Get Your Love On Video…

Here you go folks.

This is the video for ‘Get Your Love On’. Massive thanks to everyone from all over the World that sent in clips for us to use.

Big cheers to Zachary Denman for putting it all together.

The single will be available from October 20th and all profits will go to Gaza.

Hope you like.

x

Music Video Entries…

OiOi folks,

Can anyone that entered the DIY video ‘thing’ for ‘Get your love on’, please get the videos mailed to me as soon as they can?

The video guy Zachary, is itching to get started on putting all your fantastic efforts together, and make sure its sorted for Wembley.

Mail it to subscription@davidicke.com please!

 

Cheers.

x

We Are All Palestinians.

Hi all.

I felt the need to write a wee blog…

Over the last month or so, Israel has attacked Gaza, an enclave the size of the Isle of Wight, home to 1.8 million people, many of them refugees, with over 50,000 shells.

Israel has killed over 1500 people, 85% of them civilians, and 300 of them, children.

It has attacked ambulances, hospitals, universities, schools, power stations, and worst of all, UN shelters, sheltering refugees.

The UN sent coordinates of its UN shelters SEVENTEEN times to the IDF, yet the IDF still bombed it. Now I am sure the UN thought that by sending the coordinates, they were protecting the children, and families, taking refuge there. They were doing just the opposite. They were telling Israel where to bomb.

Israel is targeting civilians, and brave ex IDF soldiers have testified to this being the norm, in the past.

Israel wants Gaza, and it wants the West Bank. In Zionist ideology, they are promised, by God™, that the land from the Sea to the Euphrates is theirs. Gaza, is part of that land. So, ironically is a large portion of Egypt, the Country that refuses to open it’s border and allow Palestinians to flee the bombardment.

Israel will not stop, unless stopped, until it has everything it believes it is promised by God™.

In the last few weeks I have been bombarded myself with tweets and messages from people that have a problem with my support for the Palestinians.

Here are a few common themes:

“You are being anti semetic!” – Mmm. Kind of tired of this one, as it is the blanket response whenever Israel (Fourth biggest army in the World) gets called out for attacking a population, without an army, in an open air prison, with billions of dollars worth of ammunition. Well, bad news, Palestinians are also semites, so that blanket response it fatally floored. Must try harder.

“Why do you care about Muslims when you aren’t even Muslim?” – I don’t need to answer this, but I will. Because I am a human, with a heart, and a soul, and a conscience, and morality. I don’t need a religion to know that killing is wrong. The irony being, that religions actually have rules against killing, yet they kill in the name of religion. But this is about land more than religion. If Christians were the majority in Gaza, they would still be in the firing line.

“Hamas is to blame, they use human shields and hide rockets in UN centres!” – Hamas was formed in 1987. While I don’t agree with what Hamas does, and has done, they are a resistance. Israel has massacred Palestinians, and stolen land for 40 years, before Hamas was even formed. So as with the ‘Anti semite argument, it kind of falls at the first hurdle.

The BBC (Most pro Israel news corporation outside the USA and Israel itself) has sent reporters that have all said that they found NO evidence of human shields whatsoever.

The UN has backed up the BBCs claims of no human shields, and has also stated that there were no rockets in UN shelters.

Mr Netanyahu’s fabrications are just that, fabric, perishable under questioning.

“They are both to blame! What about the terror tunnels?” – No, they are not both to blame. The British Empire gave the land of Palestine to the Rothschild family, to form the state of Israel. They took a land where Muslims, Christians, and Jews, lived peacefully for hundreds of years, and turned it into a racist, open air prison, where anyone but  an Israeli Jew is a second class citizen, and treated like an animal.

Israel controls what goes in and out of Gaza. It is blocked by Israel, the sea (that Israel patrols) and Egypt. Israel controls how much food goes in, based on calories per head of population. Let me say that again. ISRAEL CONTROLS THE AMOUNT OF FOOD ALLOWED IN GAZA, BASED ON THE AMOUNT OF CALORIES PER HEAD OF POPULATION.

It is 2014, not the dark ages…unless you are Palestinian.

The ‘terror’ tunnels are how Palestinians ‘smuggle’ supplies into their land. Little things like clippers for barbers, have to come through tunnels. Imagine that? I have a pair of clippers in the bathroom. I use them to shave my bollocks, but a barber has to have them smuggled through tunnels?

“Stop sharing these images, they make me sad!” – Good. Congratulations, you are a human. You have passed the test with flying colours. But would your vitriol not be better aimed at the following people… Israel for dropping the bombs, the USA for supplying the bombs, the UK and other World leaders (apart from South America) for supporting the killing, and most of all in this instance, the media, for not reporting the truth? Do you honestly think I would be spending my days on twitter, looking and sharing images that have made me sob on countless occasions, images I will never scrape from my eye balls until the day I die, if the media was reporting it? Do you think I would spend £100 travelling to a protest in London if the media was unbiased in it’s reporting of the genocide? I do it because I have to. If you want it to stop, make a difference yourself. Write to YOUR MP, boycott Israel YOURSELF, and protest YOURSELF.

It is pathetic that I have to even explain the fact that I stand with Palestine.

It is pathetic that as Palestinian supporters, we have to focus on the killing of women and children, because in the Wests eyes, a male adult muslim could not be possibly be viewed as an innocent.

But the fight is deeper than all that I have said. It is deeper than all of the religion, and the history, and the land grabbing, and the rockets, and the media. It is about oppression.

I was in London on Friday for the protest, and a chant rang true to me.

“In our millions, in our billions; We are all Palestinians”. My god™ ain’t that the truth?

Every single day of our lives we fight against injustice. We are lucky if it’s just a bastard traffic warden. “Thirty quid!? I was 2 minutes mate!”

The injustice of the Palestinians has gone on for 66 years and still they refuse to bow. They refuse, in the face of death, torture, and starvation, to give up what they stand for, and the justice they so desperately seek, and deserve.

What an incredible inspiration to all of us.

In fact, I take back my previous statement; we are not all Palestinians. We should all aspire to be Palestinians.

The fight will not end. Not while there is a breath of air in the lungs of us that know what is right.

#FreePalestine.

x

London Palestinian Protest Tomorrow… (Friday August 1st)

Hello,

There is a protest tomorrow opposite the Israeli Embassy in London. This ongoing genocide, and ethnic cleansing of an entire people, cannot continue to go unpunished.

The protest is from 17:30 – 19:30 GMT. I urge as many people to attend as possible. The Western leaders, and media, are puppets to the Zionist regime, so we must make a noise so loud, that even they can’t ignore us.

For more information, please click here.

I hope to see you there.

x

Back in Glasgow…

Hi all.

Just got back to Glasgow. Shattered. I am a broken man, but a happy one. I have a coldsore, red eyes, and a sunburned face. I think Vogue might want me for the cover this month…

The Islands were as beautiful and amazing as always. I genuinely feel blessed to be able to visit these places, and get paid for it. Truly blessed.

It’s a hard slog but the plus points are off the scale.

This year we played in Ardfern, Raasay, Skye, Tiree Music Festival, Islay, Jura, and tomorrow, we are down in the borders for the Wickerman Festival.

The biggest killer was last Saturday. Up at 7am, drive 4 hours to Raasay and gig, then back to Skye to play another show. Off stage at 1:30 am, an hours kip, up again at 2:30 am, and then a 4 hour drive to Oban to get the 8am boat to Tiree, where we played that night. Knackered.

However, I did get to share a bill with my hero, which was an incredible honour. He just happened to be a top fella too.

Roddy

I look off my head, but I swear it was tiredness. I was a bit star struck as well to be fair.

One random thing was that both Tiree, and Wickerman, booked myself an Jono, as one act. We tour together but we perform separately, but they didn’t realise that. It worked quite well as we like each others tunes so it was nice to learn each others and play together. We will do the same at Wickerman tomorrow. It keeps life interesting!

Now, I better go hand wash some underwear. I never pack enough.

x

Get Involved In A DIY Music Video…

Hi everyone,

This year we are playing Wembley Arena again, and are releasing a single, to go along side the performance.

The track, Get Your Love On, will be released at the end of October.

We are putting together a music video for the track, and we would love for as many people, from all over the World, to get involved.

So here is the deal…

I will email you a copy of the track, and then you make a music video to go with it. It can be anything you want. It can be you singing in the shower, or running through a desert with a camel on a lead. Whatever you want, but the stranger the better!

You can upload to youtube and post wherever you want, all we ask is that we are allowed to use clips of your video in our Official video as well. We want to take the best clips from all over the Globe and piece together a music video of our own.

The song is designed to bring everyone together, and there is no better way of showing that, than including everyone in the video.

If you would like to take part, email us at subscription@davidicke.com and we will get a track mailed to you. You can go mad and make a HD video, or film it on a mobile phone. Whatever you want to do!

Get involved! Share with your friends!

x

West Scotland Tour – 2014

Oi!

I’m off up to Scotland on Tuesday, and will be playing the first date of this years tour, on Friday night.

Me and Jono have been touring together for years now, but last year we embarked on our first Scottish island tour. It was so successful, that we are doing it all over again this year.

Here are the dates…

 Friday 18th July @ Galley Gig Fest, Galley of Lorne, Ardfern.

Saturday 19th July (Afternoon) @ Raasay House, Isle of Raasay.

Saturday 19th July (Evening) @ Portree Hotel, Portree, Isle of Skye.

Sunday 20th July @ Tiree Music Festival, Isle of Tiree. 

Monday 21st July @ Tiree Music Festival, Isle of Tiree.

Wednesday 23rd July @ Port Charlotte Hotel, Port Charlotte, Isle of Islay.

Thursday 24th July @ Jura Hotel, Craighouse, Isle of Jura.

Friday 25th July @ Wickerman Festival, Dumfries & Galloway.

I can’t wait to get back on the road, and where better than the most lovely hospitable people I have ever met?

Oh, and the finest single malts known to man…

x

Soundcloud.

Oi.

I have taken control of my soundcloud page, and will be posting a lot more material there in the future.

I will post the odd album track from ‘It Gets Worse At Night’ and ‘A Brand New Battle’, but mainly I’ll be posting acoustic demos and live recordings.

To add me on Soundcloud click onto soundcloud.com/garethickemusic

Today I posted a live demo recorded, lovingly, in my toilet.

Here it is…

Hope you like.

x

Full Band Rehearsals.

Alright folks,

Full band rehearsals start on Tuesday. I swear we have had more line ups than Scotland Yard, but hopefully this one will stick.

Our main problems have been travel, with musicians dotted across the Country. This 4 piece is all based in my home town of Derby, so makes far more sense.

Most of my shows this summer are acoustic slots at festivals across England and Scotland, but there is the odd full band show thrown in there.

Our first one is on Saturday 21st June at The Church Inn, in Bury, Lancashire. It’s only a month from now, so we best get a wriggle on!

It’s only a small venue, so will be perfect for a first show. Entry is free so if you are in the area, pop along for a beer and a pack of peanuts.

After the Summer, we’ll be out gigging full band most of the time. I am already talking to friends around Europe, so we should be able to put something together easily enough.

Until then, take it easy.

x