POSTCARDS FROM THE HEDGE

"We Are The Masters Of Earth..."

2010-07-09T22:11:00.001+01:00

I am 40 years old by the way.

An update from a cat earlier today

2010-06-28T01:17:00.000+01:00

Meow. Remember me?

Yes it's me, Greebo Cat, reporting for Furry News. Not put any messages up for a while. Hey, it's all about Twitter these days (though I thought that was something to do with killing birds... hey ho). Just thought I'd report that it's too bleedin' hot at the mo and it's disturbing my sleep. Not that I get proper sleep these days with the strange hours that the bald monkeys are keeping these days. Bastards. And then there's that buzzy noise on the telly when the stupid men are kicking the ball about. Don't they know it's all about catching it and then kicking the hell out of it with your back paws? None of this putting it in the net bollocks (though England seem to be quite good at not putting it in the net ha ha ha ha ha).

AND my fur is going grey, as well as my garden being invaded by that dopey girl cat from over the fence. Ooh it's all go. Still, at least I've not had to go into Guantanamo for a while. I think they've learnt their lesson there...

Right, got to go and catch up on some sleep. Only got 23 hours yesterday and I'm knackered.

Germany 4 England 1. Oh dear.

2010-06-27T19:29:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to say that after the World Cup in 2006 I swore I'd never get worked up by the England Football Team ever again. Too many years of heartbreak and/or terrible teams had taken it's toll and I swore... no more. So for the past four years it's been a case of not being bothered about qualifiers and team selections... and it's been great. World Cup 2010 in South Africa has come, England qualified, turned up in body, not in spirit or talent, and got through the first round somehow. Today they faced the old enemy Germany, and got their arses well and truly kicked. Disappointing, but frankly I'm not bothered. I'd dissociated myself a long time back and was under no illusions that we'd do nothing. Arsed.

Don't let the goal that never was cloud your view - England may have had a chance at 2-2 but frankly the defending was so poor we'd have been beaten 4-2. Is it the manager Capello's fault? Is it the players? Not really bothered - the only thing I hope is that this result prompts the FA into taking down the whole England set up and starting from scratch. Get the young players in and plan for 2014, NOT the Euros.

Now we're weeding out the shit teams the World Cup may take off and some quality may surface. You can but hope.

More from Smash Hits '84!

2010-06-21T22:27:00.000+01:00

More SMASH HITS nonsense!!!! This time from early Autumn 1984... September to be precise. This issue's cover star is the mighty Stuart Goddard, aka Adam Ant, back from the pop dumpster after the previous year's panto-pop shocker "Puss in Boots". This time he's got a new concept kids. He's an rockabilly boxing astronaut!! Of course he is... and he is about to have a top 20 hit with "Apollo 9", a mad ahead-of-it's-time classic. But this would be the final appearance of the Antster on the cover of ver Hits. Indeed, we'd see little more of him for the rest of the 80's bar a forgettable Live Aid performance the following year. Shame. Still in retrospect you can see where it all began to go wrong...

Also, tucked away in the top left corner is Dame David Bowie! Hurrah! Following the success of the 1983 "Let's Dance" album, the Dame returns with "Blue Jean"! A great single but with an awful video complete with (deep breath) "acting" from Dave. We all know how bad that is. All the previous year's good work was undone by the accompanying "Tonight" album, which is frankly cack, much like his output from there on. "Dancing in the Streets" and Tin Machine await... Big marks to the designers of the cover though - how Eighties is that? Fabulous.

Classic Hits cover to the left. Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon at his most punchable best. Wearing a great T-shirt. Gawd knows what he's on the cover for as they didn't have any records out - still those were the days... when it wasn't all about promotion. Also... George Michael solo!! Dumping Andrew for a solo single (a taste of things to come) with "Careless Whisper". Culture Club...in Japan! As dull as Culture Club would be anywhere I suppose. Prince is there, as "Purple Rain" is massive this year. And rightly so. Thompson Twins and Spandau Ballet are also featured but they are bound for the dumper very soon. And rightly so. Yes Divine IS mentioned on the cover, as "You Think You're A Man" is a big gay crossover hit (1984 is big on hi-energy single hits - Hazell Dean anybody?).

"What's This Hippy Doing Here?" barks the coverline for this issue. He is of course Neil from "The Young Ones" played by Nigel Planer who's having a massive hit with a cover of Donovan's "Hole In My Shoe" on the back of the success of the second series of the show. And amazingly for a comedy record, it was and still is bloody good. No negative vibe merchants here.

Other nonsense in this issue includes diminutive teenage fave singer songwriter Nik Kershaw (he's the one that's not Howard Jones) who wasn't letting the sun go down on him. His fans may have been a different matter. Michael Jackson features for some reason, the "Thriller" era being well over by now. OMD are hardy perrenials still having single hits, this one being the twee "Talking Loud & Clear". Blurrghhh. Oh and Martin Kemp. Double blurghhhhh.

AWOOGA! AWOOGA! MULLETS AHOY!! Adorning the Readers' Poll issue are these two blokes with questionable hair. One of the statements on this cover may have been true (for some), the other proved to be entirely incorrect. For the gentlemen on the right is John Taylor, charismatic (or "fit" if you're a gurl) bass player for Duran Duran. The bloke on the left is the son of a dead Beatle. Alas, Julian Lennon (for it is he) had a great hit with "Too Late For Goodbyes" which sounded almost entirely like an outtake by his dad. And it was goodbye to Julian for a few years as he never troubled the charts again until 1991 and the dire "Saltwater". Again, the Smash Hits readers fail to predict the stars of the future, instead voting for someone with big hair (Howard Jones won the previous year).

The Readers' Poll issue would notoriously be pamphlet thin and a time filler over Christmas until we got to the New Year... which this time would be 1985!!! More soon...

Hey! The garden CAN look nice...

2010-06-21T19:03:00.000+01:00

So we thought it'd be nice to add some colour to the poor old garden...

Some yellow ones with a bit of red....

...some pink ones...

...and these are... blue I think...

... red flowers in a pot...

...and some more pink ones.

Greebo was less than impressed with our hard work-stroke-buying in skills.

"Where can I have a piss now?"

Doop doo doo doo doop... 1984! More Smash Hits ramblings...

2010-06-21T18:40:00.000+01:00

Welcome to 1984!!! George Orwell... Big Brother and all that... but an abysmal Eurythmics single comes later in the year. Let's see what Smash Hits brought us early on...

Let us celebrate the first of a great many appearances on the ver cover of ver Hits by Madge herself, looking fantastic in her green Benetton jumper and far too many bangles for one wrist (I'm sure there's a joke there about wrist action and the Bangles but I'll leave it). This must be publicising either "Holiday" or "Lucky Star", and was a birrova gamble for the mag to put her on the cover so early in her career. Still it didn't do Jimmy the Hoover any harm... oh.

Also hanging on for dear life to the pop lifeboat are the Limahl-less Kajagoogoo, limping on regardless with the charisma free Nick Beggs at the helm. US soap star turned singer Rick Springfield also merits a cover mention for some God forsaken reason, and there's Re-Flex!! "The Politics of Dancing... the politics of oooohhhhh feeling good!" as their one hit went (it's on Now II, sensation seekers). Tracey Ullman hasn't at this point legged it to be massive in America and is still hawking fine 60's pastiches on the Stiff record label. But who's that in big letters? Lord Frederick Of Mercury and Queen of course, who suddenly were back back BACK!! and became poptastic again with "Radio Ga Ga". They would show no sign of becoming crap again for the rest of the decade. Welcome back sirs!!

Fast forward to April. Who are these ugly bastards ruining the cover of my fortnightly pop periodical? Oh it's those controversial scousers Frankie Goes to Hollywood, looking well hard in army & navy gear publicising single of the year "Two Tribes" which would dominate the charts for the rest of the summer. Can you spot the gay members of the band kids?

Apparently also featured are Dead or Alive, so this must be their pre-Stock Aitken & Waterman era (i.e. cack); Duran Duran being generally massive with "The Reflex" and... look! Like the turd that won't flush away, Nick Heyward refusing to accept that he's down the dumper and still hanging on to adulation by looks alone.

Hit songs by OMD ("Crossing every ocean for the sake of Locomotion"... oh dear), ver Bunnymen in imperial mode with "The Killing Moon" and Shannon with the record that invented the Pet Shop Boys... "Let The Music Play". Good stuff. We'll gloss over Mr Collins.

Blimey. It's Wham! (always with an exclaimation mark please) beaming away on the cover. "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" had been number one and catapulted the suntanned Princess Di Hair-alike George and proto-Bez Andrew into the higher echelons of the pop royalty. Suddenly 1984 was all about them, Duran, Frankie and Spandau. Goodo.

Also in this issue was more Madge, Manchester's finest New Order who were in the charts with the majestic "Thieves Like Us", and the now perv-mungous Depeche Mode who'd gone from plinketty plonk synth meisters under Vince Clarke to purveyors of industrial clangy metal synth with Martin Gore in charge or songwriting. Brrrrrrr.

Plus hit songs by Howard Jones ("Pearl In The Shell" - "Shit in the Bog" more like), pre-"Kayleigh" Marillion (avoid), and Limahl, who's like an untalented Nick Heyward at this point.

More soon....

Long time no speak

2010-06-10T12:16:00.001+01:00

Just a quick update - there's been no posts due to personal circumstances. All I will say is that our son was born sleeping. Rest in peace James Alexander. We loved you and will always do so.

New Post Shocker

2009-11-29T02:35:00.000+01:00

I'm not dead, just inactive.

40 years of age this Wednesday, which I'll be celebrating by being stuck on a work visit to Glasgow for two days. Ho hum. Still there's Simple Minds & OMD on Thursday, and Natalie Imbruglia on Sunday so hoorah!

Oh and I forgot to mention... Celia & I are going to be parents!

More updates soon...

"A joyous Greebo is excited at the news of a child coming into the family."

Celia Points It Out - Mediterranean Edition

2009-08-23T00:36:00.000+01:00

The Vader Sessions

2009-07-12T19:44:00.000+01:00

Sometimes the most stupid things make you laugh until you almost wet yourself.

Smash Hits - It's still 1983

2009-07-12T17:08:00.002+01:00

Who's this moody looking sod in the check shirt? Cheer up, it may never happen! Oh.

This is the late Stuart Adamson, of Scottish rockers Big Country, a group that were for a time up there with your U2's and Simple Minds in the top flight. "The Crossing", their dubut album, was chock full of rock anthems, such as "In A Big Country", "Chance", "Harvest Home" and of course "Fields Of Fire" ("Cha!!!!"). People used to mock their "bagpipe guitar sound" and for a while after their initial success, they were never entirely taken seriously. However since Adamson's death from alcoholism in 2001, their work has been reappraised, and their sound has been nicked by many a group, most recently The Killers. Of course, back in 1983, Smash Hits treated Big Country in their own unique irreverent style, giving drummer Mark Brzezicki the name "Mark Unpronounceable name out of Big Country".

OMD are back! Back! BACK! (etc). Smartly dressed in their shirts & ties, carring flags... oy oy! Must be a concept! A ropey one at that. This is them getting probably their last ever front cover of a mainstream music mag, promoting "Genetic Engineering", the first single from their crap-stroke-ahead of it's time album "Dazzle Ships" which was a massive flop. I quite liked the singles - then again, OMD always made good singles.

Also in this issue was some early "Wham!" (the exclaimation mark is important of course), along with other some other massive groups of the year Thompson Twins, at the time having their first hit with "Love On Your Side", ver Spands ("Communication") and Liverpudlian wet duo China Crisis having their first top 40 hit with "Christian". Plus hit songs by Rocker's Revenge (remember "Walking On Sunshine"?") and Aussie rockers Icehouse with "Hey Little Girl".

Who's that girl? And isn't that Weller? The answer dear reader is she's Tracie Young, and he is the Modfather, newly released from the confines of The Jam and wandering into pop-soul territory with The Style Council. Tracie of course sang on their penultimate single "The Bitterest Pill", and was about to embark on her own career as a solo artist on Weller's own "Respond" label, with her first single "The House That Jack Built", which was a bit of a poptastic number, that boded well for the future. Alas it was not to be. Great hat and flick though.

Duran Duran answer readers questions inside, probably asking what John Taylor's favourite colour is. There's also that essential article on Hall & Oates, and also Animal Nightlife (who hell they?). Hit songs by Ultravox, Wah! and Bow Wow Wow (exit stage right very shortly afterwards for them).

Nice suit, Jim! 1983 was the year that Simple Minds really started to make it big, with their "Sparkle In The Rain" album consolidating the success of the previous year's "New Gold Dream". Mr Kerr celebrated by buying a new blue suit and throwing some shapes on the cover of this issue. "Get in get out of the rain" indeed. Also in this issue are grumpy Roland and Curt from Tears For Fears, a bunch of scousers with the bizarre name Frankie Goes To Hollywood and a little song called "Relax" which went on to do quite well, a now completely panto Adam Ant ("Puss cat puss cat, where have you been?"), and a synth veggie bloke called Howard Jones (plus Jed) banging on about "tearing down those mental chains". Whatever.

Tracie!! Put that chair down now, you'll have someone's eye out! She's gone all blonde highlighty and moody on this summer cover. "Give It Some Emotion" was her second and last hit, but there's little sign of any emotion in this piccy, bless her. Also in this issue is Shakin' Stevens (still having hits... how did this happen?), more wet scousers The Lotus Eaters, The Cure moving into their pop phase with "The Walk", plus hit songs by The Police and Roman Holliday ("Don't Try To Stop It" - no, please do try).

Wham! began their chart domination around this time, and George & Andrew's annoying tanned faces and gleaming teeth were beaming out from the covers of most pop magazines for the next three years. In retrospect this cover looks as camp and cheesy as hell, and it summed them up - completely punchable. "Club Tropicana" was the biggie around this time, and was (and still is) utterly awful. Spandau Ballet were inside, promoting their summer smash "True" (school disco smooch material numero uno). Sting was also inside, probably grumping about his bandmates and hinting at The Police's impending collapse. Also inside - The Truth. God knows who they were.

Martin Fry is back and is looking mean. No more gold lame, as all the lush romantic sounds are dumped for a more "raw" (i.e. crap) sound with "That Was Then But This Is Now", all crashing 80's drums, guitars and pianos, with nary a string instrument to be seen. Predictably, the record bombed, and ABC never bothered the Smash Hits cover designer again. Also this fortnight, Genesis! Wooh! The Belle Stars!! King Kurt!!! Hang on, I thought this was meant to be a good year?

Still, there's always Julian Cope, newly solo following the demise of The Teardrop Explodes, and Nick Heyward, whose chart success seemed to be diametrically opposite to the amount of coverage he got in ver Hits. Ahh, pretty boys I suppose.

And so onto pretty annoying boys. Campest of the camp, Leee John of Imagination, on the cover of Smash Hits. What the fuck is going on? It's so wrong on so many levels. It's a ruddy con and no mistake matey. He is the epitome of crap. Still, it looked like the least worst option, what with the Eurythmics, Orange Juice, and Shalamar as the possible other contenders. Brrrr. Still, this shows that it wasn't all poptastic every fortnight. As does the following cover.

Jimmy the Hoover? Jimmy the HOOVER? Not even good enough to get onto a Now album. And look at the other contenders... Welsh Big Country wannabes The Alarm, Gary Numan, Sir Clifford of Richard or mad Robert Smith. Suddenly a bloke in a shit hat looked like a reasonable cover image. Obviously the free double sided poster softened the blow.

Still, we get to the end of the year and the now annual Smash Hits Readers Poll results, where Howard Jones wins most promising new artist, or best haircut, or something. The results show that Duran Duran, Spandau, Wham! and Culture Club are the big bands of the year, and will continue to be so for the next 12 months. But who'll knock 'em off their perch next year? JoBoxers? Jimmy the Hoover? Roman Holiday?

Err, no.

Howard bloody Jones.

Cheers, thanks.

Crikey!!! It's 1983! More Smash Hits

2009-07-06T22:56:00.000+01:00

Ver Hits begins it's "Imperial Phase" (© Neil Tennant) for the next five years. With Malcolm McLaren on the cover introducing the general public to hip-hop and scratching with "Buffalo Gals", 1983 was underway. And what a great year it was, readers. Don't let that promise of Shakey & Toyah on the cover above put you off.

Grooooo. Scouse gobshite Pete Wylie's been beaten a bit too much with the ugly stick to be on the cover. "Wah!" indeed. Still, as it's post Christmas anything goes. That new moveable logo's going to take some getting used to as well. So who else is inside? Some dodgy-haired geezers from Ireland called U2, having a hit with "New Year's Day" (timely). Smash Hits would go on to rip the piss out of them throughout the 80's. Boy George & Culture Club continued on their way to world domination, some bloke called Michael Jackson released a single "Billie Jean", which to these ears sounded a hit. "If he stays away from drugs, chimps and kids, he'll be having hits well into his fifties" I predicted at the time. Hit songs this issue are from Men At Work ("he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich"), Joe "Steppin' Out"Jackson, and Eddy Grant rockin' down to "Electric Avenue" (and then we'll take it higher!). Moving on...

Blimey! It's the lovely Clare Grogan on the cover, looking less fun than before and more pervilicious. It's as if she's been hanging round too much with Kim Wilde. Claire's Altered Images were on the comeback trail with one of John Peel's all time favourite singles, the fabulous "Don't Talk To Me About Love". But hark! What's this in the top left corner? "Fame"? Wasn't that the underwhelming film from 1980? Correct. Two points, sir. But the previous year the UK went mad over the TV spin off series and the soundtrack album "The Kids From Fame", and it became essential viewing every Thursday after Top Of The Pops. Even though it was shit. Also inside, Dame David Bowie! Just before he went completely rubbish! Mari Wilson - just what we didn't always want. A solo Nick Heyward. dumping his bandmates and having a hit with "Whistle Down The Wind". New Order releasing the landmark "Blue Monday" and not making much cash from it. Tracey Ullman... hang on? The comedienne from "Three Of A Kind"? Oh yes, but now she's nicked the pop career that Kirsty MacColl didn't want and is having hit singles. How odd. Also hits songs from ver Club, and Kajagoogoo. "Too Shite" more like.

Hey! It's The Human League! Has the success of "Dare!" changed them? Has it buggery. Still as glum as ever, but Phil's got a better hair cut, but Joanne & Suzanne still can't dance. Or sing. "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" was a monster record though, but that would be all we'd get for another 12 months. Also in this issue "serious" synthy duo Tears For Fears, ver Maiden ("Eddie! Eddie!"), crap goths Bauhaus, and Siouxsie's other group The Creatures ("Right Now!").

Oi! You! Turn round and face the camera! Urgh! Oh no it's fright-bearded David "A" Stewart! Turn back round immediately! Phew. You look a bit better pal... what? You're a woman? Annie Lennox? Of the Eurythmics? Didn't you used to be in the Tourists? Be off with you late seventies new wave artists!! I don't care if you have got a new name and a great new single called "Sweet Dreams"! There's nowt for you here, mush!!! And take your ginger mate with yer! Be off with you!

So what else was going on in this issue? "Doin' the boxer beat boxer beat boxerrrrrr beat.... the boxer beat, the boxer beat, the boxer beat..." Yes, it's Depeche Mode!!! No not really, it's JoBoxers - god knows what the concept behind that band was, even Kevin Rowland would have thought twice before trying that one. Lyrics for hits from proto-Erasure Blancmange, and the return of Bonnie Tyler!! Get back to Pontypridd!!

1983... to be continued...

"Oh pur-lease!": Smash Hits in 1982

2009-07-05T19:22:00.000+01:00

1982... and Smash Hits is in full swing. Essential reading for all those too young for the NME and too old for Look-In. It reaches it's landmark 100th issue in October, and celebrates with a lovely photo of the Kemp brothers from Spandau Ballet in casual wear. Little did they know that 27 years later they'd be hawking the same old crap on a nostalgia tour via DFS adverts and a cockney gangster film. Still, the rest of the promised content on the cover seems okay - Ultravox, Weller splitting up The Jam, Dexy's with "Jackie Wilson Said" and Culture Club making an appearance in the chart. Ooh that Boy George, he looks like a girl. And as ever, Genesis boring us rigid.

Backtracking a little, the start of the year brings us Basildon electro-popsters Depeche Mode sans one member. Where's their songwriter Vince Clarke? Oh he's buggered off leaving them to their own devices. Never mind, we think they'll do okay. Just stay away from the drugs, drink and pies you young whippersnappers. Other classic features (in colour!) in this issue include Fun Boy Three with some girls called Bananarama. Stupid name, they'll not do well. Songs by Shaky as well as Soft Cell ("Say Hello Wave Goodbye"). By law here I have to make the joke about Marc Almond, so here goes (sniiiippppp - that's enough of that - ED).

March brings us Martin Fry of Sheffield popsters ABC, resplendant in trademark Gold Lame suit, which legend has it, he became so sick of that he tried to flush it down the loo. Their album "The Lexicon Of Love" would be released this year and would go on to be one of the albums of the year, an enduring classic and something of a millstone as they never managed to measure up to it. Also in this issue, more Paul Weller (not The Jam you'll notice ominously), Theatre of Hate (who were always crap), Toni Basil AND The Nolans in colour (the Nolans??) and hit songs by Gary Numan and Kraftwerk - that'll be "Showroom Dummies" then. Plus Soft Cell in colour... which reminds me about the stomach (sniiiiipppp!!!!! - that's definately enough - ED)

Amazingly enough, Toyah Wilcox was actually a popstar. Really. Hit singles and stuff. I even went to see her live. I was young and didn't know any better. Don't ask me to listen to her stuff now, I know it wouldn't be good. Back then though she was ideal cover fodder for ver Hits, and this was a promotional shoot for her new single "Brave New World". Unbelievably she made the cover ahead of Adam Ant, the Bunnymen & Duran! Madness. Who coincidentally were also inside.

Oh look. Laughing boy Terry Hall's back with some sort of dead animal on his head. And there's a free quiz book as well (most Smash Hits gifts in the early years were quite frankly shit, and this was no exception). Bow Wow Wow had finally managed a hit with "Go Wild In The Country" and were inside, along with the Trevor Horn produced shiny pop duo Dollar again, New Order finding their feet after the demise of Joy Division, and Joan Jett who'd just had a number one with "I Love Rock & Roll"... and would never be heard of again. Quite right too.

It became noticeable that Nick Heyward was becoming a bit of a separate entity from the rest of Haircut 100, only 6 months on from their first hit. Indeed, during 1982 he parted ways with the band and became a solo artist. He was ideal pin up material for Smash Hits and always gave good copy. Here he is being his cute chirpy self wrapped in trademark sweater. Simple Minds are featured in this issue, on the verge of releasing their breakthrough album "New Gold Dream". So are Pigbag, an indie band who had a massive crossover hit with "Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag". Hit songs from ver Mode, jazz-wank lounge band Shakatak, and fab-Macca-wacky-thumbs-aloft. And hey, who's that? It's Soft Cell! Mine's a pint! (that's it, you're fired - Ed).

It's Back! Back! BACK!!! The Genius of Smash Hits

2009-07-05T03:11:00.000+01:00

To celebrate the special Michael Jackson commemorative issue of "Smash Hits" that's being sold next week, I thought I'd trawl the internet to see if I could find some old issues of the magazine that was my fortnightly bible during the 80's. And hey - guess what? There's not much to be found documenting this esteemed journal of pop. But trawling auction sites I did find these glorious examples. This isn't going to be an indepth look at the magazine, just poking a bit of fun at 80's fashions and hair - it's a journey which is more of a celebration of the highs and lows of the amazing world of (SNIIIIIP! that's enough - ED).

In the beginning the mag was a monthly humourless affair, full of song lyrics and posters of Plastic Bertrand or Sham 69. But as it sold well it was decided to make it fortnighly and therefore more up to date with the charts.

This was one of my first ever issues. Obviously it was the Squeeze flexidisc that swung it for me. I think I've still got it actually. From this point I bought it on and off until around the start of 1981 when I became a regular for the next eight years. And what years they were readers... ahh, I remember them well (that's enough of that - ED).

To your right we've got a cover from the early days of the mag... and there's no obvious reason why nu-mod one hit wonders Secret Affair were on the cover. What next? The Lambrettas? That was part of the charm of Smash Hits - they'd frequently screw up and feature some band who'd go on to do sod all. Jimmy the Hoover anybody? "Time For Action" was a good stomper, but one good song a career does not make as my great great grandfather never said. Bah! Still, nil desperandum as there's the lyrics to "Don't Bring Me Down" by ELO inside. "Groooose!!" Huzzah! An article on The Who! And Joe Jackson in colour! That'll keep the kids away from the fire.

It doesn't get much better in 1980, really. Bryan Ferry - that's what the kids want. Not to mention pain in the arse Scots funster B.A. Robertson in colour. An article on rockabilly rebels Matchbox and Deptford's finest Squeeze can only hint at the cultural vaccuum that was 1980. But look yonder! Hope is on the horizon, as Orchestral Manoeuvres are also in colour. Plus Human League albums to be won (presumably the excellent "Travelogue"). And of course you can sing along in the playground to Siouxsie & the Banshees "Christine".

Not all bad though. Here's loopy foxtress Kate Bush! All pout and hair. Probably promoting "Wow" or some other bizarre single. Toyah and the Undertones are in colour this ish. Now Toyah... okayyyy, punky popster, fair do's but who wants Feargal Sharkey and the other three in glorious technicolour? Apart from themselves if they need a passport renewing. Also that exciting Phil Lynott article... snore. Basically you'd be just buying this issue for Kate.... phwoar! (That's enough of that Uncle Disgusting! Back to the coal shed with you! - ED)

Moving on to 1981 and a new logo! But still a bit lacking when it comes to proper pop stars. God bless her soul but there's no way that Kirsty MacColl was ever going to be comfortable with being a "pop" star, and she didn't even have a top 10 record but got a front cover. Still, that was Smash Hits, sometimes they had the most unlikely cover stars. And at least it wasn't Crass adorning the cover. Brrrrr.

A classic Adam Ant image adorns this issue's cover, from his "Hoist the Jolly Roger!" era ant output. But behold - what this? Squeeze? Whitesnake? And Linx in colour? Yeah, that's what we need, a bespectacled David Grant poster. Wooo. Good job I didn't buy it for the posters. Except when the lovely Kim Wilde was featured...

And check her out on the cover of this issue from November '81.... errr.... oh dear. She's looking a bit bored, readers. Me thinks she's trying to be sultry but it's not working. Maybe she's parked on a meter. Still the rest of the mag looks a bit more jolly, with the likes of Soft Cell, "Tears Are Not Enough"-era ABC, Altered Images and errr, Gillan. Well, British Heavy Metal was big in 1981, people forget this. It wasn't all New Romantics and eyeliner you know. Hit songs by Haircut 100 - that'll be "Favourite Shirts" then - and Four Tops... because you need those words to "When She Was My Girl". Honest.

To be fair, the magazine hadn't really found it's groove just yet, but the humour was creeping into the mag. Despite Kim's moody face. Here's a poster of her realizing that some sod has put blinds over her bedroom mirror by mistake. Tut. Still, it helps wipe away the memories of those later Holland & Barrett adverts and gardening tips. Oh and "Rocking Around The Christmas Tree".

Oh look. It's Paul & Andy from OMD modelling for the latest Grattan catalogue. Oh that can't be right, this is Smash Hits. The scouse synth duo get a cover feature to tie in with their latest album "Architecture & Morality (& Chunky Knitwear)". It's all getting a bit more swingorilliant though as there's a Dollar interview and Duran Duran in there as well as Adam (no need for the "Ant" I notice at this point) and bloody Squeeze again. In colour no less. I can't imagine who'd want a picture of Squeeze in colour outside of their parents.

Remember Bow Wow Wow? That's right, the ones who used to be the Ants before jumping ship to work with Malcolm McLaren, leaving poor old Adam high and dry, except he went onto be massive and they didn't. Here is a cover featuring their photogenic singer only, Annabella Lwin. Blimey they hadn't even had a hit single at this point, with "Go Wild In The Country" some six months away. Note that Julian Cope & Tenpole Tudor are considered worthy of pin-up status. Sing along to Ultravox's number 14 hit "The Thin Wall", or "Love Action" by ver League ("Well this is Phil talking...)

Oh shit. Who invited Gary Numan to the party? Yep, he was still around in 1981, crashing planes and experimenting with jazz-funk stylings to little commercial success. Still, I actually liked this at the time, but these days the image of Alan Partridge playing air bass-guitar haunts me so we'll move on.
It's looking more popmongous as Depeche Mode, Shaky and Modern Romance are all in colour, Plus that essential Meat Loaf article. Nice to see Simple Minds there, a good year before they went massive.

As 1981 draws to a close there's more signs of poptasticness with Duran in full tea-towel-round-head regalia, a free poster of Adam or The Police or Spandau Ballet (in their "funk" phase. Oh dear) and a Shakin' Stevens comic strip. What the hell was that about then? Good to see Madness in there, they were a constant delight back then, and of course Hazel O'Connor - she was like an early 80's Lady Ga Ga, kids. In that she had also two legs and breasts. Which you could say about chickens. So there you have it. Hazel O'Connor - early 80's poultry.

Still, even in 1981, the pop scene moved pretty fast. Take the case of The Specials. Massive Ska influenced Coventry combo, has number one single of the summer of 81 in "Ghost Town", then disintegrates - less than 4 months later Terry Hall, Neville Staples & Lynval Goulding form Fun Boy Three, the ironically monickered spin-off, and continued to be massive, with firt hit "The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum". Forget the Specials reforming, lets have FB3 back performing. And just look at how happy Terry is in front of the camera, folks.

Before... and after.

In 1981, The Human League had finally kicked their artyness into touch by letting Ian Craig Marsh & Martyn Ware go off and become Heaven 17, whilst Phil stayed behind, recruited a couple of girls from a disco and made the best pop record this side of Abba in the form of "Dare!"., which went on to be massive. As you can tell from the cover of this late 1981 issue, they're overjoyed. Electropop goes from strength to strength, with Japan & Simon Le Bon both in colour within these pages. Beware though, Godley & Creme were also inside, probably promoting that bloody awful "Wedding Bells" single. Hit songs by Bad Manners and ver Quo also. What was the public thinking of?

Moody pop stars eh? Cheer up for God's sake. You could do with taking a leaf out of the book of this lovely lassie...
... Clare Grogan, of Altered Images, who were really the archetypal Smash Hits band. Pop, but had that alternative cred, championed by John Peel, had a single called "Dead Pop Stars", crashed into the chart with the ultra catchy "Happy Birthday", and fitted equally comfortably on "Top Of The Pops" and "The Old Grey Whistle Test". Fab.

And so we leave 1981 behind, and 1982 awaits... when Smash Hits became the mag we remember, when writers such as Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, Dave Rimmer and Neil Tennant were churning out witty insightful pieces every fortnight. And we had decent pop stars who looked the part and were in on the joke.

To be continued...

Kraftwerk: The Man(chester) Machine

2009-07-03T17:32:00.000+01:00

So have you ever been to the Manchester Velodrome? And if the answer is yes, did you go to see a rock concert? Chances are the answer is nay. Last night though, we went and we did see a gig. Not just any gig though.

This was Kraftwerk.

And this was a one off gig as part of the opening night of the Manchester International Festival, appropriately for this band held at the National Cycling Centre.

With the Velodrome being situated in the wrong part of Manchester, Celia & I weren't too familiar with it's location. We knew it was near the Council House (Man City's rented accommodation) which we'd been to in 2005 to see U2, but that was on mostly on foot, not by car. Fortunately the website for the Velodrome gave great directions, and basically we had to follow the signs for "Sportcity" (though when have City ever been associated with sport?).

After being guided by volunteers towards the nearby free car parking, we parked up and wandered over in the glorious early evening sunshine towards the venue. All around people were were hanging around, chilling out - none of this bustling pushing queueing nonsense here. It was all so civilised. Lovely. We took a few photos at the front of the venue before going round the back (ooh err) to the "blue door" entrance as specified on the ticket.

Whilst in the short line of peeps calmly entering the building, we were asked by a camera crew filming for the Festival a couple of questions... "Why have we come here to see Kraftwerk?" to which I could only answer "Well... it's Kraftwerk isn't it? Legends." Which is deep. Celia gave a more detailed interesting answer stating that Kraftwerk invented Techno music but was totally overshadowed by a bloke waving his hands in electro style behind her shouting "We are the Robots". Quite.

When asked what was so special about Kraftwerk, I calmly dismissed the entire post war musical output up to 1970 by stating that "there was no good music before Kraftwerk". Great soundbite there Darren. Let's just dismiss the entire career of The Beatles in one fell swoop.

We're given some 3D specs at the entrance. Ooh, the rumours are true then. "9:30" it states ominously on the sleeve. Now the velodrome itself is a bit awesome, and as we had standing tickets we got to stand in the centre of the arena with the track around us, where the general public don't usually get a chance to stand. We wandered up casually to the front and sat on the floor awaiting the opening act...

No support band as such. Instead we got the premiere of composer Steve Reich's "2x5", a piece specially written for the festival, performed by a group of musicians called Bang On A Can. I didn't know a great deal about Reich's work - his "Electric Counterpoint" was sampled on the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds" but that's about it, Celia knew more about him than I did. This new piece was an interesting piece of music, if repetetive but not really for me. To be honest some of it sounded like incidental music from "Mary Mungo & Midge". Not that it's a bad thing... just not my bag.

Celia's old mate Paul from down saaaaaf in Coventry turned up during this song and provided welcome distraction from the noodling on stage. The two of them hadn't clapped eyes on each other in about 10 years and it was if it had only been 10 days. The whole place was getting quite busy by now but it wasn't crushed, with plenty of room for movement.

The band departed to a warm round of applause, and I'm informed that the composer was there at the back of the arena but we couldn't see him from where we were stood. However I'm sure that nobody bought a ticket for Mr Reich, god bless. The 4 German guys were the main attraction and what we were all here for. And so the curtains were drawn whilst stage hands set up. 15 minutes later, the lights dimmed, and the robotic opening tones of "The Man Machine" blared across the auditorium...

"Meine Dammen und Herren...Ladies and gentlemen...heute abend...Die Mensch Maschine...Kraft...werk!"

...the curtains opened to reveal the familiar sight of the fab four stood individually behind their laptops and electronic gubbins. Each wore a black shiny cycling style zip top. There was a "new" member at the end, Stefan Pfaffe (replacing founder member Florian Schneider) who stood out from the rest because he was (a) taller than them and (b) looked about twenty. He's a bit like the work experience kid. Whatever happened between Florian and the remaining founder member Ralf Hutter to cause the split we'll probably never know - Kraftwerk are not known for discussing... well anything really.

It's funny really - I usually hate groups that try to go on with only one remaining original member. It's like Oasis - the Gallaghers and some hired hands, or Fleetwood Mac during the 90's. But Kraftwerk transcend this bias of mine, I don't know how. Maybe it's because they've always been pretty faceless, truly embracing the idea of the music being everything - they truly are the Mensch Maschine.

I don't know what to say really about the performance... apart from harking back to whatI said to the reporter earlier... it's Kraftwerk isn't it? You don't really go to see them for an energetic performance, yet what they do is mesmerising. The combination of their minimalism, the accompanying visuals on the huge video screens behind them and the crystal clear electronic sound was just awesome.

Appropriately, the original version of "Tour De France" was played - well, we're in a bloody Velodrome and that's the only reason cycling nutter Ralf agreed to the gig - but during the song I could see a curtain twitching down a ramp in front of us - something was gonna happen. And as the first bars of the "Etape" version from the "Tour De France Soundtracks" rang out... four cyclists emerge from behind the curtain and ride onto the track. Ralf introduces them as the Great Britain Cycling Team - Ed Clancy, Jason Kenny, Jamie Staff and Geraint Thomas, all Gold medallists in Beijing - and the crowd go mad as they ride round the arena in formation. He also gives a bit shout out to their trainer who is German - like the music, sport can sometimes transcend Nationality for the greater good. This celebration of the true man machine has turned an already special night into something extraordinary. So where can it go from here?

Well, after the Olympic medal winning cyclists leave the arena to an amazing reaction from the audience, and Ralf promises to bring his bike next time, Kraftwerk go on to plough through some of their amazing back catalogue. They play the song Coldplay nicked wholesale for "Talk", "Computer Love" but give a little nod back to Chris Martin by incorporating the little musical touches he added. "Autobahn" is awesome as ever, "Showroom Dummies" is a pleasant surprise as it wasn't played on the last visit to Manchester in 2004, the UK number one "The Model" is a crowd fave, and "Neon Lights" just gets more beautiful everytime you hear it. The first half of the show ends with the magnificently epic "Trans Europe Express", a record which invented Depeche Mode post-Vince Clarke. Honest.

The curtains close (well eventually - the stage hands had a bit of bother, which the Mancunian crowd predictably ripped the piss out of) and we wonder what's next... well I think we know. The curtains open again to reveal that the band have been replaced by... yes, the robotic doppelgangers for "The Robots". Of course all this is to give them time backstage to change into their "Tron" cycling suits. At least they've changed Florian's head for Stefan's.

The automated versions are removed and it's time (well a bit later than 9:30 actually) to don the 3D glasses. Just when you think that the show can't get any better, the visuals behind the group come atcha in glorious 3D. You can almost reach out and touch the numbers in front of you during the tune of the same name, and during "Vitamin" the computer graphic pills are so real you nearly duck out of the way. It must be a bizarre sight for the band to see a few thousand people staring at them in cardboard glasses.

Finally, the sound of "Boing, Boom, Tschak!" heralds the closing number, "Music Non-Stop" at which point the members of the band go wild. Well, they move their legs a bit and nod in time to the beats. That's like moonwalking across the stage for them. One by one Stefan, Fritz, Henning and finally Ralf leave the stage. And then they were gone.

This was not a gig. This was an event. Kraftwerk. Legends.

(Thanks to shamlessboyuk and kraftwerkmod for the YouTube vids)

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)

2009-06-26T00:47:00.000+01:00

Well, that was a shocker. Michael Jackson dead. Cardiac Arrest. Funny really, I'm not really shocked but it's still sad news. Whether it was down to the stress of preparing for the upcoming 50 dates at the 02 arena, or something else we don't know. Maybe we never will. From the rumours I'd heard over the past few weeks, I was expecting that the shows wouldn't happen but not like this. Now, if it's jokes you're looking for well you can get them on Twitter or elsewhere. None of that here, oh no. And if it's biting comment about his personal life, plastic surgery and the sordid allegations against him over the years, well there's plenty of other places for that as well.

Once you put all that aside, and single out that period of time from the early 70's to around 1988, and specifically Michael Jackson's musical output as a solo artist and as part of the Jackson Five and then of course the Jacksons, then you have the real legacy, something that will last forever and for this writer, is pure and untainted by the circus that came to engulf his career and personal life.

"I Want You Back"
"ABC"
"Show You The Way To Go"
"Blame It On The Boogie"
"Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)"
"Can You Feel It"
"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"
"Rock With You"
"One Day In Your Life"
"Wanna Be Starting Something"
"Billie Jean"
"Thriller"
"Beat It"
"The Way You Make Me Feel"
"Smooth Criminal"
"Leave Me Alone"

A bloody amazing collection of songs, and then there were the performances and videos... that performance of "Billie Jean" at the Motown 25 show. Memories of staying up until one in the morning to watch the premiere of "Thriller" on "The Tube". That over the top video for "Black & White" with the amazing morphing. The Jackson 5 on "Top Of The Pops" doing "Rockin' Robin"...

Remember him that way.

"Shamon".

Blur in Wolverhampton 2009 - It Really Really Really DID Happen

2009-06-25T20:33:00.000+01:00

If you asked me a couple of years ago if I thought there would be any chance of Blur playing live again I’d have said “not a chance”. Yet here we are in June 2009 and last night I experienced a fabulous two hour set by a revitalised band at the top of their game. How the hell did this happen?

In 2003 Blur released “Think Tank”, their first album of the 21st century and their first without guitarist Graham Coxon, who abandoned ship during the recording for reasons that wouldn’t become fully clear for 6 years. It was a good album, and Coxon had a sole contribution to the closing track, but after a short tour to promote the album complete with stand-in guitarist courtesy of the then-defunct Verve, it seemed like the end for the band. The remaining three members of the band seemed to have their sights set on activities outside of the band, whether it be Dave being a politician & solicitor, Alex’s cheese-making and writing, or Damon’s colossal success with cartoon band Gorillaz, the latter of which seemed to pour mucho cold water over any idea of more Blur music. Albarn seemed to be working overtime to experiment, with differing projects such as such as The good The Bad & The Queen, Mali Music, or the opera based on Monkey. Who needs Blur? Certainly not Graham, releasing what seems like an album a year of solo material, relishing being freed from the constraints of being “the guitarist from Blur”.

Whilst the likes of one-time rival Oasis plodded on through the noughties shedding members, releasing albums nobody was really interested in but still selling out enormo-gigs, nothing seemed to be moving on the Blur front. The internet would occasionally report rumours that Damon & Graham had got together to chat about maybe getting the band back together, but then nothing would come of it, with Albarn himself stating that it was unlikely to happen. The rift that split childhood friends apart continued.

But then at the end of 2008 something changed. Over an Eccles cake, Albarn & Coxon chatted about their differences, decided quickly that they’d both moved on and any animosity was in the past and in true Blues Brothers style “got the band back together”. It wasn’t a reformation, as they was no official split of the band. A big Hyde Park gig was announced and sold out immediately, necessitating an additional date, followed by announcement of a headlining date at Glastonbury – the public’s desire to see the band had only increased whilst they were away.

I always knew that there would be some warm up dates before the big gigs, so kept my eyes open scouring the forums for info, and lo and behold, a gig in Wolverhampton was announced. Now it’s not exactly in the North, but going to Wolves has sort of become second nature since being with Celia due to the football. A bigger bonus was that he gig was at the Civic Hall, where she took her finals back in the day. Get in.

24th June – a hot summer night in the Black Country, with a packed out sweltering hall full of patient fans waiting for the fab four to return to the stage. And Blur didn’t disappoint. Their current album “Midlife”, a compilation was high in the charts, but this band looked nothing like a bunch of 40 year olds – they were lean, fit and up for it. The opening chords of their first single “She’s So High” wafted around the auditorium and the crowd went a little bit excitable. By the end of the applause for that gem and the opening guitar riff of “There’s No Other Way”, they’d gone mental.

Sporadically accompanied by backing singers and a horn section, the band flew through a selection of songs in batches from their albums – an opening bunch from their debut, then a selection of crowd singalongs from the classic “Parklife” including “Girls & Boys”, “Tracy Jacks” & “Jubilee”, before "Badhead" segued into a introspective section with “Beetlebum” and “Out of Time” the latter with Coxon playing guitar (unlike on record) here giving a lovely moody ambience complementing the song perfectly. His own “Coffee & TV” opened up another batch of songs from the sometimes difficult “13” (but it's a Celia fave) including a tremendous “Tender” which got the masses singing along. There was even time for the once-hated-by-the-band Number One albatross “Country House”, played perfectly straight. You know I think they’re over it.

The “Modern Life Is Rubbish” songs reminded you just how good the band were live – Albarn staring manically at the adoring crowd like a latter day Lydon before hurling himself about the stage, throwing the contents of bottles of water on the moshers, whilst Coxon abuses his guitar and generally makes you wonder why he’s not feted as being a legend like Marr, Squire or Clapton. Of course keeping it all together is Dave Rowntree like a metronome on drums and Alex James standing coolly playing bass as ever, the only thing different about him from the Britpop days being the lack of fag hanging from his lips. They have clearly practiced – I’ve seen them 7 times now and I’ve never seen Blur sound so tight and energised as tonight, not even back in the heyday of the “Parklife” tour or during the midst of the Blur vs Oasis war (God that seems sooooo long ago now).

Talking of which another selection of songs from the Britpop landmark that was that album finish off the main set, with a manic Phil Daniels-less"Parklife", "End Of A Century" causing mass singalongs, "To The End" being as ever the best Bond tune that never was, ending with the superb "This Is A Low".

The encore was a crazy rush through band fave "Popscene", "Advert" (where Damon finally managed to crowd surf, apologising afterwards to a girl in the crowd he landed on by giving her a kiss - bless) and wahhhhhhoooooo - "Song 2".

And a big shout out to us – the fans, who never stopped singing through the whole gig. Okay not always in tune but ever present. We were especially on fine fettle during the closing "For Tomorrow" and The Universal", the band looked really moved by the crowd reaction.

And that was it. It was like they'd never been away and they showed that there is much more life left in the Essex Dogs yet.

Setlist...

she's so high
girls & boys
tracy jacks
there's no other way
jubilee
badhead
beetlebum
out of time
trimm trabb
coffee & tv
tender
country house
oily water
chemical world
sunday sunday
parklife
end of the century
to the end
this is a low
______________

popscene
advert
song 2
_______________
for tomorrow
the universal

And some You Tube stuff from someone sat just behind us...

Pet Shop Boys: The Band That Likes to Say "Yes"

2009-06-19T22:03:00.000+01:00

2009. After 25 years as a duo, it would be fair to ask yourself, does the world need a new Pet Shop Boys album? Well, “Yes” is probably not the first answer you would give but “Yes” IS the title of their latest album. The affirmative nature of the title follows on through the 11 tracks, every one given a glossy pop sheen by Xenomania, the team behind Girls Aloud. To these ears, it’s not a classic PSB album; whilst consistently good throughout the production seems to iron out and peaks and lows. There are all the catchy hooks you’d expect from a collaboration between the kings of chart pop past and present, but somehow the sum of the parts doesn’t quite add up. There are no bizarre-but-it-works three choruses in one songs like “Biology”, for example – it’s almost as if the two parties have cancelled each other out.

What “Yes” has got though is Tennant & Lowe’s confidence and belief in what they do. When it’s good it’s very good indeed. Opening with the single “Love etc.” which is already a classic, the album confidently ploughs ahead with the lovely “All Around The World”, and then guitar strummer “Beautiful People” which is perfect for Radio 2. The second single “Did You See Me Coming?” sums up the album – it’s good but not spectacular. “Vulnerable” is a low point, one good chorus looking for a song – beating us into submission with it does not a song make. The album doesn’t really pick up again until "Building a Wall" and the excellent “Pandemonium” and “The Way It Used To Be”. Then the bizarre “Legacy” ends the album on the wrong foot – it’s the only thing here that feels out of place, it doesn’t really fit. “Yes” hasn’t got the range of songs and moods you’d expect from Tennant & Lowe, ala “Behaviour” or 2006’s adventurous “Fundamental”, and it’s certainly not as “pop” as “Very” (but what ever could be?). But after 25 years you could expect far far worse from a band (hi Duran Duran!) and thankfully this is far from being poor.

So where do Neil & Chris fit in the current pop landscape? Since 1993’s “Very” their record sales have diminished and they have a hardcore fan base (including myself) who’ll buy everything and therefore they’ll still be in the charts, albeit usually for a couple of weeks before dropping like a stone in water (or “Morrissey-syndrome” as it is known). They’ve probably lost a few casual fans over the years with some odd career moves – 2002’s “Release” album being a case in point, we don’t want PSB all melancholic and playing real instruments for gawd’s sake. Fortunately that was just a phase they had to go through and they were back on form with the greatest hits “PopArt” & then the Trevor Horn produced “Fundamental”. Neither of these sold amazingly though. But here in the 21st century, it’s not all about record sales…

Back in the day, Pet Shop Boys were legendary for not being able to cut it live, as they admitted. It wasn’t until 1989 that they ventured out onto their first tour – the problem for them being that they hate rock shows. As Chris said, once you get past the first 20 minutes you’re bored. Therefore they set out to make their shows a little different from what went before, but would only go out on tour when it was financially viable for them to do so. Their first tour was co-directed by the late Derek Jarman, with elaborate costumes and his own back projected films, as well as having Courtney Pine jazzing all over the shop. It was different but far from the ideal extravaganza they envisiged.

1990 saw the release of their most melancholic and "down" album thus far, "Behaviour" so what happens with the supporting tour? What could only be described as one of the best shows any band has ever put together, and a million miles away from the inward looking parent album. “Performance” saw PSB create their own little world on stage, where Neil & Chris became performers in a journey from youth to death and beyond, eschewing onstage instruments (boring) for costume changes, sets, dancers & backing singers – it was an event, which I can’t do justice to here in print. Get the DVD. Tennant & Lowe at the the end of their imperial phase.

This tour cost them a small fortune, which they were prepared for, but it meant that we wouldn’t see it’s like again for a while. What it did show though to the world was that Pet Shop Boys COULD cut it live, and when you saw them you’d get your money’s worth.

The following tours could only skulk about in the shadows of “Performance” – like U2 with “ZooTV” & “Popmart”, where do you do go when you’ve put on a tour like that? For PSB, it was the "DiscoVery" tour of the Southern Hemisphere, and then 1997's residency in London's West End. Not as spectacular but these tours saw them getting to grips with being a proper live act. The 1999 “Nightlife” tour saw them playing big massive arenas for the first time, and being bloody good at it. They then experimented with smaller, more intimate traditional shows in 2002 on their "Release" tour, befitting the music they were playing at the time. But at some point the wigs and costumes had to come out of the box again, and in 2006 the “Fundamentalism” tour was a triumph, celebrating their confident & strong new album whilst playing the hits as well. So good I saw it twice (see here for my earlier blog article). It was becoming noticeable at these shows that they were picking up more of the “non-we’s”, those people who see an advert for the tour, remember they used to love “West End Girls” & “It’s a Sin” and buy tickets for themselves & the missus. In trying not to do the traditional rock group live thang… Pet Shop Boys became one. They release albums and then do a tour to support it, but really nobody other than themselves & the hardcore fan need another album, they just want to see a great show.

Nobody would blame Neil & Chris for gong out there each night and just banging out the hits, putting little effort into the whole show. They’d still sell tickets and do well. But these are the Pet Shop Boys we’re talking about. That would be too easy… and lazy.

And so we come to Thursday 18th June. Manchester Apollo. Typically raining outside. And at 8:00 pm the auditorium is packed out, the crowd putting up with what I can only describe as “noise” from support act Frankmusik, though this may be down to the dodgy acoustics rather than the band. It’s unsurprising that it’s so busy – “Yes” has been the Pet Shop Boys best performing album since 1993, bolstered by that amazing performance at the Brit Awards in February seen by 8 million people, quite a few of which will have bought tickets for this show and the bigger one at the O2 arena in London. (Of course, “Yes” has a white sleeve and all white sleeve PSB albums do well – fact… ish.)

9:00 prompt and the lights drop, and the stage set lights up – this time based on Farrow’s simple but effective coloured square cover design for the album. Neil & Chris emerge from giant cubes onto the stage with similar cubes obscuring their heads, as do the two backing singers, moving in a way reminiscent of the performers in New Order’s “True Faith” video. Before we know it, they’re blasting out the classic “Heart” – the acoustics are pretty bad I must say, it’s all booming bass but it improves – before moving onto “Did You See Me Coming?” which sounds great live. The projections onto the giant cubes on stage are fabulous, all in the style of the coloured squares of the album – it’s like someone’s gone mad with a ZX Spectrum.

Neil says little during the show, as ever, apart from letting us know it’s great to be back in Manchester, and that they’d been to Selfridges. Bless. “Love etc” sees Chris being more animated than usual, bouncing slightly at his keyboard – the animated visuals of the video blending perfectly into the set.

Just as you think that’s all there is to the show (ahh, the 20 minute mark) during “Building A Wall” the cubes come crashing down Pink Floyd style to reveal a bigger wall backdrop, and two dancers giving a gymnastic interpretation of “Go West” on podiums. At this point you find yourself lost in the beautifully colourful “Yes” world that Tennant & Lowe have created – this is genius. Ace backroom boffin & Madonna producer Stuart Price’s reinterpretations of their back catalogue for this tour pay off big style, as samples from one song find themselves in another, casting a fresh new spotlight on old favourites - the drums from “Paninaro” forming the backbeat for “Go West” for example.

We then enter the “New York” phase of the show, going right back to 86 with a couple of “Please” era electro classics not played live before “Two Divided By Zero” & “Why Can’t We Live Together”. We even got a bit of Chris Lowe dancing, which is always a joy. This part of the set ended with a stunning reinterpretation of “Left To My Own Devices” followed by the ever popular “Always On My Mind”.

Chris got a chance to show off his piano skills in the “Ballet” section, with a beautiful straight rendition of loved b-side “Do I Have To” & the still spine tingling “King’s Cross”. One of the show highlights followed with “Jealousy” performed with a mesmerising background ballet by two of the dancers, visualizing the song’s undercurrent of violence to outstanding effect.

The crowd favourite “Suburbia” kicked off the final section of the show, with Chris pounding away on the drums, followed by a Latin-America influenced medley of tunes incorporating their last REALLY big hit “Se A Vida E” and a cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” which got the neutrals in crowd singing. Should be a single lads, do it. An up to date revamp of “It’s A Sin” accompanied by more dancing and brilliant backing vocals from the dancers and singers respectively closed the show in glorious style.

This had been a show which even the most jaded onlooker would say was bloody brilliant. Full marks has to be given also for the stage design, which was never the same two songs running, always moving, never being boring. We were never being bored. Which just happened to be the first song of the encore, beautifully performed entirely straight, with just a bit of subtle grey lighting on the set, and Neil in classic PSB garb. Perfect.

How to end the show? How it all started back in late 1985 with their first hit, the number one single “West End Girls”, performed partly this time in it’s “Disco” version, complete with backing singers and dancers in suits carrying brollys and papers, harking back to the “Performance” shows long ago. Simple but brilliant.

In my opinion, this show is the equal to “Performance”, which I never thought I’d say. In some ways it’s the perfect vision of “Pop Art” – it’s a show which always entertains, is brilliant musically, and visually is stunning. Never dumb, never over clever, Pet Shop Boys treat the audience with respect and give you the show they would enjoy – if it’s interests them it’ll more than interest us.

At the end of the 100 minute show you can only look at Messrs Tennant & Lowe and say “You clever bastards. You’ve done it again.” Neil tells the crowd “We’ll be back in December”. So will we. MEN Arena, December 20th. See you at Christmas Pandemonium.

The set list:

More Than A Dream/Heart
Did You See Me Coming?
Pandemonium/Can You Forgive Her?
Love Comes Quickly
Love Etc.
Integral/Building a Wall
Go West
Two Divided By Zero
Why Don't We Live Together?
Closer To Heaven
Left To My Own Devices
Always On My Mind
Do I Have To?
King's Cross
The Way It Used to Be
Jealousy
Suburbia
All Over The World
Domino Dancing
Se A Vida E
Discoteca
Viva La Vida
It's a Sin
Encore:
Being Boring
West End Girls

One Night In Burnley

2009-05-28T01:53:00.000+01:00

It's not the place I would have chosen to watch United in the Champions League Final but hey, why not? When it was announced a fortnight ago that Eddie Izzard would be doing a "secret" late night gig at Burnley Mechanics, for £20, well, I'd be an idiot to knock it back. As the gig started at 10:30 we'd be able to watch the match somewhere beforehand.

And so we headed down the M65 and reached Burnley and the venue - not what I'd expected. Next to the Town Hall, it looked a bit quaint, and we were shocked to be able to park for free right outside. We were running a bit late and listening to Five Live on the way we heard Barcelona had scored already in the first half. Not good. So after picking the tickets up from the box office we sidled into the venue's bar "The Press Room" which was quiet and happened to have the match on.

Not much I can say about it really. After ten minutes and the first goal we weren't in the game, and when it went to 2-0 the game was truly up. Even the goal scoring might of Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov couldn't come up with any answers. This was not to be a repeat of 1999. Barcelona controlled the match and were the better team. They deserved it, United didn't really turn up, and it wasn't a classic match in any way. Barcelona did enough to win, and no more - let's face it, it wasn't needed. No doubt we can cue the Scousers who had disappeared from the face of the Earth two weeks ago, who'll crawl out from underneath their rocks to start making jokes, strangely forgetting that they have won nothing this year and are living in the past again (well, it's nicer for them there). Still, 25 games unbeaten in the Champions League is nothing to be ashamed about.

Enough of the football, what about the gig? Well, this small venue played host to the ever excellent Mr Izzard, honing material for his big tour later in the year with late night gigs whilst campaigning for the forthcoming European Elections next week. What was planned to be an hour long gig became a hilarious 105 minute trek through the weird and wonderful mind of Eddie. Coming onstage at 10:45 to a capacity audience, the off-duty transvestite (for it was a casual shirt and jeans combo tonight) regaled the crowd with a journey through the history of the world, the birth of language, religion and with sidesteps along the way covering:

jazz chickens,
PTSD squirrels,
what Einstein would think about Apple Mac download time estimates,
beekeepers,
balloon cats,
stoned assassins (or "assashins") assembling Dysons instead of rifles,
why there can be no Dinosaur's Got Talent,
the non-existence of God and if he did exist he would live in fog,
why Noah's Ark wouldn't work,
how do Giraffes warn other Giraffes about approaching tigers (they cough apparently),
the Bayeux Tapestry and why the weavers were the equivalent of papparazzi nowadays,
if Rod Hull and Emu did Hamlet,

and much much more.

We staggered out at half past midnight (and this was a truncated set!!), grinning inanely after witnessing a comic genius back at the top of his game. See him later this year if you can.

A night of two halves really.

Bye Bye Barcodes, Bye Bye.

2009-05-24T19:00:00.000+01:00

Sunday, 24th May 2009.

There are some fat crying Geordies on the telly.

Yep, a glorious day draws to a close as Newcastle United Football Club get relegated from the Premiership after 16 seasons. That's funny. Funnier is seeing Alan Shearer's face after the final whistle. As a Manchester United fan it's been bloody satisfying to see one of our most hated figures take the manager's job and not make any difference at all to their league position. So much for the new Geordie Messiah. It's great to see a club which has been so badly managed at board level over the years take the plunge into the old Division 2. Serves them right for not giving Sam Allardyce time to turn things round at the start of the season.

West Brom are down of course, so bye to the Tesco carrier bags, replaced by Wolves (hurrah). Middlesbrough are down also, but nobody really cares about them, not even their quiet fans. Hull & Sunderland survive. So only one North East club in the Prem next year, which is nice.

Now just look at his face again.

Sheffield Belongs To Us - Saint Etienne Live at The Leadmill

2009-05-18T00:07:00.000+01:00

"Rainy city, Sheffield, Thursday"...

... to paraphrase "Mario's Cafe" from the Saint Etienne album "So Tough".

It seemed like madness to travel from Blackpool all the way over the Pennines to Sheffield for a gig on a "school night", but this was Saint Etienne, who I've not seen live since the Summer of 2005 in Manchester. And they were performing their 1991 debut album "Foxbase Alpha" in it's entirety. It's not that far...

Well, Thursday the 14th May arrived, and it was time for the off. Celia was up for the drive and had got directions preset on the iPhone. Tanked up with petrol & cheeseburgers we set off down the M55.

In theory, as long as we headed towards the M60 and Oldham, we'd be on the right route. Typically we miss the turning and have to head towards Warrington in order to turn round and get back on the right part of the M60. Doh. Some 25 minutes later and we're back on course for East of Manchester and the delights of the A57...

... Snake Pass. The main route from Lancashire & Greater Manchester to Yorkshire and specifically Sheffield is over this winding road across the picturesque Pennines. Never been along this route before and it's got at times some breathtaking scenery. Bizarrely on the way along you pass signs for two towns which have become televisual landmarks over the years - namely Holmfirth on the left, which can be seen in "Last Of The Summer Wine", and on the right Hadfield which doubles for Royston Vasey in "The League Of Gentlemen". Alas, no time to visit today, we've a gig to get to.

Predictably for May, the weather turned dreadful and we only avoided some of the rain because the route taken took us above the clouds raing down on the ground below. Weird. Also predictable was that the route on the iPhone would get a bit confusing and bore no resemblance to the road we were travelling on. So we end up following signs for Sheffield along the M1...

Luckily, this route more or less took us directly to our destination, the Leadmill in Sheffield. Another brilliant drive from Celia. I'd never been to Sheffield before, let alone this venue, but it was easy to find with good nearby parking.

The venue itself is lovely - nice big bar area cum dancefloor, with a nice sized stage area next door. When we arrived the support act Go Kart Mozart were already underway. I knew nothing about them apart from that the singer was the legendary cult figure Lawrence (from Felt). (Shrugs shoulders in an Alan Partridge way). They were quite good, and had a fair sized audience, but there was enough space for us to squeeze down to the front for the main attraction.

A boffin in a white lab coat pottered around on stage whilst roadies finetuned equipment, a person I later find was Gerald, Saint Etienne's unsung backroom musical genius. Then the radio transmission that is "This is Radio Etienne" blares through the PA and the band come on stage. This time out it's just Sarah, Pete & Bob, with Debsy on additional vocals and the odd bit of guitar. No "band" as such compared to previous tours, this was mostly programmed & sequenced as befitting the original album's cut and paste nature.

The main part of the gig was the album "Foxbase Alpha" played start to finish for the first time, tying in with the reissue of a deluxe version in the shops. The first thing noticeable about the arrangement of the songs was that they all had, how shall we say, a bit more bollocks. The bass has been bumped up and everysong was a bit more danceable that the original recordings. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" sounded as fresh as ever, even with Sarah singing in the place of original vocalist Moira Lambert. Sarah went on to hand out sweets rather appropriately during "Wilson", and during the two instrumentals on the album "Stoned to Say The Least" and "Etienne Gonna Die", she sat and played cards with Debsy at the side of the stage. Amusingly Sarah didn't bother to learn the spoen world part of "Girl VII" instead reading from a clipboard.

Great use was made of projections on the backdrop and on the video screens dotted around the venue, with what looked like clips of cult 70s scary kids drama "Children Of The Stones" during the penultimate track "London Belongs To Me", strangely sounding unfinished on record but played live sounding amazing.

With an extended "Dilworth's Theme" ending the set, Sarah promised to be back in 5 minutes; then the band left the stage to be replaced by a Daffy Duck cartoon... which is original. The rest of the show was deliberately up to date dance tunes, beginning with "This Is Tomorrow" from "London Conversations", running through the likes of the underrated "Burnt Out Car", a fantastic version of "Sylvie" which was channeling Pet Shop Boys' "Suburbia" in places, "Like a Motorway" (after witnessing Debsy's percussion during that song I felt the need to shout "I need more cowbell" at her - which made her laugh if nobody else did), and of course the obligatory fantastic "He's On The Phone" at the end, which meant lots of dancing from the appreciative crowd and mucho feather boa action from Crackers.

And then that was it. They were gone. I smiled nicely at the security bloke who kindly nipped up on stage to get Debsy's setlist for me. Time to get back to the car and the drive back over the Pennines home (a bit scary but another fab adrenaline rush drive from Celia). A great venue and a great gig from a band who've proved that you can dip into the nostalgia whilst still looking forward. They'll never be a mainstream successful band, as they missed that boat back in 1995, but they'll always have a loyal following. Comfortably cult.

More rambling about music

2009-05-17T20:45:00.000+01:00

Last week I looked at the top 40 singles chart online, and was shocked to realise that I didn't actually know over half of the songs featured... and you know, I didn't care.

This is a bit of a shock as once upon a time I was legendary known amongst friends and colleagues as someone who'd disappear every Monday lunchtime and an hour later reappear with the latest new releases, a person who'd know what the latest musical trend was, a guy with his finger on the pulse of the musical zeitgeist (if you will). No longer it seems. When did this change happen?

Many factors really. There comes a time when you've bought enough records, especially when you can't face getting rid of most of them. So pure logistical space factors come into play. Downloading has also been a factor - I spent the best part of 13 years supporting the record industry so felt it was time to take a bit back, mostly via illegal downloading. If I liked the tune that much I'd actually buy the physical item, but there was none of this "buying blind" as in the 90s. I stopped listening to the likes of Radio One, mainly as I hated the DJ's that were on during the times I could listen. "Top Of The Pops" got shunted around the schedules until it's eventual demise, and this show wasn't a weekly fixture in my viewing habits. Same goes for the unlamented CD:UK. And of course, during the last 5 years, gigs have become so expensive that whereas once I'd do about 12 gigs a year plus a festival, it dwindled to about two. I stopped buying the NME as it had become a pale shadow of it's former self, becoming quite unreadable.

But I'm not going to go off on a grumpy old man-esque rant about today's music being rubbish, because whilst it might be true (ooh challenging) I'm no longer in a position to chase fashion - there's simply not enough time. If I'm perfectly honest I'm quite happy to follow the artists I've liked over the last 30 or so years on this planet. and if something comes along that sounds okay, I'll give it a go. It's not about getting old really, it's finding the time.

Nowadays, I'll get my music info from blogs, and the NME news pages. I may stumble across some video that I like on the SKY music channels every now and again, and I'll always give time to listen to new stuff by established artists. And if I'm going to spend £30 plus on a ticket for a gig I want to make sure that I'm going to enjoy it. The gigs that tickets have been purchased for this year are a veritable nostalgia-fest when you look at them listed:

Saint Etienne
Pet Shop Boys
Blur
Kraftwerk
U2
Orbital
Simple Minds & OMD.

Most of these have new material to perform or have recently reformed. The key link though throughout is that I'm guaranteed to be entertained. Not much risk, but hey, I'll leave that to ver kids.

This doesn't mean I'm oblivious to new stuff. I'm quite partial to the latest Bat For Lashes single, Lily Allen's album is quite good, and I'm probably going to buy the Little Boots album, as it's a) got Phil Oakey of the Human League on it, and b) Victoria Hesketh's a Blackpool girl so you've got to show local support. and c) it sounds good.

And that's what counts at the end of the day.

Pet Shop Boys Pie-Chart

2009-05-17T12:38:00.000+01:00

The shelves are emptying...

2009-05-16T16:33:00.000+01:00

Lad mag update...

Following my previous two fantastic articles (if I do say so myself, no other sod will) ("Men's Mag vs Lad's Mag:Round" and "We want to get Loaded" ) there's been further movements in the magazine market, much down to equal measures of changing tastes and the economy going tits up.

Two of the better men's magazines have gone to the wall. Style mag ARENA finally got killed off after 22 years back in March, and the UK print edition of Maxim has closed down after 13 years on the shelves. It's particularly ironic in the case of the latter as the magazine was showing signs of being quite readable following it's resurrection from the immature mess it became in 2006. However, sales were down 41.4% year on year in the second half of 2008 to 45,951, a far cry from Maxim's circulation peak in 2000, when sales were 328,000 copies a month - though the market-leader rival FHM was then selling around 700,000. It was especially noticeable in the latter issues that they couldn't get any reasonably famous model/actresses/singers/tv presenters to model for them anymore. Maybe they weren't trying, I don't know, and the intention was to run the title into the ground.

Maxim continues online, whilst Brits will be able to buy the successful US print edition instead, which sells an impressive 2.5m copies a month.

FHM has recently cleaned up its act, cut out the tits and remains the country's bestselling men's magazine, at the last count selling over 272, 000 per issue, which whilst well down on the previous peaks, is still an impressive figure, especially if you compare it to the women's magazine sales figures. The likes of Men's Health, the fitness mag go from strength to strength. And Nuts, Zoo and Loaded (15 years old this month folks) are still fighting amongst themselves for an ever decreasing readership and advertising revenue.

What does this all show then? Are men no longer reading mags? Maybe, but there seems to be a shift towards online readership rather than print. And there's enough breasts to be found online to satisfy any bloke.

So, everything I said in my previous articles seems to be spot on...

Up Yours Scousers

2009-05-16T16:15:00.000+01:00

Another year, another Manchester United league title. Yawn.

Except it wasn't a yawn. This season it was a battle, and one of the prizes not directly reflected by gongs and silverware was the chance to equal Liverpool's long held record of 18 League titles. And that record has gone. Voom. We've equalled it now, and have every chance of going on next season to surpass it.

"Errr, but you haven't won the European Cup 5 times, la" your average knuckle-dragging Scouser would retort, quietly fuming that their club's not won the league now since before the KLF split up. Well that could disappear in time, as we've done it three times and are on course to retain the trophy next week should we beat Barcalona in Rome.

It was inconceivable to any Liverpool fan back in 1994 when United had won their first league title in years that they wouldn't do it again and that within 15 years their hated rivals would equal their tally. But it's happened.

Manchester United's draw with Arsenal at Old Trafford today wrapped up our 11th Premier League and 18th English league title. Liverpool pushed United hard this season, and have been probably the closest they're ever going to get to challenging us. But not good enough. Sir Alex Ferguson's team this season (and I mean team - this has been a real collective effort with the rotation system working effectively for once) have excelled, winning four trophies (Community Shield, League Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and now the League), still up for the European Cup, and only the FA Cup being a bit of a misjudgment by the wizard. Player of the Season? Can't do it, it's been an team performance. If I had to pick one on pain of death it would be Darren Fletcher if only for the improvement in his game this season and the injustice that was the sending off which means he misses the dream European Final.

Roll on Rome and the potential of us retaining the trophy...

The Great British Record Buying Experience

2009-05-16T16:01:00.000+01:00

Ahh, remember buying the latest singles from Woolies on a Saturday afternoon?

Nope, this isn’t going to be another “wasn’t Woolworths great once” article following it’s sad but long overdue demise earlier this year, though that article will probably come in due course. No, instead I’m looking back to the days when you could buy a record - a single, on vinyl, on the high street, like, in a shop. I’m writing about the great British record buying experience!

No, really, it’s going to be good. Honest.

Young readers may be excused for thinking this is foolish talk and your writer has gone mad. But no, once upon a time, you could buy the latest top 40 singles on your average high street record or department store. Back in the day when I was a nipper, it was all vinyl. Seven inch singles mostly, with the odd twelve incher (ooh err, missus). It didn’t use to be record emporiums you’d go to for these shiny black discs – I bought my first single ever, the glorious “Knowing Me Knowing You” by Abba, from a box on the counter of our local television rental shop (“Focus” if I remember rightly).

In the 1970’s, even a small town like Fleetwood had many outlets for records – the aforementioned TV shop, high street colossus Woolworths who had the Top 50 (imagine that!) and another small shop which I think was owned by a bloke called Steve Price, which always sold loads of New Wave coloured vinyl stuff and second hand discs around about 1979. Even the bloody Co-Op had a selection of discs, granted most of them were on the dreaded "Music For Pleasure" label but a record's a record. But the shop that most punters went to was the Record Centre, tucked away on Poulton Road, an always shabby shop which sold loads of albums, the top 40 singles (which were always positioned directly above the counter and it would be pot luck if the proprietor gave you a single with a picture sleeve or not) and the necessary diamond stylus and dust bug for your deck. They also sold hi-fi’s but these never seemed to shift. Many a Saturday afternoon would be spent rummaging through their ex-chart singles looking for that elusive “Hungry Like The Wolf” picture sleeve, though mostly it'd be Shakatak or the Barron Knights you'd find instead.

If you ventured further afield into Cleveleys, there was the ever-reliable Cobweb record shop, part of an empire stretching over Poulton, Cleveleys and St Annes, which was worth a look for the punk badges and Adam and the Ants seven inches. And what's more you could stare in wonder at these new fangled things called videos… wow, movies in your own home… but that’s another blog. Big town Blackpool had yer actual Woolies & WH Smith, the basement in Binns, Boots department store and mysterious places like Ray's Melody Inn which were frequented by serious older punters who intimidated you at the age of 10. No HMV, Our Price or Virgin back then.

In the early 80's there was a decent shop above the Hounds Hill branch of Milletts, which was a weird concept – wandering round tents and camping gear in order to get to buy “New Years Day” by U2, now that's high concept. That’s when I could afford to buy a new record – usually it was back to scouring through the cheap ex-chart racks or the local newsagents for their selection of ex-juke box records.

The floodgates burst around about 1983 when Ames Records opened on Bank Hey Street, swiftly changing to Virgin in 1985 before transforming into Our Price for the rest of the late 80's to 90's. Then a little branch of HMV opened – I could never afford the records but it was just wonderful to browse, and see & hear the records I could only read about in Smash Hits.

However going back in time to Fleetwood 1980, the new kid on the block arrived in the form of “Soundtrack” records, a small modern store which had loadsa new singles, up to date and always with freebies like poster sleeves and badges. More to the point some new releases were cheap! On my meagre budget this was great. In years to come, long after the shop’s demise I would come to understand how they managed to make the shop such an Aladdin’s Cave of vinyl delights, when I came to understand the concept of the chart-return shop…

These were the shops to hunt down. In 1988, once I’d finished sixth form, even before getting a job, I’d take my cash down to any of the Cobweb stores or the bizarrely named Sandy Mountain’s Sinfonia record shop on Cookson Street in Blackpool on a Friday afternoon and take advantage of the cheap new releases. These CD singles and 12 inches were cheap because the record company reps would target these shops, giving them the latest singles at cut down prices in order to get them into the charts for Sunday. So I’d get the latest Mondays single for £1.99 whereas poor old Record Centre or even HMV couldn’t compete, having to charge full whack. Now the downside in buying records so cheap was that you’d also end up buying some right shit along the way for 99p – Climie Fisher anyone?

I was getting a bit savvy and realised that new record deliveries were on Monday, so it would be best to get down there on a Monday lunch for the latest releases, and more important, the limited editions. Yep, I’m a mug for a special edition. Fine Young Cannibals in a tin? Yes please. Chris Rea Car shaped CD box? Why not. Voice Of The Beehive honey filled PVC sleeve? Oh go on. Any old bollocks I’d probably buy if I had enough money left. It was amusing buying from Sinfonia as owner Sandy was a full on Christian and would take offence at certain records and try not to sell them you. He nearly didn't stock Happy Monday's "Hallelujah" for some reason.

If you wanted your actual proper bosh bosh dance stuff, then a trip down to murky South Shore on the number 11 bus was in order, with a visit to Melody House on Bond Street. This was at one time predominantly a video & record shop, but when acid house arrived in 1988, underwent a bit of transformation into the place to come for dance vinyl. You’d get there and there would be about eight punters around the counter, getting the guy behind the counter to “put this one on mate” whilst you tried valiantly to get served (and usually ignored). Customer service wasn’t the watchword there. Meanwhile the rest of the shop gathered dust.

It was during the mid nineties when the Britpop era began in earnest that I frequented the independent shops less and less. Woolies had finally got it’s act together, and HMV, Our Price were competing price wise (and you could rely on them having the stock on the shelves). Little did I know that this would be a watershed point in the record buying experience...

To be continued...

The day after Friday

2009-05-16T15:57:00.000+01:00

“S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y… night!”, as the Bay City Rollers used to “sing”. They were of course referring to the night of the week when they’d go out dancing, drinking and pulling birds in bad pullovers and flares, and I’m going to take a journey back in the Tardis to one of those nights late in the Seventies. If you’re now over 30 years of age, commiserations, but don't despair; we're going to have a wallow in kiddie nostalgia and fly back to the best night of the week for telly.

Now to get yourself in the mindset for this, hark back to your childhood. It’s anywhere between 1978 & 1981, and it’s November, December or even January, therefore it’s getting dark about 4pm. You’ve either been playing out all afternoon on your Grifter, or been dragged round the town shops with the family… and you’re back indoors. Grab a glass of Vimto and switch on the telly.

You’d only have the 3 channels back then. Four if you count a fuzzy HTV Wales signal. Saturday afternoon was dead if you didn’t like sport, as BBC 1 had a pre-perv Frank Bough on Grandstand all afternoon & ITV had Dickie Davies on the low rent “World Of Sport” at the same time. It seemed to me at that age that the only sport they ever seemed to show was the 3:15 from Haymarket. But round about half three most of the horse racing had finished so things got a little more watchable... maybe a bit of snooker or darts.

"Dickie Davies shortly after some ceiling painting"

You've switched on and the telly's warmed up. Now if you’re lucky, you’ve missed the never entertaining kids show “Play Away” with Brian Cant & Floella Benjamin on BBC2 – how this ever passed muster as suitable for public consumption I’ll never know - what should be on your screen are some overweight middle aged blokes pretending to have a fight urged on by old biddies in the audience. Yes I’m referring to “Wrestling” on “World Of Sport”, featuring the likes of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks (cos there’s nothing scarier than a giant haystack), Jim “Not the ears” Breaks and pretend Samurai Kendo Nagasaki… it was just panto with violence. Never before was such a pile of shite watched by so many people.

"A man called Shirley and a large pile of horsefood earlier today."

So why did so many people tune in? Well, there was sod all else to do until the football results came in at 4:45. Hard to think in these times of Jeff Stelling’s Soccer Staurday, but back then the only option would be to listen to the radio to get updates on the scores. Otherwise you have to endure the wrestling and wait for the moment at around twenty to five when commentator Kent Walton signed off with “Have a good week… till next week!”. At which point you’d switch over to BBC 1 to see the results coming in live on the Grandstand teleprinter (which was just a camera pointed at a printer reeling off the results as they came in) . Special attention was given to score draws as these of course were important for your parents if they did the Pools Coupon. Some lunatics may have stuck with Dickie Davies over on ITV for the results but they were always a bit slow – BBC was where it was at.

"It was fever pitch in the Grandstand studio."

And then the full classified results would be read out, from the Football League Division One to Scottish League Division Two, in that sedate hypnotic manner by the legendary i.e. old Len Martin. Dividend forecast – low, with 24 score draws and ten no score draws. God knows what it all meant, all I knew was my Grandad exclaiming that it'd be pointless checking the coupon that week (blimey, I remember the bloke coming round every Thursday to collect the pools coupons and money from my Nan).

"Stop making me wait. I don't care about Wigan vs Sale."

We’d then get the local sports news, being in the North West it would be read by the illustrious likes of John Mundy or David Davies (who went on to work for the FA in the 90s trivia fans), towards the end of which after the rugby results were being read out they’d put a caption up telling you which games were on “Match Of The Day” later that evening.. at which point I’d be getting a bit nervous in my tummy as my personal highlight of the week would be coming up next… the latest episode of “Doctor Who” with Tom Baker.

Sometimes they’d leave you dangling with a 10 minute filler of Tom & Jerry beforehand… the swines. But as soon as that BBC1 globe came up I’d be on tenterhooks… that would be me gone for 25 minutes (funny thing is that nothing’s changed 30 years on…)

"Now & then. Ooh, I need a wee..."

What followed Who was usually a blur for the next half an hour or so, whilst I processed the excitement I’d just witnessed. Fortunately you didn’t have to concentrate much on the likes of the Basil Brush show, Jim’ll Fix It or The Generation Game. Now some of you may be thinking here that it’s all a bit cosy BBC fodder, and you’d be right. Rarely did you turn over and watch something else on ITV. “Bruce’s Big Night”? 2 hours of shite.

"The Good, The Bad & The Ugly"

No, the BBC was where it was at on a Saturday. Looking back I couldn’t tell you anything about what I’d had for tea on any Saturday – not a thing. But ask me about the telly and I’m right on it.

After the general early evening fun you’d be subjected to the likes of an early evening drama – “Secret Army”, “Duchess Of Duke Street”, “All Creatures Great & Small” or “Juliet Bravo” – nothing too demanding, before the mid evening comedy would arrive in the form of “The Two Ronnies” or “Dick Emery”. Fifty or so mirthful minutes later, it’d be pyjama time. However if you were lucky like me you’d be still allowed to stay up after the news to watch Captain Dobie lambast “Starsky & Hutch” and give them 24 hours or they were off the case. Then “Match Of The Day”, and rounding the evening off, “Parkinson”, by which time I’d be in bed, missing the likes of Peter Ustinov & David Niven rambling on.

That was the formula:

Football results

Doctor Who

Light entertainment with a gonk or Larry Grayson

Early evening drama set in the past

Light entertainment smutty comedy show

American Import

News

Football

Parky

Late Night Horror film.

Simple. It worked, and people were happy. Nobody really bothered with ITV on a Autumn or Winter Saturday night for years. It was only round 1980-81 that they attempted to fight back, with a combination of low brow London Weekend Television fodder such as the crap comic escapades of Metal Mickey, sci-fi action with Buck Rogers, celebrity quiz shows like Punchlines or The Pyramid Game, Beadle-fest Game For A Laugh, Ted Rodgers’ inexplicable 3-2-1, Bodie & Doyle in The Professionals and the newly poached from the Beeb Football.

"You're watching ITV. Jesus."

Sounds pretty average now but in using the old formula, ITV ruled the roost for a couple of years, with the BBC making a slight return in the mid 80s with Doctor Who, Noel Edmonds’ Late Late Breakfast Show (before the murdering years), Allo Allo, Bob’s Full House & Russ Abbot. By which time the television landscape had changed anyway. The public could rent out decent movies on a Saturday on video, and a new fourth channel had established itself as an alternative (even though there was usually sod all on it). Viewing habits were changing.

Still, it wasn’t quite over for TV Saturdays though. During the nineties there was a minor renaissance when there was enough on the box if you weren’t going out for the night, and even if you were there were essential “getting ready” programmes to have on in the background. I remember sitting down for the footy results (as ever) followed by a bit of “TOTP2”, then maybe Lois & Clark (eye candy) or a perv over Baywatch if you were that way inclined followed by the trash that was Gladiators (switching over for Noel’s House Party afterwards) and of course, Blind Date – the ultimate “have on in the background whilst getting ready” show. The Lottery show would always ruin the mid evening – this was usually the point you’d go out. Otherwise that ever present staple of Casualty would follow, with a some one off drama nonsense or Parkinson (making a comeback) before Match Of The Day after ten, and then The Stand Up Show (usually on at the time at which you’d come in from the pub). After some bad film with Judd Nelson in it would be a repeat of TOTP from early in the week to round things off. All in all solid stuff.

These days we only get the mighty Jeff Stelling all afternoon, 13 weeks of Doctor Who a year to look forward to, and Harry Hill’s TV Burp. What a con. Don't get me started on Simon Cowell's shitefests. Is it too much to ask for one channel to put together a bunch of programmes that entertain me on a Saturday night without me having the need to keep flicking through the Sky channels like a masochistic epileptic with ADHD? Apparently.

"As good as it gets"

The Regeneration Game.

2009-01-04T00:57:00.000+01:00

This is the new Doctor Who - Number Eleven... Curtis Stigers.

Oh, it's actually Matt Smith. Who hell he?

Now once you get past the fact that he looks like a fight between Nicko McBrain (the drummer out of Iron Maiden), Herman Munster and a fan of My Chemical Romance, PLUS getting your head round the idea that's he only bloody 26, he looks like a good choice. A bit emo, so that will keep the fangirls happy, not exactly a pretty boy and reportedly a good actor, plus he just looks a bit odd, and you need that.

The only problem I've got now is that Tennant is so enshrined as the Doctor he's almost irreplaceable, in the same way that Tom Baker was back in 1981, or on a different slant, Brosnan as Bond. Daniel Craig didn't look like a Bond, and in some ways still doesn't, but the 007 films now are a great deal different from Pierce's time, and so Craig fits the newly defined role like a glove. Doctor Who's return in 2005 was very much a different beast to that which was dumped back in 1989, and Christopher Eccleston didn't look like right as a Time Lord, but his portrayal was so defining that you couldn't at that time see anybody else playing the Doctor as well as him. AND then along comes Tennant...

What am I trying to say? Well in the tradition of the Lock-In, I haven't a bloody clue. All I'm saying really is that Smith will be a Doctor... THE Doctor, whether we like it or not. Welcome to the TARDIS.

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

2008-11-02T05:48:00.000+01:00

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

2008-05-22T22:50:00.000+01:00

"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

2008-04-25T17:36:00.000+01:00

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

2008-04-21T13:50:00.000+01:00

The Great Rock & Roll Swindle

2008-04-17T23:49:00.000+01:00

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

2008-04-16T22:09:00.000+01:00

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

2008-02-23T01:14:00.000+01:00

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.

We Love TV

2007-10-17T22:24:00.000+01:00

Autumn's up and running and it's getting cold outside, so what better time than now to watch some TV?

It used to be that BBC & ITV would save all their programmes up for the big Autumn schedule, but that seems to have gone away now and you tend to get things spread about a bit more through what were used to be the fallow periods. Plus with the major competition from Satellite, Cable and now the Internet they can't really afford to keep things under wraps for too long. However it's the latter that seems to be throwing up the more interesting TV from the USA via the wonder of Bittorrent.

How did we used to live waiting for shows to cross the Atlantic to be shown on our networks six months after they've aired in the States? How did we manage to wait a week until the next episode? Downloading shows via the filesharing networks has, along with Sky+, revolutionised watching television in our household.

"Heroes" is really the show to blame for this. Word of mouth drummed up interest in this show, and about halfway through the US broadcast of the first season, we took the plunge and downloaded the shows shown so far. It was one of those rare shows where you watched one episode, and then.. you had to watch the next. What was intended to be just a quick viewing of an episode before bed turned into a five hour marathon only halted by the need for sleep.

Of course the first season is now about halfway through on it's UK terrestrial BBC2 showing, but in the US the second season has already commenced, so we're downloading and watching the new season episodes weekly and it's a frustrating experience! I need to see the next episode... now! Grrrr.

Heroes Season Two so far is a bit of a slow burner. It's four months after the (not quite) explosive events in Kirby Plaza and almost all of the characters are flipped in intention and situation from where we first met them last year. There's some new characters, and the killing off of some familiar ones also. And a new enemy, and maybe the return of an old one. Far too early to pass judgement yet but it's so far not up to the high standard of the best of the last season, but not much is.

So what else is there to view?

Readers may remember my article earlier this year about remakes of old TV series and films, and in particular NBC's "Bionic Woman". I responded to criticism of the casting of ex-Eastender Michelle Ryan as Jamie Sommers saying "wait and see" before having a go. And I've been proved right - she's actually pretty good in the role and her American accent is top notch. The first episode of the show is not bad. They've revamped the pilot which was doing the rounds in the summer, dumping the deaf sister for a delinquent high school kid sister instead, and Battlestar Galactica's Katie Sackhoff makes a great Bionic nemesis. It's a neat update. Not sure it's got legs though, as the second episode was lacking somewhat with a bit of a dull story about germ warfare terrorists, and it looks as if it may turn into espionage adventure by numbers. We'll see.

I've also watched the first episode of "The Riches" with Eddie Izzard & Minnie Driver heading up a family of travellers who steal the identity and lifestyle of a wealthy couple who've just died in a road accident. They intend to steal the American Dream. It's black comedy at times, with some dark undercurrents. Izzard's accent is shit but he manages to rise above this in the lead role of Wayne Malloy, a conman who wants so much more for his family and shows subtle hints of stopping at nothing to get it. Driver plays his heroin addicted wife, newly released from prison, struggling with her addiction and the new world she's been flung into. Add to this a stoned son, a daughter who has issues with her addict mother, a transvestite youngest son and the vengeful head of the gypsy camp they've stolen money from, and you've got potentially a very interesting series. About the only thing worth watching on crappy Virgin 1 anyway.

Over on Paramount Comedy, they've finally got some new imports to show instead of old "Man About The House" shows.

"The Sarah Silverman Programme" is delightfully batty, if at times in baaaad taste. 25 minutes of whimsy and crudity, and stupid songs usually about poo. Only watched the first two so far and they're just... barmy. If you like "South Park" you'll get this. And talking of which, series 11 of "South Park" looks to be as spot on as ever, the first show taking a mad diversion into a tale about the world of headlice, purely to make a wickedly joke about Angelina Jolie. Also on Paramount "The Knights Of Prosperity" is a short lived sitcom in the "My Name Is Earl" mode about a bunch of losers who try to rob Mick Jagger's apartment. That's it. Not laugh out loud funny but dumb and amusing.

It's not all Bittorrent and Satellite though. "The IT Crowd" Series 2 recently finished over on good old Channel 4, and didn't really for me hit the comic heights of Series 1, but maybe repeated viewing will help. Certainly the first show with the theatre visit was superb, and Matt Berry is always good value as new boss Douglas. Loved Moss's appearance on "Dragon's Den" with his bra as well. Another returnee over on BBC2 was Steve Coogan's "Saxondale" which on it's first outing received a mixed reception from some quarters, but I loved it and always said that it needs time to bed in. Repeated viewing yields delights you may have missed first time round. The second series was almost all entirely good, with some unexpected subtle humour from Coogan, and Morwenna Banks is excellent every week as the bitchy Vicky back at the office.

Even BBC1 has got a reasonably funny sitcom at last with "Not Going Out", which on the surface looks to be a typically creaky British sitcom, but has a gag rate to almost rival "Friends" at it's peak. Lee Mack & Tim Vine make a great double act and hopefully there will be another series (check out co-writer Andrew Collins's blog listed somewhere to your right for more info). Could do without Miranda Hart's cleaner though - how does someone so untalented get work?

BBC4 has given us the return of "Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe", for another frustratingly short run. So far he's done a brilliant job of exposing the way News has been dumbed down over the years and a scathing attack on the BBC's policy of shrinking credits at the end of their shows. All done by Mr Brooker with liberal amounts of gurning and swearing.

"Spooks" is back on BBC 1 and is back on form after the patchy Series Five, with a gripping story about biological germ warfare. Hints that the storylines may wrap over from one week to the next more so than before have been confirmed with two cliffhangers at the climax of the first two episodes, and the ever present threat that any of the main cast members may get killed off. Quality escapist drama. "Top Gear" has bedded in on Sundays again, with the usual mix of cars you'll never afford and the boys being arses. The first show was a bit shit to be honest, but the second with the return of the task - this time across the Channel by car... in water - was irresponsible fun. Clarkson, Hammond and May are like a "Last Of The Summer Wine" for the Nintendo generation.

And a good Doctor Who fan like myself is being kept reasonably placated until the next series by "The Sarah Jane Adventures" on CBBC. This is pure kids TV but it's actually different because it's good, keeping up the standards set by the pilot and frankly is just a fun undemanding romp, with the farting Slitheen finally finding their natural home in the world of Dick & Dom and Shaun The Sheep. Not that all this means that the scripts are dumbed down, no way. It reminds me of the really good children's adventure mysteries that the BBC used to do so well back in the day, with half decent acting even from the kids. And if Elisabeth Sladen's not had botox then I want to know what she's taking, because she's wearing far too well for a woman of 59!

And the treat of the week so far for me is "The Peter Serafinowicz Show". From the people who brought you "Look Around You" half an hour of more stupid spoofs and impressions. "Who he?" you may ask. Well, you'll have seen him in many a comedy over the last ten years, but notably in "Hardware" with Martin Freeman, as Tim's paint-balling nemesis Duane Benzie in "Spaced" and as Pegg & Frost's bad-tempered flatmate who turns into a zombie (as you do) in "Shaun Of The Dead". Oh, and he was the voice of Darth Maul. Highlights so far are the excellent Shopping Channel sketches, Brian Butterfield the crap lawyer, adverts for "Kitchen Bang!", and an uncanny Michael Caine Acting Masterclass which, having seen the original I can safely vouch for it's accuracy. And that's what's great about it - even when the jokes are weak, it more than makes up for that by the amount of care and attention to detail that shines through.

And that's about it. Who says there's nothing on the box?

"Life On Mars" Series 2 promo stuff

2007-09-22T19:00:00.000+01:00

I've had these hanging around for the best part of 7 months and thought it might be nice to keep somewhere. The first is a promo poster for the second series of "Life On Mars" and the second is a scan of "The Rules Of Modern Policing", an amusing promo book that was left around bars and pubs publicizing the series.

How we used to live

2007-09-18T23:47:00.000+01:00

Whilst skimming through Google images, I stumbled across many old photos of this town I find myself living in now. It was a shock to see how much Blackpool has changed even in my lifetime . I thought it might be appropriate to feature some of these pictures to show the changing face of a seaside town and it's neighbours.

Above is a an aerial photo of Blackpool Tower from 1952. Just above the Tower you can see a railway station. Below is a photo of that reasonably busy Blackpool Central Station in the early Sixties, before the Beeching cuts destroyed much of the rail infrastructure across the UK. Alas this line, which carried many a holidaymaker through South Shore before arriving at the terminus just near the Tower, was closed down, the tracks ripped up, the station demolished...

and now we have this instead:

Blackpool Central... car park. Yes holidaymakers still come in down what was the old railway line but it's now it's Yeadon Way, a bypass transporting coachloads of tourists to this cold 70's nightmare. Where the terminus was is now Coral Island, a gaudy tatty glorified arcade run by people who don't give a monkeys about the town but are happy to try to bleed it dry of cash. This car park is the location for what was to be the Mega Casino. The Council still have plans for it but I'd say it'll still be a car park in 5 years time.

Here's some more photos of the station before it was removed:

The Art of the Pet Shop Boys & Mark Farrow

2007-09-18T21:25:00.002+01:00

Possibly my favourite band... or is that New Order? Anyway, I've always been of the opinion that the look of the record, CD or DVD whatever, is almost as important as the contents itself. You can buy a great record with a shit cover and it's still a great record, but a great sleeve makes it something special. How less great would "Sgt Pepper" be without it's Peter Blake sleeve design? Or Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" without the Hipgnosis's light prism? Nirvana "Nevermind" without the baby? Debatable.

The Pet Shop Boys have 95% of the time had fantastic graphic design, courtesy of their long time graphic designer Mark Farrow, who's worked with them throughout their career with only a brief break for 2002's "Release" album (which looked very poor). His designs for Tennant & Lowe have a distinctive look, distinguished by simple images and clean simple typefaces.

Enough yakking. Let's have a look.

"Suburbia" 12" single (1986)

A defining image of PSB in their early years, and one which they'd come back to, time and time again - a single image of either Neil or Chris, with little or no text, but you know immediately what the product is.

"It's a Sin" 12" and CD single (1987)

Another classic image from photographer Eric Watson, with Chris typically in the background, and no cover text again. Somehow you don't need it - the image says everything.

"Always On My Mind" 12" single (1987)

White. Small image. Small text. That's a recurring motif. Their first two proper albums "Please" & "Actually" began this, and their Christmas number one single was packaged similarly in a distinctly tasteful classy sleeve. You had to almost squint to read the credits. The photos come from the "forthcoming" PSB movie "It Couldn't Happen Here". The remix was similar but with a bigger font:

The American release had a different image but the effect's the same.

"Heart" 7" and 12" singles (1988)

Marketing gimmick? Or Art? You decide, but for what won't be the last time, you can choose either a Neil or Chris cover.

or both of them, if you buy the 12" singles.

"Introspective" Album/CD (1988)

A change from the norm. Coloured bars ala the Testcard ahoy. Apparently this was a kick against their perceived image and the white covers.

Now I wish I had this. The clear vinyl 3 x 12" single version of the album.

Typically, the Japanese get different stripes:

"Left To My Own Devices" 12" single (1988).

Now, this is nice. Initial quantities of the 7" & 12" came in an orange pouch housing this bizarre sleeve. The CD single also came in the orange pouch, but with a different cover for the CD inside.

In 1988 the Pet Shop Boys released their first and only annual, called typically "Annually" designed throughout by Mark Farrow and written by their long time collaborator Chris Heath.

"So Hard" (1990)

Another iconic image. Neil looks blank and emotionless, whilst Chris eats an apple. Strangely brilliant. And nice coats.

"Jealousy" (1991)

Back to the either/or options with this sleeve.

"Where the Streets Have No Name"/"How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?" Remix 12"(1991)

Don't know why I like this one. It's really just a dull close up of Chris's keyboard but somehow the blurriness of the background and the striking green "Remixed" makes it look really dramatic.

"Performance" VHS Video sleeve 1992

Featuring Neil & Chris dressed in costumes from the 1991 shows, this enigmatically sums up the show in one image.

"Can You Forgive Her" Remix 12"(1993)

Some see this as the start of the downward spiral, but they're very wrong. As a reaction against the criticism of them standing around looking moody, Tennant & Lowe recreate themselves as bizarre unreal characters in increasingly artificial scenarios. Hence we get the dunces hat and egg look. Not to all tastes.

"Very" CD Box (1993)

"Tactile for the Nineties" is how they put it. Increasingly tired of the lack of imagination put into CD design Farrow, Tennant & Lowe came up with this Lego inspired design (above) which stood out on the shelves.

This bright yellow design adorned the vinyl version of the album. Hmmm. The cassette was a bit better:

Back on track with the very lovely limited edition version came in this rubber sleeve with a similar Lego tactile feel.

"Various" VHS video (1994)

All the videos from the "Very" album wrapped in this mad sleeve featuring all the versions of Neil & Chris designed for this campaign.

"I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing" 12" remixes and CD Singles(1993)

By this point they'd gone a bit mad.As you can see.

"Discovery" Laserdisc (1995)

This document of the South American tour for the "Very "album sees a return of the Dunces hats against a backdrop of the Brazilian flag colours.

"Paninario '95" CD Single (1995)

Back to a more classic PSB look after the day-glo excesses of "Very" with these simple designs. Above are the CD singles, below are the 12" sleeves.

"Bilingual" CD (1996)

Still wanting their CDs to stand out and look special, here's a yellow sleeve with frosted title effect, and a return to traditional PSB fonts. The reissue version went with a similarly striking yet less expensive cover:

"I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More" CD Singles (1999)

The Millenium is impending and the dressing up box returns. And a return for dogs, another running PSB motif.

"Flamboyant" CD & 12" (2004)

Relatively abstract, a blurred video image shields us from the horror that was Chris's mullet.

"Fundamental" CD album (2006)

Not white but black. But the effect's just as familiar, and the neon lettering works a treat.

"Cubism" DVD (2007)

The tour for the "Fundamental" album was built round the visual concept of the neon lights and the costumes, with a fitting sleeve for the DVD - a cardborad slip case meaning you can have either a Neil Or Chris sleeve, as ever.

On the day I was born...

2007-09-18T01:24:00.000+01:00

...this was what was on the telly.

Well, you've got to say that the 2nd of December 1969 was a bloody bag of thrills eh readers? Still you gotta admire the fact that Wacky Races was on BBC1, Tomorrow's World with Raymond Baxter was there (where's my jet pack and robot butler you bastards?) and there was the Sky at Night (still going strong!). Jazz Scene sounds a bit shit though as does Cribbins on ITV. Mind you, there's more variety here than you'd find on terrestrial TV these days. Well, just about.

Hope I die before I get... no... no, it's gone.

2007-09-17T22:58:00.000+01:00

Sunday 16th September 2007. Blackpool Opera House. Us: Row F of the Circle. Billy Connolly: on stage, with his latest gig on the "Too Old To Die Young" tour of England.

It's a good 12 years or so since I last saw Mr Connolly live in this town on that very same stage, and we've both grown a bit older since then. Fortunately we've both not mellowed much. For Celia, this is the first time seeing him live. For two hours without a break Connolly stood and pontificated on suicide bombers, feng shui, "Most Haunted", unhelpful shop staff, how rubbish modern hymns are, dwarves on buses (they're not a small person)... and so on.

Okay, you may have heard some of it before (the balaclava routine, the exploding manholes) but it's forgivable when you know there's some top draw tales coming next. As ever, Connolly drifts off mid tale to some mad happening which has just jumped into his mind ("Oh, I must tell you this...") and goes off eventually to get back to the original joke only to take off again on something else he's remembered. He explained that this is no genius masterplan on his part, he genuinely just drifts off and if he gets back to the original routine it's a miracle.

In any other comic's hands the routines would be dated and over familiar, but in Connolly's they're fresh and inspired, and in many of his tales all the more funny for they're true(ish). Only he could make the news story of the attempted bombing of Glasgow Airport hilarious and at the same time make a valid point of showing how our attitude to terrorists is wrong, and we should send Bin Laden a video of John Smeaton - that'll shit him up. And only Billy could make a couple of old jokes like the "black testicles" one and the "kick the dog's balls" still brilliant.

Maybe not as good as he was, but Billy Connolly Live in 2007, even at the age of nearly 65, is the benchmark for all other comedians to aim for.

Anthony H Wilson: 20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007

2007-08-13T00:16:00.001+01:00

To some he was just that bloke off the news on the telly. To others he was partially responsible for drawing attention to some of the best music to come out of Britain. I think to really appreciate the true Anthony Wilson, you've got to have grown up in the North West during the 70s & 80s, as it was here in Grandaland that we truly saw to the two sides of AHW.

Wilson worked for Granada TV graduating to the role of newsreader/cum anchorman on "Granada Reports" in the mid 70s. Now when I was a kid, come six o'clock in the evening once the kids stuff had finished and the news came on, I had to choose between the BBC's Look North with the eccentric ramblings of Stuart "It's a Knockout" Hall, or on ITV Granada Reports (or more realistically "Grandad Reports" with the likes of Bobs Greaves & Smithies on board). On the latter, the young energetic Tony stood out a mile, so much so that the bosses took on board his enthusiasm for the local arts scene by giving him his own weekly "What's On" slot on the show.

Somehow the success of this convinced Granada to give him a late-night, arts-based show called So It Goes in 1975. Initially it featured the run of the mill bands that were around at that time. Bored with the dull bands he had to feature, and always on the look-out for new talent, Wilson went to the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester on 4 June 1976 to see a London group who were part of the new "punk" movement and called themselves The Sex Pistols. He was one of 42 people in an audience that also included amongst others Peter Shelley and Howard Trafford (soon to become Howard Devoto) who would immediately form the Buzzcocks, as well as Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook, who would later form Joy Division. (Also present was Mick Hucknall who, inexplicably, as if punk never happened, would later form Simply Red.)

'It was,' said Wilson, 'nothing short of an epiphany.' He immediately booked the Pistols on the last show of So It Goes. The second series was also shown in London, and became the only place on British television where you could see this strange new music. "The twats at BBC Music just didn't get it" he commented some years later.

In 1978, Wilson formally entered the music business by launching the Factory night at the Russel club in Manchester's Hulme district, and shortly after with the aid of his savings founded Factory records. He was aided and abetted by designer Peter Saville, the producer Martin Hannett, actor and manager Alan Erasmus and Joy Division manager Rob Gretton. The rest is history. Factory records was very much in the style of it's creator - distinctly northern, stylish, stubborn - with the emphasis of art over commerce. Indeed the bands he signed owned everything they did, and Factory had no rights at all over the work, which would come to bite Factory on the arse in the end.

Factory's success was initially due to the output of Joy Division, possibly even more so after lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980 on the verge of US success. It is said that Joy Division could have been as big as U2 had Curtis not taken his own life. This is unlikely, but it has to be said that the potential was never fully realised.

That seems to be the way it was with Wilson and Factory. Defeat snatched away from the jaws of victory. Take the example of New Order, the band that formed from the remains of Joy Division, whose 12 inch single "Blue Monday" remains the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time. Unbelievably, it cost Factory Records two pence every time someone bought a copy. Wilson said "We thought, it's a 12-inch format, it's not going to sell, so it may as well look good. It was an utterly contemporary and utterly timeless piece of design, and it was hideously expensive because excellence always is. It looked so good, it actually cost us money to sell it. Which is fine when you're talking a couple of hundred copies, but a bit of a problem when you hit 100,000."

"Blue Monday" was probably the first time I really took notice of NewOrder, and certainly the first point where I made the link between them and that gobshite on the box. Over the years I began to admire what he was achieving with the label, and any record on the Factory label was something to cherish (with perhaps the exception of "Shall We Take A Trip" by Northside). Every release had a individual "Fac" number (well, actually everything Factory did had a number, from the first club might down to the office cat), and owning one of their records felt special.

Wilson continued in his dual role of TV presenter and record company boss through the 80's, and with the money made from Joy Division & New Order opened a night club "The Hacienda" in 1982, based on the glamorous clubs of New York yet set in a old Manchester Yacht showroom. Unfortunately the city never mind the world wasn't ready for this, and so the half empty club hemorrhaged cash for five years until the House music explosion of the late 80's, when the Hacienda and club culture collided and it became the heart of the "Madchester" scene. Wilson's extreme vision for the club anticipated the look of the 21st century Manchester by some 20 years. The ultimate irony being it closed before the redevelopment of the rest of the city got into full swing. In the early 1990s the Hacienda became unwittingly embroiled in the gun culture that began to appear in the city and after a couple of closures, closed for good in 1997.

Tony also became known as Anthony H Wilson around the end of the 80s partly in tribute to his hero novelist Anthony Burgess and partly because he knew it would wind people up. That was one of the delightful things about Wilson - he had an uncanny knack of getting people's backs up but the strength of his persona was such that he was forgivable. Being a staunch United fan he would sneak in sarky comments about the city down the other end of the East Lancs Road in Liverpool, and took great delight in United's success during the 90's, purely because of the stick he took during Liverpool's 80's heyday. He returned to his "So It Goes" roots in 1988 with the late night Granada series "The Other Side Of Midnight" giving TV debuts to the likes of the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays amongst others.

The Mondays gave Factory records another unlikely hit band on their books, becoming the band of the "Madchester" scene. This didn't stop the label being blighted by cash flow problems. Wilson's business sense was legendary for all the wrong reasons, but there were several major factors that brought down the house of Factory. The members of it's main cash cow New Order were sick of each other and of having to bail out Factory, so were not rushing to complete their latest album in the studio. Factory paid well over the odds for new record company premises just before a property crash. In a major schoolboy error Wilson sent the already drug addled Happy Mondays to Barbados to record an album without realising that it was crack central. Only disaster could ensue.

Add to all this, when trying to sell the record label to a major it was suddenly realised that due to the aforementioned "artists own everything" contract, there was nothing to sell. Factory farcically collapsed in 1991 with debts of £2m.
This left Wilson slightly more humbled but not beaten. He still had television and radio to fall back on, and increasingly became a self appointed spokesman for the North West and Manchester in particular, becoming a key player in local politics and supporting a campaign for a regional assembly for the North West, going as far as to set up an unofficial coalition calling for regional devolution, called The Necessary Group. He still was pushing new music, setting up the annual Manchester music conference, In The City, with long-term partner and former Miss England Yvette Livesey. Also a couple of attempts at setting up a new Factory label were made albeit to little commercial success.

Bizarrely the whole Wilson/Factory story was laid out as cinematic entertainment in 2003 with Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People, which represented his life as chaotic comedy and Wilson as some sort of situationist impresario-cum-newsreading stuntman, Steve Coogan capturing the essence of the man with only a hint of Alan Partridge.

Wilson unexpectedly fell ill in 2006, before undergoing emergency surgery to have a kidney removed in January 2007. Doctors then diagnosed him with cancer and he started a chemotherapy course at Manchester's Christie Hospital. The chemotherapy failed to beat the disease and he was recommended to take the drug Sutent, which unbelievably is not funded by the NHS in Manchester.

Friends and acts he supported over the years such as members of the Happy Mondays had started a fund to help pay for this treatment. Typically Wilson didn't take the illness lying down working to the end campaigning to stop the NHS treatment postcode lottery, and at the same time helping with the scheme for the regeneration of East Lancashire.

He passed away on 10th August 2007. His funeral was fittingly, like everything else Factory related, given it's own Factory number.

"I'm basically a nice ordinary Salford Catholic boy who was surrounded by this maelstrom of madness. That's the real story of my life. I had the virtue of wanting to hang out with people who were more talented than me. I can't write songs, I can't perform, I can't design clubs, but I was an enthusiast. My gift was that I said yes to everybody.'

Now That's What I Call Nostalgia Volume 87

2007-08-04T16:19:00.001+01:00

I've previously wittered on about the old compilation albums of the 70's, well now it's my look at the albums that became an essential part of life since for any young person for the last 24 years.

As is well documented, in 1983 the major labels (in this case EMI & Virgin) thought well, why the hell should we let the likes of Ronco and K-Tel cream all of the money from compilation albums? Rather than licence the tracks to them we'll release our own and make even more cash. And so the "Now That's What I Call Music" albums were born.

The first one came handily out in time for Christmas 1983, and contained the cream of the years hits with 11 number ones in all. Tadaaaaah, instant record collection for the impoverished teenager.

So in the first of an occasional series let's look back at the contents of the Now series should we, and see if they're still fabtastiscmongous... (pulls out record from paper sleeve...) Side 1 Track 1...

Phil Collins : "You Can't Hurry Love"
Back to the days when he was massive. Phil shot to number one with this faithful cover of the Supreme's sixties hit. Even the most staunch hater of his work couldn't not like this (the video however is hateful). A staple of weddings ever since.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Duran Duran : "Is There Something I Should Know"
The Duranies first number one single and a period of two years global domination starts here. The line "You're about as easy as a nuclear war" earned derision back then, and now with the benefit of hindsight, it's like the works of Keats compared to the likes of Pete Doherty nowadays. You don't know when you're well off.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 10/10

UB40: "Red Red Wine"
Believe it or not kids, UB40 were once massive, and still are in some unenlightened parts of the world. The first of two efforts on this album (see, that's how big they were. Two!) sees them tackle Neil Diamond's song in a lover's reggae style, something they'd keep coming back to over the next 20 years to diminishing returns.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 4/10

Limahl : "Only For Love"
AKA Chris Hamill, from Wigan, who dumped the rest of his pop superstar Number one group Kajagoogoo (see later) to go for solo greatness, cos he was the bestest out of that group and all the fans want to see him and not them, cos they're rubbish and anyway he was destined for better fings like this record, right?

This single reached number 16. In fairness, Limahl did go on to have a massive hit with "Never Ending Story" and continues to do well on the nostalgia circuit complete with mullet wig. He's also gay, dontcha know. Who'd have guessed.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 1/10

Heaven 17 : "Temptation"
The fall out from Ian Craig Marsh & Martyn Ware leaving The Human League and Phil Oakey keeping the name was that the two of them got 1% of the earnings from ver League's next album. Fortunately for them the next album was "Dare" the multi platinum selling breakthrough. They put the money to good use and created, with singer Glenn Gregory, the group Heaven 17. This was their biggest hit, though whether it would have been as big without the massive vocals of Carol Kenyon is another question.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 9/10

KC and the Sunshine Band : "Give It Up"
Another number one, amazingly enough, but the last hit for Harry and the boys. Immortalised in the 90's by the Old Trafford faithful's song "Na na na na na na na na na na naah, Nicky Nicky Butt, Nicky Butt, Nicky Nicky Butt!".
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

Malcolm McLaren : "Double Dutch"
Skip they do's the Double Dutch, that's them dancing.." McLaren's inspired melding of hip hop, African rhythms and skipping made this a playground hit everywhere. "Hey Ebon, Ebonettes!!"
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Bonnie Tyler : "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Welsh warbler returns from misadventures across the channel and creates Meat Loaf-esque epic about living in powder kegs, giving off sparks. Health & safety risk if you ask me. The sound of the record was unsurprising, given that Meat Loaf's producer Jim Steinman had a hand in this. Typical Russell "Highlander" Mulcahy nonsense video as well (Dancers, moody angles, crap wire-work). A number one lest we forget.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 4/10

Culture Club : "Karma Chameleon"
Nearly 25 years on we find out this is a song about Boy George's then lover, group drummer Jon Moss and not a song about hippy reptiles after all. Urgh. Apparently loving would be easy if your colours were like his dreams: red gold and green. Whatever that means.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 4/10

Men Without Hats : "Safety Dance"
You can dance if you want to. Somehow you just knew that they just had to be Canadian, and a trip to Wikipedia confirms it. One hit wonders in the UK and that's probably a good thing.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 5/10

Kajagoogoo : "Too Shy"
Ah, Chris Hamill again. Produced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, thus bringing in the Duranie's vote, this was their only number one hit. Alas one album later Limahl & Kajagoogoo (more later... really) went their separate ways. Limahl went on to flat share with Paul "Gambo" Gambaccinni, who probably reminded him of all his chart positions every day. They weren't lovers though, no.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

Mike Oldfield : "Moonlight Shadow"
A rare chart appearance by grumpy millionaire Mike, with a song featuring great vocals by Maggie Reilly, all about John Lennon's death. Or not. Depends on how he's feeling, the miserable bugger, judging from interviews I've read. All that money from "Tubular Bells" and he's still a moany old c*nt.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 7/10

Men at Work : "Down Under"
Another number one, this time from this Antipodean crew, whose best work is forgotten in favour of this harmless novelty hit. Such is life. Introduced us to the delights of the drink Zombie, the Vegimite sandwich and the term "chunder".
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Rock Steady Crew : "(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew"
1983 was the year Breakdancing and body-popping crossed over onto the mainstream. helped by the likes of Malcolm McLaren (see earlier) and this bunch of one hit wonders, who had been around since 1979 as a breakdancing crew in New York. Naff then, naff now.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

Rod Stewart : "Baby Jane"
Professional Denis Law look-a-likey and pretend Scotsman Rod Stewart was back with a vengeance this year with more AOR rock tunes, of which this was the biggest, hitting the top spot. And strangely for Rod, not a cover. He still had the horrendous spandex trousers though. All togevver naahhh.... "Baaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyybee Jane..."
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

Paul Young : "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)"
After plying his trade in various pub rock bands over the years, Mr Young finally hits the big-time proper with this number one Marvin Gaye cover, and goes multi-platinum with the accompanying "No Parlez" album, which unfortunately contains the worst cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" you'll ever hear. well, apart from New Order's live version that is. Anyway, I always preferred "Love Of The Common People".
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

New Edition : "Candy Girl"
Whitney battering Bobby Brown in younger-ballsnotyetdropped-mode. Tapping into that Jackson 5 vibe, New Edition were massive in the US and made the crossover the water to reach number one here in the UK. Though listen to the song now and it's like nails on blackboard. Anyway, we had Musical Youth, the voice of a young black Britain, so off with you Johnny Foreigner. There's nothing for you here. Tried to have a comeback in the mid nineties, but by crikey we weren't having it again.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 3/10

Kajagoogoo : "Big Apple"
No Limahl this time. The first Chris Hamill-less release saw bassist Nick Beggs step up to the mike to deliver this oh so eighties big production number, all about large fruit. Or New York. Alas, although reaching number 8 it started to go tits up and the Kajagoogoo boys shortened their monicker to just "Kaja" to little effect before calling it a day.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 4/10

Tina Turner : "Let's Stay Together"
TT was about as popular as fart in a crowded lift before the Heaven 17 guys resurrected her career with this cover of the old Al Green soul classic. The rest is history, every steamy windowed-private dancing-goldeneyed-simply the best bit of it.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Human League : "(Keep Feeling) Fascination"
Only their second single since 1981's massive "Don't You Want Me", this unnecessarily bracketed titled tune had many a youngster wondering whether their record deck had gone wonky or they'd been sold faulty goods down at Woolies. Phil shares vocal duties this time with the rest of the band. so as to share the blame collectively. Despite being an out of tune mess this reached number 2, but it was all down hill from here for ver League, but I still love 'em.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 7/10

Howard Jones : "New Song"
A new genre is invented by Mr Jones called "Veggie daft haired synth pop", but this sadly fails to catch on (unless you count Nik Kershaw who's own work often got mixed up with Howard's output by dim people). "Throw off those mental chains" implored Howard on Top Of The Pops, whilst a bald bloke called Jed danced behind him miming the words. A proto-Bez you might say. Plinkety plonk electro-pop that hasn't dated well, though I loved it at the time.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

UB40 : "Please Don't Make Me Cry"
Good grief, the Brummies are back again with a second top 10 hit. Two UB40 records on one Now album was something that wouldn't happen again, you'd be pleased to know. Shite.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 2/10

Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack : "Tonight I Celebrate My Love"
There's always one track on a "Now" album that got skipped, and here it is. Push that needle across the record.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 0/10

Tracey Ullman : "They Don't Know"
"Three Of A Kind" comedienne Tracey continued her semi-humerous pop career with this top 3 brilliantly faithful cover of a Kirsty MacColl flop. Ullman then buggers off to America to be unfunny, richer and "invents" The Simpsons. Ex co-star Lenny Henry is now also unfunny and fat, and David Copperfield (not that one) has never been heard of since.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Will Powers : "Kissing With Confidence"
Carly Simon sings the good bit on this you know. That is all.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 7/10

Which coincidentally leads me to...

Genesis : "That's All"
What? No "Mama"? The line between Collins's solo career and that of Genesis became fuzzy with this jaunty Chas & Dave-esque knees up. Tony Banks attempts to go for a keyboard solo ala the old prog days but Phil's having none of it and reins him back in promptly.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 6/10

The Cure : "Love Cats"
The obligatory left field track falls to Robert Smith in eccentric pop mode. The Cure from 1982 to 1992 actually released about a dozen brilliant pop tunes but they're still seen as gloomy goths by the plebs. Ah well, their loss.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Simple Minds : "Waterfront"
All previous esoteric and arty European ideas are tossed overboard as Jim Kerr enters arena rock mode with this classic. At this point they were neck and neck with U2 in the "who's the bigger rock group" contest. Unfortunately pies & pomp got the better of Kerr and when he forgot a) how to laugh at himself and b) to move on musically there was only to be one winner. Thus Bono & co play sell out stadiums, and ver Minds play halls and are "big in Europe".
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 7/10

Madness : "The Sun and the Rain"
Ever reliable Madness returned with another jaunty Top Ten hit, though they were getting noticeably more miserable and melancholic with every release by this stage. Still good though. However 24 years on, Suggs is on the telly advertising Birds Eye meals. Ho hum.
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 8/10

Culture Club "Victims"
This calculated gamble for number one Christmas single was funnily enough derailed by the Flying Pickets' acapella nightmare "Only You". Ha. Good. As for "Victims", I don't know if this is about shagging the drummer or not like "Karma Chameleon". Probably all their songs were. Except "War is Stupid". Which was about war. And how it's stupid. And people are stupid. And love means nothing in some strange quarters.

Actually, Culture Club were shit really weren't they?
NOWTASTIC POINTS: 0/10

Which gives us a grand total of 172 points out of 300. Could do better...

We want to get "Loaded"...

2007-06-14T17:54:00.002+01:00

I’m looking at the magazine racks in Tesco, and I’m asking myself the following: Why can’t I find a men's magazine that's readable and that's not as embarrassing to be left around the house, as say, a copy of Mayfair would be? When did the men’s monthly magazine industry go literally tits up? Or should that be tits out?

"Men's magazine". Of course I mean something in the FHM market, not your one-handed art pamphlets. Maybe if I said “lad's mag” it would be clearer. Well, it wouldn’t, as I’m not a “lad” and that’s part of the problem. You see, these "lad's mags" weren't always this way. Once upon a time they were new, inventive, readable, credited its readers with an ounce of intelligence and didn't rely on a photoshoot of page three girl Sophie Howard's (impressive, I'll grant you that) breasts to sell it.

Yes kids, I'm off on one of my grumpy rants about things not being as good as they used to be (see my Q article from last year). But I’m right. You just read on.

Into the Tardis we go…

Prior to 1994, there wasn't such a thing as a "lad's mag". Yes, we had the likes of the aspirational GQ, Arena, and a formative FHM but these were full of expensive fashion, fads and fiction, and stuffy as hell. Great if you're on £40k a year working in the city, flying off every Winter for a skiing holiday in Switzerland and wearing Armani suits, but not really saying a great deal to me, a bloke in average job, who doesn’t give a shit what the best fountain pen is to be seen with. These were refined titles, without the broad appeal that is seemed to be so effortlessly achieved in Women's magazines. All that "New Man" bollocks didn't do it for me. There were newspapers for your sport and current affairs, the likes of Q, Select or the NME catered for your music, and The Face or Sky for anything else. Oh, and Viz. That basically was it. Unless you looked higher up the shelves in the newsagents.

There you had your shifty “reach furtively for the top shelf” adult pornographic mags such as Penthouse, Mayfair and Men Only (see above), which featured women in various states of undress, and some factual articles which nobody actually read, but you had to appreciate that they'd gone to the effort to make it look as if it wasn't all about masturbation. These mags were only for the under the bed library, oh and bushes (yes, why don’t you find discarded old porn mags in bushes anymore?).

So all in all an unsatisfactory business, but you had to put up with this situation.One day in 1994, I read in the Guardian (look at me, all highbrow) that ex-NME editor James Brown was setting up his own magazine. I made a note to keep an eye out for that one, since I considered that Brown was a very good writer and his passion shone through in his articles, especially around the Madchester-era when his hedonistic outlook matched well with the subject matter. He could walk the walk and talk the talk. His creation, "Loaded" was that rare type of magazine - one that created a genre, and one that suddenly made the aforementioned men's titles that were around look very archaic indeed.

When issue one was released in May 1994, it's unselfconscious, irreverent style came to define a 'laddish' culture that was ground-breaking and was to make a lasting impression on our consciousness for the next 5 years. This, if I might be pretentious for a moment, was the magazine that rode the zeitgeist, albeit whilst trying not to spill it’s pint. In the media, the same laddish element was increasingly seen in BBC TV programmes such as sitcom “Men Behaving Badly” and the comedy sports quiz “They Think It's All Over”, in music with Oasis, Blur, and the Britpop movement, and in the world of football, which was now fashionable again post-Hillsborough/Italia 90 and due to Sky and the Premier League, Nick Hornby and Baddiel & Skinner's Fantasy Football. These latter two were part of the new wave of 90’s comedians who often trod an un-PC line, along with contemporaries such as Paul Whitehouse, Steve Coogan and Vic & Bob.

Now, a good editor is, by nature, an individualist who tends to react badly to being strait jacketed. They will use their own language and terminology. Their attitude and style is often the difference between running a top title and an also-ran. James Brown brought in attitude by the crateload. In the first issue of Loaded, Brown set out his agenda, and wrote:

"What fresh lunacy is this? Loaded is a new magazine dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of sex, drink, football and less serious matters. Loaded is music, film, relationships, humour, travel, sport, hard news and popular culture. Loaded is clubbing, drinking, eating, playing and eating. Loaded is for the man who believes he can do anything, if only he wasn't hung over."

In short "For men who should know better." which became the cover strap line for years.

Lazy journalistic slags misconception number 436: Issue one featured Liz Hurley semi naked on the cover... ahh, no it didn't. Sorry to rain on the parade of many a journo looking for an easy story, but in fact issue one had a distinctly non-sexy black and white picture of edgy actor Gary Oldman on the cover (as you can see). The scantily clad girl content in those early issues was actually rather low. The idea that you could actually come out and admit to enjoying looking at beautiful women was something Brown introduced as if it had never been thought of before, like it was a new concept in the magazine industry. And it did seem like a fresh idea.

Towards the end of the 80’s and the start of the 90’s, glamour and sex was something that the media wasn’t pushing, probably a legacy of the AIDS media madness from 1987 onwards. The nearest you'd get is a Vanity Fair photoshoot of some supermodel like Cindy Crawford, or film star such as Julia Roberts, tastefully done. And of course there was still Page 3 in "The Sun", which seemed to stand as a lone voice in those wilderness years, happily printing it’s glamour girls day in day out. Loaded didn't go in all guns blazing, but put a few toes in the water first, pointing out that there's nothing actually wrong with looking at gorgeous girls, and celebrating them. It was like taking The Sun’s cheery philosophy but doing it with knowing irony.

Thus each issue usually celebrated some up and coming starlet or model over a couple of pages. That first issue did have photographer John Stoddart's rather revealing black and white images of “actress” Elizabeth Hurley (see above), who we must remember at that point wasn't a big celebrity - yes she'd done "Passenger 57" and a memorable episode of “Sharpe”, but Hugh Grant wasn’t a star name then, and she hadn't yet made the appearance in that dress at the premiere of “Four Weddings”. Loaded was quite good at catching them early.

From early on, the whole playful ethos of the magazine permeated every article. Yes it might have a photoshoot of Kylie in swimwear (above), but it would balance it out in the same article with say, Lee & Herring in theirs. Yes, there would be a fold out poster of Kelly Brook, but with a badger on the reverse. A scantily clad model sat on a pile of biscuits. Model showing a bit of leg in a chippy. And so on. But it wasn’t all women…

…Three Lions, Statto, Kathy Lloyd, Rod Hull, “TFI Friday”, Zoe Ball, The Fast Show, stag weekends in Dublin or Prague, Trainspotting, They Think it's All Over, David Seaman, Ben Sherman shirts, hard drinking women, Anna Friel, George Best, Pot Noodles, hedonism, Jo Guest, crisps, Phil Tufnell, havin' a LARF, “good work fella!”, sorted, Dodgy, large-ing it up, Keith Allen, Country House, Damien Hirst, lager lager lager, Champagne Supernova, Office Pest, Vindaloo, Dr Mick, bottled beers with complicated tops, Ian Wright, Fat Les, Des Lynam, Vic and Bob, Ulrika-ka-ka-ka, Alex Higgins, Beavis & Butthead, Michael Caine, 5 a side footy, Paul Calf, Louise Wener, Paul Weller, the Mini…

Loaded tapped into a four-year “moment” when Britain seemed to be on the verge of being “Great” again, and celebrated it. But being British, it also took the piss out of it relentlessly – but we were in on the joke. You can’t beat them interviewing Kevin Keegan (see right) and telling him he’d be on the cover, which he was, only with a drawn on ‘tasche and glasses.., which they forgot to mention.

Old forgotten great actors-stroke-boozers like Leslie Phillips, Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole were given the status of greatest living Englishmen (or Irish if you please!) and prominence was given to the rogues of their particular chosen fields such as Bestie, Dennis Leary, Jimmy White… Maradona even. Even when it was a rubbish issue there would be something to make it worth the purchase.

Of course, the success of Loaded meant most other men's titles looked very out of step, and one by one they had a reboot. Brown jumped ship to try and lift the circulation of fellow men’s mag GQ, and came unstuck very quickly, as his irreverent style didn’t seem to fit with the type of reader the management and advertisers seemed to want the magazine to be aimed at, and he soon left.

Loaded continued to be the market leader for the next 5 years under the helm of new editor Tim Southwell, and the other titles such as Esquire (above), GQ and the new kid on the block Maxim were playing catch up. However in 1996, FHM’s subtle update immediately got the formula right, with a fine balance of girls, fashion, celebrity, bad jokes and importantly, reports, working on a formula of "if our readers couldn't do it, we won't feature it". FHM’s core belief was that men are not noble or heroic, and are better off not trying to be. The idea that it was all right to be funny and self-deprecating about, say, failure in the pursuit of women came as an enormous relief to readers.

Plus, they hit upon the genius idea of the readers voting for the FHM Top 100 Sexiest Women each year, banishing male celebrities from the cover (we shall never see Rupert Everett and Mickey Rourke again! Hurrah!) and celebrating the biggest female stars of the day, usually by depicting them in states of half dress wherever possible (but not essential).

Less obvious figures of desire like Gillian Anderson became the face of 1996. Popstress Louise Nurding came out of the shadows of Eternal to become the hot babe du jour, and TV presenters like Gail Porter (below) went from Saturday morning kids telly to nationwide notoriety after flashing her bum on the cover. By the end of the nineties, FHM had overtaken Loaded in sales and became the top UK men's magazine.

Okay, FHM, Loaded and the others undeniably objectified women, in that they were shot, lit, made up, clothed and photoshopped to the nines in order to make them make them more appealing to look at, but in the midst of the heady days of Britpop and New Labour, society had now deemed such images acceptable, and the buying public were lapping them up. There was a clear difference back then between what FHM and the others were doing and what you needed to resort to the top shelf for, and similar images were commonplace in advertising, film and television, music videos, even women's magazines. The acid test seemed to be “could people read it openly on the bus”? At this point, yes.

By the turn of the 21st Century though, it would appear that increasingly the Internet, multi-channel TV, mobile phones, video games, MySpace, instant messaging and the rest has taken huge bites out of the time formerly allotted to magazine reading across the board.

Mass-market men's monthlies, which once stood in such thrilling contrast to everything that came before, are now thought of by a new generation of readers as last year's model, as exciting as a black-and-white movie. Other media have plundered their best ideas, diluting their originality further. The Americans have had their first major casualty, as their once successful version of FHM was laid to rest in December 2006, due to “difficult trading conditions". Yet it’s website lives on, which is telling.

Celeb culture also became dull. It didn't use to matter whether actors and actresses were talented or not, but it did matter that they were interesting. Publicists now make sure that a glimpse of any stars weirdness is a rare occurrence. An interview with a sportsman like Beckham or film-star like Matt Damon is just PR puff, with nothing to be learned about such celebs and no insight into what makes them tick (if they do at all). They can’t be seen to spoil the “brand”. And if you did get an article that might be of interest it’d be so dumbed down it’s practically unreadable.

At some undetermined point, men's monthlies in this country made, in hindsight, a potentially fatal error in an attempt to shore up flagging circulation when they decided to show bare breasts. Lots of them, especially in the newer mags such as Front (right). Okay, there may have been bare breasts displayed in the magazines and papers before but this was different, far more blatant, and almost a desperate move to keep readers interested. All done without the humour that would have made it half way acceptable a couple of years earlier.

Almost overnight, it became impossible to defend against the porno accusation. The magazines no longer passed the bus test. Circulation and advertising figures dropped.

Worst of all, the increasing indecency meant that the big celebrities would never return, and no one sells magazines like big stars. Porn stars, glamour girls and z-listers moved in to fill the void. Goodbye Kylie and J-Lo, hello 7th person to be evicted from the Big Brother house and Michelle Marsh (above).

The great men’s magazine bubble had well and truly burst.

Loaded is now almost unrecognisable from it's former self, being little more than a tit mag for someone with the attention span of a gnat. And sadly, most of the others are the same. This hasn’t been helped by the arrival in 2004 of the lads weeklies; Nuts and Zoo were the product of feverish market research, based on a hybrid of the girls ”Heat” mag and the lad’s monthlies, with all the sport, bizarre photos, and topless lovelies you'd normally get plus a “Heat-esque” TV guide and more up to date "news". Although they won’t admit it, the publishers seem to be aiming these at the 14 to 22-age bracket. Basically, schoolboy porn. And this again hit the circulations of the monthlies badly. Their reaction? To try and compete with the weeklies, rather than offer an alternative. Hence an already dumbed down men’s magazine market became mostly barely readable semi-porn.

I'm now 37, and I never thought I’d say this, but I am getting a little perturbed at what can be found on the middle shelves of your local newsagent. The line between porn and lad's mag is now a very fine one. There are still a few magazines I can tolerate such as Esquire (right), which is still very much aimed at the £45k income man, but the articles are good, and Arena (below), which for years was a bit up it’s own arse, as you’d expect from a magazine from The Face’s Nick Logan, but although it’s one of the lowest selling men's mags, it's now actually the best.

Yes it's got the usual fashion for people who like to spend £1590 on a shirt and articles on how to find the best bars in Singapore, but it does have really good articles and the obligatory babes don't look too gratuitous - all very classy. It sometimes walks a fine line but is really quite readable. But it seems to be alone.

All I want is a magazine that's not afraid to treat it's readers with some intelligence, that will feature a 6000 word article without having to use "Boxouts" and that shows a little more respect to women, like the early mags used to. It used to be a bonus to have beautiful women in the magazine, not compulsory. Is this too difficult? I fear so. For much of what we can buy now seems, to these eyes, not much more that glossy mysogyny.

The ironic thing is that the once classy perv mag Penthouse has been relaunched, but aimed at the middle shelf rather than the top. And even more ironic is that despite the skin, it looks like a copy of FHM from the mid 90s. How times change. The porn mags look classy and the lad's mags look like Mayfair.

Not that I’ve read it of course. I found it in some bushes.