Spanish punk

Myself and Alastair, once of this parish, were in Spain for a summer in the mid-1980s and due to having no money at the time never got to a gig, but it was close enough to both the end of the Franco era and the punk era that echoes of the first were obvious and had we been in a position to do so we’d probably have heard the echoes of the second.

One thing that stuck with me was the excellence of the record stores there at that time. The selections in even small shops were vast and exhaustive – albums that you’d never find in an Irish record shop were easily found. And actually that’s something that I’ve found true to this very day. Go into any small record store there and you’ll find a really eclectic mix.

This looks great:

What does democracy sound like when it’s shouted through a distortion pedal?

In 1975, Spain emerged from the long shadow of Franco’s dictatorship, stumbling toward democracy amid uncertainty, unrest, and unhealed wounds. In the same moment, a raw, raucous, and radically irreverent cultural force exploded onto the scene: punk.

Spanish Punk: Screaming for Democracy in a Postdictatorial State is the first in-depth study to trace the uniquely political trajectory of punk in post-Franco Spain. Far from just a musical genre, Spanish punk became a rebellious cultural matrix—a defiant, DIY response to the contradictions of a state trying to reinvent itself. Through fanzines, lyrics, testimonies, and subcultural style, punks posed urgent questions: What kind of democracy was being built? Who was being left out? And how do you scream dissent in a newly “free” society?

Blending historical, philosophical, musicological, and textual analysis, this book shows how punk served as both a glue for oppositional movements and a generator of alternative political identities. It’s a long-overdue exploration of how cultural resistance helped shape a generation’s answer to dictatorship—and its uneasy aftermath.

There’s discounts on the site for the book in various formats. Worth a read!

This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… Sugar

Well, there’s welcome news, that Sugar – comprising Bob Mould, David Barbe and Malcolm Travis, have reunited after a gap of thirty years.

Always been a huge fan of Mould whether in Husker Du, with Richard Morel in Blow Off and as a solo artist. Never had the chance to see him live though, and tickets are now purchased for the National Stadium for May when Sugar arrive on these shores.

I used to have Sugar’s first album, Copper Blue on a cassette tape back to back with REM’s Automatic for the People on the other side. Both released in 1992, both had a song on them entitled Man on the Moon, and somehow for me they summed up a particular moment in musical history, particularly US musical history. I really liked Automatic for the People, despite its popularity(!), but I loved Copper Blue. There was just something about it. It was distinctly different to Husker Du, the guitar sound for a start, but no less melodic or intense.

AllMusic notes that there’s an irony in this being vastly more successful than Husker Du, and yet not entirely surprising in that while faster and more punk oriented than grunge the popularity of the latter did no harm to Sugar. Perhaps the melancholy of Mould’s vocals and lyrics were a part of that. But this was a group effort, even if Mould wrote the songs, David Barbe on bass and Malcolm Travis on drums would allow for nothing else. And it shows. There’s a cohesiveness to Copper Blue that was not entirely there for much of his solo output (not that that has stopped those solo albums featuring in end of year and other round-ups on this site again and again ).

All the songs are great, but The Slim, Hoover Dam, A Good Idea, Man on the Moon, Slick, Fortune Teller are classics. If I Can’t Change Your Mind is perhaps the most overtly Husker Du like track (Fortune Teller surely is a close second), though played on acoustic guitars. But that’s part of the charm of the album, there are keyboards here and there, a sense of sonic expansiveness. Slick sums that up perfectly with reverbed shouted vocals and background vocals.

I liked subsequent releases Beaster and File Under: Easy Listening a lot. Beaster for the experimentation – File Under: Easy Listening for an almost shoe gaze aspect to some of the tracks, but I liked Copper Blue a fraction more, perhaps because after his truly bleak second solo album Black Sheets of Rain it felt like a release, managing to pivot away from that album and both towards and away from his original group.

Anyhow, two singles now from the reformed Sugar, both great, and more to follow presumably.

The Slim

Hoover Dam

A Good Idea

Fortune Teller

Slick

Man on the Moon

If I Can’t Change Your Mind

Billy Bragg on British Labour’s (self-inflicted) woes

Excellent analysis here from Billy Bragg on Starmer’s Labour and McSweeney.

That Israel draw

The Nations League draw took place yesterday and unfortunately Ireland drew Israel. There have been some close calls for Shamrock Rovers in the past few years as they could have drawn Israeli teams in European competition, but thankfully we didn’t. I’m amazed the FAI didn’t put in a request to keep the teams apart, given the difficulties it would cause.

It’s unconscionable that Israel are still allowed play in international sport. I have already seen suggestions of people handcuffing themselves to the goalposts in the Aviva. There will, of course, be massive protests.

Will the Government have the gumption to ban away fans? I would assume, aside from the Zionist hooligans themselves, there would be elements from the North and Far Right from the UK only too thrilled to ‘attend’. What hotel would take the Israeli team? Aside from the morality of it, the protests outside would surely interfere with other guests.

Signs of Hope – A continuing series

Gewerkschaftler suggested this a while back and it’s as good an idea now as it was then. Whatever else those of us on the left need some hope, need some tangible achievements to hold on to, something that gives a sense of how things can be made better:

“I suggest this blog should have a regular (weekly) slot where people can post happenings at the personal or political level that gives them hope that we’re perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket as quickly as we thought. Or as the phlegmatic Germans put it “hope dies last”.”

Any contributions this week?

‘AI’ rush leaving the actual world behind

The Irish Times wakes up to a very real, very material, problem facing our society and economy:

Hospitals, An Garda Síochána and Government departments are among hundreds of public service bodies that could be affected by a global shortage of computers and laptops caused by artificial intelligence (AI).

Agencies that help run the State have been warned they could face higher prices for laptops and may have to start using pre-owned devices, with industry experts warning the shortage is expected to last for two years. 

Other agencies that could be affected include the HSE, local councils, universities and State agencies such as Bord Bia, the Arts Council and Tusla, the child and family agency. 

And:

Massive facilities filled with supercomputers to train AI models are causing a global shortage of the technology used to create memory and storage on ordinary laptops and computers.

The demands of these so-called AI “gigafactories” are disrupting technology supply chains all over the world. The shortage has forced the Office of Government Procurement (OGP), which tries to save the State money when agencies buy goods and services, to issue a warning to public service bodies.

As noted previously, this is a shortage caused by a rush to provide something that doesn’t work and prioritise that over the actual real world usage of computers and computer networks by people doing tasks that are vital importance. And all this driven by companies and coporations that have no concern or regard for anything other than themselves and apparently are nearly beyond the reach of law or regulation.

British Labour’s woes continue

It’s like pulling on a thread and suddenly everything unravels. Or pulling on a thread and another one comes loose. And although they’re not all related, at least not the most recent one, there’s a sense of continuity that is pure political poison. Mandelson, McSweeney, Allen, now…

Downing Street was not aware that Keir Starmer’s longstanding communications chief had campaigned for a paedophile when his peerage was announced, a minister has said.

Matthew Doyle, who stepped down as the No 10 head of communications last March, was suspended on Monday from the Labour whip in his new role in the Lords after it emerged that he had campaigned on behalf of a friend who had been charged with possessing indecent images of children.

Questions about the peerage overshadowed attempts to promote a multibillion pound announcement on special educational needs support on Wednesday and added to continuing pressure facing Starmer about his own decision to make Peter Mandelson ambassador to Washington despite his close links to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.

But that raises multiple questions.

“No 10 did not know before they made the decision to give him the peerage,” the schools minister, Georgia Gould, told Sky News when questioned about the Doyle peerage.

Challenged about the fact that a Sunday Times story reported on 27 December that Downing Street had investigated Doyle’s continued support for Sean Morton after he was charged with indecent child image offences, Gould said the announcement was made on 10 December.

Shouldn’t No 10 have known? Isn’t basic due diligence sufficient excuse for them to have done…well, due diligence? That is the thread of continuity. In another instance entirely separate to Mandelson one sees a similar lack of care and regard.

I mean this is a crazy story to begin with, in the sense that those involved, most obviously Doyle, must have been insane.

Doyle faced pressure after the Sunday Times reported on his support for Morton even when the councillor had been charged in 2016.

According to the paper, after Morton was charged and suspended by Labour, Doyle insisted Morton was innocent and travelled to Scotland to support him as he stood as an independent candidate wearing a top with the slogan: “Re-elect Sean Morton.”

Huh? In what world does that make sense?

And this thread goes further:

It is understood that Starmer wanted the issue looked at again, after the reports, and that he and Downing Street say they did not know that Doyle had campaigned for Morton before he was made a peer.

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour suspended the party whip of MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy, who stepped down as education spokesperson in December after disclosures about her friendship with Morton.

The problem with all this is two-fold. Firstly in and of itself it is appalling. Those entrusted with the duty of care of a state are unable seemingly to do the most cursory of checks – given the day and age we live in. Secondly it sits on top of broader political dysfunction. A deeply unpopular PM presiding over a deeply unpopular government that has – seemingly oblivious to the ramifications initiated policies which are hugely damaging to itself only to u-turn subsequently. If that latter area was going well for Starmer perhaps there would be a politically navigable route, but the truth is that in just three months or so there’s the opportunity for voters to give their verdict on how all this is going. And the truth is that it isn’t going well.

Speaking of not going well, how about the new improved and coherent leadership of the British Labour Party?

Keir Starmer has said Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe should apologise for his comments that the UK is being “colonised” by immigrants.

In an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, Britain’s seventh-richest man,who moved to tax-free Monaco in 2020, took aim at people receiving state support and immigrants.

“You can’t afford … you can’t have an economy with 9 million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in,” he said. “The UK is being colonised by immigrants, really, isn’t it?

“I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million people.”

Almost inevitably, Ratcliffe got that wrong.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics indicate Ratcliffe’s claim is incorrect. The ONS estimated that the population of the UK was 67 million in 2020 and was last anywhere close to 58 million in 2000.

And fair enough, Starmer said:

Responding to the claims, the prime minister posted on X on Wednesday evening: “Offensive and wrong. Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country. Jim Ratcliffe should apologise.”

Meanwhile, self-described pre-Corbyn “hard left of the Labour Party” Lisa Nandy (in an unfortunately timed interview in the same edition of the Guardian) made her own contribution.

The response was in contrast to the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, who told Sky News that Ratcliffe was “right to say that there are too many people who have been written off, not allowed to make the contribution that they could make to this country”.

She said that people deserved an immigration system “they can trust”, claiming that both illegal and legal migration were too high while the Conservatives were in government.

Yeah, it’s all going to go really well from here on out.