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!

10538 Overture

Dear James,

This blog is so going to turn into a dodgy 70s rock blog. In a bid to turn the tide, here's some dodgy 70s rock. Pablo told me about this one, in a conversation about celloes and Ozzy Osbourne. He reckons Jeff Lynne sounds like Ozzy. I reckon I might start cello classes again. Jeff Lynne in this video looks like he'd always wanted to do a Christmas single like Wizzard. I bet Ozzy Osbourne's always wanted that too.

Have you read the bit in "17" where Bill Drummond says the bands that try to copy The Beatles are always the worst bands, just look at ELO and Oasis. Do you ever find ELO start to sound like Oasis? I do with this one, but less so with the likes of The Diary of Horace Wimp.

Hallelujah

Dear James,

There was an uproar on one of the blog pages of The Guardian about an X Factor contestant covering Hallelujah. Or they did a Leonard Cohen day on X Factor. Or something. Anyway, everyone was very tetchy about the king of grumpiness being bastardised in such a callous and commercial way. Then there was an argument about Jeff Buckley's version being better. Then someone said it had 14 verses. Then someone said Jeff Buckley was a whining girl. The thread of the original argument was lost shortly after.

I don't think it's such a bad thing that X Factor warblers do Hallelujah. As you can see from this appearance on a Japanese chat show, Leonard Cohen isn't that arsed either. I think the thrust of the argument on the Guardian blog was down to the old chestnut of people wanting to protect the secret songs that are special to them and unknown to the masses. If you're mum starts buying Leonard Cohen compilations to go alongside her James Blunt and that David chap who did very well a few years ago, you have to leave Lenny behind and find some other musical curmudgeon. And that means getting into Nick Cave.

Why is that we stop listening to stuff we like when everyone else starts liking it? Are we snobs? Are we music Nazis? Does the music get devalued? Would you still be listening to Oasis if no one else had bought Definitely Maybe? And how come this doesn´t apply to older bands like The Beatles and Billy Joel? Eh?