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ABoF do Movember!

Team ABoF (or "MoBof") have decided to raise some money for Movember!

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

We're looking to raise as much money as possible so please make sure you support team captain Paul, Claire and Ed by donating a little to help go a long way. You can also follow Paul, Claire and Ed on Twitter to track their progress or follow the official ABoF Twitter page for official updates!

You can join Team ABoF by clicking on "A Badge of Friendship" on any of our Movember pages.

What Ian MacKaye Meant To Say…

Today's blog post is by Paul ABof - enjoy!

Before writing today’s blog I seriously considered all my options. What do I love? What kind of positive message could I send to the, er, legions (!) of ABoF blog readers?

Ultimately I thought, “fuck it”, who am I kidding? I don’t like an awful lot (apart from our brilliant roster of course!), and therefore, I am going to use this platform to bitch and moan my way into a bad mood!

I guess I have been involved in music directly or otherwise since I was around 18 or 19. I really do love working in music and the creativity that comes with being involved in it. This, however, doesn’t mean that I like the cliques and scenes that evolve around it.

Perhaps this is due to being an only child or a bit of a loner. I never involved myself in music to feel a sense of identity that comes with looking, thinking and talking the same as a bunch of other people. What I always enjoyed about music was the ability it gives any one person to be an individual. It allows independent thought. It allows an individual to stamp their personality on a song, gig, podcast, blog or review.

This is a beautiful thing.

When I think back to where it all started in Glasgow I realise that, even as a youngster, I didn’t really attach myself to any ‘scene’. Although I grew up with members of Biffy Clyro and Aereogramme, we didn’t really do the whole Sleazy’s / 13 Note Café thing. These were the regular haunts of the ‘cool’, and wannabes of all things music.

This may well be due to having a penchant for the ‘good stuff’ and our love of late night TV and Heinz microwaveable chocolate cake! We were all into alternative music and by a young age were more likely to listen to The Red House Painters rather than going out to find a collection of ‘like-minded’ individuals.

You see opinions become rather distorted once a group of people gather in direct opposition to another group they are trying to mark themselves out from. Alternative culture develops due to a feeling of being different from the rest. Having a separate opinion or view on life to that of mainstream culture. This, I am very much on board with.

However, it becomes quite ironic when a group of people who decide to bond together due to their individuality, end up all looking and thinking the same. If being different means having a suspicion of others, or a holier than thou attitude, then thanks but no thanks.

I have never needed the verification of others to feel validated in what turns me on, how I dress or what I listen to. In fact this couldn’t be further from what my interpretation of alternative culture is meant to be about.

Invariably people will start to make up their own rules anyway – under the guise of someone else’s ideals. These people are like the Fundamentalist Christians of the alternative world. Instead of ‘what God meant to say…’ they have replaced this with ‘what Ian MacKaye meant to say…’. They use the likes of Ian MacKaye or Steve Albini as examples of what they are all about, whilst conveniently missing out aspects of their career, to make a now redundant point.

For the record I love Ian MacKaye and Fugazi and have huge respect for Steve Albini. These individuals have indeed been torchbearers for anyone into alternative music and culture.



I was inspired to take up photography, for example, when I first saw Glen E. Friedman’s photos of the hardcore scene in the 80's. It’s a good thing to be inspired by others, and use these people as a gauge in your future endeavours. Bill Hicks was another of my heroes. What he said and thought was truly exceptional, inspirational and enlightening.

What these great people would not want, however, is some guy in a club using them as a reference on why anyone who doesn’t think the same as them is a ‘sell out’.

What I don’t want is someone telling me why everyone is sucking Satan’s cock and complaining about the "big bad corporations", while working for a huge company by day, checking their Facebook account at lunch time or wearing converse, or playing a Fender guitar. Apart from being downright hypocritical, it comes across as conceited and belittling. Unless we are all going to live in the woods and use natural materials as collateral, then we’re all slaves to ‘the man’ to a certain extent.

Furthermore, don’t forget that the great Bill Hicks was about to do a Channel 4 show before his sad departure form this earth. Ian MacKaye owns a record label and is every bit as much a businessman as he is a musician. Steve Albini will record most bands who are willing to pay him to produce their record.

Sonic Youth and Shellac played the Hammersmith Apollo(5039 standing capacity aka the HMV Apollo) last New Years Eve at a cool £40 per ticket. If they were donating their hard earned cash to some unnamed charity, then I haven’t heard about it yet.

Hypocrisy is alive and well apparently.

At the end of the day, if we as one, knock our heads together and pull in the same direction, the world would be a much better place. Those who judge others for the career choices they make, or for playing a gig with a band they deem unacceptable should look long and hard in the mirror. They have become just as bad as those they are fighting against.

It’s fitting that it was John Peel Day yesterday as this is a man who had a diverse and open view on music. There are many cool bands he discovered and who went on to do Peel Sessions, but not everyone of them were as diverse as Melt Banana. Indeed, Cornershop and Chumbawamba made the cut. Perhaps to the ‘thought police’ this makes him a sell out. I wouldn’t be at all surprised…

If we were all truly freethinking - in mind, body and soul - maybe there wouldn’t be a need for a line to be drawn in the sand, or misplaced views being foisted on others, so distorted and altered from the truth merely to suit one’s agenda.

Just live. Be true to yourself, and don’t worry about what the next guy is doing.

There is enough shit in the world without us all adding to it.

As Bill Hicks said, “It’s just a ride.”

So enjoy the journey…

Interview: Keith Top Of The Pops

Keith Top Of The Pops & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band (to give them their full name) are just back from touring with The Blood Arm, so we decided to get in touch with the only full time member of the band, the man himself, Keith TOTP, and ask him some pressing questions that have been rattling around ABoF HQ for the last few months.

Your official band name is quite impressively long. How did it come about?

The Top Of The Pops bit comes from a song I recorded for Art Brut called "Top Of The Pops". It's on an Angular Records Rip Off Your Labels compilation. It was every band on the compilation shouting their band name followed by "Top Of The Pops". I also used to use it a lot as a general exclamation "I've just found a tenner, Top Of The Pops!"

The rest of it comes from an idea for a television programme my friend James Rocks had called "I'm A Minor Indie Celebrity Let Me In Here" where we would go to clubs and pubs and pretend to be the bass player from Shed Seven or The Crescent or something and see if we could get in for free. So yeah, I think he came up with that and I nicked it.

You've quite a unique approach to songwriting and recording - what prompted you to sack off rehearsals and soundchecks?

Rehearsals I decided against because of the impossibility of getting everyone together, plus bands fight in rehearsal rooms. The band is meant to be the most stress free band that any of the members, who are all in bands of their own, have ever been in. So no rehearsals.

Plus I hear bands all the time who go "That rehearsal was great!" and then play a gig and say "That was rubbish!" If they had skipped the rehearsal the gig would have been great. It's logic. Everyone in the band is someone I think is great, so I can trust them to come up with good stuff.

Same for soundchecks really. In the size of venues we play we don't need to mic up the guitar amps so there's not much to be done, and not doing them means the band members can turn up whenever they like. Just before, or even halfway through a gig and just get up and join in.

What's the most amount of people you've had on stage at one time, and where was it?

Both the album launch gig at the Monarch in Camden, and a gig at The Lexington last year had over 20 people. I think we hold the record for the most people on stage at the Windmill in Brixton with 17.

Who would you say has had the most influence on you as a musician?

I don't know really. I'm influenced by a lot of stuff. Oasis were the band that made me want to be in a band. People like Jeffrey Lewis, and The Television Personalities are probably where I get the whole "Go in, get it done, don't over think it" approach from. The Velvet Underground obviously, I think it was Lou Reed that said "Two Chords is Rock N Roll, Three Chords is Jazz" or something like that. I steal stuff from all over the place.

Is there anybody you'd like to work with?

I'll work with anybody I think is great. I've worked with a lot of amazing bands already, both new ones and people who's records I used to buy when I was younger. If you'd have told the fifteen year old me he'd be in a band with all of Carter USM, Black Box Recorder, or David Devant & His Spirit Wife, I'd have thought you were mental.

Your album Fuck You! I'm Keith Top Of The Pops is picking up some excellent reviews. Are there plans for a follow up?

There is. I've already written most of it, and started playing some of it live so the rest of the band can come up with their bits. I usually just tell them the chords and they come up with something live, then that's how the song goes. It takes a couple of gigs for it to settle down usually, but as I said up there they're all pretty great at playing so it works out.

What's the worst piece of advice you've ever been given?

I've no idea. I tend not to remember bad advice. I can't remember ever being given any actually.

You've got 30 minutes before a meteorite hits the planet. How would you spend it?

Hmm, not long is it. Meteorites hit the planet all the time though don't they? If you mean a big planet smashing meteorite then if Hollywood has taught me anything I imagine there's all sort of weird weather and fireballs, and explosions going on if there's only 30 minutes left. I'd probably just watch that. Or sit in a corner gently rocking and crying, which is probably what most people would do to be honest.

Fuck You! I'm Keith Top Of The Pops is available to buy on CD, Vinyl and digitally from Corporate Records.

ABoF at The Q Awards Aftershow

Last night we DJ-ed the Q Awards aftershow for the second year. It's one of our favourites and, as always, we had a blast. We had the early slot but that meant we had the chance to play some of our favourite tunes indiscriminately and have time for a drink after.

Our "celeb spot of the night" goes to Keith Lemon. We're big fans but we never had the chance to say hello. Maybe next time!

We've created this little slideshow of last night's aftershow below - enjoy!

Ed Says. . . Why does no one write rock operas anymore?

A bit of a strange one this week, as something's been playing on my mind. It all started during one of my commutes to ABoF HQ - I went past a poster for "Rock Of Ages", and as a certain hairy TV personality stared down at me, I wondered whatever happened to rock operas, and more importantly, the concept album?

I enjoy a bit of musical theatre, and love a bit of theatre in my music, so album's like Bowie's Diamond Dogs (originally supposed to be the score for a 1984 musical), Pink Floyd's The Wall, The Who's Tommy, and pretty much anything by Rush always appealed to me. These were albums with narrative structure - each track told a story that fed into the overall experience of the album. You could dip into them now and then, but the best way to listen to these albums was from start to finish, preferably loud and with no distractions.

Now, I may just be out of touch, but it has been ages since I've heard a band attempt this in one of their releases, and I for one mourn the passing of the concept album.

Unfortunately, it's more than likely just a sign of the times. Now that people tend to download albums in dribs and drabs from iTunes, making a concept album must seem a waste of time to most musicians. But there are still some fans out there that'd love to hear one, and I'm one of them.