Telephone Line

Dear James,

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.



Here are those Clasiqueros:

Perfect Day

Our recent talk of covers which were better than the originals and Lou Reed butchering all his songs led me to reluctantly seek out this video. Eleven years on, it still makes my toes curl, but far less than the version which Radio One DJs did. Do you think the producers sat with Lou Reed going "Go on Lou, just sing one line properly. Please?" Do you think Lou Reed was a precursor to Milli Vanilli, and never actually sang any of his songs, which were in fact written and recorded by Brian Epstein? Me too. Still, even the sound of Lou Reed stripping his own classics of any recognisable melody is infinitely preferable to hearing Bono sing anything.

Then we get to play the "Name the People Who Used to be Famous" game.
1. Dunno. Girl from Morcheeba? 2. David Bowie, letting himself down badly. 3. Dunno. Girl from Coors? 4. Elton John, well-suited to this kind of rubbish. 5. Boyz One. Or is it Wetlife? 6. That awful opera singer woman. 7. Token reggae person. 8. Do you think Bono had a stipulation in his contract that he got at least two lines? 9. Is it Pavorotti? I also thought he sang in this? 10. The woman from M People. I'm bored with this game already and want to watch this instead:

Do you remember when we were living in the 1990s and thought it was the best decade ever? How wrong we were. Doesn't this song sound like it was meant to be a joke, like when indie bands cover Baby One More Time? Wouldn't you love to hear M People covering other Small Faces songs. "He's always there, when I need some speeeeeeeeed". "Oh, life, is just a bowl of All Braaaaaaaan!"