April | 2014 | Greed The Rock Opera

Archive for April, 2014

Greed The Great Welsh Rock Opera – Why?

Posted: April 5, 2014 in Greed The Idea

The Banker Rotkin – The Cycle Glyders – The Scribbleman

(Listen to Greed The Rock Opera at http://www.scribbleman.bandcamp.com or skip to the ‘Greed – What’s the Story?’ or ‘Greed – Hear the Songs’ posts below for links to tracks.)

Greed The Rock Opera – It’s an album of songs. It could be a film. Could be animated. Could be staged. Or just listened to: chuck it on your iPod for free! Watch the It’s All Lies video at http://youtu.be/neMF_KsaJA0

At the same time it’s a story. Like an allegorical fairytale or a seventies concept album.

Greed is set in a small town that could be anywhere. It’s about the big bad world we live in but I’ve shrunk the world to make it easier.

police and town

These songs were recorded over the last year, using singers and guitarists and musicians I’ve come across.

I got the local male voice choir in and Dave Jones the cab driver actor narrates.

Greed is about the fake world we live in. It’s about the debt controlled slavery system we’re manacled to called money.

It’s about hapless politicians and the evil bankers that control them. It’s about the dimwitted media and the corporations that control them.

And that leaves us (the 99%), stuck at the bottom, controlled by everyone else (the 1%).

Can Maxen Cala rid Abertaff of greed and save the town? Listen to Greed The Rock Opera and find out.

http://www.scribbleman.bandcamp.com.

Guitars were mangled in the making of Greed but none were seriously harmed.

Sleighbells were shaken at one point. In one song, a tiny red xylophone was malleted.

Greed – What’s the story?

Posted: April 5, 2014 in Greed The Story

This is the story… Greed The Rock Opera: A fairy tale in Abertaff

It is warm as toast in the bed of Maxen Cala. As he sleeps and dreams of revolution.

Listen to ‘Revolution’ http://goo.gl/JRojfO

An escape from the slavery in Abertaff, a town dominated by an enormous mansion on a black coal tip.

The Upper World. It is where the banker, the politician, the chief of police, the bishop and the rest of The Parasites live. Their leader is an investment banker industrialist called Rotkin.

Rotkin the Parasite Banker

Listen to ‘Cookies’ http://goo.gl/b0M6xg

Down in the valley, the Lower World, The Silent live – hooked on fast food, sport, phones and social networking. Maxen Cala will rouse the people of Abertaff out of their apathy and rise up against the greedy control of the Parasites.

Listen to ‘Bread And Circuses’ http://goo.gl/8A24CR

Maxen will lead a rebellion against the inequality of wealth.

Rotkin is aware of Maxen Cala’s desires and tries to recruit him for The Parasites. He does not succeed but it occurs to Maxen that if he were to join the enemy, he could bring them down from the inside. But how?

Listen to ‘Something Wrong In Town’ http://goo.gl/3sT4BG

The Parasites come out at night led by Rotkin and his riot police, The Rotka, to rob The Silent and cherrypick victims for their evil pleasure.

They will be drugged and brainwashed. The Zombies are the local kids who walk around head bowed, glued to mobiles. If they are lucky, they are dumped back into the community with the latest smartphones and tablets.

They don’t know it yet but when their brainwashed minds are triggered off, they will kill their own kind in random massacres.

Elin is a cake shop girl who dreams of shoes and the man who can buy them for her. Maxen is in love with her. She does not love Maxen.

The Cycle Glyders drop the poison

Pedal powered Glyders fly in the sky above Abertaff leaving chemical trails in their wake. The heavy gas is loaded with aluminium and barium. It falls down onto the heads of The Silent dumbing them down and turning them into phone-toting zombies.

Listen to ‘It’s All Lies’ http://goo.gl/TIZhAL

Watch the ‘It’s All Lies’ video at http://youtu.be/neMF_KsaJA0

Mickey J is a ghost that wanders the streets late at night playing his ghost guitar. He is followed by the ghost of Alan Turing (the inventor of the computer). They sing songs of love and hope.

Mickey believes that one day a magic power chord from his guitar will put an end to the Parasite’s insanity.

During a night time Parasite raid on the town Elin is dragged off and locked in a clock tower.

She is drugged and she falls into a coma-like state but she imagines that she is still online, shopping and social networking on Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest.

Maxen Cala must rescue her. It’s a battle between love and greed. Mickey J tells him the only way to beat The Parasites is to play The Big Chord. It’s an C major chord of great power. It will produce love. He teaches him how.

Maxen is recruited by The Parasites’ leader and infiltrates the privileged. The Big Chord that Mickey J has taught him is played and a powerful love engulfs The Parasitical world. It also creates a virus. A greed virus.

Listen to ‘Greed’ http://goo.gl/YMdEGK

The Parasites start to become ill. The virus spreads, it will only attack the greedy. The bankers, politicians and corporate industrialists begin to bloat. Then they explode.

Rotkin realises that he will soon suffer the same fate and being a religious man, fears that he will go to Hell for all the bad he has done. He decides that if he has ‘God Forgive Me’ carved on his tombstone, he may be let into Heaven.

Listen to ‘God Forgive Me’ http://goo.gl/h6xgO9

Rotkin dies along with the rest of The Parasites. It’s not a pretty sight.

Maxen rescues Elin from the clock tower and they look down on the town. And now with greed gone from Abertaff, the rules of life change. All people are equal.

Listen to ‘When I Grow Up’ http://goo.gl/oH12Ys