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.
Quick question for you. If you were to form a Queen tribute band, would you call said band "Bigot". I've been trying to work out all afternoon why these people thought this would be a good idea. "Bigote" is Spanish for "moustache", but the Freddie-impersonator doesn't have one, so that doesn't make much sense. Bigot asked me to be their Facebook friend. I told them I already had one Queen-tribute Facebook friend, but accepted their invitation all the same. We people have to stick together.
I once met Pablo Padín, the Freddie of Dios Salve La Reina. I told him if he wanted I could give him some classes to improve his pronunciation. He gave me a look which many would interpret as the "Who the fuck are you?" look. But he still gave me his autograph. I read it. It said "Pablo Padín". That really shattered my illusions.
Dear Daniel,
Have a scan down the list of acts featured on this blog. 17! 17! I'm about ready to propose a moratorium on all things Queen.
Dear James,
How very dare you? I haven't posted 17 Queen videos, we've just mentioned them in the general course of things because when you think about it, all music comes back to Queen one way or another. And you've mentioned Eric Clapton four times, which is far worse.
I had one of those "where did all that time go?" moments at work the other day. I was doing the subtitles for episode one upstairs, where our remaining designers work while listening to Radio Kabul, a fine radio station if ever I heard one. I find this with designers, being able to work with music on. I find it very distracting. Even now I'm writing this while listening to Guns N Roses and I can't hear myself think. Anyway, there we were when this song came on and I remembered when it came out for the second time (the first release failed to chart) in 1989, kicking off my switch from Queen-fidelity to dabbling in metal. I realised that this made it the first time I was aware of music in the big wide world out there (apart from Queen, which was always very much a private thing) and that this had happened a full 20 years ago. Until that moment I had considered "Paradise City" as the start of "modern" in my record collection, as opposed to the "old" stuff. It turns out that there are probably a billion or two young whipper-snappers on this planet who categorically categorise this song among the old, like when you'd listen to Dave Lee Travis with your mum on a Sunday morning in the late 80s and hear ELO songs from what appeared to be a bygone era but turned out to be nothing earlier than 1979.
So then I got to thinking that from Paradise City up to 1999 I could quite easily give a visitor to planet Earth (or my children, whichever comes first) a full and frank overview of the past decade in music: big-hair rock, Madchester, shoe-gazing, grunge, Metallica, Britpop, 60s, 70s and 80s revivals, Take That, Spice Girls, the tragedy of Coldplay and the fourth re-release of John Lennon's Imagine. But if my imaginary children or this imaginary spaceman overprioritising pop culture in his bid for world dominance were to say to me: "Tell us about the music of the period between 2000 and 2009, we're not altogether happy with the phrase "the noughties" but haven't been able to come up with a better alternative", I'd smile at them blankly and hope they'd think I'd gone senile rather than thinking I didn't really know much about anything. And then they'd go off and get into all kinds of music from the period between 2000 and 2009 which I knew nothing about because I'd spent the whole decade listening to Guns n Roses and ELO and reminiscing about Dave Lee Travis.
Do you ever have thoughts like these? Or do you think like Taasha of The Audreys:
"A person quizzed me a few days ago about Paradise City and kept referring to the Axl Rose song, so I told him to imagine it for the women," Taasha offers. "Axl's singing that the grass is green and the girls are pretty with his misogynist view, so what was it like for the women in that city? Well it was probably pretty fucked. I really love people's interpretations of our songs and they're often more interesting than our own."
Incidentally, Slash's suggestion for the second line of Paradise City was "Where the girls are fat and they've got big titties". This was tragically vetoed by the rest of the band.
Dear Daniel,
It explains why Velvet Revolver didn't catch on in quite the same way as G'n'f'n'R.
Do you think your lack of naughtie-knowledge if down to your interest drifting away from modern stuff or it is that you are living in a different culture to the musical one you reference from 60s - 2000?
A lot of what you speak about it down to a shared frame of reference in one country. A rough 2000s from here looks, on guitar, like The Strokes through The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers while at the same time pop was doing Destinys Child, J-Lo, through Pink, Busted, McFly, the rise of the Black Eyed Peas and underground was turning the internet into a modern socialist revolution.
But in America, the whole guitar scene listed above is largely unknown and is replaced with Eminem and Emo. Pop's much the same, but it's all about marketing by multinationals so that's unsurprising.
Anyway, it's not like you've never heard of these acts. What are you talking about?
Dear James,
Yeah but no but, I've heard of them but they haven't formed any kind of soundtrack to my life in the last ten years, and due to my refusal to listen to much radio I've been making my own ignorantly oblivious soundtrack. Right here, on this blog.
Bloody hell! The news sources in Argentina can rarely be trusted, but I think their ¨Michael Jackson might have died¨thing might be correct. And to think we were just talking about cardiac arrests, two posts below, eh?
Mine and my dad's favourite MJ song has to be the eighth single to be released off the Bad album. Me and my sisters had received the Bad album from Great Auntie Susan, who used to send us a cheque for 2 quid every Christmas. We put out heads together and got this. Then we started taking it on access days with Dad. Dad enjoyed Man in the Mirror and could regularly be spotted singing along in his inimitable tone-deaf way, clearly taking in Jackson's wise lyrics and starting to look at that ¨Man in the Mirror¨. Or ¨Dad¨, as we used to call him. Time passed and the Bad cassette seemed to take up residence in Dad´s Lada Combi. Slowly, the awful truth began to dawn: Dad had nicked our tape. So much for Man in the Mirror.
Dear Daniel,
He was good, wasn't he? But let's be honest - only until the end of the 80s. Still - what a showman. I spoke to somebody who saw him play in Roundhay Park in 1988. The buildup was massive. Silence. The lights went up and he was propelled up through the stage, head facing right. Crowd went wild. He stood there for ten minutes. Crown continued to go wild throughout. After the ten minutes, he jerked his head to the right. The crowd went wild. For ten minutes. Then he started the show.
True or not, it totally believable and that is the mark of the man.
Crikey. The king is dead. To quote David Quantick, "Now, Jermaine is King."
Dear James,
I had no idea that my dad played in Roundhay Park. Was it rugby? I disagree that he was only good up to the end of the 80s; he had a purple patch in the late 90s and he's really perked up since his retirement and gave me a hundred quid for my birthday. Unless you're still talking about Michael Jackson.
If Mike Scott of The Waterboys had come to your school assembly in the late 80s, would your fellow pupils have reacted in such a friendly manner? I can't help but feel that if Mr. Scott had come to Hazel Grove High School and played a jolly tune on the piano, the students would not have reacted so enthusiastically. In fact, I don't think my school had a piano. And don't be fooled by their pretty website. In our day, we didn't even have those claret sweaters for uniforms. They were later imposed by an Aston Villa-supporting headmaster.
Yesterday when I was supposed to be working I discovered something very interesting. To begin with, some etymology for you, courtesy of Mr. Quinion. Did you enjoy that? Good. By now you should be aware that there's a leap year every four years, but not in years ending in 00 (1700, 1800, 1900), unless it's divisible by 400 (2000) in which case it's a leap year, and thus we keep all the seasons in step. This process, as you'll know being a scientist, is called metemptosis.
However, what happens if we want to add a date to the calendar to keep it in step with the moon? This is called proemptosis, one of which we won't be needing until 4200, but Quinion shirks out of explaining what this is all about. However, the 1892 London Encyclopaedia explains all in layman's terms:
METEMPTOSIS, from ¡ura, after, and iriirriD, I fall, a term in chronology, expressing the solar equation necessary to prevent the new moon from happening a day too late ; by which it stands contradistinguished from Proemptosis, which signifies the lunar equation necessary to prevent the new moon from happening too soon. The new moon's running a little backwards, that is, coming a day too soon at the end of 312 years and a half; by the proemptosis, a day is added every 300 years, and another every 2400 years : on the other hand, by the metemptosis, a bissextile is suppressed each 134 years; that is, three times in 400 years. These alterations are never made but at the end of each century ; that period rendering the practice of the calendar easy. There are three rules for making this addition or suppression of the bissextile day, and for changing the index of the epacts. 1. When there is a metemptosis without a proemptosis, the next following, or lower index, must be taken. 2. When there is a proemptosis without a metemptosis, the next preceding or superior index is to be taken. 3. When there are both a metemptosis and a proemptosis, or when there is neither the one nor the other, the same index is preferred. Thjs, in 1600, we had D : in 1700, by reason of the metemptosis, С was taken : in 1800 there were both a proemptosis and metemptosis ; so the same index was retained. In 1900 there will be a metemptosis again, when B will be taken; whicli will be preserved in 2000, because there will then be neither the one nor the other. This is as far as we need to compute for it : but Clavius has calculated a cycle of 301,800 years ; at the end of which period the same indices return in the same order.
All of which is no news to Ozzy Osbourne.
Dear Daniel,
During our time indindustry, our marketing woman at the label was called Claire Moon. During the video shoot for Animal, in between some shot or other, a bass-playing friend of mine started talking about the "hole of the Moon".
News today of the Cardiacs lead singer Tim Smith, who had a cardiac arrest almost exactly a year ago. The band has been going as long as you and I have been alive, but then ceased activities on that date and have been quiet ever since. Then,this.
To be frank, I've always found it difficult to get past the dishevelled-clown makeup (latterly inspiring Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, possibly?) and the pseudo-cryptic lyrics to actually get to the songs. And when I get to the songs.. erm, my god. It's a certain breed of genius, definitely. In the world of awkwardness I prefer Devo, but I have a feeling that makes me a lightweight.
A friend was adamant I would like them, even asking whether parts of the first Duels album were inspired by them. Not so - I'm with the reviewers who say one Cardiacs song has more ideas in it than some bands have in their entire career (do you see what I'm saying here?). I haven't counted, but I'll wager that Tarred and Feathered and this one, R.E.S., contain more mini-songs between them than there are tracks on the two Duels albums...
Honorable mention for the friend: one Chris Catalyst who is a multi-talented, indefatigable force of nature himself. He's currently to be found fronting Eureka Machines, anywhere and everywhere:
... when he's not featuring on MTV's cribs... I think.
Dear James,
Is it just me, or do The Cardiacs look and sound like Chris Evans trying to be funny?
At last it is so very very sunny here. Yesterday I walked to the shops and back and as I put my key into the door, I could feel the sweat on my back and at the sides of my nose and I was reminded of the humidity in Buenos Aires and how I would feel the same way this March when I arrived back to your apartment from a half day spent walking around the city.
I remember one such walk through the park near Plaza Italia when I made my way along Ave Dorrego back to the Palermo tube and the Cardigans album Life popped onto the iPod. I hadn't heard it in years and I had forgotten what a great soundtrack it is to sunshine. On many occasions during that super spring/summer of 1996, I would wake up hearing Rise and Shine shimmering from somewhere beyond the ceiling of my room.
I loved Nina Persson's voice. And here we are in 2009 and I'm walking in the sunshine and The Do come on the iPod and it makes me feel the same way. From time to time, Olivia B. Marilahti's vocals crackle down my spine, sounding a bit like a yawning dolphin, and breaking my heart in the heat.
Dear James,
It amuses me how people get so excited about heat in England. I suppose it's like people here getting excited about snow. It only snows every 70 years, so that's about right.
Good to see a surprise appearance from Jeff Lynne there at 3.19, and good to see a French band that sounds like a Swedish band. The theme of the video appears to be the search for one's "half-orange", a particularly annoying Spanish phrase that the French seem to be familiar with. What if you're a half-apple and you find your half-orange? Do you go on searching until you give up until you meet a half-banana, settle down and make a limited fruit salad?
Well this has been a very informative afternoon. After entertaining my neighbours to a loud rendition yesterday of one of my favourite songs off mother's Island Collection and the answer to a thousand pop quiz questions (as long as all 1,000 questions are "What was the first video to be shown on MTV?") I got to thinking "Whatever happened to that funny chap with the glasses?" Turns out, speccy here is Trevor Horn, the world famous producer! How did so much time pass without my knowing that little morsel of pop anorakia? Am I ignorant after all? Here's a whole load of stuff I never knew:
1. Trevor Horn is English, not American. How did they sneak that one past me? 2. Trevor Horn leant Bob Geldof his studio to record the "Do They Know It's Christmas?" single, and produced the b-side, which was the same song recorded by all the people who didn't make it to the first recording. 3. Trevor Horn was the man behind The Art of Noise.
4. He was also responsible for Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm, which was originally intended for Frankie Goes to Hollywood. No, really. 5. Grace Jones is still alive. And touring. 6. His wife's been in a coma since 2006. 17. He's the man resposible for TaTu. 444. Video Killed the Radio Star was the 444th UK number one. There can be only 1. The video for VKTRS was directed by Russell Mulcahy, of Highlander Fame. He directed this video too. Feel the talent.
Here's two new discoveries: 1, Type "Old Grey Whistle Test" into youtube and admire the goodies it showers upon you; 2, Billy Joel with a moustache. Any chance we can do an occasional series of performers we don't usually associate with moustaches who at some stage had a moustache? I'm sure you can find one of Phil Collins at the very least. I looked for one of Elton John, but came home empty-upperlipped.
You're a musician James - is it harder to play a harmonica and a piano, or a harmonica and a guitar? I'm tempted to phrase the question as "Is it easier to do a Billy Joel tribute act, or a Bob Dylan tribute act?" In which case, I think I've answered my own question. Speaking of tribute acts, we saw the Will Ferrell film Stepbrothers the other day which includes a lengthy Billy Joel joke. It's not tremendously funny, but then neither is the film, so in context it's tremendously funny. Not a patch on Blades of Glory, of course, but then what is?
Other Billy Joel songs off the Piano Man album I found are Travelin Prayer, possibly the silliest song to ever start an album (and that's coming from a Queen fan), and a wonderfully overfast rendition of Ain't No Crime, one of my favourite Joel songs, if only because he says it's OK to go out and get drunk. In 1973.
Those seeking further Joel-based entertainment might like to check out his 1982 nightschool. I'm going to watch it now, but only because I've already read this superb bilingual blog about life in Buenos Aires. Our 95 readers (!) would be well advised to head there first. There's photos and stuff.
A few months ago I came across a page on Wikipedia called "development hell", about novels and projects which were optioned by Hollywood but never made it past the development stage. The page which has since been edited and no longer features what I'm going to tell you, which suggests it was all bollocks to begin with, but I obviously refuse to disbelieve anything I read on Wikipedia:
In 2003, Paramount Pictures optioned the popular Avril Lavigne song for adaptation into a feature film. As of April 2008, the film has apparently been abandoned.
Clearly, the film was abandoned when it became apparent that Avril Lavigne was only going to be famous for three months, but what a great idea for a film! Let's set the scene: He's a boy, she's girl. Bit obvious so far, but bear with us. He's a punk, she does ballet. Now we've got conflict, and if there's one thing I've learnt form my script-writing course, it's that conflict is the driving force behind all writing. Well, that and talented writers who get up before 11am. Back to Sk8er Boi: He wants her, she doesn't tell, secretly she wants him as well, but due to peer-pressure she ultimately fails to follow her heart. There's your fatal flaw and your first dramatic twist, when the girl with the stuck-up nose turns down our boy.
Moving on to Act 2, we're now five years later. Our stuck-up girl, in keeping with ladies of her type, has fathered a bastard and is resigned to a life of feeding said bastard and watching MTV. It is here that she sees the guy that she turned down, rocking up MTV. Imagine! MTV showing music instead of reality shows! She calls up her friends, who are such good friends that they already knew, bought tickets for his show and didn't bother to tell her. She "tags along" to the gig, because gigs are like parties and if you haven't got a ticket it's OK as long as your friends are all going. I'm beginning to see where the film development broke down.
In a flimsy Act 3, we find out that Sk8er Boi is now with... the narrator of the story, who has a magical ability to "see the soul that is inside". How she does this is not explained, but we are told that they "rock each others' world". And that's about it. Terrible idea for a film. I wonder how much they paid to option it. Mind you, this guy's into the idea:
It was Bloomsday this week and it's the 105th anniversary of the original journey in Ulysses, if my maths is correct (and it was only vaguely correct between 1994 and 1997, so who knows how it is now...). I'm sure you would have been particularly interested in the translation lecture that was scheduled for last Monday. I never read Ulysses, largely thanks to a memory I have of you being vaguely scathing about it. Of course, looking back I now realise you were vaguely scathing about most things so I probably should have given it a whirl and made my own mind up...
To Cream, who were apparently on too many drugs back in 1968 to realise that, no matter how good he was at painting you album covers, your in-house artist shouldn't be relied on for lyrics...
Clapton admits that the song was heavily influenced by The Lovin' Spoonful, but it immmediately reminds me of the middle bit of Shangri-La by the Kinks which you posted at the start of the year. The original goes a little something like this (the middle section starts 3mins in).
Dear James,
I don't remember being vaguely scathing about Ulysses, but it's hard to remember amid so much scathing vagueness. I read it half way in the dark autumn of 98 before realising I hadn't understood a word. Tried again in 2005, didn't get past the first 100 pages. It's the kind of book you'd have on your bedside table, beneath many other books you've started and given up on.
I remember there's a Bloomsday here in Buenos Aires, somewhere in the bit where all the Anglo/Irish Argentinians live. They eat the three meals mentioned in Ulysses and spend the day reading the book. It would be nice to join them one day, but I don't know where they are and they're probably a boring bunch of old farts, but only in a vaguely scathing way.
PS. This is the 4th time you've mentioned Eric Clapton on the blog. Put a lid on it, yeah?
I'm going through a bit of a Small Faces renaissance at the moment, although since I was never really into the Small Faces back in the day it's really a Small Faces naissance. I started psychoanalysis yesterday and my therapist says it's perfectly all right for a man of my age to do this. You can read more about that and more at my new blog, here. It's bilingual, but if you just read the bits at the tops of each article, you shouldn't find it too taxing.
I've also been enjoying their "quirky, off-beat and very successful" Son of a Baker, which we're not allowed to embed (Why Small Faces? We could make you famous like we did with Little Boots!) However, the song appears to be about being a baker getting it together to bake some bread. Is this a metaphor? What other mod bands did songs about trades? Do The Who have a little-known b-side called The Artisans are Alright, about a guy whose girl is going out with a man who makes handcrafted nit-nacks? Do The Jam have a song about making jam for a small family business? Probably not.
An annoyance with youtube is that all the live Small Faces stuff is just them miming. There's even one with P.P. Arnold doing "Tin Soldier", except miming. And even then she only gets three lines.
Let the lady sing, Steve and Ronnie! Oh there we go, you already have:
The other day I finally got round to watching "There Will Be Blood". It had taken me a while to get round to watching it as it's a bit of blokes' film so I had to watch it while Josefina was out. Then she came back before I´d finished watching it, and I had to explain the whole story to her, as Daniel Day Lewis rained down blows on the false prophet's head. With a skittle. Spoiler Alert! Oh, too late.
One of the things I liked about the film is its soundtrack, composed by Jonny Greenwood, the one with the floppy fringe from Radiohead. Very tense, and almost scary. I pleased to see Josefina come home, as it was past midnight. It turns out Jonny Greenwood has previous in this department (writing orchestral stuff, not slightly scaring man-boys), as seen in his piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver. He's also composer-in-residence at the BBC. When did the BBC become so trendy? And when are they going to bring back Wogan?
As I may have mentioned elsewhere, Radiohead played here with Kraftwerk on March 24, "Memory Day" here in Argentina. That's the day when we try to remember where we put our keys and have a good old reminiscence about 80s' TV. Naturally, I didn't go. Far be it from me to stand in a cold field with a bunch of kids when I could be in the comfort of my own home, reminiscing about 80s' TV. But also because Radiohead and Kraftwerk are very much like Terry Wogan to me: something I like to admire from afar, but not something I've ever been inspired to investigate more deeply. Plus it was 300 pesos for tickets, so, you know. I don't believe this nonsense about musical lapels either, as much as I admire the "minimum fuss" concept:
My disappointment at how poorly the video for New in Town fits with the song led me to think about times when video and track are in perfect harmony. Driving later, Maps popped up on a shuffle. An example of a great song being improved by the video, I reckon, despite being performance-led i.e. often the laziest and cheapest option.
Dear James,
Afternoon! It was going to be morning, but it's a bank holiday and things just didn't work out that way. What's all this two posts in 24 hours business then? You'll disorientate the readers (now 86 unique users! See more details here. I spend more time looking at these stats than looking at the blog.)
Not overly keen on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, primarily because I always think it might be a "yeah yeah yeah" in the excited Beatles sense, and it turns out to be a "yeah yeah yeah" in a bored sarcastic sense.
It looks like I've been away from here for a bit, but I think it's been less than 2 weeks. I've been spending my time constructively, though, and listening to the likes of Grizzly Bear and the new album by Smog's Bill Callahan - beautiful. I won a music quiz in the new Leeds music venue the Nation of Shopkeepers, but I didn't know the answer to the question "Which American group were originally called the Pendletones?" I've attended an anti-BNP demonstration. I've met a german man who has more control of my life than I really appreciate.
By the way, in reference to your post on christian rock below, you may like to know that since you have been away from these shores Songs of Praise has become a lot like a Petra gig. Do you know Songs of Praise reminds me of you dad's front room in where-everhelived?
By the other way:
Since we last spoke, Little Boots has gone from strength to strength, debuting at number 13 in the UK charts with the above song. I hear it at least twice a day on our radio station and I still love it. I don't like the video, though, with it's ironic "dance of the destitute". Clearly, Victoria's success is testament to the tastemaker-like power of this blog, which posted about her ooo ages ago. Equally clearly, it's testament to the power I have to make people I am acquainted with become successful by doing - precisely - nothing and speaking to them - at most - rarely.
When are you going to become a successful sitcom writer?
Dear James?
What do you mean, when am I going to become a successful sitcom writer? I already am one. The whole success lies in getting the job in the first place. The rest is just sitting around, drinking tea and cashing cheques.
That would have been my dad's front room in Bramhall, although all his front rooms look the same to me. He has to move every 3 years to be whether the trendiest part of West Stockport is. He's now in Cheadle Hulme. You'll be glad to hear he's finished his conservatoire.
Am I allowed not to be impressed by that Little Boots song? I mean, are you very good friends with her or did you just kind of meet her once and want to give off the impression that you know her? Either way, it strikes me that you take away her piano and her tenori-on and you're left with something very ordinary. But don't tell her I said that, she seems like a nice girl.
I was into Grizzly Bear years before you were. Well, Karo the Norwegian sent me an MP3 of one of their songs in 2006, I downloaded the album for free and then never listened to it, same thing.
Here's some Songs of Praise for those poor souls who've never seen it.
Dear Daniel,
Do you know that Adam from Adam and Joe made that as part of a sketch show which the BBC decided not to commission? I would like to point commissioning editors to the shows "2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps" and "The Horne and Corden show" and say: "Shame on you"...
As for being allowed to criticise something, when did proximity to me stop you from saying you weren't keen? You told me you didn't like my last album...
(Although you were very nice about it...)
Dear James,
Fair enough. So when's your solo album coming out?
Here's a cover version for you. It beats the original until the voice comes in, and then you think about how Nick Drake really did have a very particular voice, and how hard it is to sing like him. Then you finish your whisky and go to bed, it's 3am and there's a translation of a report on nanotechnology in Ibero-America to be done tomorrow.
I have an album by this Jose Gonzalez fella somewhere. When I remember I have it and listen to it, I think: "Hmm. That's nice". And then get bored and switch it off. Pity.
Here's a nice French lady that Josefina found, Emilie Simon, singing her song Le Vieil Amant. That's French for "The Almond Veil". She sings it while a man carries out cack-handed maintenance on her grand piano, but he doesn't put her off at all. A consummate professional. Although a more professional approach would have been to fix the piano before going on the telly.
She also does a nice cover of La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf, which is French for sparrow, and also did the soundtrack for that film about the penguins which wasn't Happy Feet. I saw the start of Happy Feet on a plane last year. It was fucking rubbish. What is this business with doing musicals with songs that weren't written for the musical? It's all Moulin Rouge's fault. That's French for Roger's Mutton. Emilie also does a cover of The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog, but it's rubbish, so here's Sid instead.
Where would the world be without Christian Rock? Probably where it is now, but with a bit less comedy. In fact, being from the barren shores of Indie World, you may not even be aware of the existence of the Christian rock genre (and its sub-genres of Christian metal, Christian thrash, Christian grindcore). This is because outside of certain states of America, Christian Rock only gets a brief mention on late night rock programs such as those savoured in my youth and the odd feature in Kerrang!!! (punctuations Kerrang!!!'s own).
The above video magically summarises the main elements of Christian Rock: a man who looks like your uncle, only wearing red jogging bottoms, trying to throw what we call "rock-shapes" but ending up like a man who looks like your uncle nodding his head; an up-tempo version of a rock standard with an added Christian edge; an over-reliance on keyboards that are not too church organ-like but not too Satanic. Petra add an extra gospel touch to their rock, thanks to the vocal acrobatics of the singer. Don't switch it off before the 2:02 mark, you'll miss the best bit. Although my favourite part is "Another one!". Here's Petra's original recording, with my favourite moment in prog rock, the two-minute build-up.
GGRNRTY was of course originally recorded by Argent, featuring Rod Argent of the Zombies. I'd often wondered how Argent went from all the pretty songs on Oracle and Odyssey to this. It turns out GGRNRTY was written by Russ Ballard, who also wrote Colin Blumstone's I Don't Believe in Miracles.
Although our younger readers may be more familiar with Sinitta's cover.
I was just thinking about Belle and Sebastian the other day. I thought of posting something on here, but when I did a search for them on youtube I didn't recognise any of the songs they offered me. Of course, the last album of theirs I bought was Boy With The Arab Strap in 1998. I didn't get the feeling I'd missed much in the meantime. Then just now I saw an article in the usual place about Stuart Murdoch's new girl band project. No doubt you've already seen this, I know you go the Culture pages first while I make a self-conscious attempt to read the politics before sloping off to the football pages, making my way to the Culture only come the evening, when I've run out of other things to do and remembered such pages existed.
So the girls' voices on the interview bit sounded nice so I thought it might make a nice post. Sadly, the finished effort, Como Monday Night, strikes me at times as a mix of the same old charty gush and something that sounds like it would sound worse if Belle and Sebastian recorded it. It has some nice notes, but nothing can relieve the 90 seconds of cheese that precedes the song and other cheesy tricks in between. So I'm posting Lady Line Painter Jane instead, and remembering when it used to instantly remind me of my bedroom furniture in fourth year, but now no longer does, but now probably will having written that. It has a cheesy video too.
Article in The Guardian about the 40 years of Island Records or something, which probably means it's 20 years since my parents broke up, The Island Story compilation after 20 years of Island being my dad's near-parting gift after 17 years of marriage. I was just thinking about this song yesterday, as it's used here in Argentina as the theme tune to a very serious current affairs program. Actually, all current affairs programs are very serious. It's either that or the frivolity of bosomy women cutting apples in half while following the directions of Eduardo in Parana. But the whole thing got me wondering whether the music used for such programs as Panorama and World in Action in the UK might also be the work of some genius songwriters from the late 60s or, failing that, Jethro Tull. That World in Action theme has a certain Vanilla Fudge/Pink Floyd groove to it.
So much of our teens were spent being driven round Stockport listening to the likes of Jethro Tull, Buggles and Sparks. And generally making up our own lyrics for "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us". You might think that early 70s prog-funk would be too taxing on the simple minds of my sisters, but the beauty of Island was they had such a wide remit that any compilation had to include all the cheesy crap like Millie's "My Boy Lollipop" and Amazulu's "Too Big To be Forgotten". And between you and me, the latter was one of my favourite songs during the 1988 summer holidays. And if we turned the tape over before that silly Sparks song, we could skip U2 on the other side.
In my search for half-decent music on Argentinian TV, I recently came across I-Sat's Basement Recordings, a half-hour program of hip musicians recording songs in what we are led to believe is a dingy cellar, but in all likelihood is a ground-floor TV studio with no windows. No matter, I-Sat is now officially my favourite channel, if only for their Friday night comedy feast of Peep Show, Extras and The Mighty Boosh. Yes, the Mighty Boosh. Maybe it's just my excuse for not going out on a Friday night.
So the other day we had Andrew Bird making his Argentinian TV debut, probably. Many people consider Mr. Bird to be the best rock whistler since Axl Rose chirrupped all over Patience, and I for one am not about to disagree. Sadly, Axl Rose never worked out the whole pizzicato violin sampling thing, and Guns N Roses' music has always suffered for it. Sometimes I like to think I could be a professional musician, then I see Andrew Bird doing things like this and think "Nah..." Sadly, such videos have no similar effect on Axl Rose.
Then this other band came on singing lovely harmonies and arcane lyrics. Good as the I-Sat show is, they do tend to neglect to display the name of the artiste and song title in any prominent position, making them perhaps the Led Zeppelin of the TV world (Led Zeppelin didn't put their name or album title on their first four albums, or release singles in the UK). This means I have to memorize lyrics while enjoying the bands, then google them and see what comes up. Turns out it was Fleet Foxes.
Another video recommended by my former colleague and, dare I say it, butler, Corbi, who got fired last week from where I work and has lots of time on his hands for this kind of thing. Maybe we should get him to be our guest blogger? Everyone else I've asked has politely ignored me.
As you can see, the song is quite a departure from my usual ELO-fuelled posts. I can't help but fear that in reaching out to a new audience I might betray our faithful followers (87 people). But maybe not.
Prior to watching that, I watched this Amanda Lepore video. We're very open-minded today, and we didn't even go to yoga! She's a good-looking girl and no mistake, but perhaps needs to take it easy with the make-up, show off her natural beauty.
Dear Daniel,
The first video reminds me of my friend Jenni, who through a great chunk on the 90s would dine out on a similar story to our friend Cazwell. But instead of seeing Beyonce at Burger King, she once served Pato Banton at the PicknMix.
I've never seen Another Gay Movie, or Another Gay Sequel, but from the covers alone I'm sure they both take a sensitive and enlightened approach to what it is to be young and gay in modern middle America. They're probably effectively remakes of My Beautiful Launderette...
This is probably making me late for the pub but I just had to post it right now. Enjoy!
Dear Daniel,
Funny - though I think they used all their jokes by the 2 minute mark. Maybe the world needs more of these by the folks who did the A-ha one. Or maybe that's the Fawlty Towers of YouTube memes?
The most bizarre thing to me about the success of the Take On Me video, is that it inspires people to cover it. I have a hunch that there are more covers of the literal version online than there are of the original. I'm not going to waste time checking that out. Shall we agree to believe it's true?
Beatles AND maths! What a present. Slightly spoiled by Billy Corgan, but thanks all the same. The highlight of the day so far is that I had two big dumps. There was a also a cake at work and they sang "Happy birthday, dear pirate". I'm the pirate, seemingly. As indeed was Francis Drake. I like to think that the English think of me more as a national hero, renowned for playing boules when all hell breaks loose. I also received some tea, a DVD of a pantomime, a keyring, a waving Chinese money cat, a book about trains and some oversized slippers.
Speaking of maths, today is 03/06/09. This is the last time the date will increase in equal multiples until 02/04/08 in 99 years' time. Unless you discount 04/08/12 and 05/10/15, as I clearly have done.
Article in The Guardian today about Perry Como and the period of music between 1945 and 1955 which we've now decided we're calling "pre-rock". Whatever happened to the term "easy-listening"? It's clearly a marketing ploy to get the kids to buy more old shite. I'd like to say that I've been listening to this music before anyone else did, but clearly that would be a lie.
I also listened to Perry Como for many years in the staunch belief that he was a jolly, fat, black man. I was right on only one of those points, and probably had him mixed up with Fats Domino. (an aside: never be tempted to buy a Fats Domino album on the basis on Blueberry Hill; all the songs sound the same). In fact, Perry Como could never have been black if we consider that his main purpose in life, and The Guardian article will back me up on this, was to sing on the TV and make old white people feel safe and comfortable. Stick Flavor Flav on 1950s' TV and people don't feel so rosey and cosy.
This may or may not be connected to this article from Stuff White People Like. Probably not. In other related news, my mum moved to Leeds last week. How about making some old white people feel safe and comfortable and inviting them round for tea? If you don't, they'll show you the kiddie porn they found down the back of the old boiler. Anyway, here's some more Perry. Nine out of ten "cats"...
At work, I've been asked to download stuff by Bach to use as the temporary soundtrack for episode one. Being a huge classical music buff, you can imagine how easy this was. I did at least find out about Glenn Gould, who has an interesting story here. One thing you'll notice is that Gould had an irritating tendency to make noises while playing, something which reminded me of Keith Jarrett.
My old piano teacher tried to get me into Keith Jarrett, but I couldn't get past the grunting and the squeeking. I like to blame Jarrett for my failure to become a proficient pianist. Anyway, the search for Gould led me to this Lenny Bernstein number from West Side Story.
On Friday, I went to the Headingley cricket ground to watch a Yorkshire versus Lancashire 20/20 match. As we sat down on the Western Terrace, directly in front of a large group of men wearing spandex leotards, my friend Jon's reasons for loving cricket came back to me. Jon tells the tale of his first trip to the same ground, sat in the same stand.
It was the start of the day, people were arriving and unpacking their picnic baskets, finding their seats and preparing for the day's play. A man gets up from the lower tier of seating, off to visit the gents. He looks just like Barry Manilow. As he gets to the steps in the centre of the seating, a large ground of lads sitting further up notice him and start chanting, "Barry Manilow! Barry Manilow!" down at the poor, embarrassed guy, who shoots them back daggers: he clearly gets it all the time.
And then cricket happens.
Fast forward six hours and "Barry Manilow" is up on the shoulders of a security guard, hands in the air, leading the Western Terrace through the Copa Cabana, "HER NAME WAS LOLA! SHE WAS A SHOWGIRL!"
Cricket, Jon maintains, is a journey.
The match on Friday was rubbish, but we enjoyed the journey. Unfortunately, a pigeon had to die.
Living in Headingley it's easy to take the cricket for granted. It's still there, year after year, easily ignored. And all the time you ignore it, you're missing something. Beck is the same. Still there, still playing. You're aware he's around, but he doesn't really hit the headlines.
But it turns out that if you ignore him you're just missing out on the chance to see five men make music with cutlery, clapping, roasted chicken and one string on a guitar, crosscut with bizarre and unexplained shots of puppets of them doing the exact same thing.
The moral is: keep looking.
Dear James,
Welcome back. I've often wondered who I'd support in a Yorkshire-Lancashire cricket match. Lancashire play at Old Trafford, but I like Sheffield more than Manchester. Maybe I should support Cheshire. Or just carry on ignoring the whole thing, it's not as if we get televised cricket over here. We didn't even get the FA Cup Final live on Saturday as ESPN dedicated both their channels to the fucking tennis. It's impossible to ignore tennis over here. It is, however, quite easy to ignore Beck. I was walking along the street the other day when "Lazy Flies" came on my i-pod and I realised that was the last Beck album I bought, 11 years ago. Of course, Shirley Ellis I'm far more au fait with.
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
