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Cabbage, police dogs, Area 51 style security and an irate farmer. The fun of band photography.

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Listening materiel - Cabbage - Necroflat in the Palace... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3PIlfkaKP4 I first saw Cabbage play at Cosmosis Festival in Manchester. They weren't very well known at the time but me and my mate Keith knew the bassist, Stephen, so decided to give them a look.  To be honest, we were actually wanting to go and see Wire on the other stage and were just waiting for their set to start. Within the first song me and Keith looked at each other, knowing we were seeing something very special. The crowd were flying all over the place, the band were filling the room with an incredible noise, agitating the security, banging into each other but they were so tight and the songs were so good! They also knew how to play up for my camera while keeping the audience as their main focus... They were the best band at that festival, by a mile. In fact, they were one of the best bands I'd seen for a long time. Turned out the band liked the

I use the NME, I use anarchy! (end of an era)

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You know all that stuff I was going on about in my previous post? All that business about having a bedroom full or band pictures? Well those band pictures were sourced from all over the place, bought at Afflecks Palace, peeled off walls around Manchester, swapped with friends for cigarettes, taken from album inlays or record covers but most commonly cut lovingly and precisely from the pages of The NME.  I used to read the NME religiously (wearing a Nun's habit). My dad would pick up the paper each fortnight and I'd go through every word. Even stuff about bands I didn't like, just so I could not like them a bit more. I'd study the pictures and then decide which were going on my wall and where. My thumb is stained Blue Tack blue to this day. Extra special editions I would keep hold of before inevitably selling them in the pursuit of hedonism and escapism. I had the Lennon death edition, the Kurt Cobain death edition (above), A Sex Pistols edition and an Ult

The subtle influence of the music shot.

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Listening material - Dub Sex. Time of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk66F2jiVd8 I was almost in a famous Rock'n'Roll band when I was younger but I was continuously held back by a lack of any real talent and the ability to write songs.  Me and a couple of friends would sit in my bedroom, talking nihilistically about the World in the way we thought Punks should do, drop a load of acid, drink a load of cheap cider and then play terrible Nirvana, Buzzcocks and Smiths covers for the rest of the night. We did record these historical sessions sometimes, so we can say we were recorded musicians, we just can't prove it because my dad threw all the tapes out during one of his manic tidying up events.  I'm kinda glad they were thrown out to be honest. We really were bad and I'm pretty sure I was quite a pretentious little git! What I would like though, would be a photo of one of those moments. I used to have hair then, lots of it, so that would be nice to see. I c