www.joeferris.co.uk

Hello hello! It’s been about two months since my last proper blog so it’s about time I update you on what’s been going on. I had a great night supporting Spandex Ballet at the launch of their latest music video “The Lonely Irishman” in November. The gig was at Molly Malone’s, one of my favourite pubs in Hitchin. You can see the video by clicking the link.

I also played a charity gig at The Coach & Horses pub in Stevenage Old Town as part of like a fundraiser for this guy Sam who’s walking from Wales to Stevenage! This is the gig at which I accidently played songs like “Get In The Fucking Van” to children!

I was assured that 2.45pm wasn’t too early in the day to sing my filthy off in a pub, as long as I warn the audience about the language first….but I forgot to warn the audience. I wasn’t actually aware that there were any children in the pub until I was at least two songs into the set. At this point I saw four or five tiny faces appear from around a corner with massive smiles on them. Four stools were grabbed and lined up in front of the stage which the children sat on while they waved their arms and mouthed “Gobshite! Gobshite!” 

The children looked very happy, but needless to say, the parents did not! I had no back up plan, no family friendly songs rehearsed to switch my approach - I could only carry on while trying very hard not to laugh! I suppose I could have sang Get In The FLIPPING van but it just doesn’t pack the same punch. The most difficult song to sing was Fetish Club - you can listen to it in the music player on my website to find out why. I just hope that they weren’t old enough to understand most of it!

My next gig is at The Red Lion in Stevenage Old Town on Xmas Eve, hopefully see you there. I’ll be looking for more gigs in January and hopefully I’ll find a way to burn and print more copies of my E.P now that my CD burner has packed up and the printer I borrowed has run out of ink! 

If you want to do me a favour and please my ego a little bit, go and watch my latest video for an old song. Discretion is advised as I am a filthy mouthed gobshite. 

This is my first blog entry for a couple of months, so what have I been doing with myself I hear you ask! Well, I’ve been playing some gigs with some great bands, including: Brocker, Vendetta, Ministers Dead and Robb Johnson & The Irregulars to mention just a few of the performers I’ve shared a stage with and LOVED since my last post! 

Last night at the Doctors Tonic in Welwyn GC, Mungo and the Green Room team hosted an awesome “protest music” themed evening - a topic which is obviously close to my heart (as I indicated to the audience by pulling down my shirt to reveal my Anarcho-Socialist star with resistant fist tattoo. A move which on reflection was a bit cheesey!). Being a collectivist can feel ironically lonely when you feel like you’re the only one, so it was really comforting to hear Mungo talk of keeping “the red flag flying high” and to have people approach me after I’d played, telling me to “keep the faith” and sharing stories of the demonstrations we’d been on. 

I’d been to London the day before (15th October 2011) to take part in what the media are calling the Economic Protests. I was one of the estimated 2,000-3,000 people who were blocked from entering the Paternoster Square by police and occupied the space outside St. Paul’s Cathedral instead. It was an interesting day, a bit tense at times but mostly very peaceful. The only time I felt like there was a possibility of any danger was when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange came running past me followed by his two security guards and around 20 or 30 photographers! 

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay the duration as I had to get back for the gig, but I extend my solidarity to those comrades braving the cold for this cause! I was concerned that the Catholic community in the area would be offended by the occupation when they arrived for Mass on Sunday morning - but a small victory came when the Vicar there came out and said he respected the people’s democratic right to protest, but asked the police to get off his steps! Win! 

A Kettle By Any Other Name

The battle now though I think, is to break through the layers of rhetoric and semantics used by the police, the government and the media. The BBC has reported for example, that the Met denies using a kettling tactic. This is a complete lie. We were not free to enter/leave the area as we wished, we had to wait by the police lines for them to decide we were allowed out. A friend of mine was contained for nearly two hours, forced to join a queue of about 60 people and then asked for personal details by the police. The police had no legal right to ask for anyone’s details, nor to contain people but that’s what they did. Some of the police officers seemed friendly enough at first to be fair to them, but the vast majority that I tried to give a polite smile to just looked at me as though they had already decided I was a criminal. Some were deliberately antagonistic or confrontational when approached and I’ve even seen a video online of the scene after I’d left where the police held up a scrolling LED sign stating ‘THIS IS NOT A CLEARANCE’ - but it’s been reported that an officer was seen throwing a protester down the Cathedral steps at around the same time.

Like I say - rhetoric and semantics. If something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can call it whatever you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a fucking duck! 

After years of recording just rough versions of my songs at home, with little to no production or editing, I finally got round to some better quality recording. My Dad knows how to use editing software and make my political and deliberately offensive noise sound like music, so I’ll be releasing my first E.P in the next few weeks. I haven’t decided on a title yet but I’m thinking either “Humour in Error” or “Shits ‘n’ Giggles”. The track listing is as follows:
1) Put The Fork Down (Fatty)
2) Budget Cuts
3) Spot The Dickhead
4) Pissing Out My Bumhole
5) Get In The Fucking Van

I’m aiming to sell it as cheap as possible while covering my costs, probably around £2. I’ll leave one track on my facebook page for now as a “try before you buy” sort of thing.  

It occured to me that people might wonder, “Just what is Joe’s problem with Capitalism anyway?”. Having posed this question to myself, I decided to give YOU, my imaginary followers the answer!

Capitalism doesn’t work.

It seemed like it was working for quite a long time to people who didn’t know or care about capitalism’s foundation of exploitation of workers around the world or the unfair distribution of wealth. The paramilitary death squads that left Coca-Cola bottlers in ditches by the road for trying to join a Union, or the wars waged against intangible constructs like “Drugs!” and “Terror!” that are never intended to be won or lost, only contained and maintained, preventing “Wargasm!” because War Is Profit.

 If Capitalism seemed like it was working for a while, that’s only because it was working for you. Capitalism has stopped working even for us now. A Frankenstein’s monster gone rogue, a heartless undead conglomerate of people with the strength and psychopathy to overthrow it’s masters and just do whatever the fuck it wants! (See ‘The Corporation documentary by clicking the ‘Revolution’ tab on the left).

In the Capitalist system it’s all about money. And you have to “have money to make money”. Basically the same concept as the solar powered lamp I spent £14 on in Ikea. It sure does look retro and cool on my windowsill…but it doesn’t work when I need it, in the dark. 

After the resounding ’No’ vote cast in the AV referendum I’ve now completely lost faith in democracy.  If history has taught us anything it’s that the opinion held by “the majority” is not necessarily the right one. People thought the Earth was flat but they were wrong, people thought that slavery was a good idea - but they were wrong, and people think that Britain’s Got Talent is high quality entertainment. They’re wrong.

It is a fallacious argument, called an ’Appeal to Widespread Belief’, to suggest that anything is  moral and true based solely on the observation that a lot of people agree. In the 1800’s there was a widespread belief that bloodletting cures sickness, when believe it or not, it made people more sick.

I’ve come to the conclusion that democracy will always be a lie until the choices we make are free and the opions we have are informed. For this to be the case, education needs to be free and accessible to everyone and the people in charge of the ‘No’ Campaign in the AV referendum need to be held to account for their lies about celebrity endorsement and the cost of reform.

So even if we ignore the fallacy of “majority rule” being a fair system, you still can’t really have a democracy until people really know what it is they’re voting for. So I guess I’m now anti-democracy as well as being anti-capitalist. The only solution is a socialist dictatorship with me at the top!

My first E.P - ‘Shits ‘n’ Giggles!’ is finally ready thanks to help from my friend Tim Lane who helped cut out inlays for the plastic wallets and my friend Becki L’Affineur, who provided her printer for the inlays and labels and even burned the discs for me as my CD burner stopped working! Of course, a big thankyou to my Dad (Mick Ferris) for producing the E.P and making my noise sound a bit like music! I’d also like to name drop a few more friends: Niall Singh - for always being a bad influence and helping to come up with riffs for Bullet Wounds (old Drymouth song) and Put The Fork Down. Simon Shepherd - who took the pictures for the covers and disc and who has provided inspiration and lyrical contributions to songs like Pub Fight (another old Drymouth song) over the years. Also Sam Smith - who’s hilarious lack of social etiquette inspired Spot The Dickhead and Pissing Out My Bumhole.

The track listing is below. You can listen to the first track for free in the Audio section of this site and of course all the lo-fi recordings of my songs are still free. To get a copy of my E.P - contact me through the link to my Facebook page when you click Home in the menu.

The band I played bass for have unfortunately split up.