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Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Moondrench: A peek behind the curtain

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Popbitch are currently doing a daily mailout, to keep spirits buoyant during these testing times. From todays edition:

“Van Morrison, Brighton Centre, some time in the 90s. Mid-way through, he decided to take a break and Georgie Fame did a bit of his set while Van disappeared behind a curtain.

“Unbeknown to him, we in the cheap seats could see over this curtain. He had a small table behind there with a towel and bottle of whiskey on it. Van poured himself a large one, then undid his kecks, picked up the towel and started to give his knackers a good old towelling down. Class.”

So my question for the socially distant panel is have you ever spotted a pop-rascal doing anything unusual with their guard down?

I’ve just been turned down by a bird that used to take anything…….

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…….And by that I mean Music Magpie, you dirty minded rascals.

Yes, it’s that time of the decade when I am ordered to have a clear-out. I’ve dutifully sorted through things I will never listen to or read again, and the magpies have taken about 40% of it. My local chazza shops don’t take CDs anymore, so the question is: what on earth do I do with the straglers?

The Royal Question

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As His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward, Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh, Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Personal Aide-de-Camp to The Queen said: “I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply…it was almost impossible for me to sweat.”

Surely the French had the right idea; cut their heads off in a public spectacle and make a tourist attraction out of the location? Is anyone able to justify this bunch of parasitic areseholes to me?

KLAXON: Mike Millard live recording of David Bowie has been unleashed

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Anyone who has more than a passing interest in bootlegs and ROIO will be aware of the late Mike “The Mic” Millard. A LA based music fan whose surreptitious recordings of the concerts he attended were astonishing good, especially for the late 70s period when he was most active. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Millard

Some of his previously uncirculated recordings have started to become available, and today has seen the release of his recording of David Bowie on the Isolar II tour at the LA Forum in 1978. It’s currently being seeded on dimeadozen, and will no doubt start to become available on various blogs/YouTube/trackers/etc. I’ve just downloaded it and am listening with some Dead Man’s Fingers rum; both are utterly stellar.

So which is the best music monthly.

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I distinctly remember the first music mag I ever bought. It was a copy of Kerrang! in 1988 with David Coverdale on the front and the results of the readers poll inside (and a risque poster of Doro Pesch, which went straight up on the wall despite me never having heard a note of her music; it came down as soon as my Mam saw it though). I had just started developing a music taste of my own and It kick started many years of buying that, the inkies and the monthlies. It was exciting to read about your favourite acts, and it fired your imagination about ones that you had never heard. They were the pimps, and I was the John hopelessly in love.

Then life happened along the way. I was still buying the mags, but only skimming them instead of devouring each and every page. The cd’s with them remained unplayed, the subscriptions were allowed to lapse. It got to the point when the only time I bought a magazine was if I was taking a train journey.

About a month ago I was up in my mothers attic, and found a box of some old mags » Continue Reading.

Stephen Malkmus, the workshy fopp

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So whilst browsing t’interweb I note that Stephen Malkmus is embarking on an UK tour. Might be interesting, so I check out the dates:

Sept 13 – CCA, Glasgow Sept 16 – YES (The Pink Room), Manchester Sept 17 – Hare and Hounds, Birmingham Sept 18 – Moth Club, London

If a couple of small pubs constitutes a tour then my and my mates are the Rolling Stones every weekend. I realise that finances are tight in the music biz these days, but I have far more respect for those that jet into London, do a gig, then jet out again than this nonsense. That’s the trouble with middle-aged people, they’re just not prepared to put the work in.

Credible then, insignificant now

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Pleased to see that Now 90s has appeared on Freeview as I find familiar music at breakfast time to be far more palatable than John Humphrys or Larry Laverene.

This mornings appearance of ‘Dizzy’ by Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff led me to reminisce about my uni days and how The Stuffies (as no-one ever called them) were a popular and credible band. These days: nothing. They are never played on the radio, never cited as an influence by acts, and whenever they are brought up in conversation with my music loving friends they respond with a ‘meh’. Even their reunion was greeted with the same enthusiasm as when one of your kids asks to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic again (yes you do that sweetie, I’ll be over here scrubbing these crayon marks off the wall). I’d go as far to say their only contribution to modern day life is that Miles Hunt is a frequently used rhyming slang.

This is just a roundabout way of asking the blog who was popular and credible back in the day, but mean absolutely nowt today?

Van Morrison releases (then deletes) pre-Astral Weeks “Catacombs Tapes”

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So without any warning, Van the Man releases then deletes the “Catacombs Tapes”. This is a recording from August 1968 in Boston, when Van was working out the songs prior to the recording of Astral Weeks.

I wasn’t quick enough to acquire it from iTunes but have since obtained them by, errrr, unofficial means. It’s astonishing how much of the sound of Astral Weeks was worked out by the trio before the jazz sessioners went into the studio to record it with Van.

Presumably it was released to extend the copyright on the recording, so hopefully there will be a proper release in due course (maybe as part of that reissue campaign that was supposed to be happening).

Is there a more frustrating artist to follow than Van?

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/van_morrison_abruptly_releases_long_sought_after_catacombs_tapes_on_itunes