New year, New approach

One of my Manchester student friends, recently, upon learning about my new skin hairway, posted the following on my facebook with a link to this tune by up-and-coming UK grime artist "Devlin":

"Now that you're bald, this wigger is like youu! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L4iH89tjAM

When are you back in manc? x"

I used to date a girl who lived in a place like this, pretty accurately conveys the vibe of, "fuck, I can feel my soul dying..."

Had to admit I was rather taken aback by the condemnation of wiggerdom on some dude simply for being white and rapping. He seems like a reasonably down to earth kina bro, and beyond the odd hand gesture, nothing really to sound the wigger alarm on. And the style's pretty quintessentially British, the dude doesn't really seem to be under any pretenses. Plus he captures a really genuinely English feel, added to by the further Jam; "London City":

"Blood, Sweat and Beers!"

So I had to grant him "notawigger", and put down my friends claim down to poor education on what a wigger is, and general middle class snobbery at chavy grime artists. So I refuted her claim, and instead linked her to that infamous Winds of Plague video (I've already spammed the hell out of "Day of Mourning" over FB), reminding her whats up.

In a way metal wiggers are "purer" than rap wiggers, in that there is in general next to no black influence in the scene anyway, making it pretty much a complete anomaly no one saw comming. At least rap is heavily black anyway, so you can kina make allowances for white dudes acting "black".

When it comes to metal/slam wiggers, no one goes further than the critically acclaimed Newyorkment. If you need further reminding on the way things are, look no further than this educational video featuring the wigger slam visionaries, on why metal that isn't slam is totally ghey.

I agree, most old skool shit does suck balls!

Also, if you haven't already, peep their myspace, which is absolutely fucking hilarious.

Anyhow, back to the subject of Grime, if Devlin puts a face on London, closer to home I got M16 reppin' Manchester. M16 is the area code for Moss Side, one of the more notorious areas. Much like how 3OH!3 are named after the phone area code or something of where they're from, this group would appear to be grimes answer to the 3OH!3. Oh, and they also look about 12.

Often, when asked to describe Manchester, I refer to it as "Like London, but without the good bits"

Manchester's also now apparently the most dangerous city in England, with like the highest gun and knife crime. Also, factoring in the population, it has a higher rate of burglary than Baltimore.

So there you go, Grime, and how grim Manchester can be...

Managed to get "In the Zone", for the January exams. Shut out all my friends, even London chick, despite things no longer being as "south", as in my last post. Shes dropping out of uni there now anyway, so glad as fuck that shes moving back up North again. She was living in one of the most soul destroying grimy places you can imagine also pretty accurately portrayed in the community outcast video, I'm surprised a rich little maltstream girl even lasted as long as she did.

Grime and Donk seem to be a good fertile new place to take this blog, now that I'm shit bored of the much used scene/crunkcore/deathcore approach. At least now it's something closer to home. Living next to Longsight, an equally notorious area of Manchester, I could even see if I can give some kind of interactive window into the world of English grime. Oh, and one of the gangs is called the Gooch Close Gang. LOL

A snapshot of the North of England, and an inadvertantly beautiful metaphore for teenage life.

Watching this video, I can't help get slightly sentimental, and feel a certain connection with where I'm from, in a way similar I imagine to the feeling that Necro may get when he hears about someone getting raped in New York. This felling is not about the girl or the baby, but a huge sense of kinship I feel with the running kid at the beginning of the video (not the fat one holding the phone). His look of wide eyed desperation to see this momentous event, that he can tell his friends "I was there", for years to come. I also relate to his status as "outsider", or "watcher", as he tries to hurtle over his classmates to get a better view, and then get shouted at by some teacher or self appointed "bossy girl" to "give her some room" or some shit. He is neither the girl, nor (not fucking likely) the baby's father. In stead he is just a casual observer, looking for something to talk about, chilling with his early pubescant bros, before school ends and they go to intimidate the general public on a bus/fast food restaurant and then go home to dinner and ultra violent video games. They have no female friends, but the second one of them gets an extremely pedestrian girlfriend, the rest of the group will be wrought with betrayal/jealousy. And here they are, living parallel lives to this girl who is already pregnant at what can't be more than 15. She is the "in" crowd, a main character, a protagonist or antagonist to the dramas that unfolds in and around the school. The boy, and so many like him, the younger me included, are just extras. We watch, and with fascination, even though we know it is very unlikely we will ever get our own "15 minutes of fame". There is just nothing about us worth talking about. We shall probably get our first girlfriend around 16, loose our virginity at 18, too late for anyone to care/congratulate us on/spread rumours about. We just hover around the "In" crowd, letting them explore life first, taking notes, before we experiment ourselves with sex/drugs/fashion. They are the real time Soap Opera, taking place right before our eyes, while we live through tv, film and video games. TV lets us look in on the lives of more "In" crowds, with lives that have a compelling narrative. At around 16 we will probably combine with a group of girls, of similar looks/social standing/lack of charisma/lack of life experience. Together we make a new larger, more diverse mature group, and explore life together, under the radar of the wider social circle. We have good and bad times, romances are born and die, and our old video games lie largely forgotten. We feel that our lives are finally beginning to resemble TV, although no one cares by now, except us. After a few years, our group will explode, as we go to uni, and we will probably grow further and further away from each other. We never had any real connection to each other, even when we thought we were in love with some girl we dated, we just clung together because we had no one else. There is just nothing about us worth talking about.............yet.

Maltstream chicks crunk my world

Using this extremely close minded and generalising system I have devised (and by devised, I mean briefly pondered upon), I hope I can help any of my discerning readers identify, pigeon hole, and act accordingly around females.

On my scale, there are only 3 types of girl. The most common ones: "Hard" Alternative, and "Hard" Mainstream, which generally clump together, and most social groups will be dominated by one or the other, with little else present. Then there is the third group, my holy grail as such, known as "Maltstream", a term coined by the massively successful post ironic hipster blog "HRO". (note: this system only applies to the middle classes)

Contrary to what everyone believes/tells you/are duped into believing by music videos, "Hard" alt girls are normally, not humble/misunderstood, extremely bitchy, closed minded, and kina fucked up and self centred. This is generally a result of hanging out in alt social circles, where (socially inept) guys massively outnumber girls, and so any girl, nomatter how fat/ugly, will get heaps more attention than if they stuck to mainstream sociality. This normally leads to them being painfully self centered, case in point: Kiki Kannibal. They also seem to fight amongst each other on a mean girls esque scale, vying for position of most relevant/alternative hot of the group, generally by banging a guy considered more successfully alt than the other chicks (due to band, art, gnarly tats). Plus most of them seem to be there for the alternative "image" above all else.

Meanwhile mainstream girls are normally a bit more pleasant and accepting, and simply have the major floor of being shit boring. It's obviously a massive sized demograph, yet they normally simply seem to have almost exactly the same views and conversational topics (espesh in uni).

replicate this picture a few hundred times and you have every mainstream girl's facebook. possibly with the odd folder of some holiday in Canada or something.

Then there are the glorious maltstream chicks, who my British alternative heart truly goes out too. Consisting of the best of each, mainstream enough to function normally in most social situations, alt/fucked up enough to have interesting conversations with and be into decent music/go to gigs with you and not be freaked out when you go hardcore dancing/pitting. Pretty much all the chicks I've ever had a meaningful connection/relationship with have been maltstream, as they glide between a spectrum of social groups like a carefree satellite in a studded belt, girl boxers and phat skate shoes. Normally they can be identified by a small generic tattoo, normally on the upper back.

And lets not forget Alison Harvard, the ultimate Maltstream!

Donk: The Essence of the North West

Recently, in keeping with my North Western heritage, I have begun getting into the music of donk. Although i am not a chav, and my parents are pretty stable, so its not exactly a familiar scene.

If you are not from the north-west of England, I emplore you to now watch this video on the background of donk/chav culture, and get a feel of what the North West is like.



Particular highlights include:

"This is Spanish", Like Waynes World but with chavs.

"Do you want sittin on your fuckin arse?" I've seen this situation waayyy too many times, especially with the good Samaritan guy stepping in at the end "He's not worth it, not now mate, i'm not in the mood, don't touch me"

The "nice but dim bouncer", "If you do not let go of me, I will pop your eye out"

(the word was "co-operative" btw)


This skank. Although you may have seen a couple of maybe kind of attractive girls in the video, i guarentee most will end up looking like this. I recently witnessed an abomination like this hit on one of my friends in a pub, it was a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour.

There are far too many quality moments here containing the essence of the north west, so I find it hard to pinpoint any really, I just think you should watch the whole thing, and soak up the cultural wasteland of the North.

As you can probably guess, I have way more in common with the presenter here than anyone else featured, and find it funny to see him with all these working class northern types. There were probably a good few situations not shown where he got severely bullied and maybe even almost fought by his subjects, that weren't shown, and I have to give the guy mad props for going down Wigan pier, which is like Mordor for middle class kids like me and him. Although he was kind of undercover, in his new get up.

If you come from the north west of England, this video should make you squeal with recognition, as it definitely did me. Otherwise you will just find the strange sketchy working class English guys funny, but not really get it. I now feel like I have a one up on guys from New York or Tampa, even if it is just silly chav music.

On the note of Blackout Crew, I seriously love this group, even if they do look like the kind of people who would mug you/beat you up for having longish hair.
This is my personal fav, even if "put a donk on it" is their most famous track.



On a final note, this girls birthday party in the documentary shows just how classless northern girls are. Even though some may be attractive, the second they open their mouths it's all gone. This is probably why I developed a fascination with German girls, and I would get depressed whenever I came back from there, normally encountering someone like this girl at the airport. Now skip to 6:20, and feel my pain. It is a pain I still feel, and commonly run into at student house parties. Imagine trying to have a romantic moment with someone with that voice. At some point I will try and follow this up by documenting some hideous English girl voices, and post away. Until then, try and hold your puke back as she talks. Extreme example I know, but gives you a taste.