Ok a few years ago.. Well, around 8 years ago I made a CD with a few tracks on and gave copies around. One copy of this went to Chris who liked the content and listened to it (I believe) a few years later I borrowed the CD to let someone listen to and then gave it him back... Or at least I thought I had. After asking him many many MANY times to lend me the CD again so I could rip the tracks from it (having lost the masters) he repeatedly told me that he didn't have it. So this meant the CD was left in limbo, floating aimlessly around the world possibly in the hands of some government (or AOL) spy! Today it turns out, I did have the CD (Sorry Chris) and I finally managed to rip the tracks... So.. Here we go, some unreleased tracks by me.

The first is a cover of the classic song Savior's Day... I'll dedicate this to Chris and Nikki, congratulations on getting engaged!

On the Saviors Day

Next we have a song that I personally wrote about AOL CD's.. You remember the time you were getting one through the post every 2 minutes right? It's called "The AOL CD Blues"

The AOL CD Blues

I hope you enjoy listening to them, and I guess.. Chris.. Sorry!

Well the time has come, in just over 12 hours I will be arriving in Blackpool town center with my Mis-Fest ticket in hand. I'm very much looking forward to it. But also, a new feature and first time use for dk101, I will be reporting from Mis-Fest Live throughout the day giving people that couldn't make it to the festival an idea of what is going on. Unfortunately I don't have the equipment (with me at least) but mainly the permission to do a full live stream however I will be taking regular pictures which will appear on the website.

You will find the live updates by clicking on the "Live" Link at the top of the page. for Mis-Fest you will see a string of posts reporting directly from my Twitter (Hashtagged #mis-fest09) but also links to pictures. You can follow me directly on twitter however you won't get the pictures so I suggest using the live page. You should not need to refresh the page as newitems will magically appear on the page, however with this being the first use of the system (and me not near a computer to fix any problems) there could be issues, but hopefully not.

Anyhow, to those not able to make it, we hope that our live section will give you a bit of enjoyment directly from the festival without requiring to be there. But don't forget your tickets next year!

Fran Houghton is a girl from Blackpool who not only has a beautiful voice but is also a mean guitarist. She's played in rocky punky bands but also has a nice selection of her own acoustic music. With influences including John Mayer, Hanson and more her music really sends shivers down you spine.

She's not particularly well known and she doesn't even have any gigs listed on her myspace page, however hopefully that will be rectified in the future as I would love to see her play. She has recently released a new track on her myspace and I've managed to get hold of a copy so I had to link it here for you all to hear. I hope you all like it and will go and support this amazing artist! The track is called "Let Me In" and here it is...

Let Me In - Fran Houghton

Visit Fran Houghton's mySpace

UPDATE: Get the dk101.net new range of ticket tout t-shirts now available! Show your hate towards touts! - http://s.dk101.net/80328/

So, i'm sure you've all read my problems ordering tickets for Green Day thanks to ticket touting. This is an issue, which i'm sure many of you will agree, needs to be fixed! There's lots of different 'solutions' that companies have tried to solve this problem ranging from Limiting the amount of tickets per person to needing a utility bill when you go to a gig. However this isn't solving the problem. In the first case, ticket touts clearly just purchase less tickets on more cards! In the second case touts tend to just provide a utility bill when you purchase a ticket from them. Both of these 'solutions' do just add more effort to the legitimate purchases like myself.

So the solution has to be in our faces. Photo identification is required almost everywhere from Passports and Driving Licenses to a simple club membership card. So where is the problem with printing a photo of us onto our ticket?! Companies like ticketmaster already have a nice back ends for clients so they already have our name and other such details on file. So with a quick modification to the code we have something like the following...

Now the photo that's on my profile then gets printed directly on to my ticket. This would be done during the normal printing system so we don't have any issues with laminating and touts being able to remove the picture. Then through the post we get tickets that look like the following..

Right, so now we have a reasonably fool proof way of proving that I ordered the ticket, it has my face on it! There's a few provisos on this though. The picture on your ticket MUST be the one that was registered on your profile at the time of ordering. This would mean that touts couldn't simply replace the picture in the profile depending on who bought the ticket. The name of the person the ticket was ordered for would also be printed under the photo so extra proof of ID could also be asked for.

In the admin section of the ticket selling website we could have a list of all photos used previously, what tickets they were used for and a way to upload a new photo like the following...

Finally, this system would also mean it would be possible for you to remove the limit on ticket ordering. Ticketmaster could use people's profiles almost like a facebook friends list. This would mean Chris, Del, Feeney etc etc could add me as friends on ticket master. Once this has been done I am then free to order tickets for them through my account and card but their photo would be printed on their ticket.

Yes, this system would mean that if someone decides they cannot make a gig their ticket would be useless, but it should certainly cut down the number of tickets for sale on ebay and mean that the true fans can actually see bands they like without having to buy tickets for 2+ times the price from touts on ebay.

As a rather big Green Day fan I was excited when the dates for Green Day's UK tour were released. Two gigs at the MEN (Manchester Evening News Arena) in Manchester. Tickets went on sale at 10am on 1st May. This is the story of my morning of excitement and disappointment!

UPDATE: Get the dk101.net new range of ticket tout t-shirts now available! Show your hate towards touts! - http://s.dk101.net/80328/

9:55 - I'm sat here with my card in hand ready to order 7 tickets for myself and friends. It had been rumoured that it would be limited to 2 tickets per person so I had friends standing by ready to order in case this was true.

9:58 - I starts refreshing the page waiting for that Order link to arrive.

10:00 - Order link is there, I clicks it and finds out that it is 2 per person all is fine I start the process to purchase my 2 tickets and let friends know they have to go do the same.

10:01 - I'm greeted with the "Please wait" sign on ticket master

10:03 - "No Tickets Found" appears on screen! Presuming this is just an error with the site due to clicking to fast I goes through the process again, and again, and again. Finding the same problems, cries of "It's sold out" appear through MSN and text messages.

10:05 - I visit 3 other ticket selling websites only to see a massive "SOLD OUT" sign plastered across all the Standing tickets for both days!

10:10 - After many phone calls and chats about what we are going to do I decide to check e-bay. A search for "Green Day MEN" results in 6 pairs of tickets already available. This is 10 minutes after the tickets officially went on sale. Prices range from £80 starting bid to £250.

10:30 - The same search on ebay now reveals 34 tickets available to purchase on ebay! The buy it now tickets have vanished giving some lucky touts a nice hefty profit.

So here lies the issues with ticket sales... Why is it possible for 34 tickets to be available on ebay at this point in time for over double the price, however it's impossible for me to get hold of 7 tickets for dedicated fans! Something NEEDS to be done about the state of ticket sales in this country! Limiting tickets to 2 per person clearly isn't working and all it does it mess up legitimate fans. For example, if we now want to go purchase seated tickets, we need to purchase 7 of them. The odds on us managing to get 7 seats together are probably less than winning the lottery, which will leave the possibilty of 1 of our friends having to sit alone. THat's not a fun time for anyone!

I think it's time we started having Photo tickets! Sites such as ticketmaster have profiles of people and when tickets are printed they appear with your photo and name! This would not stop people like me ordering for friends as you could have your account set up with details of all your friends so you could specify which people you were buying tickets for. This would completely stop touts as you would know that if your ticket didn't have your face on it you'd just get rejected anyway!

It's time something was done about this! Why should real fans be expected to pay over the top prices on ebay due to ticket sellers inability to think of a better way to verify ticket purchases!

In March 2006 DJ Grimly Fiendish started a night in Blackpool called Misery of Sound to bring whole new Genre's of music to the nightlife. There's plenty of Punk, Metal, Emo and other Alternative style night but what was missing was anywhere to go to listen to Goth, Horror Punk, Psychobilly and the other wide variety that gets played on a regular basis. In 2008 the regular Misery of Sound night expanded into a 2 day festival called Mis-Fest.

Mis-Fest 2008 featured a wide vareity of bands including Zombina and the Skeletones, Pink Hearse, UFX, Screaming Banshee Air Crew and many more. There's a few pictures below from the 2008 Saturday night lineup below.

The 2009 Mis-Fest lineup is looking even more stunning this year, already confirmed are the following...

• Vendemmian
• Charles De Goal
• Devilish Presley
• The Ghost of Lemora
• Blood Sucking Zombies From Outer Space
• Descendants of Cain
• Joy Disaster
• Sign Language
• The Hiram Key

If you like your Psychobilly, Goth, Horrorpunk or just want a really good Alternative night out then Mis-Fest will definitely be the festival to go to in 2009 because you won't see bands like these in one place at any other place!

Get your ticket before April 14th and it will only cost you £19. After that tickets will cost £23. Tickets can be bought directly from the Mis-Fest website at - http://www.misfest.co.uk

Expect to see more here in the future, I have my ticket booked, don't forget yours!

So after the fun talk (and crappy leeds lineup) a number of friends were greeted with the following picture message on their phone this morning!

Leeds Festival 2009 Lineup

Playing a little bit of "When you Say nothing at all" and into "Body is a Wonderland" Messed up the words at the end hence the confused look from me!

So, I managed to get hold of the leaked copy of Green Day's up and coming single "21st Century Breakdown." I wont put it up on here for obvious reasons, I won't even tell you where to get it from, but... What I will tell you is the track is awesome!

The song is very reminiscent of American Idiot. It looks like (and I certainly hope) the new album is going to be very similar to American Idiot. Song starts kinda slow, and around half way through gets faster and more fun, and eventually drops off to the ending. Lyrics are great and poignant just like we've come to expect from Green Day after all these years!

All in all i'm really looking forward to this album, just like I was with the last one and after hearing this track i'm pretty sure it won't disappoint!!

This weeks track (Yes I know's it's late, sorry!) if by Taylor Swift. It's an awesome song called Picture to Burn. Tylor Swift has been all over Radio One recently due to having a new single released that has apparantly been taken very well by the UK public and I was rather shocked to hear a country song on radio One.

Anyway, this song is from her first album back in 2006 I hope you enjoy it