Blackpool: Desire and Depravity

[SP-USER]

Funland_DVD.jpg (42.09 KiB) Viewed 11565 times

Just so you know, SP-USER resides in an English seaside town named Blackpool. This is where the chavs and poor, working class ABBA fans take their miserable rain-filled holidays playing Bingo during the United Kingdoms so-called summer months with their unwashed offspring.

It's a truly fantastic place.

Amusing as that comment is (and laugh-out-loud as I did), I can tell you it's absolutely true. What he fails to point out, though, is that Blackpool is the United Kingdom's 'Vegas' and 'Los Angeles' all rolled into one. And while we generally lack the bikini-clad beach babes of America over here, we do have the same sort of underbelly.

Corruption, Danger, Drink, Drugs, Depravity, Perversion, Strippers, Pole-Dancers, it's all here in Blackpool. In fact we now have 'Amnesty Bins' in the streets where you can dispose of not only your knives, but your machetes, too (no shit).

So anyway, a combination of what Danswift and Zindan said got me thinking. I wonder if the members here realise that living in Blackpool might make you weird and seedy? This immediately made me think about a thriller called "Funland", because Funland is a very dark, gritty, raw thriller that was actually shot completely in Blackpool. No fake sets were used. All scenes, both interior or exterior, are of genuine Blackpool places for authenticity.

"Funland" covers everything from casual Blackpool underbelly, to sleaze, to corruption, to chainsaws, to the Finnish Mafia!

Unfortunately, "Funland" got hidden-away on BBC Three once they'd finished production, believing it was far too graphic for mainstream BBC One and Two. I must admit it does get quite graphic, but hiding it away on BBC Three was a BIG mistake because "Funland" ended-up being nominated for a BAFTA, and soon gathered a cult following due to how incredibly fucking good (and real) it is. What's good about "Funland" is that it genuinely 'feels' like Blackpool, not just for obvious reasons, but for reasons only residents will understand having lived here long enough.

Funland is pretty deep and complicated and was broadcast in the following way:

- Episode 1 is an hour-long introductory episode setting the plot.
- Episode 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 are all half-hour episodes.

You're already looking at £40 for a sealed DVD Boxset, and it's already out of print and rare, so I recommend anyone who likes gritty, depraved entertainment give it a watch while you still can. Due to the way the episodes were originally broadcast, the uploader has uploaded it in the following way, so be VERY careful you don't miss an episode thinking the upload has ended.


EPISODE 1:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7lau1t

EPISODE 2 and 3:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7lf5gc

EPISODE 4 and 5:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7lhnkn

EPISODE 6 and 7:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7ltcsq

EPISODE 8 and 9:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7ltjxk

EPISODE 10 and 11:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7ltjxl


The above links are the only ones available on the web with reasonable quality, and they are 'special' links that should play without ads, so there's a bonus for a start!

I won't be getting into any spoilers, just in case someone does take the time to watch it (and I hope everyone does). One thing I will do, though, is guarantee that for anyone who does watch and stick with it, you can expect it to be jam-packed with quality 'Character Actors', and the series just gets more and more sinister and depraved as it evolves episode after episode! The characters, whether good guys or the bad guys, are so well-acted you cannot help but like them all, if not at the start, certainly as the series evolves, and trust me, more and more weird characters enter the series as it evolves, it's absolutely fucking fantastic!

So yeah, you're in my hometown now, homies, so welcome to Blackpool

Come take a look, see how you like it, and if you take nothing else away from it after seeing it, just remember that it's from this sinister, gritty place that SP-USER's deep and meaningful beats will eventually be coming - FLOL!!!

I'll leave you with an image of Vienna, my favourite girl from the series

[pazword]

I'll check it out to see if there's anything worth sampling

[SP-USER]

Just binge-watched the whole thing again, must be the sixth time I've seen it now.

Not sure how you'll do for samples, but in the first episode at 37:40 where Vienna starts talking to Shirley, that's fucking hot, the way she goes up to his ear and says ...

"Don't ya?"

Oh fuck ... that is one tasty temptress right there

[Danswift]

Crackpool...

[SP-USER]

Shhhhhhhhh, just don't tell Zindan and STAY AWAY FROM MERCY

BTW, just in case people think I'm joking about the 'Amnesty Bins' for disposal of knives and machetes, here's a video made by a local man whos Blackpool videos I enjoy (he has a whole channel full of it).

There's also a little music shop that sells old guitars and stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI0quWsmRXw

[reeeee]

Shhhhhhhhh, just don't tell Zindan and STAY AWAY FROM MERCY

BTW, just in case people think I'm joking about the 'Amnesty Bins' for disposal of knives and machetes, here's a video made by a local man whos Blackpool videos I enjoy (he has a whole channel full of it).

There's also a little music shop that sells old guitars and stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI0quWsmRXw

Blackpool looks pretty chill tbh… compared to most cities in the usa…
Do you usually get some sort of credit or cool points from coming up from blackpool?

[SP-USER]

Blackpool looks pretty chill tbh… compared to most cities in the usa…

Blackpool is indeed very chill, it's a very nice place to live, and I should know cause I actually live here. That said, there is clearly something very sinister going on in this country with our sell-out government, the press and the media working hand-in-hand to destroy our country from within.

Blackpool is the most famous Seaside Resort in England, yet time and time again you will find our vile, agenda-fuelled press and media visiting here with no other intention than to degrade the place in the most effective way possible.

It has not gone unnoticed by the residents here that what they do is wait for the worst weather forecast possible, search high and low to find an area that looks run down, film some sob-story there, and then post some scary statistic about life expectancy here, completely failing to tell everyone the real reason for those statistics. Those statistics have nothing to do with Blackpool and do not effect law-abiding people, but rather the Scots who come here in their droves to escape the Drug-Den known as Glasgow.

If you exclude the problem that mainly Scots bring this place, there is nothing bad about Blackpool at all, in fact the standard of living here is higher than most places I've seen in the UK and it often baffles me why Blackpool Council stand for what are clearly targeted attacks on the town by the media and press.

To give you an idea of just how much influence some carefully selected weather and malicious intent from the press can have, here is a video shot just yesterday morning by an honest local man, so you cannot get much more accurate than that. He travels only two miles in this video, which is only around 1/3 of Backpool's frontage. This is by no means the tidiest area of Blackpool either, yet no matter how hard I try, I cannot see a single building that would even resemble "run-down". Everyone looks happy, everyone looks calm, everything is repectably clean and amazingly tidy for a busy resort, barely any trash anywhere to be seen, and yes, life is chilled.

The guy making the video suggests that it's "bustling", but actually this is pretty calm for Blackpool, it's actually waaaaaaaaay busier in the summer time!

But yeah, this video was taken just yesterday morning (actual proof of how things really are):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbJTZs5haI

It's videos like that which make people like Danswift wish they were ABBA fans too

Do you usually get some sort of credit or cool points from coming up from blackpool?

Hell yeah, you're auto-cool if you live in Blackpool, that's why I'm so cool and why thrillers such as Funland are so cool for being made here!

[SP-USER]

Just made some edits and added some extra stuff to the post above, but also waned to say that if anyone fancies some fun location spotting after watching Funland, he actually passes by "Mercy's Lapdancing Club" in that video.

In Funland, play the short sequence from 25:12 -25:30 and you'll see them park the Roller, get out of the car and enter MERCY'S. In Stephens drive video, pause the video at 10:20 and you'll see both "Pats 10p Bingo" which is still there (which is where they parked the Roller), and "GAIETYS KARAOKE BAR" which was used as "MERCY'S LAPDANCING CLUB", which is where they walk into after getting out of the car.

FUNLAND:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7lau1t

STEPHEN'S DRIVE VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbJTZs5haI

[Headphones]

I’ve heard of Blackpool. Soft Cell started there. The Mods & Teddy Boys had a massive riot there in the 60’s, which you get a glimpse at in The Who’s Movie Quadrophinia. And awhile back I was hearing about their Grime scene with Little T, Soph Aspin, Millie B, and then I guess that was awhile ago. Not sure if Grime ever transcended Blackpool or just was a fad.

But yeah, if I ever visit the UK, I’d want to check it out. My roommate is from Birmingham from ages ago. If she visits she gets her old accent back somehow. Then loses it to her American one once she’s home.

But yeah, wonder what’s new in 2022 there??

[SP-USER]

I’ve heard of Blackpool. Soft Cell started there. The Mods & Teddy Boys had a massive riot there in the 60’s, which you get a glimpse at in The Who’s Movie Quadrophinia.

Don't forget the Pet Shop Boys, well, one of them anyway (Chris Lowe is from Blackpool).

And awhile back I was hearing about their Grime scene with Little T, Soph Aspin, Millie B, and then I guess that was awhile ago. Not sure if Grime ever transcended Blackpool or just was a fad.

To be honest, the only time I ever heard about that stuff was in a documentary about it. I'm not into that sort of music though, and I don't live in those rough areas of Blackpool so it's not something I come into contact with in a musical or physical sense.

I assume this is what you mean though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXFQsnbN0NQ

But yeah, if I ever visit the UK, I’d want to check it out. My roommate is from Birmingham from ages ago. If she visits she gets her old accent back somehow. Then loses it to her American one once she’s home.

But yeah, wonder what’s new in 2022 there??

Aussies are quite fun when it comes to retaining accents after visiting here, but as to what's happening here, well, nothing really. For example, that video of the guy who walks down Central Drive at night, where he points out a bunch of old run-down buildings that are due to be flattened to make way for a new Thirty Million Pounds leisure complex. Well so far, they've not done anything, although I suppose the plan-demic has a lot to do with it.

My only advice for anyone planning to visit here is to first and foremost, stay away from Mercy, and secondly be careful of the dates set for the Blackpool Illuminations. Most people think that the Illuminations are in place all year round, but that is not so. Each year, Blackpool Council remove the illuminations in order to maintain them, switch them around and add new ones for the next year. It's a massive task but credit to them, they do it every year without fail.

A common misconception are the so-called "Golden Mile" of illuminations. Blackpool has way more than a mile of Illuminations, it's more like six miles of it since it stretches from 'St Annes' all the way to 'Bispham'. Walking along the sea-front up to Bispham to do my shopping this morning, all that is left of the illuminations (until next season), are the giant poles sticking out of the ground that they attach them to (and even those poles will eventually be removed until next season).

BTW, I realise it's a bit late now but if anyone watched Funland, I hope you never allowed that stupid Dailymotion player to 'Auto-Play' the next episode. If you did then you have almost certainly missed episodes, because that player is completely fucked up, it just runs things in random order (this is why I went to the trouble to provide the direct links in the correct order).

Apparently the series was ended in such a manner to permit a second series, while also making it work as complete. I hope they produce a second series, but after all this time it doesn't look as if that's going to happen.

I'm not from Blackpool myself by the way, I only live here. I'm not what people refer to as a "Sandgrown'un". You're only a "Sandgrown'un" if you were born here, if fact in the first episode of Funland, you will hear the Mayor of Blackpool say during his speech that ...

"I'm a Sandgrown'un, born and bread, and I call a spade a spade."

So basically what he's saying is that he was born in Blackpool and can therefore be trusted

[Headphones]

SP-USER, yeah, I was kinda amused years ago by the whole Blackpool Grime thing that once blew up on the internet, the whole BMGmedia channel. I kinda couldn’t understand most of the flows or slang, so when Soph & Millie B would send diss tracks back & forth, I just figured it was the way Brits like to compete with each other. For every Beatles there’s a Stones. For every Sex Pistols there’s The Clash, Blur vs Oasis, etc, etc. So here we are in the states watching Little T having to grow up acting like he’s the shit, yet it maybe his fame was more than he could chew. You see him now and he’s older, and lost his high pitched boyish voice, but did his tracks improve? Is he doing well now? Tbh haven’t noticed. Heard Mille B had a baby girl so she probably gave up the grime career. And even Soph is trying to distance herself from her past.

If you weren’t into Grime or the styles from awhile back, that’s cool. I just liked it at the time. But it probably was just around for the views it got online. But it’s not like they were gonna be touring the states or Canada with their tunes. If their bars are over my head then they’ll likely be over the rest of this whole continent from coast to coast. Some cities can have a sound that generates interest, but after that it becomes a memory & people find something else. Probably why BMGmedia faded online??

Now if Blackpool is just a tourist town for the amusement of locals & visitors is I guess why people come. If there’s problems such as gangs, drugs, or violence, then I haven’t been paying attention. Seattle is my hometown but I no longer find it fun to go there. Homeless people living on the streets, junkies shooting up or shooting people, and not enough police to protect the public. I hate Seattle now. It’s embarrassing what it became. Hard to say who’s really to blame, but I hope Jeff Bezos looks himself in the mirror & says to himself “Ya know, maybe I shoulda had my company pay taxes, so that the city HAD revenue for affordable housing and police….”.

Sorry I’m rambling, can’t really compare one city to another (especially one I’ve never visited), but if you were to ask me what music to check out from here that ISN’T 90’s Grunge, I really couldn’t tell you. We’re more known for our problems than our music lately. Which is sad, but I’d like to think we can get our act together and be the city people felt safe to visit.

Anyhoo, hope you make some cuts and get a slice of your dreams man.

[SP-USER]

I really don't know anything about the BGM thing (other than the documentaries about it), but I must admit that after watching the documentary and having also just seen the Part 2 documentary that followed a year later, I'm curious how it turned out for them, would be nice to see them do well.

I'll check out their channel, but even before doing so, I think the biggest problem they face is the sentiment behind the music, because although the sort of stuff they're saying might be fitting of the genre, I don't think it's something that Blackpool Council would promote. Hell, they even banned strip clubs and are now looking at ways to control hen nights because they see these things as bringing disrepute to Blackpool.

To an extent I do agree about the hen nights, cause watching groups of rowdy women vomiting-up their lunch in the middle of the street isn't exactly the sort of thing you want your kids to be looking at if you just brought them here on holiday. I don't agree with banning strip clubs though, I mean it's not as if some family with kids can accidentally walk into one of those places, and banning them will not end their existence anyway, all it will do is force them underground where the women are less protected.

Like Mercy said, it's perfectly natural to want to see some "Muff'N'Nipple"

But yeah it's an interesting place for sure, more than people realise. And I can tell you that living here can bring about very mixed feelings (especially regards Blackpool Council). Personally I think they do a better job than any council in the country, and that comes from the fact that they are simultaneously having to deal with the problems that Scotland off-loads onto us here, the prolems we all face due to our corrupt governments not dealing with the monster that is Jeff Bezos and Amazon, while at the same time, doing their best to keep the place respectable yet still getting targeted by our vile media and press (despite doing a better job of it than anywhere else in the country).

Personally, I think a place like this can really only be judged at night at a time when the visitor levels are low. You'll notce that multiple times in that video about BGM, the artists kinda let you now that "It's not how people think it is!" and "We just want our town on the map!", and as Afghan Dan said, "it's not all Doom and Gloom."

There was no doubt teenage angst and retaliation brewing in those teens, because they can see the way Blackpool is being painted and know that it's very misleading. If you're born here you're going to take offence to how the place is painted, hell, I wasn't even born here and even I take offence to the way this place is painted by the media and press.

Here's a video demonstrating what Blackpool is really like at night when the visitor levels are low. I recommend you watch it from the beginning, but if not, at least skip to 12:40 to watch the tower in show-off mode!

Blackpool at night during a quiet spell = pretty damn safe IMHO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GflDy1DusY

Believe it or not, the 'Notorious Cental Drive' video posted previously was shot directly behind this row of attractions, it literally runs directly along the rear of that lot. But like I said skip to 12:40 and you'll see just how much effort the Council puts in even when visitor levels are low.

So if anything, we should all start attacking London who's scum-riddled councils do not even come close to what Blackpool Council achieves in the face of adversity. And that's nothing by the way, Blackpool Tower is quite a sassy bitch and gets flashier than that, but in this video I think she just wanted to show you her beating heart spreading the love!

Jump to 12:40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GflDy1DusY

[SP-USER]

I took a look at BGMedia channel.

Looks as if Afghan Dan is still doing stuff with the last upload being around four months ago. So it looks as if it's still a thing although like I said, I personally have no interest in it, it feels a bit too youthful for my liking and I'm not a fan of foul language (even though I do sometime use it here in scenarios where I feel it fits in). I do wish them all well though, they deserve to do well.

You mentioned my own stuff, and man, as long as I produce something I feel is good enough to release on Cassette and Vinyl, I'll be happy. It's like I said when I first came here, I have no visions of fame, none at all. It doesn't matter to me whether it takes me until next year or another ten years to produce an album, the only thing that matters to me is that I produce one before I'm dead. I've no intention of dying untill I'm at least 1,000 years old, but the main thing is that releasing an album is my way of ensuring that when I am no longer here, there will at least be evidence of my past existence on earth and what I had to say.

I'll put my soul into whatever I do, there's nothing so sure as that, and I'll say exactly what I want to say, but I have no idea what genre I'll choose to produce the album in. What I do know is that it will be EXTREMELY expensive when I release it due to the limitied amount I'll make available, the fanciness of the packaging I'll give it, and the aim of ensuring that only people with a genuine repect for it and what it has to say, will buy it and hopefully cherish it. I'll do all the proper barcoding for it as well, so that it is recognised on places like Discogs etc.

So I do have a plan, it's just getting the gear right that is the problem, cause it has to be hands-on gear that inspires and doesn't frustrate me. I just cannot stand gear that gets in the way of inspiration, and unfortunately, most of it does.

Best of luck to you too by the way, regarding your own musical projects!

[Headphones]

Well I just found out the worst news ever. That $2700 I was expecting ain’t happening. Fucking IRS gets every penny. I apparently owed taxes, so I’m now not having the money to pay bills or get my MC909, and further more, until the holidays, I don’t expect my life to improve a whole lot. It’s making me depressed in the worst possible way. Everything I want just seems so unattainable. I could sell a SP505 here, or my ST224 there, but I’m much too stubborn to bother. I’ve got to get caught up on my bills before I can invest in anything new.

So it’s kinda making me feel what’s the use? Which I hate feeling. So even firing up my Behringer TD3/RD6 & 9 feels like a waste of time. I’m wanting to climb that next mountain, but don’t have the gear I need to do it. So, life goes on.

I’ve been watching a bit of Funland. It’s a interesting show with lots of subplots and layers to the characters. I gotta start work, so I’ll post more later about it.

[SP-USER]

I'm really sorry to hear about that bro, but try not to let it grind you down. For what it's worth I don't think it's going to be too long before the shit hits the fan, and when it does, I suspect that history will repeat itself and the people behind all this poverty and abuse of the world's population will pay the ultimate price.

The world is run by psychopaths, and those psychopaths control everything the world's population consumes and gets to see. The only way out is to incapacitate social media by replacing it with a decentralised system that everyone uses across the world, thereby removing the world's population from the clutches, propaganda and manipulation of the 'New World Order' psychopaths that are behind everything that is wrong in this world.

Glad to hear you're watching Funland, and yep, would love to hear what you have to say about it. It does have a complicated plot, but the beauty of that is you enjoy it even more when you watch it again, because your brain isn't so involved in trying to process what's going on. I think I've watched it six times now and I never get bored of it.