Arh, hello there, I trust you’re well?

It’s been an outstanding eight or nine months, a cannon fired sledge ride though walls of dark whiskey, indecent prose and in places, twitching passion. Now breadontoast is back, my own shining corner of the internet to help me carry on this fateful adventure.

I’m talking dramatically of course, alongside the excellent experiences I’ve had there has been the boring times too. Whilst the retail industry proves to be much more a pleasant experience than the catering one, it can be a little placid at times. Better that than burnt hands, late nights, cuts and crawling under hot cookers though. .

Anyway, enough of this, I’m in no mood to give anyone an any more detailed account of my life over recent times than that it’s been fucking excellent, I had a down spell that lasted approximately 72 hours, things are moving a head with speed and accuracy as always and a dramatic change will be happening soon.

Leave a message if you’re so kind or add me on myspace, www.myspace.com/fervour

Adieu maestro, until next time.

YOURE GOING TO PAY...and I mean seriously motherfucker

Everything is progressing at an extreme rate of knots, it’s been about 6 months since I left uni and in that time I’ve become a regular and praised contributor on a national music magazine, Zero Magazine and a regular with another fashionista (yuk) type mag Disorder Magazine as well as setting up my own local fanzine Under Magazine to the love and admiration of our local scene.

Journalism seriously fucking rocks I can’t tell you, and this is good fucking stuff. It's starting to take on a real form, a feverous take on new music, absolute dedication, driven with passion. There’s no fucking around here, no time for it, no time at all, it’s filled with grit and spice and will hopefully give you an insight to the band I’m covering.

I’ve attached a recent article I’m particularly proud of, perhaps if you like it you can leave a comment or something.

Anyway, a quick pic of the mag and I will say adieu maestro, until next time.

If you want a copy of the mag request on the website, i do send abroad.

www.undermagazine.co.uk



Innocence Dies -

As the 21st century squeezes the last drops of innocence out of the body of youth it seems fitting that youth itself should be playing the backing track. Meet Kill The Young.

Tom, Olly and Dylan Gorman, three brothers in their early twenties who kick out a music that corresponds exactly with the disorientation and panic felt by so many young people in today’s stylised, fast paced, ultra exclusive and class divided as ever British culture. Not strictly a concept band, their thoughts on the loss of innocence and the corruption of youth comes from, as guitarist and lyricist Tom says, “The ability to take a step back.”

"It is more of having a strong point to put across rather than a political agenda” he continues. “It’s not as if we have had or, do have a specific idea saying, ‘this is what we stand for and this is what we are going to do’, because you can get stuck in a rut doing that sort of thing and we’ve always wanted to explore different avenues of music. The name was and still is to catch peoples’ attention, we do believe in it and what it stands for”.

That stance, portrayed by their name and their first single, The Origin of Illness, is full of the passion and gusto that the 21st century is kicking out of the young. Bassist Dylan elaborates on their perceptions, “It’s something we do feel strongly about but, it’s never something we’ve had to deal with personally because we’ve had such cool parents. We’ve looked at how all these kids are growing up so fast, so young. You see these people that are forced by way of financial situations or pressure off their parents, or whatever, into doing something they don’t want to do whether it is university or jobs. Kill The Young is that essence of youth being lost, because people aren’t able to do the things they want to do or enjoying youth”.

Let us not forget about the music, it’s rampant and eager, with twinges of everything from Echo and the Bunny Men to Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth. Any band that has played together for over seven years and performed in excess of 300 gigs will have a bond, but add to that mix the fact these guys are brothers and there’s the definite possibility of something special being produced. “Dylan and Olly come up with more actual tunes and riffs than I do” starts Tom when explaining the writing process of this literal band of brothers.

“Once those are sorted though I’ll sit down and think and think. I’ll take a long time to write down what will articulate perfectly the idea I’m wanting to say. No one track is half hearted or rushed and they’re usually quite personal to me. We’re not specifically a concept band with a theme that we write the music around, I mean we have a point behind the name and such but I don’t think we set out to change minds. If someone takes something from the music then great, I think different people will put different interpretations on what we play.”

Dylan continues “None of the songs on the album are about love or anything like that, it’s all about Tom and how he feel’s, it is some very personal stuff which is often quite dark. The music isn’t so overly personal that people will be like ‘what the hell is he singing about though.’”

As we sit around a cold table in Manchester train station on a dark and typically wet night it might be easy to see why they’re perhaps the polar opposite to a band like the Beach Boys. There’s no sparkling 1960’s America here, just, as Dylan says, “People rushing to get pissed, who can drink the fastest and how much, you know, we do a bit of that ourselves, but that’s just the way life is in these small towns like the one we grew up in”. A bleak backdrop that has provided them with the fodder to create their raw and emotive music.

Finding this sound was not an easy feat, seven years of gigging and constant development though has landed them with a package they have the uppermost of confidence in. “Other people being in the band helped us grow as musicians and become stronger in the end, because we realised that it’s either going to be us three or it was not going to happen. We couldn’t have it any other way, it’s the key really, it’s probably why we’ve written so many songs” explains drummer Olly.

It has been more than just a brotherly connection and ability to pick up on each other’s smallest peculiarities that has brought them to this ignition ready point, their path brought them to legendary producer Dimitri Tikovoi. After being signed to Discograph records the company decided to bring in the producer, famous for his works with everyone from Placebo to Goldfrapp, to have a listen. “They flew him over from France to our tiny little practice room” begins Olly. “We played a few songs for him, chatted a bit and started on about the album, our ideas and how to bring them to reality. See, something that always evaded us with studio recordings was this great live sound we have, Dimitiri was really able to bring this out by getting us to play live but, in the studio so to speak. We had people brought in to play in front of, he got us playing all together to really bring out that energy and passion rather than us playing separately and then layering it. We loved it and really think it worked.” Dylan continues the description seamlessly, “…And although it maintains this raw edge and special feel about it, after we had done all the over dubs and polished up the guitars and things like that it does sound totally professional, it’s not too raw that it just sounds amateur”.

Now it seems they’re set, they have the money and people behind them to bring their impressive sound and keen attitude to an ever hungry public. Not a band to gorge on, no doubt they will be drip fed, whatever it takes just as long as they don’t fall off into nothingness, that would be a travesty.

---Kill The Young

Northwich is a peculiar place. As just another northern town that makes up the borough of Vale Royal you would be forgiven for overlooking it when searching for youthful music full of gusto and fervour.

Don’t be too keen to miss us out though, here in my home town I’ve begun to scratch the surface of something special, a local scene that is rife with more than just teen angst and a lack of things to do. There are bands, dozens of them, talented youngsters that have always been here since I was a kid. Now with my new magazine, Under, I’m hoping to give them the chances large city bands get every day as they’re featured in fanzines and on dozens of websites for people everywhere to read about.

It’s that something more than a 30 word filler in the local paper. We wanted total coverage with reviews, interviews and features, a professionally designed and printed publication, produced with the same passion that the music has. Two issues down and the hard work is paying off, with a budget for 1100 copies the full colour 40 page magazine is now out, local businesses are beginning to take us seriously and the scene is loving it.

It’s no mean feat, content is spilling out from all corners of this borough with three local bands getting signed in as many weeks, but money is what counts and the ever pounding question of where to get it from. Luckily sweet talking people is, unlike playing music, an area I have always seemed to excel at, but who needs it? We’ve got an amazing product, add that to a keen attitude and absolute professionalism and the advertisers are almost chasing us.

When I say ‘we’ I mean the small group of young and intense writers that the magazine is also working for. Acting as a platform for these young adults to get their portfolio started was another key aim of the magazine and now, with a team of 10 and growing, that grand notion of total coverage is beginning to become a reality.

We will eventually see come January if the advertisers still have that fire in their bellies and the eagerness to carry on feeding us with money. There’s so much more to do and luckily I have a few more ideas hidden away yet. It feels like I’m hooked up to a generator, the 18 hour days are frying my nerves but it’s exciting and fast paced and everything else a job should be at a young age. I’ve got my own magazine, it’s a quality product, I know because I would read it. If you can break off the edge yourself and find something just as cool give it a go, it’s an outstanding feeling.

Your friend, Jack

If you would like a copy of Under Magazine request one at the website:

www.undermagazine.co.uk

Anyway, here is the pilot.

RIP HST, The death of a warrior

I’ve carried my copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with me everywhere I’ve been for the last four years, over three continents and tens of thousands of miles. I watched the film on the recommendation of a friend, I read the book after some research on the internet and my life changed.

I was overcome with a passion and fervour for extreme life, the type Hunter lived. I raced through Fear and Loathing for the first time when I was on holiday with my friends in Malta. The country was going through a scorching heat wave at the time, that would send the day temperatures soaring well over 100 Fahrenheit. We’d sleep until just before the sun set, and then, as the evening temperature began to mellow in the twilight hours, we would go down to the pool and sit in the shade. Hydrating from the previous night’s debauchery and getting ready to do it again. It was fantastic, the perfect time to read the anarchy of Hunter. We’d binge drink the night away, convincing former East Bloc country folk that we were magicians with a penchant for skateboarding and late night dips in the Mediterranean Sea. Not a care in the world “I’m Michael Hopperfield buddy! You better believe it! The half brother of David Copperfield, I taught that man everything he knows!” and they’d believe us. As the numbers dwindled and the sun began to rise we’d grab our wheels and speed down the melted smooth tarmac roads, the cool sea air freshening our party-torn bodies.

I turned 18 there, the loss of innocence whilst reading HST. We brawled with amphetamine addled swine in the main square of the town. An old man with a large tattoo of a shark on his torso and sun drenched skin told us he was a pirate and kissed me on my forehead. Amazing times, total freedom and absolute optimism before September 11, and this was only four years ago, incredible to think really. I came back and knew I had a mission, a path of domination was set out for me and it’s been absolutely necessary to maintain ever since. The chance to pause and reflect has been just out of my grasp from that point until now, Hunters death has made me take the time to do so. My paper trail leads directly back to those still vivid nights in Malta, now I’m here about to finish my degree in journalism four years on and just as ferocious as ever.
Balls to the wall, aiming straight and dominating all, my mind is set and I will succeed. And remember, as Hunter said “The crazy never die!”

End of Days

This is ultimately a trip in the name of fun, for all the apprehension and paranoia it is at the end of the day a delve into potentially one of the most paranoid cities on earth. A physical experiment to see if all the hedonistic attributes have clung three years after the death of ignorance. Eyes are truly open now, closed minds still exist but they know what they are trying to block out. A fluid enemy ebbed under America’s doors and drove terror deep into an already savage and reckless society.

It’s a known fact that New Yorkers drink more and take more drugs now than previous to 9/11 and depending on ones own boundaries and ideals of fun that can either be good or bad. For an excessive brute like myself it has to be towards the good. But with the drink and drugs there comes the obvious depression, the need and distinct want to block out the realities smashing down around these city folk, but they do not seem depressed.

A reasonable man may be willing to accept that New Yorkers are simply celebrating their freedom with more vigor and potency than before. The people I’ve met, the painters, publicists, DJ’s, rock bands and everything else in between seem to be emanating a new found confidence in their freedom an appreciation, no longer taking it for granted, and it’s beautiful. It’s not as if the city doesn’t have an excuse, this was the pinnacle of what can be seen as the time of depression. In a democratic city the Republican Party decides to hold its national convention, just days before the third anniversary 9/11. The inevitable protests ensued, with or without reason, employing both peaceful and violent means. If you weren’t protesting? Grab whatever you can, gobble it up or drink it down to get away from the harsh realities plastered all around…but these weren’t the reasons for all over-indulgence. Stood outside a bar smoking a cigarette I asked a young man about how the city would be reacting on 9/11. “You know man” he replied “Everyone’s upset, but a lot of people also see it as a true reminder of our wonderful diversity, we’ve got it and we ain’t letting go” Good man I thought and cracked him on the back in a drunken alpha male type gesture. And it’s true; the kids are still running rampage full of life and intensity.

After an initial 14 hour, $200 drink binge, a case of alcohol poisoning, severe cellular dehydration, hallucinations, 40 hours of sleep and the fleeing in absolute terror of 7 Japanese teenagers from the hostel room I was sharing, I was able to go out and truly absorb the city. It seemed subdued on the outside, but once I had looked hard enough and cracked the edges a little I found a pool of fun with broken filters. Nothing’s getting purified by our invisible enemy of terror and the government’s relentless need for protection of the greater good. On the ground the vibrancy of youth lives on and is just debauched and extravagant as ever.

Radical Interrogation Techniques

In to the mist I head, stocked and prepped with a variety of whiskeys and a horde of cigarettes. My fears of arrest in New York have been quashed some what by the fact my partner in sin has failed to materialize, no real concern however I can cause enough bedlam and disorder on my own. Obviously this is a trip in the name of fun, in these paranoid times anything else would be foolish, yet there is always that lingering concern of pure chaos.
There is definitely something that brings up great apprehension in oneself when looking at American domestic policy in these icy times. Adventures are fraught with fear of not only incarceration by outback Nazi police-force types, but also all manner of fringe sectors of law enforcement that roam constantly with predatory impulses looking for anything out of the ordinary… the invisible threat of terror.

It’s always easy to argue that the well being of the collective has to be protected at all costs, even if that is at the expense of the individual, and this certainly seems to be what is being preached at the moment. Border controls armed to the teeth, searching, roaming, looking through and interrogating whole bus loads of people 500 miles away from any border, “Our jurisdiction is the entire U.S” one of them told me, indeed it is. What if I wasn’t carrying my passport? “It was taken officer, that’s right, a group of crazed monsters after my Pineal gland, ready to bore a whole in my head…I begged them, said I was autistic and it was wrecked from birth, so they made off with my wallet and passport…” Slam! No doubt, none of that back-chat, straight into some sort of terrorist holding cell to be prepped for radical interrogation techniques.

It’s the way of the US at the moment, constitutional rights getting broken at every corner. It’s unlikely the rent-a-cop security employed to search and scan everyone getting onto greyhound busses, for example, really know they’re infringing on the natural civil rights of all of these people, the 4th Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

‘Probable cause’ I think is the phrase that comes into discussion at this point, “Our intent is to root out and discover possible terrorists and to protect the greater good”, indeed, that seems to give these rent-a-cops the right to search anyone, well, where are the individuals these days?
This greater good, the constant observation of the herd, intense policing to keep order completely over looks the individual and it’s deeply worrying. But of course constitutional rights have always been up in the air being fought for by wealthy lawyers after notoriety and ‘justice’, the more things change the more things stay the same. Yet this invisible enemy of today encroaches on every man woman and child, the nightmare is becoming a reality. The grim writings of authors about ‘big brother’ and such, these unimaginable dictatorships controlling and governing by that most powerful of authorities ‘fear’ is unwinding before our very eyes. Traces are already apparent, tube station walls plastered with warnings of vigilance, “report anything suspicious immediately” breeding a generation of paranoid swine ready to turn you in at the drop of a hat.

It is early days yet but the disgusting foundations are steadily being put in place for an all out hell. Fuck this misery, it’s only one potential fate of world politics at the moment, best absorb the freedom now and forget this merciless fear that has been at the back of the free mans mind for centuries. My trip through Chicago went by rather uneventfully. Perfect for the rest and recuperation that was needed after the excess’s of resort life. Five days of solid relaxation and preparation for the heaviness of New York City with a few whiskeys here and there, but for medicinal purposes only. One curious day I had my palms read by a mystic hippy sort, disheveled and looking like she had been living off leaves and berries for too long her skin was sagged and spotted from sun erosion. Her predictions were interesting, that of long life and confidence and also the premonition that I will be a father to over four children. What I should have done is packed her mouth full of shit and taped it shut. “Stop living this life of deviancy and decadence” she wailed, I scratched my head lent backwards and smiled. The next night a friend and I went down-town to the 96th floor of the Hancock building and drank $20 a time Chivas Regals whilst listening to a double bass, piano duet and looking down upon the vast and fantastic industrial might of the United States. My time has yet to come I thought, if I stopped now who knows what dead-end mess I may end up in. Indeed, I’m young and fruitful, excess is my middle name and as I swirled the golden brown scotch in my hand I was thinking to myself that I shouldn’t expect anything less from N.Y City. I feel the experience of the true endorphin highway is coming and it needs to be embraced and in a true professional manner. Intensity boiling up inside me like a self-constructed horde of Attila the Hun or Vlad “The Impaler” Dracula…It’s about fucking time.

Where do we go from here?

I left the great north woods of American with sadness pouring out of my heart “Don’t leave governor” they cried, the Polish and Americans alike, but I had to it was imperative in order to increase my worldly knowledge and wisdom.

My final days on the resort were just as excessive as usual, break dancing and smashing glasses at the Bowling alley followed by mass consumption of vodka. For my final night we had bought around three liters between five of us and strived to the early hours to consume it all, tales of fervor and passion came spilling out from all nationalities in typical 21st century style, all high-powered nights on a mixture of amphetamine and drink followed into the dark by all manner of debauchery with swinging harlots. And now I’m traveling, troubled and crushed, herded like cattle with ‘air con’ in this horrific bus, the bloated woman next to me with no remorse continually spreading like melting butter, spilling over her designated seating area invading my personal space.

Drastic measures may have to be put into fruition I thought, feign an epileptic fit, uncover my terrible tourettes syndrome or some other horrific event, but the risk of getting thrown off the bus into the dead of night was too great, so I held my own, adjusted into the best fetal position I could muster and tried to sleep. Waking up with a start in the morning sitting up and seeing all of these people sat around, young and old, each with their own mission and final destination I want to know their tired and drawn out life tales, Hispanic, black, white, red Indian.

I have no time for such inquisitiveness at this particular point, as W.C Fields said, my travels are “fraught with eminent peril”, that being my concluding objective of arrival in New York.

The 5th largest armed force in the world is currently occupying the vast metropolis. Guarding the Grand Old Party against violent protest from over 800 different groups, and of course the invisible threat of terrorism, their hands are full. The world is coming apart at the seams before our very eyes. The death of the 90’s and the birth of this foul century is beginning to play out horrors not seen by our generation of spoilt little fuckers, and who is to blame? Governments, terrorists, ourselves? Unknown at the moment, take for instance Woodstock revisited in ‘99, this was a complete manifestation of the puerile existence we see today…Deaths, rapes, riots, the event burnt down and died in a cloud of foul disgust. An event that symbolized a new found freedom through experimentation with prophetic drugs and sex in the 60’s depicted in the 90’s how the youth culture felt, bored and violent. Enough of this babble, we’re not bored any more are we? Just violent now, a unifying hatred against an invisible enemy, at least it’s some common ground for us on the downward spiral our generation is locked into. A generation of Americans that analysts predict will be the first to be poorer than the last, weird and frightening times for a cursed cohort of youth.