I'm going to try and reactivate the blog after a long break and (on the good advice of one of my three followers - my brother Brian) just stick to music, movies and books from now on. So here we go with my take on an album released in 2000 by Paul Weller;- 'Heliocentric'
Despite having loved The Jam as a teenager (I still enjoy casually telling Weller fans under the age of 40 that I saw them live 4 times between May 1979 - my first ever gig - and February 1981), and admired (loved may be too strong a word) The Style Council as a twenty something finding my way in the world, I'm not really sure why I chose to simply ignore the majority of Paul Weller's solo career (certainly his output following the `Britpop Years' and his 1998 greatest hits anyway) until now, when a recent chance encounter with his 'As Is Now' album made me decide to binge out on his back catalogue.
Perhaps it makes some sense that now I have at least some of the characteristics of what the cynical media might term a `typical Weller fan' (a 45 year old Dad who wears inexpensive Lambretta and Ben Sherman clothing to go and do the Tesco shop on a Saturday morning and could, if pushed, recite most of the script of `Quadrophenia' from memory) I should now start catching up with his 21st Century output too.
And so to `Heliocentric' his fifth solo studio album, originally released in 2000. Of all the Weller albums I have been listening to whilst playing catch up over the past few months, Heliocentric has been the most surprising in that (despite many negative reviews I have read, both recent and from the time of its release) it has completely knocked me for six and is, in a word, superb.
Perhaps ten years ago (with `Britpop' as we knew it in the 1990s pretty much dead and buried) this album may have sounded a bit old hat, I don't know, I didn't hear it then, so I can only really go on my reaction to it now, at the start of the summer 2010 and I absolutely love it.
Heliocentric certainly demands a few plays, all the way through and all in one go, before it really starts to weave its magic on the listener. Often slated by detractors as being similarly paced and `plodding' this could not be further from the truth; every song on the album is unique, carefully constructed and beautifully performed.
Other reviewers have said that the songs get better and better as the album progresses; this is also a view I share, although I personally do not think there is one even vaguely weak track amongst them all. If you want what could be classed as `typical' Weller then the opener; `He's The Keeper' will not disappoint. It's a slow paced rock song very much in the late Small Faces style delivered with emotion and punch. It is also a tribute to former Small Face and latter day Face Ronnie Lane. `Frightened' is a Lennon styled ballad with an excellent, vulnerable lyric, which is followed by Weller's often maligned ode to his daughter; `Sweet Pea' which is cute and harmless, bringing to mind Don Partridge's 1968 one-man-band anthem `Rosie'. Next up is `A Whale's Tale' a raucous and oddball sing a long dealing with (I think) themes of victimisation. All in all a great start, but things really kick into gear with `Back In The Fire' a stirring and slightly sinister Blur-esque trip hop in which Weller rants (in his much loved Woking accent, not the American singing voice he has adopted more in recent years) about being `handcuffed to some wanker' with genuine bile as of old
The sublime string arrangements are one of this albums secret weapons, perhaps none more so than on the huge ballad `Dust And Rocks'. Then comes the incredible `There Is No Drinking After You're Dead' - musically much faster paced and aggresive, but with a slow drawling vocal very reminiscent of Cream at their most psychedelic. Razor sharp and bristling with energy - it even manages to go a bit exotic with an eastern themed string break in the middle. `With Time And Temperance' is another reflection on Weller's (then) recent marriage breakdown. Another superb melody that leads to a haunting and trippy outro. I don't know why, but this song (to me at least) sounds a great deal like some long lost Jam single from mid 1981 which can only be a good thing. OK so we are getting on to the end of the album now with `Picking Up Sticks' - a truly incredible piece of funky West Coast psychedelia with a ridiculously catchy keyboard riff throughout and a short `drum solo' during the instrumental work out at the end. I love drum solos anyway so I'm happy (Perhaps Weller could recruit Ginger Baker for a future tour, then allow him a full on 15 minute `Toad' solo whilst he nips off to change his mohair suit!) So that just leaves the closing ballad `Love-Less' which is very soulful (in a kind of `What's Going On' way) and builds to such a gorgeous `goose bumps' crescendo of an ending that leaves you with an exhilarated `how the hell do I follow that?' feeling.
You follow it by simply starting it all again from the beginning as I have been doing, pausing only to eat, work and sleep, for about four weeks now.
I kid you not; this album is incredible and without doubt one of the best of Weller's entire career. Listen to it now with the warm Summer months ahead - it's a perfect soundtrack to sunny days and warm balmy evenings. Alternatively, play it in the middle of Winter and its sunny vibe will save you a packet on heating bills. Brilliant stuff. (9/10)
Wednesday 26 May 2010
Thursday 25 February 2010
Concerning Francoise Hardy.................
I’m never much happier than when I have a good, wholesome, all consuming music fad taking over my life, so happy indeed I am to report that I am at the moment listening to very little apart from French pop from the 1960s, in particular Francoise Hardy.
Regular readers of my blog (there are millions, I keep telling myself) will know that to my shame, I decided to investigate her music after building up a crush of monolithic proportions based on a photo of her from 1966 that was given pride of place in my legendary (but very tasteful) ‘Fittie Folder’. But the truth is I am not quite that shallow and the only reason I found that photo in the first place was because I was already listening to Serge Gainsbourg and there she was, in all her loveliness, on the ‘if you like this you might enjoy this’ bit of Gainsbourg’s Amazon pages.
My starting point was what turned out to be possibly the best value CD I have ever bought, a Hardy compilation called ‘The Vogue Years’ – 50 tracks on a double CD package, excellent photos and sleevenotes and all a bargain at £4.50 with free P&P from Amazon. 50 tracks in one go from an artist I am completely new to is a lot to take on, so, being Col, I stuck it on I-tunes (and straight onto the ipod), found myself an excellent Hardy discography online, then spent a long evening splitting the tracks into sections based on the original album they first appeared on. I even downloaded the cover art for each album, so that anyone casually browsing through my ‘pod’ will be bowled over at the extent of my Hardy collection (or perhaps not). All in all this has made it a lot easier to listen in relevant, smaller sections rather than trawling through the whole thing in one go.
Despite the fact that she audibly matures musically (and I presume lyrically, although I never did pay much attention in French lessons) over the period covered here (1962 – 1967) there is a generally pleasant ambience throughout, conjuring up images of Parisien pavement cafes, good quality coffee, non tipped Gaulloises and beautiful young people on scooters or in Deux Cheveaux. This is of course aided by the fact that all songs (on this compilation at least, as she did record in English and other languages too) are sung in her native French. She was (still is) a very clever lady too, writing most of her own songs and playing the guitar. The language barrier is no big deal, as her voice is beautiful in itself, soft and understated; the only comparison I can make is that at times she sounds a little Marianne Faithful in her early days of the mid sixties when recording for Decca. There are many beautiful songs here (I can honestly say I don’t think there is a ‘bad’ track out of the entire 50), many of which have a familiar melody and may well have been re-written into English hits, but at this moment in time I can’t think of a single example.
The earlier material here is more conventional 1960s pop, blending influences of twist, beat, Phil Spector and the ‘Wall Of Sound’, The Shadows, Motown and The Beatles, later progressing to introspective folk, plaintive ballads, rock and more traditional French ‘chanson’
I’m still getting acquainted with what is effectively an ‘instant Francoise collection’ (it’s certainly too comprehensive to be considered just a ‘greatest hits’) and it continues to grow on me, but so far, for me the strongest material is from what seems to be two of her most critically acclaimed albums; ‘Mon Amie Le Rose’ (1964) and ‘L’Amitee’ (1965) both of which are included almost in their entirety on ‘The Vogue Years’
This is very beautiful, unimposing, melodic pop from a fine, talented artist that is the perfect antidote to all that is the stress of modern life. Something as simple and accessible as this music and her fine voice can not only take me away from things for a while, but reaffirm my love of life in the process.
In a word, 'Wow'
Regular readers of my blog (there are millions, I keep telling myself) will know that to my shame, I decided to investigate her music after building up a crush of monolithic proportions based on a photo of her from 1966 that was given pride of place in my legendary (but very tasteful) ‘Fittie Folder’. But the truth is I am not quite that shallow and the only reason I found that photo in the first place was because I was already listening to Serge Gainsbourg and there she was, in all her loveliness, on the ‘if you like this you might enjoy this’ bit of Gainsbourg’s Amazon pages.
My starting point was what turned out to be possibly the best value CD I have ever bought, a Hardy compilation called ‘The Vogue Years’ – 50 tracks on a double CD package, excellent photos and sleevenotes and all a bargain at £4.50 with free P&P from Amazon. 50 tracks in one go from an artist I am completely new to is a lot to take on, so, being Col, I stuck it on I-tunes (and straight onto the ipod), found myself an excellent Hardy discography online, then spent a long evening splitting the tracks into sections based on the original album they first appeared on. I even downloaded the cover art for each album, so that anyone casually browsing through my ‘pod’ will be bowled over at the extent of my Hardy collection (or perhaps not). All in all this has made it a lot easier to listen in relevant, smaller sections rather than trawling through the whole thing in one go.
Despite the fact that she audibly matures musically (and I presume lyrically, although I never did pay much attention in French lessons) over the period covered here (1962 – 1967) there is a generally pleasant ambience throughout, conjuring up images of Parisien pavement cafes, good quality coffee, non tipped Gaulloises and beautiful young people on scooters or in Deux Cheveaux. This is of course aided by the fact that all songs (on this compilation at least, as she did record in English and other languages too) are sung in her native French. She was (still is) a very clever lady too, writing most of her own songs and playing the guitar. The language barrier is no big deal, as her voice is beautiful in itself, soft and understated; the only comparison I can make is that at times she sounds a little Marianne Faithful in her early days of the mid sixties when recording for Decca. There are many beautiful songs here (I can honestly say I don’t think there is a ‘bad’ track out of the entire 50), many of which have a familiar melody and may well have been re-written into English hits, but at this moment in time I can’t think of a single example.
The earlier material here is more conventional 1960s pop, blending influences of twist, beat, Phil Spector and the ‘Wall Of Sound’, The Shadows, Motown and The Beatles, later progressing to introspective folk, plaintive ballads, rock and more traditional French ‘chanson’
I’m still getting acquainted with what is effectively an ‘instant Francoise collection’ (it’s certainly too comprehensive to be considered just a ‘greatest hits’) and it continues to grow on me, but so far, for me the strongest material is from what seems to be two of her most critically acclaimed albums; ‘Mon Amie Le Rose’ (1964) and ‘L’Amitee’ (1965) both of which are included almost in their entirety on ‘The Vogue Years’
This is very beautiful, unimposing, melodic pop from a fine, talented artist that is the perfect antidote to all that is the stress of modern life. Something as simple and accessible as this music and her fine voice can not only take me away from things for a while, but reaffirm my love of life in the process.
In a word, 'Wow'
Monday 22 February 2010
My Humble Tribute To Uncle Seamus
Uncle Seamus passed away yesterday. I don't know all the details other than his funeral is tomorrow (no hanging about in Ireland - very similar to Spain really - this time last year Ana was frantically trying to get a flight out in time for the funeral of our late beloved Abuelita who was to be buried about 18 hours after passing away) He'd had a good long life (in his late 80s) and as he had been a widower for a few years since Auntie Lizzie passed away, I hope the end was a peaceful one and, if things work out the way they should, they can be reunited in a better place.
I have a few memories of Uncle Seamus, so I thought I would put them in my blog by way of a humble tribute.
I first met him on one of only two visits I have made in my lifetime to Dad's homeland of Co Antrim in Northern Ireland. We went as a family (with the exception of new born Matt, who we left home alone - just kidding of course - he stayed with a friend of Mum's who was apparently dying to look after him - which was fine by me, because I still hadn't got quite used to the competition) in the summer of 1969, when I was 4 years old. We saw a lot of Seamus and Lizzie and their own kids at that time were in their teens and early twenties I think. He drove a VW Beetle, and I dropped a Double 99 ice cream cone on his shoes whilst legging it back a little too excited from the ice cream van on the beach at Cushendal. He had a great 'knee bouncing' technique (rather like Dad) and coined my official Irish nick-name, 'Colin Glen Sausages' (look, I was 4 ok, and maybe you had to be there, but I appreciated it anyway)
In the early 70s, Seamus and Lizzie came to stay with us in Bounds Green Road and I remember spending a whole afternoon entertaining them with a lengthy but banging DJ Set of all of Dad's Nana Mouskouri singles (and he had a few I can tell you), finished off with 'The Black Velvet Band' (the only Irish single I remember we had at the time) played at the wrong speed for comedy effect (there could be an act in there somewhere - mental note to contact 'Britain's Got Talent')
The last time I had the pleasure of a few days in his company was back in 1990, my second visit to Co Antrim and this time with my new bride (Ana) who I wanted to show Dad's side of the family (I had been taken to Spain the previous year to meet Ana's equally huge Spanish side of the family) It was only a little over a year since Dad had died and when Uncle Seamus arrived at one of the many big gatherings that were held in our honour, it was heartbreaking to see how much like Dad he was, in his looks, his mannerisms, even the way he stood; on the sidelines, hand on chin, nodding in silent approval to himself at the fine gathering of family around him. Towards the end of our stay, Seamus and Lizzie took us on a whirlwind tour of all their (now grown up) offspring with all their own families, and a full works chinese meal in Antrim town. Seamus was even then quite hard of hearing, added to which there was a band march happening outside, so conversation was limited because he couldn't hear a thing anyway. I remember being quite happy just to sit and watch him, a good and dignified man, just like Dad and all his brothers.
That's my own little personal tribute to Uncle Seamus. May he rest in peace.
I have a few memories of Uncle Seamus, so I thought I would put them in my blog by way of a humble tribute.
I first met him on one of only two visits I have made in my lifetime to Dad's homeland of Co Antrim in Northern Ireland. We went as a family (with the exception of new born Matt, who we left home alone - just kidding of course - he stayed with a friend of Mum's who was apparently dying to look after him - which was fine by me, because I still hadn't got quite used to the competition) in the summer of 1969, when I was 4 years old. We saw a lot of Seamus and Lizzie and their own kids at that time were in their teens and early twenties I think. He drove a VW Beetle, and I dropped a Double 99 ice cream cone on his shoes whilst legging it back a little too excited from the ice cream van on the beach at Cushendal. He had a great 'knee bouncing' technique (rather like Dad) and coined my official Irish nick-name, 'Colin Glen Sausages' (look, I was 4 ok, and maybe you had to be there, but I appreciated it anyway)
In the early 70s, Seamus and Lizzie came to stay with us in Bounds Green Road and I remember spending a whole afternoon entertaining them with a lengthy but banging DJ Set of all of Dad's Nana Mouskouri singles (and he had a few I can tell you), finished off with 'The Black Velvet Band' (the only Irish single I remember we had at the time) played at the wrong speed for comedy effect (there could be an act in there somewhere - mental note to contact 'Britain's Got Talent')
The last time I had the pleasure of a few days in his company was back in 1990, my second visit to Co Antrim and this time with my new bride (Ana) who I wanted to show Dad's side of the family (I had been taken to Spain the previous year to meet Ana's equally huge Spanish side of the family) It was only a little over a year since Dad had died and when Uncle Seamus arrived at one of the many big gatherings that were held in our honour, it was heartbreaking to see how much like Dad he was, in his looks, his mannerisms, even the way he stood; on the sidelines, hand on chin, nodding in silent approval to himself at the fine gathering of family around him. Towards the end of our stay, Seamus and Lizzie took us on a whirlwind tour of all their (now grown up) offspring with all their own families, and a full works chinese meal in Antrim town. Seamus was even then quite hard of hearing, added to which there was a band march happening outside, so conversation was limited because he couldn't hear a thing anyway. I remember being quite happy just to sit and watch him, a good and dignified man, just like Dad and all his brothers.
That's my own little personal tribute to Uncle Seamus. May he rest in peace.
Thursday 18 February 2010
A Couple Of Hammer 'Dracula' Movies Revisited...
Last night (for want of something better to do) I watched ‘Brides Of Dracula’ and ‘Dracula Prince Of Darkness’ back to back. I honestly don’t think I have watched either of those in the last 30 odd years and I have no idea why I was suddenly struck with the desire for a ‘Hammer Double Bill’ but there you go.
Although ‘Brides’ has no Dracula, and therefore no Christopher Lee, I think it is by far the better of the two. Baron Meinster (David Peel) at least has some dialogue and a bit of character development (as opposed to Lee hissing a few times and having a dreadful girly fight with the hero of ‘Prince’) and of course Cushing is excellent as Van Helsing. There are some terrific characters in ‘Brides’ too, the super camp Baroness, the hypochondriac, money obsessed doctor and the completely barking Freda too, as well as the overtones of incest and homo eroticism (Meinster is not fussy about sinking his fangs into his own Mum, or indeed Cushing) lacking in other movies of the franchise. That’s not to say he isn’t averse to also infiltrating the gothic equivalent of a ‘Carry On Camping’ style all girls school to spread his wickedness and even proposing marriage to the sauce pot French heroine who was silly enough to release him in the first place. Even the ridiculous plot padding in ‘Brides’ is amusing and enjoyable (the Innkeepers speech about how ‘my horse brasses remind me of the different seasons of the year’ – excellent stuff) and it has a superb ending too, so the crap rubber bats earlier in the film can be excused on this occasion.
Prince of Darkness is OK I suppose, but takes bloody ages to get going. The non speaking, hissing, girly fighting Lee is probably on screen for a total of about 15 minutes and the Victorian Yuppy types who visit the castle invite no sympathy whatsoever. Most annoying of all is the old ‘quick it’s getting dark now’ routine when it is clearly still broad daylight (I know this was because of budget constraints, but is really is dreadful) Lee (so menacing, not to mention quick on his feet in the original Hammer ‘Dracula’) fannies around waving his arms about on the ice (in the bloody broad daylight!) and that’s about it.
It’s not all bad though, Father Sandor makes for an entertaining Van Helsing replacement (and gives an excellent speech about the pleasure of warming one’s arse in front of the fire) and there is a fine cameo by the ever reliable*** Thorley Walters.
Anyhow, I enjoyed both movies enough to want more, so it looks like I’m going to have a plod through the whole Hammer ‘Dracula’ franchise. Prepare therefore for more razor sharp critique in the near future……………………………….if you read Empire magazine, otherwise look out for more of my Drac related babbling.
*** Except perhaps for his (apparently half cut and not having troubled to learn his lines) Police Inspector in ‘Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed’ of course.
Although ‘Brides’ has no Dracula, and therefore no Christopher Lee, I think it is by far the better of the two. Baron Meinster (David Peel) at least has some dialogue and a bit of character development (as opposed to Lee hissing a few times and having a dreadful girly fight with the hero of ‘Prince’) and of course Cushing is excellent as Van Helsing. There are some terrific characters in ‘Brides’ too, the super camp Baroness, the hypochondriac, money obsessed doctor and the completely barking Freda too, as well as the overtones of incest and homo eroticism (Meinster is not fussy about sinking his fangs into his own Mum, or indeed Cushing) lacking in other movies of the franchise. That’s not to say he isn’t averse to also infiltrating the gothic equivalent of a ‘Carry On Camping’ style all girls school to spread his wickedness and even proposing marriage to the sauce pot French heroine who was silly enough to release him in the first place. Even the ridiculous plot padding in ‘Brides’ is amusing and enjoyable (the Innkeepers speech about how ‘my horse brasses remind me of the different seasons of the year’ – excellent stuff) and it has a superb ending too, so the crap rubber bats earlier in the film can be excused on this occasion.
Prince of Darkness is OK I suppose, but takes bloody ages to get going. The non speaking, hissing, girly fighting Lee is probably on screen for a total of about 15 minutes and the Victorian Yuppy types who visit the castle invite no sympathy whatsoever. Most annoying of all is the old ‘quick it’s getting dark now’ routine when it is clearly still broad daylight (I know this was because of budget constraints, but is really is dreadful) Lee (so menacing, not to mention quick on his feet in the original Hammer ‘Dracula’) fannies around waving his arms about on the ice (in the bloody broad daylight!) and that’s about it.
It’s not all bad though, Father Sandor makes for an entertaining Van Helsing replacement (and gives an excellent speech about the pleasure of warming one’s arse in front of the fire) and there is a fine cameo by the ever reliable*** Thorley Walters.
Anyhow, I enjoyed both movies enough to want more, so it looks like I’m going to have a plod through the whole Hammer ‘Dracula’ franchise. Prepare therefore for more razor sharp critique in the near future……………………………….if you read Empire magazine, otherwise look out for more of my Drac related babbling.
*** Except perhaps for his (apparently half cut and not having troubled to learn his lines) Police Inspector in ‘Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed’ of course.
Wednesday 17 February 2010
To My Old Friends (and How I'm Shit At Fantasy Footie)
This season my 'Fantasy Premier League' team has been a disaster, simply because I could not leave the team alone. I have been the kiss of death to the form of many a player this season in my quest for points, using up my weekly transfer allocation greedily, and often losing points for additional transfers, but nearly always too late. The prime example seems to be Jermaine Defoe; he stuck five past Wigan in an incredible 9-1 victory (which considering Spurs' current form seems like an eternity ago) so of course I signed him at the expense of Adebayor and made him Captain too. How many league goals has he scored since? He's probably missed more penalties than scored goals. Clint Dempsey - on a brilliant run of form for Fulham pre Christmas, so I sign him and sure enough he's crocked probably for the rest of the season. These are just two examples misguided errors of judgement I have made week in and week out. Like the scab on your knee after falling over as a kid, heed the advice - leave it alone and it will get better quicker, but I just had to keep fiddling........................
So if there is a player you would like to see have a sudden dip in form (I'm not going to say 'or you would like to see injured' because that's just plain wrong) let me know and for a small fee I could arrange for him to ruin his career by means of a 'virtual' stint with the phenomenally bad 'Tweets And Twinchers'
Far more successful has been my management of Deportivo (my late Spanish Grandad-In-Law's favourite team) in 'Soccer Manager' (you've guessed it, another online, free to play management game) I took the club over 7 games into last season (a season lasts about half the length of the normal 'real life' season with two games per week) when they were rock bottom with 2 points from 7 games. I sold a few duffers, signed Crouch, Felipe Melo and Von Bronkhorst (to name but a few) and turned things round to the extent that they missed out on a play-off spot by a goal difference of 1!
The new season starts on Sunday and the virtual message board tells me that my chairman expects promotion this season. I'll see what I can do.................
As if that wasn't enough, I have taken on a second 'Soccer Manager' club, Brighton and Hove Albion, who incidentally are 'playing' as I write this so I must scarper.
I just want to say that my involvement in these games (all thanks to the persuasive skills of my fine friend The Prof) has been a great way of keeping in touch with a whole load of great friends and colleagues who were once a very major part of my life, and even if it is just the occasional 'I'll whup your arse in the replay' sent via private message(which is no subsitute to the few pints and nappy night at Empire like in the old days), at least it's some contact and that's always better than none.
Aaaah - good old days with good old boys.
Col
So if there is a player you would like to see have a sudden dip in form (I'm not going to say 'or you would like to see injured' because that's just plain wrong) let me know and for a small fee I could arrange for him to ruin his career by means of a 'virtual' stint with the phenomenally bad 'Tweets And Twinchers'
Far more successful has been my management of Deportivo (my late Spanish Grandad-In-Law's favourite team) in 'Soccer Manager' (you've guessed it, another online, free to play management game) I took the club over 7 games into last season (a season lasts about half the length of the normal 'real life' season with two games per week) when they were rock bottom with 2 points from 7 games. I sold a few duffers, signed Crouch, Felipe Melo and Von Bronkhorst (to name but a few) and turned things round to the extent that they missed out on a play-off spot by a goal difference of 1!
The new season starts on Sunday and the virtual message board tells me that my chairman expects promotion this season. I'll see what I can do.................
As if that wasn't enough, I have taken on a second 'Soccer Manager' club, Brighton and Hove Albion, who incidentally are 'playing' as I write this so I must scarper.
I just want to say that my involvement in these games (all thanks to the persuasive skills of my fine friend The Prof) has been a great way of keeping in touch with a whole load of great friends and colleagues who were once a very major part of my life, and even if it is just the occasional 'I'll whup your arse in the replay' sent via private message(which is no subsitute to the few pints and nappy night at Empire like in the old days), at least it's some contact and that's always better than none.
Aaaah - good old days with good old boys.
Col
Friday 12 February 2010
Gothic Ghost and Horror Fiction (WhhhooooooOO!)
For just about as long as I have been able to read I have always loved 'scary' fiction; ghost, horror, the supernatural, I'll read it. I am working on a blog article / series about the legendary 'Pan Book Of Horror Stories' so I won't go on about them now, other than to say that when I was an impressionable youngster, I favoured the trahsy 'torture porn' and anatomical horror of the later 'Pans' which was far more blatant and a quicker fix than the subtle horrors of the classic gothic tales. These I found a bit of a bore simply because they took a little effort to read, and besides, some poor put upon doormat of a bloke wasn't chopping his nagging wife into little pieces halfway through the second page (I'm thinking directly of a story called 'Case Of Insanity' in Pan Vol 11 by the way - just shows how they stick in my mind)
My interest in the classic 'gothic' tales by Le Fanu, M R James, Stoker, Bierce, etc etc etc has been revived in adult life by the excellent Vault Of Evil website, where there is a wealth of information and synopses of Victorian, Edwardian and Pre-War horror fiction (thats only a small part of the site - you are equally welcome to read about - or chat on the boards about - 'Rubbish Movie Monsters' if you want to) I have written some stuff for Vault myself; I did a few 'Pan Horror' reviews on there last year.
I have learned from my recent renewed acquaintance with Vault that the excellent 'Wordsworth' (responsible for publishing a huge and good quality budget priced range of 'The Classics' in the early 1990s) have for the past couple of years been publishing a (huge and good quality) range called 'Wordsworth Mystery & The Supernatural' a comprehensive collection of gothic horror fiction both well known and obscure. And of course because it's Wordsworth, the books look excellent and are an absolute bargain at just £2 or £3 a throw.
So naturally enough I got straight on to Amazon this evening (I can afford a grand total of ONE book!) and have spent ages trawling through the 65 titles currently available, finally settling on the excellent sounding 'Gothic Short Stories' - the first of many I'm sure.
(I have just read back what I have written so far this evening, and to be quite frank, if this was someone else's blog that I was reading I would be thinking 'get a life you sad freak, so you bought a sodding ghost book for two quid and you're wetting your knickers with excitement, and you spend ages on a nerdy-arsed horror site - Great! all the more reason to hit 'publish post' immediately without editing.....)
But before I do, let me just recommend what is to me the best and scariest 'gothic' horror story I have read; it's called 'The Judges House' by Bram Stoker and it's a genuinely unsettling tale. I've got a copy you can borrow if you're interested (sorry I'm now subconciously writing direct to my brother Brian who I know reads my blog, that's if you didn't give up with sheer boredom weeks ago) or you can go here;
http://www.online-literature.com/stoker/820/
(That's not a link to 'Vault Of Evil' by the way!
More to follow
Col
My interest in the classic 'gothic' tales by Le Fanu, M R James, Stoker, Bierce, etc etc etc has been revived in adult life by the excellent Vault Of Evil website, where there is a wealth of information and synopses of Victorian, Edwardian and Pre-War horror fiction (thats only a small part of the site - you are equally welcome to read about - or chat on the boards about - 'Rubbish Movie Monsters' if you want to) I have written some stuff for Vault myself; I did a few 'Pan Horror' reviews on there last year.
I have learned from my recent renewed acquaintance with Vault that the excellent 'Wordsworth' (responsible for publishing a huge and good quality budget priced range of 'The Classics' in the early 1990s) have for the past couple of years been publishing a (huge and good quality) range called 'Wordsworth Mystery & The Supernatural' a comprehensive collection of gothic horror fiction both well known and obscure. And of course because it's Wordsworth, the books look excellent and are an absolute bargain at just £2 or £3 a throw.
So naturally enough I got straight on to Amazon this evening (I can afford a grand total of ONE book!) and have spent ages trawling through the 65 titles currently available, finally settling on the excellent sounding 'Gothic Short Stories' - the first of many I'm sure.
(I have just read back what I have written so far this evening, and to be quite frank, if this was someone else's blog that I was reading I would be thinking 'get a life you sad freak, so you bought a sodding ghost book for two quid and you're wetting your knickers with excitement, and you spend ages on a nerdy-arsed horror site - Great! all the more reason to hit 'publish post' immediately without editing.....)
But before I do, let me just recommend what is to me the best and scariest 'gothic' horror story I have read; it's called 'The Judges House' by Bram Stoker and it's a genuinely unsettling tale. I've got a copy you can borrow if you're interested (sorry I'm now subconciously writing direct to my brother Brian who I know reads my blog, that's if you didn't give up with sheer boredom weeks ago) or you can go here;
http://www.online-literature.com/stoker/820/
(That's not a link to 'Vault Of Evil' by the way!
More to follow
Col
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Random Rants and A Child Spooked
Not a good night on the footy front, especially if you are a Spurs fan (guilty) and have recently taken over as manager of Brighton & Hove Albion in the highly addictive online Soccer Manager game (yep, that'll be me too)
Spurs are mediocre once more - all the promise of the early season seems like an eternity ago as they go down 0-1 to Wolves for the second time in a couple of months.
As for Virtual Brighton, it's now three games in charge and three losses, despite having snapped up Keiran Dyer and Stephen Carr (come on they're not that old) as free agents.
Just putting my head round the door tonight really - I have loads of blogs in progress but nothing else ready. And there are distractions too; Soccer Manager for a start, plus I am renewing my acquaintance after a lengthy break with the good people on the boards at Vault Of Evil, an excellent site devoted to ghost and horror fiction, movies and TV, past and present. It's especially good on books and there are many like minded souls on there happy to chat away about anything from classic B&W Brit Sci-Fi to what was the scariest thing you saw on telly as a kid. Which leads me to this, my main entry for today, and I'm going to cheat by copying here a little thing I wrote on Vault yesterday; The most scared I have been by anything on TV ever was a public information film from the mid 70s for the 'Keep Matches Away From Children' campaign. What made matters worse it was shown on ITV during ad breaks so there was no "there now follows a public information film" warning to give me time to leg it outof the room. I was cheerfully drinking a cocoa and watching 'Within These Walls' one Saturday night in '75, when suddenly this came along and ruined my childhood!
I was only 10 at the time, and I certainly learned my lesson; after seeing this I made sure that from then on I always lit my crack pipe from the gas stove.............
Here is a link (make sure you have the sound up too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I6qF6Tz_k
but if that doesn't work then go onto you tube and search 'Keep Matches Away From Children'
This still scares the shit out of me now - especially the wardrobe bit at the end........................................................
More to follow
Col
Spurs are mediocre once more - all the promise of the early season seems like an eternity ago as they go down 0-1 to Wolves for the second time in a couple of months.
As for Virtual Brighton, it's now three games in charge and three losses, despite having snapped up Keiran Dyer and Stephen Carr (come on they're not that old) as free agents.
Just putting my head round the door tonight really - I have loads of blogs in progress but nothing else ready. And there are distractions too; Soccer Manager for a start, plus I am renewing my acquaintance after a lengthy break with the good people on the boards at Vault Of Evil, an excellent site devoted to ghost and horror fiction, movies and TV, past and present. It's especially good on books and there are many like minded souls on there happy to chat away about anything from classic B&W Brit Sci-Fi to what was the scariest thing you saw on telly as a kid. Which leads me to this, my main entry for today, and I'm going to cheat by copying here a little thing I wrote on Vault yesterday; The most scared I have been by anything on TV ever was a public information film from the mid 70s for the 'Keep Matches Away From Children' campaign. What made matters worse it was shown on ITV during ad breaks so there was no "there now follows a public information film" warning to give me time to leg it outof the room. I was cheerfully drinking a cocoa and watching 'Within These Walls' one Saturday night in '75, when suddenly this came along and ruined my childhood!
I was only 10 at the time, and I certainly learned my lesson; after seeing this I made sure that from then on I always lit my crack pipe from the gas stove.............
Here is a link (make sure you have the sound up too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I6qF6Tz_k
but if that doesn't work then go onto you tube and search 'Keep Matches Away From Children'
This still scares the shit out of me now - especially the wardrobe bit at the end........................................................
More to follow
Col
Monday 8 February 2010
Look, I'm no Barry Norman, but.........
Just a quick round up of some films watched since last blog with marks out of ten too!
The Fly (1958)
Still miles better than the 1986 Jeff Goldblum ‘remake’ which tried to be far too clever for it’s own good, the 1958 original is good old fashioned late 50s Sci Fi / Horror fun. Vincent Price is the (very camp) good guy, although of course he makes a far superior (very camp) bad guy – he would have been better cast as the ambitious but unfortunate scientist who ends up with the arm and head of a fly after a mix up in his transportation device. The movie is well over half way through before anything remotely ‘scary’ happens, but the build up is still entertaining and it’s a great looking film, in glorious, totally unreal technicolor. Famous for the multi faceted ‘fly’s eye view’ of his screaming wife, and the “help me!” scene at the end (which apparently had to be shot umpteen times because Price couldn’t stop pissing himself laughing), this is a thoroughly enjoyable Sunday afternoon lazy movie. (6/10)
The Third Man (1949)
Ahem - A 'British Classic' nonetheless.I attempted The Third Man one night years ago after a hefty session at the pub, but was comatose half way through (a result of the quantity of the beer not the quality of the movie) It was also shown on at 23.45 on the night of Saturday 21st May 1994, which just happened to also be the date and time my beloved eldest was born - good enough reason for missing it then too. Beer and Babies eh? So this was the first time I've actually sat and watched it all the way through.
It’s an excellent take on the end of WWII from a different perspective (in this case occupied Austria) filled with strange, idiosyncratic characters and off kilter, dreamlike scenarios. Although it’s no great shock that the ruthless but charming Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is not dead after all, the revelations about the horrendous consequences of Lime’s racketeering (and his famous speech about the ‘little dots below’ during the scene on the big wheel) are stirring stuff. There is enough suspense, mystery, dirty dealing and danger to make this a great story in its own right, let alone the top-notch moody atmospherics and a terrific performance by the entire cast. (9/10)
District 9 (2009)
Bang up to date with this one, for a change. A Peter ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Jackson production, and closer in some ways to his earlier projects (low budget ‘splatter’ movies such as ‘Braindead’ and ‘Bad Taste’)
A tale of a race of aliens who (almost) crash landed on Earth in the 1980s and for twenty years have been given asylum by being allowed to ‘live’ in a shanty town in Johanesburg. Much of the film (especially the first half) comprises mock documentary, news reports and ‘fly on the wall’ style filming, as the tale of Wikus (the central character and to some extent the ultimate hero of the story, a bureaucratic nonentity at first who, like everyone else, demeans and exploits the alien race – known as ‘The Prawn’ – but soon learns to empathise with them after he – in a nutshell - starts to turn into a ‘Prawn’ himself, following contact with a liquid the aliens are secretly developing) unfolds.
This is an entertaining and highly original Sci Fi action movie (the South Africa setting itself is out of the ordinary - no Bruce Willis here to kick butt, or Morgan Freeman as the President) and if you approach it expecting no more, then you should enjoy it for the hokum it is. The references to social issues (many of them particularly close to home in South Africa) for example apartheid, exploitation of the poor by shadowy corporations and the racketeering, gun running and gang culture of the impoverished townships are thinly veiled, but then a good action movie was never supposed to be too thought provoking. (7/10)
Just a few movie reviews today, but there is of course
More to follow
Col
The Fly (1958)
Still miles better than the 1986 Jeff Goldblum ‘remake’ which tried to be far too clever for it’s own good, the 1958 original is good old fashioned late 50s Sci Fi / Horror fun. Vincent Price is the (very camp) good guy, although of course he makes a far superior (very camp) bad guy – he would have been better cast as the ambitious but unfortunate scientist who ends up with the arm and head of a fly after a mix up in his transportation device. The movie is well over half way through before anything remotely ‘scary’ happens, but the build up is still entertaining and it’s a great looking film, in glorious, totally unreal technicolor. Famous for the multi faceted ‘fly’s eye view’ of his screaming wife, and the “help me!” scene at the end (which apparently had to be shot umpteen times because Price couldn’t stop pissing himself laughing), this is a thoroughly enjoyable Sunday afternoon lazy movie. (6/10)
The Third Man (1949)
Ahem - A 'British Classic' nonetheless.I attempted The Third Man one night years ago after a hefty session at the pub, but was comatose half way through (a result of the quantity of the beer not the quality of the movie) It was also shown on at 23.45 on the night of Saturday 21st May 1994, which just happened to also be the date and time my beloved eldest was born - good enough reason for missing it then too. Beer and Babies eh? So this was the first time I've actually sat and watched it all the way through.
It’s an excellent take on the end of WWII from a different perspective (in this case occupied Austria) filled with strange, idiosyncratic characters and off kilter, dreamlike scenarios. Although it’s no great shock that the ruthless but charming Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is not dead after all, the revelations about the horrendous consequences of Lime’s racketeering (and his famous speech about the ‘little dots below’ during the scene on the big wheel) are stirring stuff. There is enough suspense, mystery, dirty dealing and danger to make this a great story in its own right, let alone the top-notch moody atmospherics and a terrific performance by the entire cast. (9/10)
District 9 (2009)
Bang up to date with this one, for a change. A Peter ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Jackson production, and closer in some ways to his earlier projects (low budget ‘splatter’ movies such as ‘Braindead’ and ‘Bad Taste’)
A tale of a race of aliens who (almost) crash landed on Earth in the 1980s and for twenty years have been given asylum by being allowed to ‘live’ in a shanty town in Johanesburg. Much of the film (especially the first half) comprises mock documentary, news reports and ‘fly on the wall’ style filming, as the tale of Wikus (the central character and to some extent the ultimate hero of the story, a bureaucratic nonentity at first who, like everyone else, demeans and exploits the alien race – known as ‘The Prawn’ – but soon learns to empathise with them after he – in a nutshell - starts to turn into a ‘Prawn’ himself, following contact with a liquid the aliens are secretly developing) unfolds.
This is an entertaining and highly original Sci Fi action movie (the South Africa setting itself is out of the ordinary - no Bruce Willis here to kick butt, or Morgan Freeman as the President) and if you approach it expecting no more, then you should enjoy it for the hokum it is. The references to social issues (many of them particularly close to home in South Africa) for example apartheid, exploitation of the poor by shadowy corporations and the racketeering, gun running and gang culture of the impoverished townships are thinly veiled, but then a good action movie was never supposed to be too thought provoking. (7/10)
Just a few movie reviews today, but there is of course
More to follow
Col
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Footie, Gorgeous Birds and (errrm) an Inexpensive CD
Haven't got around to blogging since the weekend so here are a few things I have been up to so far this week
A top notch footie film
I did watch ‘The Damned United’ after my last blog entry on Sunday evening. Excellent film. Michael Sheen is as good an impressionist as he is an actor, having already managed to get Kenneth Williams, Tony Blair and David Frost down to a tee, his portrayal of Brian Clough is superb and totally believable. Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney are equally effective and convincing as Peter Taylor and Don Revie respectively. Despite the protestations of the Clough family as to factual accuracy, much of the subject matter is knowingly fiction based around fact, and whether 100% accurate or not, it’s a compelling and moving story of football in England in an era when the monolith money machine that is football in the 21st Century would have seemed like a ridiculous vision of things to come (memorable line from the film? – “You don’t pay a footballer three hundred quid a week!”)
I only vaguely remember the era concerned (the films flits between 1967 – 1974 and jumps from past to present regularly) in terms of football at least; a time of listening to the results coming in on local radio on a Saturday afternoon, Spurs nearly always losing and eating Sunday dinner with ‘The Big Match’ on in the background, trying to get the last roast potato down quickly so I could claim a good spot on the sofa for ‘Randall and Hopkirk Deceased’
The turbulent mix of Clough’s ego, arrogance and personal agendae, with the rough, aggressive and Revie loyal Leeds players is what led to Clough’s failure in his brief stint as Leeds manager – the central plot device here.
Thankfully there are very few scenes of actors trying to look like they are in a 1970s football match, as real contemporary game footage is used. Even Steven ‘Tommy from Snatch’ Graham - in a curly ginger wig and dodgy Scottish accent – as Billy Bremner can be forgiven in what is an absorbing human drama. Highly recommended. I also caught up with my brother Dave last night for a long overdue half hour on the phone. Dave is (as he predicted) turning slowly into Ronnie Wood, and may he be all the happier for it.
I can always share with Dave anything I get up to that I might lump under the tedious ‘mid life crisis’ banner, and be safe in the comforting knowledge that he will have been there, done that and bought the proverbial t-shirt already. Last night’s conversation led to my confession that my youngest daughter Hayley had nobbled me sorting out my ‘fittie folder’ of photos on the PC at home. Now I must make it clear that the ‘fittie folder’ is in very good taste – no swimwear and boob jobs from ‘Nuts’ magazine, it is merely a collection of (mostly just the face) photos of my own personal all time most fanciable famous women.
Hayley knows her harmless and deluded old Dad well enough (and she’s also old enough now to know that just because Dad has a photo or two of Laura Aikman, that doesn’t mean he is about to leave the family and set up a love nest with her – sorry Laura, but that’s the way it has to be) and, having rumbled me, gave her usual resigned sigh and a mock admonishing “Daaa-aa-aaaad”, before launching into a bit of constructive criticism and even going so far as to encourage me to go back onto google image for a better photo in some cases. I was grateful too for her occasional “ooooer, not her, she’s well rough” just to keep my feet on the ground – it’s all a matter of personal taste you know!
I am working on a blog in which I reveal the content of the ‘fittie folder’ with a bit about how each of the lucky entrants came to have a balding middle aged bloke from Milton Keynes carry a torch for them. I’m sure OK Magazine can barely contain their excitement……….
Splashed out on a bit of ‘The Disney’ on CD
I stopped buying CDs on a regular basis 4 maybe 5 years ago for financial reasons, the pain of which has been eased by the advent of downloading. Having said that it does make a very occasional purchase all the more exciting. Spurred on by recently writing a blog entry about the very excellent Microdisney, I decided to treat myself to ‘Daunt Square To Elsewhere’ a 28 track double CD career spanning anthology drawn from the four albums they released (and the ‘In The World’ EP) all for only £4.00 from Amazon.
As I mentioned last time, none of their albums are currently available on CD (although I did manage to track down two of them over the last ten years) so it has been great to be able to listen to at least some of their music again that has languished upstairs with the rest of the vinyl for years now, waiting for the day I could afford a decent record player again. Whether she liked it or not at the time, I courted my wife to the music of Microdisney (their ‘Are You Happy’ is definitely on of ‘our tunes’) and was surprised at how much of the stuff on ‘Daunt Square’ she recognised. I have been playing it in the mornings whilst all the early morning feminine chaos of my little family happens around me, and was more than chuffed last night when (the ever reliable) Hayley came up to me and said ‘whatever that was you were playing this morning, it’s brilliant’ so for all the right reasons, I may well have lost the CD already.
So that’s it for now except to say that the next time I feel like treating myself to a CD it is going to be by Francoise Hardy as I feel that my recent enjoyment of some Serge Gainsbourg music should lead me into a ‘1960s French Pop’ phase. Besides, Francoise is far better looking than sleazy old Serge, so good looking in fact that a quite remarkable picture of her (circa 1966) which I will put a link to if I can work out how - has pride of place in my ‘fittie folder’ – which kind of brings us full circle (although thankfully not via sweaty 70s football hard men in ginger wigs) and is a good place to wrap this up for today.
More to follow
Col
A top notch footie film
I did watch ‘The Damned United’ after my last blog entry on Sunday evening. Excellent film. Michael Sheen is as good an impressionist as he is an actor, having already managed to get Kenneth Williams, Tony Blair and David Frost down to a tee, his portrayal of Brian Clough is superb and totally believable. Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney are equally effective and convincing as Peter Taylor and Don Revie respectively. Despite the protestations of the Clough family as to factual accuracy, much of the subject matter is knowingly fiction based around fact, and whether 100% accurate or not, it’s a compelling and moving story of football in England in an era when the monolith money machine that is football in the 21st Century would have seemed like a ridiculous vision of things to come (memorable line from the film? – “You don’t pay a footballer three hundred quid a week!”)
I only vaguely remember the era concerned (the films flits between 1967 – 1974 and jumps from past to present regularly) in terms of football at least; a time of listening to the results coming in on local radio on a Saturday afternoon, Spurs nearly always losing and eating Sunday dinner with ‘The Big Match’ on in the background, trying to get the last roast potato down quickly so I could claim a good spot on the sofa for ‘Randall and Hopkirk Deceased’
The turbulent mix of Clough’s ego, arrogance and personal agendae, with the rough, aggressive and Revie loyal Leeds players is what led to Clough’s failure in his brief stint as Leeds manager – the central plot device here.
Thankfully there are very few scenes of actors trying to look like they are in a 1970s football match, as real contemporary game footage is used. Even Steven ‘Tommy from Snatch’ Graham - in a curly ginger wig and dodgy Scottish accent – as Billy Bremner can be forgiven in what is an absorbing human drama. Highly recommended. I also caught up with my brother Dave last night for a long overdue half hour on the phone. Dave is (as he predicted) turning slowly into Ronnie Wood, and may he be all the happier for it.
I can always share with Dave anything I get up to that I might lump under the tedious ‘mid life crisis’ banner, and be safe in the comforting knowledge that he will have been there, done that and bought the proverbial t-shirt already. Last night’s conversation led to my confession that my youngest daughter Hayley had nobbled me sorting out my ‘fittie folder’ of photos on the PC at home. Now I must make it clear that the ‘fittie folder’ is in very good taste – no swimwear and boob jobs from ‘Nuts’ magazine, it is merely a collection of (mostly just the face) photos of my own personal all time most fanciable famous women.
Hayley knows her harmless and deluded old Dad well enough (and she’s also old enough now to know that just because Dad has a photo or two of Laura Aikman, that doesn’t mean he is about to leave the family and set up a love nest with her – sorry Laura, but that’s the way it has to be) and, having rumbled me, gave her usual resigned sigh and a mock admonishing “Daaa-aa-aaaad”, before launching into a bit of constructive criticism and even going so far as to encourage me to go back onto google image for a better photo in some cases. I was grateful too for her occasional “ooooer, not her, she’s well rough” just to keep my feet on the ground – it’s all a matter of personal taste you know!
I am working on a blog in which I reveal the content of the ‘fittie folder’ with a bit about how each of the lucky entrants came to have a balding middle aged bloke from Milton Keynes carry a torch for them. I’m sure OK Magazine can barely contain their excitement……….
Splashed out on a bit of ‘The Disney’ on CD
I stopped buying CDs on a regular basis 4 maybe 5 years ago for financial reasons, the pain of which has been eased by the advent of downloading. Having said that it does make a very occasional purchase all the more exciting. Spurred on by recently writing a blog entry about the very excellent Microdisney, I decided to treat myself to ‘Daunt Square To Elsewhere’ a 28 track double CD career spanning anthology drawn from the four albums they released (and the ‘In The World’ EP) all for only £4.00 from Amazon.
As I mentioned last time, none of their albums are currently available on CD (although I did manage to track down two of them over the last ten years) so it has been great to be able to listen to at least some of their music again that has languished upstairs with the rest of the vinyl for years now, waiting for the day I could afford a decent record player again. Whether she liked it or not at the time, I courted my wife to the music of Microdisney (their ‘Are You Happy’ is definitely on of ‘our tunes’) and was surprised at how much of the stuff on ‘Daunt Square’ she recognised. I have been playing it in the mornings whilst all the early morning feminine chaos of my little family happens around me, and was more than chuffed last night when (the ever reliable) Hayley came up to me and said ‘whatever that was you were playing this morning, it’s brilliant’ so for all the right reasons, I may well have lost the CD already.
So that’s it for now except to say that the next time I feel like treating myself to a CD it is going to be by Francoise Hardy as I feel that my recent enjoyment of some Serge Gainsbourg music should lead me into a ‘1960s French Pop’ phase. Besides, Francoise is far better looking than sleazy old Serge, so good looking in fact that a quite remarkable picture of her (circa 1966) which I will put a link to if I can work out how - has pride of place in my ‘fittie folder’ – which kind of brings us full circle (although thankfully not via sweaty 70s football hard men in ginger wigs) and is a good place to wrap this up for today.
More to follow
Col
Sunday 31 January 2010
The Night We Saw 'The Damned'
Only a couple of weeks in and already it's my second blog with 'The Damned' in the title. And bearing in mind that once i've finished writing this I'm going to sit down and watch 'The Damned United' a distinct pattern may be forming.
I'm normally spot on with dates, but this is a bit vague, I just know that it was early 1984 or very late 1983, but anyway, The Damned were playing at my all time favourite venue, The Marquee in Wardour Street, and myself Ed and Si were going.
We met on the platform of Harrow On The Hill station, and got the tube down to Leicester Square. As we queued up outside the venue, a few 'skins' on their way to see Peter & The Test Tube Babies playing somewhere nearby walked up and down the queue giving it the 'lend us ten pence, mate' routine to us all, but (my pathological fear of early 80s skinheads and general cowardice aside) I managed to get away with no eye contact, a shrug, and a 'nah, mate' with no reciprocal violence, although of course looking back I would have loved to have had the balls to say something like 'certainly young man, but first let's agree upon a mutually convenient repayment programme'
Because it was the early 80s and rock and roll tribalism was still very much alive and well, you had a mixed bunch in the venue (indeed of the three of us that went Ed was a rocker, full beard and leathers and love of ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynrd, Si was punk in the style of early Capt Sensible and Jello Biafra and I was - ha ha ha - a 'Psychedelic Mod') with a creditable turn out of part time punks in tartan bum flaps and comedy safety pins. The atmosphere was exactly how I remember a packed Marquee at its best - sweaty, claustrophobic and smelling strangely of TCP - and there wasn't so much as a sniff of violence or unrest, even when Scabies invaded the pre show DJ's booth and said 'God, you lot are a bunch of ugly fuckers'
The Damned line up was one of the best ever and not far removed (only Brian James missing and long since gone from the band) from the original; Dave Vanian singing, Capt Sensible on guitar, Rat Scabies on drums, Paul Grey on bass and a guy on keyboards who was possibly Roman Jugg.
Although it had been released about 18 months earlier,they played quite a bit of their latest album at that time (the brilliant 'Strawberries' from 1982) mixed in with a crowd pleasing 'Vegas' set of hits. We watched most of the set from the back of the crowd, and slowly edged our way forward for 'Love Song' 'New Rose' and of course 'Smash It Up'
Vanian did his crooning Dracula thing excellently (his slicked back Ray Reardon hair dripping with spit from the good old boys at the front as he was gobbed at for most of the show), Sensible was de-bagged by some strategically placed naughty nuns, but best of all was when Rat Scabies interrupted our rousing chant of 'Scabies is a wanker, Scabies is a wanker, la la laaa la' to shout 'I don't know why you're calling me a wanker, I'm not the one that released Happy Talk!'
Both band and audience played the whole thing out as pure pantomime punk rock and it was a brilliant night. Although only six or seven years on from their debut and the 'punk explosion' of 1976-77, even in the early 80s punk was already nostalgia but thankfully (and perhaps in spite of their constant break ups, line up changes and turbulence in their recording arrangements) The Damned rarely took themselves too seriously and gave us a great show that was one of the best and most memorable gigs I have ever been to.
It would only be a year or two later when the band (without the much needed pop sensibilities - pun intended - of Capt Sensible) would enjoy greater commercial success as they became for a year or two the kings of the late 80s 'goth' scene, even more reason for me to be glad I got to see them (along with two top Geezers I am still good friends with to this day) on such great form and in such a small venue too.
Early last year I caught up with their back catalogue via download and whilst waiting to be interviewed for the job I'm still hanging on to a year later, I listened to 'Machine Gun Etiquette' for inspiration, energy and confidence.
Nibbled to death by an Okapi
Nibbled to death by an Okapi
Nibbled to death by an Okapi
Col
I'm normally spot on with dates, but this is a bit vague, I just know that it was early 1984 or very late 1983, but anyway, The Damned were playing at my all time favourite venue, The Marquee in Wardour Street, and myself Ed and Si were going.
We met on the platform of Harrow On The Hill station, and got the tube down to Leicester Square. As we queued up outside the venue, a few 'skins' on their way to see Peter & The Test Tube Babies playing somewhere nearby walked up and down the queue giving it the 'lend us ten pence, mate' routine to us all, but (my pathological fear of early 80s skinheads and general cowardice aside) I managed to get away with no eye contact, a shrug, and a 'nah, mate' with no reciprocal violence, although of course looking back I would have loved to have had the balls to say something like 'certainly young man, but first let's agree upon a mutually convenient repayment programme'
Because it was the early 80s and rock and roll tribalism was still very much alive and well, you had a mixed bunch in the venue (indeed of the three of us that went Ed was a rocker, full beard and leathers and love of ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynrd, Si was punk in the style of early Capt Sensible and Jello Biafra and I was - ha ha ha - a 'Psychedelic Mod') with a creditable turn out of part time punks in tartan bum flaps and comedy safety pins. The atmosphere was exactly how I remember a packed Marquee at its best - sweaty, claustrophobic and smelling strangely of TCP - and there wasn't so much as a sniff of violence or unrest, even when Scabies invaded the pre show DJ's booth and said 'God, you lot are a bunch of ugly fuckers'
The Damned line up was one of the best ever and not far removed (only Brian James missing and long since gone from the band) from the original; Dave Vanian singing, Capt Sensible on guitar, Rat Scabies on drums, Paul Grey on bass and a guy on keyboards who was possibly Roman Jugg.
Although it had been released about 18 months earlier,they played quite a bit of their latest album at that time (the brilliant 'Strawberries' from 1982) mixed in with a crowd pleasing 'Vegas' set of hits. We watched most of the set from the back of the crowd, and slowly edged our way forward for 'Love Song' 'New Rose' and of course 'Smash It Up'
Vanian did his crooning Dracula thing excellently (his slicked back Ray Reardon hair dripping with spit from the good old boys at the front as he was gobbed at for most of the show), Sensible was de-bagged by some strategically placed naughty nuns, but best of all was when Rat Scabies interrupted our rousing chant of 'Scabies is a wanker, Scabies is a wanker, la la laaa la' to shout 'I don't know why you're calling me a wanker, I'm not the one that released Happy Talk!'
Both band and audience played the whole thing out as pure pantomime punk rock and it was a brilliant night. Although only six or seven years on from their debut and the 'punk explosion' of 1976-77, even in the early 80s punk was already nostalgia but thankfully (and perhaps in spite of their constant break ups, line up changes and turbulence in their recording arrangements) The Damned rarely took themselves too seriously and gave us a great show that was one of the best and most memorable gigs I have ever been to.
It would only be a year or two later when the band (without the much needed pop sensibilities - pun intended - of Capt Sensible) would enjoy greater commercial success as they became for a year or two the kings of the late 80s 'goth' scene, even more reason for me to be glad I got to see them (along with two top Geezers I am still good friends with to this day) on such great form and in such a small venue too.
Early last year I caught up with their back catalogue via download and whilst waiting to be interviewed for the job I'm still hanging on to a year later, I listened to 'Machine Gun Etiquette' for inspiration, energy and confidence.
Nibbled to death by an Okapi
Nibbled to death by an Okapi
Nibbled to death by an Okapi
Col
Thursday 28 January 2010
"Crikey, it's Mitchum and DeNiro!"
I watched 'The Night Of The Hunter' last night, on my own, full of rocket fuel espresso and in pitch darkness. I think I am going to have to watch it again before trying to write something constructive. All I will say is that I enjoyed the movie a hell of a lot and I think that we are going to be very good friends
In the meantime though I am going to induct into 'Arthurs Movie Character Hall Of Fame' (see post from a few days ago) the central character from this movie, the absolute nutcase psychopath preacher Harry Powell as played by Robert Mitchum of course. Powell is the monster in a childs fairy-tale, a larger than life, genuinely menacing killer played even larger than life by Mitchum. Yet because he is played by Robert Mitchum the character is iconic and totally believable. I'll add more on this character when I get around to writing about the film.
And now for a 'Hall Of Fame First' - since I am wearing out the knees of my inexpensive Matalan jeans praising the legendary Robert Mitchum, I'm also going to add his other great screen villain, Max Cady, from 'Cape Fear'. Like Powell, Cady is a dangerous madman intent on the corruption of innocence and murder, but, whereas Powell is overstated and not exactly subtle (it is made apparent from the opening minutes of 'Hunter' that he is just fresh from the latest of many killings), Cady has had a lengthy spell in the slammer to work out how best to serve his revenge icy cold and at his leisure.
Also, their motives differ; Powell seeks to opportunistically steal a big wedge of ill gotten cash and will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, Cady's is a personal vendetta against a man he believes has wronged him.
Both Cady and Powell are two of the finest screen psychos of all time and two of Mitchum's greatest performances.
Before I go it's yet another 'First' as Max Cady enters the hall of fame twice, also as portrayed by Robert DeNiro in the 1991 remake. Although faithful to the plot of the original, there is one major difference in the remake, in that the 'victim' (played in the remake by Nick Nolte) is shown to be by no means squeaky clean and directly responsible for the harshness of Cady's sentence by knowingly 'burying' evidence, therefore you can actually sympathise with Cady to some extent, whereas the Gregory Peck victim in the original appears blameless.
I write an amateur blog, not a column for Empire (I want a radio show first anyway!), so I'm not even going to try and choose between the two portrayals, I think they are both exceptional, and usually if I am in the mood to watch 'Cape Fear' I will make sure I have time to watch both versions, back to back.
More to follow
Col
In the meantime though I am going to induct into 'Arthurs Movie Character Hall Of Fame' (see post from a few days ago) the central character from this movie, the absolute nutcase psychopath preacher Harry Powell as played by Robert Mitchum of course. Powell is the monster in a childs fairy-tale, a larger than life, genuinely menacing killer played even larger than life by Mitchum. Yet because he is played by Robert Mitchum the character is iconic and totally believable. I'll add more on this character when I get around to writing about the film.
And now for a 'Hall Of Fame First' - since I am wearing out the knees of my inexpensive Matalan jeans praising the legendary Robert Mitchum, I'm also going to add his other great screen villain, Max Cady, from 'Cape Fear'. Like Powell, Cady is a dangerous madman intent on the corruption of innocence and murder, but, whereas Powell is overstated and not exactly subtle (it is made apparent from the opening minutes of 'Hunter' that he is just fresh from the latest of many killings), Cady has had a lengthy spell in the slammer to work out how best to serve his revenge icy cold and at his leisure.
Also, their motives differ; Powell seeks to opportunistically steal a big wedge of ill gotten cash and will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, Cady's is a personal vendetta against a man he believes has wronged him.
Both Cady and Powell are two of the finest screen psychos of all time and two of Mitchum's greatest performances.
Before I go it's yet another 'First' as Max Cady enters the hall of fame twice, also as portrayed by Robert DeNiro in the 1991 remake. Although faithful to the plot of the original, there is one major difference in the remake, in that the 'victim' (played in the remake by Nick Nolte) is shown to be by no means squeaky clean and directly responsible for the harshness of Cady's sentence by knowingly 'burying' evidence, therefore you can actually sympathise with Cady to some extent, whereas the Gregory Peck victim in the original appears blameless.
I write an amateur blog, not a column for Empire (I want a radio show first anyway!), so I'm not even going to try and choose between the two portrayals, I think they are both exceptional, and usually if I am in the mood to watch 'Cape Fear' I will make sure I have time to watch both versions, back to back.
More to follow
Col
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Short and Sweet?
No blog post of note today, just to say I am about to sit and watch Robert Mitchum in 'Night Of the Hunter' (call myself a movie buff and I haven't seen this one before!) which may well be the subject of my next proper post.
So for today I offer no more than the punchlines to three of my favourite jokes;
"Very well then, death...........................BY HOBO!!!!!!"
"On the contrary, I was just checking; spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch"
"A pigeon coming back from the library"
More to follow
Col
So for today I offer no more than the punchlines to three of my favourite jokes;
"Very well then, death...........................BY HOBO!!!!!!"
"On the contrary, I was just checking; spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch"
"A pigeon coming back from the library"
More to follow
Col
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Sympathy For The Put-Upon Puppet
When it comes to cult TV puppet characters having a particularly shit life, was there ever a character more ill treated and put upon that poor old Kyrano from Thunderbirds?
Faithful ‘aide de camp’ (servant, basically) to the Tracey family, proud father and doting mentor to marionette sauce pot Tin-Tin he may be, but that aside, his primary function in Thunderbirds seems to be as a kind of lackey kick arse to both the good and the bad guys.
Worst of all, when not pandering to the every whim of the housework shy Tracey men, the poor sod has to contend his having mind controlled at will by the evil bastard slap-head ‘The Hood’
All The Hood has to do is glare at his trusty statue / idol thing, get his eyes to glow a bit and say ‘Kyyyyyyrrrraaaaaannnnoooooo’ a few times with increasing intensity until the unlucky git is sent tumbling to the ground. He is then telepathically forced into ‘immobilising the automatic camera detector’ on Thunderbird 1, or similar, or worse.
And why is it that Kyrano always seems to be carrying a tray of drinks when The Hood chooses to mind zap him? There he is, happily trotting in with a tray full of Mojitos, and BAM! down he goes, the tray does flying and I dare say he’s the one who is made to clear up the mess afterwards (unless Tin-Tin or at a push Grandma is willing to help) before he slips away unnoticed to carry out Baldy’s dirty work.
I’m surprised to be honest that Jeff Tracey didn’t just cotton on sooner and give Kyrano the boot. If the tendency towards frequent life and security threatening sabotage under hypnosis wasn’t excuse enough, then surely the carpet cleaning bill from all the spilled drinks would have been?
I’d like to think that Kyrano is now residing in a retirement home and living in relative peace and quiet with the also retired Brains and his trusty chess playing robot, Braman. Perhaps The Hood (languishing in a top security prison somewhere, but allowed his trusty statue / idol thingy in exchange for hard work in the laundry room and good behaviour in the showers) still likes to ‘manipulate’ Kyrano from time to time, and I’ll bet he waits until the poor sod is carrying a pot of tea and the Rummikub across to the table where Brains and the robot are waiting.
“KyyyyyyyyyyyRRRRRRRaaaaaaaaannoooooooooo”
“KyyyyyyyyyyyyrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRAAAAAAANNNNoooooo”
“Aaaaaaa-aaaaaaah-aaaaaGGGHHHHH”
CRASH!
Coming up next in my series on puppet characters who get a rum deal; Troy Tempest's underachieving but loyal sidekick, Phones........
More to follow
Col
Faithful ‘aide de camp’ (servant, basically) to the Tracey family, proud father and doting mentor to marionette sauce pot Tin-Tin he may be, but that aside, his primary function in Thunderbirds seems to be as a kind of lackey kick arse to both the good and the bad guys.
Worst of all, when not pandering to the every whim of the housework shy Tracey men, the poor sod has to contend his having mind controlled at will by the evil bastard slap-head ‘The Hood’
All The Hood has to do is glare at his trusty statue / idol thing, get his eyes to glow a bit and say ‘Kyyyyyyrrrraaaaaannnnoooooo’ a few times with increasing intensity until the unlucky git is sent tumbling to the ground. He is then telepathically forced into ‘immobilising the automatic camera detector’ on Thunderbird 1, or similar, or worse.
And why is it that Kyrano always seems to be carrying a tray of drinks when The Hood chooses to mind zap him? There he is, happily trotting in with a tray full of Mojitos, and BAM! down he goes, the tray does flying and I dare say he’s the one who is made to clear up the mess afterwards (unless Tin-Tin or at a push Grandma is willing to help) before he slips away unnoticed to carry out Baldy’s dirty work.
I’m surprised to be honest that Jeff Tracey didn’t just cotton on sooner and give Kyrano the boot. If the tendency towards frequent life and security threatening sabotage under hypnosis wasn’t excuse enough, then surely the carpet cleaning bill from all the spilled drinks would have been?
I’d like to think that Kyrano is now residing in a retirement home and living in relative peace and quiet with the also retired Brains and his trusty chess playing robot, Braman. Perhaps The Hood (languishing in a top security prison somewhere, but allowed his trusty statue / idol thingy in exchange for hard work in the laundry room and good behaviour in the showers) still likes to ‘manipulate’ Kyrano from time to time, and I’ll bet he waits until the poor sod is carrying a pot of tea and the Rummikub across to the table where Brains and the robot are waiting.
“KyyyyyyyyyyyRRRRRRRaaaaaaaaannoooooooooo”
“KyyyyyyyyyyyyrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRAAAAAAANNNNoooooo”
“Aaaaaaa-aaaaaaah-aaaaaGGGHHHHH”
CRASH!
Coming up next in my series on puppet characters who get a rum deal; Troy Tempest's underachieving but loyal sidekick, Phones........
More to follow
Col
Monday 25 January 2010
Six Of The Best........Movie Characters.....Part 1
I like lists!
So for that simple reason, here is a random selection of six of my favourite movie characters listed in no particular order of preference – I’ve already thought of about 50 or so more, so this will definitely be continued......................
Let's start off with Sister Ruth (Black Narcissus) – When it comes to a highly strung nun driven to madness and attempted murder by lust and sexual repression, you don’t get much madder (and downright scary) than Kathleen Byron’s portrayal of Sister Ruth in this classic and (for it’s time) controversial British movie.
Talking of controversial British movies (were we?) how about Billy Bright and Rod (The Football Factory) – None of the characters in The Football Factory are supposed to have anything even vaguely resembling redeeming characteristics, least of all Billy Bright (played excellently by Frank Harper) who is the sociologist’s template post 1980s football hooligan; white, middle aged, good job, good house, good car, wife, kids etc coping with a mundane life through right wing ideals and scraps with rival football firms, organised with military precision. Being as he is little more than an overgrown schoolkid, Bright has some of the best scenes (the ambush of the Stoke fans on the way to Liverpool – “Get the beer safe!”) and sharpest dialogue (the whole “hold out your hand” scene and the verbal sparring with rival Fred as their sons play football against each other) Although he is basically a violent sod you wouldn’t want to cross at the best of times, in the context of the movie, Bright is an entertaining and often very funny character.
Rod (played by Neil Maskell) is the portly, soft spoken ladies man who has some of the best scenes and lines in the whole movie (his explanation given to his ‘posh’ girlfriend as to why he can’t miss the upcoming Millwall cup match and pre match scrap in order to meet her parents? - “I’m male”) and he shows a genuine bond of friendship with the central character Tommy (Danny Dyer) Rod is a good old fashioned cheeky chappie and wind-up merchant, made totally believable by Maskell.
Chief Martin Brody (Jaws) – Along with Quint (Robert Shaw) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) , Roy Scheider’s put-upon Police Chief Brody makes up a triumvirate of superbly portrayed characters who go a long way towards making Jaws (especially the second half when they are the entire cast – apart from the rubber shark of course) the most exciting film of all time. Brody is singled out here for (amongst many great moments) the comedy relief of the ‘son copying Dad’s body language’ scene, the classic line; “We’re gonna need a bigger boat’, and what is for me my favourite cinematic moment of all time; “Smile you son of a…” BLAM!!
Next up is Billy Bibbit (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) – Is there a single character in this movie that isn’t one of the greatest movie characters of all time? It was the story within the story of the confused, anxious and ultimately tragic Billy Bibbit (brilliantly played by Brad Dourif) that moved me the most the first time I saw this film and still does, every time I watch it. There is a normal, happy and loving young man in Billy fighting to get out and McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) may be the only one who can see this. Sadly, through McMurphy giving Billy the chance he needs to shake off his insecurities and become ‘a man’, both of their fates are tragically sealed. Rarely has there been a more genuinely sympathetic character in a movie, and just to ice his cake completely, Billy completely steals the brilliant fishing trip sequence from everyone, even Jack himself.
My final choice for today is a John Wayne character, J.B. Books (The Shootist) – My late and very much missed Dad (1926-1989) and my oldest brother Brian were / are big fans of The Duke so I feel some trepidation at choosing a Wayne character for this list, as there are so many of his movies I have yet to see, or would need to see again to fully appreciate some of the legendary figures he has played.
J B Books (the hero of Wayne’s last movie from 1976) is as mighty a character as any I have seen of his. I have read that, although in poor health, Wayne was yet to contract the cancer that would eventually kill him when he made The Shootist (despite having suffered with cancer previously) so it is unlikely that he would have known it was to be his last movie. Watching it now years after his death, the character (a veteran gunman slowly being eaten away by terminal cancer) is made far more poignant because of the similar realities that lay around the corner for Wayne himself. Perhaps it’s unfair to single out a character for this reason (but come on, this is only Colin’s blog, not the sodding Oscars!) but for the record, the character of Books makes this list on his own strengths for many reasons, but I will pick out the touching courtship with his landlady (Lauren Bacall), the friendship with and mentoring of her impressionable son (Ron Howard) and most moving of all, the ‘second opinion’ scene with Dr Hostetler (James Stewart), oh and of course the gunfight at the end – what Wayne western would be complete without at least one gunfight?
I’m enjoying putting this list together, so I may well add more of my favourite movie characters later in the week.
More to follow
Col
So for that simple reason, here is a random selection of six of my favourite movie characters listed in no particular order of preference – I’ve already thought of about 50 or so more, so this will definitely be continued......................
Let's start off with Sister Ruth (Black Narcissus) – When it comes to a highly strung nun driven to madness and attempted murder by lust and sexual repression, you don’t get much madder (and downright scary) than Kathleen Byron’s portrayal of Sister Ruth in this classic and (for it’s time) controversial British movie.
Talking of controversial British movies (were we?) how about Billy Bright and Rod (The Football Factory) – None of the characters in The Football Factory are supposed to have anything even vaguely resembling redeeming characteristics, least of all Billy Bright (played excellently by Frank Harper) who is the sociologist’s template post 1980s football hooligan; white, middle aged, good job, good house, good car, wife, kids etc coping with a mundane life through right wing ideals and scraps with rival football firms, organised with military precision. Being as he is little more than an overgrown schoolkid, Bright has some of the best scenes (the ambush of the Stoke fans on the way to Liverpool – “Get the beer safe!”) and sharpest dialogue (the whole “hold out your hand” scene and the verbal sparring with rival Fred as their sons play football against each other) Although he is basically a violent sod you wouldn’t want to cross at the best of times, in the context of the movie, Bright is an entertaining and often very funny character.
Rod (played by Neil Maskell) is the portly, soft spoken ladies man who has some of the best scenes and lines in the whole movie (his explanation given to his ‘posh’ girlfriend as to why he can’t miss the upcoming Millwall cup match and pre match scrap in order to meet her parents? - “I’m male”) and he shows a genuine bond of friendship with the central character Tommy (Danny Dyer) Rod is a good old fashioned cheeky chappie and wind-up merchant, made totally believable by Maskell.
Chief Martin Brody (Jaws) – Along with Quint (Robert Shaw) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) , Roy Scheider’s put-upon Police Chief Brody makes up a triumvirate of superbly portrayed characters who go a long way towards making Jaws (especially the second half when they are the entire cast – apart from the rubber shark of course) the most exciting film of all time. Brody is singled out here for (amongst many great moments) the comedy relief of the ‘son copying Dad’s body language’ scene, the classic line; “We’re gonna need a bigger boat’, and what is for me my favourite cinematic moment of all time; “Smile you son of a…” BLAM!!
Next up is Billy Bibbit (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) – Is there a single character in this movie that isn’t one of the greatest movie characters of all time? It was the story within the story of the confused, anxious and ultimately tragic Billy Bibbit (brilliantly played by Brad Dourif) that moved me the most the first time I saw this film and still does, every time I watch it. There is a normal, happy and loving young man in Billy fighting to get out and McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) may be the only one who can see this. Sadly, through McMurphy giving Billy the chance he needs to shake off his insecurities and become ‘a man’, both of their fates are tragically sealed. Rarely has there been a more genuinely sympathetic character in a movie, and just to ice his cake completely, Billy completely steals the brilliant fishing trip sequence from everyone, even Jack himself.
My final choice for today is a John Wayne character, J.B. Books (The Shootist) – My late and very much missed Dad (1926-1989) and my oldest brother Brian were / are big fans of The Duke so I feel some trepidation at choosing a Wayne character for this list, as there are so many of his movies I have yet to see, or would need to see again to fully appreciate some of the legendary figures he has played.
J B Books (the hero of Wayne’s last movie from 1976) is as mighty a character as any I have seen of his. I have read that, although in poor health, Wayne was yet to contract the cancer that would eventually kill him when he made The Shootist (despite having suffered with cancer previously) so it is unlikely that he would have known it was to be his last movie. Watching it now years after his death, the character (a veteran gunman slowly being eaten away by terminal cancer) is made far more poignant because of the similar realities that lay around the corner for Wayne himself. Perhaps it’s unfair to single out a character for this reason (but come on, this is only Colin’s blog, not the sodding Oscars!) but for the record, the character of Books makes this list on his own strengths for many reasons, but I will pick out the touching courtship with his landlady (Lauren Bacall), the friendship with and mentoring of her impressionable son (Ron Howard) and most moving of all, the ‘second opinion’ scene with Dr Hostetler (James Stewart), oh and of course the gunfight at the end – what Wayne western would be complete without at least one gunfight?
I’m enjoying putting this list together, so I may well add more of my favourite movie characters later in the week.
More to follow
Col
Saturday 23 January 2010
Maybe They Should Have Just (Let It Be)
Only ten days in and already a touch of ‘blogger’s block’ has set in. But I’ll give it a go anyway. At the moment I have a good few unfinished drafts based on what seemed like great ideas that quickly ran out of steam – I’ve had a read through them this evening but each and every one of them is going to have to remain on ice for now.
I’m tempted to write something about the thrilling cup tie at White Hart Lane earlier this evening (Spurs going from being very unlucky to very lacking, ultimately giving away a silly injury time penalty enabling Leeds to force a replay at Elland Road) but I have serious doubts about my abilities as a football pundit.
I’m tempted to write something about the fact that, as someone who has been a lifelong Beatles fan, I have only just (thanks to the miracle of downloading) watched the ‘Let It Be’ film in its entirety for the first time (it’s never been released on DVD and if it has been shown on TV in the last 25 years I must have been somewhere else at the time) What a shabby epitaph it is. Endless hours of half arsed jamming, interspersed with bitching and squabbling between four men (and an ever present Japanese performance artist) who have been run ragged by their own phenomenal success over the best part of the previous decade and have quite frankly had enough, condensed into one 80 minute shambles.
Looks like I am writing about ‘Let It Be’ after all. Good Oh.
What miniscule structure there is to the film I am only able to work out because I have read so many Beatle books (and seen the ‘fab three’ give their very politically toned down version of the events that led to the break up on the ‘Anthology’ DVDs) but suffice to say the footage used from the cold, capacious and utterly characterless Twickenham Studios is pretty horrible. McCartney struggles to keep things going and to raise morale; full credit to him, but it only makes him come across as a patronising shit (especially to George) Lennon (in the midst of a full-on heroin habit) probably just wants to spend time with the new love of his life, sitting in a big bag and making experimental films of bare posteriors and his own John Thomas, but he just comes across as bitter, acerbic and not at all interested, his occasional Paul O’Grady scouse jokes unfunny to all except the ever present and painfully sycophantic back room staff. Harrison tries his best to do his bit on the Lennon and McCartney numbers, despite being ordered around by McCartney and having to put up with Lennon apparently being too superior to contribute George’s ‘I Me Mine’. Poor old Ringo – he just drums along, only ever really wanting to play, looking very uncomfortable when the atmosphere is icy, and painfully conscious that the greatest gig of his career is about to come to an abrupt end.
Things do improve once they decamp to the familiar and more comfortable surroundings of Apple HQ. Billy Preston arrives on keyboards (no explanation given in the film of course as to why he is there) resulting in everyone being on their best behaviour. There is an excellent jam session where McCartney’s soon to be step daughter Heather (aged maybe 5 or 6) steals the show, and the famous roof top concert (even though it stinks of obligations being fulfilled) is still a great and iconic Beatles moment, great fun to watch and the only real saving grace in this pretty awful ‘movie’.
After the mess that was the whole ‘Get Back’ project (only later renamed ‘Let It Be’) only Abbey Road remained. A wonderful album, recorded by the band knowing it would be their last, but wonderful in the main thanks to George Martins ability to polish a turd until it turns into a big nugget of gold.
Well that’s me done. Time for a hot bath, a large Ciento Tres and some 1950s American Sci Fi. Them? Forbidden Planet? Hmmmmmmmm. Choices.
More to follow
Col
I’m tempted to write something about the thrilling cup tie at White Hart Lane earlier this evening (Spurs going from being very unlucky to very lacking, ultimately giving away a silly injury time penalty enabling Leeds to force a replay at Elland Road) but I have serious doubts about my abilities as a football pundit.
I’m tempted to write something about the fact that, as someone who has been a lifelong Beatles fan, I have only just (thanks to the miracle of downloading) watched the ‘Let It Be’ film in its entirety for the first time (it’s never been released on DVD and if it has been shown on TV in the last 25 years I must have been somewhere else at the time) What a shabby epitaph it is. Endless hours of half arsed jamming, interspersed with bitching and squabbling between four men (and an ever present Japanese performance artist) who have been run ragged by their own phenomenal success over the best part of the previous decade and have quite frankly had enough, condensed into one 80 minute shambles.
Looks like I am writing about ‘Let It Be’ after all. Good Oh.
What miniscule structure there is to the film I am only able to work out because I have read so many Beatle books (and seen the ‘fab three’ give their very politically toned down version of the events that led to the break up on the ‘Anthology’ DVDs) but suffice to say the footage used from the cold, capacious and utterly characterless Twickenham Studios is pretty horrible. McCartney struggles to keep things going and to raise morale; full credit to him, but it only makes him come across as a patronising shit (especially to George) Lennon (in the midst of a full-on heroin habit) probably just wants to spend time with the new love of his life, sitting in a big bag and making experimental films of bare posteriors and his own John Thomas, but he just comes across as bitter, acerbic and not at all interested, his occasional Paul O’Grady scouse jokes unfunny to all except the ever present and painfully sycophantic back room staff. Harrison tries his best to do his bit on the Lennon and McCartney numbers, despite being ordered around by McCartney and having to put up with Lennon apparently being too superior to contribute George’s ‘I Me Mine’. Poor old Ringo – he just drums along, only ever really wanting to play, looking very uncomfortable when the atmosphere is icy, and painfully conscious that the greatest gig of his career is about to come to an abrupt end.
Things do improve once they decamp to the familiar and more comfortable surroundings of Apple HQ. Billy Preston arrives on keyboards (no explanation given in the film of course as to why he is there) resulting in everyone being on their best behaviour. There is an excellent jam session where McCartney’s soon to be step daughter Heather (aged maybe 5 or 6) steals the show, and the famous roof top concert (even though it stinks of obligations being fulfilled) is still a great and iconic Beatles moment, great fun to watch and the only real saving grace in this pretty awful ‘movie’.
After the mess that was the whole ‘Get Back’ project (only later renamed ‘Let It Be’) only Abbey Road remained. A wonderful album, recorded by the band knowing it would be their last, but wonderful in the main thanks to George Martins ability to polish a turd until it turns into a big nugget of gold.
Well that’s me done. Time for a hot bath, a large Ciento Tres and some 1950s American Sci Fi. Them? Forbidden Planet? Hmmmmmmmm. Choices.
More to follow
Col
Friday 22 January 2010
My Favourite Female Vocalist...............
It's been a typically busy Friday evening, but not without it's high points. Tacos for dinner (used the Tesco kit but might have to revert to Old El Paso, the extra 72p is well worth the difference in subtlety and flavour of the spice blend) the pleasant sound of my wife and daughters belly laughing upstairs at something that's happening on 'Celebrity' Big Brother and my first listen in ages to 'Reading Writing And Arithmetic' by The Sundays.
Harriet Wheeler of The Sundays is by a long way my favourite female vocalist, a decision I made many years ago (Harriet was on the shortlist as a possible name for our eldest and I confess this had a lot to do with my admiration for the lovely Ms Wheeler, but I / We preferred girls names that end in Y and Emily won the vote. Good job too, as I know that I would probably be calling my beloved Em 'Hattie', 'Hatters', Hattington Chulmley' etc etc by now)
For a chap who gets so obsessively grouchy about odd pronunciation of words, it's ironic that Harriet endears herself to me even more with her own unique pronunciation. Take one of The Sundays best known songs; 'Here's Where The Story Ends' - she soothes my very soul by singing 'Ands' instead of 'Ends' and 'Tarrible' instead of 'Terrible'
As for the Sundays I do quite like their (very minimal at just three albums) stuff, even if it is a bit 'soundtrack to a dinner party in Clapham with a few Bill Nighy types talking loudly with their mouths full about what was in the Guardian today' but Harriet's golden moment is still to come, when I finally get around to putting together my Bowie tribute album (I've already got Robbie Williams' people talking to my people about him singing 'Shadow Man') I'm hoping she will agree to join the project and sing 'We Are The Dead' or maybe 'Quicksand'
Harriet and Dave of The Sundays are of course a couple and to the best of my knowledge havent recorded anything since 'Static and Silence' in 1997 having taken a break to raise their children. I hope that, forthcoming all star Bowie tribute notwithstanding, they might do just one more album before the grand-kids start arriving.
I must mention also Liela Moss of The Duke Spirit, a band we saw supporting Duran Duran a few years ago. Their album 'Neptune' which I downloaded purely on first impressions having never heard of them before that show, is brilliant and whilst she's no Harriet, her unique vocal style (earnest, innocent, bold........ errrm, quite cute actually and not unlike Grace Slick in places) puts her instantly into 'Col's Top 5 Female Vocalists'
Other contenders would include Grace Slick, Candi Staton, Debbie Harry (of course), Dusty Springfield, Francoise Hardy and Skye (from Morcheeba) to name but a few.
Another music related blog today - could be a movie one tomorrow as we are pondering going to see 'Sherlock Holmes' - whatever the day brings there will inevitably be....
more to follow,
Col
Harriet Wheeler of The Sundays is by a long way my favourite female vocalist, a decision I made many years ago (Harriet was on the shortlist as a possible name for our eldest and I confess this had a lot to do with my admiration for the lovely Ms Wheeler, but I / We preferred girls names that end in Y and Emily won the vote. Good job too, as I know that I would probably be calling my beloved Em 'Hattie', 'Hatters', Hattington Chulmley' etc etc by now)
For a chap who gets so obsessively grouchy about odd pronunciation of words, it's ironic that Harriet endears herself to me even more with her own unique pronunciation. Take one of The Sundays best known songs; 'Here's Where The Story Ends' - she soothes my very soul by singing 'Ands' instead of 'Ends' and 'Tarrible' instead of 'Terrible'
As for the Sundays I do quite like their (very minimal at just three albums) stuff, even if it is a bit 'soundtrack to a dinner party in Clapham with a few Bill Nighy types talking loudly with their mouths full about what was in the Guardian today' but Harriet's golden moment is still to come, when I finally get around to putting together my Bowie tribute album (I've already got Robbie Williams' people talking to my people about him singing 'Shadow Man') I'm hoping she will agree to join the project and sing 'We Are The Dead' or maybe 'Quicksand'
Harriet and Dave of The Sundays are of course a couple and to the best of my knowledge havent recorded anything since 'Static and Silence' in 1997 having taken a break to raise their children. I hope that, forthcoming all star Bowie tribute notwithstanding, they might do just one more album before the grand-kids start arriving.
I must mention also Liela Moss of The Duke Spirit, a band we saw supporting Duran Duran a few years ago. Their album 'Neptune' which I downloaded purely on first impressions having never heard of them before that show, is brilliant and whilst she's no Harriet, her unique vocal style (earnest, innocent, bold........ errrm, quite cute actually and not unlike Grace Slick in places) puts her instantly into 'Col's Top 5 Female Vocalists'
Other contenders would include Grace Slick, Candi Staton, Debbie Harry (of course), Dusty Springfield, Francoise Hardy and Skye (from Morcheeba) to name but a few.
Another music related blog today - could be a movie one tomorrow as we are pondering going to see 'Sherlock Holmes' - whatever the day brings there will inevitably be....
more to follow,
Col
Thursday 21 January 2010
A Quck Dip Of The Toe Into The River Of Random Things
No blog entry of great note today, as my evening has been taken up assembling a flat pack dining table and an extending one at that, so plenty of 'fiddly bits' and runners to fit. I'm not going to talk much about flat pack furniture as it's not the most exciting of subjects and is something that is commonly griped about. In fact I have grown to actually quite like the mission of putting a piece of furniture together, especially now my eldest daughter Emily has grown into a capable, willing and patient 'flat-pack buddy'.
So, here I am proudly sat at the new table with loads to write about but little time left of the day so here's just a few brief thoughts before I go to bed.
I have finally managed to download two tracks from the elusive Fleet Foxes debut EP from 2006; 'She Got Dressed' and 'In The Hot Hot Rays' - bloody hell they are good songs too, if very different from the sound of their incredible debut album*** (a possible contender for THE album of the past decade) I really hope they release another CD this year; it will have to be pretty blooming good to surpass their debut.
I'm half way through watching (for the first time in a long while) 'Cracked Actor', a 1974 BBC documentary following Bowie on his Diamond Dogs tour of the USA in that same year. It's only because of the amount of reading I have done on The Great Man over the past few years that I now know that he was by the time of that tour and the documentary, already locked into a colossal 'devil's dandruff' habit which might explain his wafer thin, edgy, evasive and at times slightly annoying (especially his 'There's a fly floating round in my milk' speech delivered in his best posh Jagger voice) persona in the film. But I think that goes some way to summing up the genius of Bowie, you never really know if that's what he is really like or if he is just putting on an act / taking the piss.
This wasn't meant to turn into a Bowie post, but it does link into a final and more personal thought to share, concerning my oldest brother and the great quest that awaits (he is also at present one of only two known followers to my blog so this is a bit of a deliberate direct message to the reader). To my beloved brother I can only say that I hope the application of a Ziggy Stardust postage stamp is the portent of a great future, and that you do indeed get to roam the Earth as 'some kind of KFM'
Tomorrow I have good intentions to blog on one of a number of subjects; The Scariest Thing I Saw As A Kid, My Ineptitude At Fantasy Football and 'Is It Me Or Does the New Dr Who look Like A young Tommy Cooper' are all shortlisted, but whatever the subject will be, I can assure that there will most definitely be......
More to follow
Col
*** God help me if some camp old twat on that bloody Dickinson's Real Deal today didn't pronounce the word 'album' as 'awl-bum' when valuing some sweet old dear's cigarette card 'Awl-bums' - I thought I'd had this word pronunciation thing out of my system the other day and then I'm confronted with that monstrosity.
So, here I am proudly sat at the new table with loads to write about but little time left of the day so here's just a few brief thoughts before I go to bed.
I have finally managed to download two tracks from the elusive Fleet Foxes debut EP from 2006; 'She Got Dressed' and 'In The Hot Hot Rays' - bloody hell they are good songs too, if very different from the sound of their incredible debut album*** (a possible contender for THE album of the past decade) I really hope they release another CD this year; it will have to be pretty blooming good to surpass their debut.
I'm half way through watching (for the first time in a long while) 'Cracked Actor', a 1974 BBC documentary following Bowie on his Diamond Dogs tour of the USA in that same year. It's only because of the amount of reading I have done on The Great Man over the past few years that I now know that he was by the time of that tour and the documentary, already locked into a colossal 'devil's dandruff' habit which might explain his wafer thin, edgy, evasive and at times slightly annoying (especially his 'There's a fly floating round in my milk' speech delivered in his best posh Jagger voice) persona in the film. But I think that goes some way to summing up the genius of Bowie, you never really know if that's what he is really like or if he is just putting on an act / taking the piss.
This wasn't meant to turn into a Bowie post, but it does link into a final and more personal thought to share, concerning my oldest brother and the great quest that awaits (he is also at present one of only two known followers to my blog so this is a bit of a deliberate direct message to the reader). To my beloved brother I can only say that I hope the application of a Ziggy Stardust postage stamp is the portent of a great future, and that you do indeed get to roam the Earth as 'some kind of KFM'
Tomorrow I have good intentions to blog on one of a number of subjects; The Scariest Thing I Saw As A Kid, My Ineptitude At Fantasy Football and 'Is It Me Or Does the New Dr Who look Like A young Tommy Cooper' are all shortlisted, but whatever the subject will be, I can assure that there will most definitely be......
More to follow
Col
*** God help me if some camp old twat on that bloody Dickinson's Real Deal today didn't pronounce the word 'album' as 'awl-bum' when valuing some sweet old dear's cigarette card 'Awl-bums' - I thought I'd had this word pronunciation thing out of my system the other day and then I'm confronted with that monstrosity.
Wednesday 20 January 2010
In praise of Microdisney and Their Finest Hour
Today I pay gentle tribute to my favourite band of the 1980s and their finest album. I also briefly mention rubber johnnies.
Back in 1894 I went with a mate of mine for a ‘Lad’s Holiday’ to Ibiza. As things turned out it was anything but a lad’s holiday in the perceived sense** and we were on a very quiet, chilled out part of the Island. Before I left for the holiday, a work colleague gave me a home made compilation tape for the walkman which was an excellent mixture, which included ‘Dolly’ by Microdisney. The tape was played to death over the two weeks, surviving just long enough for me to play ‘Dolly’ over and over on the plane home in memory of two great weeks chilling out in the sun, a great crowd of people we had met over there and an intense but quite innocent holiday romance.
I won’t attempt a Microdisney biography here, as there are plenty of these already on the net. Suffice to say they were two guys from Co Cork, loved by John Peel and revered by the NME, who recorded on Rough Trade and later Virgin records, had little if no commercial success and to those who heard them were nothing short of brilliant. They became my new favourite band, and for the remainder of that year their ‘Everybody Is Fantastic’ album ate slowly into my system, eventually proving the perfect antidote for my childhood musical idol (Bowie) having let me down massively with the truly awful ‘Tonight’ (amusingly enough his next album release a few years later would be the equally dire ‘Never Let Me Down’)
Just over a year later, in the build up to Christmas 1985, they released their second album ‘The Clock Comes Down The Stairs’ having expanded from a guitar (Sean O’Hagan) & keyboard / vocal (Cathal Coughlan) duo to a five piece band. Almost instantly ‘Clock’ became and has been ever since my favourite album of all time. I have always struggled to be able to pigeon-hole this album or make comparisons, but there are elements of country rock, west coast rock, Brian Wilson, Steely Dan, Jimmy Webb and Scott Walker in the sound of the record, the real magic being in the haunting melodies they had such a knack for, fronted by the bitter and ascerbic, yet wise and often very funny vocals of singer Cathal Coughlan, who, as testament to his genius, sings in his Cork accent throughout.
I only ever got to see the band live once and this was at one of their most famous gigs at The Boston Arms in Tuffnell Park North London in November 1986. Tracks recorded live at this show were then released as single b-sides and bonus tracks on their almost a hit 1987 single ‘Town To Town’ It was by a long way one of the best live gigs I have ever been to.
‘The Clock Comes Down The Stairs’ is long since deleted and was only released briefly on CD in the late 1990s. The band released four studio albums in total before they broke up in 1988-9 – to the best of my knowledge none of these albums are currently available on CD but there have been some compilations over the years which are still available. A full on comprehensive reissue of their work is long overdue. Both Cathal and Sean have continued to record and release great music in other guises to this day.
So thank you Col Glynn (if by some miracle you ever read this Col, get in touch – haven’t seen you in about 20 years!) for that brilliant compilation tape and the introduction to this great band. Col was at The Boston Arms gig with me and first in the queue (well, we were the queue) with me in Our Price (Harrow) on the day ‘The Clock’ was released.
More to follow
Col
** Although I did drink myself half to death and enjoyed a holiday romance with a lovely young Geordie lass, I ended up giving 11 of the (very hopeful) ‘packet of 12’ I had taken out there with me to two superb 100% genuine 80s casuals called Grant and Tony (what else) on the day we left. The only one I had taken out of it’s wrapper was used to demonstrate the ‘pull it over your head including your nose then inflate by exhaling through your nose until you end up with a huge comedy alien head which eventually bursts leaving your hair full of spermicidal lubricant’ trick in Manolo’s bar one drunken night. Well, come on, good Catholic boy and all that............
Back in 1894 I went with a mate of mine for a ‘Lad’s Holiday’ to Ibiza. As things turned out it was anything but a lad’s holiday in the perceived sense** and we were on a very quiet, chilled out part of the Island. Before I left for the holiday, a work colleague gave me a home made compilation tape for the walkman which was an excellent mixture, which included ‘Dolly’ by Microdisney. The tape was played to death over the two weeks, surviving just long enough for me to play ‘Dolly’ over and over on the plane home in memory of two great weeks chilling out in the sun, a great crowd of people we had met over there and an intense but quite innocent holiday romance.
I won’t attempt a Microdisney biography here, as there are plenty of these already on the net. Suffice to say they were two guys from Co Cork, loved by John Peel and revered by the NME, who recorded on Rough Trade and later Virgin records, had little if no commercial success and to those who heard them were nothing short of brilliant. They became my new favourite band, and for the remainder of that year their ‘Everybody Is Fantastic’ album ate slowly into my system, eventually proving the perfect antidote for my childhood musical idol (Bowie) having let me down massively with the truly awful ‘Tonight’ (amusingly enough his next album release a few years later would be the equally dire ‘Never Let Me Down’)
Just over a year later, in the build up to Christmas 1985, they released their second album ‘The Clock Comes Down The Stairs’ having expanded from a guitar (Sean O’Hagan) & keyboard / vocal (Cathal Coughlan) duo to a five piece band. Almost instantly ‘Clock’ became and has been ever since my favourite album of all time. I have always struggled to be able to pigeon-hole this album or make comparisons, but there are elements of country rock, west coast rock, Brian Wilson, Steely Dan, Jimmy Webb and Scott Walker in the sound of the record, the real magic being in the haunting melodies they had such a knack for, fronted by the bitter and ascerbic, yet wise and often very funny vocals of singer Cathal Coughlan, who, as testament to his genius, sings in his Cork accent throughout.
I only ever got to see the band live once and this was at one of their most famous gigs at The Boston Arms in Tuffnell Park North London in November 1986. Tracks recorded live at this show were then released as single b-sides and bonus tracks on their almost a hit 1987 single ‘Town To Town’ It was by a long way one of the best live gigs I have ever been to.
‘The Clock Comes Down The Stairs’ is long since deleted and was only released briefly on CD in the late 1990s. The band released four studio albums in total before they broke up in 1988-9 – to the best of my knowledge none of these albums are currently available on CD but there have been some compilations over the years which are still available. A full on comprehensive reissue of their work is long overdue. Both Cathal and Sean have continued to record and release great music in other guises to this day.
So thank you Col Glynn (if by some miracle you ever read this Col, get in touch – haven’t seen you in about 20 years!) for that brilliant compilation tape and the introduction to this great band. Col was at The Boston Arms gig with me and first in the queue (well, we were the queue) with me in Our Price (Harrow) on the day ‘The Clock’ was released.
More to follow
Col
** Although I did drink myself half to death and enjoyed a holiday romance with a lovely young Geordie lass, I ended up giving 11 of the (very hopeful) ‘packet of 12’ I had taken out there with me to two superb 100% genuine 80s casuals called Grant and Tony (what else) on the day we left. The only one I had taken out of it’s wrapper was used to demonstrate the ‘pull it over your head including your nose then inflate by exhaling through your nose until you end up with a huge comedy alien head which eventually bursts leaving your hair full of spermicidal lubricant’ trick in Manolo’s bar one drunken night. Well, come on, good Catholic boy and all that............
Tuesday 19 January 2010
Just A Quick Peep Round The Door Of Room 101...
Just a brief rant. This will happen from time to time.
Here’s one of an occasional series of ‘Things That Get My Back Up For No Particular Reason’
Words Pronounced In A Way That Might Be Correct But I Don’t Actually Like
Pizza – surely this should be pronounced ‘Peet-ser’ and not ‘Pit-ser’? – main offender; can’t think of one right now except for a character in Brookside in the late 1980s, a Scottish guy, turned out to be a bad sort, dealt in video nasties that he stored in the loft at his girlfriend’s house. Hmmmm – wasn’t the girlfriend the sister of Dr Choi, who was played by David ‘The Chinese Detective’ Yip?
Tikka – I’m absolutely sure this should be pronounced ‘Teak-err’ and not ‘Ticker’ – main offender – nope, stuck again for a specific villain, although Clarkson said it on Top Gear once about 8 years ago, and I still haven’t forgiven him.
Medicine – Grrrrr – don’t know why but this winds me up more than any of the others. Medicine is a three syllable word and only filthy toads pronounce it as ‘Med-Sun’ – main offenders? – every Newsreader and News Reporter throughout the 1990s
Uranus – actually, I think this one is quite clever and not really annoying at all. How to spare the schoolboy giggles and acute embassment of saying the name of a planet as ‘Yer Anus’ (snigger snigger);simply alter the emphasis from the second to the first syllable (ie URanus instead of urAnus) and nobody need be any the wiser. I’ll bet Patrick Moore still says it the proper way.
Auction – Double Grrrrrr – My current employment allows for me to work from home from time to time and as my beloved is currently on long term sick leave this means that I might be cheerfully ‘evaluating core issues’ on my PC whilst ‘Dickinson’s Real Deal’ is on the telly in the background. As far as I am aware ‘auction’ is pronounced ‘awk-tion’ and definitely not pronounced ‘ok-tion’ as the loathsome orange lizard seems to prefer to do.
I may not rant again for a while so while I’m being a moany little mardy arse can I also have a quick whinge about two Americanisms that really get my back up? OK well first of all (as my nephew and great friend Stephen will testify) I can’t bear to hear people say ‘can I get’ instead of ‘can I have’ or ‘may I have’ (Stephen to his credit actually ups his ‘can I get’ usage in my presence. He really knows more than most what scares and aggravates Col. Whispering on TV, A Cyclops, Early Nineties Prototype ‘Hoodies’ – oh yes, he knows them all.......)
Secondly, and finally, is the sudden an inexplicable substitution of ‘I haven’t got a clue’ or ‘I have no idea’ with the dreaded ‘I have no clue’. Why do these things get to me so much? I’ll be the first to admit that my own English, written and spoken, is a long, long way from perfect (just to get the disclaimer in quickly!) so it’s probably just me being an arse.
I have to wrap this up, as I have to dash off to an Ok-tion, where I’m hoping to buy some photos of URanus – why? I have no clue, but before I go, can I get a chicken ticker pit-ser and some med-sun for a headache?
More to follow
Col
Here’s one of an occasional series of ‘Things That Get My Back Up For No Particular Reason’
Words Pronounced In A Way That Might Be Correct But I Don’t Actually Like
Pizza – surely this should be pronounced ‘Peet-ser’ and not ‘Pit-ser’? – main offender; can’t think of one right now except for a character in Brookside in the late 1980s, a Scottish guy, turned out to be a bad sort, dealt in video nasties that he stored in the loft at his girlfriend’s house. Hmmmm – wasn’t the girlfriend the sister of Dr Choi, who was played by David ‘The Chinese Detective’ Yip?
Tikka – I’m absolutely sure this should be pronounced ‘Teak-err’ and not ‘Ticker’ – main offender – nope, stuck again for a specific villain, although Clarkson said it on Top Gear once about 8 years ago, and I still haven’t forgiven him.
Medicine – Grrrrr – don’t know why but this winds me up more than any of the others. Medicine is a three syllable word and only filthy toads pronounce it as ‘Med-Sun’ – main offenders? – every Newsreader and News Reporter throughout the 1990s
Uranus – actually, I think this one is quite clever and not really annoying at all. How to spare the schoolboy giggles and acute embassment of saying the name of a planet as ‘Yer Anus’ (snigger snigger);simply alter the emphasis from the second to the first syllable (ie URanus instead of urAnus) and nobody need be any the wiser. I’ll bet Patrick Moore still says it the proper way.
Auction – Double Grrrrrr – My current employment allows for me to work from home from time to time and as my beloved is currently on long term sick leave this means that I might be cheerfully ‘evaluating core issues’ on my PC whilst ‘Dickinson’s Real Deal’ is on the telly in the background. As far as I am aware ‘auction’ is pronounced ‘awk-tion’ and definitely not pronounced ‘ok-tion’ as the loathsome orange lizard seems to prefer to do.
I may not rant again for a while so while I’m being a moany little mardy arse can I also have a quick whinge about two Americanisms that really get my back up? OK well first of all (as my nephew and great friend Stephen will testify) I can’t bear to hear people say ‘can I get’ instead of ‘can I have’ or ‘may I have’ (Stephen to his credit actually ups his ‘can I get’ usage in my presence. He really knows more than most what scares and aggravates Col. Whispering on TV, A Cyclops, Early Nineties Prototype ‘Hoodies’ – oh yes, he knows them all.......)
Secondly, and finally, is the sudden an inexplicable substitution of ‘I haven’t got a clue’ or ‘I have no idea’ with the dreaded ‘I have no clue’. Why do these things get to me so much? I’ll be the first to admit that my own English, written and spoken, is a long, long way from perfect (just to get the disclaimer in quickly!) so it’s probably just me being an arse.
I have to wrap this up, as I have to dash off to an Ok-tion, where I’m hoping to buy some photos of URanus – why? I have no clue, but before I go, can I get a chicken ticker pit-ser and some med-sun for a headache?
More to follow
Col
Monday 18 January 2010
Blackbird Singing In The Dead Of Night... it's a McCartney freebie!
A giveaway CD or DVD (closely followed by an exceptional Spurs victory) is often the only incentive for me to buy a Sunday paper and even then it has to be a pretty tempting offering (over the past few years the Bowie ‘iselect’ collection, a decent Roxy Music compilation, Black Narcissus and a series of War Movies have been some of the highlights) So, the exclusive Paul McCartney live CD in yesterdays Mail On Sunday (ooh, and a free ‘Miss Marple’ DVD too – you are spoiling me Ambassador) seemed worth a go.
The Beatles have shared with Bowie the mantle of ‘Col’s Favourite Artist’ since I was about 8 years old and although many have fought for a place in the top two ever since** this has yet to change. Having said that I have never been much of a fan of The Beatles solo stuff*** which is ironic really as my favourite Beatles album by a long way has to be ‘The Beatles’ (The White Album) which is in the main a collection of solo performances.
I wasn’t really holding out a great deal of hope for the McCartney Live offering. Touted on the TV as ‘McCartney Sings The Beatles’ (or something like that, and after all, who could deny Sir Paul the right to ‘Sing The Beatles’ anyway) it is in fact a 12 track album with 7 Beatles songs and 5 of his solo songs – a recording of a live show he did at Amoeba record store in June 2007 (I think) in front of about 1000 people. I dutifully stuck it on the i-pod last night and thought it would most likely get one play and then be lost in the ether (a bit like the 45 minute home cassette free form jam demo by Spacemen 3) of my digital music collection.
Actually it’s pretty good! Good enough to have had two full plays last night and another on the way to work this morning. Good enough in fact to warrant being the subject matter of today’s blog entry. McCartney is wise enough to know these days that it’s the Beatles songs the crowd really want to hear (it’s unlikely you will hear some stray voice in the crowd bellowing out for ‘Old Siam Sir’) so the majority of these come in the second half of the show / CD. There’s not a great deal to be said about the Beatle renditions really – he has a good tight band behind him and certainly sounds like he’s enjoying himself, even if he struggles to hit all the notes more now than 30 – 40 years ago. The highlight of the Beatle songs on offer here, for me, is ‘Blackbird’ - not a patch on the ‘White Album’ original of course but great to hear him singing it again and making the acoustic guitar backing sound so bloody easy. How I would love to be able to play ‘Blackbird’ on the guitar properly (or even badly) Elsewhere, ‘Drive My Car’, ‘Get Back’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Back In The USSR’ are delivered with energy and a sense of a band having some fun and as for ‘Hey Jude’ well you’ve heard a thousand different renditions a thousand times, but it’s always going to be really hard for McCartney himself to balls that one up.
Three of the five solo tracks are from his most recent solo album which after all he would have been touring in 2007 to promote, but the highlight is a rendition of ‘Here Today’ a song from his Tug Of War album written for Lennon. Being McCartney it’s a little bit sugary and sentimental, but a great rendition, with genuine emotion in the delivery and quite moving on a cold grey Monday morning on my way to work.
So there you have it, my first attempt at an album review and it’s a Mail On Sunday freebie. Oh well!
More to follow
Col
** Notable contenders over the years include Scott Walker, The Stranglers, REM, The Jam, The Stones, The Who, The Small Faces, Stevie Wonder, XTC, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, Supergrass, Suede, Steely Dan, Hawkwind and errrrm, oh many, many more
*** This is perhaps a little unfair seeing as I am a big fan of Lennon’s ‘Plastic Ono Band’ and ‘Imagine’ albums, McCartney’s ‘Band On The Run’ and ‘McCartney’ and Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ – plus there is a lot of solo stuff I haven’t even bohered to listen to. Oh and of course I forgot to mention Ringo’s ‘Stop And Smell The Roses’ album – boom boom indeed.
The Beatles have shared with Bowie the mantle of ‘Col’s Favourite Artist’ since I was about 8 years old and although many have fought for a place in the top two ever since** this has yet to change. Having said that I have never been much of a fan of The Beatles solo stuff*** which is ironic really as my favourite Beatles album by a long way has to be ‘The Beatles’ (The White Album) which is in the main a collection of solo performances.
I wasn’t really holding out a great deal of hope for the McCartney Live offering. Touted on the TV as ‘McCartney Sings The Beatles’ (or something like that, and after all, who could deny Sir Paul the right to ‘Sing The Beatles’ anyway) it is in fact a 12 track album with 7 Beatles songs and 5 of his solo songs – a recording of a live show he did at Amoeba record store in June 2007 (I think) in front of about 1000 people. I dutifully stuck it on the i-pod last night and thought it would most likely get one play and then be lost in the ether (a bit like the 45 minute home cassette free form jam demo by Spacemen 3) of my digital music collection.
Actually it’s pretty good! Good enough to have had two full plays last night and another on the way to work this morning. Good enough in fact to warrant being the subject matter of today’s blog entry. McCartney is wise enough to know these days that it’s the Beatles songs the crowd really want to hear (it’s unlikely you will hear some stray voice in the crowd bellowing out for ‘Old Siam Sir’) so the majority of these come in the second half of the show / CD. There’s not a great deal to be said about the Beatle renditions really – he has a good tight band behind him and certainly sounds like he’s enjoying himself, even if he struggles to hit all the notes more now than 30 – 40 years ago. The highlight of the Beatle songs on offer here, for me, is ‘Blackbird’ - not a patch on the ‘White Album’ original of course but great to hear him singing it again and making the acoustic guitar backing sound so bloody easy. How I would love to be able to play ‘Blackbird’ on the guitar properly (or even badly) Elsewhere, ‘Drive My Car’, ‘Get Back’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Back In The USSR’ are delivered with energy and a sense of a band having some fun and as for ‘Hey Jude’ well you’ve heard a thousand different renditions a thousand times, but it’s always going to be really hard for McCartney himself to balls that one up.
Three of the five solo tracks are from his most recent solo album which after all he would have been touring in 2007 to promote, but the highlight is a rendition of ‘Here Today’ a song from his Tug Of War album written for Lennon. Being McCartney it’s a little bit sugary and sentimental, but a great rendition, with genuine emotion in the delivery and quite moving on a cold grey Monday morning on my way to work.
So there you have it, my first attempt at an album review and it’s a Mail On Sunday freebie. Oh well!
More to follow
Col
** Notable contenders over the years include Scott Walker, The Stranglers, REM, The Jam, The Stones, The Who, The Small Faces, Stevie Wonder, XTC, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, Supergrass, Suede, Steely Dan, Hawkwind and errrrm, oh many, many more
*** This is perhaps a little unfair seeing as I am a big fan of Lennon’s ‘Plastic Ono Band’ and ‘Imagine’ albums, McCartney’s ‘Band On The Run’ and ‘McCartney’ and Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ – plus there is a lot of solo stuff I haven’t even bohered to listen to. Oh and of course I forgot to mention Ringo’s ‘Stop And Smell The Roses’ album – boom boom indeed.
Sunday 17 January 2010
'Hammer House Of Horror - Revisited'
Time for a ‘retro telly’ post I think. I’m inspired by a message I received from the legend that is Andy Warner (The Lord Drew Crow Star) on Facebook, saying that he had just enjoyed a Hammer House Of Horror marathon, so, in his honour, let’s talk HHOH.
HHOH was a series of 13 one-off stories made by the Hammer studio, a few years after they had ceased movie production. It was first televised on ITV in the autumn of 1980 and each story was an hour long (including ads) Thanks to the anorak friendly internet, the blurb on the DVD box set and my worryingly spot-on memory for times and dates, I realise now why I didn’t watch them all first time round. Back in 1980 only the most privileged of homes had a video recorder, and there were no endless repeats on satellite channels, so if you missed it when it was on, that what is, you were buggered and had to get the gist of the plot from the school playground on Monday, whilst pretending that you had been doing something far more interesting.
Actually, I’m happy to be able to say that I can give a fairly credible excuse for missing at least 4 episodes; The Jam at The Rainbow, The Vapors (don’t knock it, they were great live) at The Marquee and at least two of the excellent parties the girls we knew from St Micks Convent used to throw, usually in Golders Green or Finchley Central.
(just as an aside – my essentials for such parties would be; sta-press, a third hand Fred Perry shirt, my Purple two tone ‘tonic’ jacket, hush puppies, a splash of my brother’s ‘Blue Stratos’, the ‘More Specials’ album, a bottle of Gaymers Olde English, four cans of Heldenbrau, 10 B&H and my Mod parka. The irony of the mod parka is that a coat is supposed to be worn to keep you warm in winter, but I used to take mine hidden in a carrier bag, just in case I encountered the Tally Ho Corner ‘Skins’ en route, then put it on as I arrived at the party and wear it indoors all evening, sweltering, ready to pop it back in the back for the journey home. A born coward me, and proud of it too!)
Anyhow, where was I?
Ah yes. So HHOH was the prime time Saturday night viewing that took up where ‘Tales Of The Unexpected’ and before that ‘Thriller’ had left off, ie something a bit creepy to watch with your tea, and not on late enough to interfere with Match Of The Day.
At the time it was pretty good stuff, with some great stories too. Anyone who was aged maybe 10 – 15 at that time will remember some of the spookier episodes, especially ‘The Two Faces Of Evil’ with the horrible hitchhiker in the yellow cagoule and the nasty fingernail (now I was 16 by then and definitely thought I was old enough to know better, but that one still scared the crap out of me) Or ‘The Silent Scream’ with Peter Cushing and Brian Cox – probably the best story of them all with a really haunting ending. Oh, and ‘Charlie Boy’ the sinister fetish doll. And Diana Dors in ‘Children Of The Full Moon’.
Eventually, like most great TV shows of the past, HHOH was put out as a DVD box set, so I got to have a watch all over again a few years ago and more recently I have downloaded the whole series onto my i-pod. Wow, isn’t the 21st Century positively corking?
30 years later, it’s hard to imagine how HHOH can have ever looked ‘contempoary’ but like all great retro TV it’s the fact that it has dated that creates the whole feeling of (to quote The Crow Star) ‘retro loveliness’ Looking back, there were some of the top actors and actresses of the day (Denholm Elliot, Diana Dors) in the show and others at the start of their careers but now megastars (Pierce Brosnan – pre Bond, pre Remington Steele, even pre ‘dodgy IRA bloke in The Long Good Friday – and of course Brian Cox)
But for me, watching them over again, the real treat is seeing one of the weaker stories (‘Witching Time’) redeemed by featuring one of my favourite British actors, Jon Finch (‘Frenzy’ Polanski’s ‘Macbeth’) with a superb sub Bruce Foxton proto mullet at his usual velvet voiced, often half cut, manic best.
Obviously very tame by todays standards, a little hit and miss here and there and with some of the plots padded to bursting, but still a great one off series and a fitting epitaph on the tombstone of 1970s Saturday night TV horror.
On a final note, when I was re-watching this on DVD a few years ago, I offered my two girls (who were at the time quite happy to watch ‘Supernatural’ every week) the chance to watch a few episodes with me. They managed to get half way through ‘Charlie Boy’ and were spooked for weeks.
More to come
Col
HHOH was a series of 13 one-off stories made by the Hammer studio, a few years after they had ceased movie production. It was first televised on ITV in the autumn of 1980 and each story was an hour long (including ads) Thanks to the anorak friendly internet, the blurb on the DVD box set and my worryingly spot-on memory for times and dates, I realise now why I didn’t watch them all first time round. Back in 1980 only the most privileged of homes had a video recorder, and there were no endless repeats on satellite channels, so if you missed it when it was on, that what is, you were buggered and had to get the gist of the plot from the school playground on Monday, whilst pretending that you had been doing something far more interesting.
Actually, I’m happy to be able to say that I can give a fairly credible excuse for missing at least 4 episodes; The Jam at The Rainbow, The Vapors (don’t knock it, they were great live) at The Marquee and at least two of the excellent parties the girls we knew from St Micks Convent used to throw, usually in Golders Green or Finchley Central.
(just as an aside – my essentials for such parties would be; sta-press, a third hand Fred Perry shirt, my Purple two tone ‘tonic’ jacket, hush puppies, a splash of my brother’s ‘Blue Stratos’, the ‘More Specials’ album, a bottle of Gaymers Olde English, four cans of Heldenbrau, 10 B&H and my Mod parka. The irony of the mod parka is that a coat is supposed to be worn to keep you warm in winter, but I used to take mine hidden in a carrier bag, just in case I encountered the Tally Ho Corner ‘Skins’ en route, then put it on as I arrived at the party and wear it indoors all evening, sweltering, ready to pop it back in the back for the journey home. A born coward me, and proud of it too!)
Anyhow, where was I?
Ah yes. So HHOH was the prime time Saturday night viewing that took up where ‘Tales Of The Unexpected’ and before that ‘Thriller’ had left off, ie something a bit creepy to watch with your tea, and not on late enough to interfere with Match Of The Day.
At the time it was pretty good stuff, with some great stories too. Anyone who was aged maybe 10 – 15 at that time will remember some of the spookier episodes, especially ‘The Two Faces Of Evil’ with the horrible hitchhiker in the yellow cagoule and the nasty fingernail (now I was 16 by then and definitely thought I was old enough to know better, but that one still scared the crap out of me) Or ‘The Silent Scream’ with Peter Cushing and Brian Cox – probably the best story of them all with a really haunting ending. Oh, and ‘Charlie Boy’ the sinister fetish doll. And Diana Dors in ‘Children Of The Full Moon’.
Eventually, like most great TV shows of the past, HHOH was put out as a DVD box set, so I got to have a watch all over again a few years ago and more recently I have downloaded the whole series onto my i-pod. Wow, isn’t the 21st Century positively corking?
30 years later, it’s hard to imagine how HHOH can have ever looked ‘contempoary’ but like all great retro TV it’s the fact that it has dated that creates the whole feeling of (to quote The Crow Star) ‘retro loveliness’ Looking back, there were some of the top actors and actresses of the day (Denholm Elliot, Diana Dors) in the show and others at the start of their careers but now megastars (Pierce Brosnan – pre Bond, pre Remington Steele, even pre ‘dodgy IRA bloke in The Long Good Friday – and of course Brian Cox)
But for me, watching them over again, the real treat is seeing one of the weaker stories (‘Witching Time’) redeemed by featuring one of my favourite British actors, Jon Finch (‘Frenzy’ Polanski’s ‘Macbeth’) with a superb sub Bruce Foxton proto mullet at his usual velvet voiced, often half cut, manic best.
Obviously very tame by todays standards, a little hit and miss here and there and with some of the plots padded to bursting, but still a great one off series and a fitting epitaph on the tombstone of 1970s Saturday night TV horror.
On a final note, when I was re-watching this on DVD a few years ago, I offered my two girls (who were at the time quite happy to watch ‘Supernatural’ every week) the chance to watch a few episodes with me. They managed to get half way through ‘Charlie Boy’ and were spooked for weeks.
More to come
Col
Friday 15 January 2010
'Morgans - A Suitable Case For Tribute' (The Record Shops Of North London)
More (brief) autobiographical background and scene setting.....
I was born on 3rd October 1964 at home in my parents’ house in Bounds Green Road, North London and that’s where I lived for the first 17 years of my life, up until we moved to Rickmansworth in November 1981.
I have loved music and records for so long, and started buying records at such a young age, that I can’t even remember for sure the first single I bought (possibly ‘Theme From White Horses’ by Jacky in 1968)
The most important record shop in my formative buying years was Morgan Records in Bounds Green Tube Station. I know it has long since closed but I’m not sure when; it was certainly still going when we moved in ’81. The two blokes that ran the shop were fairly easy going, tolerant of endless browsing , more than willing to play a little bit of any single that looked slightly ‘punk’ and be happy to answer questions of pretty alarming stupidity, eg ‘what version of ‘The Kids Are Alright’ is better, The Pleasers or The Who?’ Shortly after Ian Curtis of Joy Division committed suicide in 1980, I went to Morgan’s to buy my bandwagon hopping copy of ‘Closer’ and one of them said ‘actually mate I think you might prefer this’ and sold me a copy of ‘Strange Days’ by The Doors, which kick started a love of West Coast and psychedelia that I have nurtured ever since.
It was Morgan’s that I would leg it to the instant I heard the latest Bowie single on the radio, getting them to play me both sides in full before handing over my 45p and it was from Morgan’s that I bought nearly all of those 1976 reissued Beatles singles in the green sleeves with a photo on the back. They also had the honour of selling me the first proper rock album I bought in my own right which was Bowie’s ‘Pin-Ups’, just after Christmas 1975, £2.99 plus 12p for a protective PVC sleeve (I do however remember the first actual album I bought – it was ‘Pinky & Perky’s Hit Parade’ in October 1968, aged 4 – a cracker of an album with some top notch cover versions – similar in fact to ‘Pin-Ups’)
Up until I started secondary school and my horizons broadened to Finchley and beyond, the only competition Morgans had when it came to my pocket money were the boxes of ‘ex juke box’ singles in newsagents (cheaper at 25p a throw, lots of tat to rummage through but great for an occasional lucky find**) or the record departments of WH Smiths , Boots or Woolies in Wood Green High Road. However once I hit my teens and certainly once I had started earning a few quid a week in my Saturday job (another subject for another time) I showed a shameless lack of loyalty to my long suffering friends at Bounds Green tube as I sniffed out bargains or elusive back catalogues further afield.
Now then, this is my blog and my golden rule to myself in starting it is not to be in any way ashamed or apologetic as to subject matter, content or quality of the ‘product’ – therefore having got that out of the way, here is a list of my favourite long gone record shops of North London, with a purchase of note from each;
Harem Records (Muswell Hill) – The Jam – All Mod Cons, December 1978
Arcade Records (North Finchley High Rd) – The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup , Summer 1980 (the year I finally ‘got into’ the Stones)
Mr Music (North Finchley High Rd) – David Bowie – Low, October 1977 (I actually cried tears of anger when I first played side 2, but now love it as one of Bowie’s best)
Derek’s Records (Wood Green High Road) – Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit (reissue single), Summer 1981
Loppy Lugs (Finchley Central) – Blondie – Picture This (single) – September 1978
Oldies Galore (Finchley Central) – One very scratchy second hand copy of Alice Cooper’s ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ album
There are many more of course, but it was Morgans Records that made a hopeless music junkie out of me and to those chaps that used to run the shop, whoever they were and wherever they may now be, I sincerely thank you.
As the 1970s became the 1980s, I turned to the record shops of Rickmansworth (the inimitable Strawberry Fields) Watford and Harrow for my fixes and spent my early years as a working man in crazed back catalogue binges on Hawkwind, Steely Dan, Dylan, Gong, Floyd.............. and the list goes on......and on.
The record shops I remember were slowly buried by the high street megastores, which are now in turn being slowly buried by online shopping and downloads. In the far distant future, what will bury the online empires and the download giants?
I’d like to think it might be Robby the Robot, a youthful Leslie Nielson, and the two blokes who made sure I always got a proper RCA company sleeves on my Bowie singles in Morgans all those years ago.
So for now, farewell
Col
** I once found a copy of David Bowie’s ‘The Prettiest Star’ single on the Mercury label (nowadays ridiculously rare as like most of his early singles it bombed) in a box of 25p singles in Mick’s Newsagent at the top of Bounds Green Road, but didn’t buy it because I hadn’t heard it before. Crap. On the plus side I did once find a copy of one of the greatest ‘slowies’ ever; ‘Love Won’t let Me Wait’ by Major Harris in a similar bargain box which I knew my brother Dave was on the look-out for so I bought it for him. I wonder how many slowies Dave got as a result of that purchase. Eh?
I was born on 3rd October 1964 at home in my parents’ house in Bounds Green Road, North London and that’s where I lived for the first 17 years of my life, up until we moved to Rickmansworth in November 1981.
I have loved music and records for so long, and started buying records at such a young age, that I can’t even remember for sure the first single I bought (possibly ‘Theme From White Horses’ by Jacky in 1968)
The most important record shop in my formative buying years was Morgan Records in Bounds Green Tube Station. I know it has long since closed but I’m not sure when; it was certainly still going when we moved in ’81. The two blokes that ran the shop were fairly easy going, tolerant of endless browsing , more than willing to play a little bit of any single that looked slightly ‘punk’ and be happy to answer questions of pretty alarming stupidity, eg ‘what version of ‘The Kids Are Alright’ is better, The Pleasers or The Who?’ Shortly after Ian Curtis of Joy Division committed suicide in 1980, I went to Morgan’s to buy my bandwagon hopping copy of ‘Closer’ and one of them said ‘actually mate I think you might prefer this’ and sold me a copy of ‘Strange Days’ by The Doors, which kick started a love of West Coast and psychedelia that I have nurtured ever since.
It was Morgan’s that I would leg it to the instant I heard the latest Bowie single on the radio, getting them to play me both sides in full before handing over my 45p and it was from Morgan’s that I bought nearly all of those 1976 reissued Beatles singles in the green sleeves with a photo on the back. They also had the honour of selling me the first proper rock album I bought in my own right which was Bowie’s ‘Pin-Ups’, just after Christmas 1975, £2.99 plus 12p for a protective PVC sleeve (I do however remember the first actual album I bought – it was ‘Pinky & Perky’s Hit Parade’ in October 1968, aged 4 – a cracker of an album with some top notch cover versions – similar in fact to ‘Pin-Ups’)
Up until I started secondary school and my horizons broadened to Finchley and beyond, the only competition Morgans had when it came to my pocket money were the boxes of ‘ex juke box’ singles in newsagents (cheaper at 25p a throw, lots of tat to rummage through but great for an occasional lucky find**) or the record departments of WH Smiths , Boots or Woolies in Wood Green High Road. However once I hit my teens and certainly once I had started earning a few quid a week in my Saturday job (another subject for another time) I showed a shameless lack of loyalty to my long suffering friends at Bounds Green tube as I sniffed out bargains or elusive back catalogues further afield.
Now then, this is my blog and my golden rule to myself in starting it is not to be in any way ashamed or apologetic as to subject matter, content or quality of the ‘product’ – therefore having got that out of the way, here is a list of my favourite long gone record shops of North London, with a purchase of note from each;
Harem Records (Muswell Hill) – The Jam – All Mod Cons, December 1978
Arcade Records (North Finchley High Rd) – The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup , Summer 1980 (the year I finally ‘got into’ the Stones)
Mr Music (North Finchley High Rd) – David Bowie – Low, October 1977 (I actually cried tears of anger when I first played side 2, but now love it as one of Bowie’s best)
Derek’s Records (Wood Green High Road) – Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit (reissue single), Summer 1981
Loppy Lugs (Finchley Central) – Blondie – Picture This (single) – September 1978
Oldies Galore (Finchley Central) – One very scratchy second hand copy of Alice Cooper’s ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ album
There are many more of course, but it was Morgans Records that made a hopeless music junkie out of me and to those chaps that used to run the shop, whoever they were and wherever they may now be, I sincerely thank you.
As the 1970s became the 1980s, I turned to the record shops of Rickmansworth (the inimitable Strawberry Fields) Watford and Harrow for my fixes and spent my early years as a working man in crazed back catalogue binges on Hawkwind, Steely Dan, Dylan, Gong, Floyd.............. and the list goes on......and on.
The record shops I remember were slowly buried by the high street megastores, which are now in turn being slowly buried by online shopping and downloads. In the far distant future, what will bury the online empires and the download giants?
I’d like to think it might be Robby the Robot, a youthful Leslie Nielson, and the two blokes who made sure I always got a proper RCA company sleeves on my Bowie singles in Morgans all those years ago.
So for now, farewell
Col
** I once found a copy of David Bowie’s ‘The Prettiest Star’ single on the Mercury label (nowadays ridiculously rare as like most of his early singles it bombed) in a box of 25p singles in Mick’s Newsagent at the top of Bounds Green Road, but didn’t buy it because I hadn’t heard it before. Crap. On the plus side I did once find a copy of one of the greatest ‘slowies’ ever; ‘Love Won’t let Me Wait’ by Major Harris in a similar bargain box which I knew my brother Dave was on the look-out for so I bought it for him. I wonder how many slowies Dave got as a result of that purchase. Eh?
Thursday 14 January 2010
'Time To Start Believin' (or Incredible Journey?)
OK let’s get this out of the way. I am a 45 year old man, married, with two teenage daughters. True to type, my blogs will inevitably be filled with misty eyed infant / adolescent memories of the 1970s and misty eyed teenager / early twenties memories of the 1980s with the occasional rant and whinge about modern life and times thrown in.
Enough of that, for now at least.
Barely a day has passed in the family home lately without someone humming or singing the recently revived ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey. This is apparently as a result of a cover version sung on The X Factor and extensive TV / Radio exposure following its return to the popular music chart thanks to a mass download by an adoring public. My daughters tell me also that there is now a dance cover version thanks to a new ‘Croakfest’** TV show called ‘Glee’ but it’s the no nonsense, honest rocking original I’m concentrating on here.
For me, ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ will always be the first song played at one of the many excellent mid 80s Saturday night house parties hosted by the legendary (and very sadly recently deceased) Andy Gray (our mate from Amersham of course, not the footballer turned pundit – and incidentally the only man I ever knew who would willingly succumb to a couple of rounds of ‘Ride The Prod’ and still come up smiling)
Me being me of course, I would wait until a little later in the evening when everyone was either wrecked or had copped off or both, then try to get a sneaky play of ‘Murmur’ or ‘Meat Is Murder’ or at very least something by The Clash. I’m sorry to say that much as I loved the life, the era, the great friends and the Grey Man’s incredible shindigs, I absolutely hated ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ which to me epitomised mid 80s soft stadium rock, all backlit bubble perms, cap sleeve t-shirts and sprayed on spandex. (Can I just say however that some of the best live gigs I have ever been to were mid 80s rock festivals – just another little contradiction of mine)
And whilst the nostalgia gets sweeter as the years go by, the song remained ignored and unloved, my only brief reminder being in an excellent episode of Family Guy when Peter and his cronies sang it on a karaoke night at the Drunken Clam.
So here we are, some 25 years later, my kids are singing it, my Mrs is singing it, I’m bloody well singing it, doing my best ‘Air 80s Keyboards’ to it *** and I find I love it to bits. How excellent it is that having just seen off a decade in which the self indulgent navel gazing of the dreaded ‘Bedwetters’ was often the musical order of the day, how great it is to be starting the new decade singing loudly once more about 'midnight trains' and 'cheap perfume'. I’m so glad that me and this innocent piece of good old fashioned Rock n Roll are friends at last.
More to follow,
Col
** Eventually I will blog extensively about what I regard as a ‘Croakfest’ but that will have to be when I’m in a more grumpy frame of mind.
*** ‘Air 80s Keyboards’ – lean forward, head back, one ‘air keyboard’ in front (left hand) and other ‘air keyboard’ to your right (right hand) and don’t forget, plenty of flourishes. With a little practice this can be far more rewarding than Air Guitar
Enough of that, for now at least.
Barely a day has passed in the family home lately without someone humming or singing the recently revived ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey. This is apparently as a result of a cover version sung on The X Factor and extensive TV / Radio exposure following its return to the popular music chart thanks to a mass download by an adoring public. My daughters tell me also that there is now a dance cover version thanks to a new ‘Croakfest’** TV show called ‘Glee’ but it’s the no nonsense, honest rocking original I’m concentrating on here.
For me, ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ will always be the first song played at one of the many excellent mid 80s Saturday night house parties hosted by the legendary (and very sadly recently deceased) Andy Gray (our mate from Amersham of course, not the footballer turned pundit – and incidentally the only man I ever knew who would willingly succumb to a couple of rounds of ‘Ride The Prod’ and still come up smiling)
Me being me of course, I would wait until a little later in the evening when everyone was either wrecked or had copped off or both, then try to get a sneaky play of ‘Murmur’ or ‘Meat Is Murder’ or at very least something by The Clash. I’m sorry to say that much as I loved the life, the era, the great friends and the Grey Man’s incredible shindigs, I absolutely hated ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ which to me epitomised mid 80s soft stadium rock, all backlit bubble perms, cap sleeve t-shirts and sprayed on spandex. (Can I just say however that some of the best live gigs I have ever been to were mid 80s rock festivals – just another little contradiction of mine)
And whilst the nostalgia gets sweeter as the years go by, the song remained ignored and unloved, my only brief reminder being in an excellent episode of Family Guy when Peter and his cronies sang it on a karaoke night at the Drunken Clam.
So here we are, some 25 years later, my kids are singing it, my Mrs is singing it, I’m bloody well singing it, doing my best ‘Air 80s Keyboards’ to it *** and I find I love it to bits. How excellent it is that having just seen off a decade in which the self indulgent navel gazing of the dreaded ‘Bedwetters’ was often the musical order of the day, how great it is to be starting the new decade singing loudly once more about 'midnight trains' and 'cheap perfume'. I’m so glad that me and this innocent piece of good old fashioned Rock n Roll are friends at last.
More to follow,
Col
** Eventually I will blog extensively about what I regard as a ‘Croakfest’ but that will have to be when I’m in a more grumpy frame of mind.
*** ‘Air 80s Keyboards’ – lean forward, head back, one ‘air keyboard’ in front (left hand) and other ‘air keyboard’ to your right (right hand) and don’t forget, plenty of flourishes. With a little practice this can be far more rewarding than Air Guitar
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Somethings Of The Damned.................
No, not Dave Vanian (punk Deity though he may be, and definitely worthy of an entry here in his own right at some stage) but 'Village' and 'Children' (Of The Damned) two vintage British sci fi movies from the early 60s which I have just watched for the first time in donkeys and enjoyed as a double bill. There's something bloody marvellous about the way in which us Brits managed to produce our own modestly budgeted, stiff upper lipped, paranoid and genuinely edgy sci fi in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Not to detract from the equally paranoid but far less subtle conterpart American genre of course. The (not actually that unconvincing) cumbersome giant ants of 'Them' in contrast to the blonde bowl cutted poker faced children of Midwich with their staring eyes and Queens English. There is no contrast! They were both the baddies in very different but equally entertaining movies and of both (of course) the product of some vile Commie / Alien conspiracy. Maybe you last watched 'Village' and 'Children' as a youngster (as I did - about 35 years ago) or have not seen them at all, but either way, they are well deserving of a watch, and whilst quite understandably dated, they make for a far more sinister watch than the majority of the modern day effects fests and torture porn lamely masquerading as horror.
Coming up in my next entry........ who the hell knows?
See you soon
Coming up in my next entry........ who the hell knows?
See you soon
The Test..........
Right then. Let's see if this works. Hello all and welcome to my blog. This first entry won't be of much note, just want to make sure I'm hitting the right buttons. OK Here goes..........
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