Bloc+ April 2010

Wolfgang Hitlerchrist

Thank you so much to all the bands and punters who made March such an amazing month, 2010 really has been the best year so far.  Extra special thanks to the Bloc+Jam boys Craig and Louis for providing the entertainment at our Birthday party, Graeme MacDonald for getting the Slow Club off the ground and the Detour lads Ally and Weaver for providing some of the best memories we’re likely to have in here.  Let’s make the run up to summer just as memorable.

So...my next rant is about this whole Nanny State, PC way of thinking that seems to dictate the norm of how we live and absorb things nowadays.

I heard recently about two bands playing a well known drink sponsored live music event in Glagsow who claim to hand pick emerging artists for their extraordinary raw talent who had to change their names for fear of civil unrest or misunderstanding.  Their names (who shall not be mentioned) had subtle overtones of violence or child abuse and were therefore forced to change their monikers or cancel the show.  These bands were not called anything like Burn the Priest or MC Weanstrangler which I can see causing offence to victims of abuse and the like but poetic verbalisations of human experience...from which the arts are born.  Surely?  And, since when did a drinks company or promoter dictate what a band should or shouldn’t be called!?

This is symptomatic of a bigger picture and the way the country is going as a whole.  More appropriate to Bloc is the recent changes to the rules and operating procedures of the licensed trade.  It is now illegal to offer a free drink to a disgruntled customer or simply ask if a sole drinker at the bar on the dregs of his pint would ‘fancy another?’  We can’t even offer performers at our open mic night a free drink for playing anymore.

I imagine in the future they won’t be able to have Shakespeare as required reading in schools because Macbeth deals in issues of violence and murder and Romeo and Juliet influences teenagers to commit suicide and engage in underage sex.

In my view, if things are going to go this way then we might as well destroy our world. Let’s go to nuclear war, let’s pollute, let’s flood the economy with Nazi bullion – if the world is going to be flooded with shades of beige then there’s no point living in it anyway.  Human beings are separated from each other by their own opinions, faults, strengths and experiences and that is what gives the world colour.  I understand that we live in an era of civil, political and racial unrest and that there is a ton of diversity in our communities and with that the world has to become more liberal and socially compassionate but the precedent is being set to the furthest right more and more every day.  The term far right might seem a little extreme and a tad inaccurate when you look at the bones of the matter but what really seems to be happening is that we are getting ‘far middle’... a new term I’m sure that fairly describes the state of play in the first world today.

So, far middle – if you had to define it you could say ; Unlike the far left which defines extreme, outside, subversive thinking and the far right which self governs it’s own reactionary, single minded ideologies, the ‘Far Middle’ strives for political correctness in a world with such vast diversities and tolerances.  It seems the far middle is way to try and keep everyone happy and dull the primal drives and instincts of society and individuals but at the same time is the biggest force that is keeping us segregated.  This segregation is built through fear, fear of offence.  I grew up in a modern society and I am extremely thankful for it, I see the world as the world...not my world, not anyone’s world and that is a beautiful, positive, constructive thing. 

But, as I said, the things that keep us together are also the things that keep us apart.  Tiptoeing around an issue or a person only will only highlight it or alienate it and the same goes for the individual or group involved.  What is it they say? Familiarity breeds contempt.

Get to the bar and get yourself a Balkan and please be aware...it’s not for everyone.

Crag