Ok so here we are back in 1980. No boating blazer for Tommy Vance – he is resplendent in a white satin bomber jacket and those glasses. First up is New Musik – the poor mans Buggles – with their slightly less catchy second single World of Water. Whatever they are doing with a vocoder is incredibly annoying. However All can be forgiven once you realise how like Lionel Messi the frontman looks. Some pop-funk next from Narada Michael Walton – he shoulda loved ya – ushering in this week’s theme, the golden age of drum kits. His is quite modest but he does sing from it. legs and co look like they’re having a quite night in on the worlds longest sofa, but before long Rodney Franklins the groove has them up and gyrating. I had to Shazam Mr Franklin, a tasty bit of instrumental jazzy grooving. Why is Tommy hosting? Part one coming up: video for Fool for your loving no more. After Whitesnake in the ‘solo singer’ cage of no band shame is Jimmy Ruffin – there is an corking key change hallway through the inconsequential piece of pop-soul that is Hold On To My Love. Somewhere » Continue Reading.
Eurovision live blog
And here we are once more, celebrating all that is wonderful and European in popular music. So do join in if you feel like. It’s heavy on the CGI in the opening credits – and there’s shaping up to be a big circles theme, the makers of the BBC1 idents may wish to see their lawyers.
From the Cream Judge to Maple Lattes: what happens when we turn the album cover over?
moseleymoles on A brief note about the liner note
If the mp3 sounded the death knell for the Liner Note, the era of streaming has well and truly nailed the coffin down and shovelled the earth over. The idea that there might be some writing alongside the track(s) seems a positively antediluvian notion. So, before its gravestone mosses over, let’s offer a brief thought for the humble Liner Note.
The first records had no truck with writing either. Instead the record sleeve was valuable billboard real estate that could be used to shift other catalogue items, the record player to play your new disc on, or other stuff entirely. This notion lived on into the early eighties in the ‘Nice Price’ range, when the inner sleeve showed you how you could add most of the Alan Parsons Project back catalogue to your collection at a speical low price.
The liner note started as an extension of advertising copy – written by the admen at the label to persuade you to take it home as you stood there staring at the back of the album in the record shop. Here’s the note for the first Bob Dylan album:
Columbia records is » Continue Reading.
Linda’s Finger – disgracefully late Top of The Pops update
Your correspondent is disgracefully late with an update from the world of 1980. But hey available for another 21 days to UK brethren on the iplayer. To kick off Smokie take good care of my baby – the seventies don’t die easily do they. A thin leather tie is a very token nod to the 1980s, a bit like leg warmers for men.
Video for Macca – Coming Up – including a very prominent Linda on backing vocals. Everyone has wacky costumes and facial fuzz. His solo career at this point was a bit wierd – this, temporary secretary, it’s all over the shop.Look out for Linda and her finger!
The Cure take us back to new wave concerns with a forest. V difficult to see Robert Smith in his pre lipstick and birds nest days as just another angsty young man. Have you ever seen him and Helen Bonham Carter in the same room? No concessions here, Mr Smith looking like a young Michael Owen and everyone in the band is trying to do the blankest blank stare. Excellent roto toms set up – is that the right word?
ELvis Costello video next for hi fidelity – » Continue Reading.
Oh What A Lovely War
Venue:
Birmingham Rep
Date: 08/05/2015
This musical has form in our family. My parents saw and frequently talked about the original production at Stratford East in the early sixties and I listened to the cast album as a child. I worked on the National Theatre circus tent version in the mid-nineties, and now I could take the minimoles to the anniversary revival by Stratford East. For those who don’t know this show (and why not), it is a unique combination of end-of-the pier music hall, Brecht and oral history which tells the story of WW1 focusing on casualties, the war machine and the stupidity of the leaders, through the popular songs of the era. Above all it features the songs sung by the soldiers – in the last era before song was something you listened to a recording of rather than someone singing it then and there.
Goodbyeee, goodbyeee; It’s a long Way to Tipperary; Keep the Home Fires Burning; the title song; Hold Your Hand out Naughty Boy; Pack Up Your Troubles – you’ll know every song once you hear it. There’s little to add other than this one of the most moving, bitingly satirical and funny collection » Continue Reading.
You can ask Nigel about his testicular cancer, but don’t mention the economy
Time for an election topical comedy round up as the real thing is as boring as a focus group watching paint drying in a light industrial unit in the W Mids.
The moles are loving Ballot Monkeys – entirely set on the Labour, Tory, Lib and UKIP battle buses – the Labour one with her, and her, from Episodes is particularly good, as is the barminess of the UKIP one. A couple of zingers per episode def. and Ben Miller reeks authentic desparation on the void that is the Lib Dem bus. The Jack Dee election panel show however is completely inessential, just about passing muster as an 11pm R4 show but not prime time telly in any way. Not even a snappy chairs intro for Jack this time around. Newzoids – spitting image for the iphone 6 generation – is hit and miss, but they have a great handle on Ed as he looks like a Sesame Street puppet.
All Killer No Filler – Really? Play the Game Now
There are few more abused phrases than ‘all killer no filler’. Too often it means four great singles, a couple of album tracks that aren’t too bad, and…well. So your nominations for albums without a single duff track. Not one. Here’s the rules: Post the album title and track listing. Post the weakest track on the album (so no posting Love Spreads from the Second Coming). Discuss. Here’s mine: Exodus by Bob Marley. Tracks: “Natural Mystic” 3:28 “So Much Things to Say” 3:08 “Guiltiness” “The Heathen” 2:32 “Exodus” 7:40 “Jamming” 3:31 “Waiting in Vain” 4:16 “Turn Your Lights Down Low” 3:39 “Three Little Birds” 3:00 “One Love/People Get Ready
Weakest track: hit single and ear-worm botherer Three Little Birds which only has a nice ska shuffle-groove and a fat organ hook. Hardly Territorial Pissings is it? The first four are all great rastafarian-themed tracks, and I’m guessing you know the listing from 5 onwards.
TOTP – fez or pith helmet Mr smash?
Madness kick things off with Nightboat for Cairo. The band are equally split between fez, pith helmet or Arab headdress in costume choice – apart from someone who’s a sailor. Lots of nutty dancing. Repeat of Barbara Dickson singing January February. Dull dull dull. Which Dexys up next emphatically are not. Four-man horn section, De Niro caps and Kevin Rowland doing a 1000-year stare as if he can actually see the Wigan Casino in the far distance if he concentrates hard enough. Glossy new wave next from The Pretenders with Talk of the Town – in a cunning video that makes it almost appear that they are in the studio. Only the access to a better quality of video editing software gives it away. Or did they have to hand-colour each frame of the tape in those days. Behind the Kid this week is a new neon effect logo for the eighties. Legs and co work out to Leon Heywoods Don’t Push It – a slice of disco funk. One of those tracks I have absolutely no emory of hearing on 275 285 at the time, or at any time since. UB40 are back with Food for Thought – they » Continue Reading.
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Year: 1970 Director: joseph Sargent
2001 wasn’t the only film released at the end of the sixties that featured a passive-agressive computer running amok and threatening mankind. Colossus: The Forbin Project to give it its somewhat confusing name, was made before 2001 but its ending was so downbeat the studio dithered over its release, enabling HAL to steal all of Colossus’ thunder. Made with a fraction of Kubrick’s budget, Colossus is a smart studio sci-fi pic that looks forward to some of the best of seventies set-bound sci-fi such as Westworld, Logan’s Run and Soylent Green, and back to apocalypse flicks such as Dr Strangelove. I would also say that James Cameron sat down and wrote The Terminator not long after seeing Forbin as Skynet is basically a Colossus running Windows 84. Daft Punk and Kraftwerk may have well loved the ice-cold vocoder’d voice of Colossus, very different from HAL’s soothing tones.
At the start of the film a new supercomputer installed beneath the Rockies is brought online to provide super-fast and infallible control of the US nuclear arsenal. Working its way through algorhythms faster than the humans can keep up, it contacts a similar computer in Russia and they » Continue Reading.
Phils Shirt – this week’s Top of The Pops
We start with the hyperactive liquid gold. I can’t help but love a group of chancers for whom a TOTP appearance was so clearly the equivalent of an Olympics gold. Then it’s a repeat of the Genesis in the studio clip from two weeks ago AKA Phil’s Shirt. After their manful attempt on Spirit of Radio last week legs and co are back on more familiar turf – doing a flapper hoofer number to the Brothers Johnson Stomp.
The ‘can I prolong my career by going a bit disco’ movement continues with Doctor Hooks Lamentable sexy eyes. Now, is this a band that anyone on the blog can find a single kind word for? Apart from the fact that he really did have one eye. He had some maracas last time out, this time Rays been upgraded to congas.
Ver Priest are on next, an ace performance of Living After Midnight. Great pop song and they’re live in the studio after a brief stop down the leather and studs emporium. Make that ‘give me every single stud you have in the shop please’.
Great how The programme reflects the tribal face-offs there were at break in the fifth form. From » Continue Reading.
Very late it’s the Top of the Pops from 20 March
in lieu of a great modern TV show lets go back to the 20 March 1980. Easter hols have got the better of me and I’m a week behind. this one has disappeared from the iplayer, but for those on TiVo you can still enjoy…
Ska is still hot, and The Bodysnatchers invade the stage. Brilliant to see an all-group sounding and looking great entirely on their own terms. A slight number (Do Rock Steady) but a feisty performance.
You really do have to see this week’s highlight for yourself. Yes it’s Legs and Co do The Spirit of Radio. There’s a lot going on here. Some coloured negative video is overlaid with some picture-in-picture box that well, tells a story. They get up, have some tea – generally start the day with a friendly companion. Later on their is lots of slo-mo miming with a transistor radio. Then there’s some freaky dancing.
Squeeze do a straight up good performance of Puling Mussels from the Shell.
i had Sad Cafe down as a one-hit wonder but here they are again with their other hit, My Oh My. The song, and the band’s duds, are straight out of 1976 but hey » Continue Reading.
Music Hall ATM query part two
Inspired by @attackdog ‘s post on Scottish Music Hall singers, can anyone shed light on a remembered music hall moment that is driving me crazy as I can find no evidence for it out there. As I remember it, heard on Radio 2 or 4 in the seventies, it was a song sung by Arthur Askey to the tune of In the Hall of the Mountain King. To that ner ner nerner nanna na tune he sung the words
Mother owned a coffee shop, coffee shop, coffee shop Mother owned a coffee shop In Portobello Road
Now, it may not be Askey. It may not be exactly those words. Can anyone help?
Slightly late it’s your top of the pops update – good news no Japanese woodcuts
Slightly later than normal, here’s your semi-regular survey of the national’s music life circa 1980, as reckoned by the BBC and the chart company, so more Marti Webb and less Crass if you will.
Introduced by Steve Wright in a boating blazer – cool on Paul Weller for circa five minutes a year before – we open with a riot of spandex, lame and leotards. It’s the Dooleys channelling ABBA in full disco mode on Love Patrol . The Police are already too big to appear on the show it seems and send another annoying video of their holidays in New York for Sue Lawley. Stewart Copeland is still finding it amusing to bash his drumsticks on anything around him (here some sweets).
Our first highlight occurs with Legs and Co, who are in for the Detroit Spinners. They have set up a roadworks, complete with scaffolding and one of those tents that used to appear over a hole in the road. From which they emerge in hardhats, highheels and dungarees. Imagine the Village People came from daytime ITV in 1978 and you’ve got some idea of what’s going on here. They are ‘Working Their Way Back to You’ » Continue Reading.
Under The Skin
Year: 2014 Director: Jonathon Glazer
Glazer’s third film, the product of ten years work, topped many best-of-year lists in 2014, without setting the box office on fire. Watching it it’s clear why, it’s a sombre, beautiful and largely wordless experience that remakes Glasgow and the Highlands as deeply alien worlds. Scarlett Johansen, unearthly in beauty in most contexts, here is an alien wandering the streets of Scotland tasked with abducting willing Scotsmen. We see her don a dead woman’s clothes, then stalk her prey in a white transit van – picking them up on pretexts and taking them back to a house that appears to house an enormous subterranean oil tank, into which her victims sink. The plot is slender, so I won’t dwell on it too much. Glazer isn’t interested in the details of why the aliens are here and what happens to the abductees – this is explored much more in Michael Faber’s source novel. Rather, he’s interested in how Johansen’s predator moves through the human worlds of shopping centres, ring roads and hotels as a tiger might through a herd of gazelle. It was much noted on release that Glazer used non-professional actors and hidden filming – » Continue Reading.
The Amen, Brother break? No, me neither
Great article on the BBC news site about the sister break to the Funky Drummer, the Amen Brother break. On a track by 60s R and B group The Winstons it has been copied 1500 times apparently by everyone from salt n Pepa to Oasis. No-ones had any royalties as (I think) you can’t copyright a rhythm. Now there’s a fundraiser towards one of the men behind it. Read the article, includes a pretty good mash up feat Bowie, prodigy, Winehouse et Al to show what they mean.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32087287
You’re What? First Person Songs
At the end of a Members compilation I was listening to yesterday is a cover of this remarkable song, in which Mr Wallis sustains a first-person narration throughout the song from the point of view of a ‘police car’ – with a shotgun under his seat and a v8 heart. It’s the song KITT never sung.
Your first-person narration songs, as bonkers as possible. Teacups, drumkits, loft extensions, pandas and dodgy builders. Crazy narrator points of view please.
No metaphors or similes though. You are not ‘like a motherless child’. You are a motherless child. In this thread anyway.
top of the pops has a treat for all you Japanese woodcut fans
A good week on Top of the Pops. Jefferson Starship are over the chart rundown. Then Elvis Costello and the attractions are in e studio with Cant Stand Up For Falling Down. It’s a bouncy clip, literally so at the end of the song when EC pulls out a neat levitation trick in classic Earth Wind and Fire style. It’s a week of studio trickery- Jake Burns in slo-mo and a plethora of tricks for The Vapors Turning Japanese. well just one – they intercut the rather plain looking band with stills that appear on page one of the Google images search ‘cliched samurai and sumo’. Either that or the director is a secret Hokusai fan. There’s a fetching video of Michael Jackson doing Rock with you in what appears to be a natty sequinned pyjamas and wellies combo in front of a green laser. Some awesome working men’s club disco next from liquid gold. There’s a drummer in Celtic socks, tight shorts and a tie. The guitarist is rocking princes symbol guitar 15 years before prince did. Again, did Top of the Pops make it as far as Minneapolis? I like to think of the purple one watching Brackleys » Continue Reading.
Swervedriver – I Wasn’t Born To Lose You
What does it sound like?:
On their first album for seventeen years Swervedriver decide, in my view correctly, that a comeback album had better connect you with why people liked you in the first place. It’s straight outta Oxford circa 1990 and sounds all the better for it. Languid vocals, pattering drums and gauzy washes of guitar abound in a set of strong songs with an easy mid-pace flow the dominant rhythm. It’s if possible even more melodic than I remember from them first time around, with less rifferama and softer guitar work. English Subtitles, in my view the standout track, is just beautiful and (should) have you reaching for the replay button.
What does it all *mean*?
The worst-named genre of all time has life in it left. And as with all such bands the vocals are buried so deep in the mix that they could be singing, in very lovely ways, about frozen peas, or world peace. I might go and see them on tour in May as they’re coming to Birmingham.
Goes well with…
Sitting in the park with the sun out and some cold beers. Driving through Monument Valley with the top down. It’s a » Continue Reading.
Your weekly Top Of The Pops Update
We open (at least I think we do, my TiVo started a bit late) with a Blondie video for Atomic. On the unedited version I may have missed Shakin Stevens making his debut with Hotdog. Lots to enjoy with Blondie. Debbie literally looks great in a bin bag. There’s interpretative backing dancers, and some metal squares hung from the ceiling in a kind of Andy Warhol vibe. Then The Beat are in the studio with Hands Off She’s Mine. Has Saxa lost twenty years or is that not him on the sax? A repeat of the Buggles studio clip playing Plastic Age – that marigolds wearing keyboard player is a right wag isn’t he. It’s not a bad pop song. Then a dull Tourists song on repeat – so Good To Be Back Home. Now hide behind your sofa. First sighting of Fern Kinney with the monstrously catchy We Are Beautiful. Yet another repeat of a cliff video for Carrie. It’s a good programme – The Ramones are next with Baby I Love You. How cool do they look? Very. Jeans, leather jackets, fringes and colour coded t-shirts. The editors insert some lovely cutaways to the Totp orchestra playing along, » Continue Reading.
Spotify premium vs itunes on iphone
Quick check in with others. I’ve lost my mp3 player, and in its absence have finally started using my iphone 5 as a music player when out and about. Having demo-ed both spotify premium (ie offline) and itunes it seems that Spotify drains the battery at a significantly slower rate, but that itunes gives a slightly better sound quality. Would others agree?
The Blue Oyster Cult Thread…On Your Feet Or On Your Knees
moseleymoles on Blue Oyster Cult
One of the joys of the old place (both of them now) was the threads in which a slightly less celebrated act was given a thorough airing in a thread dedicated to them. In that spirit here’s my take on an act that if they ever had their due, have now slipped well off the radar. So welcome to the Blue Oyster Cult thread and if you’ve never heard anything by the Cult beyond Don’t Fear The Reaper don’t be afraid..
BOC started in the late sixties as an American answer to the emerging heavy metal/hard rock acts from the UK, particularly Black Sabbath. Their first three albums: BOC, Tyranny and Mutation, and Secret Treaties, mine a fairly conventional rock sound – enlivened by Donald ‘Buck’ Dharma’s guitar and lyrics that mined mysticism, World War Two and arcane mythology amongst others.
After building up their reputation as a hot live act, their phase as top-notch album-sellers started with the live album On Your Feet or On Your Knees, and two subsequent studio albums, Agents of Fortune and Spectres. These albums saw their sound coming into focus and the airing of a slew of their best-know » Continue Reading.
Your nearly weekly toppie update
While it’s not a vintage totp by any means this week there is still much to enjoy even if its Simon Bates hosting in a caramel colour leather jacket. Matchbox do the old double bass spin several times,. Keith Michell’s reading of Captain Beaky seems to go on for about ten years. There’s a video for Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down that sees Elvis hanging around in a French cafe while the Attractions…fall down; Jon and Vangelis’ awesomely silly video features a bloke in a leotard dancing on a flying moog; Dave Edmunds is in the studio doing Singing the Blues and Marti Webb is too doing Take That Look of Your Face from some Lloyd webber show. Kenny Rogers is no 1 with Coward of the County. The Shadows do one of the worst ‘lets go disco’ career moves ever with the lamentable Riders In The Sky. I feel strangely compelled to post Kiss’ I was made for loving you.
But the jewel in the crown is the Flying Lizards – on totp with not Money but TV – there are a lot of them onstage in some sort of performance art happening. The wonderful @totpfacts tells us » Continue Reading.
Everything Is Less Than Zero…the lit brat pack revisited
moseleymoles on A short introduction to some East Coast writers of the eighties
Picking up Donna Tartt’s latest novel The Goldfinch at a local charity shop got me thinking about how, while I’ve lived out my life through new wave, goth, acid house, britpop – literature isn’t quite like that. Movements take decades to crystallise rather than months. But there was a group of young American writers who resembled if not a group, then a loose scene – those described as ‘the Literary Brat Pack’ in the mid-eighties whose image and much of its writing drew heavily from the music and creative scene of New York. They were young, wore shades after dark, listened to music, went to clubs, took drugs and wrote about…mainly other people who were young, wore shades etc…
Tartt was famously at Bennington, an exclusive East Coast college with Bret Easton Ellis in the early eighties as was Jonathan Lethem. Ellis became famously associated on the New York party scene with Jay McInery. Add Tama Janowitz and you have five writers whose work all features heavily on my shelves.
As an impressionable teenager and avid reader these writers – many of whom wrote debut novels set » Continue Reading.
The Jesus and Mary Chain play Psychocandy
Venue:
The Institute Birmingham
Date: 25/02/2015
After missing their Meltdown a couple of years ago I thought I might never have the chance to see the Mary Chain live. But no here the brothers Reid are, joining the complete album gig movement with their classid debut. Jim takes centre stage looking like an IT manager on a stag do, while deep in the dry ice lurks William – same haircut as on the Psychocandy sleeve. Filling out the stage are a tight band, including the crucial reverb-heavy drummer who provides the wall of sound beat so crucial to their sound. We get all of Psychocandy, and assorted b-sides and non-album singles. Great sound, and everyone onstage seems motivated. Perhaps the lack of touring means there’s enough to find in the songs to keep everyone interested. After an hour and twenty and about twenty tracks they’re done.
The audience:
A certain age, black the preponderant colour. More men than women. Dyed hair or no hair.
It made me think..
I recall that Psychocandy was viewed as something of a let down, so much hype had been invested in them after Upside Down and Never Understand. What a great album, perfectly » Continue Reading.
Jupiter Ascending
Year: 2015 Director: The Wachowskis
On a rainy day at the end of half-term I accompanied two 12-year olds to the Wachowskis first original sci-fi script since The Matrix. The 12 certificate is probably an indicator that there would be less cod philosophy and more pecs. The set up sees Mila Kunis as Jupiter, eking out a life as a frankly unconvincing house cleaner whose life is changed etc when she discovers she’s a member of an aristocratic family who rule the galaxy. But of course as many people want her dead as want to help her, and only Metallica-roadie look alike Tatum Channing and – oh my it’s Sean Bean as a roguish world-weary ex-cop – are really on her side. It looks great – at times a bonkers mix of cyberpunk, medieval gothic and Boris Vallejo fantasy. Mila gets hitched in a spaceship that appears to have been cut and shunted with Salisbury Cathedral. Bean and Eddie Redmayne chew the scenery most satifactorily as the Brits Who Can Act. Mila Kunis does not have much to do except look scared, control the world’s bee population, and run away again in the company of some male saviour. Until the » Continue Reading.
