Homophobic, xenophobic, Thatcher in sheep’s clothing – vote how you like but those in the UK please don’t vote Tory on the 6th.

Why? Well here’s a few reasons close to my heart:

• Philippa Stroud, Tory PPC for Sutton and Cheam who might well win it, believes you can pray away the gay – literally that prayer can remove demons that cause you to be a homosexual or trans according to the Observer and Pink News she setup several ministries with this methodology. She told ‘Abi’, a trans teen: “She wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so-called demons inside me were wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me, calling out the demons. She really believed things like homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction could be fixed just by prayer, all in the name of Jesus.”.Do you really want to vote in someone who believes this crap?

• Philip Lardner former candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran believed homosexuality was ‘not normal’ and also defended Enoch Powell and idolised Cecil Rhodes. He was sacked by David Cameron – but should people like that be allowed to stand as official Conservative candidates in the first place? If the party has so changed?

• Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary (yes you read right this man would be running the country if elected) said a B&B were correct in turning away a gay couple on Christian grounds (noticing a pattern here?). He then backed down a few weeks later…but worrying signs from such a top minister.

• Dr Julian Lewis, shadow defence minister said that lowering the age of consent to 16 which he voted against in 2000 (and thankfully lost) compared having gay sex as dangerous as being in the army and that he “continued his claims that homosexuality/anal sex alone poses risk of HIV/AIDS” and still believed 10 years later that lowering the age of consent would lead to that, but didn’t have any figures to prove it. He also voted against most of the gay rights legislation.

• Immigration - if you manage to corner a PPC Tory candidate, ask them about immigration. Chances are, like John found out at a recent unrelated transport meeting that they’ll reveal their true colours and go off on one, even without being asked. This won’t happen if a) cameras are near b) agents are near c) press are near d) you’re speaking one of the few sane ones (unlikely). The party still hasn’t sorted out it’s xenophobic immigration freaks or euro scepticism, despite what Mr Airbrush Cameron says.

• Murdoch. Ol’ Rupert is supporting the Tories through his media empire and if they get in it’s gonna be payback time…if you like the BBC say goodbye to it now, because ‘I’m sorry, so sorry’ it’s gonna go the way of an incidental Doctor Who character in the first 5 minutes – at least it’s news services like the website will be, and probable incidental victims like BBC Radio 6 – yes it is he who is pushing for that BBC Trust cutting exercise – and others. He hates the fact he’s competing against a state monopoly and wants where there is overlap with his paywalled (good luck with that, LOL) services to be cut away…which means a lot less free content and good reporting and more MurdochWorld(tm). Not good.

• Voting UKIP as an alternative (and if you’re even thinking BNP then you shouldn’t be even reading this blog, more jumping off a nearby cliff) isn’t good either – they want to repeal the equality laws or at least one of them does…the UKIP line is it was his personal view BUT they want to abolish the Human Rights Act – which furnishes quite a lot of these laws.

If these examples are just the ones caught scampering out from behind the cupboard – then what do the party faithful think? Remember this party is still full of Thatcher, Thatcher the Milk Snatcher Thatcherites and unreconstructed Tories, so please vote for any party (well not BNP) than them.

A Tory government is too depressing to even think about…I doubt they would fix much, as much as Brown’s government is incompetent…and then in 6/12 years you’ll need to vote in another government to fix the mess like in 1997…maybe a hung government is the way to go. Personally I’m not opposed to proportional representation, nor the Lib Dems getting in…would be far better than the New Tory Toff homophobic xenophobic Fox-hunting Reborn again Christian option?

More Tory spoof posters or even create your own as I did at MyDavidCameron.com

Heard a bunch of the BBC’s Sound of 2010 on Music Week and on the wesbite, apparently ’165 UK-based tastemakers’ worryingly, and  my instant responses:

• Daisy Dares You – to be a Lily Allen clone
• Little Florence Marina and the Diamonds Boots Machine
• Stornaway‘s Fleet is rather Foxed
• Delphic Klaxons of Trojan War, or are they Friendly?
• Joy ‘Where’s the Burial?’ Orbison (great name though)
• Ellie Golding - La Lady Gagahawke called and wants her sound back
• Giggs in Manuva Attack Shocka!
• Rox-y Winehouse
• Two Door Cinema Club is obviously having a Vampire Weekend
• The Drums are obviously from Franzvegas
• Devlin will suffer in the autotune backlash of 2010. Do we need another Plan B? Isn’t one enough?
• Everything Everything quote Radiohead as an influence but I can hear Peter Gabriel/Coldplay when the industry has gotten to them. Nice to see the african/Vamps influence again. It’s all a bit Simple Minds though.
• Gold Panda (Bear, Collective) – like the raga samples though. Could do some interesting collabs or go up his arse like Animal Collective.
• (Johnny) Hurts (Jazz)…in Black and 80′s white. Can hear them writing for boybands shortly. Like the return to the embarassing 80′s video though – but surely 2010 is the death of the 80′s revival? Please? Again on the Simple Minds/dreampop mid 80′s ABC thing. Saxaphones? Ugh.
• Owl City (obviously The Postal Service is on strike there, ho ho) – reassuringly crap name probably referencing Harry Potter. The return of twee, ffs.

The only ones I liked were The Drums who have been getting airplay already, Two Door Cinema Club cos of the Vamps influence (ditto Stornaway cos I’m a big fan of teh Foxes), Giggs could be interesting and Joy Orbison’s fidgety drumstep crossover might wobble into the charts but it’s all rather generic and sounds like someone else. Meh.

What do you think is going to be big in 2010?

As well as being released and played in part on XFM, 72 the collaborative mashup project will have a live mashup event in London on Thursday 29th October at Loom bar from 7pm-1am with many mashup DJs in a continuous moving mashup feast! Idea is like the old Bastard ‘Bring Yer Own Boots’ – each DJ brings 3 tracks but similar to 72, one track at a time, in order!

This means the night has a dream DJ list of many people picking just the best 3 tunes, which I think should provide great if chaotic results – totally in the spirit of Bastard! And like Bastard it won’t just be mashups, but I’m sure you’ll hear a few

I will be DJing (well putting on 3 tunes) as well as:

Osymyso
Freelance Hellraiser
LV15
Bush No.10
Jez Celebrity Murder Party
Joel 90
Ape
Lee Spoons
Cartelmike
Eddie Pedalo
Dsico
Pheripheral
Scott Cairo
Tizwarz
Gara Gara
and Pom Deter, who ran the 72 project with Eddie Pedalo.

I’m sure many more to be added! Should be a great night, it’s free so come on down, the mashup’s lovely! And it will be one of the few (read: only) events you will see me anywhere near DJ decks in the near future since I am officially retired

Twittered about this but forgot to post about it – Uk Funky (or just ‘Funky’) – a new genre/type of music coming out of I guess house, dancehall, grime and 4×4/nu garage scenes, adding african beats or soca beats and rather simplistic dancehall/aerobics style lyrics, I love the groove though, and seems like every song has a fun simple dance, a bit like those 70′s disco records…this one could go either way

‘Funky’ is a terrible name though, stack it next to ‘Clubhouse’, ‘bassline house’, 4×4 (that sort of makes sense, although 4 step rather than two step = 4 to the floor!) ‘electro house’ and ‘nu breaks’ (when they don’t have a sniff of a breakbeat or broken/off beat).

Love the fact the videos have got kids in, old people, everyone getting funky…like grime not a bling bling supermodels getting low (partly cos they don’t have the money) but brings in the fun aspect, which I like. Unpolished videos are the shizzle anyhoos…gangsta and all that crap is on the way out.

Here’s K.I.G. – Head, Shoulders, Kneez & Toez with a funny video – this penetrated my consciousness earlier this year but then thought it was some grime or novelty offshoot

Crazy Cousinz feat. MC Versatile – ‘It’s that Funky’ with a new dance (of course) for you – love the schoolkids on this, getting down

Bigzy & Unkle – RingaRoses doing a response to Knees and Toes, hopefully with less plague/swine flu otherwise this could be rather portent…

Remains to be seen if this goes all DJ Pied Piper on us though…I’d love to see and hear more african/soca and dancehall riddims coming into dance and hiphop though. Even South America – UK Cumbia anyone? If it’s going overground (cf Metro paper of all places!) there was little sign of it at Notting Hill Carnival on Sunday, didn’t hear much obvious music like this, more dancehall/reggae/rave/techno and ibiza classics

Shouts out to CMP for the last video and posting over at GYBO and reminding me to share these

P.S. What strikes me is that YouTube is replacing the pirate radio (or ripping those tunes and spreading them far and wide) – take this dark house/funky tune from Karizma:

Weird to hear that booming out of my laptop speakers and not from some FM station from a highrise!

Shiny new post on a shiny new host, and something that’s been in my torrent download queue for ages – the film Steal This Film II – a great freely downloadable documentary about file sharing, information sharing in cultures (like teaching) and the social and legal issues within and looking at past technologies like the printing press and how a ‘pirate culture’ helped the French Revolution along.

It’s made by and for the people on the side of angels ie. the pirates so you won’t get a totally ‘balanced view’ (which usually means one biased to the mainstream media and corporates) but the MPAA and heads of Hollywood do get their say and their arguments countered. The strongest impression you get from this is how this struggle of information freedom and ‘piracy’ has been going on a very long time and is constantly on going; how the real fear of the major corporates is probably that the audience becomes the creators and cuts them totally out of the loop, and that the file sharing wars are pretty much lost despite setbacks after this film was made (Pirate Bay and the like).

It’s also much better than Steal This Film I which was a bit of a mish-mash (and out of focus in parts – ouch). Apparently they are expanding both bits into a full film, and then going for a release, which I’m hoping is still officially torrented, unlike RiP: A Remix Manifesto‘ which although very professional looking and interesting sadly seems to be going through the age-old Hollywood distributor/release model – requires different release dates for different world areas (apparently I can’t download it cos I’m ‘not in the US’ – DOH – no release dates for the UK either). Given the subject of that film, it is rather ironic – it may be about remix or online culture in the 21st century but that particular medium is most definitely not the message. Maybe it’s because the film is evolving they’re not officially torrenting it (someone else has put up an unnofficial torrent).

Anyway it has Girl Talk in it, in fact so much the whole film is basically a Girl Talk promo, and y’all know how I feel about him. The Brazil bits showing baile funk are really good, and Cory and Lessig are always brilliant, but it pretty much covers the same areas as Steal This Film I and II, but with more flashy animations/production.

It does have this great funny remix at the end pulled from YouTube seemingly uncredited, but I recognised the Eclectic Method logo:

For those wanting to get into the issues around musical remix/cutup I’d rather recommend Sonic Outlaws by Craig Baldwin, which was created about 15 years earlier and covers the same ground sans some of the later ‘Napster/bittorrent’ stuff covered in STF, some of the footage by/of Negativland is used in ‘RiP’! At the very least you then won’t need to look at a naked Greg Gillis…:-P

Anyway I think the model of Steal This Film and Sita Sings the Blues is the future though, torrenting your movie and letting the world see it in a donation model if they like it, or buying copies if they want them. To trot out my old phrase, they get it. They really do. Go support them.