It seems that my problems with a local rail provider would be worthy of this first post. As I’ve moved, my transport links have changed and I’ve had to make numerous journeys on an overground rail line that services parts of London I go regularly such as Hackney and The City. It has been no source of joy in my life, but you can read the full complaint letter I sent myself to the provider below:

Dear Personnel of National Express East Anglia,

My name is Jack Duckworth, a resident of Walthamstow, and I am writing you today regarding the bizarre, flippant spasms of activity that you publicly refer to as the Liverpool Street to Chingford line of your National Express East Anglia service. I guess you can say this is a complaint letter; one that I’ve been avoiding writing as I’m quite a busy man and feel it should only really come to a point of great distress that I should write such a letter. Well look, here I am… writing this letter.

I have recently relocated my place of residence to Walthamstow and have looked to rely on your London Liverpool Street to Chingford service as a fast and easy service to points in Hackney and The City. This service is scheduled to run every 15 minutes at the same times on the hour, every day Monday through Friday from any given station.

However, much to my confusion and astonishment, this service has not delivered on what I casually estimate as 35-40% of the time. I have arrived at stations in Walthamstow, Clapton and Hackney Downs to find trains delayed by at least 5-10 minutes or more, or even cancelled for reasons totally unbeknownst to myself, and upon my inquiry, to members of staff themselves. Notable extreme examples include a 25 minute delay (!) at Hackney Downs at approximately 9am on January 10th and a number of occasions at Walthamstow Central in the evening where the trains to Liverpool Street have been cancelled for cryptic reasons of “signal failure” with no further explanation or no prior warning.

Another example was a southbound train from Hackney Downs on December 14th at around the hour of 11pm. The display had stated the incoming time of the southbound train and then had stated all trains were cancelled. This cancellation was announced on the loudspeaker with no reason provided except to call an information number. I dialled this number and the pre-recorded message told me to call back during business hours, of which I forget now as at that moment my energies were mainly focused on quelling a brewing rage in the dumb, looming shadows of transportation incompentence.
The instances I’ve mentioned above were the most extreme in a somewhat more lengthy list of examples of poor train service.

Let’s assess the London Liverpool Street to Chingford line. It’s train that runs on quite a short length of track consisting of approximately 10 stops from end to end. I’ve taken the train from end to end and it’s about 25 minutes or so from what I remember. Aside from minor gradients in the track there are no challenging obstacles or features in this length or track; no obstacles which might actually vary train service: obstacles such as an insurgency of armed rebels obstructing track, sections of track running through sluggish quicksand or sections of track that may resemble sections of a rollercoaster (ie: a “loop the loop”) that one would find at a fun fair or carnival, which would obviously add an unpredictable element to the service and thus rightfully delay the service.

The usual reasons for delay are vague and non-eventful at that such as “signal failure” or “adverse weather conditions” (read: “light rain”) or in some cases, “an on-going situation at XXXX station.
I can already predict a likely reply to this letter, and one “justifying” the poor service. It would be one stating that the trains or sections of track are old and need upgrading or some other pre-written bureaucratic stock answers that underpaid customer service agents will spend mind-numbing hours copying and pasting into countless reply emails. Considering the UK pays some of the highest fares in Europe — and to which one occasion a European colleague of mine had with tact referred to as “highway robbery” — it’s an extremely tall drink of nasty liquid that one has to ingest to side with that reasoning. Where is all of this money going?

What is even more frightening, or tragically hilarious — depending on what way you look at it — is that we are six to seven months away from the 2012 Olympics; an event that requires London to allow itself to become fat and uncomfortably bloated with the addition of at least five million people (estimated figures). And with this train service, as well as notable other examples throughout the London transportation network, coasting into this massive event on the same quality of service to me is the equivalent of a stereotypical dope-smoking teenager coasting along in cannabis-induced bliss, right until that moment he needs to pick up the phone and order one massively large, Olympic-size pizza and failing to even do that when going into mad panic seconds after picking up the phone.

I can already imagine the blind rage of commuters during those patience-testing two weeks as massively enlarged body of population attempts to smoothly use this service as it’s current level of quality. The biggest spectacles I can assure you wont be at the stadium or track, but at tube and rail stations themselves as angry commuters create new sports of their own such as synchronised turnstile hurdling, Oyster Card discus, the 100m platform dash, inner carriage boxing and much more. Perhaps all of these events would revolve around the “Olympic Flame” of burning effigies of Boris Johnson, who the public identify as the face and mouth of TFL. A man with all the charm and charisma of a soft, perspiring potato.

Anyway, I’m sure as you can tell by my tirade expressed the numerous paragraphs aboves there are serious faults to your service which you’ll need to pick up the slack on in terms of efficiency to validate the amount one spends in fares. In the meantime it’s a bit of a farce to say the least.

As I’m sure most of your staff are familiar with the popular animated sitcom “The Simpsons”, I’d like to conclude this letter with words that would like be quoted by that curmudgeonly, unshaven and borderline shapeless character we all know as “Comic Book Guy”:

“Worst. Train Service. Ever.”

Yours Sincerely,
Jack Duckworth

Furthermore, live dates are in the works for other cities in the UK as well as possible dates in France and Germany later this spring. More information on that to come.

Another Drone In Your Head by softriot

Perhaps there’s a sense of wonder and nostalgia lately. And it would certainly be present upon viewing of a feature from Japanese television about the macabre Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger. Although I’m never one to get to super die-hard fan status, Giger’s work has come and gone from focus in my lifetime, probably first discovered when I was a youth in the 80s through random science fiction magazines like Omni, battered VHS covers and album artwork — Perhaps I connected because the aesthetic and motives for his artworks very in tune with some of my own aesthetics and viewpoints on the human race — alienation, over-population,  the “cog in the machine” viewpoint and sort of the dark, um, sexuality of it all. Although somewhat macabre and terrifying many of his paintings have a sublime beauty and oddly a sense of calm (more so on the more abstracted landscapes).

Around a decade or so I had a brief stint, unschooled, with painting. There was some influence of that school of work albeit in a far more primitive, expressionist style. I’ll have to post some of that as I’ve pulled those items from out of three years of storage. We’ll save that for another time and get back to the documentary.

Opening up with a dark forest setting and a typeface worthy of 1970s psychedelic journey to Middle Earth, the documentary already moves in a more experimental direction with the deep space synthesizer sounds apparently provided courtesy by members of the kraut/prog group Brainticket. These druggy musical soundscapes lay a timeline to drape still fades of a great number of Giger’s painting from his Necronomicon series, many already familiar to those who may only have a passing interest in the artist.

What made this film odd I found was the candid nature of Giger’s narrative (in this case, done by a burly voiced American sounding bass-y and somewhat wooden) overlapping footage of domestic aspects of Giger’s life; including hoovering his Siamese cat, serving guests what appears to be lasagna in his garden, brushing his teeth, etc.. The list goes on. It makes for somewhat of a naïve but interesting contrast to the landscapes found in his paintings. Giger’s thoughts and musings on his artwork and philosophy come across quite naturally and seem to be uninhibited as to what others will think.

In addition there’s also some interest inside from some very jet-setting “Euro” patrons, explaining their attraction to his artwork. I certainly think that the pacing of this “feature” is of one that you wouldn’t really see in today’s “cut to the chase” style of television feature. The slow pacing I think adds to the epic feel of consciousness in the artwork.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. You can view for yourself below. Switch on the lava lamp, get a fondue nice and heated in an earthware crockpot and kick back…

GIGER “Necronomicon” Part 1 of 4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Ce0G_lBYs

Receiving junk mail by fax is another phenomenon: bad, dot-matrix style ads spooling painfully to the out tray with garbled graphics of houses to let and tasteless clip-art. An old friend of mine worked at a paint store that made regular use out of the shop’s fax machine. Apparently the percentage of junk mail that that fax machine received prompted my friend to take action against the spam-sending aggressors. The result is where this whole story starts.

“I just took three sheets of paper, penned them up so they were all black, and taped the three sheets together into the fax machine,” he said — or something to that effect. “Once the chained sheets went through and started coming out the other side, I’d tape the three sheets again into a loop.”

From there one would get an infinite fax message; the three sheets constantly rotating and when received on the other side the fax wouldn’t stop until manually stopped. The blacked out pages added more nastiness to the deed, wasting up the recipient’s toner as well as their paper. Yes, harsh revenge for those shameless fax spammers. This trick was what we then called a “loopfax”.

This friend of mine had a knack for telling stories and things that happened in his life and his telling of it was hilarious. As we had also played in a band together, a short time later after a show in Victoria, the loopfax came up again — this time at a small party at a friend’s house. Fueled by a post-gig high, likely lack of sleep and alcohol — the loopfax story struck a chord with those that hadn’t heard of it as it seemed like the most simple yet ultimately damaging form of technology-based office warfare that there was. The conversation started picking up and as we discussed the repercussions of loopfax usage (or mis-use), scenarios worthy of science fiction were discussed. That and a lot of laughing our asses off.

Imagine a future where man is slave to the machine. It is the year 2056 and mankind has deforested the entire planet to make paper to feed into the Giant Fax Machine. It has been receiving and endless fax message for years. Giant monoliths of printed fax paper obscure the sun, standing hundreds of stories high. The sky is polluted with chemicals from pulp and paper mills. All is dirty with the blackness of toner soot. One day our hero steps forward and ends the madness by simply pulling the plug. Mankind rejoices.

Sounds like a plot as goofy as Spaceballs or Darkstar.  And even from there it went on, popping up sporadically over the following years. A friend of mine even did a small blog about it that’s still haunting the internet as a joke, full of suggestions for fax-based revenge and practical jokery — perhaps some modern Dada-style art.

To be honest, I’ve never even tried making a loopfax. If this short piece inspires you, try it at home and send your loopfax related adventures to me by email… or by FAX (scary ending music).

CLICK TO ENLARGE

I’d keep telling people about these: a ridiculous “urban-themed” hip hop snack but totally forgot the name and any of the details. It’s sort of like telling a joke but flailing on the punchline. No-one likes a flailing punchline — really.

The first time I came across “Rap Snacks” – as I’ve now found out – was in a non-descript (possibly derelict?) gas station off of the interstate in St. Louis, Missouri. We had spent the evening hanging around a venue in a not-so-good part of town and were now packing up to make tracks to our next destination: Memphis, Tennessee. The initial draw of Rap Snacks were the cartoon-ish illustrations of the endorsing “rapper” on the packaging and the bold colouring made by usage of only a few solid primary colours. There was sort of a Spy Vs. Spy or Dick Tracy vibe going on.

Warren G., L’il Romeo, Pretty Willie… can’t say I’ve heard of these guys. They must have some clout in the rap world to get a snack with their name on it. Perhaps the snack flavour is a representation of their personality. Pretty Willie is a spicy yet smooth personality: therefore Salsa Cheese.

Knowing that ages young and old will pick up a bag, positive messages are printed on the packaging: “Respect Your Elders”… “Stay In School”… Looks like they’re taking a cue from Mr. T.

“Worry is a misuse of imagination” – quote by Chopper, a “rapper” that I’ve never heard of. This quote is from a bag of Hot Sauce Pork Cracklin’s.

Maybe this was a smaller, tight knit scene of bonafide rappers getting together and doing something positive? Who knows? The message is sure there. As well as a big potential for advertising. Getting the artists out to the rap music lovers… and lovers of dry, salted snacks.

We know musicians have been tied with food for a while: Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü owns a restaurant in Minnesota, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand wrote a food book and I know various musicians of the punk/hardcore cannon that have written about food or pursue a career in food in tandem with their musical endeavours. Bands have even made novelty merchandise around food.

Maybe a genre-based snack could be launched on a more microcosmic scale.

EAST LONDON WAVE SCENE SNACKS
Many different variations, each with some sort of active persona on the packaging with a morally uplifting (or nihilistically sarcastic) message on the front of the bag/box.

If I had that bizarre opportunity to put my face on a snack it would likely have cashews in it.

This makes for using a lot less energy and staying indoors, amongst piles of things. A lot of these things arrived early this summer when a bunch of stuff I had lying in storage back in Canada were shipped over: records, books, clothes, old zines, cassettes, master recordings, photos and other odds and ends. One of the items is a tattered manila FedEx envelope filled with random photos and documentation from when my father passed away, which is now a month or two shy of ten years ago. I never really explored this envelope and for no real reason. It was a mess and always warranted “some time when I had some time” to look in it. I finally did. Odd postcards sent from his stint in the navy to the parents back home, tainted with his trademark humour, a yellowing university thesis, old photos from way back when of unknown men and woman. Some distant Duckworth relative would be my first bet.

I’ve been trying to document a lot of the notes, posters, artwork and other such things I’ve been pumping out on pieces of paper since I was a young school student in the early to mid nineties and posting bits here and there. Here’s a few bits I’ve assembled together from this manila envelope:

That’s it for now. Back to being ill. In these moments I get flashbacks to older times I was sick or just laying around. I seem to remember a long time ago being dazed on some sort of medicine or painkillers listening to this song from the Fugazi “In On The Killtaker” album — back when this album had regular rotation. I currently feel like the track from the 3.00 minute mark onward…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DInMgpg05SU

The first film, The Servant, is a British film from 1963 starring Dirk Bogarde somewhat hot on the heels of his controversial film, Victim. It mainly takes place in the apartment of a foppish and wealthy young man played by James Fox (Performance). Coming from a privileged background and not really having worked in his lifetime, he enlists the services of Barnett, played by Dirk Bogarde to be his “man-servant”. Throughout the film Barnett masterfully turns the tables on his employer and by the end of the film the relations between these two and their lovers become entirely twisted and into threadbare emotional psychosis, playing on a larger theme of class and privilege.

THE SERVANT (1963)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi8LukXkIaw

The second is a light-hearted, critically panned film adaptation of The Bonfire of The Vanities by Brian de Palma starring “family-friendly” 80s favourites Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. While the film has apparently followed Tom Wolfe’s book for the most part, it is somewhat common knowledge that the character of Sherman McCoy is painted in a more sympathetic light in this film — there’s something generally hammy about it but makes for late Sunday night “watch the wealthy white guy fall real hard” entertainment, and touches on some of the political reasonings for the basis of scapegoat type cases.

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES (1988)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSWY_mA1LPw

The former struck me as a more masterful film and I admit I’m starting to get a Dirk Bogarde kick a stirring. Time to watch Sebastian at some point, Bogarde meets 60s drug movie!

SEBASTIAN (1968)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lxj81G-Uhg

Further videos for this EP can be found in the VIDEO section or on the Soft Riot YouTube account here.

Also thanks to those who had come out to the recent London shows. It’s now back in the studio preparing and finishing tracks for the upcoming “Another Drone In Your Head” EP and writing new material. Next show will be the opening party for the London Underground Film Festival, for which you can find more information here. More information on the opening party can be found here.

SOFT RIOT “You’re Not From Around Here” Promotional Video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCMF3NeSPJQ