE VERY BRIGHT STAR LIKE THING” at www.godlikeproductions.com it had run to almost 70 pages of discussion, insult and argument.

However in that forum this video was posted (you’ll find more here)

The next event to look out for is Maitreya’s first interview which will be on American television. In the Jan/Feb edition of Share international, Benjamin Creme’s Master writes:

“On that open, public occasion, still unannounced as Maitreya, the World Teacher will present His views on the economic and financial chaos which now grips the world. He will explain its origins and final outcome, and present, to some extent, His recipe for amelioration of the present heavy burden on the poor of the world. Thus He will prepare the way for a more detailed and specific announcement of His ideas.

How will viewers respond? They will not know His background or status. Will they listen to and consider His words? It is too soon to know exactly but the following may be said: Never before will they have seen or heard Maitreya speak. Nor, while listening, will they have experienced His unique energy, heart to heart. Also, this is a unique time in history with whole nations stunned and apprehensive for the future. Therefore it can be assumed that many who hear His words will be open and eager to hear more.”

Exciting times! You can read more here:
http://www.shareintl.org/magazine/old_issues/2009/2009-01.htm

File sharing works “Wonders” for unsigned duo.

Last year the unsigned UK pop duo Georgia Wonder tasted minor but traditional success through supporting Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall on his first solo tour.

This year an unconventional approach has seen their debut EP “Hello Stranger” downloaded over 30,000 times in four days by users of Frostwire, one of the file sharing programmes the music industry would prefer to shut down rather than harness.

For Georgia Wonder’s vocalist, Stephanie Grant, the opportunity was irresistible:

“What Frostwire helped us achieve is incredible. Their support has put our music into the hands of tens of thousands of potential fans in a matter of days.”

And all Frostwire did was add a link to the duo’s songs on the programme’s welcome page, their spokesperson Kademlia explained (via email) that Georgia Wonder was an act they believed in:

“When we first heard Georgia Wonder's EP, we couldn't stop humming 'The Girl You Never Knew' (see below). We knew there is something unique about them, because this doesn't really happen within our team. Another interesting thing was that we immediately felt the need to share the word about them.”

Even though this altruistic attitude has given a massive boost to Georgia Wonder’s listener base, Frostwire’s software is also helping a vast amount of people share music that should have been purchased.

When you read the latest statistics you can’t blame record companies from gnashing their teeth over the huge sums of money they are potentially losing.

Figures recently published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) showed that forty billion files were illegally shared in 2008.

As these statistics are based on results from only 16 countries the extent of their problem is potentially much bigger.

Sharing this many files has been made very easy thanks to the “BitTorrent protocol” which allows a computer programme to download a file from many sources instead of the traditional one point of contact.

For example: if you were using the BitTorrent protocol to buy a book in the physical world, individual pages would be sent to you by hundreds of people instead of the whole book delivered from just one shop.

This type of data transfer is known as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) with the “peers” being thousands of domestic computers running programmes like Frostwire.

If you visit the charts hosted at “The Pirate Bay” you’ll see what is currently popular in the BitTorrent universe.

Heading music’s Top 100 is Pink Floyd’s full discography – all 27 albums wrapped up in a file that is just under 4 gigabytes in size.

Also in the charts are established groups such as U2, Metallica, Coldplay and The Beatles as well as a host of present day artists.

Unbelievably, unsigned Georgia Wonder are rubbing shoulders with these giants and, during the period their EP was available on Frostwire, they broke into the Top 20 – which is a remarkable achievement.

It would take many months for Georgia Wonder to reach a similar number of listeners using networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, ReverbNation and Facebook but at least with those places a firm relationship can be developed with the visitor.

However, as Frostwire only promote music they believe to be a worthy listen, they themselves will form a relationship with their users and that level of trust will mean many more digital artists knocking at Frostwire’s door.

As Kademlia points out: “Music just seems to be the natural thing to share and young and up-and-coming musicians seem to be first to understand and utilize the advantages of peer-to-peer distribution. After all, today's new artists are the pioneers of the future music industry, one which will not be controlled by a hand full of record labels.”

With this type of success it won’t be long before the music industry embraces P2P trading and, with yearly downloads of 40 million; even fifty percent of that traffic would be a tidy sum.

For Kademlia the future is obvious: “P2P has been proven to be an effective media distribution technology. It's been embraced by millions organically. Hopefully, the music industry will evolve and figure out way to use it, instead of fighting it.”

Goodbye to Dark Age 2

The inauguration of Barack Obama sees the world start a new and more positive chapter in its life.

For the past 100 years the planet has experienced its second Dark Age: two world wars, a cold war, the incredible rise of materialism and the ensuing deterioration of our environment.

It seems that humanity has been wandering around with an executioners sack on its head, waiting for the chop. Since the arrival of Barack Obama, people are beginning to feel the sun on their face and the light in their eyes.

His arrival also sees the beginning of the retreat of the people who have been holding the world back.

George W Bush will be remembered for his financing of the fight against Aids in Africa but had he approached Afghanistan, Iraq, Wall Street and the environment with the same conviction we might be looking back fondly on his eight years in power.

However for many his tenure will be seen as the cold part of the night just before dawn.

The new President will still face opposition to his message of hope in the Parliaments and Presidential palaces where the idea of change conflicts with the desire for power.

Within those walls there is a belief that the current system will survive the financial meltdown and that eventually Obama will be drawn into the fold; in a similar way Tony Blair succumbed in the UK.

Blair was also elected on a wave of optimism and hope but it wasn’t long before he was enthralled by the financial world and men of money who seemed to be saying: “If you make change it will be bad for the economy!”

The financial crisis has drawn the rug from under that argument and no matter how many billions are pumped into the system it seems that nothing can stop the collapse.

On one hand Barack Obama brings hope and great expectance and but also the knowledge that we have many miles to travel before we can relax in a rebuilt world.

It was written somewhere that wisdom is intelligence with love, in Barack Obama that love of the people shines through and will hopefully saturate us all.

How To Stop a Miracle

As we slowly roll into the middle of January the “Christmas Miracle” that Benjamin Crème predicted seems reluctant to appear.

If you are new to this story some background links are available at the end but, in summary, December’s issue of Share International and a subsequent press release announced a Christmas Miracle was expected:

“In the very near future a large, bright star will appear in the sky visible to all throughout the world – night and day.”

This “Miracle” would signal the beginning of the open Emergence of Maitreya, a person who will guide humanity to a golden future. Soon after the star’s appearance Maitreya, under a different name, would be interviewed on American television and start delivering His message of hope and change.

According to Benjamin Crème, editor of Share International, Maitreya is the One awaited by all religions who’s Emergence has been ongoing since His arrival in London in July 1977. It’s potentially a massive news story.

People who naturally deride this whole story see this new star’s non-appearance as yet more proof that Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom do not exist as well as proof that Benjamin Creme has been deluding many people for many years.

However if Maitreya is of the stature that Crème suggests, someone who seems to be saving humanity from humanity, then no doubt any “opposing forces” would try to stop, or at least delay Him. They have been blamed before.

In 1987 twenty-two journalists gathered in Brick Lane, in the East End of London, to hopefully meet Maitreya or one of His envoys.

Crème has always stated that Maitreya needs the media to invite Him forward because He cannot infringe humanity’s free will. Which is why Maitreya is unable to launch Himself unannounced on an unsuspecting public during the final of major sporting event.

Maitreya sees the media as the true representatives of the people, so instead of “take me to your leader” it’s more like: “put me in your leader”.

So this group of expectant reporters met in a curry house at 8pm on 31st July hoping to start the ball rolling. Unfortunately for everybody concerned nothing happened; at least in that room.

An explanation from Benjamin Crème’s Master was printed in Share International (September 1985) and might well give some insight as to why the “Christmas Miracle” has yet to be seen.

“The advent of a Being of the stature of the Christ is an event of planetary and even cosmic importance and is governed by certain laws. Inevitably it also inspires the opposition of those materialistic forces, seen and unseen, planetary and cosmic, who stand to lose the power which has kept humanity in thrall for untold ages.

On that day, beginning about 12 noon, an initiative was launched by these forces which took the total attention of Maitreya and His Brotherhood of Light to contain. This was not achieved until about 3 am.

The unanimous advice of the Masters was to postpone the contact. This decision was finally made about 9 pm. It was decided that the reception through the news media channels would not be of the best, evoking more disbelief, opposition and fear than was desirable.”

As we have no idea what was happening in the unseen areas of our planet we have to look elsewhere and a search of the Internet reveals two “seen” events which could have a bearing on the above explanation.

In Mecca 400 Iranian pilgrims were killed in clashes with Saudi Arabian security forces and in Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) calls July 31st 1987 Black Friday because of a very strong tornado: “…the weather in Edmonton is reaching biblical proportions: torrential rains, rivers rising and severe hailstorms.”

Deadly Skies: Canada's Most Destructive Tornadoes

Another event that is probably unrelated, but still would have caused extra activity in the media, was the UK’s Attorney General deciding to sue the Sunday Telegraph over the publication of details from Peter Wright's Spycatcher novel.

That aside there are parallels with the previous two events and a couple surrounding the Christmas Miracle that Creme predicted.

The festive time frame for the miracle was only announced in December’s issue of Share International, although it was first mentioned at Crème’s public meeting* in October but then is was expected “soon” and not a specific period.

Since the press release was sent out, two situations have shaken the world: Israel has attacked the Palestinians in Gaza and the Russians have cut off gas supplies to many homes in Europe.

No one is suggesting that the leaders of Russia or Israel are in league with “the other side” but the influences of the forces of materialism were blamed before, so have they sown seeds of discontent and suggestion again?

* Benjamin Crème’s next public meeting is Thursday January 15th 2009 at Friends Meeting House, Euston, London, doors open 18:30. (free)

Background reading:

The Christmas Miracle Press release

Share International magazine

“Ponder on This” A compilation of extracts from the books on Esoteric Philosophy by Alice A. Bailey.

We need more journalists like Mick Brown

It was good see journalist and author Mick Brown write in the Daily Telegraph’s blog about the expected “Christmas Miracle” (Bright star shines for Second Coming. Possibly)

He has also covered the Maitreya/Creme story in his book “The Spiritual Tourist” and once made a revealing documentary for BBC Radio 4 in which Crème not only spoke about his life’s mission to bring Maitreya to the public’s attention but also revealed what is was like to work with a “Master of Wisdom”.

But even though a writer of his standing is bringing this story to people’s attention you are left wishing that there were other journalists of Mick Brown calibre prepared to stick their neck out and create more awareness of Maitreya and the possibible benefits his emergency would make around the planet.

However "the sit back and wait approach" is apparently the way forward as Maitreya (under another name) will be interviewed on American TV a week or so after the “Christmas Miracle”.

Yet here we are, two days into the New Year and still no sign of any bright lights in the sky.

However I still haven’t stopped looking up at every opportunity hoping to catch that first glimpse of this new celestial object.

I’m usually looking to the north as logic dictates that if you are going to cause people to look up in awe, day and night, then away from the sun would be a sensible idea.

And we’ve had some lovely clear days and nights in England, almost perfect conditions since Christmas but still nothing.

Although remember this: Christmas is twelve days long and the last day, Epiphany, is on January 6th

I only recently found out that Epiphany in Greek means "to manifest" or "to show". So there is always hope of impeccable timing.

Yet the disturbing situation in the middle-east could prove a hindrance. With the Israelis attacking the Palestinians in Gaza I’m wondering if a cease-fire is needed before any light comes from above. Or would a new star in the sky cause people to stop their war?