The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Hey, why don’t we shoot it at the Pyramids?

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Saucebox’s post about Percy the Ratcatcher got me thinking about vanity side projects (mostly from 60s and 70s, I’m guessing) that were loudly trumpeted at the time but never saw the light of day, or at least not till much later. The Stones’ Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus is an obvious example, but there must be others – movies, operas, books, whatever. Over to you.

https://youtu.be/Iuy-10Ejck4?list=PLjNsdTxKDrl1NSGQwiBtt8EAleSL-rj27

Another Nickel in the Machine Blog Book Klaxon

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Fans of this great London blog (there are a few round here, I know) may want to know that there’s a book coming out by the man responsible, Rob Baker, presumably full of content from the blog.

He doesn’t post nearly enough (he mostly tweets these days), but it’s always great stuff. How else would you know that Janet Street-Porter was an extra in Blow-up? http://www.nickelinthemachine.com

https://www.amberley-books.com/beautiful-idiots-and-brilliant-lunatics.html

Today’s historic occasion, no really…

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Aussie mingles are not a practical proposition, what with the distances and all. So I’m happy to report that this morning an Oz micro-mingle took place in Brisbane, consisting of the excellent Junior Wells and myself. T-shirts were compared, bit-rates revealed, gossip exchanged, bollocks may have been talked. Most enjoyable altogether, and may it happen again. Thanks to Chris for the venue and her excellent morning tea.

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/tonynmike_zpsidkl2moo.jpg

ATM – Spotiamb

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Anybody else come across this? Spotiamb is a reincarnation of Winamp (Windows only – oh, the irony!) which works as an add-on to Spotify, organising playlists etc. It has somehow wormed itself into the range of devices available on Spotify Connect, and hijacks the app and suddenly plays random crap. Really annoying. Seems impossible to get rid of – there was a Spotify update last night which seemed to have dealt with it, but it’s back this morning. The app itself isn’t on my computer – it wouldn’t work anyway – and it looks as though Spotify itself might have been hacked. I think the idea is to get play counts up = $$, though not much as we know.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/3f0n9i/spotiamb_021_appearing_in_connect_and_hijacking/

Buttifant

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I have just discovered to my enormous pleasure that this is the middle name of Lord Sewel, he of the orange bra and breast/fiver interface. This is a word that needs to be incorporated in the English language. Any idea what it might mean?

The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals

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Don’t expect to get Saucecraft-level traction on this, but it may amuse someone else as much as it has me.

While poking around Spotify looking for 1960-64 tracks to add to Martin’s Spotify post I came across 3 whole albums of 50s/60s/70s advertising music – not jingles, but whole numbers that sound like outtakes from Oklahoma – made for the likes of Coca-Cola, Westinghouse, Oldsmobile etc. This was obviously a huge thing, with massive resources thrown at it – not hard to imagine all those Mad Men brainstorming sessions. One bloke with a laptop could probably do it now.

Just search on The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals for over 3 hours of this stuff.

The Milk Carton Kids

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Venue:

The Old Museum, Brisbane

Date: 03/07/2015

It’s hard to place the music of Messrs Ryan and Pattengale. Wikipedia tries ‘indie folk’, while AllMusic has ‘neo-traditional folk’, whatever the fuck that is. Actually, wikipedia’s second attempt, ‘flat-picking harmony duo’, works for me – that’s exactly what they are. There are touches of Simon & Garfunkel, while the combination of voices with strumming and intricate obbligatos bring Welch-Rawlins to mind.

Whatever, they were on excellent form. Considering there’s just the two of them – one a long streak of piss with luxuriant 60s-style hair, the other rather squat with a Martin Freeman haircut – they have extraordinary stage presence. They launched straight in, pitch-perfect right from the word go, their voices and their guitars combining perfectly, their songs full of unexpected little harmonic twists and turns. I was going to make a set list, but I was entranced and forgot. They played pretty much all of The Ash & Clay and their latest, Monterey, anyhow. Swing Low was a standout.

The guitars are tuned to the voices: Ryan’s baritone matches the rich boom of his 1951 Gibson J-45, while the trebly sweetness of the 1955 Martin matches Pattengale’s high » Continue Reading.

Soggy vinyl

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This is not some half-assed yard sale, but a mate trying to dry his vinyl out after yesterday’s apocalyptic cloudburst in Brisbane. He’s distraught about the Frank Ifield, the Jim Reeves, not so much. photo IMG_9453_zpslymaqnua.jpg photo IMG_9451_zpsk02qwhla.jpg Friends, don’t keep your vinyl under the house – no good will come of it.

Louie Louie hitmaker goes to that R’n’R hall of fame in the sky…

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http://www.boston.com/entertainment/celebrity/2015/04/28/louie-louie-singer-jack-ely-dies/P96pTtPT2aiMOGVS8VmSKO/story.html?p1=menu_entertainment_latest The Kingsmen’s was the fourth version, apparently, but the one that hit and unleashed 1700 cover versions. Here, for a change, are the previous 3 versions, all packaged up in one handy vid.

The wonderful Ms Simone

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This has been doing the rounds of Facebook, so apologies if everybody’s seen it…but it’s absolutely mesmerising. She starts off almost as if she’s singing to herself, then ramps it up…by the end I definitely had something in my eye. What a woman.

Richie Benaud – another good man gone

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My thoughts and prayers aren’t with his family, because they don’t need any of that pious bollocks, but it’s a sad day. Here he is in top form after the infamous underarm incident. https://youtu.be/vvGHC7REkdM I saw him and the Aussies play Essex at Southchurch Park in August 1956, and got his autograph.

Time for a why-oh-why thread, I think

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You know how it is, you have all these unanswered questions floating about in your head, so I thought I’d round a few up and chuck them out there. Some of these may have involved actual decisions being taken in actual meetings, which is a weird thought. 1: why oh why did anybody think that anybody actually cared whether their chips were hand cut or not? 2: what exactly is the combination of smells that makes Subway smell disgusting in exactly the same way all over the world? There’s an underground bus garage in the middle of Brisbane, a pretty malodorous place as you might imagine, yet the strongest smell that greets you when you get off a bus is the Subway. 3: Who suddenly decided that raw red onion was an essential ingredient of garnish? Come to that, what’s garnish for? 4: When the road’s dug up in UK it’s called road works, right? Why, in Oz, is it called road work? (If it’s just the Aussie mania for shortening things, they aren’t trying very hard.) And why is it still road works in New Zealand?

See what I mean? These are all questions that must have answers. But » Continue Reading.

It was 20 years ago today…

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…that Viv Stanshall shuffled off this mortal coil. Lovely pic here of the Great Man and his son Rupert. https://twitter.com/RupertStanshall/status/573400883016421376?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=RupertStanshall&utm_content=573400883016421376

https://twitter.com/RupertStanshall/status/573400883016421376?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=RupertStanshall&utm_content=573400883016421376