The Daily(ish) Ramblings of Mitch the Punk

Welcome to the Celebrity Culture.

2011-07-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

So, I don't know if you are aware, but that person above, died today.

Cue the celebrities on Twitter saying what a loss it was. Cue the people on Facebook crawling out of the woodwork and say that she's a great loss and how talented she was. God damn it, it even took all the focus from the horrific series of events in Norway yesterday so we could get showbiz reporters talk about her "heart of gold" and her "kindness".

I'm sorry, as 'talented' as she is, she doesn't deserve to be celebrated, especially not after what happened yesterday in Norway, where 92 innocent people died, 85 of which where innocent kids who had their lives ahead of them. Innocent kids who maybe could have changed the world. Innocent kids who could not have prevented their deaths. Amy Winehouse could have prevented her death, but she ignored the help that her family tried to give her so she could pursuit her drug habit. Look at the picture at the top of this post, is that a picture of a role model? Is that a picture of someone who deserves to be celebrated because she died?

At the start of this post, and when the news first broke of her 'untimely' death, the police said that her death is unexplained and her flat/house is now being treated as crime scene. Since then, according to Sky Sources, she died of a drug overdose. She contributed to her own death, whilst those 85 people in Norway couldn't stop their deaths from happening, and yet Winehouse will be the headlines of the Sunday tabloids? Is this the society we live in? Dead celebrities who pretty much killed themselves being celebrated whilst a country that lost 92 people are grieving?

Ladies and gentlemen, are living in a celebrity culture. RIP to those who lost their lives in Norway yesterday.

This time last week...

2011-07-18T05:43:00.001-07:00

I was taking the above photograph with my new SmartPhone. At the very same time I was getting burned to fuck by the very warm sun, which at the time, I didn't realise since it wasn't the warmest of weathers, but now I'm paying for it.

Of course I'm paying for it. Today is the first time since last Thursday evening (my 21'st birthday) where I have now gained the ability to wear socks. Yes. Also, now, because of the sun (which I didn't even understand why my parents decided to stay on a beach for 5 hours instead of exploring Looe, but then again, my 23 month old niece and 14 year old brother were with us, and we wasn't allowed to check into the caravan until 4pm).

Now, I look out of my bedroom window, drinking my 4th cup of tea of the day and all I can see? I can see the dull, damp weather of the Great British summer and all I can think of is a) the beautiful county of Cornwall, b) when is last nights WWE PPV going to download and c) I have to go back to work tomorrow. Yes, for those who do not know, I work in a retail store, well, Home Bargain's to be exact. It is something that pays until I get a post-graduate job. Meh, the thought of it makes me sad. But at the mean time, I've just sent off a bunch of articles that I wrote/some of them that didn't get published for uni to the guys at PunkNews.org, a website which I follow everyday to get streams of obscure bands and cool interviews.

This entry was just a little filler, because I'm bored and because I want to vent some frustrations. I'll probably be back later on.

I guess we have to start somewhere.

2011-07-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hello and good evening.

I am Mitch, I like punk music and because we all live in a society where we need to class ourselves, calling myself a twat wouldn't seem right, or fair, well not to those who are twats. So I call myself the punk, hence Mitch the Punk. See what I did there?

I like a lot of things, such as eating, sleeping, Pimms, eating, punk music, eating, playing punk music etc. But what I like 10 times as more as those things, is coming back from a week down in a beautiful part of the country (Cornwall), where I had no interaction with the internet, so I can check out three new things that my ears might be, or might not be interested in. And today kids, that was three new tracks from two different/contrasting artists.

Yes, Blink 182 released a new track from their long awaited comeback album, and Billy Bragg released a new (free) song. So where do I start?

Lets go for Blink 182. I'll be honest, I used to dig them back in the day of when I used to think girls sucked and wrestling, football and friends are the best things ever in life, and with them releasing a new song from their highly anticipated album (same day as what is supposed to be the Birmingham, England leg of their cancelled UK tour), I was curious. Yes, curiosity killed the cat ladies and gentlemen, but for a moment, I was the suspect. It is called "Up All Night". I'm on my third repeated listen now. And I'm not gonna pull any punches here, but Blink fans are going to be majorly pissed off by it. Albeit, its something totally different from their back catalogue, but it isn't anything good either. The introduction sounds like the character selection music from the old WWF Smackdown games, which to me, doesn't even fit in with the song, and if anything, the shitty little breakdowns and vocal styles sound more like an even more shittier version of Angels and Airwaves, and I detested that band. To me, it didn't seem like a tradition Blink song. It seemed slow for a Blink song. Check it out here:

Blink 182: Up All Night

Rating: 1/5

Now Billy Bragg. I like him. A New England was the first song I heard from him because my first band covered it. He's popular, he's stuck to his working class roots via the lyrics in his songs and he is ruddy good. During the week, he released on his website "Never Buy the Sun". The quick story behind this song his the whole News of the World, News International, Rupert Murdoch, Rebekkah Brooks, Milly Dowler, phone hacking thing, which has become "serious shit". News of the World got closed down and the one of the other good thing to come of this thus far, is that Rupert Murdoch has pulled out of the takeover for BSkyB, or Sky for us British, non business folk. Never Buy the Sun, was played live for the first time Saturday, recorded on Monday and published on Tuesday. Now on to the song. It cannot be called an instant classic, and it won't be held on the same pedestal as "New England" and "To Have and to Have Not", but its good. It refers to the Sun's sales in Liverpool, which never recovered after its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster and the aforementioned News of the World scandal. As I said, I like Bragg, and I like what he stands for and what he fights for. Check it out here:

Billy Bragg: "Never Buy the Sun"

Rating: 3.5/5