© Mik Scarlet. First published in Best For Music magazine vol.2 April 2001
It wasn’t planned, it kind of just happened. This weekend I did something that I haven’t tried since I was about 18. I STAYED IN ALL WEEKEND. My girlfriend Diane and myself spent 48 hours in our flat, broken only by a quick lunch time jaunt to our local pub with her friend Veronica. Other than that we didn’t go clubbing, gigging, to a cinema, or even back to a pub. We spent two days IN!!! Ok, we were in bed for most of it (tee hee) but what shocked me was not the fact that we stayed in but the fact I didn’t miss going out. And what’s more I know it’s not because I’m getting old (the main subject of my last London Calling). It’s because clubs are changing. Dance music is becoming a parody of it’s self or it’s turning into garage hell (garage music is without doubt total shit – anyone who says other wise should remember we have garage to blame for Craig “Ego” David), in London most rock clubs are held in some dive that smells of piss, pubs seem to have forgotten they are not clubs and have turned up the music to a Ministry of Sound volume and gigs seem to be full of crap bands doing the same old same old. But the main reason why going out is losing its appeal is Cocaine!
Everyone seems to have given up on the Love drug and decided that are being paid too much. Yeah Coke is fun (or at least so I’m told, officer) but it is starting to return the atmosphere out there in party land back to the old days of the Pre-E days, all too much drinking and attitude. I even witnessed a fight at Full Tilt, the Goth night at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. OK it was a Goth fight so lots of hair pulling and pushing each other but it’s the fistfight I’ve seen there in years! With a massive growth in Heroin use in clubs too, due mainly to every drugs campaign aimed at kids being all about the evils of ecstasy, club land is not the friendly place it once was. I mean trying to compare E to H is arse, but we now have a new generation of clubbers that don’t know “Heroin Screws You Up”! I just pray that we are about to return to the club land I left in my hometown of Luton, all 15 pints, a puke and a ruck. I moved to London to get away from that attitude for God’s sake!
Of course it hasn’t all been hours of sex, I have ventured out – mainly to gigs. I’ve been retro-ing out big time. I caught both Gary Numan at the Forum and Soft Cell at the Ocean in Hackney. Both great gigs, I had a ball. I wonder how it is your brain stores the words to songs you last sang along to when you were 15? I also went to see a band called TRAP 3 at The Kings Head in Fulham. Now normally a pub is Ok but not too well attended. Trap 3 had packed the place! They combine the old new wave sound of The Police with newer indie influences to make an electric live band, and they have a sense of humour… demonstrated mainly by their full rock cover of Pure Shores by All Saints. They’re unsigned at the moment but are in the studio recording a demo. If you hear that they’re playing near you catch them.. Most excellent!
My little musical baby, Scarlet Messiah, are still recording. Studio’s can be so boring, especially when you’re the vocalist. You work on the song writing, and work out the arrangement and vocals, but you do all that before you go in. Once in the studio you do your vocal takes after everything else is done. Then it’s comping and other studio magic, but us poor vocalists sit there. I used to be the main musician in my other projects but since joining up with master producer Robin Carbomb I don’t spend my time in front of a computer, more in front of the TV, while Rob spends an hour getting crash cymbals right. However I mustn’t grumble, as we are sounding very tight. Imagine Marilyn Manson meeting The Deftones while holding hands with Depeche Mode. You can check out our sound here.
Well I’m off for a week in Spain to get a tan and de-tox before I start a DJ-ing job on the internet/digital radio station Total Rock Radio. I’m doing Saturday and Sunday mornings between 9 and 12. The idea of having to go to work at the weekend is not my idea of fun but I’m sure a few enforced nights in and look forward to partying Friday to Sunday again.
Oh and one more thing. How can a fascist tosser like Glenn Hoddle get a job working at Tottenham, a team closely associated with Jewish supporters? The man is a pillock and as a disabled person who did nothing to deserve the cancer I was born with (other than to be born) I am amazed that everyone seems to forget the insulting bollocks he spouted about us. I’m sure the reaction would be very different if it was about women or Black footballers. Well if I go to see them play it won’t be the players I’ll be lobbing my small change at! Now I’ve had my rant, it’s bye from me, until next time!