X Factor VS RATM - F**k You All

So Rage Against The Machine won. It's depressing.

You'll have heard all the arguments as to why the thinking behind the campaign was utterly flawed from the get go, so I won't bother repeating them. As far as I can tell, Rage won because people wanted to make a protest against Simon Cowell. Fair enough, the man is a twat. But this wasn't the way to do it.

When people start saying stuff like “I'm only buying it as a protest against Simon Cowell” they end up sounding like those idiots you see on the news at election time who claim they're only voting BNP as a protest against the main parties. It's really bloody stupid. And massively depressing, as I mentioned.

Now, obviously, Rage Against The Machine getting to Number One is a far cry from the BNP gaining power. But it's this same kind of woolly thinking that's going to inform the next election. “I don't like Simon Cowell, I'm going to vote for something else” equates almost directly to “I don't like Gordon Brown, I'm going to vote for something else.” And we end up with fucking David Cameron as Prime Minister. You twats.

The Plague Doctors guide to the race for Christmas Number One

In recent years, the race for Christmas Number One has become a bit dull, in that it's always the winner of the X Factor. However, someone has orchestrated a campaign to try and get Killing In The Name Of by Rage Against The Machine to Christmas Number One instead. What a massively boring and pointless thing to do. Hopefully, it won't work, as this will be even more depressing than The X factor winner being Christmas Number One again.

REASONS WHY DOWNLOADING KILLING IN THE NAME OF IS BORING AND POINTLESS AND NOT REMOTELY SUBVERSIVE

1. It smacks of spoilsportism. That's not really in the spirit of Christmas, is it?

2. Killing In The Name Of is 20 years old. 20 years old, people!

3. Joe McElderry is on Sony. Rage Against The Machine are on a label owned by Sony. Downloading Rage will not make any kind of anti-capitalist message, it just means Sony get more cash.

4. It will achieve precisely nothing.

5. The campaign has clearly been organised by boring people who like “real music” and “classic albums” and watch “VH1” and read “Uncut”. If these terms don't make you want to sick your guts up and shout “OH JUST GO AWAY YOU INTERMINABLE BORES”, they should.

The main message is: buy the Joe McElderry song if you like it. Don't buy the Rage Against The Machine song. If you like it, you already own it. If you're buying it just to stop Joe getting to Number One, you are small, boring and petty.

What you should do is go and listen to a nice song that you do like and have a nice time at Christmas. You'll be a lot happier and, more importantly, so will I.

When we Were Kings

When The Plague Doctors first started out we were incredibly bored with the local music scene and we we wanted to really annoy a lot of people. The first idea we had was to call the band the least modest name you could ever think up, that'll be 'The Fucking Kings' then. The second decision we made was that we wouldn't play any instruments live, just to annoy the local bands even more.

Needless to say we now play our music live and we've changed our name, we did have many great gigs as 'The Fucking Kings' in the Castle Hotel on Oldham street though.

Here are some commemorative images of us in our first incarnation


This is from our very first gig at a house party in Withington




Flyers for some of our very first public gigs

It was on a Starry Night - Free Download!

Tired of Christmas already? Wish you'd never had those kids? Then make everything even worse by downloading the official Plague Doctors Christmas anthem "It was on a Starry Night"

Download "It was on a Starry Night" (mp3 4.58 Mb)


Just to make it clear, the lyrics to Brother Paul's rap are

Hardcore! Hardcore!
Rock your face to the floor!
Its alright its ok
Jesus Christ, Christmas day

Shepherds, angels, three wise men
Lets begin the dance again
Jumping jumping to the beat
Shake your body move your feet

We got funk, we got soul
Get the ball, score a goal
Little baby in a manger
Ring the alarm, dance floor danger

Herod killed the little boys
Crank that bass
MAKE SOME NOISE

The Plague Doctors Guide to Fine Dining in Manchester

Allen's Fried Chicken
A classic. Allen's city centre branch closed a few months back, but there's still one in Cheetham Hill. Anyone who says they don't like Allen's Fried Chicken is a liar. The chicken gravy is particularly delicious.

Portland Plaice
Portland Street fish and chips par excellence. Very good chips and curry sauce. The Plague Doctors' post-pub eatery of choice. Also, make sure you leave room for a turkey stick.
NB Although they advertise outside that they serve “The Beautiful British Butty”, actually asking for this item results in in-store confusion

Wong Wong's
Princess Street's Chinese bakery. The egg tarts are pretty amazing, especially if you're lucky enough to catch them when they've just come out of the oven. The pork rolls, essentially sweet and sour pork in a deep-fried doughnut, are also very good. I defy anyone to finish a fried stick, which is a piece of deep-fried batter as big as your arm. However, at just £1, it's a good budget option.

Bubble Cafe
A Chinese cafe on Portland Street. They serve about 20 flavours of bubble tea, which, for the uninitiated, is best described as milkshake filled with balls of jelly. It has to be tasted to be believed. They also do a range of snacks including a pork and liver paste baguette, which I intend to try on my next visit.

Hunters BBQ
The only eatery in Manchester where the staff know Brother John by name, ‘Hey Johnny!’ they shout as he passes by in full costume. This is your best bet for a great quality and good value kebab, tell them Johnny sent you.

Katsouri's
Everyone knows how ace Katsouri's is, so I don't need to say anything other than if you go in towards the end of the day, they do buy one get one free on any sandwiches that are left over.

Little Aladdin's
Next to the more famous and fawned over Hunter's Barbecue in the Northern Quarter, Little Aladdin's quietly gets on with being rather marvellous. They're very good at the three curries for a fiver type deal, making it a favourite place for a pre-gig feed for the Plague Doctors.
Last time we were there the guy accidentally gave John the wrong thing, told him it was the wrong thing and made no effort to change it or apologise. A masterclass in customer service.

Topkapi Palace
After an epic evening at the Press Club, I visited this gaudy Deansgate kebab house, where they served me a three meat kebab in which none of the meats were identifiable. The meat came from a big tureen and was smothered in a weird gravy. Not recommended.

Loco's
Just down from the Cornerhouse, towards the G-Mex, this takeaway is mainly notable for the “Mister Monstrosity”; a particularly ridiculous kebab. It's a big naan bread, filled with donner meat, a skewer of red chicken, a skewer of yellow chicken, salad and sauce. It's far too much food for any sane person, but very good for drunken idiots. Heartily endorsed by The Plague Doctors.

Brother Paul's Top Eight Things Beginning With J in 2009

It's the end of the year, which can only mean one thing: LISTS. Lists are a brilliant way for people to put things in order. The Plague Doctors particularly like lists. Here is a list I've written, which is particularly era-defining and zeitgeist-surfing, I'm sure you'll agree.

1. Jiggery Pokery – The Duckworth Lewis Method
This is the best thing that happened all year, bar none. It's got the best lyrics I've ever heard. One time I listened to it 12 times in a row in the car and it was brilliant.

2. Journal for Plague Lovers – Manic Street Preachers
Who'd have thought? It's absolutely brilliant. After the boring flabby nonsense they've subjected us to over the past decade, it's amazing they manged to come up with something this amazing. AMAZING.

3. Jarvis Cocker in Fantastic Mr Fox
The highlight of the film, which is literally quite good, is when Jarvis turns up singing a stupid song and gets berated by Farmer Bean. “You wrote a bad song, Petey! That's bad songwriting!” It's ace.

4. Jack Bauer's return to form
After the desperate lows of series 6, a massive return to form for Kiefer. The ending was a bit rubbish, but there was plenty of classic Bauer to be savoured along the way, so that's ok.

5. Jones (Grace) headlining Latitude
Her banter was incredible. Her hula-hooping was incredible. Her outfits were incredible. Her songs were literally quite good.

6. John and Edward
The only people on the X Factor to ever genuinely possess the X factor. Why did we like them? It's hard to say. They were brilliant though. Their inevitable career of children's tv presenting, Halifax nightclub appearances and assault allegations will be depressing, but for one brief moment they were invincible. It was perfect and it was beautiful.

Also, calling them Jedward is frowned upon by real John and Edward fans (i.e. me), so don't do it.

7. JLS's video to Everybody in Love
They're well fit. This video showcases that side of them very well, they do lots of flexing and kissing girls. Marvin's my favourite. Also, I know someone who once might have swum in the same swimming pool in Peterborough as Aston, which is pretty incredible.

8. Je M'appelle by The Plague Doctors
Proof that The Plague Doctors is a modesty free zone. Je M'appelle is still our best song, only now it's got a poem on the front. Have a listen to it on our magical music machine over there on the right. AMAZING.

Scorpion Birthday

The Plague Doctors are working on a new song entitled 'Scorpion Birthday', here are the lyrics...

All she ever wanted was a quiet one, quiet one, nothing too flashy just some drinks with her friends

In a trendy bar where the cocktails are then nip nip nip nip nip nip nip nip nip nip nip nip nip

Scorpion birthday, scorpion birthday, maybe today will be your scorpion birthday

Billy's got a brand new bike today at the bottom of his bed when he woke up
At a party with a cake and a clown and the screaming aiiiieeeeeeeeeee

Scorpion birthday, scorpion birthday, maybe today will be your scorpion birthday

And you don't know what it's like to be alone
No you don't know what it's like to be alone

SCORPION BIRTHDAY!


For the less enlightened among us, here is the wikipedia entry for scorpion birthday.

Scorpion Birthday

A scorpion birthday is an event where a person is unexpectedly beset by scorpions on the anniversary of their day of birth.

The scale of a scorpion birthday can range from a peaceful meeting with a single scorpion, to a sustained and violent attack from a large horde. Peaceful meetings are rare, however, with most scorpion birthdays erring towards the violent end of the spectrum.

It's impossible to tell when your scorpion birthday will be, or indeed if you're ever going to have one at all. Many people are fortunate enough never to experience the terror of a scorpion birthday.

Scorpion birthdays seem to operate on a cycle, appearing once every hundred or so years.

Scholars have suggested that scorpion birthdays occur every 111 years (see entry for Nelson), but there is not enough evidence to confirm this theory(citation needed).

A select few unlucky people have had two scorpion birthdays. These people are known as "Double Scorpions", experiencing birthdays of extreme terror at the very beginning and end of their lives.

Scorpion birthdays are often perilous experiences, but crucially, never fatal. It seems strange that the scorpion birthday event, which frequently appears to be life-endangering, should actually act as a form of protection for the recipient.

This has led some people to see the scorpion birthday event as a form of misguided protection bestowed by a benevolent scorpion god onto humans on their birthdays. This controversial theory is coming to be more accepted by modern-day thinkers, but is shunned by traditionalists (citation needed).

The Future of The Plague Doctors by Brother John

Greetings Plague Fans.

The Plague Doctors have now been going for about 3 years and its time for us to get organised, this blog will be updated once a week for your enjoyment.

This band started as a stop-gap for me and ended up being the longest running band i've ever been in and probably ever will be, you see The Plague Doctors are ghastly immortals and they have a strong grip on my life.

I've recently been amassing a big pile of new equipment which will either greatly improve our live shows to the point young American couples might say, "Gee Honey I think we may have underestimated those Plague boys, they aren't just a comedy band after all, they got some sick arse skills too you bitch" or more likely it might just be a huge waste of money which will keep me amused through the Manchester dark months.

I'll be spending the next couple of weeks working on a new song that Brother Paul has written called "Scorpion Birthday", i'll get him to explain what this song is about in our next update

as always...
THE BIG BOYS ARE IN THE BUTCHERS

BROTHER JOHN