As May draws to a chilly end I thought I might just add my own editor’s blog to the multitude swamping the Internet. It just so happens to have been an eventful month, certainly in the eyes of this critical beholder. So let me start at the beginning of a month that saw the country’s ruling political party receive a well-earned bloody nose from its electorate (and not before time). Rock ‘n’ Roll arrived (at last) in the political arena when Nasty New Labour lost hundreds of council seats in England, while in the dissolved parliaments of Scotland and Wales rule moved more decisively to ‘no overall control’ (via a fairer proportional representation voting system). Ask yourself the question, ‘Why has the ballot system been so open to question since NNL came to power?’ The situation in Scotland is nothing short of a scandal with over 150,000 votes excluded due to an administrative blunder that left voters confused on how to fill in ballot papers for 2 separate elections held on the same day. Postal ballots have also been open to fraud following NNL’s insistence on ‘promoting’ the system ‘to involve more people in the democratic process.’ Bullcrap! Some years ago I saw at first hand the ‘opportunism’ of NNL council candidates in concentrating efforts on ‘helping’ the aged and infirm cast their postal votes. It was a successful strategy that saw NNL grab seats and ultimately council control. The simple fact is that this garnering of aged and infirm votes has been transposed to the mother of parliaments by those who so successfully exploited the postal system. Let’s cut to the chase: despite dire warnings from detached, expert observers, NNL went ahead in a desperate bid to bolster its flagging popularity under its most corrupt, incompetent, warmongering, deceitful and Shakespearean leader T Blair (can’t bring myself to call him Tony). Incidentally, have you noticed how the worst somehow manage to make themselves millionaires…?

But things are looking even bleaker now for the UK’s overtaxed, underpaid and over-borrowed population because in May TB’s successor, G Brown (can’t bring myself to calling him Gordon) was crowned unopposed (a bit like TB was in ’97). The architect of the UK’s so-called ‘economic miracle’ supported every single crazy TB move (including support for the war on Iraq) together with instigating some of his own little beauties like the discredited Family Credit system and the plundering of private pension schemes (with huge negative implications to people’s ability to survive financially in old age). What economic miracle? The UK’s economy has been floating on the back of massive public sector expenditure, unsustainable record levels of private debt (only matched by the USA), ever-rising asset values (based on demand especially in the housing sector), cheap imports (our manufacturing base is now well and truly fucked), and the highest level of taxation ever (a system that is overcomplicated and massively favouring the rich). As they wisely say up north – ‘Shit floats.’

Conservative leader D Cameron (can’t bring myself to call him David) offers a PR-led alternative but can’t bring himself to say that his party’s unequivocal support for ‘the war’ (which ultimately allowed TB to go ‘shoulder to shoulder’) was wrong. Ask yourself the question: Would G Bush (can’t possibly call him George) have gone to war without a strong ally in tow. I think not. The Lib-Dems under the safe, silent and sullen hands of what’s ‘is name haven’t a hope in hell under this leader and a voting system that favours past and present party incumbents. And while the politicians live in their private little protected worlds, people are dying in their thousands in Darfur, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and in several African countries. May was bad politically…

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Jools Holland returned to our airwaves in May and last week gave the dreadful Cribs three songs and Joe Cocker just one. But it wasn’t all bad. May saw the welcome return of class act Joan Armatrading (who sounded better than ever), and should have got headline billing ahead of Bloc Party. On the same JH show I got my first live view of new UK singer/songwriter Katie Nash whose single I recently received and liked. In fact I was so impressed I’m going to see her perform on June 4 in Liverpool – more on her in a few weeks. Two words – American Idol. Did you get hooked on it? I frigging well did and couldn’t help comparing the talent available over there to X Factor’s talent (where’s Leona?) over here. Chalk and bloody cheese wasn’t it? I still can’t get over how young winner Jordin is (just 17!) and where did that great voice come from? Highlight of the final show was Green Day’s performance of new single, Lennon’s classic ‘Working Class Hero’ (Instant Karma – The Campaign To Save Darfur – Amnesty International). It is a superb, rocky interpretation and at the end of the song the guys bent their heads in silence when John Lennon voiced the final words, “If you want to be a hero then just follow me.” Perhaps NNL should heed the other Lennon lyric, “A working class hero is something to fear…”

May confirmed to me that album release-wise 2007 is shaping up as at least as good as 2006 was (in my humble view one of the best years ever). This month’s great albums included those by Thirteen Senses, Linkin Park, Steven Lindsay, Pepe Deluxe, Fireworks Night, Sia, Michael Bublé, Sparta and Neil Young’s classic LIVE AT MASSEY HALL 1971. At Shakenstir we’re heavily influenced by albums in deciding who we review in the live arena, and in May we covered two exceptional concerts by Kosheen and Stephanie Dosen. My colleague in London loved the low-key Kosheen show while I revelled in new Bella Union signing, American Stephanie Dosen. Both reviews are now uploaded together with photos.

Dosen in particular should be on everyone’s go-see list; her style is understated, beautifully judged and in all skill-related areas she’s dynamite. Dosen is also stunningly beautiful. I also received the new live DVD by Katie Melua, ‘CONCERT UNDER THE SEA’ which I found very interesting as it was my first opportunity to experience the lady sing and talk live. In the review I made the point that she needs to push for more independence from cash register Mike Batt if she is to achieve her personal artistic ambitions. The DVD includes a previously unreleased video for the Batt penned song ‘It’s Only Pain’ where she watches two accomplished ballet dancers perform on stage in an empty, run down auditorium. She then watches herself dressed and made-up as a forlorn-looking clown ballet dancer who just slides onto the stage and then stands sad, motionless. My bet is that she actually had a hand in putting this together and it contains the message that she wants to be given total freedom to fully exploit her undoubted talents – like the accomplished ballet dancers. Check it for yourself and see what you think. For me the message is very clear…

Reviewing is a funny business. Daily I see reviews by one and all in the media proclaiming albums and artists in the most extreme way; ‘the best rock album of the year’, ‘the best rock band on earth’, and so on, and so forth. The broadsheet newspapers are a little more honest and conservative but it seems to me that magazines like NME have made a habit of over-hyping to magnify the mag’s importance and influence. The magazine’s new front section focus on photography has failed miserably due to rank bad images being used – photos we wouldn’t tolerate on Shakenstir. It occurred to me that the quality of live photography generally has declined alarmingly over the years, with some really dreadful examples appearing on artist/act websites. With the advent of digital equipment, everyone seems to thinks that they can become music photographers – big mistake. We use only two top quality photographers (one north, one south) to take what are the most challenging photos in scenarios that include: 3 songs max, no flash, UFOs and dreadful, unfriendly stage lighting. Images have always been a major area for us here at Shakenstir and will continue to be in order that visitors get a true picture of a live performance. We also make available our best pictures to artists and their record companies. If you want to send over pictures for us to judge and use you can send to tony.shakenstir@btinternet.com. Size should be 800 x 800 mpegs (max 4). We’ll offer advice if you want it – anything to improve the current generally poor standard.

For years I’ve been wondering how long the major record labels can survive operating the way they do. For a ‘creative’ industry it has been way behind the eight-ball in fully exploiting the potential of the digital age, regarding it more threat than friend. Major player EMI has now been sold to a private equity firm and I can’t help thinking that the company’s senior executives are breathing a sigh of relief – I certainly would. When many artists are now writing their own songs, recording, producing and marketing for peanuts the majors spend megabucks on running their businesses – the accounting balancing act must be near impossible. With the Internet now supplying a lot of musical information (still not terribly well) I would also question the medium-term viability of print magazines. We shall see…