Drums.

I like to think I'm a very liberal person. If I ever have kids I would support anything they wanted to do and any life choices they made... except one. If my (fictional) son or daughter came to me and told me they wanted to play the drums, I would disown them. I've been playing drums for about... 15 years? And trust me, there is no biggest waste of time and money in the world.

I wouldn't say playing drums was forced on me, but it was something that was always going to happen. My Dad used to play drums in an RAF marching band (TRU PUNX) when he was in the forces and there was always a pair of drum sticks floating around our house. I eventually took it up in secondary school and took a few lessons with the school drum teacher. Which leads me onto the first reason to not play drums; The cost.

Drum lessons in 1996 (FUCK) were £18 an hour. I remember that specifically as my Mum nearly had a heart attack when I told her. On top of that, I needed to buy my own sticks. £8 a pair. WICKED. So basically, I had very few drum lessons. Just enough to learn a beat and then I was on my own. Since then I must have spent thousands and thousands of pounds on this piece of shit hobby. Two drum kits, countless bits of hardware, an obscene amount of cymbals and what must equate to a forests worth of fucking drum sticks.

Seriously, this shit is expensive. I worked all summer cleaning tables in Pizza Hut to buy my first drum kit, and even then I couldn't afford a fucking good one. I dread to think how many Cymbals I've been through costing between £150-£200 a go... nearly 20? You'd think that something made from sheet metal would be pretty sturdy, right? WRONG. They break, they crack, they split and as soon as it happens, you're fucked. Yeah, they have warranties, but they only last a year and the average cymbals life span must be about 366 days. It's a fucking scam... And don't even get me started on fucking drum sticks... £8 a pair and the break in fucking sound check?! Fucking do one. So, there you go, drums are seriously expensive. Reason one.

Reason two; Drums fucking suck. If you learn the Piano or the Cello or something like that, you learn specific songs, melodies and scales. You get something for your money. My sister has been playing piano as long as I can remember, if she wants to play something for someone she can sit down and play some Beethoven, if she wants to relax she can sit down and play Chopin. What the fuck am I going to do? 'Hey look everyone! Bass drum!' *THUD* ...Great. Drums are the musical equivalent of the guy who turns up to a formal dinner party fucked out of his face with a prostitute on his arm. Everyone is sitting around having a nice time, talking about current events and then Drummy Drummond turns up screaming and being sick everywhere. Drums aren't an instrument, they're a fucking nuisance.

After my few lessons my mum asked to see what I'd learnt.

'Yeah Mum, I've learnt loads! Check this out!' *BASS DRUM - SNARE - BASS DRUM - BASS DRUM - SNARE*

'Oh... what song is that?!'

'......All songs?'

It might sound like I'm putting this on for comedy effect, but I'm not, drums are THAT dull. After my few lessons I basically thought 'Well, this sucks... I wonder how fast I can play this beat?' And that's pretty much all the fun I could get out of it. Don't get me wrong, I love doing bands, going on tour, drinking loads and visiting water parks, but the worst part about being on tour is the actual gig part. Great... 30 minutes of hitting stuff. WOOOOOOOOOO.... OK, so you've brought your drums, you've learnt your 4/4 beat. Next you join a band and start playing gigs.... MASSIVE ERROR.

My friend was telling me about a guitar pedal the other day that's basically an amp in a pedal and sounds wicked. He knows someone who has started using it for gigs, so basically he rocks up with a guitar in a gig bag, a distortion pedal and this amp pedal. Bass players now just need their bass and a Sansamp (another tiny pedal that sounds wicked). Drummers? Sticks, Cymbals, Snare and Pedal... at least. Usually your own snare stand too. You have no idea how heavy this crap is to carry.

So by this point you're in a band. Think you're pretty cool, ay? Nope, you're a drummer. You sit at the back of the stage, looking like neanderthal man, hitting things with sticks, getting sweaty and grunting. There is NO way to look good playing drums. A few years ago when Blink 182 got big I played so many gigs with drummers who tried to be Travis Barker. Playing exactly like him and making themselves look like EVEN MORE of a fuckwit. You can try to dress it up in any way you want, but at the end of the day, you'll never make drumming look cool. Just accept you made a shitty life choice. You're sweaty, you're constantly poor and you have arthritis in your wrists and elbows. The dreams over.

Lastly, Drum Solos; What the fuck is the point in a drum solo? I remember my Dad telling me once that he saw Deep Purple in the 70's and the drummer did an 18 minute drum solo... EIGHTEEN FUCKING MINUTES?! Fuck off.

SNARE

TOM

SNARE

SNARE

TOM

SNARE

BASS DRUM

TOM

SNARE

SNARE

SNARE

BASS DRUM

TOM

TOM.... Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Can you really imagine ANYTHING worse?

So there it is, don't let your kids play drums. As soon as their old enough, they'll resent you for it.

Rock clubs

The bus to work is again, kicking face in with ideas for posts. Today I was sat in front of two greebos who were bemoaning the lack of a Brighton 'Alternative club'... Grow up.

Rock/Metal/Indie/Alternative clubs (whatever you want to call them) fucking suck for the following reasons.

SHIT VENUES. Living in a few different cities and travelling about on tour a little bit has meant I've been to quite a few of these hell holes (I fucking dread promoters saying 'Oh guys, after the gig, this place turns into a club night if you wanna come?!'). And in my experience they are almost always in shit holes. I'm sure there are reasons for this, maybe the owners want to enhance the 'goth' look of the place so don't clean it, or maybe it's doing such bad business that they can't AFFORD to clean it. Either way, I can't think of a worse place to spend my Saturday night.

Let's take for example The Basement in Leeds (later called Subculture). Now, I know some of you're friends might have worked there, some of my friends did too. But NO-ONE can seriously say that the place was not a fucking disgusting shit hole. If you order a drink and have to peel your feet off the floor to walk away from the bar; Shit hole. If as soon as you walk into a place you're hit with a smell of hot piss, sweat and despair; Shit hole. If instead of cleaning the toilet walls, the owners just glue more and more comic book pages over the stains; SHIT HOLE. Why would people want to spend their evenings in these places?!

TOO LOUD. Oh look, there's Stu 'Stu! Do you want a drink?'
'What?'
'DO YOU WANT A DRINK?!'
'WHAT?!'
'DR-INKKK???'
'WHAT?!'
I realise this is going to make me sound old, but these places are too fucking loud. There is no fucking way you can talk to each other properly. Everyone is always hunched over desperately trying to hear what their friends are saying, or just miming 'drink?' to each other across the bar. The whole things looks like a game of charades at Christmas. When I ask people in there 20's why they still go to these places a common thing they say is 'To see my friends' OK fine, but you must literally mean SEE your friends, you can't talk to them. There is no fucking way you can hold any sort of conversation with each other. If you really cared about seeing people, go to a bar, have them over to yours, go for a meal... All you're doing is standing around in a smelly shit hole, looking dumbly at your friends waiting for the 'DJ' to play something you know...

IRONY HOUR. This happens in 90% of the 'alternative' nights I've been to. At some point in the night (usually between 12 and 1am) the DJ will divert from the play list and start playing some sort of pop/dance/hip hop/80's medley... Fuck off.

'Hey! Hey everyone, you know we all like punk right? And you know this is a punk night? But, like, we don't JUST like Punk do we? No! Cause that's narrow minded! Everyone thinks we just come here to listen to Punk stuff, but we don't! We're SO unconformist, we aren't even conforming to our own rules!! EVERYONE! CHECK IT OUT! I OWN CD'S THAT DIDN'T COME OUT ON FAT WRECK! LOOK! I'M GOING TO PLAY THEM!!! READY?'

And the DJ plays All the Single Ladies by Beyonce. Cue all sorts of whacky dancing from everyone in the room. Follow that up with some Gaga, or something equally groundbreaking. But, hey kids, this cool DJ doesn't just like Pop, here's some Hip Hop! Cue 99 problems, Gravel Pit and Low. But then, EVEN COOLER, FUCK, LET'S PLAY JOURNEY. YEAHHH 80'S POWER BALLADS!!!! Am I the only person that finds this a fucking pretentious, or am I 'missing the point'? Is, by playing these same few songs week after week, the DJ opening our minds to new possibilities? Or is it just a chance for the posers to show that, even though they're at a punk night, they don't JUST like punk? Which leads me onto my next point.

ANTHEMS. Have you ever been to a Punk club night that HASN'T played one of the following? Through Being Cool or At Your Funeral by Saves the Day, Hit or Miss by New Found Glory, Mutiny by Set Your Goals, Buddy Holly by Weezer, No Cigar by Millencolin, Misery Business by Paramore, Dammit by Blink 182 or Red Letter Day by Get up Kids? No? How about a general rock night that hasn't played Screamager, or New Noise? No? Exactly. these songs are fucking ingrained in my head now, I don't need to hear them again, especially not month after month after month... FUCKING HELL. I went to my friends last club night a year or so ago and for the first hour Paul Reid (PaulReid) played Panic, Attack! Vipers!, Scraps, The Steal, loads of good stuff. But as soon as people came through the door he had to revert back to the same music as the previous months. People don't want to hear new things. They WANT to hear '40 Hour Train Back to Penn' for the hundredth time. What the fuck is wrong with people? It's like groundhog day.

SAME PEOPLE. As well as hearing the same songs every time you go, your eyes are also in for a treat. Remember those people who were here last time? Well they're here again. Swindon only had one 'alternative' club and it was frequented week in, week out by the same people. Over and over. Drinks at the Savoy, quick one in the Rolly and into Level Three to stand around with everyone else until they played One Armed Scissor and I could dance with Sadee. What a waste of a life. The same guys would sleaze over the same girls, until eventually two of them would go home together. The girl he hooked up with last week would find out and cry because she thought they had 'something special'. Her friends would comfort her and tell her 'He's not worth it'. They'd all have a dance, she'd go home with someone else and eventually everyone has slept with everyone and everyone falls out. Eurgh...

THE CLICK. The Click are those sets of people who go to these things like it's a religious activity. The sort of people whose month revolves around them turning it into an event. Almost every club night has them, I'm not singling ANYONE out. Each to there own, whatever. If general rock groundhog day sounds like fun to you, go for it. But what I hate is when one of the people in The Click asks you if you're coming and you say no, you're in a world of shit. 'Oh my god, why don't you like it?! It's so good! It's not like all the other nights, honestly! *** plays really good stuff, everyone there's really friendly, it's just mates getting together and having a really fun time...' I'm alright thanks, I'd rather just sit at home with Lydia and watch Match of The Day. I find it hard to believe that a dance club would build up such a close knit group of people who take a word against their favourite club night as heresy. It's just fucking weird.

I realise this has all made me sound very old and miserable. But I'm nearly 26, I don't want to spend my free evenings in shit holes, surrounded by fuckwits, drinking watered down beer listening to 'Killing in the Name'. I'm sorry, but that is my idea of hell.

Bluetooth Headsets

'Ohhhh nooooo... I need to answer my phone, but, I'm busy... Too busy to use my hands... Oh shit... but... I REALLY need to take this call... Is there a way I could glue, or even tape my phone to my face?'


Fuck off you yuppie prick. There is not a single thing in the world you could be doing that you couldn't stop, to answer your phone if you needed to. The only reason people have these things is they think it makes them look busy and important. They LOVE walking around town holding their Starbucks in one hand and iPhone in the other (IT'S ALREADY IN YOUR FUCKING HAND!) animatedly explaining something utterly pointless to some other yuppie cunt through his headset.

DO. ONE.

Babies

OK, I'm going to have to explain this one carefully. I don't HATE babies. I don't particularly love them, I'm indifferent towards them. They're just small people. In a way they're better than most people as (on the whole) they just sit there in silence rather than filling your ears with bullshit. So OK, fine, babies are alright. But what I cannot abide AT ALL, is the effect these little things have on idiots.

I woman who recently gave birth came into my office this morning to 'introduce' the baby to people. As soon as she walked in, it was like a bomb went off. Almost everyone jumped up and ran over to her. For the next hour, all I could hear was 'OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOD!!! SHE'Z ZO CUUUUTTTTTEEEEEE!!!!!' A couple of the woman even looked like they were about to cry, It was madness... As the little kid got passed from stranger to stranger, it was like a virus. As soon as someone touched it, they were infected and could no longer pronunciate their words and seemed to repeat things over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

'OH MY GOD! SHE'S GOT TINY HANDDDDDDDSSSS!!! WHOSE GOT TINY HANDS? WHOSE GOT TINY HANDS? OOOO'S GOT TINY 'ANDS?? OOZE GT TIINY 'HANDS? OOOOZZEE GOT TINY ANDS? OOZEGOTTINYANDS? OOZGTTANDS? OZTYNDS??' *deep breath...* 'YOU'VE GOT TINY HANDS, YOU GOT TINY HANDS, U GT TINY HANDS, U GT TINEY 'ANDS, UGTTNYANDS, UUUGTTNYHNDS...'

OH MY FUCKING GOD. What is it about babies that makes adults turn into bumbling fucking idiots?!

After 40 minutes or so, the crowd at the zoo began to thin out and someone dug out a gift for the baby. It's was a pair of Converse... BAM! Everything started again, 'OH MYYY GOODDDDDD!!!! LOOK HOW SMALL THEY AREEEE!!!!!!' What?! Of course they're small? They're for a baby! If you got it size 16's you'd be wasting your money. I don't get it... They're just like Converse but smaller... So fucking what?

I recently became an uncle, and living away from home means it's sort of an event when I go back, so my sister always comes over and brings my niece. The second she's in the door all intelligence leaves the room. My mum grabs her and points her at me 'WHOSE THAT? WHOSE THAT LILLY? WHOSE THAT? WHOSE THAT? WHOSE THAT? WHOSE THAT? WHSETHT? WSTT? DOESN'T HE LOOK GRUMPY? YES, IT'S THE GRUMPY MAN, IT'S THE GRUMPY MAN, THE GRUMPY MAN, GRUMPY, GRUMPY, GRUMPY... GRUMPY, HE'S A GRUMP'

FUCK OFF! SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHO I FUCKING AM, SHE'S SIX MONTHS OLD!

Then I get the inevitable, 'Here Peter, you hold her... No! Not like that!!' and Lilly will be placed on me 'Talk to her then!'

'What? oh... Hi Lilly, how's it going? Um... Did you see the football yesterday?' And everyone laughs like I'M the fucking idiot. I guess i wasn't doing it right. What I meant was 'Wse2smll2gtfball??'

In fact, the more I think about it, the more respect I have for babies. The amount of shit they have to listen to on a daily basis is unparalleled. They can't even get up and walk away for the first year or so. They just have to lie there as all adults around them spew nonsense over and over and over.

I'm so surprised all babies first words aren't 'Please god, shut the fuck up or as soon as I get old enough I'm going to strangle you in your sleep'

'Retro'

The commute to work is REALLY fucking me over, I've never been so closely surrounded by so many fucking morons. Whether it's students moaning on and on about their course work, or the 14 year old girl sat in front of me the other day, telling her friend on the phone that she'd got a 'lovebite' that lunch-time and didn't know how to hide it from her parents, EVERYONE on that bus is a complete prick.

Today I had the pleasure of sitting next to some fuckwit who insisted on having a conversation across me. Shit continued to spill from her mouth for a good ten minutes before the conversation dried out and she decided to listen to some music. Hhe went into her bag and pulled out a Panasonic discman...

"Oh my god! What is that?!" said Idiot A.
"It's a discman" replied Idiot B.
"For Cd's?! don't you have an ipod?"
"Yeah, but you know, I just like retro stuff..."

YOU. FUCKING. PRICK.

The coolness attached to retro things is something that really fucks me off. The marketing guy that made that word up is an absolute genius. 'I've got all this old shit that no-one wants... how can I sell it? I know! I'll call it Retro or Vintage!' BOOM, millionaire. By selling people old, crappy shit you can make a fortune. Brighton City Centre is full of shops selling old worn out shoes, jeans with holes in and coats that smell like dead people. WHY WOULD YOU BUY THIS?!

The thing is, that isn't the worst of it. Everyone likes what they like. If you want to buy a coat that somebody died in, go nuts. But it's when people get into the retro lifestyle so much that it actually makes there life harder that I have to wonder what the fuck is going on in their head. IE, the cunt on the bus.

First off, a discman not 'Retro' it is a piece of obsolete technology. It died out because it DIDN'T WORK. Who really wants a 'portable' music player that skips every time you move it? And who wants to lug about a stack of Cd's?! By choosing to listen to music on a discman because you think it looks cool, you are choosing to listen to your music in short 2 second bursts between skips. If for some fucking retarded reason you really don't want an ipod, get a walkman or even a mini-disc player... ANYTHING, but a shit discman. Fuck it, go REALLY retro, don't listen to music and read a book, you fucking prick.

Another example is a girl I saw while walking to work a couple of years ago. She struggling to ride up the hill from Josephs Well into Hyde Park, she was riding on the road and there was a queue of traffic stuck behind her. As she got closer I noticed she had a sort of '50's rockabilly' thing going on. Fine, whatever. But when she went coughing and spluttering past, I noticed she was actually riding a rusty 1950's bike. WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT?!

They make bikes with gears now, this is to make your life easier so you can get up fucking hills without having a fucking heart attack, YOU FUCKING IDIOT. Also, you're obviously going to uni, I can tell because you have a stack of text books in a basket on the front of the bike that are now getting rained on. Put them in a fucking backpack! You might not look as 'cool' and 'retro' as you'd like, but by accepting modern day improvements on life you would get to uni quicker, your books would be dry, the people stuck behind you wouldn't be beeping and you wouldn't be dripping in sweat, YOU FUCKING RETARD.

Pretty much everything old you can think of has been updated, improved and modernised. It's 2011, it's officially the future. Fucking grow up.

Gary Neville

Gary Neville
1992 - 2011

Dear Gary, You are without doubt, the most overrated right back in living memory. Thank you for retiring. I've heard rumours that you are due to become a Sky pundit? PLEASE don't, you have no opinion and nobody wants to see your shit tash every week.

FUCK OFF BACK TO YOUR FUCKING ECO HOUSE YOU FUCKING TELLYTUBBY FUCKWIT AND TAKE YOUR USELESS CUNT OF A BROTHER WITH YOU.

Do one, prick.
Peter

PS - Do you know Mad Max?