He might pass by in the hour of need...

7 years today since Joe left us. Hells teeth, time flies. And right now we really need someone like him around.

I was lucky enough to meet him just before he went and, in that short time I spoke with him, he left a lasting impression on me.

Rest easy brother Joe...

"A Prince and man has left the earth
I can’t believe the news I heard
He so moved me"
Amsterdam - Joe's Kiss

Keeping The Faith...

Well we tried, I think we tried quite hard, but perhaps some people aren't prepared to try quite as hard as we did, or be in any way open minded.

The next time I hear someone say there's nothing going on Northern Soul-wise in our area, I may well scream.

The next time I'm DJ'ing and I get asked for any of the following trio:

Barbara Mills - Queen Of Fools
Edwin Starr - Time
Mood Mosaic - A Touch Of Velvet A Sting Of Brass

I may well get very, very lippy with the requestee ! Don't get me wrong, at least 2 of those I like, but when you see the guy in the white t-shirt (the same white t-shirt he's worn everytime I've seen him over the last 9 months) approaching you and you already know what the records he's going to ask for are, it's a little depressing.

For those of you who are interested and open minded enough to take a listen check these out:

Garnett Mimms - Prove It To Me
Patti Drew - Stop And Listen
Eddie Floyd - Things Get Better
Delores Hall - Good Lovin Man
5th Dimension - Train Keep On Moving
Doris Willingham - You Can't Do That

Anybody that needs a frustrated DJ, apply below...

Dance, Dance, Dance...

Reading List...

The last few books I've read have all been biographical...

John Peel
Keith Moon
Kirsty MacColl
Gram Parsons
Graham Chapman

I really need to stop reading about dead people !

Lights, Camera, Action...

Well after telling you all some time ago I had this whizzy new video camera that would allow me to upload stuff here I finally get around to doing so.

Here is a clip of myself and Sally playing at the Open Mic night at The Crown last Thursday...enjoy!

Doesn't it annoy you when...

...you find a new artist whose back catalogue is fabulous. You spend some time looking forward to the arrival of their new release and...errrrr...it's not very good

Ho-Hum the search continues

New Sounds...New Styles...

"If music was the food of love then I'd be a fat romantic slob"
Frank Turner - Substitute

"One good thing about music, When it hits you feel no pain,
So hit me with music...Brutalise me with music"
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock

Just about sums things up for me I think. But every now and then I go through periods when I think that pop certainly has eaten itself and that I'll never find anything new or exciting to listen to again. I have to confess to having spent most of this year collecting and listening to old soul and reggae records.

But then in the space of a couple of weeks a whole clutch of new music has come to my attention and if you'll indulge me I'd like to point some of it your way


Shared is a project started by my brother in an attempt to bring to the world's attention some new and exciting music, an admirable cause indeed. The Shared album was released earlier this year and features 3 tracks each by 6 artists, some you will know and some that will be new to you all.
Alongside Miles Hunt & Erica Knockalls you'll find Wayne Hussey (formerley of The Mission), Dirty Ray (previously of the Immaculate Fools) as well as new artists Rob Dunsford, Matthew Derrick and Timothy Parks.
Dirty Ray's astonishing "Rain Song" and Rob Dunsford's 3 songs really stand out for me but it's all great stuff that you can get here


I've been a fan of Brendan Benson for a long time now. You may know him from such bands as The Raconteurs but he had a solo thing going on way before that band.
I've often thought that amongst the 2 Raconteurs albums there is a very good Brendan Benson record struggling to get out.
Well he has a new solo record out this month, "My Old Familiar Friend" and although I haven't yet heard it I'm very excited about it


The Music Lovers. One of my Dad's post swimming drinking buddies told my Dad his friend was coming over from the US for a couple of weeks. He's a musician, came from Birmingham but now lives in California and has a band and will be playing at the Moseley Folk festival on Sept 4th. He handed my Dad a copy of his friends latest CD asking if myself and my brother might want to take a listen.
I put it on one afternoon while I was doing something else, honestly not expecting much. Oh how wrong you can be. This is a great record, with great songs delivered in a vaguely Scott Walker-ish style. Lyrics about Alum Rock must confuse the hell out of their American audience.
You can hear samples from "Masculine Feminine" here


Steve Heathcock sent me a Friend request on MySpace. I presume because of our shared liking of The Wonder Stuff. I was in the office alone yesterday so went to his MySpace site and listened to his music. It appears we also have a shared liking of all things 60's and mod-ish.
If you are at all a fan of things like The Prisoners, Making Time, Paul Weller etc. then I advise you to give Steve Heathcock some of your time and check out his tunes.
And when you've been suitably won over you can buy them here


Sometimes you stumble across/run into/get introduced to something that knocks you sideways and becomes an obsession for the next year or so. I think I'm going to be obsessing about Frank Turner for the forseeable future.
There we were sitting on a bank at the back of the main arena at the Beautiful Days Festival last Sunday, myself and my inarguably better half, Duffield and Sally, Mr EveryWare, Suz and Rich, we were drinking beer and nattering away about this and that. There was a band on stage and I kept hearing bits of music and the odd lyric that kept making me stop and take note of what they were doing.
A running order was consulted and I found out this was Frank Turner, never heard of him before. After he'd finished I wandered off to the onsite CD store and bought a copy of "Love Ire & Song". We put it on in the car on the way home and again, things kept jumping out amidst the chatter and the road noise. When I got home on Monday I managed to find time to stick the album into iTunes and get it onto my iPod so I could have a proper listen on the train the next day.
Jesus H Christ this is good stuff! The line up at the top of this post there from Substitute is only one amongst some truly inspiring lyrics harnessed to fantastic pop tunes (I don't know if he would thank me for that description given his background in hardcore and Punk Rock) and sung with heart and soul.
I haven't been this moved by new music since hearing Damien Dempsey. I recommend you visit Frank's Myspace and pay particular attention to "I Knew Prufrock Before He Was Famous", "Photosynthesis" and "Long Live The Queen".

Enjoy people...

Read All About It...

Tellin' Stories...

Been away for a while, virtually and literally. I had a (much needed) week off last week and on Monday last commenced the great shirt hunt, more of which to come.

So last Monday myself and my inarguably better half boarded a train bound for "that London", primarily so that I could buy the suit (see here) for the wedding we are going to in September, and with the secondary purpose of purchasing a particular shirt to go with said suit. Now my other half is Matron of Honour at this wedding and will be wearing a most comely wine coloured gown. So in the spirit of spousal solidarity I thought it would be a rather splendid idea if I were to wear a shirt of a matching hue (you'd never guess I'd been reading PG Wodehouse recently would you!). I didn't think my requirements were too outrageous, shirt, one of, wine in colour, button down collar, (preferably) short sleeved. The shop from which I purchased the suit had such an article but, alas, not in my size. All sorts of promises were made about getting the material and making me one but I kinda knew I would never receive the promised call (I haven't).

Off we set around the West End in search of a shirt. 5 hours and at least 30 shops later (including an hour traipsing up and down Jermyn Street to no avail), I remained shirtless. This search was going to be more of a challenge than I had suspected.

On Tuesday we were waiting in for a delivery which had been promised between 9am and 2pm. The delivery driver rang the doorbell at 7.45 am ! As we needed to be in The Celestial City that evening we set forth for the city centre to resume the great shirt hunt. 3 hours later all we had found was a shirt of almost the correct shade but costing more than the video camera I recently purchased. I told the salesman I would have to think about it !

Wednesday was my darling wife's birthday. We had spent the previous night at her mother's and arose on Wednesday morning at stupid-o,clock in order that we might catch the 7.15am flight from BHX to Auld Reekie (that's Edinburgh to almost everybody else) where we were to spend 3 days in the absolute luxury of the Hotel du Vin with my brother (who shares the same birthday with my wife) and his girlfriend.

Highlights were many, varied and sometimes unexpected over the next 3 days; my brother's pop concert on Wednesday, meeting up with Dave the Hat in the Grassmarket, the seriously expensive business of wading through the Hotel du Vin cocktail menu, the Drop Ride at the Edinburgh Dungeon, Dubh Prais (if you are ever in Edinburgh and in need of a good restaurant I can highly recommend this one), Mary King's Close, The always wonderful Bow Bar and a cousin's delivery of Haggis and Scotch pies on Friday afternoon among them. But we knew we had something to do, something was gnawing at us that we needed to attend to...you guessed it, the great shirt hunt.

We began in Frasers on Princes Street, they had a burgundy and white striped Ben Sherman but sadly again, not in my size. Debenhams...nothing. High & Mighty...some very nice garments but none fit for purpose, but the very friendly salesman in there suggested a place called Get Shirty on Rose Street. I have included their URL as an aide to any gentleman reading this with a similar shirty problem too myself. Get Shrity is truly a jewel amongst shirt shops. Any colour, any style any size seemingly available all the year round. Yes you guessed it we found the shirt (and at a very reasonable price I might add (so reasonable in fact that I was able to go to HMV and purchase a copy of a Charlatans CD containing a track that had taken my fancy in a shop earlier in the day...it's here if you're interested)) 400 miles from where the great shirt hunt began we ended our quest, a lesson in perseverance if ever there was one.

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

Not So Black Country Beer Ex 2008

9 men, 1 lovely lady, a selection of WM Travel Daysavers, 1 train and 7 pubs to visit…let’s get down to it boppers!

You may recall the corresponding fixture from last year if not, go here. This was completed on a private bus. This year the plan was to use public transport, starting in Willenhall and ending up in Moseley in Brum.

Leaving the house at 10am, it was cold, very cold, bone numbingly cold in fact. So I could have lived without the first train of the day being late. An open train station platform is not the most hospitable of places in that kind of temperature. So it was iPod on (Kings Of Leon “Only By The Night” for those that are interested) and hunker down for the train.

I stopped off briefly in Wolverhampton for a cash machine and a newspaper and jumped the bus to Walsall via Willenhall. The advanced raiding party of our group met me on the bus and we tipped up in Walsall ready for the bus out to Daw End (pronounced Dow End I was to be informed later). Hot beverages were required at this stage and off we set in search of, except for one of our number who decided that the nearest ‘spoons for an early morning stiffener was needed (not before the sun passes the yardarm in my book).

Outside our chosen tea stop in Walsall we discovered the first entertainment of the day, a group of “young christians” shouting stuff like “Have you disobeyed your mother and father ? Then you have broken the commandments of god”. We were not the only ones to find them amusing, “for god’s sake get him a pint and calm him down” shouted one passing wag.

Back to the bus station to collect more of our gang and 8 of us set off for the Manor Arms.



This pubs unique feature is that it doesn’t have a bar ! The beer is served from the back of the low ceilinged timber beamed main room, basically a hatch in the wall in the main corridor through the pub.



What they did have was a splendid drop of Banks’s Original and a very cosy side room with an open coal fire.



Given the rapidly plummeting outside temperature, when the time came it was a very difficult place to leave.

But leave we did for we were due in Aldridge. Now the less I say about our destination there the better. I will say that whoever wrote the entry in the Good Beer Guide may well have been very, very drunk at the time. It will be remembered, not least for the locals putting pints of Carlsberg Extra Cold in hot water to warm it up a bit !

We had time for a chippy and Morrisons facilities stop before our next bus and we met up with the lovely lady section of our party. The next bus I am reliably and admiringly informed by those in the know amongst us was a Metro ! And many nice things were being said about the smell of diesel and oil emanating from within it…hmmmmm!

Outside it was getting foggier and colder and one more bus hop found us in a very gloomy Sutton Coldfield where we descended upon the Three Tuns. Here we were joined by the 10th member of our party and managed to watch England pitifully capitulate to the All Blacks.

But now it was time for a bit of luxury…a train to Bourneville. Not only would we have heating but a toilet too, very important at this stage of such a cold day. The ticket machine at Sutton station informed us that 10 first class returns to Thirsk would cost us £4,480 and some pence…BARGAIN !!!

On arriving in Bourneville we wandered down to the Pershore Road to find the British Oak



Now, again, I can only imagine that whoever wrote the Good Beer Guide entry for this place had been smoking lots of what it looked like the fellows huddled around the front door were selling! My request of the barmaid for “10 pints of Purity Gold” was met with “are you serious?”. Yes dear I am. In defence of a place where I thought I was gonna get mugged, the beer was excellent but it’s not anywhere I shall be rushing back to.

We just made it to the right bus stop for our ride to Kings Heath from where we would head down into Moseley for the last 3 pubs. I had been looking forward all day to revisiting the Fighting Cocks, somewhere I hadn’t been since the mid 1980’s. I saw a lot of gigs there and played one or two myself. I even wrote my only letter to the music press after seeing a gig at the Fighting Cocks. A right pokey little dump it used to be.

WOW, talk about the ugly duckling turning into a Swan. It is now about 10 times the size it used to be, was absolutely packed and they now serve food like falafel with tzatziki (you’d have been lucky to get a packet of Golden Wonder in the 80’s) and you can get a bottle of Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir!

I’d love to have gone up to the old venue upstairs but couldn’t find a way in. Ale wise this probably produced the finest pint of the day, Nethergate Lemonhead, which was just what I needed right then. A mental note has been made to look out for this in future.

A quick hop down the road found us in the Prince of Wales. There had been a discussion in the Fighting Cocks about should we stay there or move on. Oh how I wished we’d have stayed put. To say the Prince of Wales was a bit smelly would have been a real insult to some astonishingly smelly stuff with a very good reason for being smelly. It stunk of anarcho-punks and sweaty feet, of people yet to discover deodorant and stale beer, I curse the smoking ban. The ale wasn’t much better either.

I think this was the little straw for me. I have to admit to not feeling on top of my game all day and this place just made up my mind for me, my day was over, 1 pub short of a full house. Our intrepid leader did his best to tempt me with the promise of Ginger Beer but I’d made up my mind. The call of the Chinese take away in Marston Green and the world’s finest Beef Chow Mein was to loud to ignore.

Once again thanks to our leader for arranging it all and I look forward to next year.

I've Got A New Toy...

The very desirable (well for me anyway) T-Mobile G1


Or I guess as most people call it the Googlephone. Still figuring out what it can do to be honest but on a basic "boys and their toys" level, I love it thank you very much. The only gripe I have with it right now is that it appears impossible to delete e-mail messages from the Trash once you have deleted them from the Inbox so my Trash box is filling up alarmingly.

Why Do...?

...people have PayPal accounts and then insist on using PayPal cheques to pay you with ? The whole point of PayPal is it's instant whereas their cheques take a lifetime.

...assistants in PCWorld/Music Shops/Mobile Phone shops treat you like a moron if you don't know them personally ?

...I have to go and catch a cold the weekend of our local beer festival ?

...I feel more at home in Edinburgh than in my own home town ?

...the BBC think it's OK to spend my money on trash and then continually advertise it at me even though they are not a commercial broadcaster ?

...birds suddenly appear etc.

No...I don't know either !

Nose...

...pressed firmly back to the grindstone. Yes it finally happened, after 11 weeks and 2 days on the sick the doctor said I was finally fit to return to work, and you can imagine what a major jolt to the system that has been.

I had to get up at 5am this morning ! That's at least 3 hours earlier than I've risen in the last 3 months.

Only bright spot is they moved my desk while I wasn't around so, exactly 2 weeks short of the 10th anniversary of the start of my employment here, I have finally made it next to a window ! It's the little things sometimes...

Yet More Proof...

...of the non existence of god (I'd like to say sorry to anyone offended by the lower case "g"...but I'd be lying).

Spent Saturday at the Bishop's Castle Beer Festival. I'd love to link you to a web site telling you all about it but they don't really like to advertise it (it must be a local beer festival for local people).

The two brew pubs in town (The Six Bells (see pictue below) and The Three Tuns) open their doors to other breweries wares and 4 or 5 other pubs in town also have a number of fine brews available.


A very splendid late afternoon/early evening was spent quaffing in the back garden area of the Six Bells. Proprieter and brewer Big Nev was around making sure everyone was having a good old time and things were going with a swing. The inside of the pub was rammed and there must have been 200 people out in the back garden area, a number of a beardy and woolly jumpered nature, the much maligned stereotypical image of the real ale drinker. But there were many younger types enjoying the fine ales and good company.

So my reason for titling this missive in such a contentious manner ? It was bloody freezing cold and kept lashing down with rain every 30 minutes or so making all those in the open dash for the little shelter there was to be had. Surely any benevolent deity who really loved the "children" of his creation would have ensured some blue skies and sunshine ? And if, as some of his followers would have you believe, he really does disapprove of our intemperance then he's obviously never had to tackle Arriva Trains Wales on a Friday afternoon...that would drive a saint to drink !

Bricks, Broken Roadies & Sticks

Firstly a big shout out to Marcus...thinking about ya fella. Anytime you fancy ranting over a pint, rant this way.

Only 10 days until "cast off" day (not that I'm counting the days you see).

Went to see The Wonder Stuff in Derby last night. Malc had "a fall" and has knackered his wrist, Dan has put his back out loading out after the first gig and McCarthy's new facial growth is apparently due to the fact that he went "f*cking mental" recently (can't figure out Tommo's excuse tho') ! Seems like me and my broken ankle would have fitted in quite well on this tour after all.

Great night though, if very hot and sweaty. Amazing how after not seeing each other for 18 months and only 3 days rehearsal they just click back into being The Wonder Stuff. It was all there.

Lynn finally put in an appearance. She obviously needed to hear some real music after subjecting herself to all that Scandinavian metal/goth/glam she appears to favour.
Didn't realise until last night that Brian From Brum does the PA announcements at New Street station.
Dave from Inverness (and the hat) was in full on DA Pennebaker mode with his very natty looking video camera. Special mention for his t-shirt too.

Shall be sorry to miss out on JB's tonight but it's just difficult to get around the place for me at the moment.

Go check out The Platforms. There are two tracks on there you can download.

Bugger !

This morning I discovered that the NHS had forgotten about me.

The reason that I have been waiting 2 weeks to receive a letter telling me when I should return to hospital to have my cast removed is that they had forgotten about me needing such an appointment.

Realistically this means that the cast will have to stay on a week longer than expected. Which means I am today regally feckin' hacked off.

There's nothing that bugs me more than incompetence (bad spelling maybe !) and today the NHS have displayed that in spades...W@NKERS !!!

A Leg Up

You'll no doubt be heartened to hear on Friday I actually managed to get out of the house to The Crown for a few pints. I was getting cabin fever cooped up in the house 24 hours a day. Had to get a cab there, £2.50 for a cab to take me what usually takes 5 minutes to walk...ridiculous.

Saturday however wasn't as exciting. I stayed "home alone" while Deb, James and Jules went off to Shrewsbury to see Milo & Erica.



As someone else said...broken bones suck.

I Love The Sound of Breaking...Bones

For the first time in my life I have broken a bone. Well, to be more precise 2 bones. Both of them in my right ankle. The Tibia and Fibula to be precise. And yes it did bloody hurt.

Wednesday lunchtime I was off to Tesco for a butty. Walked out the back door of our office block and stepped onto a ramp that the workmen refurbishing floors in the block had put up to the two steps at the back door so they could wheel stuff in. Touble was on Wednesday it was pissing down and the ramp was made of metal. My foot slid down the ramp until it hit the tarmac at the bottom at which point my foot stopped. Unfortunately the rest of me didn't and I heard a most unwanted "CRACK" followed by the sound of a grown man (i.e. me) screaming in pain.

Two fellas who had been behind me had the unenviable task of picking me up and helping me to the foyer. An ambulance was called and I was whisked away to hospital. I now have the utmost respect for A&E staff in our hospitals having seen some of the arseholes they have to put up with. While I was feeling very sorry for myself in a cubicle some drunken tit who should have been looking out for his equally drunk father insisted on coming over and telling me how lucky I was, how many bones he had broken and how he had once had 132 stitches put in a wound received in a gang fight in Manchester when he was 8 (I didn't tink you could fit 132 stitches onto an 8 year old).

Anyway 3 days on a hospital ward with various loonies and drama queens was more than enough. I was operated on and now have a right ankle that looks like the result of a fevered mind let loose with a Meccano set. I have a six week sick note and a license to do nothing else except sit on my butt watching TV and eating chocolate.

Wish me luck...

Catchup Time

Phew...well it's been a very busy couple of months. I finally have my feet back on the ground until at least the beginning of June when it all starts again.

Work has recently taken me to Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Turkey, Scotland...oh and Torquay. In that time I've visited the world's oldest pub in Athlone, sat in a Norwegian bar that felt like a small corner of Liverpool to watch a Champions league game, had my mobile stolen, been in the back of a Turkish cab in which the driver made me close my eyes twice on a deserted road at 6am (maniacs!), taken a train across the Forth and Tay bridges an a beautiful sunny day, visited the Paisley beer festival (they had a whole room of Scottish ales, how happy was I !) and missed two gigs I should have gone to (Amsterdam and Dinosaur Jr if you must know).

Some things of interest you may wish to see and hear:

Mark McCarthy guests in the new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MajmI5j7Bs

Rachel Mayfield
http://www.rachelmayfield.com/default.html
Check out the song "Transports Of Delight" at that site, it's a beauty

Damien Dempsey has a new album out next month
http://www.damiendempsey.com/s-Home

For those of you that sent message of sympathy on hearing about the relegation of Birmingham City Football Club back into the Fizzy Pop League I thank you. You'll be pleased to hear I am now over it (although the humiliation of 20th April may take a little longer to erase from the memory).

Danny Federici

I read the really sad news today that Danny Federici died last week. If the name doesn't ring a bell with you, Danny was a member of Bruce Springsteens's E-Street Band. He was the organ player.

He succumbed to cancer at the age of 58, way to young to be checking out. A great shame and great loss to a wonderful band.

Check back through my posts to read my thoughts on Springsteens "Born To Run" to know what Danny's involvement in music has meant to me over the years.

That band they're putting together in Heaven is getting better and better.

B*ll*cks!

On September 14th 2007 I wrote:

"To this day if I have a bad day at work, when I leave I play "God Save The Queen" on my iPod VERY LOUD and 3 minutes and 20 seconds later I remember that someone else feels that way too and it's OK."

Right now I am still in the office and playing "Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols" VERY LOUD.

Like Gram said..."it's been a bad, bad day"

Now Where Is That Stinking Fish Single ?

Last night I finally finished loading my entire record collection onto my iPod.

OK, I know people no longer have record collections but I remember when they did and that's what I call them, still.

1,977 albums, 25,089 tracks. All on a little box measuring 4" x 2.5" x 0.5" (you see, I still use Imperial measurements too. EU rules...PAH !)

You just gotta love technology doncha (big smiley thing)

The Last Day Of Another Year

And here I am sitting listening to "Happy" by William Bell and overall feeling like I agree with him. A most unusual state of mind to find myself in.

2007 bought it's fair share of surprises, chief among them Jim dropping out of University. He didn't like it so I'm not gonna make the kid stick it out just for the sake of finishing it. He immediately found himself a job, he's going to continue with his degree through the OU and he is learning to fly, which is something he has always wanted to do.

Work still sucks (Hey! That's what it's for isn't it ?) although I shall be discussing moving into a new department in a couple of days which will at least relieve me of being answerable to the complete numbnuts I now find is my line "manager". So things may get different if not guaranteed to be better.

And much as I would like to sit here chatting all day, I've just been told I can leave ;-) So here's wishing you all whatever you wish yourselves for 2008 and I hope I'll be seeing you all real soon.

It's Like Losing A Sense

On Sunday I was checking out iPod dock speaker systems in a national retailers store in Brum. I slotted my iPod into an Hitachi radio alarm setup, pressed play...and nothing happened. I took my iPod out of the dock and watched in dismay as the screen melted away into blank nothingness.

All the button combinations in the world wouldn't bring it back to life. I ran across the road to the Apple shop to see if they could revive it. 2 or 3 Apple "genii" poked and prodded and plugged and pressed at it for a while and then told me "sorry mate, it's dead".

Apparently the speakers in the shop I had been in had shorted my iPod and killed it. There was nothing that could be done for it. It was an ex-iPod. And if I wanted to swap it for a new one (they don't repair iPods) then it would cost me £109.99 as mine was out of guarantee.

I had to go away and think about that.

The upshot is that all this week I have been iPod-less on my daily train commute to and from work. That trip takes about 1 hour 20 minutes door to door and being without my little black jukebox has exposed me to the horror that is other people's conversations !

My god the general public talk some drivel and I am close to standing up in the middle of a packed commuter train and screaming "WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE SHUT UP, YOU ARE DRIVING ME INSANE" as loud as humanly possible.

Some people appear to have a great need to vocalise every single waking thought. What's for tea, who's suffering from what ailment, which friend is wasting their time on a no good fella. I even heard one woman say to another "What's your favourite, spaghetti or pasta" !!!

I am planning to buy a new iPod at the weekend...it can't come soon enough.

Black Country BeerEx

Don't ask me what a BeerEx is (BeerExpress, BeerExcursion ?) but apparently I was on one on Saturday. And a wonderful afternoon was spent on it.

Steve had got hold of a bus, invited around 25 people to get on it and to thence tour around some of the Black Country's well know watering holes, 6 of them in all.

Me and my unquestionably better half arrived in Wolverhampton at 11.30 desperate for breakfast. If you are ever in Wolverhampton requiring breakfast I can now confidently recommend the Express Cafe opposite Spar at the bus station. Their Bacon, Egg and Sausage sandwich was a sight to see but Deb's Bacon, Egg, Sausage and Tomato triple decker was such a gargantuan feat of culinary engineering that photo's were taken.

The bus duly arrived and off we sallied to the Vine, or is it called the Bull and Bladder (Here it is). Whatever, they brew Bathams there. Jules informed us that he was determined to drink nothing but Mild all day and we agreed this was an admirable ambition and joined in his quest. So the first thing that happened at The Vine was that Mild was purchased. The second, and much more surprising thing that happened at the Vine was that I played a game of darts (possibly for the first time in around 15 years) and won!

Onwards and upwards. Back onto the bus we went and headed off toward Netherton to visit The Old Swan or as it is more commonly known, Ma Pardoes (It's here). The big stove in the middle of the bar with no guard around it would have sent a conscientious Health & Safety type into a fit. I also have to say that I've never before been excited by the thought of Vitreous Enamel but can I point you towards the bar's ceiling as a wonderful example of such, the Institute of Vitreous Enamellers fully agree. They brew their own at Ma Pardoes too and Deb was advised to try a brew called Entire by a very friendly chap at the bar. Or at least that's what we thought he was saying as he had a Black Country accent so thick we could very possibly have been having two completely different conversations.

Next on the list was the Lamp Tavern in Dudley (Here you go) where Jim was to join us. Except, he got one of those taxi drivers that didn't know where he was going ! Tell me, really, what is the point of becoming a taxi driver if you don't know where to go in your local area ? You arrive in a strange town (and frankly there are none much more strange than Wolverhampton) wanting to go to somewhere you've never been before so you jump in a cab...and then the driver admits he doesn't know where you want to go either. Anyway Jim arrived just in time to get the bus to our next port of call...
Quick note to say The Lamp was where our plan to drink Mild all day fell apart, we drank all their Mild and had to have Bitter.

...which was The Britannia. A very small and cosy place with lots of interesting "stuff" on the walls. While I was at the bar Deb shouted over that there was a back room with a TV showing the Darts, so ale was purchased and off we trundled to the back room. It soon became evident there was a problem in the back room. For those of you that have ever seen the film Blazing Saddles you will know what I mean when I refer to the campfire scene with the beans (for those of you that haven't seen Blazing Saddles think about the major side effect of eating too many baked beans...that's right, wind). This back room was small, and very full, full of men who'd been drinking Mild for quite some time now. Not having a gas mask to hand I collected up my wife and child and ran for the door, gulping down the fresh air available in the bar...phew that was a close one.

The Park Inn, Holdens brewery tap was our next destination. They had table football. I like table football...A LOT ! I think I may have been a little noisy while playing and upset one of the locals who was out for a quiet pint. Either that or he was just loooking for a row and got very confused when I apologised and offered to buy him a pint instead of offering to step outside with him.

Our intrepid travellers were then returned to their chariot (well we all got back on the bus anyway) and were transported to their final destination, The Great Western in Wolverhampton. A cracking pub tucked up against the railway lines next to the station. I'd love to tell witty tales of high jinks and much merriment there but honestly, after 7 hours of boozing all I really remember was people playing with their mobile phones and being really hungry. Thanks to Steve, Jules, Sally, Simon, Phil and everyone else...it was real, when can we do it again !

The Enemy...Grrrrrr!

From an article on Guardian.co.uk about the enemy playing a gig for inmates at Pentonville Prison:

"But by halfway through the second chorus, heads are bobbing and feet are tapping, and at the end of the hit single Away from Here, there are whoops, yells and applause.

That song was written on the shop floor of the Co-op where Clarke worked as a TV salesman, and its wantaway sentiments strike a chord."

Wantaway ??? WANTAWAY. Have you seen the lyrics to "Away From Here" ? If not I shall quote for you:

"I want to wake up in the afternoon
With daytime TV and my favourite tune
Cos it is much easier for me see
To stay at home with Richard and Judy"

Wantaway lyrics ??? Those sound like the bleatings of a lazy Chav to me. Ironic that in the same piece The Enemy are again likened to The Jam, Paul Weller and The Specials ! I can't imagine Weller EVER writing anything as negative as that.

Also ironic that in the same piece singer Tom Clarke bemoans the fact that there is no work in Coventry for his mates. What's good for the goose eh Tom ?

Favourite Album(s)

Prompted by a MySpace bulletin a friend recently posted.

He wanted me to name my favourite album. What ? Just one ? Not possible.

So in order to get this into the public domain I present the 5 albums that have had the most effect on me.

David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars
I'd love to be able to claim that as a hip 10 year old I remember seeing Bowie perform "Starman" on TOTP and persuaded my parents to get me a copy of "Ziggy..." and have been in it's thrall ever since.

The truth is I didn't really "discover" Bowie until the early 80's. But since I first heard this record I have indeed been in it's thrall.

From the opening faded in drum intro to "Five Years" introducing us to crying newsmen, soldiers, cops, priests and violent young girls at the end of the world; through the psych-out that is "Moonage Daydream" where Bowie lets Mick Ronson off the leash; into the proto-Punk of "Suffragette City", "Ohhh, wham bam thank you maam!" indeed; and ending with the doomed inevitabilty of "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" this album presents you with everything that was good about early 70's rock (i.e it wasn't Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin), introduced a wider audience to arguably the most important solo artist of the 1970's and, even though he lifted great chunks of it from the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, Bowie laid the foundations for what was to come towards the end of the decade.

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
I used to work for a professional audio/visual equipment suppliers. There, I worked with a guy called Rob who introduced me to a lot of music I'd never otherwise have heard. I got my first ever tax rebate while I was working there and said to Rob one afternoon I fancied something different to listen to and did he have anything to recommend ? "Born To Run" is what he suggested and I don't think in the ensuing 27 years I've ever thanked him for that, so, THANKS ROB !

This is music on a grand scale. The lyrics conjure up images that for an 18 year old who'd never been to America described some of it's less well known attractions vividly.

"The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves,
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays,
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely,
Hey that's me and I want you only"
Thunder Road

"Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge,
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain,
The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants,
Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane"
Jungleland

Hell you can see it right there in front of you.

The characters that inhabit these songs have become like old friends: Mary, Terri, Wendy, the Rangers and the The Magic Rat, Scooter and the Big Man, Eddie and his friend heading for a meeting across the river that's gonna solve all their problems this time while Cherry waits at home, it feels like I know them all.

Add into the mix the hardest rockin', funkiest bar band on the planet (that's the E-Street Band to you and me) and, as I said, this is music on a grand, cinematic scale.

Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols
I remember vividly the first time I heard "God Save The Queen". I was in my Nan's living room where my brother and I were using our Uncle's Phillips music centre (it had a smoked perspex lid) to play some singles we'd bought after reading about this Punk Rock stuff in the music papers (Sounds probably, I don't think we'd progressed to the NME at that point). One of the singles was the Stranglers "Peaches/Go Buddy Go" combination and the other was the Pistols "God Save the Queen".

We dropped the needle on the groove and...it felt like I was physically hurled across the room and pinned against the opposite wall for 3 minutes and 20 seconds. When it had finished I think I was in shock. It was like nothing I had ever heard before.

Did I really just hear that ?
People don't make records that sound like that.
Do they ?
They do ?

So I played it again....and again...and again...you get the picture...just to reassure myself that I had heard it right. And I think I knew then that some things were never going to seem quite the same ever again.

When they finally released "Never Mind The Bollocks..." friends of ours went to ridiculous lengths to keep the record out of sight of their parents. Thankfully we had somewhat more enlightened parents who bought the record for us. One of our mates had it in brown paper bags under his bed and we had to wait until his folks had gone out before we could go round and hear it.

But what a sound they made. I know many will disagree with me but I think the way the Pistols sounded was as, if not more, important than what they were saying. You couldn't understand most of what Johnny Rotten was singing anyway but the sound...it sounded like fear and rage and loathing and desperation and something slightly evil. "Holidays In The Sun" has to be one of the scariest sounding pieces of music I've ever heard. We didn't know what Anarchy was but we could hear in this music some of the way we felt about things.

To this day if I have a bad day at work, when I leave I play "God Save The Queen" on my iPod VERY LOUD and 3 minutes and 20 seconds later I remember that someone else feels that way too and it's OK.

The Jam - All Mod Cons
This is MY band and this is their finest moment. I'm not saying they went downhill from here but this is the point where The Jam stepped up from new wave also rans to the most important band in the UK. The point at which Paul Weller introduced himself as our generations Ray Davis (they even covered The Kinks "David Watts" for this album), a sharp interpreter of ordinary peoples lives, hopes and fears.

It's another record full of great characters. The rock star on the slide, Mr Clean, Billy Hunt, the guy and his girlfriend in trouble at the Vortex, Saturdays kids who "drink lots of beer and wait for half time results" and the tragic hero of Weller's first truly magnificent moment, "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" (a song every bit as vivid as anything on "Born To Run" but maybe in a 22" black and white TV way rather than Springsteen's cinematic scope) waiting to get back to his wife with a curry and a bottle of plonk but having his life smashed by drunk right-wing thugs.

They even threw in 2 ballads ("English Rose" and "Fly") something unheard of in these angry young man post-77 days.

"Down In the Tube Station At Midnight" and "A Bomb In Wardour Street" describe what a scary and violent place Britain could be back then, but to temper that Weller gives us the daydreamer "Billy Hunt" and the ever hopeful "The Place I Love" where he's "making a stand against the world" in the imaginary place he goes where everything is right with the world. "In The Crowd" addresses rampant consumerism and "Mr Clean" is a sharp pointed stick jabbed at the British class system.

Then there was the artwork. Sta-prest, monkey boots, targets, scooters and that title which Weller has admitted was just an excuse to get the word Mod on an album cover.

Mod ?
What's that ?

And because of what Paul Weller gave us on this record, which was much more than just the music in the grooves, I discovered soul music and The Small Faces and 501's with 1" turn ups and Ska/Blue Beat and the thrilling sound of a Hammond B3. So there is much, much more that I owe to this band than just this record...but just the record itself would have been fine.

The Clash - London Calling
We couldn't believe it when we heard. A double album ! Isn't that what rock dinosaurs do ? But then they sold it to us for the price of a single album and when we heard it...oh man...that band were having such a good time exploring where they could go you couldn't help but get caught up in it.

"Sing Michael sing
On the roof of a 19 bus"

The Clash's previous album had been none too popular after their debut's punk rush so there was an almost "have they lost it" feeling in the air. But the title track put us right on that score and the rest of the album took us on a musical journey through rock 'n' roll, jazz, soul, reggae and a huuuge big piano ballad. All of it had great tunes, you could feel the low slung rebel guitar poses they were pulling and there were lyrics you could quote forever:

"London calling to the faraway towns, Now war is declared - and battle come down"

"I wasn't born so much as I fell out, Nobody seemed to notice me"

"What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?'
Cause they're working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!"

"But I believe in this and it's been tested by research, He, who fucks nuns, will later join the church"

"I've been beat up, I've been thrown out, But I'm not down, I'm not down"

I could go on and on quoting them. Needless to say if you've never heard this album you need to, NOW. And if you haven't listened to it in a while, then go do it, NOW!

My brother and I were fortunate enough to meet Joe Strummer a few months before he tragically left us. That short meeting has left an impression on me that I'll never forget and now I know why I love that man's music so much. We lost one of the greats when Joe went.

----------------

Thanks for indulging me this far x

The Libertines...

Noooooooo...not that talentless bunch of junkie no marks we see splashed across our favourite tabloid day after day.

I speak of the band I used to be in in the late '80's. You remember, made one single that didn't sell. Man I've got a houseful of the beggaring things and I can't give 'em away.

Anyway in a bizarre series of MySpace postings and phone calls this morning it appears that myself, the drummer and the guitar player will be in the same rehearsal room in darkest Wolverhampton this very evening.

Watch this space as they say...

Garry O Is A Bluenose

Just realised how long it has been since I posted anything here. That must indicate that I am a completely happy and contented bunny right now...right ?

Well of course not but then I figured you might not always want to hear me whining on.

Things I am sure that I know:

Damien Dempsey's new album "To Hell Or Barbados" is another winner. Go on, treat yourself.
The second series of "Rome" currently showing on the BBC is fantastically gory and nuts.
I love my new alarm clock.
Summer without football is very dull (Cricket and Tennis I hear you say...pah !)

That's all for now folks. Normal whinging will resume as soon as something suitable raises my ire.

xxx

A Small Victory

A couple of months ago I filled in a template letter I got from http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ in order to try and claim back some of those nasty excessive bank charges you hear so many consumer type peeps getting very hot under the collar about currently.

Well this morning I got a letter from my bank agreeing to refund 75% of what I claimed. It feels like a small victory, me getting one over on "the man".

It will pay for the decking I want to put in my back garden so I can lay out there in the summer without a care. That made me smile today.

It's Monday...

"It's Monday,
Slither down the greasy pipe,
So far so good no one saw you..."

David Bowie "Joe The Lion"

Which is kinda how I feel about today. Every 2nd Monday here at my place of work we have to involve ourselves in a departmental conference call during which we have to report what we have been doing for the past 2 weeks and what we think we will be doing for the next 2. This call starts at 3pm and is supposed to last for an hour but generally meanders on over an hour and a half, which for someone like myself who's working day ends at 4pm is something of a drag. Especially as it usually takes me the requested 2 minutes to deliver my summary and everyone else drones on forever.

Anyway the reason for the above quoted lyric is that if you know said song by Mr Bowie you will know he delivers the first of those lines in a very resigned, bored sort of "oh god not again" manner, which is how I generally tend to feel about every 2nd Monday.

BUT...

This particular 2nd Monday the conference call has been cancelled which feels just like slithering down said greasy pipe with no one noticing...Huzzah !!! 

Consequently you find me in something of a jolly mood (suprising I know). The weekend was good, bit of DIY to finish off the decoration of our main bathroom (it feels very bourgeoise admitting to having 2 bathrooms but on a practical level it's a godsend) and I can see light at the end of the tunnel called "MP3ing all my vinyl" (I think I'm actually down to the last box of albums). Oh, and the Blues won !

That last box of albums contains my Flesh For Lulu albums, a band who I haven't listened to in a fair old while and am really looking forward to hearing again. Last night I was making a start on Bow Wow Wow's album "See Jungle! See Jungle...etcetc...blahblahblah" which is actually a whole lot better than I thought it would be. I was actually a little embarrased when I came across it yesterday but, Malcolm McLaren style manipulation aside, they were a damn good band.

Can't really think of much else to relate. If there is actually anyone out there reading this, hope to see some of you at Milo & Erica's forthcoming show's. Ta Ta for now...