with thanks to Comrade Golubov for the clip

And thanks to: Comrade Snoddy, Comrade Marmosette, Comrade Furvert, Comrade Mark The Door Bitch, Comrade Magenta La Pin, Comrades Wolfie and Kath, Comrade Knitted Boy, Comrade Annoianoid, Comrade Vixen, Comrade Badly, Comrade Perry, Comrade Malcolm and the Pussy Parlure Crew, Comrades Seamus & Kathleen and all the comrades at the Windmill, Comrade Michelle and all the comrades at the Canterbury, Comrade Bluestreak, Comrade Blagsta, Comrade Mike Urban, Comrade Toogood, and to The Kleptones, Thee Spivs, The Actionettes, Morton Valence, Who’s Afear’d, Rhythms Of Resistance, Punk Chris and that Elvis impersonator. And, y’know, thank you.

Nous Sommes Les DJs

Comrades it seems only fitting that the last song that got played at the final People’s Republic of Disco a couple of weeks ago should be shrouded in the peculiar drunken secrecy that has so often characterised the collective’s endeavours. I confess it was probably me who put it on, Comrade Dubversion having wandered off by that point. However, I’ve no clear idea about it, and I seem to remember responding to drunken shouting from the remaining hardcore. It certainly wasn’t this particular tune but I think that it would have made a good choice.

When it first came out four odd years ago, even as fans, we couldn’t help dissecting it for the bit’s he’d taken from Eno and New Order and so on. Once we got over that outbreak of geekery it emerged as a really great tune. PROD was still monthly at The Canterbury back then and I would always play it. whether it’s a bona fide PROD classic I’m not really sure though. Still, at the final PROD a friend turned up from Birmingham with a present for me wrapped in a crisp packet. It was the recent  London Sessions and as a result I’ve become obsessed with the song all over again. The new version is great, seemingly owing more than ever before to Joy Division ( I can even picture Curtis doing his odd dancing to it) plus some great backing vocals. Like us LCD are winding up their run, not for them the cozy confines of The Windmill but a massive blow out at Madison Square gardens tonight, this is probably their greatest song. Emotional in a way that’s hard to pin down just from the lyrics it’s also packed to the gills with fantastic lines that seem to apply in one way or another to our adventures together over the past nine years.

All My Friends (London Session)

Lee Lee the PROD panda

Well this isn’t news or anything, but yeah. They’re the devil. We’ve had this piece of text for a while. It is aimed at potential licencees for Ministry branding/franchise operations. It was supposed to fuel some kind of amusing rant about sterile corporate clubbing and how it was everything we opposed and so on. Several attempts have failed as I can’t think of anything to add to it’s astounding banality. I thought I could edit it down but each paragraph seems to bring a fresh horror of wrongness business speak and curious claims abound. It appears to be beyond parody. When we were all dancing like fools in the 90′s and having the time of our lives, these guys thought “We could make this like McDonald’s”. So here it is for your edification and amusement. If you can’t be bothered with it all – try the last paragraph…………

By moving from a business model based on club and brand ownership to a model that shifts the focus to licensing contracts, Ministry of Sound Group continues to lead the market through continued innovation and leveraging its long history and expertise.

This transition means that we are able to support partners at a local level to build strong and sustainable businesses.
“Developing a strong business together”

By leveraging 18 years experience as a club operator we are able to provide our Licence Partners with all our “know how”, including club operations, human resources, construction and maintenance, purchasing, management and finance, sales and marketing, technological support, web sites and, of course, club development.

Ministry of Sound Group is now seeking to develop Licence Partnerships across the world in order to exploit our worldwide Brands through a network of great local operators who can exploit our expertise.
“Together, we can build lasting relationships based on profitable partnerships”

As a Licence Partner, your will operate your club and/or territory directly under the Ministry of Sound and Hed Kandi brands – we will grant to our Licence Partners an exclusive territory or location.

As a Licence Partner, you benefit from a full range of services and array of powerful skills that are unique in the club business.

We are committed to sharing our knowledge transparently with regard to:

* Our Brands and Development Strategy
* Our Brand innovations

You will benefit from the Brands Assets:

* The world’s most famous club brands
* High Brand recognition and customer loyalty
* Innovative Brand development programmes

“Our Development Is Your Development”

The Ministry of Sound Group is able to support our Licence Partners in a wide range of areas-

Property

* We are able to advise on the right club locations
* We can support our Licence Partners on “new build” or “refurbishment” programmes, building “world class” venues

Brand Development

* To develop your clubs, Ministry of Sound has a strong and robust brand image from venue style to music policy through many programmes of Brand innovation and Brand extension e.g. Merchandise and Music

Event Planning and Talent Management

* We are able to support you to put in place a strong events calendar
* We already operate on a worldwide basis with tours, and we can link our Licence Partners into these events and world class DJ’s

Training

* Operating a club requires key skills and we will support our Licence Partners through relevant HR advice and a robust Training Programme for key personnel

Strong Sales & Marketing Programmes

* To make our brands livelier and more appealing, we continuously invest significant amounts in communication-as a result our Brands are are consistently in the spotlight
* Our Brands are showcased through global advertising campaigns, public relations initiatives and special events
* We give our Licence Partners full access to our local marketing initiatives and will work closely to develop a robust launch and ongoing marketing strategies

On Going Head Office and Field Support

* We will provide ad-hoc support by a dedicated team of specialists to our Licence Partners
* As part of our commitment to ensure our Brands deliver outstanding experiences for our customers we have a comprehensive system for measuring service performance through a programme of audit
In London we employ 130 people in a giant open- plan warehouse and a further 300 work for Ministry of Sound Group operations worldwide.

Sales in 2008 exceeded £70 million.

We run the world’s most famous nightclub and are the world’s biggest independent record label.

We attribute our continuing growth to our investment in building brands.

Our brands are our business.

Ministry of Sound Group comprises the world’s largest independent record label, the world’s most famous nightclub and is home to the world’s most recognisable and iconic dance brands including, of course, Ministry of Sound plus Hed Kandi, Global Underground, Euphoria and Dance Nation.

Sales in 2008 exceeded £70 million and we employ over 130 people in a giant open-plan warehouse in London and a further 300 people worldwide. We have offices in Sydney, New York and Berlin and a network of international record label and event partners. We operate international venues in Egypt and Malaysia, with several new venue openings scheduled across Europe and Asia in 2010/11.
While other record labels across the globe are in significant decline, our label has seen year on year revenue grow by 43%. In the UK and Australia, we are the number 1 dance compilation label both digitally and on CD and we release albums domestically across the globe via our network of label partners. Total sales for all our releases average 5 million units per year, with our most successful compilation album titles selling in excess of 500,000 units.

We hold thousands of events across the globe every year, reaching millions of clubbers and operate the world’s most famous and successful nightclub – Ministry of Sound London – as well as our international venues.

Online and on mobile our brands engage with the desirable youth demographic of 16 to 34 year olds across a range of web, mobile, digital radio and social networking platforms. Our video content alone has generated over 230 million views on YouTube within the last 18 months.

Our brands are the heartbeat for a generation of young clubbers and dance music fans, spanning continents and genres. Unrivalled in reach and recognition – Ministry of Sound Group truly is the global home of dance music and the world’s most successful youth music brands.

http://licensing.ministryofsound.com/aboutus.aspx

oooh that sounds like a party!

the tory party.

coffee not cuts

Morning Comrades, well I’ve been fighting the man, in the form of the computer, this morning trying to embed this video from Uk Uncut which clearly shows how the peaceful protestors inside Fortnum & Mason’s were misled by the police in order to be better scapegoated as violent troublemakers in the media. Most of you have probably seen it already but it seemed like we should put it up while we still have this blog going. If you haven’t seen it, watch it here :-

uk Uncut video of Police blatantly lying to protestors

guardian piece on this video

So yeah, most of you who might read this are smart people. You know this stuff and you know where else to find it with more informed opinion and better writing than we might give you here. So we aren’t going to do a lot of this here (we’ve thought about it). The logic behind occupying F&M is essentially that they are massive tax dodgers, but we also like this

£15,000 hamper to take to the Henley Regatta anyone?

F&M perfectly symbolises the vast inequalities in wealth that exist in this country, showing just how wrong George Osborne is when he says ‘we are all in this together’.

Travel from the West End of London to the East End or down to the estates in Peckham and Brixton and it is plain to see that we are not all in this together even at the best of times.

£82bn is being slashed from public spending. These cuts will directly hit the poorest hardest – to pay for a crisis that had nothing to do with libraries or social care, and everything to do with a reckless banking system.

from the UK Uncut site

So, in a direct and prompt response to the recent efforts to divide and demonise those who would protest anarchists radical workers bloc has this to say-

letter to uk uncutters from the ‘violent minority’

UK Uncut site

A Whole Bunch of Interesting Graphs and stuff about just Why The Cuts Won’t Work

Here though is  a BBC piece I have been able to get working and this one has proved popular because it appears to show at 5:54 a plain clothes officer/violent protestor show his pass to the police and move with ease through their line even as they are attacking other protestors.

It seems the govt/police are happy to try and paint the peaceful protestors as violent and stir up/spur on those ready to use violence. Against property rather than people we should point out, it’s always the police who start hitting people – standing up for defenseless multinationals and their windows. So the thing is, what to do next?

Here’s a couple of righteous punk rock numbers to stir your ire with. First one’s the original of a little toe tapper you may have heard Mudhoney do. The second is from an intriguing bunch, a Detroit soul band who saw the Stooges or MC5 and got the rock. It’s from their album called, appropriately enough, For All The World To See which only finally got released a couple of years ago on Drag City – it gets particularly good after the vocals.

Dicks – Hate The Police

Death – Politicians In My Eyes

So, cleaning out the desk here I found some stuff uploaded for the magnificent 7′s thread that never got posted. There are seven of them. Which sort of convinced me to do it. Not that the number seven has any value or importance don’t go all flaky on us here numerology is nonsense comrades and don’t you forget it. Real mathematics is beautiful and amazing enough all by itself without any cause for spurious mystic significance.

The other reason is that while it was a good idea it never really got underway as it should have. A little weekly feature or something. Too lazy, it always fell to the bottom of the pile. It’d make a good blog for someone who could be bothered, indeed there are several I’ve encountered along a similar line, and many more that I’ve not no doubt. So here’s the last lot with minimal wittering. You can find all those posted so far by clicking on the tag at the top of the post here. You want ‘em come get ‘em they’re all coming down in seven days – the mixes will stay up a while longer probably

The Pogues - Rainy Night In Soho

So, y’know. There were reasons and that, it’s not just random. The Tortoise one was  a tour single. It’s white vinyl, with a white label and a similarly named tune on either side. It also sounds OK on 33 and 45, this is the more usual 45 rpm version. The Shop Assisstants’ ‘Safety Net’ is a stone cold classic single from the mid 80′s indie pop underground which flew the flag for the 7″ in the face of this new thing the CD and helped introduce an underground fetishism for the dying format. Of which the Mudhoney track is a fine example. Not only a split single (with sub pop also- rans Gas Huffer) it also came in a ludicrous clear vinyl, circular saw blade shaped edition, oh my. The Bunnymen’s ‘Never Stop’ was one of the first choices, a stand alone single not available on album until a ‘best of’ appeared years later, it was a relic of a time when a band could leave a successful single out in the cold and not stick it on as a bonus track on a special edition reissue blah blah bleh. That post never got written because both Bill Drummond and Simon Reynolds had written all manner of arcane wittering about the band’s importance which looked helpful but, it turned out, wasn’t. Drummond didn’t like the record. For the record. Similarly I think I picked ‘Spring Rain’ last spring and then never bothered to write the post. Which is not to say it isn’t great, ‘cos it is. ‘Torch’ is just a less obvious choice by a band who made an absolutely cracking string of singles.  Lastly The Pogues ‘Poguetry In Motion’ EP is a four track EP and a picture disc. Packed with top tunes but just imagine how shoddy that thing sounds. Ahh the bump, pop and hiss of vinyl. Warms the heart so it does.

What are you doing on the internets comrades? get out there and march.

As you’ll be aware by now we’re winding things down here – many of you have been kind about how much you enjoyed PROD nights and so on. So before we shut down the shop we’ve slashed everything to cost price (honestly, I’d hoped the savings would be more impressive but our mark-up was always low) so if you wanted a t-shirt, mug, boxer shorts, fridge magnet, sticker or apron(honestly) to carry the feeling with you into the future or stare at with misty-eyed drunken nostalgia now is your last chance -

T-shirts and whatnot

sadly all the exclusive hand painted Dubversion figurines or ‘Dollversion’ have long sold out……

next up, a final helping of magnificent sevens

and the collapse of the coalition govt.

And Snoddy’s alcohol intake finally reaches the level where he busts out his sweet dance moves for the remaining crowd. If you left early you missed out. (With thanks to Kathleen for pushing him over the top)

with thanks to the comrades whose pictures we’ve used.

Morning Comrades, here’s another new mix to see you through the week until we see your grinning, drunken faces saturday night. It takes its name from the Alabama 3 track, a little look forward to the march on the 26th. This isn’t a particularly political mix though, kicking off with a Broadcast tune in memory of the tragically departed Trish Keenan and moving along from there. It’s pretty varied and if you think it gets a bit weird,  I’d point out this is the reworked ‘more pop’ version.

BUILD A BARRICADE

broadcast – before we begin
mogwai – mexican grand prix
sleigh bells – run the heart
lykke li – sadness is a blessing
salem – redlights
los campesinos – you! me! dancing!
the go! team – bust out brigade
diplomats of solid sound – boogaloo
booker T – hey ya!
alabama 3 – ska’d for life
oOoOO – PCKRFCRMX
peverelist – better ways of living
dirtbombs – good life
flying lotus – pieface
moon wiring club – the queen speaks
lcd soundsystem – throw
mountains – melodica

“What is this? Stop it! play pop music!” – Comrade Dubversion