Birmingham, so much to answer for.

Kev tasked me with writing something about music from Birmingham. I however wanted to shoe horn the phrase "celebrity lezzas" into this post to capitalise on popbitchs claims and drive traffic here, lets hope this cynical stab works, back to the blog... Since my last post and now I have been to Leeds Festival (attempted to write something approaching a review, it was too big a task so in a nutshell, The Walkmen, The King Blues, NOFX and Biffy Clyro were all fantastic, The Drums, not so). I also have been to Las Vegas and celebrated my 40th birthday, seeing Biffy Clyro in a small club whilst I was there. None of these however are related in the slightest to Birmingham.

Birmingham and it surrounds famously spawned the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Slade. Slade weren’t though. Slade were Black Country and in Noddy’s case, Walsall. Zeppelin were in a loose way and Sabbath definitely were, but lets not be picky here. Lets not linger on the most famous sons, lets move away from Aston and West Brom and dip our toe into the murky waters of Birmingham Canal, like a Cliff Richard driven speedboat from Take Me High.

Cliff paid homage to God’s City in his 1973 film Take Me High, his last film and as I write Sir Cliff celebrates his 70th birthday. In Take Me High like the dead horse he has been flogging since Daddy’s Home so he sells the locals the Brum burger. Alliteration it seems were key or it may have been a totally different story and ended up being a Lincoln Burger. Take Me High is a pretty good film if my memory serves me well. I think Channel 4 were doing one of those seasons where rock stars give that acting lark a stab and therefore trotted out the excellent That’ll Be The Day, Slade In Flame and Take Me High. I suspect this all predated Spice World.



Take Me High

Cliff aside the city that gave us Fuzzbox also gave us The Nightingales, Robert Lloyd lead singer and constant of The Nightengales is a Cannock lad, but lets not let geography get in the way after all if that was the case we may have to stop PWEI, The Wonderstuff and Neds Atomic Dustbin being claimed as sons of the second city.
Robert Lloyd from the ashes of The Nightingales formed the utterly fantastic but massively overlooked New Four Seasons, I briefly loved this band as a spotty teen. John Peel played a track that I recorded late one night and I think I wore that tape out. At the time I hadn’t heard or heard of The Nightingales and I didn’t really care. Andy Lloyd of that self same band, Wikipedia tells me he is a member of Birmingham mainstays, Little Red Schoolhouse. Little Red Schoolhouse I can pin down as a band that have been going at least 20 years, if Wikipedia is to be believed as I saw them once in the Sir Colin Campbell pub in Coventry, supporting a Telford based band. Little Red Schoolhouse were I am sure excellent, banks mild has clouded my memory of their performance and the name of the Telford band that supported them. I think it was the band that later became PTR. Halcyon days.



Something Nice by Robert Lloyd and The New Four Seasons

Another son of Birmingham and a band that had a lasting impression on me was the band Mighty Mighty. I bought their album, Sharks at the back end of the 80’s. (I have a memory of being in Birmingham Virgin Megastore queing up to buy Sharks and seeing Miles Hunt in front of me clutching a copy of eight legged groove machine on the day of its release. This may not actually have happened). The purchase of Sharks and importantly an address to write to Mighty Mighty on the back meant I had a clear opportunity within the price of a cheap day return to stalk a band. I need to make this clear, I didn’t. Moseley wasn’t on a train route. Sharks though contained so many great great songs, Law, Maisonnette and the superb, Biddy Baxter. You really should listen to the latter (not that it can be found on Youtube). You really should listen to Law as well, its what the term, “stomping bassline” was created for.



Law by Mighty Mighty

Lawrence, (slaps head remembering the name of the Telford band who supported Little Red Schoolhouse) Lawrence who was Felt, who was Denim, who was Go Kart Mozart was from Birmingham and now it seems, again according to Wikipedia, resides in a place I pass by twice a day, Water Orton. Go Kart Mozart release records on Lawrences own label, West Midlands Records. The sound of young Brum. (I added that). Felt, Lawrences first notable incarnation were signed to Creation and first came to my attention from the super cheap Creation compilation and soundtrack for the live shows, Doing It For The Kids. I own 2 copies of this 1988 album, both jump in different places. Felt perform in my opinion their best track in Ballad Of The Band. An excellent track it is too, Lawrence didn’t really better it.



Ballad Of The Band by Felt

Materially speaking Lawrence went on to form Denim after Felt’s dissolution. Denim had more of a glam rock edge, but a lot of bands were doing that then. Their impact on me was a single single. My loss is Water Ortons gain.



Middle Of The Road by Denim

Finally we can’t leave Birmingham without mentioning one of the citys best sons, not Musical Youth, Duran Duran, the Moody Blues or wizard, not The Twang, The Editors, The Streets or Ocean Colour Scene. Dexy’s are the best export the city has produced and undo all that UB40, the aforementioned OCS and The Twang have subjected me to.

Dexy’s Midnight Runners formed within the B postcode and the mish mash of sounds that make up their albums reflected their home city. I dont care much for Come On Eileen, not to say it isn’t one of the greatest pop songs ever written. My favourite is a twelve minute soul screamer found on Don’t Stand Me Down. This Is What She’s Like is as paranoid as it gets. Rowland is a very honest man to allow this to go on any album and at over 12 minutes, you may tire a little. You shouldn’t though as it takes you places that a full LP will take you, like NOFX’s Decline, its more a sum of its parts. Dexy’s finest hour not bettered in my opinion until the reformation song and anger inducing track, Manhood. I think I once had a brief conversation with my co-blogger about this track once and he swore.



Disappointingly not the full version.

This is What She’s Like by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.



Manhood by Dexy’s Midnight Runners

Birmingham, the home of Napalm Death, the home of The Beat, but also thankfully the home of Novak. Novak really deserve their own article.



Rapunzel by Novak

AC/DC - The Covers

This actually started out as a post on Mark Kozelek and The Red House Painters but, after hearing his version of AC/DC's If You Want Blood it just blossomed into a whole piece on covers. Having squirmed my way through too many bad rock versions, pub bands and fuzzy upper-lipped teens on out of tune guitars on YouTube, I decided to introduce the winners in each of my self-imposed categories. So, the categories for AC/DC covers are

• The Quality Cover
• The Bemusing Why-Did-They-Do-It Children's Cover
• The That's Not Bad but I Wouldn't Admit it Cover
• The Bluegrass Cover
• The Elvis Cover
• The Toe-Curling, Butt -Tightening, Embarrassed to Even Watch, Dad-at-a-Disco Cover
• Those Crazy Foreigners Cover

The Quality Cover is the one mentioned in the opening sentence, Mark Kozelek.


On to The Bemusing Why-Did-They-Do-It Children's Cover by The Wiggles (who probably get more airtime in our house than AC/DC themselves).


The That's Not Bad but I Wouldn't Admit it Cover. Keep your eye out for the decent fiddle player also on backing vocals.


They are probably too obvious to even include here but I couldn't really fail to mention the kings of the bluegrass metal covers circuit - Hayseed Dixie, not only a tremendous play on words, but also a tremendous play on words. That makes them clear winners in The Bluegrass Cover category.


On we rock to The Elvis Cover, a personal favourite.


I feel like our reader (not a typo) deserves an explanation here. It's not often that a music video can induce in the viewer a feeling of wanting the world to open up and swallow them. This video makes you feel like a rubber-necker straining to see the accident. It arouses the feelings you have when faced with the spectacle of something so horrible that you are gripped by some unexplained fascination, unable to avert your horrified gaze - it's the Toe-Curling, Butt -Tightening, Embarrassed to Even Watch, Dad-at-a-Disco Cover, so without further ado, ladies and gents, here's Sealion Dion for your ultimate pleasure.


So, to wrap up we've got the Those Crazy Foreigners Cover, which, even though they might be crazy and they are definitely foreigners, is a lovely bit of film. Judging from another clip on TouYoub they might be called Vopli Vidopliassova.

1987 - A Year in Music

It seems like my choices for the best of 1987 are split fairly evenly between the things I was actually listening to at the time, and that year's offerings I would come to discover later in life. Two 'later' discoveries, Tom Waits and Los Lobos, are still around. Los Lobos particularly have had a long and varied career, and continue to put out good records. Tom Waits, an acquired taste, tends to bounce from borderline genius to borderline unlistenable. Scratch that, just unlistenable.

Echo and the Bunnymen were one of those mainstream 'alternative' bands I was so keen to like in the late to mid 80's. They didn't really float my boat in the way that The Cult did, but they scratched a certain itch. 'Love Removal Machine' on the other hand, blew my head off. I bought it on a Saturday afternoon in Birmingham and couldn't wait to get home and play it. It doesn't seem to have completely stood the test of time with my taste buds that well, if that makes sense, but hats off to even calling a song Love Removal Machine. It was quite so apparent to me at the time quite how much Ian Asbury wanted to be Jim Morrison.

The final track, listed on YouTube as 'Bono-Sweet Fire of Love', is actually from the first Robbie Robertson (of The Band) solo album, notable for the appearance of Peter Gabriel, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko, Maria McKee and others. Daniel Lanois was the dots that joined it all together. The album spawned the hit 'Somewhere Down the Crazy River'.

Dead Funny Men with Beards

When reviewing the Archie Bronson Outfit for The Times Peter Paphides described the sound they produce as 'driving blues rock played with punk abandon by men with beards'. You can't really question the punk abandon or the beards, although the blues rock is open to debate. I don't know why I like it but I do.



In the comments on Youtube below this video (where they get compared to Talking Heads), which admittedly isn't a great place to look for incisive critique, someone said

"Interpretative gymnastics and swamp flavoured indie: together at last"

......which is as good a reason as any for liking them.

Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera - The Bad Shepherds

It must be rather annoying for him to be repeatedly refered to as Comedian Adrian Edmondson (my friend Steve is similarly aggrieved by his beloved team being refered to as Roy Keane's Ipswich) particularly now that he has branched out into music and somehow managed to fuse two of his great loves - punk and new wave music with 'traditional' instruments, and put together The Bad Shepherds. The story goes that, after a good session in the pub Mr. Edmondson wandered into an instrument shop, and pissed, bought a mandolin. Nort long after he found himself playing London Calling on it, and the idea of 'punk songs with a celtic feel' was born. The name of the album is 'Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera', which, to quote the Shepherds' website

means

'One, Two, Three, Four' in an ancient Cumbrian dialect used almost exclusively by shepherds. Had the Ramones been Cumbrian shepherds, it's what they would have shouted as the intro to every song...'

.....an inspired choice for an album title, I think you'd agree.

They have an interesting backstory and a decent album name, but is it any good? Judge for yourself.

I Fought the Law

I wasn't entirely convinced by that, although when I listened to the album on the way to work this morning I was impressed. The arrangements are excellent, and there wasn't a single time I thought that the meeting of the styles jarred at all. In fact, they seem to actively compliment each other. The blend of traditional songs with Edmondson's favourite punk pop classics work a treat. A good example of this would be the Humours of Tullah/Teenage Kicks/Whisky in the Jar/The Merry Blacksmith combo.

Teenage Kicks

Glen Hansard, The Frames, Once, Marketa Irglova and The Swell Season

It seems odd that Ireland's Glen Hansard has only popped up once on the blog. For someone who has ploughed his own honest furrow since about 1991, with the spectacularly underrated The Frames, and more recently with the Once soundtrack and The Swell Season, I'm not sure he gets the praise that 20 years of decent/excellent/outstanding music should merit. From the streets of Dublin, busking, to supporting Dylan, here is Glen Hansard, who I think seems like a very genuine bloke who you might have a pint with, interviewed in 2007.

Outspan Foster is a name that probably haunts Hansard as it is the name of the character he played in the 1991 Commitments film. He has said many times that he regrets taking the part, although with an oscar in his pocket from his song Falling Slowly in 2008 his regrets may have eased somewhat.

The Frames first album Another Love Song came out in '91 and, I must admit, it passed me by. I honestly think the songs are swamped on it, although Masquerade, one of the two singles taken from it, is probably my favourite.

It took the band till '95 to put out another album, the excellent Fitzcarraldo, named after the Werner Herzog film of the same name (there were singles and an EP inbetween). The album, in my view, contains two songs that are so good, that if Hansard had never done anything else ever again then he could have dined out on the quality of Revelate and Red Chord for the rest of his days. The best version of Red Chord I've ever heard is an acoustic version from a radio show, which I used to have on cassette, which somehow got lost in the multiple moves back and forward between England and Chile over the last few years. To my complete joy, someone put it on YouTube, and I was the 457th person to watch it.

On the same above mentioned radio show there was a great version of the Candi Staton discotastic classic Young Hearts Run Free, and as it happens, The Swell Season have recorded it and it's available as a free download from Levi's (don't ask me why Levi's). Click here for more information.
Revelate has been featured on the blog already (click here for the post Albums of the Noughties)

On we go to Dance the Devil from 1999 and this time I'm going with Pavement Tune, the live version of which I once saw sounds completely different.



Again, on this album, there is a song worthy of any other, Star Star.

On to 2001 and the album voted Best Irish Album Released between 1999 and 2009 by the CLUAS website (lending an ear to the Irish music scene) - For the Birds. Things seemed to fall into place for this album. It's an album of maturity, confidence and quality songs. As the CLUAS reviewer puts it "a record whose bones were honest". Steve Albini produced part of it. Pitchfork called the album "a unique and enjoyable album". The stand out songs for me are Lay Me Down and What Happens When the Heart Just Stops, which the Swell Season (Hansard's latest incarnation with Marketa Irglova) revisited later.

A year later, 2002, saw The Frames follow up For the Birds with their first live album, Breadcrumb Trail, notable for the inclusion of a certain Marketa Irglova. The album was recorded in the Czech Republic and came out on the bands own label. Allmusic gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Another live album, Set List follwed in 2002, a much stronger set, recorded over four nights in Dublin in front of an adoring crowd. Hansard has some good chat between the songs and, in true Frames fashion, one song may well include bits of other songs you might recognise. Listen out for a bit of Bob Marley or Johnny Cash during this album.
Here are two knocked into one from Set List.

Burn the Maps came out on the excellent anti label (Mavis Staples, Neko Case, Tom Waits) in 2004 and gave the band their first number one album in Ireland. Yet again, although not to my surprise, they conjured up a good album that included a top drawer song in the shape of the bitter, twisted, angry Fake.

Read an interview with Glen Hansard from 2005 by clicking here.http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als/_glen_hansard_interview_the_frames.html

It's from this point on that it all gets a bit confusing, a bit Hollywood, and pretty damn successful. In 2006 Hansard appeared in the indie film Once, written and directed by John Carney, one time bass player with The Frames during the early 90's. The film, shot for about $160.000 tells the story of a thirty-something Dublin busker, played by Glen Hansard. Most of the music was written by Hansard and Irglova, with some of it having already featured in different versions on The Frames The Cost album as well as the debut cd by Hansard and Irglova as The Swell Season.

In an interview with Pitchfork in 2008 Hansard said this

"We put this record out first as the Swell Season because honestly we didn't think John's film would get released. Honestly. We weren't depending on any company to back us. We made the thing for nothing. It didn't look great or sound great, and the film hasn't changed. It still doesn't look great or sound great! [laughs] Obviously, what we've learned and are beginning to accept is that it has something. A lot of people have gone to see it, and talked about it, which is wonderful. But when John originally suggested we put it out as the Once soundtrack, I was like, dude, the film's not even going to come out! I'm just putting these songs out because I don't want them lying around. We put out The Swell Season, and The Swell Season sold 300 copies. I couldn't believe it. In Ireland, even the Frames records sell ten, 15,000 copies. Which is a respectable number of records for a band doing it themselves. We were very happy with that. But I couldn't believe that this record I put out with Mar, that I was really proud of, only sold 300. Then six months or a year later it gets re-released as the Once record. Four days ago I just heard that it went gold over here. That's half a million fucking records! That's insane! That is fucking insane. And all we did was change the cover [laughs].

By 2007 the film had been accepted into the Sundance film festival (after initially being rejected), and the original plan of just showing it around Ireland, with a few songs after the movie, had to be re-thought. The song Falling Slowly began to get attention and was nominated for an Academy Award (that's an Oscar, dummy) for Best Original Song. Here they are performing it on David Letterman.



So, off they went to the Oscars in 2008 and only went and won it. Here's a bit on the film.

Irglova was famously drowned out by the orchestra just as she leant forward to say her thank yous after being presented with an Oscar. Following the break she was asked by John Stewart to come back out on stage for her moment of glory. Click here to see what happened.

Much was made of the chemistry between the two in the movie. Given the fact that Hansard said this "I had been falling in love with her for a long time, but I kept telling myself she's just a kid" it wasn't a surprise it came through on film.

Following the release of the Once soundtrack The Swell Season have gone from strength to strength, touring to great reviews, backed up by Frames musicians in the band.


Post Hollywood and with 20 years of The Frames under his belt here's a nice vid to finish with, Hansard and Irglova interviewed while on their US tour, 2009.

Without Chew

There's an excellent article by the consistently good Alexis Petridis in The Guardian today, discussing the new album by Hurts. After reading that they like to sing 'Without chew ....' along with these words

'Their videos resemble a Guinness World Records attempt to cram as many Thatcher-era visual cliches into three minutes of film as possible: you watch the trenchcoat-clad figures trudging through snowy Mitteleuropean cities and women in black cocktail dresses and fascinators throwing meaningful shapes by swimming pools, and you are gripped by the certainty that Max Headroom is about to appear and start walking like an Egyptian'

I was intrigued and wanted to find out more. Why would anybody in their right mind want to replicate the sound of Climie Fisher, Go West or Johnny Hates Jazz? Their website opens with a photo so styled, so consciously self-aware, that the more I looked at it the more I was convinced that only seconds later they would both burst into guffaws and say something like 'Oh I'm bostin for a piss, me'. It does, in fact, look like a pisstake, or perhaps a perfume advert parody from a sketch show. Either that or the Marks & Spencer advert for suits worn by England players during the World Cup in South Africa.

England Substitutes

Hurts

Could they be any more 'synth-pop duo'?

Jole Blon

Although Jole Blon sounds like an expensive (probably overpriced) new signing by a Premiership football team (probably Spurs) - Jole Blon Sent Off on Debut - for example, it's actually a song. Gold Star Records of Houston, Texas, launched many careers, among them Freddy Fender, George Jones and Lightnin Hopkins. Gold Star's first big hit was Jole Blon, by Harry Choates way back in 1946. Up popped Jole Blon in my inbox today with a link to a real oddity - Waylon Jennings, Buddy Holly and King Curtis together in 1958. It's an 'unclassifiable' (as mail sender Tom put it), genre-hopping song.

White Lies vs Alan Bennett

I'm not really sure what I man when I say that Harry McVeigh of White Lies has an 80's voice. I mean he doesn't sound anything like John Farnham or either of Mel or Kim. Is it an easy comparison to make if I mention Joy Division? They claim to be more influenced by Talking Heads, although that influence is hardly evident. Maybe they will go on to make awful Brazilian compilations. Other influences include Secret Machines, who, surely, are the closest to Led Zep Bonhamesque battering you are likely to find. Peter finds White Lies 'a bit too polished' and I know what he means, although they have a nice turn of phrase at times. That makes them sound like Alan Bennett, which I am sure is not the effect they were looking for. I can imagine Alan saying 'He said my heart is faint, and left him crying next to the chapel steps, oh and these biscuits are a bit dry'.

The Best Score Writers in the Industry

In the ongoing series of guest posts, here is one from one of the guys over at My Dog Ate My Blog.

Often, the praise for a great film goes directly to the director. If you think of the classics, though, most have something in common: great, iconic music. The score of a film can create suspense, drama, or be just plain catchy. Here are ten of the top film score writers whose music you definitely know, even if you don't know their name.
1. John Williams: Williams has scored some of the most iconic American films, such as Jaws, Home Alone, E.T., and The Star Wars Saga.

• Why he's great: Whether or not you realize it, Williams compositions are most likely lodged into your pop culture subconscious.
• Have a listen: Star Wars Medley

2. Bernard Hermann: Hermann is known for teaming up with Alfred Hitchcock to score his most suspenseful films, including Psycho, Vertigo, and North by Northwest.

• Why he's great: Hermann's creativity transformed and modernized music for thrillers and suspenseful movies.
• Have a listen: Psycho theme

3. Max Steiner: Called "the father of film music," Steiner was one of the first to compose music for motion pictures His list of films reads as a list of American classics: Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, and Little Women are some of his best known.

• Why he's great: When Steiner first arrived in America in 1914, he had only a few dollars to his name. He worked as a musician for 15 years before scoring films.
• Have a listen: Gone With the Wind- "Tara's Theme"

4. Elmer Bernstein: Bernstein rose to fame by scoring classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Ten Commandments, and The Man with the Golden Arm. Later on, he took a chance by scoring National Lampoon's Animal House, which sparked a second wave of his career scoring comedies.

• Why he's great: Bernstein was not afraid of attempting all types of film, and thus, we have some of the best comedy scores in history, including Ghostbusters and Airplane!
• Have a listen: Airplane! Medley

5. Jerry Goldsmith: Goldsmith composed for many films, but most were action filled: Rambo:First Blood, Chinatown, and Basic Instinct are some of his most notable scores.

• Why he's great: Goldsmith experimented with lots of strange instruments not usually found in film scores, like schofar, pizzicati, and steel drums.
• Have a listen: Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme

6. Henry Mancini: After his first year at Julliard, Mancini was drafted into the army to serve in WWII. After he was discharged, he went on to score many memorable TV shows and movies, like Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Pink Panther, and The Party.

• Why he's great: Mancini found time to do a little bit of everything; he recorded his own albums (over 90 of them!), voice acted, and even made an appearance on Frasier.
• Have a listen: The Pink Panther theme

7. Lalo Schifrin: This Argentine composer has written the music for many classic action films. Cool Hand Luke and Enter the Dragon are among his most famous, and he scored the music for the long running Mission: Impossible TV series.

• Why he's great: Schifrin founded his own record label, Aleph Records, and his work has been sampled on famous hip-hop records.
• Have a listen: Mission:Impossible theme

8. James Horner: If you want drama, you want James Horner's scores. You can hear his intensity in Braveheart, Apollo 13, The Perfect Storm, and Avatar.

• Why he's great: Horner popularized the use of electronic music in musical scores.
• Have a listen: Avatar- "Becoming One of the People"

9. John Barry: This English composer's family was in the film business, sparking his interest in movies. He went on to write the soundtracks for eleven James Bond flicks.

• Why he's great: Barry might be great, but he's also failed: he took a chance and wrote the music for two Broadway disasters, The Little Prince and the Aviator and Lolita, My Love.
• Have a listen: Dr. No

10. Maurice Jarre: Jarre's scores are modern classics. He won three academy awards for Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, and A Passage to India.

• Why he's great: Jarre has had three hits on the U.K. singles chart.
• Have a listen: Lawrence of Arabia theme

Joy Henry is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog 

John Wayne

I have had a long conversation with a friend today on the subject of film stars of old and how they don’t make them like they used to. No Jimmy Stewart's, no Yul Bryner's, no Garbo, no Betty Davies and no Errol Flynn. How John Wayne and his films possibly couldn’t be made in this day and age. The Quiet Man, easily one of the greatest films ever made, would not have got past the script stage I will wager.
What does this have to do with music Peter? I am coming to that. John Wayne, that glorious all American god of epic proportions, thats who I am celebrating today in song, verse and lyric.

John Wayne was born with a girls name, like Sue I guess you learn to either fight or get beaten. John Wayne oozed masculinity and maybe that's why. I don't know. Seemingly he also had very VERY Conservative politics. Unapologetic concerning his views on race and homosexuals, today he would be laughed at. As he said in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, "Don't apologize—it's a sign of weakness."

John Wayne died in 1979 and his death at least in our household was every bit as important as John Lennon or Marty Robbins and time and again I find myself going back to True Grit or The Cowboys.

In 1982, Hardcore Punk band MDC released their debut album, Millions of Dead Cops, on it was the track John Wayne Was A Nazi.



John Wayne Was A Nazi by MDC


Its not an opinion they were alone in sharing and this release had some influence on Mike Burkett of NOFX and the song and the band get a mention on their song 13 Stitches from War On Errorism.

“The next time I went to the whiskey,
It was DOA with millions of Dead Cops.
The latter band played faster than I could believe,
But the Songs sounded the same and kinda sucked.
'Cept John Wayne was a nazi,
And Joey Shithead was a drunk.
Then John Macias beat some hippie to a pulp,
Cuz Having long hair was a mistake.”
- 13 Stitches by NOFX



13 Stitches by NOFX

1982 at least in song was the year that John Wayne was getting name checked as Haysi Fantayzee released their debut single “John Wayne is Big Leggy.” Naivety saw me thinking this was a rude song but no, again its a critique of Waynes apparent racism. 1982 and the kids are pissed off. Maybe True Grit was repeated a little too often.



John Wayne Is Big Leggy by Haysi Fantayzee

"Any man who'd make an X-rated movie ought to have to take his daughter to see it." John Wayne.

In 1973 The Duke released an album in the shadow of Watergate entitled, America, Why I Love Her. Its an odd spoken word album, but hell you have to love the mans unbridled patriotism. As someone that loves Johnny Cash’s Ragged Old Flag, its another at times that sounds like “Barts People” but as it’s John Wayne, criticise it? The hell I will.



America, Why I Love Her by John Wayne.

Billy Idol celebrated Marion Morrison in his song John Wayne and stepped back from the name calling, Billy wanted to feel like John Wayne, cos John Wayne was brave. Psst Billy, he was playing a character.



John Wayne by Billy Idol

Celebrated in song, loved and hated in equal measures John Wayne was a childhood icon as important as Evel Knievel or The animal Kwackers. The only difference with that is The Animal Kwackers never said;

“I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.... The academic community has developed certain tests that determine whether the blacks are sufficiently equipped scholastically.... I don't feel guilty about the fact that five or ten generations ago these people were slaves. Now I'm not condoning slavery. It's just a fact of life, like the kid who gets infantile paralysis and can't play football like the rest of us.”

Sometimes John Wayne was a bit of an idiot.

Oooooff Malibu

So, Peter, west midland wanderer (that's not him above, that's John Shuttleworth), has returned to warm confines of I Taught Myself How to Grow Old. We almost withered away without him, as I sat, shivering through the Chilean winter, staring at my earthquake rattled (and cracked walls), listening only to Barney songs with my 2 year old. Peter had clearly transfered from the Ford Fiesta (and the alphabetised listening schedule) to the regional railways as his Facebook updates told of tense exchanges with railway employees on wind-blown platforms. Welcome back Peter, with a Smiths bashing ode.

My listening habits have been listless, dull and uninspiring through the winter. Old favourites failed to warm my bones. The ipod has been filled with spoken word for the commute lately, or, more often than not, episodes of The Shuttleworths BBC Radio 4 program. Ken Worthington's misadventures, Plonker's baby and Joan Chitty have entertained me more than most other things, and of course John's musical creations are deserving of high praise indeed. With these words ringing in your ears, witness the man himself. I wonder if his insights carry into other cultures. I fear that the ex sweet factory security operative (Rotheram area), also known as John Le Shuttle, has not broken international markets quite yet.

The genius of Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

Morrissey was a hero to most but he don’t mean shit to me. Chuck D said that. Its on an unreleased song though, you won’t have heard it, its dead rare.

Although I can take or leave the North Western divas flouncing and utterly high opinion of himself, he has always been around and featured in some way throughout my life, if it wasn’t friends that in the normal run of things would be described as resolutely heterosexual only to turn into Monty Pythons camp soldiers at the merest mention of him, if it wasn’t them it was girlfriends, girlfriends and a wife that would have and would dump me given the word by the bequiffed one. For me he was just there, he did that music but it was all a bit, merely OK.

One song though has been a constant companion over the years, its a song that was was and is omnipresent, that separated the boys from the men in The smiths canon of work and still haunts me today.

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.

At some point in the mid eighties a friend played me Hatful of Hollow, I say played, he played it at me, he made me listen to it and I guess if it was released now with a title such as The Smiths Greatest Hits Volume 1, no one would deny that wasn’t so, If it is your thing its possibly one of if not the greatest albums ever made. Wikipedia informs me that in 2000 it was considered to be the 44th of all time. Wowsers, THATS good. Mid eighties me though kept looking at his watch and muttering under his breath. Till the end that is, then coming in all different, all beautiful, all gorgeous and utterly different was Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. In all its sub 2 minute lovliness.



Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths


The song saunters in, gives the briefest of hello’s and then buggers off again with nary a bye nor leave, it is, to quote John Peel, short to the point of abruptness. It was long enough to sear an impression though, and the impression was indelibly seared. So much so that I made it my next move to hurry back for The A Team and forget about the song for a year or two.

Fast forward to Christmas 1985 and Barry Norman is giving us his run down of the films of the year, usual twaddle, foreign language I will be bound but at the end he dangles a carrot of what is to come in 1986, as the credits roll he plays the Twist and Shout scene from the fantastic Ferris Buellers Day Off. A film that I had to see, and did see as soon as Shrewsbury’s cinema was ready to show it. I adored that film and then during a scene at a museum, perhaps at the point where Sloane realises that she loves Ferris, then the sound of Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want their instrumental version fills the scene, but at the hands of The Dream Academy. Time has shown me that Life In A Northern Town is a great song, but what they put into The Smiths track was sublime, beautiful and perfection between soundtrack and scene. I had to buy that. I still own that 7” and if grooves could talk it would tell you that it was and possibly is my most played 7”, either that or Wig Wam Bam by The Sweet (what can I say I worked at Butlins for 7 years, it was a popular party dance tune).



Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Dream Academy.

Time moves on and with time comes compilation tapes, the maker and the receiver. The thing with compilation tapes, mixtapes is that that little bit at the end of track 13 or 14 needs filling or you have either half a song or a minute or two of nothing. There is only one song that is happy to fit that and that is Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, be it The Smiths version, The Dream Academy’s version, Deftones version or of late OK Go’s version or the fantastic Decemberists and their version. Covered by many, end of side two mixtape for all.



Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by She and Him.

These days it has popped up on the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack in two guises, the faultless original and the magnificent cover performed by Zooey Deschanel and M Ward as She and Him. The song is always there, always about, ubiquitous and it needs to be. For all of the dross Morrissey and The Smiths have produced over the years, his flirtations and mistakes, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want remains perfect.

The Prodogal Returns

If you access this site via RSS, and who doesn’t you may have seen a number of older posts drop in today. Soz, I was merely pruning the spam we have been subject to. Its like some sort of obtrusive weed, unless you get rid of it all, it attracts others.

Derek Sivers aside I have been extremely quiet of late, the commute went from car to train and instead of CD’s I have been catching up on my literature, if you call a disappointing Mark Radcliffe book literature. Seriously, avoid Northern Sky, as much as I love the man, its a stinker.

The inability to get beyond The Drums and The XX albums has meant little other music has permeated my universe, but blimey what fine fine albums they are. A friend asked me to don't believe the hype with regards The Drums, its difficult when it’s so solid.

I will make more attempts as the year wears on to contribute more and possibly even get back to listening to the remainder of my CD collection, the avoidance of Dylan and the live album procured for me one Christmas is looking less and less likely.



The Prodigal Returns by Byrdie Green.

Byrdie Green was Dhar Braxtons mum, she was also a vocalist of extraordinary quality, actually that might be over egging the pudding. She was pretty good as blues tinged soul gospel vocalists go. The track above is from 1968, and I think it must be Johnny Hammond on organ, Byrdie Green gave it all up to raise her two daughters, the aforementioned Dhar Braxton wento on to have the odd hit in her own name before Byrdie returned to performing later in life.
Sadly Byrdie Green died in 2008 following a bout of emphysema.

Derek Sivers

You probably won’t have heard of Derek Sivers. He was a pretty successful music retailer. In a world of music retail where we could have been selling shoes, Derek Sivers definitely didn’t sell shoes. I like Derek Sivers.

In 1997 to sell his own music Sivers set up a site called CD Baby, it did the job and other artists though hey I wonder if you could sell my CD’s. With this Sivers instilled some rules, and ethos,

• The musician will be paid every week
• The musician will get the full name and address of everyone who purchases their music (unless they opt out)
• The musician will never be removed from the system for not selling enough
• The site will never accept advertising or paid-placement

Fair enough, and you know CD Baby flourished, I myself have bought CD’s from them and their rates, for artists mean that the artist isn’t being gouged. I like CD Baby, I liked them a lot for their confirmation emails, here is one...


“Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, October 19th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...”

Then 2008 Derek Sivers thought time to give it all up. He put CD Baby into a charitable trust and then when it was sold that the trust got a pretty hefty wedge. Derek Sivers the intelligent man that he is, if he had sold it and contributed that money to that charitable trust then of course the IRS would have took a pretty fair old percentage of that. Giving to the charity first made for sound charity sense. Derek explains it all here http://sivers.org/trust

Derek’s site has his blog, articles and resources for musicians, he lives life comfortably but not extravagantly. His site is definitely worth a visit. http://sivers.org/