Tue 20 May
IPO Festival
The Cavern Club, Liverpool
More gig info here
Alun Parry Blog
History Starts Five Minutes Ago
Has anyone else noticed how history no longer really exists? Only the present. Only five minutes ago.
Have a poll of the greatest movies of all time and it will be littered with movies from the past decade.
Have a poll of the greatest albums, and today's latest flames will find themselves featuring heavily alongside music that is still considered great decades later.
Watch a TV discussion on football and all they'll talk about is the history of the Premiership, as if football was invented by Sky Sports. All previous achievements are considered null and void.
Now VH1 has got together with chart analysts to find the Nation's Favourite Music City. The results were announced today.
Liverpool came fifth behind Dublin, London, Manchester and Glasgow. Yet Liverpool has more UK number 1 records than any other city. It's a funny old world!
The criteria excluded everything before 1987 (much like Sky's football coverage does).
But even on this narrow criteria, looking up the East Lancs to our neighbours in Manchester, one can't help but wonder how fair it is to compare the output from a metropolis like London with a city the size of Manchester.
Surely Manchester music has been more influential in the past 20 years than London?
I reckon music in the North West has been well and truly short changed. Hmmmphhh. As Morrissey once said, hang the DJ!
9:31 PM | Permalink |
Liverpool Rocks!
It's funny what comes along out of nowhere. MTV, the satellite music station, contacted me today and persuaded me to get my old busking kit out again on Monday, and busk for the sake of Liverpool.
They are running a series of TV shows to find out which is the UK's favourite music city. I'll be performing a whole string of Scouse smashes to demonstrate that Liverpool's music scene is king.
The result is announced on Saturday 26th May so anticipation is at boiling point. I did used to be the official Merseyside Busker of the Year, so I'm hoping that will stand me in good stead as I take to the streets in favour of my home town!
So why do I think Liverpool is the greatest?
Many reasons! Here's just some
1. Longevity
Liverpool has been producing top quality musicians at the forefront of British music for over 50 years now.
2. A pool of talent
As someone heavily involved in giving Liverpool artists a platform to perform, I know for a fact that the future is going to be as healthy as the past. The talent in this city is simply breathtaking. I see it at first hand every single week!
3. The river
As a city weddded to the river, our influences are wider than most. The docks and the river have always brought the influences of the world to our shores on a daily basis, and the city's culture has been richer for absorbing them.
4. The people have spoken
The British record buying public have already delivered their verdict. Go and research which city has produced the highest amount of number 1 records in the country. That's right. It's Liverpool.
5. The Beatles
Raised in this fair town. They are still to be matched.
Details
I'll be busking in Williamson Square, Liverpool from 10pm to 2pm, on Monday 21st May. Come and support Liverpool's quest to be named the UK's Favourite Music City by popping by and giving me a cheer.
4:37 PM | Permalink |
The New Look Howard
Stunned faces all round this afternoon at rehearsals as drummer Howard showed up without his beard!!! I thought you all should know.
8:56 PM | Permalink |
The band, the whole band, and nothing but the band....
Well Wednesday night was my last not The Alun Parry Band gig. So if you missed it, you missed it.
I had a few gig dates still hanging over from my solo days so Chad and I went and did this enjoyable gig in Stalybridge (via Huddersfield thanks to a comical wrong turning haha).
But that was the last of them. From now on in its The Alun Parry Band at each and every gig.
I've already introduced you to Chad on an earlier blog, so its time for me to complete our little jigsaw by saying hello to the man on the sticks, Howard Northover.
He's an excellent drummer, and has played with many different bands before us. He's also a good bloke and, handily enough, a martial arts expert. So if it ever kicks off, Chad and I can leave him to it, go get his pint in for him, and wait for him to emerge unscathed.
We're delighted to have him on board, and those who have already seen us as a band will understand why.
We're on tour from June onwards. So now that our fab new drummer is on board, make sure you come along and see us!
9:23 AM | Permalink |
Football Looks After Everyone But The Fans
Two things have happened in the world of football this week that underline to me just how incidental the game treats its supporters. None of this is new of course, but it is getting worse, and nobody is calling a halt to it.
The first thing that happened is that Liverpool Football Club beat Chelsea to reach the final of the European Cup (or Champions League as they now call it). This is considered the most prestigious cup final in the world.
It will be played in Athens on the 23rd May at The Olympic Stadium. UEFA, the European football governing body, has issued 64,000 tickets. Liverpool fans however get just 17,000 of them ie about a quarter of the tickets. Milan's supporters also only get 17,000 tickets.
The rest of the tickets, just under half, are kept from the fans of the teams involved. 30,000 tickets in total which the fans of the two teams playing are not allowed to buy!
The bulk of these tickets will end up in the hands of people who don't really want to go. The supply of tickets to the real fans has been limited so much that these tickets will command a huge price. Already, there are internet ads offering match tickets at a price of £1,200 per ticket.
It is a tout's paradise. Instead of simply selling the tickets officially to the real fans who want to go, those fans will now face the choice of paying through the nose to a tout or not going at all. It is outrageous.
But hey, who cares. It only affects the supporters.
Liverpool Football Club, knowing that they have way more than 17,000 people who want to go to the game, have appealed to UEFA for more tickets. There will be more than 17,000 reds in the stadium, they argued, so let's do this properly. It will be safer and it will be fairer. UEFA, in their typical corrupt wisdom, said no.
This means that even if you are a season ticket holder at Anfield, and even if you attended every single European home match, you're STILL not guaranteed a ticket.
And all this despite 64,000 tickets going on sale. At best this is idiocy. At worst this is corruption. You make your own mind up.
But if those 30,000 tickets are sold at £1,000 each by the touts who will ultimately get hold of the bulk of them, then the tout industry will have made £30 million off the backs of genuine, loyal fans.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
The second thing to happen this week in football is Manchester United winning the league. Despite being a Liverpool fan, they deserved it. They play great football and purists more neutral than I will applaud the fact that they won it instead of Chelsea's less eye catching displays.
But the thing that irritates me on behalf of United fans is that they won it in absentia due to TV scheduling.
In the old days of Saturday afternoon kick offs, United would have beaten City 1-0 at the same time as Chelsea failed to beat Arsenal. As United's match ended, they would have been awarded the title. This is how it should be.
Instead, for the third time in fact, they won it in their absence. This, for the fans, is a really unsatisfactory way to win anything.
The joy of being a football fan is bearing witness. It is the sense of being there at a momentous occasion. That is why people are so desperate to be at the game in Athens that they'll sell their worldly goods in order to pay tout prices.
It really isn't the same to reminisce about how it felt getting the text message that told you Chelsea had failed to win, as it is to reminisce about how it felt to be at the game where the title was clinched.
Any football supporter will tell you this.
But who cares about football supporters anymore?!
10:06 AM | Permalink |
Last posts
- Listen Up At The Merseyside Derby
- Carling Gig: Thank You All
- These little town blues....
- New Lineup For The Alun Parry Band
- Named in Top 10 Liverpool Bands
- A Blue Plaque For A Working Class Hero
- Farewell to 07
- Extended Alun Parry Interview by Sandra Gibson
- Photo Fest: Album Launch - Are You Pictured???
- PhotoFest: Virgin Gig 27th August
Archives
- March 2007
- April 2007
- May 2007
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- November 2007
- December 2007
- February 2008
- March 2008
|
Alun Parry is regarded as Liverpool's most respected radical musician.
|
I'm an independent musician. Help me keep producing my music. Donate with Paypal |
Keep in touch with gigs and stuff Join now |
