They say you can tell if you are a bad person by how much time passed from the towers falling on September 11th to the next time you masturbated.  Good people waited at least a few days.  In Louie CK’s case it was between the first tower falling and the second one falling, because as he says, if he didn’t do it then the terrorists win.  Seems reasonable.  It is much more difficult to tell if you are a good person however.  With us it’s easy, the music speaks for itself.  When Bach wrote music it was like he was speaking to God.  When Mozart wrote music it was like God was speaking to Mozart.  But when Bombskare writes music it’s like God speaking to Black Jesus, who texts Thor, who emails Zeus, who leaves a post-it note on the fridge for Satan, who leaves a garbled voicemail for Cthulu, who tweets Zeus, who then leaves an ad in the classified section of the Metro for Bombskare, and the results speak for themselves. Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair.  Unholy chaos from beyond the grave, better known to you as Bombskare aka the Ska Bastards of Despair.  You’re welcome.

It’s good to be in 2012 at last, because 2011 was a stone cold bummer.  In China it was known as the Year of the Migraine.  It was like a 365 day long Hearts and Hibs football match; or a 52 week long hernia operation.  I would have preferred to have spent the entire year locked up in solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay, handcuffed to a radiator, listening to the Smashing Pumpkins non stop.  However this year I have high hopes and no, it’s not the looming apocalypse although that is certainly cheering me up, or the new Van Halen album which is certainly cheering me down shall we say.  This year has already started better than last year for a number of reasons.

First, the government has promised to help all the victims of the recent defective boob job scandal.  Brilliant news.  I hate defective tits.  The last bunch of tits the government bailed out were the banks of course, which were then part nationalised so I’m assuming the taxpayer will own all these augmented breasts, and so the question on everbody’s lips is do we get visiting rights?  I realise that nationalising all these boobs might be viewed as controversial, but if they are anything like the railways then privatisation is bound to be a fiasco and far more costly in the long run.  Lets nationalise these boobs now and at least they’ll run on time.

Second, it’s only the middle of February and we have hit the ground running.  Gigs all over the place, Inverness and Aberdeen within a week, both were excellent.  We played at the Knockengorroch Winter Warmer in Dumfries with Mandy ‘Do Mandroids Dream of Electric Soup’ Clarke on bass guitar, and Captain Waz ‘The Waz’ Wazzster on drums which was an excellent night also.  Super Adventure Skare.  We had our old friend Jane up doing vocals on ‘Do All Dogs Go To Heaven’, which was a hoot and a holler.  It was a great night and once again our hats are off to Mandy Clarke, aka Papa Joe 2.0.

Thirdly, we went to Shetland, and then some.  It was the most memorable week that we can hardly remember.  We didn’t have Murray for this trip so we brought Phil Hopwood with us, or as we call him, Diet Murray.  It was a pretty rough crossing this time around, fourteen hours of giant waves and recycled air.  As mentioned we were going up to play a gig on the Hop night in Lerwick, and to see the Up Helly Aa itself of course, but that was it.  Subsequently we were then approached by one of the squads who take part in the actual procession, to accompany them on the night itself as their ‘backing band’.  They had been rehearsing their dance routine to ‘Fistful of Dynamite’ which coincidentally we wrote and recorded, fancy that.  Obviously we agreed to accompany them right away without a moments thought, but we had no idea what we had let ourselves in for, nor how much of an honour it actually was as non-Shetlanders can’t usually take part in the Up Helly Aa.  Basically, after the Up Helly Aa procession, each squad goes around the different halls, twelve maybe, and does their little dance routine to twelve different crowds, from 9pm until around 8am.  Forty five squads in total, between twenty and thirty guys to a squad, squad number one being the Jarls squad.  Those guys are the Vikings and the squad who actually drag the boat through the streets.  Our squad was squad number forty, called ‘This is Ska’.  We gradually managed to figure out was going to happen on our first meeting with the full squad on the Monday evening after we arrived on Shetland and realised we were going to do Bombskare – The A Team style, with bits and bobs lying around the garage which we then build into a devastating weapon to ambush the bad guys.  In short we borrowed some portable battery powered amps for the guitars, had already brought a melodica for Matt, and jerry rigged a snare to Sam with his hi hat and a clamp for a splash cymbal.  We then jerry rigged a floor tom for Andy to operate like a kick drum, and voila, Orkestra del Instant Bombskare, just add ungodly amounts of alcohol.  It was almost too easy.  We pity the fools.

I should mention at this point that I have no fear of vikings.  So what if you’ve got a big fucking axe?  I’m not impressed.  And what’s the big deal about raping and pillaging?    Back in the day they knew how to deal with vikings; a big mass of naked hairy Scotsman with broad swords and pikes, full of whisky, charging down a hill screaming.  Yes, it was a different time in the Seventies.  The squads are transported from hall to hall inside buses or in our case steel containers on the back of articulated trucks.  I’ve long advocated using cargo containers for transporting Ska, but there is no way that it is legal to have fifty guys being driven around in the back of a cargo container with crates of beer as furniture, pure genius but definitely not legal.  One of our squad mates told us that every few years Shetland gets a new chief of police, who after discovering what the Up Helly Aa actually involves, tries to shut it down, or throw the health and safety rulebook at them.  But they are soon persuaded through some Shetland Jedi shit that one night a year, all bets are off.  And sure enough, one policeman up there tried to sell me weed.  At least I think that’s what he said.  At each hall we went in with our squad and performed a stripped down version of ‘A Fistful of Dynamite’ followed by another tune so that our squad could then get a lady up to dance.  The tradition is you can’t buy a drink in the hall, so you have to dance with a lady who then gives you a drink.  So you can imagine what that was like, I mean, who the hell wants to dance with a ska band?  Idiots, that’s who.

Tickets are a steal at £6 – get yours HERE

Just discovered that I’m old. I’ve always shouted at the TV but I have never thrown pasta at it before. That’s what old people do. Crazy old people. But what else can we do? If God didn’t want us to throw things at the TV then why does he keep putting Jeremy Clarkson on the fucking thing. To anyone in Croatia reading this right now, let me explain who Jeremy Clarkson is. He’s sort of an English version of Marie Antionette. Let me now say that I think Jeremy Clarkson should be shot. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. If you are offended then I was just kidding. Just speaking hyperbollockly as I am known to do. I was momentarily upset when he said how dare public sector employees strike over their ‘gold plated’ pensions when the rest of us have to work for a living. Of course when he means work, he means being paid millions of pounds of license fee money to have cars bought for him and drive about in circles all day. Yeah, that’s a man’s work.

They came to my door recently and said, hey our records show you haven’t bought a TV license, to which I showed them the picture I have of Jeremy Clarkson pinned to my blood stained dart board and said, this cunt won’t be prancing about with any of my cash in his back fucking pocket, so feel free to fuck off and if you do come back, make sure you bring your top boy.  And they haven’t been back. Seriously though, I’m sure the BBC does a lot of good work.

I only ever use the TV to watch BBC News 24 anyway, which is depressing enough without having to pay for it. The news this year has been rubbish, worldwide revoulution, riots, economic and financial ruin.   David Cameron has vetoed a new European treaty basically because it would tax and regulate the City of London, not the actual city you understand, but the square mile around Threadneedle Street where all the money is. After all the last thing we would want to do right now is tax and regulate the banks. Better to just press on with failed austerity programmes that are destroying the social fabric of the country in order to sort our massive debt. Balance the books on the backs of working people, not hedge funds and banks and the City of London. What about the growing social unrest and anti democratic forces at play all across Europe, from Tottenham all the way to Athens? Fuck it, nothing bad has ever happened from social unrest and anti democratic forces in Europe as far as I can remember. Everyone is also very concerned about Iran and their alleged weapons programme. A total distraction in my view. We should be more concerned about Root System’s weapons programme. They’ve been trying to weaponise Ska for years, whilst simultaneously denying Bad Manners right to exist. They are also Madness deniers. They deny Madness ever happened, even though we have pretty convincing records. Pretty extreme stuff and they are just over the bridge, which means they really could hit us within forty five minutes. These are just rumours by the way but it would be irresponsible of me not to repeat them.

I have to confess I felt a little bad before, when I laughed at Roddy Radiation not being invited to the U.N Ska Summit. It was a cheap shot. It’s nothing to do with his abilities, he’s a capable guitarist, a very nice gentleman, it’s because he is a security risk, naturally. If the X Men movies have taught us anything, and I believe they have, it’s that you have to be extremely careful with that much radiation at the U.N, frankly you’re just asking for trouble. Naturally radiation doesn’t affect me, I fell into a cauldron of the stuff as a child, but for others it can be dangerous to be exposed to such high levels of irradiated skank guitar. To show there were no hard feelings we invited him up to Fran’s birthday party and we played a set of covers with this This R2 Tone. You can see from the photos that Colin was getting uncomfortably close behind Roddy, and he does look understandably worried, but it all worked out fine. In the end Colin said he was one of the most giving lovers he’d ever had.  That’s sweet.

We’ve finished the Ska this year. The Ska has been completed you might say, the live Ska anyway. Our last gig of the year was the Prestonpans Labour Club, the sort of gig that has been our bread and butter for ten years, where the crowd don’t know you and you have to win them over with sheer drunken magic. No problem for a charismatic bunch of two fisted he-men like us because that’s our speciality, drunken magic. The secret is lager, drink as much as you can, as fast as you can and do the gig before you fall over. I learned that trick from Judi Dench, not directly of course. I read it in ‘Intoxication Secrets of the Stars’ which is also where I found out that Justin Timberlake wears a cock ring on his vagina. Great night and good to catch up with the boys from Big Fat Panda. I forgot to tell Big Andy to get up to the zoo, and stamp his authority with the new panda, bloody immigrants, coming over here and stealing all our panda jobs. Or something. As soon as we got back from that gig, the snow came. Time to hibernate and focus on the recording which is virtually completed. The problem is the guys insist on making multiple copies of the album itself, something about selling it to the people. My view is that we should have one copy and sell it for a fortune. Little difference of opinion there.

We’ve already started planning 2012, which according to the Mayans and Hollywood is going to be the end of the world so we’ll be hitting the ground running, in anticipation of the end times. To get the ball rolling we’ll be in Inverness, Aberdeen, Dumfries and Shetland before the end of January. Dumfries will be interesting; no Sam, as he has a court appearance for masturbating out of the window. I really thought he would have learned his lesson from last time; and our second gig ever without Papa Joe who is off getting his back varnished, so we will be featuring Ms Mandy Clarke on bass guitar. Mandy was outraged that we had reprogrammed Waz for bass back in September instead of asking her, so this time round, since Waz will be on drums at that gig, she was the first person we asked to play the role of Joe. You might think that it’s not an obvious choice for understudy since Mandy is small and lovely, whereas Joe is monstrous and terrifying. However Ms Clarke rocks the bass guitar in Super Adventure Club, who truly are monstrous and terrifying. Bombskare absorbing 66.6% of Super Adventure Club is going to be fantastic.

Shetland is also going to be amazing, even better than the last time. We returned in October after seven years to Lerwick and Scalloway and had an amazing time, saw a lot of old friends. It was such as a success we’ve been invited back up to play after the Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick. Look it up nerds. Basically it’s a giant fire festival, held all across Shetland, everyone dressed as Vikings, complete with burning longboats, alcohol and thousands of mad Shetlanders. And Bombskare. What could possibly go right?

Merry Christmas folks.

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We especially enjoy SFR SOUNDSYSTEM with RICH- Every Saturday from 8 – 10, playing the best in ska and reggae with some punk, soul and beat stuff thrown in too.

Ha, just kidding. I have no idea what religion I am. I was ‘baptised’ on the corner of Duke Street in Glasgow with a can of lager, by my father and his insane younger brother. What religion does that make me? No idea. In the meantime I’ll just keep worshipping Set. If you are Christian or Muslim or whatever, please don’t be offended, I have a few backward, medieval bad habits myself. For instance every time there’s an eclipse I like to get extremely agitated and burn a Witch, or someone who looks likes a Witch. Anyone with a funny shaped nose really. Also, I’m pretty sure the world is flat, and I also believe in blood letting, as a treatment for asthma. So my advice is worship as you please, you nutters.

Anyway you can’t blame people for praying at a time like this, or being blind drunk. Or burning witches. There has simply been no good news for what seems like years. The other day I watched on TV the NYPD, tooled up like paramilitaries evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park in the dead of night, under the orders of New York’s billionaire mayor. I’ve tried and I can’t think of a better symbol of the times than that. The only thing close was when Strauss Kahn (head of the IMF) aleggedly raped a chamber maid (of African descent), and I thought ‘hang on, is that a metaphor’. It’s cartoonish and depressing. It also looks like both Greece and Italy, the birthplace of Western Civilisation, may well bring about it’s downfall after all, oh bitter irony. At this point it looks like our only chance of some good news on the economy is an alien invasion from outer space to help bail out the Euro. The one slightly amusing bit of news was watching Andy Murray getting groin strain. The footage of him lying on the court while his trainer pushed down on his groin cheered me up no end. In fact the best news headline recently was that Jordan was in talks with Hamas, which is still pretty bad. Can’t we send someone less awful and deeply stupid?

For most of you it’s probably even more depressing because even if you still have a job, you aren’t in a nine piece Ska machine, kicking all sorts of ass with world class Ska-Kwondo. You’re probably even further removed from Kevin Bacon than we are*. That makes me sad. However until we have managed to work out how to take over the world (oh it will happen), then our solution to saving the world, you will not be surprised to hear, is Ska. To that end we have started mixing the Bombskare Second Album although we are still recording little bits and pieces like percussion. Tim has been busy ‘darn sarf’ in Unkle’s studio, working on some bollocks featuring Noel Gallagher. I’m sure it’s lovely, but frankly it’s not Bombskare and therefore of no consequence. But now we’ve started the actual polishing of the tunes, twenty in total which is lot of polishing. An entire case of Mr. Sheen might be required and one of those devices you see polishing the floor in Shopping Centres. In preparation I’ve been listening to a lot of Two Tone Ska just as a frame of reference. I have to confess that on a lot of that stuff I don’t like the sound of the guitars. I know it was the late 70′s and early 80′s but they were very twangy with not much balls. I actually mentioned it to Roddy Radiation once, at the United Nations Ska Summit. Just kidding. He’s not invited.

I’m also kidding about Two Tone and to prove it Murray, Colin, Mike and myself will playing in ThisR2Tone tonight, which also features our one time frontman Big Andy, of Big Fat Panda fame, in support of LoveMusic HateRacism. It’s at the Wee Red Bar if youse fancy it.

Speaking of alien invasions, I’m looking forward to ‘The Thing’ being released next month, a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic ‘The Thing’, probably my all time favourite movie. It’s about a large group of men in an enclosed space, mainly all wearing the same clothes, who don’t get along most of the time and who don’t trust one another but who have to work together in spite of the fact all they really want to do is set each other on fire. Eventually it all descends into madness and spectacular violence with very few laughs. Wait a minute…

*Bombskare are five degrees seperated from Kevin Bacon, which is one degree closer than Adolf Hitler. Colin and I worked as focus testers on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, which means we are in the game credits, somewhere near the bottom, which also featured Gary Busey, who was also in ‘The Firm’ with Tom Cruise, who was in ‘A Few Good Men’ with Kevin Bacon; Adolph Hitler was in ‘Triumph of the Will’, which was directed by Leni Riefenstahl, who in turn was in ‘Das Blaue Licht’, with Mathias Wieman, who was in ‘Die Ehe des Dr. med. Danwitz’ with Maximilian Schell, who was in ‘Telling Lies in America’ with Kevin Bacon.

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