Looks beautiful.
Sounds beautiful.
Excellent Snow White Jr.
Amazeballs eyelashes.
At one point Maribel Verdú looks like Super Yob Dave Hill from Slade.
Bad points:
I really can't get behind a bullfighting film.
Very clichéd view of Spain.
Modern clothespegs.
Let me see if I can sum up my thoughts during the film in the order they happened: BOWIE'S IN SPACE BOBBY SANDS IN SPACE STRINGER BELL IN SPACE I WISH IT WAS THE ENTIRE CAST OF THIS IS ENGLAND 86 IS THAT ALIEN OR PREDATOR AT THE END? BRING BACK SOOTY WATCHMEN I WONDER WHO WON THE FOOTBALL SHE IS QUITE FAT; THIS IS A GOOD THING. IS HE MEANT TO REMIND ME OF RUPERT MURDOCH OR IS IT JUST A HAPPY ACCIDENT? IMAGINE HOW GOOD A SPACE FILM WOULD BE IF IT WASN'T JUST RIPPED OFF OTHER SPACE FILMS. I WISH WOMBLE OF THE UNIVERSE WAS PLAYING OVER THE END CREDITS. I WILL NEVER GO TO THE CINEMA AGAIN IN MY LIFE.
Do you want a souvenir of yesterday's Hangover Lounge to go with your Real Ale Disease? Or perhaps you were unable to make it and would like to hear an approximation of what you missed when I took to the wheels of steel and mashed up da place?
Here are 128kbps mp3s of the two CDs I took with me. I didn't play all of it, and it wasn't in this order:
I am grumpy about Man City and the general reaction to yesterday's events. I think it's just a convenient way to channel my grumpiness, but it all feels very coherent to me.
1) People countering the buying success argument with the idea that the manager has to "mould a team" - maybe so, but on the evidence of this season, that is the one thing that hasn't happened at Man City with Tevez and Balotelli and probably some others.
2) Mancini being a toadying lickspittle towards his paymasters.
3) the idea that you have to be mentally deficient if you don't enjoy football.
4) The idea that the events of yesterday were in any way unusual. Name a year when nothing exciting at all happened in football anywhere in the world and you could win a pair of tickets to the Barclays Premier League match of your choice.
5) I really really wanted Gareth Barry to end his career without ever winning any "silverware".
6) I do not wish to see a gurning Liam Gallagher on my television screen, thank you very much. I would not mind if it was Billy Duffy though.
Here are both sides of my fabulous tape, this time housed on a rival filepilfering site. If this doesn't work it might have to become one of those Great Lost Projects because it took bleeding ages to upload, which suggest you might be wise to pour yourself a stiff one while you're waiting for it to do an incy wincy spider down your broadband guttering. I am dispappointed to learn that my new favourite song was used on an advert at some point, so its charms may be lost to those of you of a telly-watching disposition. I assume this happened in the 90s, because I'd certainly never seen it before. I have included tracklisting documents.
Here goes. I hope you derive something other than frustration and annoyance from this. As a special bonus, the URL almost contains the word "jizz". Shoud boost my download count considerably. If that is not enough, Blogger gives me sone examples of labels for this post, in this case "scooters, holidays, autumns". Why not try to write a short stroy of not more than a thousand words incorporating these three elements? You could post your finished story in the comments section, so that I feel more popular than usual. But I digress:
Here is side two of MY TAPE. I think it is better than side one because it has some singing on it and also ROXY MUSIC who are brilliant and my new favourite song, PUSH A LITTLE BUTTON by 60s technophobe NINETTE. The last song is very poignant, COME LIVE WITH ME by HEAVEN 17. It is so poignant you are supposed to sit in silence after it has finished, pondering life's missed opportunities and wishing you were 37 again.
Don't say I never give you nowt.
Incidentally, thanks to BOTH PEOPLE who downloaded side one, I'm touched.
01 Free South Africa – Stetsasonic 02 Hot Smoke and Sasafrass – The Bubble Puppy 03 I Never Loved A Woman (The Way I Love You) – Spencer Wiggins 04 Push A Little Button – Ninette 05 West African Safari – Sir Victor Uwaifo 06 Cobra – Bailey’s Nervous Kats 07 Reformation! – The Fall 08 Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear 09 Fine Fine Fine – Judy Hughes 10 Same Old Scene – Roxy Music 11 Falling In Love – The Dynamic Tints 12 You Should Have Seen The Wayu He Looked At Me – The Dixie Cups 13 Jet Biguine – Les Loups Noirs d’Haiti 14 Come Live With Me – Heaven 17
Here is side one of a tape what I made (link below). It is mostly instrumentals. Side two will be songs with singing on them, for the most part.
Laurie Johnson tracks are from The New Avengers
Phenomenal Cat is a Kinks instrumental of the Village Green track. It is... Floydian.
101 Strings Orchestra is a groovy freakout involving a young lady getting a jolly good whipping. I have no doubt she deserved it.
The Byrds prove their Coltrane thing goes all the way up to eleven.
The Dead Weather had the good grace to include a corking instrumental on their debut album.
Big Youth Fights Against Capitalism is heavy dub by King Tubby. It also serves as a tribute to the recenlty deceased Yabby You, my favourite Jamaican renaissance man.
Gene Page - Black + Dracula = Blacula.
United is a Gamble and Huff track here presented in a sumptuous instrumental version WITH HARPS AND THAT.
Duane Eddy jumps on the lunar exploration bandwagon so beloved of instrumentalists and ends up sounding like a Joe Meek protege.
Bill Justis's Flea Circus is on Sun Records. Well I never.
Black + Rio = Black Rio. Bluesy Brazil.
A Sly and Robbie dub with more bass than is really sensible, thank goodness. Nice title too.
Louie Ramirez does another Gamble and Huff tune with lashing and lashings of disco strings swirling around the lation percussion.
Pipeline is the opening track from Johnny Thunders' album with the likes of Phil Lynott and him out of The Only Ones.
That is all. Stay tuned for side two, which I will have to be quick about because it's nearly March.
01. Laurie Johnson – Pop Fans Riot 02. The Kinks – Phenomenal Cat 03. 101 Strings Orchestra – Whiplash 04. The Byrds – Universal Mind Decoder 05. The Dead Weather – 3 Birds 06. Yabby You/King Tubby’s – Big Youth Fights Against Capitalism 07. Gene Page – Blacula 08. Music Makers – United 09. Duane Eddy – Moon Shot 10. Bill Justis and his Orchestra – Flea Circus 11. Black Rio – Uniao Black 12. Sly, Robbie and the Gang – Tickle Me Version 13. Louie Ramirez – Do It Any Way You Wanna 14. Johnny Thunders – Pipeline 15. Laurie Johnson – Red Mask Party
Back in the days when broadband meant cummerband, I waited weeks to see this short film. It was being shown in San Sebastián as part of a season of films called Islam and Cinema. It kept being delayed because they couldn't get hold of a print. It is by Abbas Kiarostami, but I had never heard of him, or the resurgence in Iranian cinema. Instead I was attracted by some information in the small print - the music was by The Beatles! So I waited and waited, weeks and weeks. I saw a highly technical Egyptian film about mummification, an Algerian youth drama about the difficult choice between listening to rai music or consuming cassettes of speeches by radical clerics, and several other films I can't remember. By the time Bread and the Alley arrived I was in a frenzy, fully expected to hear the legendary Carnival of Light or some unknown psychedelic wig-out. It wasn't what I expected, but neither was it a disappointment. Now you can see it on YouTube for the price of a few clicks. I think my love for this film depends on how hard I had to work to see it (freezing cold, catching the last bus home, etc.), so it probably won't have the same effect here. The big screen helped, as did being part of a pretty large crowd, and sitting in an old theatre with a very particular smell. But I still think it's well worth seeing. It started me off on a love affair with Iranian film that lasted a few years, and which I hope will one day bloom again. Here it is:
I was reminded of this film by watching the strikingly similar The Red Balloon, so here that is as well, in two parts (short version, it says here). Watch it with a small child and marvel at the strong emotions it produces:
Bread and the Alley also reminds me of another Iranian film, The Apple, and that Norman Wisdom film, On The Beat, where he wants to be a policeman (after two minutes, I'm not completely mental):
Following the annual barrage of complaints from the Shepherd's Bush area regarding my end-of-year compilation, I have renamed the mp3 files, retagged them to enable ease of use, and provided the following exhaustive and fascinating multimedia sleevenotes (mp3 download link below):
01) MORRISSEY - SOMETHING IS SQUEEZING MY SKULL
Like a New York Dolls track, only about depression. Curiously uplifting. I don't think it made much of an impression on the wider world. I wonder if Morrissey really is on any kind of medication. It would explain his girth and also his willingness to settle for producing less than brilliant work, such as most of the rest of the album this is taken from.
02) DEPECHE MODE - WRONG
Another song about depression. This and the Morrissey song would make a great double A-side. Again, it screams so loud it becomes kind of life-affirming. This on Later was perhaps the TV appearance of the year. The album is not much good.
03) DENNIS COFFEY - BLACK BELT JONES
From the compilation Can You Dig It? which explores the Blaxploitation mini-genre of soul. I knew about half the tracks already, but even so it is quite revelatory, that there such be such a solid heavy little slab of this stuff, a lawlessness unto itself.
04) WORLD OF TWIST - SONS OF THE STAGE (RADIO EDIT)
Rediscovered via the wonderful world of music blogs. So much better than most of the Madchester stuff it was lumped in with, and it has really stood the test of time. I had a tape with this on, it followed Emerson Lake and Palmer doing Stravinsky, which seems ideal.
05) GOD HELP THE GIRL - HOWARD JONES IS MY MOZART 06) GOD HELP THE GIRL - STILLS
I just think these two are brilliant. The first one is a B-side; the second is an EP track.
07) BLONDIE - RAPTURE (SPECIAL DISCO MIX)
From a Blondie singles compilation, this version goes on for ages, but never flags.
08) LITTLE BOOTS - STUCK ON REPEAT
Not much to say about this, except I like it a lot. Some people call it Coronation Street in space, but I call it Giorgio Moroder on Pukka Pies.
(Speaking of food, if you go to the catering tent featured herein later on in the day, the only thing left is cake. Mountains and mountains of cake.)
09) THE BEACH BOYS - FALLIN' IN LOVE
First official release, apparently. I think the introduction has been added. Just a beautiful song, although now it reminds me of David Walliams.
10) JK AND TRU-SKOOL - JHOOTEH LAAREH
From Derby. I suppose one of the advantages of the download era is you can hear something on the radio and then just look for it and buy it, which is what I did when this was played by one of the northern puddings that populate the radio waves of an evening. I think it may have been Marc Riley. I hope it was.
11) PET SHOP BOYS - LOVE ETC
Up there with Left to My Own Devices. Again, the album is not very good. But the video is.
12) YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND - THE SUN IS DOWN!
The new Yoko Ono album is full of haunting melodies and poetry that is simple to the point of dumbass, yet no less effective for that. I think (and hope) it will be around for years to come. This is probably the most disco track. I saw her in concert and it was... OK.
13) THE DEAD WEATHER - HANG YOU FROM THE HEAVENS
Blues explosion.
14) THE HORRORS - SEA WITHIN A SEA
This reminds me of The Psychedelic Furs. The album is quite My Bloody Valentine-ish, guitars that have lost their voices, only with these blunderbuss vocals. The video is very rock'n'roll, and rather beautiful.
15) JOYCE - CLAREANA
I have never bathed in molasses, in fact I don't think I have ever even seen molasses, but I imagine bathing in them is a bit like listening to this.
16) TINKERBELL'S FAIRYDUST - (YOU KEEP ME) HANGIN' ON
This is what happens when you think you've heard it all - you end up buying obscure UK psych albums by beat groups trying their hand at the new thing, except by the time it gets released the new thing is no longer the new thing and nobody buys the resulting record. It turns out you really have heard it all before, but it's still quite good fun. In my opinion, the definitive version remains the snippet at the end of Time Buckley's live performance of Pleasant Street on the Dream Letter album.
17) THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - LOVE SONG FOR THE DEAD CHÉ
Drifting, drifting...
18) THE CLIENTELE - HARVEST TIME
The live version of this by Amor de dias at the Hangover Lounge was one of the highlights of the year.
19) RODRIGUEZ - SUGAR MAN
Second appearance by Dennis Coffey, who produced this. If ever a record sounded like it knew it wasn't going to be a hit, this is it. Very popular in the South African army, apparently. I wonder what their Cuban counterparts were listening to during the Angolan war. Here's hoping for a themed compilation.
20) HERON - SMILING LADIES
From Maidenhead. This is your acid folk, which I got deeper into when my considerable skills and experience, obtained and honed over many years of hard work, were required to subtitle a 70s nudie film featuring incidental music by Comus.
21) LENNY BRUCE - TESTING THE SONY MICROPHONE
I am slowly learning to love Lenny Bruce. Not sure I have anything useful or interesting to say yet.
22) SEYFU YOHANNES - MELA MELA
Ethiopian. I think I actually wanted another, quieter track, but I couldn't find it. This one is fairly indicative though. One could lose oneself in Ethiopian music, and one day that is what I intend to do.
23) SARAH WEBSTER FABIO - GLIMPSES
From Fly Girls, a 2CD history of women in rap featuring all your favourites and a few more besides. Jazz meets poetry, I suppose. It is very beguiling.
24) FUCK BUTTONS - SURF SOLAR (7" EDIT)
The other side of the Little Boots coin, I think. Album of the year? Possibly. There is Weatherall involvement. The video features penguins underwater. I don't think I would have taken much notice if this if it hadn't been for the penguins in the video, so that is conclusive proof that videos are a necessary promotional tool in the music industry.
25) DAVE GRUSIN - ASCENSION TO VIRGINITY (CANDY OST)
I watched this film Candy, which is basically a load of very dodgy rape fantasies with an air of mysticism and flag waving, but the music is fantastic. There is also a Byrds song. Well, two Byrds songs, but one wasn't used, apparently because McGuinn's co-writer wasn't well-known enough. This is Captain Useless Information, signing off.
My favourite album of the year is 'Watertown' by Frank Sinatra, from 1969. It is a concept album about the decline of a marriage. Unfortunately they get back together agin, which kind of spoils it for me. There does not appear to be any film of him performing any of the songs, but as a more than compensatory bonus, there is this footage of Nina Simone wringing every last drop (and a few more besides) of emotion from this song, which is actually quite a minor one on the album. No happy ending for Nina, God bless her.
Here is my end of year roundup "tape". As ever, few tracks are actually from this year, but my toss-giving capacity is greatly reduced. Please make up your own sleevenotes for the time being. The files themselves have funny names, but they have been tagged properly, so they should be fit to grace any portable listening device, and even be listened to in the right order, should you shun the shuffle as you should. Obviously you might like to buy anything you like, blah blah blah, unless it is by millionaires, they can sod off, innit.
NOTES FROM THE GOOD SHIP SHOPPIE POP Under Thatcher, both practitioners and aficionados of the arts were considered enemies of the state. Thus any output from anyone halfway aware of the situation can be considered political, regardless of content. Here is moored the good ship Shoppie pop.
Edith, 4 years old, said to me in an accusatory tone, "Daddy, you don't know much about girls, do you?" "No, I bloody don't!" I guffawed bitterly. We were not talking about the same things.
It's the Need for Symmetry again. Geometrical patterns forming around the retina. Here she is, everyone's little investment.
I am unaware unsure intrepid and unavailable, unfathomable and intractable, tumbledown and slapdash, helium-filled and Simonized, celibate and consumptive, terrible and indifferent.
Playdoh clit-flick Anti-Christ.
The first EP proper came in a hand-coloured sleeve. Like all hand-coloured sleeves, hand-coloured meant carelessly scrawled upon. Still, it was carelessly scrawled upon by one of the objects of one's obsession, and therefore to be pored over and treasured. I imagine these hand-colouring session were a riot: all the band members lying on their fronts, Chelsea boots kicking leisurely in the air, tongues lolling out with the effort and concentration. Mine must have been done towards the end of the session, when the colourist was dying to get back to their effects pedals or watching a battered videotape of The Monkees or The Banana Splits, maybe Get On Board With The Double Deckers, in their very own Shop Assistants hideout, a converted bus in an Edinburgh lock-up, electricity pilfered from a lamppost outside.
I am one of the select group of people who think The Shop Assistants are one of the best bands of all time. What's more, I am one of the even more select group of people, a group that might just be a one-man band, who think they went downhill after their first single, which is actually their second single.
I got the third single on twelve inch because it was on offer. I bought it from, sin of sins, HMV on Sauchihall Street, Glasgow. The person who served me was the kind of 80s vintage HMV employee, job for life, who seethed with contempt for anything that might not have been willing to bow down before the twin gods of Buster-era Phil Collins and frizzy-haired conquerors Dire Straits, anything that might labour under the weight of the "alternative" label a label that meant hhomosexualityand socialism, to name but two 80s evils that required eradication, preferably through the effective wweed-killer of the approved blandathons known as Radio One playlists. The barcode rang up the normal price. I meekly, that is to say, indiely, pointed to the dayglo orange pay-no-more-than 79p sticker. Mulletman sighed heavily, brutally, much like a Glaswegian taxi driver if you ever dared not to have the right change. I thought I was finally going to be able to die for my art, decapitated by a black vinyl disc, a martyr to buzzsaw guitars smothering plaintive melodies. But he just sent me to another till, where the correct price was applied and I lived to dither another day.
I had a friend who was a fellow Shop Assistants fan. I guess it brought us together. She walked through Angel Delight, I stumbled through porridge. She was from Edinburgh and she told me the Shoppies' singer Alex could often be seen "clanking around Edinburgh in her leathers." Think about that image for a moment. The streets of Edinburgh, I think it is fair to say, have seen their fair share of clanking, both real and supernatural, but rarely has it been caused by a young woman with a fine folk voice dressed head to toe in black leather. She wore a Marlon Brando cap and went on to front a group called The Motorcycle Boy. She probably couldn't afford a motorbike until she reached middle age. In fact I bet she's still saving up now. Her vocals were like a rainbow slick of oil on an autumn puddle, and her defiance was as old as the volcanic rock she walked upon - You leave me and I'll scratch your eyes out.
The Shop Assistants gave one of the best concerts I've ever been to. The Beastie Boys were still in Cookie Puss mode, so support band Pop Will Eat Itself were still good, the ideal warm-up really. What's so fucking good about Candy? That kind of thing. Then, sandwiched between The Poppies and The Shoppies, came Peter Case, a bewildered Jay Gatsby who was forced to suffer a great deal of vociferous abuse. For some reason, I had heard of him, and tried to listen. But it was hopeless, and so was Peter Case. Then came the Shop Assistants and they were loud and brash and had two drummers and if they were shambolic, as legend has it, I didn't notice. I don't know if it still happens now, but in those days women performers got lecherous comments hurled at them by drunks and numbskulls. After a while this became intolerable for the guitarist, whose name was, I think, David Keegan. I think he might have been from up north. He kicked someone in the crowd in the head, or rather he brought his Cuban heel down on someone's head, pressing it down like one of the plastic footballers in Subbuteo poor-substitute Striker. The atmosphere became electrified with the promise of rioting. It didn't really develop into anything major, but it was thrilling, it was rock'n'roll, it was what I wanted from life. Add to this the troubled expression of one of the drummers as events unfolded, and I was in something approaching heaven. This was what eighteen-year-old me wanted from life. Rarely was I to experience it again in such a mountain-pure form.
I got their album on the popular musicassette format, a format second only to the cassingle in the embarrassment stakes for pop fans. It's a hard-contested field. 8-track cartridges have been revered for some time, lauded by Big Black et al, but there are, as far as I know, no songs about musicassettes or cassingles. I would like someone to take the opportunity to tackle these artefacts in song before they disappear from the collective memory for ever.
The album was, at the time, a dreadful disappointment. It was on some kind of major label, Chrysalis, I think, so it had to be shit. And that was the end of that really. They disappeared, dissolved. The unavoidably inferior Motorcycle Boy, drumming for Meat Whiplash, guest guitar on a Vaselines record, not much else as far as I know. Which is the way it should be really, like a slowly disappearing vapour trail in a blue blue Scottish sky.
THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN: THE RIOT YEARS Everybody loves a riot, and I am no exception. But real riots can be so unpredictable. It's all too easy to get a brick in the back of the head or a truncheon up the jacksy. One rioter once asked me if I could lend him a handkerchief with which to obscure his features, but the only I had had bogeys, so I was forced to pretend I hadn't got one. When I first started working in the Basque Country, Friday night was riot night. We would come out of work to be met by the huge hulking figures of riot police and would have to basically follow a line of them up to the railway station, which was being guarded to dissuade the disaffected youth from indulging in one of the favourite pastimes, setting fire to means of public transport. This is all very well, but it can (and did) go wrong, and the regular bouts of stone throwing were as unpredictable as forest fires. Good fun, I admit, but best to keep your distance if you value your freedom and/or physical integrity. So what better way to enjoy a riot than in the controlled environment of a small concert hall or nightclub? This was the brave social experiment carried out by followers of The Jesus and Mary Chain in the mid-eighties. Like May '68 without the slogans. The Jesus and Mary Chain made great records, records with cheese wire solos and dustbin lid drums. They were unavoidably exciting, and the experience of very loud feedback in a confined space could be quite agitating. Add to this the group's habit of playing for ten minutes or so before skulking off-stage and it is no real surprise tempers could be stretched to breaking point, if indeed this is what happened rather than just people "having a laugh" or whatever.
I went to see The Jesus and Mary Chain at Nottingham Rock City when the riot thing was still in the air. I was under-age and had borrowed my brother's provisional driver's licence. I had some kind of mental block at the door when the bouncer asked my date of birth and was ejected from the queue and put in some kind of holding pen, all my rock'n'roll dreams in the balance. I can't remember how I managed to convince my interlocutors that I really was over eighteen, but I did. Me in my cut-off donkey jacket. This was, after all, the time of the miners' strike (another false legend) or thereabouts and a cut-off donkey jacket seemed like a nice balance between a statement of solidarity and Duranee-baiting stylishness.
Once inside the venue (a fairly charmless place next to a car park, but by the far the most exciting place I had ever been) the long wait began. I think there were two support bands, but they were the kind that pay to get on the tour and everybody hates them. They must have got a fair bit of abuse that night. Someone's elder sister was working behind the bar (no doubt a glamorous student at Nottingham Poly), and gave my friends cheap drinks, but not me, because I had embarrassed myself in front of her in some drunken incident or other involving vinegar. I considered being mortified but... nah, no point. We waited. And waited. We had some chips. We waited, waited, waited. By now the venue was filling up and it was clear that quite a few people were there for a ruck - men with moustaches and white trainers, Terry-from-Brooksidealikes, Clough-era Notts Forest fans, definitely not people interested in The Jesus and Mary Chain and their clearly delineated scalpel slice through Warhol-fuelled selective rock'n'roll history. My clearest memory of the night is everyone, JAMC freaks and ruck boys alike, standing around trying to look tough when the DJ played Time Flies By When You're The Driver Of A Train by Half Man Half Biscuit at ear-bleeding volume. Try it some time, it's a pretty tricky pose to pull off.
Eventually the objects of our adulation shambled onto the stage. Obviously at the time I had a Bobby crush, so I was disappointed that Gillespie had either decided on a new sticky-uppy haircut or had been replaced. It later transpired (via the Hello Goodbye section of Mojo Magazine) that this gig was the début of John Moore. Bobby G was there, but backstage, giving his replacement moral support. Apparently he told him that all that was expected of him was to keep time, look good and dodge the bottles. Well, he didn't look good, and there were no bottles thrown. It was a disappointment, Bobby G not playing, and I find it hard to cling to the notion that this was some kind of historical event, a new drummer being baptised. I suppose in effect it was the beginning of a very slow end. The gig itself wasn't very good really, not after such a long wait. I think they were on for about half an hour, and I think they'd learned to defuse the latent violence by playing an excruciatingly long version of one of their more tuneless B-sides. Certainly the aforementioned Terrys from Brookside were hoping to start something by shoving and pushing and swearing and threatening, but the majority of punters were gentle souls more inclined to Pastelism than punishment, and nothing really happened. I'm glad I went, but to be honest, it wasn't much good. I loved the feedback, loved the melodies, loved the idea, but the vocals were almost inaudible, the shape and texture of the records was lost, and you couldn't help feeling that the band's obvious contempt for their audience was kind of deserved. That's not a nice feeling. So we all trooped out and some of us returned to the land of the tractor and the cow-pat, and went back to school next day with something to brag about and a legend to start building.
Years later I saw The Jesus and Mary Chain again in Prague. They were fantastic, but my abiding memory of that particular ghostly tube stop on the Revolution line from 1968 to 1989 was the wonderful sound of Big Star's Big Black Car hollowing its way from the PA in a cavernous venue as the audience trickled in. This time I was with people who'd taken real risks in the name of rock'n'roll, for which read freedom, people who'd run samizdat printing presses and so on, people who felt it was a really big deal to see The Jesus and Mary Chain. So I knew I was in the right place, and that I had been in the right place all along.
(I wanted to embed this, but I can't get it to work, but please click away.It is a video entitled The Jesus and Mary Chain North London Poly Riot)
One of the first LPs my sister and I bought together (by the cliched but nonetheless effective methodology of saving up our pocket money) was Dexys Midnight Runners' debut album, Searching For the Young Soul Rebels (1980). Listening to it again, it's stood up very well; it's full of humour, intelligence and acute observations as well as the distinctive sounds of a kick ass horn section. Classic songs on the album include "Geno", still a great and curiously moving song; and the hyperarticulate "There There My Dear".
One song in particular, Thankfully Not Living in Yorkshire It Doesn't Apply, reminds me of dancing in the livingroom with a guy we called Randy Andy, a friend of my mum's in the category normally known as "freak", laughing with sheer joy because he was such a funky mover. The song contains the inimitable line "Lord have mercy on me, keep me away from Leeds". Which at the time, based on a complete absence of evidence, we deduced was about the Yorkshire Ripper.
Dexys went through some odd incarnations after this northern soul, teams-that-meet-in-caffs period: moving from serious, rather po-faced men in black clad in woollen hats to embrace the excesses of the day. Who can forget the risible dungarees circa "Come on Eileen" and the questionable hair? To the jaundiced eye, the age old problem: they seemed to have sold out as they got more popular. Their appearance on Top of the Pops for Jacky Wilson Said was notable for the pictures of darts player Jocky Wilson displayed in error by BBC props staff. Kevin Rowland went through several breakdowns and ended up heavily made up and wearing a dress on the cover of his solo album My Beauty. Not that there's anything wrong with this, of course; better a dress than dungarees.
I think this was the most expensive British musical ever, or something like that, and was a total flop on release. Well, I think it is time it got the digging it deserves. It is so highly stylised that anyone who doesn't fully surrender themselves to its logic will not enjoy it. Once you enter into the spirit of its studio-bound Soho, however, it is top entertainment. The music, despite the involvement of Gil Evans, is a bit trying, to put it mildly. But surely this is better than an attempt at "authenticity", especially when the plot deals so explicitly with falsehood and prioritising practicality over idealism. That is does this with the help of Slim Gaillard is surely a one-off worth celebrating. Sade is surprisingly good, both visually and vocally. The protagonist, Colin, mouthing along to Paul Weller is quite a jolt. The choreographyis competent (to my ignorant eyes) and there are echoes of Fellini (explicit at one point), Ken Russell's Tommy film and Cliff vehicle The Young Ones. It is surprising to me that the likes of Patsy Kensit and Eddie Tenpole are not bigger stars than they are. Presumably Ray Davies's career was pretty slow at the time it was filmed, and his turn as a henpecked husband is gloriously understated. Surely this film would find more of a welcome in a world where the Pirates of the Carribeanseries is such a big earner. And where else are you going to find a film featuring a fight between rival groups shouting their allegiance to either "Mods!" or "Trads!" respectively. Not to mention the equally hens' teeth occurrence of the insult "chocolate drop" used in anger.
One unexpected advantage of the digital age is that I am now able to review Prime Minister's Questions every week. I can just press a button and my hard disk recording device will tape it for me, whether or not my attention is drawn to it by a lot of preceding fuss. This week was Nick Clegg's debut as Liberal head honcho. I thought he did OK, although I did not know who he was until he stood up. Never having watched PMQs in its entirety, I was surprised by how, erm, likable, or at least relatively entertaining, Big Dave Cameron is. At one point he answered a question from Big Gordon Brown, who insisted that he hadn't. This was a bit odd. Not side-splitting, just a it weird. The theatrical nature of the event helps, I think. After all, the proper debates are often unwatchable except by the hardy few. It was a few days ago, so I have forgotten most of it. I will have to either take notes or be a little more prompt next week.
Here is the tracklisting for my end of the year roundup CD, with reasons for choosing them. No one has heard it yet, but still.
1. JOHN BARRY – THE WHISPERERS
I watched this film when it was on the telly.
2. IAN BROWN – ILLEGAL ATTACKS
I particularly like Sinead O'Connor's contribution to this record. It is also here as a tribute to me seeing Ian Brown having a fag outside his hotel in Reading.
3. STYLE COUNCIL – SHOUT TO THE TOP (INSTRUMENTAL)
Not sure why this is here. It's good though. Better with the words, mind.
4. R DEAN TAYLOR – THERE'S A GHOST IN MY HOUSE
Got this on a Motown compilation for a quid out of Fopp before it went into meltdown.
5. GRINDERMAN – NO PUSSY BLUES
Apart from everything else, what I really love is the guitar sound, which is one of those little guitars. I did some research and found out that they are called travel guitars.
6. DINOSAUR JR – ALMOST READY
This is just brilliant really.
7. EDWYN COLLINS – HOME AGAIN
I went to his comeback concert.
8. JONA LEWIE – STOP THE CAVALRY
From the Stiff Records box set, most of which is rubbish. It was cheap, but I would still like my money back. Roogalator.
9 and 10 ROKY ERICKSON – BERMUDA/THE INTERPRETER
Again, I went to a concert, in this case, Roky Erickson's British debut. It was good, but nowhere near as good as these two songs, which are from a 7 inch single originally.
11 and 12 THE MONKS – CUCKOO/I CAN'T GET OVER YOU
This is a 7 inch single too, now extra tracks on the CD of the album. Edith has spent the past few minths asking for "cucko music", so I am always delighted when I come across something that fits that description.
13. TONY CONRAD WITH FAUST – THE DEATH OF THE COMPOSER WAS IN 1962
I went to a Tony Conrad concert in which he droned on for bleeding ages. Here is a nice short drone from his session with Faust.
14. TELEVISION – BLANK GENERATION (LIVE)
From a Richard Hell compilation CD, which might be the album of the year if I could be bothered listening to it more often.
15. YOKO ONO/J SPACEMAN – WALKING ON THIN ICE
From an album in which "guests" do new music for Yoko Ono songs. They are all pretty good, but this one stands out for me as WALL OF PAIN of the year.
16. SUPER FURRY ANIMALS – WALK AWAY
Bought this especially for this end of the year roundup. Had never heard it before, but it is good. Reminds me of the Dion does Roy Wood and Wizzard extra track on Dion's Born To Be With You (?) CD reisssue. And it has been another year of Wales in my head.
17. ESG – ERASE YOU
From a "rarities" CD, which I think is better than the non rarities CD I got a few years ago. I suppose the word is "insistent".
18. GORDON JACKSON – THE JOURNEY
19. LAURIE JOHNSON – THE PROFESSIONALS
My idea of a joke. Still, they are both very good. I find Gordon Jackson a bit too much like hard work, as is true with most of the folkies that are being dusted off these days. I hope they are all growers. This track is the most "psychedelic" on a fairly plodding album.
20. JOHN LENNON – NOBODY TOLD ME
I like this song. It is from the soundtrack to the film "John Lennon vs the USA" which was on the telly at some point. All the tracks on the soundtrack are political in some way. Here we are concerned with "Nazis in the bathroom", which has inspired me to draw a little Hitler moustache on our Toilet Duck.
It has very much been a year of Nazis too, what with "Downfall" and "Winnie and Wolf" both dealing with the Fuhrer.
I am begining to warm to my task, but there are only two tracks left.
21. CANDIE PAYNE – ONE MORE CHANCE (INSTRUMENTAL)
This is a Mark Ronson production. It has been his year as well. I hate the little twat. I like Candie Payne though, for bringing back kitchen sink psychedelia, my favourite imaginary genre . 22. WHITE NOISE – BLACK MASS: AN ELECTRIC STORM IN HELL
I hadn't actually heard this before putting it on here.
