Viceland.com April Blog Posts

Visa takes life?

Visas sure can be a pain in the ass eh? All that queueing and waiting and form filling and that’s just to go and sit on a beach somewhere and stare at sunburned boobs for a few days.

If you’re in a band a Visa becomes a whole different life or death deal. Without one you can’t legitimately perform and if you do choose to play without the correct Visa you risk deportation and future barring from the border of that country. Not so cool.

As if to rub salt in these gaping irritants, last week the Home Office decided to inexplicably raise Visa prices to literally unfeasible levels unless your band is on a major or are willing to go all Midnight Cowboy on the side or something. Each act no matter the number of members needs to purchase a straight Work Permit which now costs £190 as opposed to £155. That doesn’t seem so bad but the real kick in the balls is the Work Permit Visa which is up from £85 to £200 PER BAND MEMBER! So if you’re in a 4 piece you’re looking at £2,000 just to be able to plug in before you even start thinking about flights, transport, and accommodation. Broken Social Scene must be shitting themselves…

So it goes-R.I.P Kurt Vonnegut

And so another American hero passes. Vonnegut’s brave, time-skewed, masterpiece, Slaughterhouse Five, has been one of the defining texts of the last half century. His tale of the life of Billy Pilgrim was based on his own experiences being captured behind enemy lines in Dresden fighting for his country in WWII. While imprisoned in the abbatoir of the novel’s title he witnessed first hand the firebombing of Dresden and was forced to aid the Nazi’s in disposing of the dead in mass graves and watch while bodies were incinerated with flame-throwers. His work incorporated elements of his own experience with science fiction and post-modern techniques such as his appearance within his own fiction that dudes like Martin Amis steal to this day. He will be missed.

Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes.

So sang Poison Idea. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m into records as much as the next geeky dude who gets excited about a rainbow-splatter Bathtub Shitter lathe cut 5” that’s limited to 3 copies worldwide (I just made that record up but how cool would that be eh?). Sometimes however things get just a little crazy in the weird world of vinyl obsessives.

So, I got an e-mail earlier from a wonderful West-Coast mail order record shop letting me know that as a valued, regular customer I could put in an advanced order for one of the copies of the new version of Altar, the Sunn O))/Boris collaboration, that they may or may not be getting in soon.

Ok, pre-ordering something that’s going to be popular is not all that weird. What is pretty off the wall is that this is (at my most conservative estimate) the 5th version of this record to be released in under a year. I couldn’t help but cackle thinking that the kind of people that would buy this Japanese-only triple-vinyl pack with new O’Malley and Fangsatan (Atsuo from Boris to his ma) artwork and a new track featuring Drone’s comeback cover boy Dylan Carlson would most likely own ALL of those other versions.

Before you ask this re-re-re-re-re-release is limited to 1000 worldwide so it obviously sold out on pre-order. Duh, what did you expect? The words ‘limited’, ‘O’Malley’ and ‘Japan-only’ are like tantalising rocks just out of reach of a fiending crack-head for these guys.

Have I mentioned yet that these records are selling at $140 EACH? So these cats look to be bringing in $140,000 selling dudes something they already own. It’s like that bit in Lock Stock where they try and sell Rory Breaker’s own skunk back to him at twice it’s worth. Except this record won’t get you stoned. Maybe Poison Idea were right after all.

It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Touring

This week Bob Dylan came to the UK. I’m a little obsessed with Bob so I went to 4 out of the 5 UK shows. Newcastle wasn’t too far, I just didn’t like the idea of going to Newcastle. Here’s a video of Bob in Sheffield playing Like A Rolling Stone and looking sort of like a dancing nat in a hat while he air humps his keyboard. I could go see him play every night forever, look at him dancing! In fact I actually could go see him every night forever. Since 1988 Bob has been on what he refuses to call The Never Ending Tour (geeks like me refer to it as the NET, I have over 1000 bootlegged live recordings of NET shows) in which he plays 100-150 shows a year, every year. Every night he wheels out a different set-list and refuses to play enormo-domes like the Stones or McCartney who are basically playing to pay for hip operations and alimony or whatever you do when people have just said ‘yes’ to you for so long that your brain’s turned into putty. While all these other faded caricatures wheel out the hits every four years Bob’s still on the road heading for another joint and re-interpreting his art instead of massacring it. Not bad for a dude hitting 67 next month.