London Calling..

..to the faraway towns. It is with both gratitude and trepidation that I write this missive for QUIMS. I was extremely honoured to be asked to contribute to this most welcome enterprise by becoming the Southern (Softy) Correspondent to this esteemed organ. My brief is to write occasional reviews from the Big Smoke, largely drawing upon my personal travels on the highway of live popular music. My brief for this first intervention is to review 2005 as a gig goer in the metropolis, future missives will hopefully provide a travelogue of, as Bob would probably put it, the good, the bad and the ugly of the London music scene. This will encompass talking about bands of course, but also of venues and other ephemera upon the way. In fact this first review probably is more of the flavour of the old and the new, rather good bad and ugly, as 2005 for me was both a journey into the past as well as the present. As Karl Marx I believe posited, possibly after a trip down Carnaby Street, it is impossible to appreciate the future without having a sense of the past, and I will gleefully accept this opportunity to test that theory.

Perhaps at no time in my musical memory has the past loomed so large over the music scene. Apart from the current penchant for post punk writ large over most current alternative music (we all can play spot the reference point when we hear Franz dies in Bloc Chief Monkey etc) 2005 saw a raft of golden oldies grace the stages of London. My year started with a trip to see the Gang of Four at the Empire, ably supported by the Departure. Having always had a soft spot for any band on the Faversham axis, especially with Leeds University Russian and Philosophy department thrown in, this was a most pleasant trip down memory lane, although how such an occurrence squares with their own Marxist rhetoric is open to conjecture.

Other retro pop acts seen throughout the year included The Las (with Mavers gardener who had never played drums before on drums and it showed), The House of Love (if you are interested in cover versions better than the original check out The Shins Destroy the Heart incidentally, The Proclaimers, the lovely Teenage Fan Club and the esteemable New Order. Indeed New Order was perhaps my gig of the year, finding myself down at the front shouting nonsense at Hookey, with him shaking his head at me as if to say what is that old codger doing down the front? There are a few more but my addled brain finds it difficult to recall them all.

In terms of the new, an early gig in 2005 was the NME Awards tour, arriving too late to see the Kaiser Chiefs I luckily was able to catch The Futureheads who to me, at least, in an admittedly small minority, blew Bloc Party and The Killers out of the water. Other highlights throughout the year included seeing Pete Doherty play a solo set supporting the Streets and realising behind all the hype is actually a good songwriter and performer (a duet of Dirty Old town with Shane McGowan was fantastic apart from a pick of Babyshambles and Libertines back catalogue), catching the heroic Elbow and Doves a few times and being in the same room to hear Anthonys voice which was something to behold. Whilst seeing the Pixies was a prime motivation for a trip to the Reading Festival catching the magnificent Arcade Fire was reason enough in itself. Seeing, ahem, VIPs knitting at the Astoria during the Subways was also most enlightening. Knitting is after all the new rock and roll. There were other trips here and there but hopefully this gives a flavour of my musical year, which put down in print actually seems quite busy and respectable. Future reviews will be more show focussed and more regular, alcohol intake permitting.

Over and out

Handouts, freebies and the delights of podcasts.

January, the month of misplaced guilt, worthy resolutions and dark nights. I’ll be honest I’m no exception to this annual round of self flagellation and indoors imposed misery, but I don’t smoke or gamble, I’m not particularly overweight and I don’t have any interesting habits that I can rid myself of.
Or do I?

Like a lot my age, I have become the cliché that is £50 man purchasing CDs, DVDs and books that I won’t get a chance to do justice to (unless of course the purchases include Pop Party 3 or ‘Fifi and the flowertots’ latest adventures! Not only were the £50 expeditions totting up faster than a ‘twenty a day’ Marlboro habit, far worse was the lack of options available
to nearest and dearest when deciding upon a Christmas pressie for me. This culminated in my sister-in-law handing over some DVDs on the big day with the disclaimer that ‘you’ve probably already got these’, I had, cue embaressed ‘but thanks anyway’ style statements.

So what to do about the habit? My Yorkshire roots kicked in on about January 3rd as I stood contemplating the purchase of ‘The French Connection’ boxset and sundry CDs that I hadn’t received for Christmas. There was only one answer become tight, stop spending and break the habit.

Easier said than done, I needed a ‘methadone’ style substitute to help relieve the craving. Supply of the substitute was readily available, as you are all too aware free media is available with every paper, magazine and cereal packet these days but in general these are crap and are better used
as coasters for hot drinks rather than for watching or listening to. This wasn’t going to provide the buzz to fill my need, unless I wolfed down a couple of packs of Cocoa rocks in order to liberate the free Scooby Doo DVD.
What I needed was something closer to the punk ethic of DIY, as well as being something that retained an air of exclusivity whilst remaining universally, and more importantly freely, available.

With this in mind I am beginning my journey into the uncharted waters of Podcasting. Its like the radio, only you don’t use a radio and you control you listen to and when, in other words, its only similarity with the radio is that you listen, as oppose to watching it.

I’ll be sampling (randomly, for the statisticians amongst you) various Podcasts over the coming months and providing you my thoughts on the best and worst of what I hear (including the links so you can hear for yourself). I’ve also decided that I will be, in the main, restricting myself to musically oriented ‘casts. There are other categories that may prove interesting and if any of these turn out to be fabulous I’ll let you know.

For starters if European womb/ chill out is your scene, check out the Spacemusic podcast from Rotterdam. Its updated every Sunday and is hosted by TC, who sports a great Dutch accent and is exactly who should be hosting the show (listen and you’ll know what I mean). Its okay to do the ironing to and much better than Parky or Steve Wright’s Sunday love songs (why don’t people understand that the reason that they are no longer with their ‘first love’ is that they got ditched and that their first love is not interested in them, especially when a Commodores track is quoted as being ‘our special favourite song’. Hurrrghhhh.), but won’t get your adrenalin pumping. Also avoid the corporate stuff, it will be as bland is a Radio Midlandshire’s 80s nostaligia weekend (‘The only way is up’
anyone?).

Think of my column as an antidote to Champagne Charlie’s excess, let me know of any recommendations that deserve a wider audience and lets see if I can resist any £50 man tendencies over the coming months.

Cheers

Roger

An ugly duckling matures gracefully

Barely a month goes by without some rock journalist from Mojo or Uncut mentioning MBVs Loveless and saying that it is the best album of its era or genre, but hardly anybody ever mentions Isnt anything. Shortly after buying Loveless in 1992, I proclaimed it a work of genius and set about acquiring everything that MBV had previously recorded. I suspect that a lot peoples record collections evolve in this way, in my case there a lots of bands whos albums I meant to buy but didnt ever quite get around to it which accounts for a number of odd albums.

Collecting MBV records was pretty easy as there arent too many of them and with stunning singles like You made me realise, it was a fruitful pastime. However, when I bought Isnt anything, and hurried home to play it, I can honestly say that I was disappointed. Im not sure it was that I was expecting to hear, as lets face it, most of Loveless takes a few plays to penetrate the distortion and acknowledge the tune amongst the cacophony.

Isnt anything, seemed like too much distortion to penetrate and didnt seem to offer the hidden hook lines like its successor. So like many other albums that didnt meet expectation, I put it with all of my other CDs and forgot about it.

A few years later, and after acquiring two kids and a mortgage, I found that I still had a thirst for records but no money to spend. A logical thing to do was to play all of the records that I had never got around to playing. This of course included Isnt anything. I found that one or two tracks were quite good after four or five plays. Then I must have got some money and bought some new stuff and Isnt Anything was again left to gather dust for a few years.

It wasn’t until having the flu in 2004 and being virtually housebound that I decided to give the album another chance as I couldnt get out to buy anything new. My thirst for new records again drove me back to it. In certain respects, it became more difficult to play as my partner and kids hated it. It was then that it all began to make sense and come together and became a truly enjoyable experience as opposed to a chore to play it. I had changed my mind about this record.

It was no longer an impenetrable drone of distortion but the best thrash and arguably amongst the most sophisticated in my collection. I would recommend anybody to play When you wake (youre still in a dream) at maximum volume 6 or 7 times to attempt to get the true measure of this album.

Kevin Sheilds remains a character of huge intrigue like a latter day Syd Barrett in how he has evaded the media, lived a reclusive life and took over 10 years to re-enter a studio. Persuaded by Sophie Copola, he returned for the soundtrack of Lost in Translation and didnt disappoint. His masterpiece, Loveless, will be celebrated for years to come but it is worth bearing in mind that Isnt anything is a fairly interesting album too.

Dig Dog

Queen – Killer Queen

We start with the only decent Queen song, and it even has Moet & Chandon in the lyric. As a child the words in this song had me very confused between gelatine and gelignite; unless Freddie actually meant to bring gunpowder to the kids’ party?

Sweet – Blockbuster

The first of a few Chinn/Chapman penned rockers on this compilation. They also wrote for Mud, Suzi Quattro, the Wombles and even Tina Turner. Blockbuster was also parodied by the mighty KLF in their alter ego the Timelords when they combined Chapman’s riff with the Dr Who theme tune for their no. 1 hit Doctorin’ the Tardis , which incidentally included Gary Glitter on backing vocals. Who said there was a formula for making hit records?

David Bowie – John, I’m Only Dancing

I could have picked any one of a number of Bowie’s early 70s numbers. Rebel Rebel also seems fitting, but hey John, I’m only Deejaying.

Iggy Pop – The Passenger

Another iconic artiste and timeless track and a logical follow-on from DB. Iggy, equally at home on punk and glam playlists, also inspires my recommended cover art for this offering.

The Faces – Stay With Me

A great track with swagger and balls and a good example of Rodney before he lost the plot.

T. Rex – Metal Guru

No glam playlist could be complete without a Bolan song or two. Here is Marc at his best. CC even named an old Subaru car he used to have after this one: “Metal Baru, noo ni noo” (see also lyrics that can be replaced with “noo ni noo” elsewhere on this website).

Bryan Ferry – Let’s Stick Together

Curiously similar to Canned Heat’s ‘Let’s Work Together’ , but as Bryan Ferry is frankly as cool as f*ck, who cares? And there’s some great moaning from Jerry Hall too.

Luxury – These Days

Glam does not necessarily mean 1970s. Introducing Luxury, first spotted (by me, in any case) in the movie Austin Powers International Man of Mystery. It’s the honky-tonk piano-rock swinging glam chorus that saves this otherwise ordinary track, with its almost dragging indie-rock verse. But it still makes the list whilst other modernist glammers do not.

Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough

A seminal no. 1 hit from a truly bizarre group. From the opening gunshot through searing guitars, it’s fair to say that without this, Goldfrapp would never have happened.

Rubettes – Sugar Baby Love

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Glam generally has a simplistic RocknRoll subtext. Here’s the exception that proves the rule, a simplistic RnB/ Motown Girl Group subtext, but hey it works and it was the 70s so anything goes. Bop-showaddy-waddy, as they say. Not to mention those oversized flat caps they wore!

Blur – Maggie May

Rod Stewart has already had a look in, so how about a top cover version? Taken from the NME’s Roaring Forty, where contemporary mid-90s bands took on their favourite no.1s, Mr All-bran et al pull this one off with aplomb, possibly second only to Vic Reeves version of Vienna (which wasn’t actually a no.1, being kept off the top spot by Jo Dolce’s Shaddappaya Face). Vic went totally surreal, confusing Austria’s first city with Belgium, criticising the Belgian’s fascist policing skills and imploring Vera to “have a tortellini”. It means nothing to I. Blur on the other hand played it straight. Great use of axe-flip-out amp feedback too as Graham Coxon hits the guitar solo \’85 rock on!

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Make me Smile (Come up and See Me)

I veered away from cover versions with this one though – the diabolical effort by Duran Duran on the flip side of The Reflex is well worth avoiding, especially when the original is a near perfect example of a glam ballad, if there is such a thing. Mr Harley certainly looked the part too. It could be argued he’s since lost the plot, although more in the Julian Cope way than in the Rod Stewart sense.

Roxy Music – Virginia Plain

Great looking band, cool front man, rambling incoherent lyric, odd ending, relentless dance-floor pop bass riff – wonderful!

Mott the Hoople – All the Young Dudes

This is a great song that actually acknowledges the dangers of being a glam rocker (“Freddy’s got spots from ripping off the stars from his face”). Legend has it David Bowie wrote this song for Mott after seeing them live and hearing they were going to split up. The rest is history. It also features Bowie on backing vocals. This title of the song was even parodied by the Clash (All the Young Punks from Give ‘Em Enough Rope in 1978): another few brushstrokes on pop’s rich canvass!

T. Rex – Solid Gold Easy Action

Another outing for glam giant Marc Bolan; the lyric reflects the hedonistic easy-going pleasures of any man with a huge perm and a leopard skin suit.

Suede – The Beautiful Ones

That’s ‘London Suede’ to all you Yankees out there. Swaggering indie rock meets glam never better than in this hit from the 90s. Brett Anderson is cooler than Bryan Ferry – well almost!

Lou Reed – Perfect Day

Not a glam song as such. Not really a glam artist. More heroin chic, a la Trainspotting. Not that I condone train-spotting, although come to think of it I’ll bet a significant number of 1970s glam fans were actually train-spotters as well, I know my big brother was.

Louis XIV – A Letter to Dominique

Glam is alive and well and living in 17th century France (?). Taken from Louis’ 2005 album All the Best Secrets. This band rock, and if it wasn’t for QUIMS I would never had heard of them. I’m pretty certain the music bears homage to Marc Bolan’s Metal Guru, but the lyric about a pretty girl who writes herself a death letter before she suicides and our narrator comments its a shame because there’s no one left to watch her TV is SICK. However it somehow brings glam right up-to-date for the 21st century.

Sweet – Ballroom Blitz

Here’s another Chapman/Chinn effort. Bit poppy this one, but what a stomper! Oft covered, but never matched.

ELO – Livin’ Thing

When Dirk Diggler reveals the real star of the show by getting his nob out to this song during the final act of Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut movie, I realised two things (1) Boogie Nights is a great movie (possibly one of the best ever made – by the way 70s disco will be the subject of Champagne Charly’s Retro Playlist soon), and (2) ELO were a genuinely unique band. It made me get out my 7-inch (!) vinyl copy of ELO’s Livin’ Thing, a single I bought when I was just eight years old. I must’ve known I was onto something, erm, big.

Supergrass – Pumping of Your Stereo

The “Graaaaass” come in musical styles aplenty; from punk sentiment on Caught by the Fuzz through to the Monkees-inspired pop of Alright. Sure, they’ve misfired many times with their over-analysed muso credentials, but whether they’re ‘humping’ or ‘pumping’ on your stereo, this is their rather splendid nod to glam – and a fine way to close the playlist.

What’s not in

Suzi Quattro – Glam is like another 70s invention, the Yorkie, and it’s NOT FOR GIRLS!

Gary Glitter – It’s not for pervs either!

Elton John – see Suzi Quattro.

Mud, Alvin Stardust, David Essex – too poppy

Scissor Sisters – See Elton John.

Slade – as the Stranglers might say “No Noddy, no Noddy, no, no no!”

The Tubes – looked glam but sounded punk. If Iggy Pop can slip into either category, here is an example of a band that can slip into neither.

Showaddywaddy – need I even say why?

Title and cover art

The title would have to be Wham Bam Thank You Glam! (a twisted take on the lyric from David Bowie’s Suffragette City. For artwork I would suggest a still from the movie Velvet Goldmine , featuring either Jonathan Rhys Meyers or Ewan MacGregor as Iggy and Bowie inspired glam stars.

Champagne Charly’s Cocktail Corner

Traditional – French 75

Glam is about looking effete, but being manly underneath. Here is a cocktail that looks like a glass of Champagne, but has a real sting in its tail.

25ml Cognac
Dash Angosturra Bitters
Sugar Cube
Chilled Champange (Moet & Chandon for that Killer Queen vibe)
Slice of orange to garnish

Champagne glass

Dash bitters onto sugar cube and drop into glass with the Cognac. Top with chilled Champagne and garnish. Stir briefly.

Modern – Cosmopolitan

Here is a proper man’s cocktail, despite being often drunk by women (being as it was popularised throughout the western world by Sex in the City) and it certainly looks girly. Trust me, it\rquote s a burlesque, hairy gender-bender.

50ml Citrus Vodka (preferably Stoli Citros)
25ml Triple Sec
Juice of 1 lime
50ml Cranberry Juice Cocktail (possibly a little more, to taste)
Wedge of lime to garnish

Cocktail flute or Margarita glass
Alternatively can be served on the rocks in an Old Fashioned glass.

Half fill a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Add all ingredients and shake until thoroughly chilled. Strain into chilled flute. Squeeze a bit of extra lime on top, garnish with lime wedge and serve with a short pink straw (if you dare).

For the ladies – Pina Colada

I’ve told you Glam is not for girls, but if they insist on joining you, make them something sweet, strong and fancy looking that was popular in the 70s and they’ll get the picture.

50ml Caribbean Rum (Barbados Mount Gay is Charly’s particular favourite)
50ml pineapple juice
25ml cream of coconut
100ml crushed ice
Pineapple stick and maraschino cherry to garnish, an umbrella perhaps

Wine glass

Whirl all ingredients in Glenda the Blender, pour into a wine glass, garnish and serve with a straw.

Theme: Spend £5.00 in a charity shop

Present: Bob Mark Kul and Martin

As we hadnt seen each other in a while, this was a catch up session as much as anything round at my house.

I used my £5.00 in various local charity shops. In the one on our estate I picked up the 1969 Elvis TV special comeback LP and 2 tapes for £1.50. One of the tapes was Wicked Games a Chris Isaak comp that has the instrumental version of the title track (as used in the film Wild at Heart, but doesnt feature on the Wild at Heart soundtrack album!). The other tape was the Frank Black LP Frank Black from 93 containing a massive 15 tunes An absolute bargain!

Next to the Cancer Research shop in Moortown – Got 2 CD singles – The Sultans of Ping FC novelty hit Wheres me jumper for £0.75, The wonderful I want you by Inspiral Carpets (with Mark E Smith helping on vocals-ah) for £1.00 and a tape of Elvis Costellos Armed Forces for £0.30 that has a live version of Accidents will happen as an extra track.

With my last £1.45 I went along the parade to the Oxfam shop where I found another 2 CD singles Last stop this town by the Eels (featuring a Moog version of their hit Novocaine for the soul) and All the small things by Blink 182, both for £0.4947 pence change from a fiver I was very proud of myself!

Mark used his £5.00 on an LP he heard being played in the Headingley Oxfam shop (it has a large, dedicated music section). I loved the 1st track, then the 2nd was just as good and by the third I asked if I could buy it. Planet Funk Funky 45s features Aaron Collins and Lee Dorsey who Id heard of, and 10 other artists I hadnt (Freddy Scotts Orchestra, Wilbur Bascomb, The Dynamic Conceptsetc.). It instantly made us feel like we were in a Quentin Tarrantino film I felt obliged to offer them drugs whilst waving a gun around and swearing profusely.

Kul hadnt really grasped the concept and spent £5.00 at a charity shopon a new baby chair (he was about to have twins).

Martin (fairly new to parenthood) just hadnt had time to get to a charity shop so brought his vinyl collection round that hed recently recovered from his mums attic which he very kindly donated to my collection, as he hasnt had a record player in years. There were 30+ LPs that I didnt have including (for the 2nd time tonight) Inspiral Carpets Life and a brace of Monochrome Set LPs. There was also 40+ singles including 2 x 45s Id always wanted, Kinky Boots by Patrick MacNee + Honor Blackman and Stakker Humanoid by Humanoid What a result!

During the evening (I cant quite remember how) Marks love of the London Underground map came up, which got me to dig out the map with bands replacing station names and the lines being different musical genres a work of genius.

Mark and Kul are comic aficionados so I got out my latest purchase (The comics journal library, Volume 2: Frank Millar (2003) Fantagraphics Books, Seattle ) a fabulous book of interviews with Frank Millar heavily illustrated with his work. It was one of those books I was flicking through whilst having a coffee in Borders and just didnt have the heart to put it back on the shelf. Millars wonderful illustrations for Sin City lead onto a conversation about his film work. He gets a pencil in his head in the Daredevil movie, wrote Robocop2 not bad and Robocop3 a bloody awful film! We all agreed that the original Robocop movie was one of our top 10 films so we rounded off the night watching it Id buy that for a dollar!