Swine-y Todd
Yesterday a blog was posted by a "Dublin musician" called Frankie Regan, explaining how he was so shocked by the sectarianism and bigotry on display on the LAD page, that he was moved to approach the distributor of our Christmas charity single and request its removal.
Take it away, Frankie...
So far, so funky. He's just a typical musician who jams with his friends before checking out chart positions of his other muso friends. Groovy.
LAD have a confession to make: We found it very hard to believe that anybody under the age of 55 would write such a toe-curling, embarrassing opening paragraph. Still, maybe the Dublin music scene is full of 25 year old hipsters who like to act like they're middle-aged advertising execs with no idea how to write something that sounds vaguely human.
On we pressed...
Like he said, he's a singer/songwriter from Dublin. He really thought we in the "Grim North" had moved on, but like he says, he has few friends from here.
So incensed was young Funkmeister Frankie by the deeply offensive and sectarian nature of the lyrics in 'Last December' he decided to dig deeper...
Still no mention of the fact that this was a charity single, with 100% of the proceeds going towards those in need. Regardless, our brave singer/songwriting hero from Dublin decided to press on, for the benefit of all the other musicians whom he hangs with, laying down phat tunes and recording them on their iPad minis, just like in the advert...
There then follows an IRC chat with the distributors that he prints in full (yeah, we read it so that you don't have to). The result was this email and a triumphant sign off by people's champion, Frankie Regan...
Note the emphasis that this was not a loyalist campaign, but a fightback by the public, presumably both north and south of the border, who are sick of LAD's behaviour and charitable endeavours. We particularly loved the Sláinte sign off (complete with missing fada). Cos that's what they do south of the border to avoid being mistaken for those dorty nordies you know.
And now, the truth.
You may have guessed this already, but we're not convinced that this horseshit was written by a young Dublin singer/songwriter, principally because most of the images belong to someone called David Todd. This piqued our interest, as a man of the same name had recently posted comments on Facebook and Twitter about our page, and specifically our charity single. This David Todd is not a singer/songwriter from Dublin, in fact he's a middle-aged man who lives only 160 miles from Dublin, near Coleraine.
How do we know this? Cos "Frankie" left little clues sprinkled all round his piece. And thanks to some eagle-eyed friends of LAD, we were able to piece together the evidence.
His Amazon screenshot for example, has his first name helpfully still in the frame, along the top of the page...
He also uses identical screenshots to the ones he uses on the LAD Exposed page (by the way lads, still waiting for the exposure)...
And in case there was any doubt, we were able to uncover the creator of the screenshot of the record company's email. Thankfully Davy likes high quality images that retain the "artist" data...
So who is he?
Funnily enough old Dave was emailing us last weekend a tad miffed that he thought we had removed some of his no-doubt fascinating and insightful musings from the LAD page.
He forgot 'false witness', but maybe he ran out of room. He also seems to be pretty keen on taking pictures of the bawnds. This is from his Flickr account...
And here's his opinion on Covenant Day...
So he's definitely not a loyalist then. We have one question: how did Frankie Regan end up with a load of David Todd's images in his blog?
Well, we're pretty certain Frankie doesn't exist, but we'll leave it at that and consider the matter closed.
Sláinte,
LAD
Applause and kudos to LAD once again another anti-social element gets unveiled and sent on his way, it's unfortunate however that he was able to have some success in having the song removed with such a lame excuse as "I'm offended" but hey actually I'm happy that he is offended now he knows how the rest of us feel with the actions and fuckwittery of the chosen few assholes in our streets who are hell bent on wrecking the peaceful society the rest of us are working hard to create, over to you David I mean Frankie, let's hear your lies.
ReplyDeleteFrankie Regan is also the name of some bloke who is a porn star, who knows what else Dave has been up to? I'm in shack!
ReplyDeleteYou jealous Lord Knudsen ;-) I've more screen shots uploaded @ http://funkyfrankiestuff.tumblr.com Sláinte :-)
DeleteHi Dave. Fact is we may have made a mistake (we may not have as we are awaiting a response from Warner) but what we did was genuinely meant with good intention. You sir are a malicious sectarian bigot. Why didn't you contact us directly with your concerns?
DeleteThe definition of"malicious" is - characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm. I wasn't! I'd been trying to hint to you or whoever LAD is that there are procedures to go through when releasing music as the ditto website states.
DeleteThe definition of "sectarian" is- denoting or concerning a sect or sects.a member of a sect.I am not that so typing that about me is a lie
The definition of "bigot" is - one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. That also is a lie. If I was that I wouldn't have spent the time replying to this comment. I wouldn't have spent the time posting up the FAQ's from the ditto website, hoping you would read them and take action.
The fault the song was taken down was whoever from LAD was uploading it to the ditto site. Who was that person? Who was responsible for checking that LAD had permission to release the song? Is LAD not working as a team with some sort of structure in the "organisation ? Have LAD with the 1000's of followers nobody that could have advised them about what to do. LAD could have even contacted InvestNI to see about going on courses for people in the "music biz" for advice. I'm sure out of the 1000's of followers of LAD a tune written by one of the followers could've been used to accompany the lyrics. I'm also reasonably sure that with the amount of support for LAD it wouldn't have been too hard to get musicians to play "for charity". Why don't LAD do it properly, get LAD supporters involved in something other than slegging anyone off who dares to disagree with LAD ? I'm surprised that LAD don't have their own stalls selling merchandise in towns & cities throughout the North too. LAD have made a big impression on NI culture already and maybe one of the reasons why fleg protests haven't started yet and hopefully won't.
To end my sermon for the evening I want to say "Frankie says RELAX ;-)
LAD, you say "Fact is we may have made a mistake (we may not have as we are awaiting a response from Warner)". Either a mistake was made or it wasn't. If permission wasn't secured to use the music ahead of releasing the track, then you made a mistake. Possibly one that can be rectified, possibly not.
ReplyDeleteAlas "what we did was genuinely meant with good intention" doesn't make that any better in the eyes of copyright and intellectual property law. Parodying the songs and uploading to YouTube is one thing, but as soon as money is involved as it was with the charity single, then things change. I'd say hold your hands up, and admit the error and move on enlightened.
Having read David's comments both here and on Facebook I would suggest that any genuine/apparently genuine helpful observations have been undone by his campaign against the group. Repeatedly referring to the song and the group as sectarian, and creating a false identity as part of his campaign to discredit the organisation reveals his own hand as someone who is not in support of the group/subject (and I made the same observation after his fake profile messaged me on Twitter). That the Frankie pages have been so radically revised more than once, and the falsity blown has utterly undermined any valid criticisms or observations Todd has. It would have been better to be honest, and present the criticisms without making up a backstory. Unlike LAD, that wasn't satire, that was simply dumb lies.
LAD is of course entitled to keep its members anonymous. There are individuals who post under their real names in the blogs etc. but considering the controversial subject matter and some of the threats which have been made towards LAD on some of the other groups, keeping their privacy seems a good idea. It isn't uncommon for newspapers to forgo the use of bylines, and while the identities of some of the contributors to Private Eye are known, most of the articles are written without a byline being published. That doesn't invalidate the veracity of the investigative journalism or the sharpness of the satire.
Yes, somebody screwed up, but that is really a matter for LAD to address internally, we don't need to know the individual(s) responsible, though supporters of LAD may like to know that LAD are taking steps to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.
And finally - Todd has made a couple of observations and suggestions which I do think are worth considering (and indeed may be if made by somebody else who hasn't been so obviously duplicitous), including the merchandise, working with the likes of InvestNI and/or the community of creatives that are broadly in support of LAD's efforts so far. There are presumably concerns about inviting someone into the group's confidence who is themselves up to no good, but with all things you must take risks.
Hi Robert. Thanks for the positive and encouraging comment. We think you nailed it. We actually did receive the necessary mechanical clearance for the use of the track (it couldn't have been uploaded without them) and it was only when the issue of so-called 'sectarianism' was raised to our distributors that things got murky, That's why we say we may have made a mistake - truth is we don't know and we have several clever people looking at it on our behalf. More of that in due course. This is an issue of motivation. Our motivation in releasing the song was good. The motivation of those who sought to kill the song is demonstrably bad. We are taking steps to rectify the situation and ensure that if a mistake was made it won't happen again.
DeleteRegarding your final paragraph, rest assured we are already working on it. 2014 will bring some surprises for people like 'Dave' and his cohorts.
Thank you for clarifying the issue re the clearances, one which much of the gloating seems to have focussed on.
DeleteRe. the perceived sectarianism, would make for a fascinating court case if those allegations continue. Yes, some of your content is uncomfortable, but anyone clever enough to know that you need licenses in order to release music will know the difference between so-called sectarianism and the ridiculing of the same mentality.
LAD has vowed to mock all sides of NI's political divide, and perhaps once the loyalist focus is evened out a bit more with republican buffoonery you can evade the allegations of bias (or as themuns say, sectarianism). Though in all probability you'll just find yourselves labelled by everyone.
Looking forward to LAD year 2.
When are these people going to be lifted, funny how in other parts of the world that Protestants and Catholics can live in peace. Even the United Kingdom is a 50/50 region living in peace excluding far right and islamic extremism, the PSNI need to look at individuals twitters and facebooks to see who is breaking the law and stretching the freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteTime the PSNI did some police work or is it political annoyance police work, of where they allow this sad man David Todds and Jamie Brysons ruin our country's peace.
Message to fleggers don't come near me after you hack me.