Music channels are only any good at 2 or 3 in the morning - discuss

You only find good stuff on Satellite channels after 11 at night. This is fact. Okay, you have to to wade through loads of bad rap and terrible nu-metal-stroke-emo, and most channels either get signed in the bottom right corner of the screen or turn into teleshopping by 2am, but the bottom line is that we've been watching Massive Attack, Cocteau Twins, New Order, Elbow, Bat For Lashes, Travis, Portishead, AC/DC, Blur, Ash, Weezer, Lenny Kravitz, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, old Madonna vids, Blink 182,  Fatboy Slim... and so on.  

Why is this? Why can't they do this in the day? And why do most channels shut down after 2 only to be replaced with Tommy Walsh from Ground Force flogging some cack?? 

And then you find this...

Slippery When Wet

"Football... bloody hell" said Alex Ferguson after the European Cup Final win in 1999, completing the legendary treble for United and gaining himself a knighthood. Never were truer words spoken. Just over a week ago, the team put every fan through the grinder by leaving it until the last day of the season to clinch the victory needed to win the Premier League again, leaving a plucky Chelsea as runners-up. Now the question was... could we do it to them again in the Champions League Final in Moscow?

Well, yes we could... and did! But not without making every fan sweat with anxiety like Chris Langham outside school gates. With both teams able to field arguably their strongest team selection of the season this was always going to go the distance and be a war of nerves and attrition. Chelsea were in their first ever Champions League final and were looking for revenge for being pipped to the league title. They'd had a bad start to the season with "the special one" leaving and being replaced by Avram Grant, a man with a face that looks like a Marvel supervillain. By plugging away though by the end of the season they were neck and neck with us - however we are past masters of the end of season run in, and we also had the goal machine that was Ronaldo to make our goal difference a major factor. In the end they bottled it on the last day and we won comfortably. Ish.

So to the final. 50 years on from the Munich disaster, 40 years on from our '68 European Cup Victory, Ryan Giggs looking to beat Charlton's appearance record, Ronaldo looking for that 42nd goal of the season. It had to be didn't it?

20 minutes and United had most of the possession but hadn't managed to do anything much with it. Hargreaves was running Ashley Cole ragged on the right, the midfield were bossing Chelsea around but it took time to make that decisive first strike. Then Ronaldo managed to make Essien look very ordinary and shrugged him off to get that header. One nil.

The rest of the first half was all United. It was a question of how many could we score with Tevez missing a sitter. However evil forces were at work and intervened just before half time, as Lampard managed to get an equalizer from a couple of unfortunate deflections on our part. So the jammy bastards manged to go in at half time undeservedly level.

Dunno what Grant said to the Chelsea team at half time but they came back a different team. The reds never really got any possession in the second half and were damn lucky to hold on to a 1-1, as they had a couple of shots off the post and crossbar. Rooney disappeared, Tevez wasn't really getting any joy and Ronaldo was a shadow of the Player Of The Year we'd seen most of the season. Scholes & Carrick were being forced further back and Vidic and Ferdinand were kept very busy by the blues.

Extra time it was, and again United struggled as the rain began to pour down. Giggs though almost managed a goal after coming on as a sub, which was kept from going in by a typical John Terry "where the fuck did he come from?" defensive header away. From this point on we managed to get a grip back on the match and there was belief we could do it.

Throughout the match Chelsea players had been surrounding the ref jostling and arguing every decision that they felt was against them. Following a stop in the game due to injury, Tevez kicked the ball out of play in the Chelsea half instead of passing back to Chelsea, because this was the same tactic that Chelsea pulled earlier in the game when they should have passed the ball back to United players in their half. Gentleman's agreement and all that. They didn't like this and Drogba got unnecessarily involved and gave Vidic a girlie slap in the face in the line of the referee's sight. To be honest it was lucky that the ref sent Drogba off as I'd hate to see what he'd look like if Vidic had managed to get at him. Duing all this melee brave John Terry managed to give Tevez some verbals and spat at him but got away with this. So, down to ten men and a bit rattled, Chelsea seemed glad to see out extra time for a penalty shoot out.

I'm not a fan of these. Following England for years you sort of get used to them, but never like them. It's not a great way to decide a match. Great drama for a neutral but not for a fan of either team involved.

Tevez scores for United. Ballack scores for Chelsea. Carrick confidently scores for the reds. Belletti scores for Chelsea.

The player you'd expect to score a penalty then... doesn't. Ronaldo did his trademark start stop start run up and Cech guessed the right way (to be fair you could see it coming a mile off). Was Ronaldo going to go down as the person who stopped United from winning the cup? Well, no...

Lampard scores for Chelsea. Hargreaves scores a belter for us. Wife cheating Ashley Cole (poor Cheryl) scores for Chelsea, and Nani scores for Man United.

Now, history always tells us there's got to big a victim in these proceedings, a person who will become for lazy comedy slags and sport commentators everywhere shorthand for fucking up bigstyle, and tonight ladies and gentlemen, we've chosen a very special person for the job. No Ronaldo, not you, stop blubbing and sit down. Somebody else... Drogba's sending off meant that he wouldn't be the fifth person to stand up and take a penalty. So who could take that job? Who had the nerve to replace him as the person who'd take the fifth penalty and therefore in theory the glory of being the one who'd win them the cup? Well, before the shoot out the lists were drawn up and a Mr John Terry said he'd be up to the job.

"The pitch is the same for both sides and if we get the footwear right we will be fine. We are not worrying about that at all" - John Terry speaking before the match. Well, at match point for the biggest Club trophy of all, JT tries to be clever, slips whilst kicking the ball in the rain and misses.
Equilibrium restored, and I, like Terry, manage to just about pick myself off the floor.


Sudden death. Anderson scores for Man United. Kalou... scores for Chelsea. Giggsy's next. Do you think on a night like this he's going to miss. Nope. Record's already been set, penalty scored, pressure back on Chelsea.

But what's this coming over the hill, is it Anelka? Is it Anelka? Errr, yes. The well travelled one is here to keep his latest team in the cup. Being ex-Liverpool, Arsenal, City and now at Chelsea is enough to make him a legendarily unpopular at Old Trafford, but not anymore. We like him now. All because Edwin Van Der Sar guesses the right way and Nicolas Anelka's attempt is saved.



And that's it.

We've won the European Cup.

Again.


It really doesn't fully sink in until I see Michael Ballack crying. Always reassuring to see a German in tears, ala 1999. But this was different from the treble year. Back then we thought we'd lost it, and there was no way back but the comeback happened so fast the win was almost orgasmic. Moscow had been like Russian Roulette, however, with Chelsea playing the Christopher Walken role. John Terry mopes about in tears in the rain, visibly looking like he's aged twenty years in 5 minutes, with the weight of the knowledge that if he'd had scored he'd have a European Cup Winner's medal. But as United's Rio Ferdinand can proudly boast to his England team mate in future, "the winner's medal is much like a Chocolate Orange. It's not Terry's, it's mine".

James - Blackpool Empress Ballroom 23/04/08

James played at Blackpool a week last Tuesday, returning to the scene of their previous legendary performances at the Empress Ballroom in 1990 and 2000, but promoting their first full album since the reformation of the classic "Seven-era" line up, 'Hey Ma".

Naturally Celia & I weren't going to miss out on them appearing on our doorstep. We last saw James back in 2001 at their (at the time) farewell performance in Manchester (captured on the "Getting Away With It Live" DVD). Nothing really was going to top that, not even seeing Tim Booth up close and personal at the Royal College of Music gig in 2004. Now I'd seen James a few times in the past before I met Celia, two of these gigs also being in Blackpool so for me there was going to be a lot to live up to.

Was it a big mistake for them to try and recapture past glories? Would the original line up be able to still pull it off? And more so, was the new material any good? Two minutes into the gig and any such worries were allayed. James were back. Opening with the popular track "Upside"from the new album, followed by the wonderful old fave "Born Of Frustration", the band showed why they were missed so much. They ploughed through a setlist comprising of plenty of tracks from the new album interspersed with old faves.

Now having played the album a couple of times before attending to the gig, it sounded okay but nothing special. On stage though the songs came alive and sounded like old friends. The slightly reworked old stuff came alive and sounded really fresh, 'Sound" and "Sometimes" becoming almost like football terrace singalongs, and "Come Home", "Waltzing Along" and "Tomorrow" provoking a frenzied response from the crowd.

So there you have it - they're back, rejuvinated with some great new material, sounding as good as ever. Whether they can reassert themselves in the music business is another story, but with sell out tours and an adoring audience, for now they're flying.

The set list:

Upside,

Born Of Frustration,

Waltzing Along,

Oh My Heart,

Boom Boom,

Ring The Bells,

Hey Ma,

Bubbles,

Come Home,

Of Monsters And Heroes And Men,

I Wanna Go Home,

Out To Get You,

Waterfall,

She's A Star,

Sound,

Tomorrow

followed by an encore:

Say Something,

Whiteboy

and Sometimes

Great Animal Pictures Of Our Time: No. 256

The Great Rock & Roll Swindle

Back in the mists of time (alright, 1993) yours truly saw what is to this day one of the best gigs I've ever attended. My future wife also unbeknown to me was there but that's another story for another time. Anyway, U2's Zooropa Outside Broadcast leg of their mammoth Zoo TV tour finally reached Britain and I had a ticket for the gig at Leeds Roundhay Park. The price of the ticket was a then whopping £22.00, which bearing in mind the average ticket price was around £12.00, was quite a price to pay. But worth every penny.

We spin on four years. A trek out to Roundhay Park again to see U2's follow up multimedia spectacular. Despite their album not really setting the world alight at the time, the tour was a success and the tickets sold very well indeed, and were priced at £28.50. Six quid increase in four years... fair enough. Another fabulous gig.

Forward to August 2001. U2 are now again the biggest band in the world. They'd reined in their experimental ways and with the "All You Can Leave Behind" had gone back to the traditional "classic" U2 sound and sold shedloads as a result. The tour wasn't visually spectacular as before, instead they concentrated on the "performance" with only the minimal of video screen trickery. This time there were no outdoor dates, only Arenas. The tour sold out almost immediately, being their first to really take advantage of Internet sales. But hey. Check the price. £40.00. And that was for the second tier of the Arena. Not a great view.

And then we get to 2005...

Outdoors, more elaborate staging than the last tour, extra £20 on top of the previous price. What's going on then? In just 12 years the ticket price has more than doubled.

This isn't isolated to U2 - across the board over the last 5 years ticket prices have risen alarmingly. Back in 2002 I saw Kylie at the MEN Arena, cost around £25.00. If I wanted to see her now at the same venue, i'm looking at £50. That's before booking fees (I'll get to that later). Even the right-on Radiohead are guilty of similar crimes.

A ticket to see them in Blackpool at their commercial peak on the "OK Computer" tour of 1997 cost £12.50. The price of a CD. Their 2000 series of Big Top dates doubled in price, but we let them off as they appeared to be taking a stance by not having any corporate advertising and subsidising it themselves. However two years ago, at Blackpool again, the ticket cost £32.50. Less than ten years and nearly three times the price. Their current tour is priced at £42.50. I'm not attending.

Festivals are as bad. Not only have they doubled in price over about 5 or 6 years but they now sell out within 2 hours... and this is before the full line-ups are known. It's maaaaaddd.

Let's face it, we know what's going on. CD sales have been dying on their arse ever since the internet was invented. Bands now can make more money from a successful tour than their latest album. Much like tickets for sports events are seen as premium product, artists have begun to see since the turn of the century that they can charge more for tickets, without seeing any appreciable downturn in demand. Funny really - Madonna can do two nights at Earl's Court and earn as much as she would have done doing a week there say 5 years ago. The likes of The Police can charge £60 upwards for tickets and they still sell out. Ticket sales and merchandise are where the moolah is.

That's if you can get hold of a ticket... as they're now a desirable lifestyle statement - "I've got a ticket for The White Stripes... look at me... what a twat I am" - there's now the horrible task of having to buy a ticket on the day they're released... or else you don't go. Once upon a time you'd send off a cheque to a PO Box and get the ticket back in a few weeks. Back in my day (old fart that I am) you'd go to the box office or ring them up and book over the phone, and very rarely would you be disappointed. Nowadays you sit huddled round a computer at 9am on a Friday morning, looged in to Ticketmaster or suchlike pressing refresh for half an hour until you manage to get a ticket usually at the back of the Arena. Oh and then paying a fiver upwards PER TICKET for "booking fees" & "admin", i.e. putting a ticket in an envelope, sticking a stamp on and shoving it in the post. Bastards.

I had so much bother booking a couple of tickets for Steve Coogan at Blackpool via Ticketmaster that I said sod this for a lark and went down in the car to the box office where I purchased a couple of front row seats with an admin charge of a quid. Oh happy day.

So what's the answer? Go to less gigs I guess. We voted with our feet a couple of years ago and refused to pay £32.50 a ticket for Blondie, played it cool and waited until the last minute before the gig started and got a pair from a tout for £20 all in. Alternatively there's e-Bay - Pet Shop Boys tickets at £35 each? Naaahh, we'll have a couple at £30 for the pair thanks. "The Man" has managed to price me out of seeing my beloved United at Old Trafford, and now is putting the kybosh on regular gig going. Having said all that, I'll probably still go to see U2 again though...

Men's Mag vs Lad Mag: Round 2

Previously I went off on a massive rant in a blog posting about the declining quality of magazines for men. Well, less than 12 months on, maybe it's an end of an era. Top shelf perv-merchant extrordinaire Paul Raymond has shuffled off, and in the middle shelf men's mag world the tide's turned, and I can sit here looking somewhat smug, as the industry has had similar thoughts to mine. The old editors have been given the heave-ho and a new attitude has taken over... or is it an old attitude? The top magazines MAXIM & FHM have now radically cleaned up their image, and you'll rarely find a nipple on show (unless they're doing an article on Jamie Oliver). They've actually got semi-readable articles, the babes (and there are fewer than before) are tastefully shot now, and it's like the old days of the mid-nineties again.

Blimey, MAXIM's even got a Gillian Anderson photoshoot in it this month. Have I gone through some sort of "Ashes to Ashes"-esque step back to 1996? Please don't make me have to listen to Shed Seven again.

So FHM & MAXIM join the likes of GQ, ARENA, and ESQUIRE as the respectable face of men's mags, ARENA have even gone as far as having blokes back on the cover (Joe Calzaghe anyone?).
It's only a small victory though. We've still got LOADED, FRONT and their junior offspring NUTS & ZOO down in the gutter, with the same amount of boobs, gore and crap jokes as ever, selling in copious amounts.

Ah well. Never mind. We're making inroads.

Nice knockers though... PHWOOOAARRRRRRRRR, LOOK AT THOSE (Sniiiip - That's enough - Ed).

It's that time of year again

Yep. It's "The Brits" 2008, and time for my yearly slag-off critique of the music industry's annual backslap. And what a pile of cack it was. Mostly. But why should I expect anything better? Remember last year's farrago?

Let's get the good bits over with.

1. Rihanna & The Klaxons.

The biggest record of last year, Rihanna's "Umbrella" gets a indie make over/mash up with Mercury Prize Wiiners The Klaxon's "Golden Skans". With a performance obscured/enhanced (depending on your point of view) by loads of lasers, the band themselves dressed in medieval attire ala Spandau Ballet circa 1981, whilst Rihanna towered over them in a Grace Jones-esque stylee. Whatever. Anyway this could have been crap but was actually just a little short of brilliant. Good to see some effort to entertain being made. Disappointing to notice the Klaxons were miming though whilst Rihanna sang live. She didn't win an award on the night, but she's got plenty of time in the future for those. The person who did win in her category was...

2. Kylie.

Now so famous now she can drop her surname. She gave a great performance of her latest single "Wow" in a dress which can only be described as trouser-troubling for any red-blooded male viewing. Hubba. She won "Best International Female" which to be honest was probably a bit of a sympathy vote by whoever votes for these things, bearing in mind the last few years' illness. Her tenth album "X" (hey! clever) hasn't exactly set the charts alight, but that doesn't matter. It's Kylie. That's enough for me. And as it's my blog I can have another massive picture of Kylie if I want. And so I shall.

3. Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft. How can you knock anyone who wrote "Live & Let Die"? Well he did open with the insipid "Dance Tonight" but he's got an album to flog so we'll let him off. Disappointingly he didn't follow the performance of his Bond song with "Spies Like Us" or "We All Stand Together" but you can't have everything, as Heather will find out soon. Altogether now: "Lady McCartney, children by your stump..."

4. Dave Grohl taking the piss on accepting his two awards. Honouring the fact that he's in such distinguished company as previous Brit winners Culture Club and Bros. And he couldn't make it to the UK as they've "just sold out Madison Square Garden". Is that Kurt I can hear rolling? Good.

5. The Winehouse.

It's like watching a car crash happen, her performances both solo and with Mark Ronson (more later) veered between brilliant and lousy, often in the same breath. But it's good to see her up doing what she's actually good at - keep out of the papers love, and off the smack and you could have some sort of career.

And that's it.

The bad? Well, it was such a dismal show this year that there wasn't really anything to get angry about. Apart from...


Sharon Fucking Osbourne. I haven't really got an issue with the rest of the family, they were inoffensive enough (did Ozzy actually do anything?) but who the hell does she think she is? I'd swear she was about as half cut as Judy Finnegan on a day-off by half way through the show. When Vic Reeves was messing about she had the gall to tell him on microphone to "Piss off... you pisshead" and cut him off from reading the winner of the award. Pot-kettle-black. Who's idea was it to have her and her family "present"? What's wrong with getting someone who's competent? Oh right. It's the Brits. Anyway you can only hope she has a ride in the quad bike with Ozzy. Get her off our screens now.

Mark Ronson as "Best British Male Artist". Right, 'cos he really does a lot on the records. He's a fucking producer for Gawd's sake. He should have won the producer award, except they dumped that a few years ago. And he's only applied for and got US citizenship this week. Yeah, British as they come. And he's never going to make Daniel Merriweather a star. Just stop it now. I'm only jealous 'cos Ronson's so cool and famous. What happened to the days when an actual performer won this category?

Mika. Yeah, some half decent records but really, there's a CBeebies show without a presenter. All he's missing are dungarees.


Kate Nash's dress seem to emphasise her shoulders a bit too much and made her look like the Honey Monster. Bless. I do like her really, the cockernee wench.

Fearne Cotton's useless backstage interviews. Why she wants to look like Madonna from three years ago I don't know. She really is crap personified. The bland interviewing the bland. Bring back Kate Thornton (no, don't). However bearing in mind the quality of the presentation ON stage, she looked like Kate Aidey.

Girls Aloud should have won a Brit Award by now, for Christ's sake. They're the best pop band in Britain - one day they'll get recognition, you mark my words. "Call The Shots" is clearly the best single from last year, not fucking "Shine" by Take That. That's used on a sodding Morrisons advert with Alan Bleeding Hansen, that's how good that is.

Those students of the Brits School. From the look of them, gassing is the only viable option.

The rest of it washed over you leaving you with a general "meh" feeling. If this is a celebration of the best of British music, we might as well pack up now. I blame iPods and the Interweb. Bah.