everything must go!

'anger is holy' shouted mark stewart all those years ago and it sounded like the most dangerous thought ever uttered to those who heard it and they were few, the scratchy repulsing sounds warning off all but the most faithfully curious to hear the new, the news, what's happening... and they were shitty times, when we needed to be shaken into wakefulness more than ever, when anger was being channelled in ever more subtle ways, where our fear was being sold to us, where we bought into it, when we lost our innocence finally becoming our destiny, when we became units instead of beings, when the all seeing eye finally closed the gap, and we lived lifestyles instead of lives, where philosophy became a decoration, when people started saying cool, but nothing ever was, it really doesn't matter if it's cool, who really cares? if you become cool all you'll generate is envy, and who cares if the cattle moo their approval at your doings? it wasn't always like this, but tell that to anybody and they'll just stare at you blankly, they are too inside it to see it, yes we're all in the bubble now, cradle to grave direction, the last nails are being nailed in as we speak.. entombed in a parody of real life, the image of the world has taken over the world and we walk in it's pictures. no longer is a sunset ours till we have recorded it, squashed it onto our phones, the glory and wild forces of nature reduced to a thumbnail image, but that's now better than the real thing, the thumb that says 'i was there' the experience consumed like the chemical gloop we stuff our poisoned faces with..with the same tasteless relish as we hold the image of the smiling model bursting with healthy vitality as he/she spoons it out in the golden studio sunshine... it's too late it's too late but we'll ever notice we are a part of it, we are it.. stand outside of it and be sentenced to loneliness and shame, people will forget your name and you'll fade away invisible, a risible translucent joke, the buffoon who leaves the room.. so it's better to just go with it.. after all who'd notice? anger is holy.. oh yes... they obviously gave him such a long lead knowing how anger is the province of youth and the lure of leisure furniture and safe houses will entrap us all eventually... let the teenagers get all angry about the war, they'll change when they get a bit of comfort to protect, some children to worry about, forms to fill out.. anyway, i saw mark stewart a couple of months ago and let me tell you i was excited, this man's music used to drive me mad, unlistenable sometimes but i still had to listen to discover this kernel of truth lurking within in the most unsuspected of places.what must he be doing now? now that technology has freed us all to make any sound we like without the chore of splicing long reels of tape, rigging up loops of cables and piling rooms full of equipment that had hiss and crackles built in. and also our ears have acclimatised to newer more extreme sounds, breakcore, drill and bass, psy-trance, no wave, how has his music responded to the change of landscape? and then what of the man? there's a war going on, there's bomb scares, there's the internet, how has he responded to the world? where has his thought taken him? i was so excited as the band came on.. the music was a bit old fashioned maybe but give them their due, the musicians seemed to know their stuff, at playing jarring off-key notes they are masters i suppose, let's not be too negative after all it cost a tenner to get tickets and it was a bit of a scramble to raise the cash before they sold out the previous day.. but who is this old paunchy bloke who looks like he had to be prised off his armchair where he was watching some bland reality tv show in case something good came on, who's girlfriend had just spent an hour whinging at him to let her replace the furniture with this year's model, where the marks of boredom and sluggish thought smeared his face into nonentity? yes trottting out his greatest hits like anger is holy really made my day, like watching the Four Tops playing Butlins, like prisoners of their time in the sun they were condemned to repeat their moth-eaten tunes till they rattled like tinnitus in our empty heads. so this is entertainment. oh well i hear the sex pistols are reforming for the third time, might as well watch them while i can since i missed them in 1976 being a bit young to go on my own and 3quid seemed like a fortune when my pocket money was 90p.. little did i realise that the music i craved to voice my teenage rebellion was just a product, that it was the end of values, that i was watching the end of time, now we hardly exist at all unless we're famous, but don't worry we'll all be stars on cctv one day, and face the world with studio smiles... but maybe we have a chance if we don't let ourselves forget... anger IS holy.