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.
Now, I've never been a fan of Mika and I suggest that you should not be either, despite him evoking the memory of Freddie Mercury in the nonsense-pop hit, Grace Kelly. In fact, he does more than simply evoke in that song. He more or less sings, "I'm going to try and sing like Freddie Mercury now," and then tries to sing like Freddie Mercury. As I say, nonsense.
Well, that's one thing. (In fact, there are two things: he sings, "Why don't you like me?" over and over which is simply dreadful and no amount of protestations about its ironic intent, its postmodern leanings, its subversive objective justify its complete bloody mawkishness.)
Anyway, he's gone a step further. For inspiration on his big new nonsense-pop hit, he's gone beyond Grace Kelly, bypassed Freddie Mercury and, erm, watched this clip of The Office from about 53"...
Surely the joke in The Office was that the song was awful?
Dear James,
I'm back!And I have this to say. If this was 1973 instead of 2009, Mika would be the new Sparks. Or the old Sparks. As it is, and as we always suspected, he's just turned into a dull pop act with the odd falsetto and silly shorts. So if this was 1984, he would actually be Freddie Mercury.
A couple of months ago I was taking the piss out of Skid Row and told you how their singer, Sebastian Bach (real name Sebastian Bierk), deserved a whole piss-taking post of his own. James, this is that post:
1. Sebastian Bach (real name Sebastian Bierk) named his 3 children Paris, London and... Sebastiana. If you and I were anything like Sebastian, I'd have a son called Stockport and you'd have one called Saint Saviour. Well, you'd have a son anyway. I suppose in many ways you have become more like Sebastian Bach than I will ever be. Unless I have a son and name him after a major conurbation, clearly. Leeds-Bradford Tunnard. It's got a ring to it. 2. Sebastian Bach (real name Sebastian Bierk) made his Broadway debut in 2000 in the title role of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 3. In 2002, SB (RN Sebastian Bierk) played the title role in a touring company's production of Jesus Christ Superstar. He was fired for "diva-like behaviour". That sounds unfair. If you're playing Jesus Christ you've got to get into the whole "I'm the Messiah" thing, right?
I like to think Sebastian would have at least put more passion into his performance than the guy in the above video. The original album featured Ian Gillan of Deep Purple as Jesus and Murray Head as Judas. Murray Head of course went on to great success in the 80s with One Night In Bangkok.
But I digress: 4. Sebastian Bach was turned down in favour of ex-Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland as the lead singer of Velvet Revolver, because Slash said that with Bach they sounded like "Skid Roses". Of course, the fact that that Americans are as ignorant of the phrase "skid mark" as Germans are oblivious to the double meaning of "Bismarck" only adds to the humour.
5. Bach played the guitarist in the Korean girls' band in Gilmour Girls. As a married man, I endured the Gilmour Girls for years. I'm so gutted this huge comic moment passed me by at the time.
You may notice how he mispronounces the phrase "breast-feeding route".
6. Like many people, Bach went 13 years without speaking to W.Axl Rose. They made up, and Bach joined Axl's Not N Really aNymore Guns N Roses on stage on May 12, 2006, singing My Michelle. He then rejoined them on stage on May 14, singing My Michelle. He joined them again on June 4, 6 and 9, singing My Michelle. And again on September 23, singing My Michelle.
Eventually, they let him sing Nightrain as an encore, but only because Axl was "ailing".
7. 2006 was a busy year for Sebastian. He also formed a supergroup for the VH1 reality show "Supergroup" with Scott Ian (Anthrax), Evan Seinfeld (Biohazard and porn), Jason Bonham (Led Zep drummer, son of dead Led Zep drummer), and Ted Nugent (Ted Nugent). Oddly for a man with a 20-year career behind him, the reality show gets more words on his Wikipedia page than anything else. Which is probably about right.
8. That above article goes on for a bit, so I'll leave you with this gem:
In 2007, on an episode of the Trailer Park Boys season seven titled Friends of the Road, Bach played himself as a celebrity guest hosting a model train convention
I just don't know what to make of that, aside from the envy that Bach got to host it and not me, when I know loads more about trains. Anyway, 18 and Life, fantastic song in the late-80s glam rock vein of picking a name at random (Ricky, Billy, Johnny, etc) and writing a story about a young kid gone off the tracks. Great video too. Youth Gone Wild, meh.
I've finally got around to listening to something which - when I heard about it 2 or 3 months back - got me pretty excited. I'm sure you'll remember back in late '95 when I used to repeat-play Sparklehorse's wonderfully-titled debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot? You don't? Well, you were all "Life" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the time.
I bought it because Jennifer Nine in the Melody Maker said "Rainmaker" sounded like an heir to Big Star's "Ballad of El Goodo", which you must remember me repeat playing. I remember getting the album home and being surprised at how remarkably dissimilar the tracks were...
Anyway, I saw Sparklehorse play in France a year later, Mark Linkous wheelchair-bound because, apparently, he fell asleep for 13 hours in the crouching position either after a particularly heavy night or because he was ill - depending on who you hear the story from.
Over the following years my relationship with the band dwindled, but then came Nina Persson - years after "Life" - to collaborate on a solo record of hers under the name A Camp with songs written by Mark Linkous. I can only imagine she worked with him to add a pleasingly circular quality to this tale.
And here she is with him again, this time adding vocals to a track on Linkous' album with Gnarls Barkley-bloke Danger Mouse, who created the super "Grey Album" by mixing Jay-Z's Black Album with The Beatles' White Album.
The new album also features Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, The Strokes' Julian Casablancas (whose forthcoming solo album sounds bizarrely like Vangelis...), Vic Chestnut, Iggy Pop, etc. etc. and is itself a multimedia collaboration with David Lynch.
At the risk of sounding precious, I remember it was you who was all "Life" in 1995, I carried on the Cardigan Torch for the Atlanta Olympics in 96 and there on in. And Sparklehorse's hugely original sound (you're right, nothing like Ballad of El Goodo) probably flew right over my head because I mixed them up with Seahorses, that band by the chap who used to be in a better band, and by your insistence on wasting your fancy Jersey States student grant on 2,761 CDs in 95-96 by bands that sounded like The Charlatans doing Crashin' In.
You'd already conned me into buying the Whiteout album so the pretty girl at Virgin Megastore (Hagar?) would notice me, and that was shit, so I drew the line at further jangly guiter US pop bands after that and snuggled up with Paul and Artie and my yellow wig. I'm pleased to report that my cats ripped the spine of the Whiteout album to fuck in the days when I had my albums arranged in alphabetical order, with the S-Z section dangerously low (My Bridge Over Troubled Water! How will I replace you?) and in a cruel twist of fate, now that I've reordered my vinyl by year of release, it's the 1986-1998 section at the bottom which gets the scratching. Which may fuck up half my Queen collection, but if it brings Whiteout more pain, it's a risk I'm willing to take.
And you didn't even tell us anything about the Grey Album, surely the most exciting song on this post? I was going to post Whiteout's "Jackie's Racing", but there's no whiff of Whiteout on youtube and they told me to post Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" instead. No one reads this far down anyway.
Less of your modernism, here's some cheesy bollocks from the 70s. You know where you are with cheesy bollocks. Curious Supertramp video from a Paris gig here. The singer's only purpose appears to be to do a bizarre strip tease and speak a bit of French.
Supertramp were one of Princess Diana's favourite bands. We were in the Coto supermarket round the corner the other day when "Lady in Red" came on on the tannoy and we sang along at the check-out. I told Josefina the old chestnut about how Princess Diana loved the song and thought it was about her. And people think I have a big ego. At a gig or something Princess Diana went up to Chris de Burgh and thanked him for writing the song about her. Little Chris had to point out that actually it was about his wife.
Like a southern American Steptoe, you've spent a lot of time on here going through old metal. But where do your modern metallic tastes lie?
The edges are more blurred nowadays, so Future of the Left are very likely not metal. But let's not go down that road. I've paid little attention to them up until now cos I've been listening to a lot of music out of the US. That was before I discovered they were the remains of the Cardiff alt-noise fellows McLusky, who I was turned on to by John Peel a few years back. I liked their nonsense sensibilities:
and whoyouknow: "Your heart's gone the colour of Coca Cola"
I'm going to delve deeper into this latest FotL record. Why don't you join me?
Dear James,
All very entertaining this, sounds a bit like a heavy Pavement. And since Pavement were quite heavy sometimes, I suppose that means they sound like Pavement. Has the heavy indie genre been coined yet? The caretaker in our old building said he was in a "heavy country" band. He left before I could find out what that meant. As for my metal tastes nowadays, since I don't seek out new music anymore I'm stuck with trawling through the Black Sabbath back catalogue and the occasional System of a Down. This is still a good 'un:
With news today that Ronnie Biggs is a free man, let's have a look at the film that started it all. Here's the Four Tops on Top of the Pops. Phil Collins wrote this with one of Dozier, Holland or Dozier. Although he never matched the giddy heights of sister Joan´s acting feats, there can nevertheless me no doubt as to Collins´ songwriting talent. Ignore what Barry Norman says, he´s just a stooge of the royal family.
And here´s a coincidence I've just found half an hour later: the great train robbery was 46 years ago today. And it's Ronnie Biggs' birthday!
One of the clichés of the modern world is the metal band playing a pop classic. It's been done. Today Josefina pointed out to me a case of the same man taking his 70s ballad and turning it into metallic shit. Yes, a big steel turd.
I always remember Johnny Halliday for popping up in my French GCSE exam. He wasn't invigilating, there was merely a reading comprehansion article about him. Other things you may not know about Johnny: he once recorded an album of songs specially written by U2; he hired the Small Faces in 1969 to record his Riviere album; the Jimi Hendrix Experience's first gig was opening for Johnny in 1966; in 2006 his application for Belgian citizenship was turned down; and he has the world's largest collection of cookie jars.
I was trying to put together a decent music synch for a radio piece yesterday and somebody suggested Christopher O'Riley. I had never heard of him, but apparently he's very popular for his covers of Radiohead songs. More of that in a second.
As I was looking through live videos fans have posted it became clear where his music taste lies and, like a lifelong dedicated Buddhist, it was only a matter of time before he got to Nirvana.
Maybe this isn't his best showpiece. At exactly 1'12", he reveals his otherwise-unspoken love for British light entertainment circa 1986.
Now I think about it, he's not the first person to cover Nirvana on the piano.
Most of the world wouldn't have heard Cornflake Girl if it wasn't for the novelty of Tori Amos surfing the wave of Cobain-love in the early nineties. And where would we be if that hadn't have happened? Erm... I guess we wouldn't have heard Cornflake Girl.
(you'll notice there's only one person in the crowd here who is interested in Tori's genre-crossing kookiness. And it takes him just slightly too long to work out what's going on...)
I know you are a keen pianist, Daniel, so before you dash off to build up a cannon of heavy rock on piano and upset that woman across from your kitchen window, may I suggest you start here:
Dear James,
Welcome back, again. I was going to post various clips of Les Dawson only last week, but couldn't think of any justification other than "here's some Les Dawson clips". Not wordy enough for me. Our friend Aine once told me that it took a special talent to play the piano like Les, shortly before she saw me play for the first time.
I'm taking it you haven't heard of Brad Mehldau, who sees Christopher O'Really and raises him a hundred pounds. That's because he's got a royal flush, and he knows O'Really has only got a two-pair.
He also does various Nick Drake covers. I think he's playing Buenos Aires soon. I bet he's already been and gone and I missed it again.
Here's some youtube fun that Jude and the Curtain Darlings found, featuring Ben Stiller doing his world-renowned "Foulger-face" and Jack Black spoiling it by overacting, the unfunny camera-hogger. Downey Jr looks like he's been begrudgingly dragged along to make up the numbers. The marvellous original's here. We saw a Jack Black film the other day, Margot at the Wedding. It was rubbish, even though Nicole Kidman was in it. I'm going to have to stop Josefina from choosing the DVDs.
This song was the subject of the first joke I ever told that made my dad laugh. I phoned him on my 22nd birthday, after my last exam, from the phone box upstairs from Bar One. Tha cions ran out and I said "There go the pips, on the Midnight Train to Georgia". Not one of my best, I know, in fact I copied it from Viz. But I knew then that if I could make my dad laugh, a fine career in comedy would one day await me. It's still awaiting me, I just haven't got round to it.
I like to tell people that Midnight Train to Georgia was number one in the UK on the day I was born. I like to tell them that, because it's not true. I used to think it was number one the week before I was born, but that's bollocks as it was US number one in November 1973. No, number one on the day I was born was by far the worst song of the 1970s: No Charge, by JJ Barrie. It's not even a song. It's a dispassionate list of fees.
The song was later covered by Billy Connoly as "No Chance", because only comedy songs and cover versions were allowed in the 1976 charts. A week later, JJ Barrie's turd had been knocked off the top of the pops by an equally awful song, by the Wurzels. For some reason, Hairy Cornflake does a pirate impersonation to introduce the song.
Today I spent 10 hours riding the buses of Buenos Aires and then writing about it. You can read all about it at my marvellously shamelessly plugged blog, danieltunnard.blogspot.com. In fact I posted 14 times on that blog in the last week. My prolificacy! It's back. How I missed it.
A couple of weeks ago I was in Concepcion with the in-laws, reading the entertainment section from a 4-month old copy of the La Nacion newspaper. I was quite bored. In it, there was a big feature on a grey-bearded sports journalist off the telly proclaiming his love for The Hollies and showing off his dated vinyl collection. A very odd article, I thought. The Hollies are unheard of over here and, more to the point, were always shite. The only redeaming part of the article was that the chap in question once declared on air that the Rolling Stones, idolised by any self-respecting Argentinian, weren't really up to much. He got lots of threatening e-mails afterwards. He also claimed that the Hollies were never as big as other 60s bands because they were from Manchester instead of Liverpool, a claim I often like to pass off in my own defence.
Then today I was reading my weekly World Wide Words newsletter and it had a piece on beghilos, a term for the geeky student practice enjoyed by you and me in the 1980s (and probably 1990s in your case) of spelling out words on an upside-down calculator. It mentioned that The Hollies 1979 album was called 5317704, which upside-down spells Hollies. Although 5318008 would clearly have been a far funnier title.
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
