These are the things that have been in our ears this week, please explore and if it sounds interesting then just hit the links and make your own minds up, our reviews and thoughts are mere signposts designed to guide you to the things you might like to feast on yourselves... don’t you just love the instant hit of the www. 

"At the base level I don't give a f*ck if you just grab that oil can and start beating on it - if you make something that sounds ill, that just works... that's what music's about".

"I think Timbaland might be one of the illest producers regardless of genre - I mean, I hear him doing brand new things that haven't been done before: I mean you don't hear new things when you listen to commercial mainstream emo rock or...! You know what I mean - there's nothing brand new going on in that - that rock music is just rehashing the same shit out over and over again!" 

the interview is here
 

John on the phone...

ORGAN ON YOUR RADIO - WEEKLY on SUNDAYS AT 9.00pm via RESONANCE 104.4FM in London and worldwide via www.resonancefm.com  - this week we have Marina and the decks with her OTHER ROCK SHOW and an hour exploring rock music that goes beyond the convention of 4/4.... more details here Feb - 2-8 - International Boycott Japan Awareness Week - for whaling, not racist reasons - info and fliers see www.cetaceadefence.org

ORGAN TV?

ORGAN TV  is on your screens in the UK right now. Every Wednesday evening, NOW AT THE NEW TIME OF 9.30pm on the OPEN ACCESS 2 Channel on SKY160. And now due to the fine response, repeated every Sunday on SKY883 at 9.30pm.

This coming Sunday we have the following videos...

AARON MCMULLEN - Blue From Black 
CHAUFFER DRIVEN AVIATOR - Leather Jacket 
65DAYSOFSTATIC - Don't Go Down To Sorrow
IMPERIAL LEASURE - In A Letter
ODD SHAPED HEAD - Egomatic Annie
SILVERY - Devil In The Detail
THE BLACK KEYS - Your Touch
THE ICARUS LINE - Gets Paid 

Next Wednesday and Sunday we have...

EL-P - Smithereens 
YIP YIP - Candy Dinner 
IMPERIAL LEISURE - In A Letter 
CHAUFFER DRIVEN AVIATOR - Leather Jacket 
SIKTH - How May I Help You
AKERCOCKE - Axiom 
GALLHAMMER - World To Be Ashes 

What's it all about? Simple, just good music, and the art of good video making...  Same musical policy as we've always had with Organ - the labels are just handy signposts, as long as the music and video making has that X factor - expect a healthy eye/earboiling mix of metal, punk, prog, beats, post rock, post punk, post man pat, hardcore, indie, alternative, pronk, whatever..... music and creativity for the open minded 
 

DEMO OF THE WEEK
MOLLOY – A new set of songs from London’s Molloy, We already know we like them and this is more more more of their incredibly infectious new wave electro glam pop rock ‘n roll. Squelchy synth lines, biting riffs, skinny hips and lips and urgent fizz and everything you want your sticky-haired slightly salty tasting pop music to be. Urgent vocals, singalong harmonies, a gang of boys and girls who know how to nail it all right now – just like it says on their My Space URL... www.myspace.com/thisisf**kingbrillIant

ALSO CHECK OUT
CHALOU SAINT JUDE – London based indie/blues thing, three tracks, three slices of edgy goodness. Kind of little more restrained Kings Of Leon with a hint of 60’s Yardbirds and Delta Blues via Soho and maybe just a hit of Reef in there (not too much though, just a hint in that vocal style). Impressive old school blues guitar playing – classic blues rock that’s edgy enough to be a little more than just a retro thing. Good songs, good sounds, bit of a swagger – the swagger of band who just may have something... www.chalousaintjude.com

FABONACCI – Delicate fragile indieness that hints at the restrained possibilities of the widescreen epic and the understated truth of beauty. A restrained refined Radiohead, Elbow, Doves, Leave The Capital set of flavours – very much the restrained quiet slow-burning side of moody indie rock life. Fine vocal style, melancholic warm and just a hint of 65Days instrumental glitch somewhere under the surface as they glide along their way. A new English band alive with beautiful possibilities -  www.myspace.com/fabonacci

AGES OF STONES – hey look, band from Latvia with a rather good looking package that’s landed here via some good people in Oakland California because apparently we’ll “love this band and so will our readers and listeners...” Now how can we politely put this? Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus, Lenny Kravitz, Spin Doctors...Here’s the link, do what you wish with it.... www.myspace.com/ageofstones

Last week's demo of the week - THE ATROCITY EXHIBIT

Previous demo's of the week - 2 OUT OF 3 RULE / THE JACKPOT GOLDEN BOYS / FANTAPLASTIC / YONATAN NIV / INNER RAGE / NAVEL / FILTHY HABITS / LITTLE TROPHY / THE ORIENTALISTS / HOUSEHOLD / THE JELAS/ COUNTRYSIDE / BASTARDS OF THE SKIES / MEHE / THE PRETTY YOUNG THINGS

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
NADA SURF – Lucky (City Clang) – Fifth album from the deliciously serene Brooklyn New York alternative rock trio. Includes contributions from Ed Hardcort, Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and members of Calexico. Warm mellow relaxing refined finely-detailed gently rewarding impressive alt.rock songs. You’ll like what they say, songs to send the devil home, their wind will hold you aloft. Classic US alt.rock – very easy listening, here comes that hot feeling again. Nada Surf are sounding better than ever, hard to believe I know with the fine back catalogue they already boast - this is a strong confident album, eleven good feelings, eleven strong uplifting and rather beautiful alt.rock songs. The Fox is a standout amongst eleven stands outs with those strings and choral bits, with that positively-voiced Radiohead feel, Beachy Head never felt so good. The Film Did Not Go ‘Round is just perfect, pretty much everything here is, Nada Surf are sounding finer than ever – www.cityslang.com or www.nadasurf.com
 

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 2 HARLOTS  - Betrayer (Lifeforce) – Strap yourself in for some rip crunching extremer-than-extreme tantrum-metal complexity. A progressive well of relentless sonic violence and churning speed metal math-violation. Third very impressive album from the US outfit - one part boiling screaming fury, one part clever complex musicianship, one part knowing imaginative musical colour... They do know that a little restraint (now and again) is also a musical weapon though, they know an added strength and a sense of foreboding tension is to be found in a quiet colourful passage. Betrayer is a violently complex album laced with intelligent colour and not a hint of compromise. Dillinger Escape Plan complexities (without the recent Dillinger disappointments). Neurosis textured adventures, a relentless onslaught of power and complex violence and screaming bloody noise - and then the twelve minute closing shot of a surprise that is the ambient extremities of Suicide Medley. Time to elect Harlots in to the big league, this is a seriously rewarding album, if you feed off intelligent boundary pushing extreme metal then you need it... www.myspace.com/harlots or www.lifeforcerecords.com

ALSO CHECK OUT

THIS IS HELL – Misfortunes (Trustkill) Crossover hardcore metal – blistering, relentless, hard, mean and I guess pretty impressively decent, if only we hadn’t heard a thousand other crossover hardcore metal albums that sound just like this. They sound pretty committed to their cause, the sound is spot on, the sentiment sounds right, the anger is spitting and in your face – brutal heavy hardcore metal and all they lack is some colour and identity of their own, oh for a little bit of risk taking danger and character. Oh well, they conform to the blueprint in an impressive enough way, they have the sound and energy and once I take this out of the CD player I see no reason why I would ever want to go back and choose to listen to it again when I got all them other albums over there that already sound like this... www.thisishell.org or www.trustkill.com

DYNAMITE 8 – Medicine (Dynamite 8) - From Oakland California with some classic Bay Area punk metal. Part of that infamous Burnt Ramen scene. Led by singer (and ex Angry Amputees) JoAnn Gillespie and her in-your-face bare-all voice. We’re dealing with old school punk metal crossover energy, think early Iron Maiden metal meets the street suss of the first Girlschool albums via the punk rock bite of Jawbreaker, All, Fang, Black Flag. Angry songs, twin guitar intensity (one of those guitars furiously handled by one time Fabulous Disaster Squeaky). Explosive old school (nwobhm favoured) metal fuelled punk rock’roll. www.myspace.com/dynamite8

VARIOUS – THE SOUND OF THE CATACOMBS (Catacomb) – A compilation album and seventeen servings of doom, sludge and grooved-out stoner rock from all over the planet. Well actually they’re all either from the UK or North America (the label Catacomb is from Walsall, West Midlands of England). It all runs together nicely, seventeen variations on a theme – a well established sound and style and no one has any plan to break out of the box here. Seventeen rather decent tracks – the quality is high, the riffs are big, everything is in order – good sound, artwork. Roll call then; we have earfood here from Suns Of Thunder, Outburst, Obiat, Grifter, DirtyRed, Godsize, Spacecharge, Abdullah, Aluna, Black Cesar, I Am Colossus, Sonic Lord, Gonga, The Harold Wartooth, Queen Elephantine, El Topa and Mos Generator. All decent enough stuff, nothing here that’s going to cause any kind of revolution (or worry the big guns of the stoner/doom scene) all pretty good though and the slight changes in tecture, voice sound and style makes for something well worth your time, good way of checking out the scene and some bands – right I’m off to find out more about the Harold Wartooth now... www.catacomb-records.co.uk
 

Last week's album of the week - TIME OF ORCHIDS Previous album's of the week - DIEBOLD / HOLLER, WILD ROSE! / BLACK MOUNTAIN / YESAN DAMEN / CLUB 8 / OUR OWN DEVICES / DIMENSION X / THAO With THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN / AHLEUCHATISTAS / AIRBOURNE / KINDER SCOUT / 4 BONJOUR’S PARTIES / VERNON ELLIOTT AND THE VERNON ELLIOTT ENSEMBLE x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

Footnote:  We were on the phone the very next day sorting out the next single... 

www.myspace.com/tothebones
 

LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
DR SLAGGLEBERRY – Dr Slaggleberry EP (Crash) - This is world-class Fantomas/Mr Bungle stylee madness, as good if not better than anything by The Locust... and it's a demo (that’s now been picked up by Crash for a download single release on March 3rd). Four tracks, no filler. They hail from somewhere near Oxford, they seem pretty young (under the masks) and their turn-on-a-sixpence avant rock acrobatics make tight, clean, big shapes.  It's a winning combination of Ruins hypercomplex composing and Mr Bungle sass, but what makes them stand out from the handful of new bands attempting these things is (apart from their terrible name) is the clarity of their riffage - it's heavy but they're not hiding under a ton of distortion, so the highly entertaining mayhem comes at you with structure and deadly purpose. They have moments to take on Upsilon Acrux, they rock harder than the F*cking Champs, and unlike either they're gigging in a village hall near you. Oh yessss! (rubs hands with glee...). We’re off to find out lots more, watch this space – www.myspace.com/drslaggleberry

SINGLE OF THE WEEK 2
HERZOGA – Nice Car / Blood School (We Like Danger)  - Follow up to their very well received ORG debut, this time with impressive hometown label We Like Danger  - things are stirring up in Stoke. Herzoga are at the centre of said stir up there with their Wrong Pop nights and their rumbling in the pipes that’ll keep you up at night. We like Herzoga and their scratchy jerky wrong pop and their slightly awkward Art Brut meets The Fall stumbles up stairs. Their angles are different and it may take no time whatsoever to get you thinking things that aren’t all right – they are though, things are so so right with the awkward goodness of Herzoga’s right pop. Cracks in the ceiling and a rumble of a sound and three new songs that will exchange significant glances with your apathy and that emo’s fringe and a nice new car and the writing on the wall. Wrong pop never did sound so right... Just don’t go out in to the woods... www.myspace.com/herzogaband or www.welikedanger.com

ALSO CHECK OUT
PATCHWORK GRACE – The Lovecats (But!) – A trashy Cure cover and in to the sea and nowhere near as good as their own stuff, and not the greatest Cure song ever and I yeah, this version is still good in a trashy throwaway sticky messy salty kind of way, can’t touch that Zebra single from last year though, that was classic, this is just throwaway bubble gum pop sleeze and dirty cheese and the b-sides are the better options here – she sounds like she knows what she want and she know how to get it, use it, abuse it, chew it up and then throw it away... Patchwork Grace – trashy filthy dysfunctional mindfugging glam punk girls and boys... wash your hands after use. always use a condom, never go to church, always accept lifts in VW pink campers.... A gloriously filthy band who have  far better songsd and don't need a cheese Cure cover to get in to our underwear – www.patchworkgrace.com  . 

LOS – My Hands Smell Of Smoke – Self released DIY 7”/dowmload single, out sometime in Feb, they weren’t that clear when, go look on their website, this is after all the internet age of dropping in and find out for yourself, all you need from us are signposts. They’re from Reigate and this is a fine slice of alternative edgy punky agit-blues from the girl-voiced four piece. Scratchy nailed-down sound, soothing voice, demons and things, delivered with white stripped attitude and yeah yeah yeah bite, a fine couple of tracks – www.myspace.com/wearelos

THE $HIT – Get With The Program...Before The Program Gets You (Shit Music) – Five track arcade game ram-raid of a CD. All frantic beats, bleeps and fizzing riffs, Nintedocore pop, chants, yelps, bites, guitars and synth punk chaos – and indeed, they’ve suddenly got with the program, first time their music hasn’t annoyed the hell out of us. Yep, The $hit finally made a record we like – hyper hyper Sique Sique Sputnik chaos and yelping and too much orange juice - www.shitmusic.co.uk

Last week's single of the week - THE DROPKICK MURPHYS

Previously - ONE MORE GRAIN / PLAAYDOH / HELLO WEMBLEY / UNDERWORLD / WAX AUDIO vs GEORGE BUSH / HAZEL MILLS / DEERHOOF / F*CK BUTTONS / IMPERIAL LEISURE / CLUB 8 / TURBO NEGRO / CANDY PANDY ATTACK

SINGLE REVIEW ARCHIVES

PREVIOUSLY - N.W.A  / STRIBORG / THE WEIRDOS / THE MOB / ARSONISTS GET ALL THE GIRLS / THE VERVE / KHAYA / GREASY TRUCKERS PARTY / HERE AND NOW / WALLS OF JERICHO / CARTER USM / THE HOUSE OF LOVE / MONO / 

PREVIOUSLY - GIANT PAW / AURAL INNOVATIONS  / PARALLEL WORLDS, PARALLEL LIVES TV documentary / NEVER MIND THE SEX PISTOLS: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY – DVD / THE ZINE DIRECTORY / BATH BOMB / NEMESIS TO GO #4 / DVD: MIGHTY ROBOT: SLEEP WHEN YOU ARE DEAD / DVD: GLASTONBURY - THE MOVIE

As protesters take to the trees in shopping centre nightmare 

Mass protests, tree sitting, cat and mouse games with chainsaw-wielding contractors, spurious arrests, tree spiking... no it's not yet another nostalgic piece about the mid-nineties but 2008 in central Oxford.

And the cause of all this unrest? Another screw-the-environment-it's-all-about-the-economy-stupid retail development of course. Despite being already choked by its medieval layout, with its roads gridlocked and groaning from the weight of traffic, since 1999 the council have been trying to accept plans from Capital Shopping Centres to revamp and massively expand the existing Westgate shopping centre. 

Widespread opposition and a public inquiry led John Prescott to eventually put the blockers on the deal in 2002 when the decision was 'called in' (as the quaint governmental parlance puts it) and rejected, a failed appeal was immediately launched in 2003 – failed again. But you can't keep a good cartel of bigwigs down for long and in 2006 uncannily similar plans were again presented and this time they meant business. Unfazed by their alleged green sentiments and policy commitments to 'sustainability', 'renewable energy' and the like (as most councils usually are when big business cash starts sloshing around), the council have again no problem giving the green light to the monster expansion as part of a more general gentrification scheme for the entire West end of Oxford. 

The plan is to triple the size of the current Westgate church of capitalism and turn it into a real retail cathedral, complete with a sorely needed new John Lewis department store. That's along with 90 other new shops and massive car park. All eating into nearby affordable housing and precious bits of surviving green strips of land, including a number of fine mature trees in the area. 

Even though completion of the project involves obtaining compulsory purchase (i.e. destruction) orders on Abbey Place, a fairly recent development of council-run residential care homes for the handicapped, the enquiry into that hadn't even finished when the contractors began confidently to cut down nearby trees all ready for construction works to begin. As usual, they assumed that by getting in early, maybe nobody would notice. But direct action has reared its dreadlocked head once again in the esteemed city of academia and learning as outraged locals, students and activists alike attempt to stop the environmental disaster. 

Since January 4th, efforts have been stepped up, no doubt inspired by one Giles Chamberlain who took residence in a one hundred-year-old sycamore in Bonn Square, where he managed to stay for over two weeks until effectively starved down by police who stopped all attempts to assist him (see Crap arrest). 
Jan 9th saw a day of action back at the Westgate site where trees were also being cleared. Work was temporarily stopped and a plane tree occupied for 24 hours. Jan 12th saw over 100 people reclaim Bonn Square in a feisty protest which even saw one of the green local councillors arrested. Over 3500 leaflets were handed out and with support from local shoppers and passers-by, people managed to block the council from fencing off the site and forced work to stop. . 

Giles eventually came down voluntarily on Jan 20th just as an eviction order was granted. Within half and hour of the court judgement, the corporate chainsaw crew were in Bonn Square to demolish the last
remaining natural beauty there. Scuffles ensued when one activist climbed onto a wood shredder and then jumped on to the side of the truck carrying the remains of the tree. Activists then wrestled with security thugs trying to drag him off. Police moved in and arrested the stuntman and one of his helpers. 

Tuesday 21st saw an invasion of John Lewis' headquarters by activists keen to point out to the retailers the errors of their ways. Also this week, many of the remaining trees in the area have suddenly appeared sporting painted 'S's on their trunks, along with a warning that trees have been spiked. The idea is to make chainsaw operators think twice before attempting to saw through wood which contains metal, which could damage their equipment and dangerously throw the blade off line. And the protests look set to continue as the crazy development develops. Much of the more effective action is eninating from the Oxford Action Resourse centre.  web: theoarc.org.uk

For an explanation of the 'white S' action, see www.saveoxtrees.wordpress.com

SCHnews CRAP ARREST OF THE WEEK: For having a weak throw...  Jon Leighton, a supporter of Giles Chamberlain - living in Central Oxford up a tree threatened by a shopping centre expansion (see back page story) - was caught out trying to chuck a bottle of water up to him one night. His throw was sadly off target and police swiftly arrested the eighteen-year-old - for littering! Obviously a dangerous menace, he was handcuffed, bundled roughly off to the station, fingerprinted and DNA sampled... and let go without charge in the morning, after being told by one custody copper with little sense of irony that, "it wasn't exactly crime of the century was it..."! Eau dear, water palava etc... 

What's On? Check out the Party and Protest guide at SchNEWS, an excellent place for alternative news bulletins and a different slice on things - www.schnews.org.uk

That's it for this week -  IF YOU'VE GOT ANYTHING TO SAY then say it - response

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