Another New Toy...

Amazon have just delivered me a Flip Video Camera (a bargain at that price even if it did go up by a fiver inbetween me leaving work and arriving home !).

I've just discovered you can upload video here

Now we have a whole new world of possibilities don't we ?

All Quiet...continued...

Here he is, front row on the left, Pte. 8655 Thomas Callow, my Great-Great Uncle.



If you click the image you'll see a larger version. If you have no idea what I'm talking about look here

Have You Got Anything By The Damned Mate ???

I know, I know, it's been over a month, I've been very slack when it comes to blogging and I humbly apologise to the three people out there in the world that actually read my ramblings.

So what's been happening in my world ? Well, gigs/festivals, redundany, DJ'ing and a school reunion pretty much sums things up.

Them crazy Wonder Stuff types have been out on the road recently celebrating the 21st anniversary of the release of their debut album "The Eight Legged Groove Machine". We hopped around a few of the countries O2 Academies playing to audiences reliving their youth (shame they can't come out in such numbers when Miles and Erica are doing their solo shows) and a generally spiffing time was had by all. We rounded it all off with a great day in the sunshine at The Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham Race course.

The redundancy bit was the recent downer. Not me I might add but my wife who was basically forced into accepting redundancy by the gutlessness of her directors at a large transport terminal in the countries 2nd city (it wasn't a train or bus station and as Birmingham is land locked I'll leave you to figure out where it may have been). We're looking at it as positively as we can. She'll get a nice fat payoff which will clear her debts and leave her with a nice tidy sum to bank. Also since we moved house 4 years ago she hasn't taken well to the 90 minute commute to and from work so it will give her the push she needs to really find something closer to home. I know she'll find something, she's totally employable so won't have a problem finding somewhere that'll want her.

I've had a go at DJ'ing on and off over the years and always really enjoyed it. What I've always wanted to do was DJ at a Northern Soul night. Trouble is those nights require you to have a large and expensive collection of 7" vinyl singles as CD's are very much frowned upon in the Northern Soul world (well if you'd spent thousands of pounds and hours assembling the killer vinyl collection and some guy turns up with 2 CD's with all the same tracks on you're not going to be best pleased are you ?). Well in February a fella going under the pseudonym of "Agent 0-0 Soul" started the Telford Soul Club at a Sports & Social Club not 20 minutes walk from my house. I attended of course, went up to talk to "Agent 0-0 Soul" and was delighted to see he was spinning from CD's and not vinyl. After a quick chat I volunteered my services and he said he'd let me know. Well at the May event he let me do an hour and I had a great time. I must have done something right as he let me loose on the decks for another hour last week and I think I'm on for next month too.

On Saturday I went to something that I really wouldn't have expected myself to want to go to, a School Reunion. Now it was a little under attended, at most there were 10 or 11 of us (even one of the organisers didn't bother showing up !) but it was a top night out. Met up again with a guy I used to play rugby with 30 years ago and with my ex-girlfriend, which was an interesting one as my wife came too. But it's something I think I would really like to do again on a much bigger scale. Not sure I'm volunteering to organise it tho' !

I also found out last week some more info about my ancestor Thomas Callow (see my last Blog entry here). Well my Uncle has turned up a photograph of him and a set of his medals. I'll hopefully get to see them soon and I shall definitely be scanning the photograph so will let y'all see him when I do.

As we say in the Celestial City...Tararabit

All Quiet...

A group of us are off to France tomorrow for a few days. The primary reason for going is to visit the Eastern Cemetery in Boulogne and pay our respects to Private Thomas Callow.

I need to check this but I think Thomas Callow was my great-great uncle (my grandfathers uncle). I've done a little research on him and it was remarkably easy to trace his route from Birmingham to a cemetery in France.

Thomas Callow signed up with the Army Special Reserve on 29th August 1912 at the age of 19 years and 5 months, meaning he was born sometime in March 1893. He joined the 3rd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment. As a reservist he was mobilised when war was declared in August 1914 and was shipped to France on 2nd November 1914.

On 12th March 1915 the 3rd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment attacked Spanbroek Mill near Lindenhoek in Belgium on the Western front, about 8 miles south of Ypres. Thomas Callow's Army service record reports that he was "Wounded"..."In action at "Lindenhoek"...G.S. wound "L.' Leg". I don't know on which date as his service record was damaged by fire in a German bombing raid on the War Office in London during 1940. However the "Effects of Wounds" reported in his service record are that Thomas Callow "Died 16 3/15" or the 16th March 1915.

The Worcestershire Regiment website tells us that "During the attack on Thursday 12th March 1915 the men of the 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment suffered heavy casualties with 9 officers and 77 other ranks killed. All but two of the officers are burried at Kemmel Chateau Military Cemetery. All but four of the other ranks are remembered on a panel at Menin Gate Memorial at Ieper (Ypres).". Thomas Callows name is not amongst those listed as being remembered on the Menin Gate.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website has this to say about Boulogne "Boulogne, was one of the three base ports most extensively used by the Commonwealth armies on the Western Front throughout the First World War. It was closed and cleared on the 27 August 1914 when the Allies were forced to fall back ahead of the German advance, but was opened again in October and from that month to the end of the war, Boulogne and Wimereux formed one of the chief hospital areas."

Now this is me making assumptions here but I guess Thomas was wounded while attacking the mill at Lindenhoek on 12th March 1915. Sometime between that date and 16th March 1915 he was moved to a hospital at Boulogne where he subsequently died from his wounds and was buried in Boulogne. He had served in the Worcestershire Regiment for 2 years and 200 days and was 21 years old, just short of his 22nd birthday.

My son is almost exactly the same age as Thomas was when he died. I can only begin to imagine how his parents James and Catherine reacted when they received the news of his death. A sobering tale indeed

Plaque Security

I'm at an airport. One of my least favourite places.

I've just had all my toiletry items confiscated as apparently they are a security risk.

I'm willing to bet more people are killed every year in the UK due to murder, suicide and drunk driving than have been killed by terrorist attacks on aircraft leaving the UK in the last 10 years but still I can't take mouthwash to France !

Play A Fast Un Ya Bassa...

If you refer back to here you will remember I was trying to get together some tunes to play at our local open mic night. Well I did it last night and a thoroughly terrifying experience it was too!

With much help from Howard who runs the open mic's at The Crown I managed to bumble my way through 5 songs:

I Wanna Be Sedated (Ramones)
Smith Is A Liar (The Libertines...no not Doherty's talentless bunch)
Timeless Melody (The La's)
Jo The Waiter (Tubeway Army)
Sing Me Back Home (Flying Burrito Brothers)

And I only managed to balls one of them up completely !

the search now begins for new tunes

You Should Never Have Opened That Door...

"By the dawn of the 70's, the philosophy was that you couldn't do anything without a lot of money. So my philosophy was back to 'Fcuk you, we don't care if we can't play and don't have very good instruments, we're still doing it because we think you're all a bunch of cnuts.'

I think that's what really created the anger - the anger was simply about money, that the culture had become corporate, that we no longer owned it and eveybody was desperate to fcuking get it back. This was a generation trying to do that"

Malcolm McLaren
(From "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk" by Legs McNeill and Gillian McLean)

Modernism Part 3...

"Nobody spoke to Mods until Pete Townshend wrote "I Can't Explain".

"I feel hot and cold, Yeah down in my soul" - that's Elgar on speed."

Irish Jack Lyons

Oh The Man Doin' The Boogie (Boogie)...

Never been much of a fan of Malcolm McLaren. Always struck me that he was taking a lot of credit for stuff that would have happened without him anyway.

I keep a copy of the excellent "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain in my bathroom. It's the perfect book for such occasions as it is split into very short "vox pop" type sections.

This morning, while perusing said volume, I came across a short section credited to Malcolm McLaren. It really struck a chord with me, made me think how we need something similar right now.

I'll reproduce it here later when I get home. And then hope the IPR police don't descend on me like a ton of bricks. As they say, watch this space...

Starstruck

These days I live in Telford, Shropshire. It's a "new town" created in 1963 when some government functionary stuck a pair of compasses in a map of Shropshire and drew a big circle encompassing such long standing villages as St Georges, Priorslee, Oakengates, Hadley, Ironbridge, Broseley, Wellington etc. etc. and pronounced "right we'll call that New Dawley". Sense eventually prevailed and the "new town" was named Telford (in honour of the Scottish engineer Thomas Telford who built what we now know as the A5, or the Holyhead Road. Actually the Romans started it hence some bits of it being straight as an arrow (see below) and Telford added some bits that eventually joined London to Holyhead in Wales and hence the ferry to Ireland)



Anyway Telford is known for many things. It's know as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution due to Ironbridge's reputation for iron smelting and the building of the first iron bridge there (see what they did there?); it's known as a former mining area; it's known because the Romans settled there; it's known because The Wrekin is close by. What it's not known for is the number of famous types who frequent it. So imagine my surprise yesterday when travelling home to find two such famous types travelling through it or actually being in it !

I boarded my usual train home yesterday afternoon and after finding my inarguably better half and sitting down a bit of a kerfuffle began in the aisle next to us. A fellow in a parka ("hmmm, Mod", I thought. I notice these things) began unpacking his bag and removing said parka and in the process blocking the aisle as people were trying to get on and find seats. As he removed the parka I noticed the label on his jeans "hmmm, Levi 501's" and to confirm my suspicions looked down toward the floor to see 1" turn ups on the 501's and a pair of green suede chisel toed desert boots. "Definitely a Mod" I thought to myself. He sat down and I looked over at him and was most surprised to be confronted with the face of Paolo Hewitt. "It's Paolo Hewitt" I muttered to my better half "what's he doing on a train to Telford ?". Just about then some older ladies came and sat down, a discussion began about reserved seats and Paolo eventually disappeared into the next carriage so I never got the chance to find out what he was doing on a train toward Telford.



So then, for those of you who have no idea who I am talking about, Paolo Hewitt (that's him above), is a writer, great friend of Paul Weller and über Mod. His writing covers the wide spectrum of all things Modernist from his biography of the Small Faces (The Young Mods Forgotten Story), Mods in general (The Sharper Word & The Soul Stylists), himself (The Looked-after Kid: Memoirs from the Children's Home), Ben Sherman's (My Favourite Shirt) and of course Paul Weller (A Beat Concerto & The Changingman). He also wrote the introduction to the sleeve notes of a CD box set called "The In Crowd - The Ultimate Mod Collection 1958 - 1967" an anthology of Mod music, which in my opinion is the best short summary of what Mod is I've ever read. If you are interested in the Mod lifestyle at all, Paolo is the man to read.

Now if all that wasn't enough there was more ! I left the train at Telford, and caught a bus home from the station. As we were stuck in the mini traffic jam that seems to accumulate at the exit to Telford Central Station around 5pm-ish I looked out of the window and saw to my astonishment a large gentleman, dressed from head to toe in black, his black short sleeved shirt unbuttoned halfway down, balding but with black hair around the sides. Again I said to my, by now blasé, better half "it's The Count". "WHO?" I hear you cry. "The Count...Ted Hankey...current BDO World Professional Darts Champion" I reply.



I love darts, I used to play it, very badly I might add. Now I know Ted lives in the town but I must admit to being surprised at seeing a World Champion striding across a grass verge next to a car park in Telford. Can't imagine ever seeing Roger Federer doing that !

Crikey, what a day...

Lux Interior

He passed away on Tuesday in hospital. Great band, great singer...enjoy this

Busy, Busy...

Things are shaping up to be a little busy over the next week.

On Friday 30th We'll be at "Shared" at Birmingham Town Hall, one of the finer bits of architecture left in my hometown following the municipal sponsored vandalism of the late 50's/early 60's.

A fine line-up it promises to be too and I am apparently "guitar tech without portfolio" for the whole evening. Should be fun.

Then on Saturday it's my sons 21st birthday party. Kinda snuck up on me this one as it feels like not too long ago we were watching Thomas The Tank Engine videos and being terrified by music video's featuring The Bass Thing ! Looking forward to it immensely and I will get to do one of my infrequent DJ sets.

And talking of DJ's I have just discovered there is a regular monthly Northern Soul night at a club not 20 minutes walk from my house. I knew those new shoes would come in handy.

While On The Subject of Shoes

I found some (big smiley thing)

The Wonder Stuff...In The eNMEy !!!

Are you sure it's 2009 ???

The Suit

Here 'tis



Well that's it, I've shown it to the world now. I won't be purchasing those shoes however (I got over those twentymnuph years ago !)

Almost There...

...there being the end of my first week back at work after a blisfully lazy 2 weeks off around Xmas. Can't say that it's been too stressful but it's always a bit of a shock to the system having to adjust to doing what someone else wants rather than what you want.

It's now time to shed those extra pounds ready for the rather exciting wedding we'll be attending later this year. Have to shed the pounds otherwise I won't be able to fit into the dream suit I have my eye on for the occasion. So if you see me with chocolate, crisps, kebabs blahblahblah then feel free to stop me (pints on Fridays are allowed though).

I was given a rather splendid and most unexpected present over Xmas by my brother, a Yamaha CPX-900. "What's one of those ?" I hear you cry. Well, it's one of these:


And very splendid and lovely it is too. One of the conditions was that he can have it back for photo shoots if needed, because it looks great, and the other condition was that I have to learn to play all over again. I haven't wielded a guitar in anger for about 20 years so right now my fingers really hurt as I've been trying to put together a few songs to play at some point at our local open mic night. Given that the guitar seems to have been supplied with knitting needles instead of strings I need to get some lighter guages on there pronto.

As far as tunes go, so far I've re-learned my own song "Smith Is A Liar" and made what I think are passable stabs at The Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated", The Flying Burrito Brothers "Sing Me Back Home" and The La's "Timeless Melody". I'll keep you informed on how things progress.

I've also been asked to sing in a band being put together for a one-off event later this year. The upside is I get to wear the dream suit to do that too, the downside being I may have to sing a Bryan Adam's song ! (No not THAT Bryan Adams song, credit me with some standards).

Oh and a recommendation for you. If you fancy a good read try "The Modfather: My Life With Paul Weller" by David Lines. You don't have to particularly be a fan of the Modfather's to appreciate it. But if you've ever had a slight obsession with a band, musician or lifestyle that you parents thought was a bit "strange" then you'll appreciate it, and it's only 6 quid at Amazon right now. Oh, and if you do read it, make sure you don't have a mouthful of coffee when you get to the bit about the snails !

Toodle-pip kiddies

Hallelujah...

It's a wonderful song and has been performed by many fantastic artists. The current UK obsession with the version released by a competition winner being none of them.

I'm pleased it looks like it will be a hit if only because Leonard Cohen, who wrote the song, claims he was fraudulently relieved of his retirement fund in 2005 and he probably needs the royalties right now.

What would be fantastic is if the British record buying public decided to purchase versions of the song that would not benefit those that visit the abomination known as the X Factor upon us.

You can download Leonard Cohen's original version Here

Or

You can download Jeff Buckley's stunning cover of the song Here

26 Years Ago Today...

...The Jam played their last ever gig.

I remember where I was and what I did that night, I may well do the same thing again tonight

"And as it was in the beginning, So shall it be in the end
That bullshit is bullshit, It just goes by different names"

The Drunkards Progress...

Looks like it can only be step 6 next for me...

The Drunkards Progress

Gulp !

2008

Let me be the first to impose upon you a best of's 2008 list. I know these generally wait until later in the month but I feel the need to get this off my chest right now.

1. Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
Definitely the find of the year. It took me about 6 months after first reading about them to get round to buying this but within another month I'd bought the 2 previous albums and seen one of the best live show's I've seen in years.

The original article I read about them in Uncut described them as "reminiscent of the Velvets, Modern Lovers and Neutral Milk Hotel" (whoever the hell Neutral Milk Hotel are !). I can see where they were coming from but they're much more than that. I'd put them in a similar space to Wilco and the Drive-By Truckers. I guess this is what is known as Americana.

The songs are very instant particularly the single "Loast Coastlines" and "Calling And Not Calling My Ex". The centrepiece of the record is the epic "Blue Tulip", now there's a man pouring his soul into a song. You can hear previews of the songs at Amazon at the link above, do yourself a favour.

2. Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
How many times has Weller produced a real return to form according to various critics ? Well this isn't a return to form, it is in many places something completely new!

Spoken word poetry pieces, instrumentals, wailing along in the verse like a demented David Bowie on "Push It Along", Weller really made an effort with this record, and it shows. Now if he'd just ditch the annoying guitar player from Ocean Duller Scene all would be well.

3. Damien Dempsey - The Rocky Road
Damo makes the record I suspect he has wanted to make for a very long time. This is a collection of traditional Irish songs along with some more contemporary things (The Pogues "A Rainy Night In Soho").

It's was worth it for me to have a recording of Damo singing "The Rocky Road To Dublin" which I've heard him play live many times.

I do understand that the mighty Damo is something of an acquired taste, one I have enthsiastically acquired and one which I evangelically recommend to all.

4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig !!! Lazarus Dig !!!
I've been going through a bit of a Nick Cave phase over the past year. I've gone from owning 2 or 3 of his albums to all of them (that count currently stands at 16). So I guess that's something more than a phase !

He's very good at what he does and keeps on doing it, which to some puts them off what he does. But when you do something as well as this why take a detour. He did that with Grinderman which to my mind was a little lacking.

The title track, "More News From Nowhere" and "We Call Upon The Author" are as good as anything from the previous 15 Bad Seeds albums.

5. Amsterdam - Arm In Arm
Ian Prowse could probably pass wind and it would be worth hearing. Saying the man has a way with a tune is like saying Pele was quite good at football or that Einstein guy was a bit clever, get my drift. Hey! He wrote John Peel's second favourite song so there's something going on here.

"Arm In Arm" is another collection of fabulous songs that was recently voted the 14th best album released by a Liverpool band...ever, by the readers of Liverpool.com magazine. And when you consider the competition up there that's pretty impressive stuff.

Prowsey's favourite here is the title track, mine is "Lonely Boy". If you admire melody and great songs you really can't go wrong here.

(A special mention for The Blessing's album "All Is Yes" which came in at a very close number 6)


As for books, movies etc.

Movies...I don't really have the attention span but here's what I recall.

Batman: The Dark Knight - The best Batman movie yet. If Heath Ledger doesn't get a posthumous Oscar for his performance as the Joker then I don't know who should ever get an Oscar.

Control - I was really looking forward to seeing this but came away feeling like I'd just watched a 2 hour episode of Coronation Street in black & white. Dissapointed doesn't even get close.

Books...I've spent the year re-reading a lot of things I've read before (Emmett Grogan's "Ringolevio: A Life Played For Keeps", Orwell's "1984" etc) but I can heartily recommend John Robb's "Punk Rock: An Oral History", something like a UK "Please Kill Me".

Errr....that's it really