We write about the songs that make the whole world sing, we write about the songs of love and special things, we write about the songs that make the young girls cry, we write about the songs, we write about the songs.
You silly, silly man. That must have taken you for hours. Or were you drunk and unaware of your life passing you by? Well done either way. I now have to tag all the artistes you've included here. And I call you silly!
Today is the birthday of our cousins, Katherine on your side and Amelia on my side. I only know this because Facebook told me so. Please don't go thinking I have a calendar in my kitchen with the birthdays of all the people I've ever met. If I did, I would've posted this yesterday when it was still actually their birthdays in the Eastern hemisphere. So I thought I'd find a video that craftily combined both our cousins' taste in music. Then I spent 2 hours trying to get some speakers set up on this compùter, failed miserably and said "Fuck it, I'll post this clever Beirut video and hope Katherine likes it". If Elsa has a cousin who had a birthday this weekend and likes this, that'll just be the cherry on the cake.
Yes yes, I was going to post but we had a problem with the computers and I wanted to listen to all your posts and post witty, pithy comments like i do but I couldn't, so I'm going to do a post from memory (I have a list on youtunes for such purposes). It starts with this wonderful, slightly out of tune demo of Surf's Up with just Mr. Wilson on the piano. It's so good, youtunes won't let you embed it.
There would then a lengthy speech about my reasons for on the whole disliking the Surf's Up album which would end in my not very shocking statement that I consider "Disney Girls" to be the best song on that album. It reminds me of being stopped at Sao Paolo airport because they thought my passport was a forgery. Funny how that's a happy memory. Anyway, here's Bruce Johnston (real name, Benjamin Baldwin) playing his pretty song on the Old Grey Whistle Test.
Not a great version, so here's Bruce Johnston's best song ever, sadly not featured on Surf's Up, even though it's been covered by over 200 artists and has been sold 25 million times (on album and single). Sing along at home now!
Thursday 23 April 2009
Dear James dear Danny
A long time without writing in your maravilloso blog, i was wondering if any of you both is from Leeds... yes? no? I am from Amanda Palmer, justo love her and want to share her beautiful punk cabaret... elfwoman
Dear Elsa,
Well this is quite weird. A song about Dirty Leeds? No, no, no, I won't have that on my blog. For some idea about Leeds United you could do worse then read Vs by Tony Harrison and then watch or read The Damned United. Although if you manage to finish that poem, you're more patient than I am. It goes on forever.
James will tell you he is from Leeds, he's lived there for the last 11 years or so. I have to wait another year before I can tell people I'm from Buenos Aires. James recently said the rudest word in the English language live on air at Leeds radio station, Radio Aire. And he's supposed to be the newsreader! James will also tell you he's northern. He was born in Winchester and lived most of his formative years in Jersey, before seeing sense at age 18 and moving to Sheffield. He says the years spent in Jersey don't count, as they're "abroad", so by his mathemetics (and, note this, he has a degree in mathemetics) he's lived longer in the north than he has in the south and this qualifies him to play for Yorkshire. Probably at snooker, given that as I type these words, James is almost definitely wearing slippers, watching the snooker and thinking about putting in that application for the allotment. It's a good life, being James.
In continuation of my above post, I should tell you that I was born in Sheffield, which is in South Yorkshire. I was at Sao Paolo airport three years ago, waiting for everyone to get on the plane before I got on. To kill time, I was enjoying The Beach Boys' "Disney Girls" on my MP3 player of choice, and smiling benignly while the airport staff waited for me to get a move on. When I got to passport control, they took me aside and told me they believed my passport to be a forgery. I'd got it in Buenos Aires, it was quite likely. Just then one of the passport men looked at my place of birth and said "Sheffield! I've been there! He's all right, let him through". Pretty good, eh? And I get to play for Yorkshire!
Last night I was in Hull, England, for a reunion of DJs, newscasters, salespeople and creatives who spent some part of the last 25 years working at Viking FM (or the whole part if you are Chris the Cleaner). I had a splendid night. Even luminaries who have gone on to bigger things Jon Culshaw, Simon Hirst and JK and Joel turned up, which is testament to how we all feel about the place.
So, in amongst the mess, there was a turn by Hull-raised former mister sexy Britain Roland Gift (who a friend of mine once claimed to have had sex with until the picture above the bed came crashing off the wall, framing mister Gift for his big moment of giving).
I wondered to myself as I saw him at breakfast the next day (unrelated to the previous sentence; we were at the same hotel), did the Fine Young Cannibals produce any songs which I might like? As I mopped up the beans with some chewy white toast, I thought to myself, "probably not."
And that's where the story ends because after finding She Drives Me Crazy (no 5 in January 1989) I became far more interested in cover versions than in any potentially more "experimental" work which featured Gift's presence. To wit:
and
Both of which are the finalists for "most ill-advised cover version of all-time". At 1'26" - should you make it - you'll hear Dolly brag how she "can get any wrist," but fails to expand on whether there will be a hand attached.
My favourite appearance of Roland Gift, even after last night and notwithstanding the framing incident, is at 1'39" of the video for Nothing Has Been Proved (again, despite the framing). I'm surprised I managed to remember the surprise Gift in this, what with most of the video being taken up with Dusty Springfield attempting not to look at the camera and the dreadful whisper-solo by a bloke who, it appears, should have stayed back at the pet shop.
The last I saw of Roland as he was leaving the reunion was an argument with what was possibly his manager about where his taxi was. I got the feeling he didn't want to be there. He barely smiled, and shrugged off an attempt by one of the DJs to tell him how much he admired his work. He finally bundled his oversized holdall into the back of a cab and disappeared into the night without a word. Free Gift.
Dear James,
A marvellous post and quite a talent for working the "gift" pun in there at least three times. Or should I say, quite a gift? No.
Sadly, having got round to buying some speakers for the computer, I've now discovered immense radio interference from my beast of a computer so I'll have to get Adolfo the IT tech round before full resumption of all my blog fun. But from what I could hear of those covers, yes, they're shit. But the last one, thankfully, isn't available in my dominion.
Danny sorry for cutting inside your taste to blooood - with a cover of a song you hate, well, i want to introduce you to one of my favorite singers - she s Jennifer Charles, actually singer of a band i love, Elysian Fields... She s here with our dear so dearest Mike Patton. it s simple, sexy, like eating garlic with a shot of vodka, a real passion i have...
Dear Elsa,
Love this too. Mike Patton's been up to so much good stuff since I dismissed him 15 years ago as an arrogant, coprophagic fool. I mean that about the coprophagia, he once ate his own stool on stage. Dirty man. I sometimes wish I was a girl so I could enjoy music with drum beats like this. But if I was a girl, I wouldn't like Metallica, and that would be no good.
Look at this! Elsa's posted the same video twice and then neglected to write anything about it! What does she think this is? Facebook?
We should be grateful of course that Elsa has brought some much needed female bias to a blog consisting mostly of ageing folk singers and, er, ageing rockers, but tragically she's got them singing a song by some ageing rockers. It's a fine cover, building nicely and well exectued, none of which can hide the fact that I hate the song Satisfaction and it's equally evil, over-covered, over-played twin, Yesterday. How come no one ever covers, say, No Expectations?
While we're on the subject of bars we visited while you were over, here's one of the gents at Lo De Roberto playing Por Una Cabeza, the only tango I know how to play and one for which Josefina's uncle Pedro mocks me for my inability to correctly pronounce the r's in the basta de carreras line. I'm quite ashamed that it's still the only tango I can play after ten years here, as it's one of those typical tangos that all the tourists know. It appears in both Scent of a Woman and True Lies.
Here's a nice film about an orchestra we saw playing in the street in San Telmo last December. I think it was them. They all look the same.
I just wasted my convalescence editing the blog so that we now have a long ungainly list of recording artistes to our right, with ACDC in an unfortunately prominent position. This brought to my attention that we've only mentioned Simon and Garfunkel once in six months, so I'm righting that right now with some hipster grooving from the sixteeees.
I'm most impressed with the Kraft Hall Concert find, although it has to be said that the boys take the name of the venue too literally and go a bit cheesy. Overs has got to be one of my all time favourite songs of all time, even though to this day I have yet to find anyone with such an intake of saccharine that could be described as a habit. Here it is again in fine technocolor with added tache.
sorry the Elf disapeared a few days, i ve been crossing a big brown river and drinkinf strawberry daiquiris tell me what you think about it : i ve been looking for a special sound the whole night, searching the perfect song who could perfectly fit a strawberry daiquiri, that s the tastefull fresh result, joya!
Dear Elsa,
That's a fine song and no mistake, and one that had past me by until now. I used to be a big FNM fan, but then I met James and he made me sell all my metal records for beer money. I tried to hold on to Angel Dust, protesting its crossover rock-funk-cheerleader-church organ values, as seen in Be Aggressive, and seemed to be making some progress. But then one dark Sunday afternoon we were sitting in the back of my dad's Ford Mondeo when Diggin the Grave came on the Top 40 countdown. It was all metal. James gave me a withering look, and I knew then that two pints of Stella and a G and T at Bar One had more intrinsic value then one of the best albums of the 90s. Just after that, Faith No More released this Bee Gees cover. And I never knew.
As for the strawberry daiquiris, I agree it's a very representative song and video. I was going to make a clever link to something about Hemingway, but I'm far too poorly.
Here's Mirko's band Temperley Lo Sabe playing on the tiny stage at Bar Rodney, the bar opposite Chacarita Cemetery where we went the other day (roast chicken not pictured). I was looking into the story of the bar and trying to find out if it's true that David Byrne owns it. I've drawn a blank so far, but I did find this blog which features a video by La Portuaria and David Byrne, shot in Bar Rodney.
Mirko's other band in Buenos Aires is McCondom, as seen here. You can see guest blogger of the month Elsa at 0.10. I have fond memories of singing along to this at a gig in San Telmo in 2007, although I didn't know the words. I have less clearer memories of falling asleep at the bar during one of their gigs, in full view of the band. They didn't like that.
And no blog on McCondom would be complete without mine and Prince's favourite McCondom song, Manic Monday. Although one might also say that a blog about a bar called Rodney is incomplete without this "classic" Only Fools and Horses clip.
It was 32 degrees today! In the middle of the autumn! Imagine! As much as I try, I just can't help but get carried away by the excitable presenters on the 24 hour news programs.This reminded me of when I told you during our live blog that by 1966 bands like The Beatles and these chaps here were writing songs so complicated, they couldn't play them live, and the Spoonful's drummer had to sing this one because John Sebastian couldn't play the hugely complicated piano part and sing at the same time. Unless they mimed, clearly. It's hardly Tomorrow Never Knows, now is it?
So I was playing that to myself on the piano yesterday as my silly old neighbour tried to shush me through the kitchen window (as if I can hear!) when I realised it's the same chords as One by Hary NIlsson. This is a song I downloaded a couple of months ago after reading from one of those wise people who take the time to comment on youtube videos that this and The Shangri Las' Walking in the Sand were what Amy Winehouse copied for Back to Black.
I've always found myself nonplussed by the work of Nilsson. Everybody's Talking is fine until he starts yodelling and this one he seems to be making up as he goes along. He was probably going to start dissing the number three before he remembered it is in fact the magic number. All of which suggests that he owes all his success to Lennon and McCartney telling the press that Nilsson was the best band in the world, some time in the sixties, and then hanging out with Lennon drinking Brandy Alexanders in 1975.And yet, he gets a section in my ¨Songwriters on Songwriting¨ book. Excuse me while I look for it on my bookshelf. Yes! I´ve put the bookshelves up!
As I suspected, the book continues to big up the NIlsson myth:
Nilsson died in Los Angeles on January 15, 1994, the weekend of the big earthquake. His heart stopped, and before long the entire city began to erupt.
That's nicely understated.
Anyway, in between all that, I did some of my homework for the scriptwriting course I started on Monday. I had to watch these two short films, and then have a think. Now I'm off to eavesdrop on someone's private conversation and write a scene based on that. Then I have to write about a memory from my childhood and read it to a small child. If I can find any small children, I'm sure they'll end up traumatised.
Dear Daniel,
How did you know the neighbour was shusshing you if you couldn't hear them? There's a wall between the piano and the kitchen...?
Anyway, in a bid to try and make you like Harry Nillson, here's a song featuring two of your favourite things: Alan Price-style music and swearing.
I hope you ignored the poster's unusual and unnecessary attempt to link this with "Degrassi the Next Generation".
Dear James,
Josefina informed of the shushing. She was in the kitchen. Embedding Degrassi The Next Generation has sadly been deactivated, so our reader(s) now have to spend even longer looking for that. I only like Alan Price when he appears in O Lucky Man, and swearing in songs is only any good when it's done right, such as here:
i guess you both haver yours own personals Jesus, mine is extracted from a greaaaat so french comedy... hope you enjoy this hexagonal juice elfgirl
Dear Elsa,
So that's what Blair's doing now. This is comedy, you say?
Dear Danielsa,
I see Blair, but I have to say it reminded me of this bizarre sketch from Big Train, back in 199-whatever. At the time, I didn't realise they were implying it was Chairman Mao. Includes a guitar solo from a pre-fame Simon Pegg...
My Jesus is the Vaseline's version of a song made famous by some other fellow and his band. Have you heard how Courtney Love is suing some management or accountants or something for Nirvana's missing millions? Quotes in the news say she "noticed the money was gone when there wasn't any left." Usually the case, I would say...
Exceptionnellement aujour d hui en francais, merci guys to let me open the forgotten window of the langague i lost my virginity with, as a matter of fact since i have sex in spanish i lost so many Voltaire s words... i m not kidding... Desolee d avoir deserte vos cyberterres ces derniers jours, je me suis isolee - what a luxury- en ecoutant Baxter Dury, yes, le fils de... EN guise de Joyeuses Paques and Happy Easter je lisais aussi Tom Waits, en m en vais de ce pas cuisiner un fondant au chocolat Well, ce video n est pas un video, un pauvre image fixe, mais une grande chanson,
Chere Elsa,
That´s a great song, thanks for that. I think that´s the first case of the son of someone famous being better than the someone, unless James cares to prove me wrong. By tying this post in with Easter, are you suggesting that Baxter is the son of God? If so, where does that leave Jeff Lynne?
James, it´s true about the Voltaire stuff. I´ve been having sex in Spanish for ten years and I can´t remember a word of Candide. I´m off to cultivate my garden.
glad to hear from you and to this tribute, i dedicate my song to the great cook and easter eaters you are
Tom Waits
" Dont go to church on sunday Dont get on my knees to pray Dont memorize the books of the bible I got my own special way Bit I know jesus loves me Maybe just a little bit more
I fall on my knees every sunday At zerelda lees candy store
Well its got to be a chocolate jesus Make me feel good inside Got to be a chocolate jesus Keep me satisfied
Well I dont want no anna zabba Dont want no almond joy There aint nothing better Suitable for this boy Well its the only thing That can pick me up Better than a cup of gold See only a chocolate jesus Can satisfy my soul
When the weather gets rough And its whiskey in the shade Its best to wrap your savior Up in cellophane He flows like the big muddy But thats ok Pour him over ice cream For a nice parfait
Well its got to be a chocolate jesus Good enough for me Got to be a chocolate jesus Good enough for me
Well its got to be a chocolate jesus Make me feel good inside Got to be a chocolate jesus Keep me satisfied"
Dear Elsa,
You´ve neglected to post a video, so I´ve done it for you. I love the way this is as far from music as you can possibly get. You hum it and I´ll play it, Tom!
Dear James,
Since it´s that time of year again, let´s all post songs about Jesus! Here's mine:
Cider with Roadies, Pies and Prejudice. The first record Stuart Maconie ever bought was not a record, it was a tape. And it was called "The Best of T-Rex", but it wasn't: it was a compilation of Tyrannosaurus Rex songs. There are only two people who have ever suggested they enjoy Tyrannosaurus Rex to the point of adoration, John Peel and Devandra Banhart. This clip helpfully illustrates both, what with Peel being interviewed by what appears to be 80s madcap children TV inventor Wilf Lunn and then a turn by Marc Bolan, apparently covering one of Devendra Banhart's more uptempo numbers from from 40 years in the future...
I saw Devendra play at the Leeds festival some years back and was forced to stand on tiptoe to see him because he insisted on sitting on the floor to play guitar. Lord only knows where he got that idea from. Here's more:
and finally, some Devandra Banhart - because contrary to what you might think - I like them both. I can't wait for Banhart to plug in and get all glam. That's going to be excellent. Oh, he has.
Dear James,
One of your most entertaining posts ever, thank you. In John Peel's semibiography he or his wife tell how John Peel was good friends with Mark Bolan until the latter got famous and ignored him. Bit like you, really, only without the ignoring. Or the fame. Devendra played here in November 2006. He was supposed to be playing at the awful club which used to be called Buenos Aires News but is now Crobar, I think this clip is from that.
As you can see, it didn´t go down too well. I like to think Devendra´s main objection was to playing at a festival sponsored by a mobile phone, though two years later Kaiser Chiefs didn't care too much. He then went and played an impromptu gig at the club round the corner from Bangalore, a gig to which I was completely oblivious until I read about it two weeks later. Garry was in England at the time, if he'd been here I would've found out about it. It's all Garry's fault. Sadly I lost all track of Devendra Banhart after his second album, when he started releasing albums every three months. This was the last I saw of him:
Aujourd'hui nous ecrivons le blog en français, ainsi que La Femme Elf se sent la bienvenue. Je mirais mes favorites sur Youtube et j'ai encontrait cet abbomination là. Mais si on le pense, c'est pas trop mauvais. Il faut ne le penser.
J'ai commencé a écrir una carte au futur, a ton fils qui n'a pas nu encore. Il faut qu'il l'ouvre la journée de sa 18eme aniversaire. Ja vais faire una cassette aussi, et donc il faut que vous gardez un passe-cassettes pour le futur. Le retro, c'est chic, non?
Bon soir!
Dear Daniel,
let me get this straight: Today you're writing the brog in french, to welcome the Elf woman. You miraculously favoured Youtube and you connected with central european time, an abomination. But if you're pretentious, it's very cloudy. They're false, but not pretentious.
You've started to scribe on futuristic card and you find a £100 fills it, without the need to do it all over again. They're false: as if a tour round an art gallery takes 18 years! Ricky does and Australian tape, and false donkeys that you guard from outdated recording equipment are the future. The past, it's a woman, right?
Dear James,
I think you've just about got the gist of that. I´ve just heard that Backstreet Boys song again. My apologies.
For every one of your cool-former-NME-reader posts, I post ELO. Besides, Wire were just an ELO rip-off. I was listening to this beauty on my way home and remembered this fact: All of ELO's videos from 1973 to 1980 were recorded in the same studio and on the same day, March 14th, 1973. For each video, ELO changed their clothes and facial hair in accordance with what they imagined would be the style over the coming year. Naturally, the songs were composed according to their predictions of the musical styles to come. The plan worked up to and including the 1979 album Discovery (or "Disco? Very!" as their fans call it), which made them the biggest selling act in the UK in 1979. Then it all went very wrong in 1981, for which ELO, having wrongly predicted that aliens would have invaded the planet and banned cellos, had recorded a synth-heavy, sci-fi album. The alien invasion failed to materialise and ELO went into eternal decline.
However, Jeff Lynne had one clever ace up his sleeve. The day after ELO recorded all their videos in one day, Jeff Lynne got pissed with his friends Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison, oh, and Tom Petty, I always forget him, and drunkenly tossed off a load of ironic 60s pastiches. Lynne then released the recordings in 1988, against the wishes of Harrison, Dylan, et al, and called it the Travelling Wilburys. True story.
I'm off to play snooker.
Dear Daniel,
Not sure what you're getting at with the NME-reader thing but it leads me to thinking that, over various years, I read Select, Mojo, Q, Melody Maker, Smash Hits and Look In and I'm sure Wire were mentioned in at least 4 of them. I remember fondly the Look In Chairs Missing pullout section with lyrics: "The lives of lambs, the shepherd cries / An afterlife for a silverfish / Eternal dust less ticklish."
I'm happy for you to post ELO. At least it's not Anthrax. I love the Disco?Very! thing. You bought me Discovery on vinyl at the same time as Atomic Kitten's Be With You was in the charts. I really and truly wish pop writers would come up with original music which is both modern and timeless, stuff like this (I hope). More often than not, however, they're nicking stuff from old records. I remember being very disappointed that Be With You wasn't an original piece of music, but not as disappointed as I was when I found out that the Crazy in Love music was not original.
Dear James,
I was looking for Los Clasiqueros' cumbia cover of Las Train to London when I found this funny guy, trying to fit the literal Spanish translation over the original song. I giggled.
A co-incidence just happened. Co-incidences happen to me all the time. I love them: they're little moments of happiness, just for me. I don't believe that co-incidences can also happen to you all the time. That would be too much of a co-incidence.
So I'm moving songs off the laptop and listening to a random selection as I do it. I think to myself, "I should watch The Wire". (You may or may not know that The Wire is an offbeat American street drama which everybody but me has seen already. I waited for it to be on BBC2 so I'm just starting). At that moment, iTunes flicks to Wire's Mannequin. Wonderful! A pleasing co-incidence, like when you read an unusual word in a newspaper at exactly the same time somebody else in the room says it out loud.
(I'm assuming it's a co-incidence. I'm a bit scared to test the theory that I might have suddenly developed the ability to affect song selection with my thoughts. I work in a radio station: if my powers are real, every ten minutes the people of West Yorkshire will be hearing "I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling"...)
Apparently, co-incidences are not very rare. The chances of two players at a football match having the same birthday is fifty percent. Which means every second match has two players which have the same birthday. There must have been two players with the same birthday in one of the Arsenal or Man U Champions League matches last night.
Briefly: I never saw the 1987 movie Mannequin, but I don't know why. I certainly remember it very well...
That voiceover guy must have had to read some absolute nonsense for ten years... he did all the 1980s trailers.
'Jonathan Switcher loves to talk to his work. He never expected to hear it talk back!'
As if talking to our work is something we all love to do...
'To the rest of the world he's a disaster - and she's a dummy!'
Which leads us to the inevitable 1980s movie tie-in single, always performed by an act 20 years older than the target audience of the movie. In this case, the dad of one of The Strokes...
Or so I thought. I had hoped for years (without ever checking) that the Starship singer was Mr Hammond Snr. Or at least the dodgy Johnny Thunders-throwback guitarist at 1'48. But, sadly, no... AH Snr is the shadowy hit-machine responsible for the song.
I've never seen the Wire, though I read a good article about in the cinema magazine El Amante when they did a special edition on TV series, instead of their usual edition of starkly realist and humourless Argentinian documentaries you're never likely to watch. The Wire is now on a long list of many series and sitcoms I have to watch in their entirety as part of my work. I increasingly enjoy most the research side of my job. We finished editing episode one today. I increasingly dislike editing.
Somehow related to this, I have to tell you that I'm still enjoying Stephen Nachmanovitch's "Free PLay: Improvisation in Life and Art". I say still, as it's my official toilet book but I've been so busy with work most of my toilet activity has taken place away from my base. Interesting how we get a girl to blog with us and instantly start with the toilet talk. I was having a read just now, and chuckling at such lines as:
One practice I have found effective is to toss off (complete improvised pieces lasting sixty seconds or less), each with a distinct beginning, middle and end. This is an especially effective game in group improvisation with friends.
And then one paragraph later:
We are seldom taught to fit our output to the context and the bandwidth of the tool in our hands.
I fondly remember Mannequin as one of those films my big sister chose on a Saturday evening, up there with Adventures in Babysitting.
Speaking of coincidences (without the hypen, please, James, you're not George Orwell), in my early days in Buenos Aires I was on a bus reading something by Cortázar that mentioned the street Esmeralda. I looked up and saw a street sign that told me I was on Esmeralda.
Oh, and that list of Country Songs? Fake.
And we were going to do a pastiche of that voiceover guy for Episode One, until we realised everyone else and their dog had already done it. This is quite good though. Or it is if you watch it when you're supposed to be working:
dear you both James and Danny Danny you call me Elsa the Elf, i really love it because the recto of my family name is ... Elfman... famous Elfman also called... Danny... yes yes this is something like a destiny for sure. i post this boring interview, that i love , with my ex boyfriend, M.Manson, at these time he used to eat my underwear and we had fun. golden times. When we separated and i discovered a new passion, became a cook and went on with the alimentary chain... I would enjoy to be a safari guide for a landscape which few people know exits...
Dear James,
My most sincerest apologies for asking Elfwoman to blog with us. You turn your back for one weekend and all havoc breaks loose. Although I'm sure you're thinking that the Elf writes very similarly to Vincent the Belgian, and that on it's own has it's benefits. Tomorrow I will listen to and watch these videos and make sarcastic comments. And why don't you come too? As the chap from Going For Gold used to say. It's suddenly become frightfully international over here.
Dear Elsa,
That's a fine song by Mr. Manson there. Did you really go out with him? We don't believe you. I once kissed a girl who later slept with the guitarist from Blur, and James once drove the guitarist from Blur from Leeds to York. That's about it.
Dear Daniel,
I'm back! And I don't recognise the place. You've moved the sofa, there's nothing in the fridge and there's a strange woman in my chair.
I'd forgotten that Graham Coxon connection (a Coxection?). That means you've kissed him in 2.
Dear Elsa,
Hello. Do you know where Daniel has put the toilet roll?
Dear James,
There is no toilet roll. Please use the A4 printing paper I left on the bathroom floor until Elsa takes the hint and buys some toilet paper.
Clearly this post is just an excuse to post this fantastic goal, which made me feel as happy as I did when Solksjaer scored the winner against Bayern Munich in 1999. But I could also tell you we have our first guest blogger, Elsa the Elf, starting work this week. Be nice to her, she´s a fine cook. And since I was listening to and reappraissing the rather good With The Beatles album, I thought you might like to see this film of the original Till There Was You from the Music Man musical. Honestly, you go all that trouble to tell someone you fancy them, and they turn around and say they´re expecting a telegram.
Dear hosts, don t know Mister James, but had the chance to share a few drinks with Mister Dany, apparently sooo good as a beerspanishteacher... My first post will be short, a true honnor being the first musical vagina invited there! mmm... sorry for this poor little english i ll use to express how for me, without music life would be such a shitty mistake - so with Nietzsche - not less, and Arcade Fire, a sunday night with heroic feelings awaking under my golden skin... THAT sound came from Septentrion direct to tropical heart, and forever - well.. let s say that i m happy to share here... a girly will to power? cheers! elsa.
Dear James,
I have no idea what Elsa's talking about, but I knew it'd be fun to have her guest blog for a while. And Dear Elsa, sorry I pissed all over your moment of honour by posting football seconds after you. I had two pieces of vacio in the horno and my mind was alsewhere. Please no more football posts.
Dear oh dear, four posts in a day. Though strictly thinking it´s now Sunday where you are.
So, the story of this post. I found this article about Thatcher in The Guardian. We marked 27 years since the start of the Falklands War here last Thursday, today in England they celebrate (?) 30 years since Thatcher came to power. It was also the week that Raul Alfonsin died, Alfonsin having come to power after Argentina´s defeat in the conflict and the gradual return to democracy. Funny how these three things come at the same time. I enjoyed the article, particularly the last lines:
The Grantham Journal recently polled its readers about what to do with a vacant site near the Asda roundabout. Should there be a bronze statue of Lady Thatcher, the readers of the paper were asked, or would they prefer "the return of the Wyndham Park steamroller"?
Eighty-five per cent of respondents opted for the steamroller.
I used to play on that steamroller in Wyndham Park, it was one of my favourite parts of visiting my Nanna in Grantham, along with playing bagotel, sampling her baking from her larder, playing subbuteo on her deep-shag carpet (you could lob the keeper if you stuck your thumb under the player correctly) and combining the viewing of Sons and Daughters, Countdown and a quick game of Scrabble before Uncle Michael came home for his beans on toast.
Before I go to Funseeker´s sister´s ¨flat-warming as a single girl¨party, I´ll leave you with the knowledge that if you do a search for äccidents will happen¨, you get a Thomas the Tank Engine rip-off, and that Elvis Costello once said this about Grantham´second-favourite daughter:
Three posts in a day, it´ll be a miracle if you ever get down to that Bob Dylan advert. Anyway, we just found this on youtube and it´s wonderful. I once wasted good money on Apocalyptica Butcher Metallica but this more than makes up for it. How does one headbang and play cello at the same time? The mind boggles.
The original was written by your friends and mine, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, back in 1988 or thereabouts. The song tells the story of a young man who loses his arms and legs in battle and uses morse code to tell his doctors to kill him. Yes, that old pop chestnut. It was inspired by the 1972 film Johnny Got His Gun. Or maybe they just used bits from the film in the video (here with dodgy Spanish translation). As a direct result of this video, a Metallica fan spat in Hetfield´s face at a post-gig meet and greet. Metallica had sold out by making their first video, after three albums of strict non-sell-out-ness. I wonder if the same fan now uses youtube, or whether he´s seen Some Kind of Monster and is in the mood for some more backstage spitting. That sounds like an awful euphemism. And here´s something I never knew:
"One" was voted as the 7th of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" of all time by readers of Guitar World, placed between "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses (6th) and "Hotel California" by the Eagles (8th).
...And a week later my cousin Amelia deigns to send me this clip on Facebook instead of commenting in the relevant area. Some people! And she lives in Japan and everythinG!
A magical moment here from 1970, when Ozzy Osbourne tried and failed to get a load of insouciant Parisians to clap along to one of the slowest songs in Black Sabbath´s repertoire. Being an indie boy, you´ll be more familiar with The Cardigans´1997 cover, although youtube has nothing decent on the subject so here´s them doing a fine version of Sick and Tired instead.
All of which is a roundabout way of telling you what a manly thing I did today. I went to a hardware shop and bought some rawl plugs and screws to put up the shelves in my study. Given that Funseeker´s dad only drilled the holes in the wall for me 5 weeks ago, this is pretty fast manly work on my part. I might even get round to putting up the shelves before I forget where I put the bag of rawl plugs and screws. Rawl plug in Spanish is ¨talugo. There´s a new word for both of us. Though not one I´ve memorised yet, I just had to ask Funseeker for the third time today, and she´d forgotten how to say it. What a team. These sheves are never going to get put up.
You may recall that the Spanish for hardware shop is ferreteria, which sadly is not a ferret shop. Funseeker later told me over lunch that her sister had ben thinking of getting a ferret, but that they cost something like 1500 pounds over here and there´s only one guy who imports them. Imagine! The very epitome of working class northern life transformed into a status symbol. And black pudding´s not cheap neither.
In no way related to ferrets or rawl plugs, at the end of year barbecue at the studio last December, Pato told me how he went to a party with his architect father´s elderly architect friends. While there, one troubled looking architect told Pato how he was worried about his daughter. She never seemed to have a boyfriend and spent all her time playing heavy metal covers in an all-girl cumbia band. Their name? Kumbia Queers...
I´m writing this on Funseeker´s Mac, having failed for the 5th consecutive week to buy some speakers for my pc. Having mastered the computer at work, I´m now mastering this one. Bear with me, it might take a while. It just took me an hour to work out why the sound wasn´t working. The Mac was plugged into my amp, which was switched off.
So, adverts, eh? This one you´ll probably know from that sumptuously stylish Adidas ad and you´re probably sick of hearing it over there by now. Not here though, where music fads take a while to catch on, hence Iron Maiden´s enduring popularity. You may also have heard or seen this:
I´d be interested to know your wife´s views therein.
I always thought those screechy-scratchy guitars in Fashion were courtesy of Mick Ronson. This is the part of the Freddie Mercury tribute concert I told you about, where from my 15-year old point of view, lots of people I'd never heard of came on stage and played lots of songs I'd never heard of. When I told this to my girlfriend at the time, she retorted "What? Queen?" That relationship didn´t last long, though principally because I put a wet floor cloth on her head while she was trying to fix a leaking washing machine. That was probably my fault, though I would argue that she had no sense of humour.
It was said after the concert that this was the best part of the night, although if you consider that the same night included Paul Young singing Radio Gaga and Lisa Stansfield gurning all over I Want to Break Free, that's not saying much. I was going to write that within a year of this performance, both Ronson and Ian Hunter were dead, but it turns out Mr. Hunter is still very much alive, and in 2001 toured the US with Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band.
And here's some things I never knew about Mick Ronson: 1. He was from Hull and had a posthumous solo album called, wait for it, "Heaven and Hull". 2. When they came to look for Mick Ronson to get him to join David Bowie's band, he'd given up on London and was busy marking out a rugby pitch. 3. Ronson co-produced Lou Reed´s "Transformer" album with Bowie, and played piano on "Perfect Day". 4. He was also partly responsible for Lulu's cover of "The Man Who Sold The World." To think, I once bought a Lulu album based on that cover. 5. The last song Ronson ever played guitar on (the solo) was The Wildhearts' "My Baby is a Headfuck".
And speaking of all this guitar business, which I wasn´t really but it´ll do, I was walking home today when I saw this beauty in a music shop window. Do you know if they're any good?
(the continuation of my response to the Hendrix post below)
I own some Soft Machine, but only cos Mojo magazine insisted they were important. I think you had to be there. I imagine at some point in the next ten or twenty years, I'll listen through without being - frankly - bored.
You have become confused in your pop recollection, by the way. Shipbuilding was Robert Wyatt. I reckon you're thinking of him when you say Robert Fripp, who was not in Soft Machine but in King Crimson, my Uncle Graham's favourite band. My brother loves Robert Wyatt. I love Robert Fripp for these two reasons, among others:
I'm writing this and the below post from the studio, where it's 10am and only one other person has arrived. Last night, Dr. Raul Alfonsin, former president and the father of democracy (he was the first president after the 76-83 dictatorship) died, and three days of mourning were declared. I assumed this applied to school children and congressmen, but I'm beginning to think the remit might be wider. Which could prove tricky as we're supposed to be handing over the final copies of our first two episodes on Friday and we're still editing furiously.
So I was going to post a link to music from Luke Haines' Baader Meinhof album, but couldn't find a single thing on youtube. Instead, on Wikipedia I found what is known as the "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon". This caught my eye as it is often the case that I hear a Spanish word I'd never previously heard in ten years here, and then hear it twice more before the week is out. The last one was "escafandra", used in the translation of "Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and then in two of our episodes. Then last night I learnt a new word for "profitable". I've forgotten what it was but I'm sure I'll hear it again soon.
Have you seen the Baader Meinhof film? Me neither. Regarding the album, even Wikipedia has practically nothing on it. Does the album really exist, or did we dream it? I've never met anyone else who's heard of it. Oh, here we go, found something...
Last weekend was the second wedding of the month, this time in Rosario. Rosario's a nice place by the river, and if I was writing a Pies and Prejudice style book I'd tell you more. Sadly, my writing only extends to the conurbation of Buenos Aires. Rosarina girls are renowned all over, er, Santa Fe Province, supposedly because they're as good-looking as Buenos Aires girls (portenas) without being so high maintenance. I told Funseeker that if ever I was single again I'd move to Rosario. She said rosarinas were "grasas", a word that used to mean "vulgar" but which now pretty much means "having different tastes to one's own". Funseeker uses it for anyone who doesn't appreciate avant-garde clothing on a daily basis.
While all this fun was happening, I missed Iron Maiden playing in Buenos Aires. It was quite stirring to see all the Maiden t-shirt clad fans arriving at Retiro bus station as we were leaving. This reminded me that the song Iron Maiden, by Iron Maiden on the Iron Maiden album is one of those rare songs where if you listen to it on one of the fancier i-Pods, the display shows the same phrase three times and nothing else. Another example is Baader Meinhof, for whom it works twice, although they're kind of cheating by doing a concept album. Can you think of any others?
Bruce Dickinson has such a voice for metal. I'm impressed he does his "Scream for me (insert city or country of relevance)" for this song, as I thought he only did it on "Flight of Icarus", posted below. Maybe he just loves hearing those screams.
Iron Maiden were supported by Sepultura, who are probably the best metal band I've never seen, after Iron Maiden. Their 1992 smash hit "Refuse/Resist" is also the best metal song ever written that I've never owned. Diddy diddy der, diddy diddy der. It's so catchy. And the future of Bossa Nova, they say.
James and Daniel, or Jim and Danny to an unfortunate few, were going to be like the old men who ran 78 Records in Stockport, but writing a blog about the songs and videos they came across seemed a lot less hassle, and saved them having to move to Stockport. And so they created 78x78 Records, so that other people could know what it was like to be their friend, and what they wrote about when they wrote to each other about music. And so they will post videos of songs you might enjoy 78x78 times. And then they will stop. And then they will do something else. That's 6084 posts. They´ll endeavour to get it done quickly. They'd love to hear from you and any videos or songs you'd like them to post. You can do this by commenting in the pertinent area, or by e-mailing them your suggestions at 78discos@gmail.com
