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Pro D-Generation!

So, this bunch of punkrags Miss Black America, with their ranty frontman, personal politicks, travis slanderneering, endless touring (including one last October for Drowned in Sound), endless dis pet-band-ness, being a recent NME 'discovery' and all that.. You must know who they are by now. Check their profile down the side of the page if not.

Well, anyhoo, their debut long player (thats what albums were called in the olden days!) is out this week, called 'God Bless Miss Black America'. And yes, its damn good, fresh, exhilirating and it doesn't break many musical boundaries (apart from some of the noises Gish can make) but who cares? This is about an important and exciting band, trying to say something within the current musical confines. Its all been done before anyway. Accept it. Nothing can change (hehehe). This band are about changing things, about the way people think, feel, act, talk, respect and believe. This band are important (so important I said it twice). They're part of a big dissatisfied scene that is around at the moment (see also: Kinesis, TCTC, International Noise Conspiracy, The Streets, 77 Punk Revival...) that the masses don't know is happening. A scene where passion, intregrity, love of music and hate of the way the world doesn't work. Call it D-Generation, call it whatever... You're reading this and hopefully buying the under-exposed, special, timeless records and from now on will know a bit more about Miss Black America, you're part of THIS, not the problems, you're safe, or are you....

Having known and already interviewed Mr.Seymour Glass, frontranter of Miss Black America I thought it only right to send him 5 important questions for all the haterz and not-yet-believers in the time where selling their record means they can eat and cover petrol costs to get out there and rock infront of you and anyone who will listen. Here's what was said...

1. You're put in a room with Margaret Thatcher, tied up Silence of the Lambs style; what would you ask Madge?

Loads of stuff. I've always wondered, does someone that evil have the capacity for humanitarian thought? Are they really that evil, through and through? I'd happily sit down for dinner with Hitler, just to find out what made him tick. We need to understand why these people are the way they are. I think Thatcher's as evil as Hitler; she just wasn't in a position to destroy lives in the same brutal fashion. But you know if she could've, she'd have packed the working classes off to death camps. Instead, she crushed their will and sentenced them to a longer, slower, but still agonising death. So I'd talk to her and find out why. And then I'd nailgun her face to a dartboard.

2. What 5 inspiring things should everybody try to do/read/see before the apocalypse?

Everyone should go to Glastonbury and fall in love, see 'Fight Club', listen to 'Here With You' by Tex La Homa and buy an ice cream from the parlour opposite Chalk Farm station.

3. List 10 bands the world should listen to (cus they're too fucked on pop idol to realise!)...

The Clash, Tex La Homa, Asian Dub Foundation, Manics c.1994, Blur, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Jacob's Mouse, Soundgarden, 80's Madonna, SAW-era Kylie, Take That, Primal Scream, These Animal Men, Nirvana, Faith No More, The Teardrop Explodes, Carter USM, Blue Gandhi, My Bloody Valentine... That's not 10. I failed maths, innit.

4. Why do Miss Black America exist?

We'd run out of excuses to stay in and wash our hair.

5. And finally, if you got to take over the world like George Bush, what would be your five first changes?

My underwear. Neil's socks. And then everything else. The thing is, I think we are headed for a revolution, but it won't happen overnight. Things will change because they have to. You can only go around shitting on everyone and everything for so long before something gives. It'll probably take years and years, and some kind of major catastrophe... The notion that revolution can be achieved by standing on a street corner shouting "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" at a Policeman is laughable. Real revolution comes with evolution. I like to think that as a race we still have the capacity to grow the fuck up.

All is not lost. The battle begins here. Play your part, have fun, but think, think and think some more.

For more about Seymours band, the things they support, the things they hate, links and all that check out MissBlackAmerica.net.

Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

from blatently ripping lines from the film "The Last Supper":

"I'd happily sit down for dinner with Hitler, just to find out what made him tick. We need to understand why these people are the way they are."

To the incestuous praising of 'label mates' Tex La Homa
{note no mention of Antihero, someone who I thought had close ties with this band}

Am I expected to take this guy seriously? pa-leees!

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

Oh do shut up!

Just because someone says something that someone once said in a film doesn't mean he's 'ripping it off'. Maybe Seymour is just of the same opinion!?

Seymour and Hitler sitting down to lunch would be very interesting, maybe invite Gerry Adams, Saddam Husain, and George dubya Bush as well? (+a good translator, obviously!)

Could you pass the salt please Adolf?
More sprouts Saddam?

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

The fact that seymour can string a sentance together gives him the right to be taken more seriously than the president of the USA.

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

Where is the line drawn between "sharing the same opinion" and "passing off others' work/opinion as your own", however?

There's a parallel to be drawn here between the nature of the band's over-earnest if well meaning politics, wilfull excesses of breezy arrogance and second hand tiresome 'maaaan arent we 4 real' rawk music - not everyone's too young to remember the Manics doing this first time around. (to simplify things just slightly)

Alas, I can't quite seem to put my finger on it.

Ps, if they weren't from Bury St Edmunds (or wherever if that's not precise) John Peel wouldn't give a fuck about them. Discuss?

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

Doesn't mean his band's music should be though. If it weren't for his way with a soundbite and political articulacy, his band wouldn't have gotten more than an inkling of the exposure it has.

Plus what the fuck's wrong with his own name - is it Tarquin or something? Did he thing using "Seymour Glass" would make him sound deeper / cooler / a more pained though cultured person etc etc snore

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

MBA and Tex La Homa are not on the same label.

Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

Much as I love miss black america, seymour talks a load of shit in that interview. Thatcher as evil as Hitler ? That's just plain offensive - a complete insult to those that died at the hands of Nazism.

Re: Seymour Glass is a character in ....

And on the Simpsons (one of barts calls to mo!)

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

No they weren't.

Tex runs Superglider. They've toured together cus they love eachothers bands. Its THAT simple.

ahahaha

that would be Seymour Ass .....

this, along with thinking that 'Rocks' by Primal Scream was a rolling stones' song, is sufficent reason for you to resign as head of Drowned in Sound.

Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

heheh. another mba article that sparks debate...
whats this Pro D thing though? and what happened to the scene with no name thingy. not that i knew what that was either. :(

Re: ahahaha

it's actually.

seymour BUTTS.

lordy.

Re: ahahaha

ho ho

BTW Bangman - yes i know (a character from a number of his short stories actually but hey we wouldn't want to be pedantic now), which is kind of the point I was making - given the nature of the character of Seymour Glass etc etc. Anyway...

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

Generation X. D-Generation. Degenerates. Geddit?

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

scenes named after video games are the way forward, i feel.

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

why do you insist on embarassing yourself ?

oh, come on ...

.. the D Generation ?! are you really telling me you take Sean seriously ?

Re: oh, come on ...

You'd be assuming i take myself seriously. Which quite a lot of the time, i don't.

Revolution as a marketing tool is hilarious. My "Scene Not Herd" slogan (from my d-frag e-zine) has already been used elsewhere.

BANGMAN. (that dot is important people!) why should you be taken anymore seriously than me? We're all just invisible specs from space. No-one cares what you say or i say, in all honestly, anyone who is even moved by anything i say is fooling themselves about their own unimportance. We're all just as unimportant.



Sean

Why hasn't Bangman

sorted out that sticky caps lock key that's afflicted him and his monicker ever since he used to post (what was in general) absolute bollocks on NME.com a few years ago?

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

And what about those who had their lives destroyed by Thatcher?

Sorry, my Mum works for the NHS. There are few people I'd wish dead, but Thatcher's one of them. I see no evidence that she's anything other than 100% pure evil.

And yeah, that Hitler, great bloke. I'll be laughing at pictures of holocaust victims later. I might even have a wank.

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

I've never seen The Last Supper. I must be some kind of psychic. Ooooooooooh.

Tex La Homa have never been on Integrity Records and we've never been on Superglider, though Gish's remix of one of their songs is coming out on Superglider soon. We're just big fans.

I hate my real name.

I hate JD Salinger.

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

hey, my mum has worked for the NHS ever since she left school at 18 too y;'know. and i'm sure tehre may even be a few others out there who's mothers have too. we even have virginia fucking bottomley as our MP, to rub salt in the wound, she who had such a penchant for hospitasl/ward closures [inc where my mum trained in guys in london] whilst health minister. It's not as if anyone in my family has respect for her or what she did

this still does not excuse the callousness of the comparison you made there tho. Get a fucking sense of perspective, comments like that just make you come across as a fool Seymour. jaysus..

Re: Miss Black America - Pro D-Generation!

But I am an idiot. Otherwise I'd have a proper job.

It's good to argue. It might make me less stupid.

And closing even one hospital is tantamount to mass murder.

I don't know where to put this

...but, Rachelle Ansell, RIP.

xxx

Re: I don't know where to put this

I know... I only just stopped crying... something will be put up eventually. I miss her :*(

Re: I don't know where to put this

she was a lovely person, she'll be sadly missed. :(

o
o
o
<><...
Gen

Hitler, Thatcher, etcetera

I just wrote this for our mailout. See what you think:

I came under a bit of flack this week for an interview on Drowned in Sound in which I made comments that compared Margaret Thatcher to Adolf Hitler. I admit that this may seem a little extreme, and I was accused of being "callous" and "a fool"; one poster described my comments as "just plain offensive - a complete insult to those that died at the hands of Nazism".

Which might seem fair enough - I am a fool, otherwise I'd have a proper job; I ain't no Manic Street Preacher-style intellectual, I'm not that well-read, and yeah, I talk a lot of shit. But in my simple worldview, the only differences I see between Thatcher and Hitler are those of scale. Hitler murdered millions: jews, gypsies, the infirm, the mentally ill, anyone who stepped out of line, anyone didn't fit in to his twisted little view of Aryan "perfection". His crimes against humanity were unspeakable; as a supporter of the ANL, one of my greatest fears is anything like that ever happening again. I wasn't trying in any way to draw attention away from Hitler's evil.

What I was trying to do was draw attention to Thatcher's evil. Even before she came to power, Thatcher had made her feelings toward the lower classes quite clear; her disgust at the thought that the sick and needy should be getting medical help whether they could afford it or not seemed to consume her, and her government's complete decimation of the NHS over the next 20 miserable years proved how little she cared whether those who DARED to be poor AND unwell lived or died.

So she let them die. Whether you like the Manics or not, their lyric from 'New Art Riot', "Hospital closures kill / More than car bombs ever will" remains powerful because it's a statement of FACT: every time you close a hospital ward, every time you deny a bed to someone who desperately needs it, you put that person's life in jeopardy; every time someone is denied treatment they desperately need, every time a patient is misdiagnosed due to mix-ups or being sped through the system without proper check-ups and assessments, you run the risk that they MIGHT ACTUALLY DIE. And people HAVE died, as they continue to do so to this day; how many, we'll never know. Thousands? Tens of thousands?

But that's not murder, is it? Just as George "Dubya" Bush (ah, such a cute little pet name - he sure is a swell guy!) and his dear ol' Daddy haven't really murdered anyone per se with their refusal to sign treaties that would help prevent the complete destruction of the Earth's environment, and everything that depends on it (ie, like, EVERYTHING ON EARTH). Because it was all in the name of BUSINESS. And when business is good, it's good for us all!

Well, bollocks. You don't close down hospitals without knowing that people will die. You don't disregard the environment without knowing that you're sentencing an entire planet to death. These people may look stupid, but they ain't that stupid. In fact, they're not really stupid at all. They just consider money and power far more important than any amount of human life, and that makes them EVIL. There is no sliding scale, no grading, no league table and no fucking excuse: whether it's a thousand people, a million people or everything that lives and breathes, once you consider your goals more important than those lives, you are evil, through and through, and you disgust me. And when you finally get what you want, we will all see you in Hell.

Re: Hitler, Thatcher, etcetera

i reckon that answers a few things.
i completely agree about the whole geneva convention thing. i dont see how someone that wants to start bombing a country because they have the potential to unleash weapons of mass destruction can also go along with killing the planet. but then if america stops making as much money, they might lose their power to push people around.

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