Paul Needs
Sid Says EP IMPORT
© 2005 Paul Needs Music (634479096617)
CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.
From Roots UK New Wave/Punk to Welsh Choirs - on one three track EP CD.
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With a track record of 25 years of making music, Paul Needs' latest release is a three-track CD EP.
Returning to the high-energy guitar rock of his early years with the bands 'GPI' and 'The Reactions', "Sid Says" is a tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless damning indictment of the way that thousands of ordinary, law-abiding people are being treated in the UK (and other countries) in 2005 - because they smoke tobacco.
While in no-way condoning this extremely unhealthy practice, Paul nonetheless makes the point that smokers are not just being demonized, but will be criminalized should the government succeed in passing smoking bans in public places.
"Like with alcohol in the USA during the depression, smokers - through their addiction - are to be forced out of a normal social life, while continuing to pay higher taxation on their addiction than on any other addictive substance I can think of", he says.
"Heroin or cocaine addicts pay nothing to the UK exchequer, and alcohol abuse is tolerated as being 'laddist' and normal. Why governments don't spend the massive income they take from smokers pockets on a mass treatment for this addiction, or offer grants for air purification in pubs and clubs - well, who knows. They want the taxation, but posture that smoke is an evil".
"Did You Ever See a Man" is taken from his 2003 Album, "Songs From The Long Land" (also available here), while the final track, "Cwm Curri" is a delightful celebration of Tandoori and Bangladeshi cuisine set to the immortal melody of John Hughes' "Cwm Rhondda".
More information on Paul
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The Music.
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Paul's influences are many, and extend from the power rock of bands like The Who, through new wave and the Beatles to classical and swing orchestras of the 50's and 60's.
In his own songwriting, Paul explores subjects close to him - examples including the concern of increasing interference in the way we all live in songs like "Sid Says", as well as a retrospective of how the industrial revolution affected his family and country, and how the world hasn't really changed that much in "Song Of The Earth".
Of course, as with other writers, he also sings of love - the need for it in a requited form ("Don't Want To Love You", "If I Reach Out"), not understanding the rules of the 'game' ("Did You Ever See A Man"), and indeed the achievement of simply being happily in love ("Catherine", "Purest Gold").
Paul has a strong sense of his time in history, returning to his teenage years with his memories of the beach and fairground in his town in the powerful and anthemic "Where Were You The Day They Burned Miami Down?"
Although he mainly features as a strong guitar player and singer these days, Paul still considers his 'main' instrument to be the bass, and some delightful playing can be heard on his self-produced work, as well as on archive recordings of his old band of the 80's, "The Reactions".
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SMOKER PAUL IS FUMING ON NEW CD
author: The South Wales Evening PostSMOKER PAUL IS FUMING ON NEW CD Story by Paul Lewis Forget sex, drugs and rock and roll, smoking is what really gets up one professional musician's nose - or at least the way they are being treated. Veteran rocker Paul Needs is fuming because smokers are being increasingly regarded as social pariahs. He is so incensed that he has released a protest song on CD which he is now selling through his website. Not surprisingly, the 45-year-old from Port Talbot is a smoker. But he says he really wants to give up. And, instead of outlawing smoking, he feels the Government should put a bigger share of the money it makes from tobacco tax into NHS schemes to help more people kick the habit. The song, Sid Says, is on a three-track CD that Paul, of Cattybrook Terrace in Cwmavon, will release tomorrow. "Now I'm a social outcast but I'll sing my song of woe," the lyrics read. "Got addicted to a weed too many years ago. "Even though tax I pay is welcome, in hiding I must go." Paul said today: "I would never encourage anyone to take up smoking. "But I am a smoker who is getting fed up of the increasingly intolerant way that smokers are being treated in the UK and other civilised countries too. "The song is tongue-in-cheek. It has a dig at attitudes. "Alcohol abuse is more tolerated than smoking. You walk through Port Talbot on a Friday night and you see people who have been drinking, you see a bit of violence around. That doesn't seem to bother people as much as smoking does. "It seems to me that headlines are being hogged by the smoking debate when there are far more serious things going on." He said his favourite Bangladeshi restaurant had already banned smoking, a move he agreed with as food was being served. But he was fed up with the prospect of smokers being outlawed from lighting up in pubs and clubs before too long. "Some of them have already banned it, but to me that is just jumping on the bandwagon," he said. Paul, a full-time professional musician who is both a solo performer and plays with bands, said he would love to give up smoking if he could. "Obviously, the best way to stop smoking is not to start but once you do it is a very addictive drug indeed," he said. "Instead of driving smokers outside and back into the privacy of their homes the Government should be looking much harder at alternatives. "It should spend more proceeds from tobacco tax products into successful methods of weaning smokers off nicotine." Re-published with the kind permission of The South Wales Evening Post and South West Wales Publications