Over two years ago, street preacher Phillip Howard received an ASBO (an injunction that the government gives to annoying people to stop them riding on mopeds through terrified pensioners' houses and playing S Club 7 at 300 decibels at 5 AM every morning and stuff) preventing him from amplifying his voice (his catchphrase was "Don't be a sinner, be a winner", which he repeated about 400,000 times a day) in the Oxford Street area (a popular place where tourists go to shoplift). Last week, Jammer headed to Oxford Street and the surrounding area with a megaphone to promote his new single, "The Message is Love", and in the process rekindled memories of those halcyon days of Howard.
Silverlink feat. Jammer & Badness, "The Message is Love"
Jammer, Silverlink and Badness
Jammer went along to this year's Notting Hill Carnival to do a PA of this single, but not before getting into some more capers. Jammer decided he needed a police escort to get him through the crowd because he thought he'd get shot on the way. So the people from No Hats, No Hoods - who are putting out the single - had to approach a policeman and ask him to protect Jammer as he made his way to perform his PA. The policeman did a risk assessment and decided it wasn't worth it, but they begged him until he agreed.
I didn't go to the carnival in the end. I lost my iPod, Clarence, earlier that weekend and was too busy feeling sorry for myself to enjoy anything. Not that the carnival is very enjoyable anyway. Is it really worth barging your way past thousands of people to see part of Tony Matterhorn's elbow as he performs 200m away on the Rampage stage? Why not just go to the Stratford Rex where you can actually see and hear him? Sure, the food is great and everything but is it worth queuing for 45 minutes for some cold curry goat? The people on the floats and the dancers who have been making their costumes for the last six months seem to have the time of their lives every year, but if you're in the crowd it's almost certainly going to be horrible. You're surrounding by swarms of wide-eyed tourists bumping into everyone, nervous-looking police officers and groups of aspiring rapists who are only there to grope girls. Then the whole thing gets shut down before it gets going (the police are afraid of the dark, it seems) and this happens:
Finally, in 2006 Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs did a show called Dubstep Warz. It changed people's lives, maaan. Last week, she did a follow up to this called Generation Bass - to showcase of the most exciting dubstep-related stuff around at the minute - and it was actually really very good. Standout sets came from Starkey, Joker and Oneman, but the best song of the show for me was duo Darkstar's new track "Aidy's Girl is a Computer", forthcoming on Hyperdub. More on those guys next week.
Download: Generation Bass on Radio 1
