Mark Tiddy
Website of Mark Tiddy | Musician, Christian, Youth Worker

As I mentioned a couple of days ago I’ve been pretty excited for the release of ‘The King Blues’ new album ‘Punk and Poetry’ which was released yesterday and proving that my HMV pre-order was worthwhile the album turned up yesterday morning and it’s been on in the car, office and living room and I’ve managed to listed to it several times over.

Both of ‘The King Blues’ previous albums have had a political feel about them and ‘Punk and Poetry’ is no different. I guess the obvious comparison is that Punk and Poetry is to the coalition government what NOFX’s ‘War on Errorism’ was to George Bush’s administration.

The King Blues have always had a more acoustic punk feel about them and whilst some of that remains on this album there’s a lot more electric, over-driven guitar giving a real punch to this album and making ‘Punk and Poetry’ a little more edgy than their previous releases.

In terms of lyrics you get exactly what you’d hope from Itch’s writing…passionate, well thought out and challenging lyrics, alongside that the album features a couple of Itch’s poems (with musical accompaniment) including the powerful ’5 Bottles of Shampoo’ which was regularly used as a encore during their tours last year.

A few of the stand out lyrics for me are

‘cut the bankers, cut the police, cut the rich and the riot police. Cut the state and cut the war. But they cut the poor’ from ‘We are f***ing angry’

‘well I’ve seen the rules that you call fair, when it’s profit you keep it but debt we share, the cycle of fear goes around forever, the very idea that we’re in this together’ from ‘Does anybody care about us’

‘Integrity is what black eyes were invented for’, ‘Stuff the man who thinks it’s ok to give his wife a punch, Stuff the judge who says it weren’t rape cos she was drunk’ from ’5 bottles of shampoo’

To be honest picking stand out lyrics is difficult when the whole album is lyrically beautiful and when sung with the passion that Itch puts into the music you can tell that this is an album The King Blues are really genuine with.

Overall Punk and Poetry is a fantastic album, it feels like a progression for ‘The King Blues’ and is simply beautiful both in production, lyrics and sound.

When I was 15 I really got into music…that’s not to say that before I didn’t like music. My childhood was often filled with music…whether it was ‘The Beatles’ coming from my parents record player, the feel good pop coming from Top of the Pops (e.g. Aqua, B*Witched) or the 70/80′s music I got to know through Haven holidays as a child.

However when I was 15 I went on my own direction. A friend of mine from youth group introduced me to ‘Sum 41′ in his car and I purchased ‘All Killer, No Filler’…then a few weeks later thanks for the CBBC Chart Show I was introduced to New Found Glory (NFG’s Sticks and Stones album remains one of my favourites to date).

From that moment I was off…search the internet for similar bands and downloading through WinMX (a less virus infected Limewire) and inevitably when I liked what I heard buying their albums…quickly adding The Offspring, MxPx, Goldfinger and Reel Big Fish to my collection. The free Sky Channel P-Rock introduced me to bands like [Spunge] and Rancid and my rock CD collection grew.

Buying Music

At that time Play.com was my main source of music but when I was 18 and moved to Peterborough being within 10 minutes walk of Virgin Megastores and HMV meant that I could buy an album on the day of release and spend several times during the week making impulse buys, scaring my bank account and browsing the rows of music in store.

I have to admit whilst being a huge fan of computers and Apple digital downloads have never got me. I like that with a CD you get the artwork, the lyrics and a list of thank-you’s from the band…I like having the physical object over the song even though the majority of the time I listen to my music through my iPhone or iTunes.

Spotify & Myspace

Since deciding to clean up my music 5 or so years ago Myspace and Spotify have been my source for listening to a band and often buying their album….mostly online. The availability of music online, for free is awesome.

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been listening to the Foo Fighter’s new album, Avril Lavigne’s new album and ‘Teenage Dream’ by Katy Perry and whilst they’re all on my amazon wish-list their online availability means that I can wait until the album is in the next sale!

The King Blues & Owl City Albums

All that aside there are a few albums which have me massively excited for their release…so much so that I’ll be buying them straight away.

The King Blues album is one of them. The politically minded London punk band’s new album is out Monday and we pre-ordered it 2 weeks ago. Having already heard the angry, powerful lyrics of ‘We are *very* angry’ and ‘Set the world on fire’ I don’t think I’ve been this excited about an album in a long time.

Alongside that the next release from Owl City is also exciting me. Ocean Eye’s got me hooked on the music of Owl City and the project from Adam Young may just be one of my favourite ‘bands’ around at the moment.

The Demise of Record Shops

Alongside my love for music which has caused me to ramble on for far too long on this post I’ve been sad to read that HMV are struggling to make money and are closing shops.

It’s far less a love of HMV and more the variety that HMV offers. If I’m being honest most my music is purchased through their website rather than stores (so I’m probably part of the problem) but having a highstreet music shop where you can browse a wider range than Sainsbury’s offers is fantastic and it’s probably the only part of high-street shopping trips that keeps me sain.

At the same time shops like ‘That’s Entertainment’ which sell 2nd hand CD’s are equally awesome…I’ve managed to lose roughly 45 minutes a visit just browsing through all that they have looking out for a bargain!

Perhaps the future of record stores is 2nd hand and new music will be purchased online…but I hope that the CD has a future and I hope we’ll still see music on our high-streets.