1= Madness
1= The Specials
3 The Beat
Surprise, surprise The Nutty Boys and Coventry's finest couldn't be split even 30 years after they first skanked onto the scene!
Monday, 29 June 2009
Thursday, 25 June 2009
The Ashes Pre-amble
The Aussies arrival (normally via Gallipoli or Flanders), Boony lurching off the plane after 53 tubes of Toohey's, the warm up match at Arundel against the Duchess of Lavinia's XI, the worries about selection (Larkins or Gatting), the interviews, the boasts, the threats. The promise of victory and the long dark shadow of defeat.
Bring it on!
Bring it on!
Friday, 19 June 2009
Decent Magazines
The simple pleasure of popping into the newsagent and having the choice of at least 5 decent magazines to buy. And although many of them are going through what can only be described as a fallow period, they still pour from a great height on the rubbish available here. So, a large round of applause for the following magazines (past & present):
The Face, Straight No Chaser, Select, Mojo, GQ, Arena, When Saturday Comes, JM96* & Spectrum. To name but a few!
The Face, Straight No Chaser, Select, Mojo, GQ, Arena, When Saturday Comes, JM96* & Spectrum. To name but a few!
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Humorous Football Chants - Not
I had the good fortune to be at Wembley a couple of weeks ago and whilst it was a pleasure to see the mighty Chelsea vanquish Everton I was quite disappointed at the general level of crowd humour. It struck me that some chants and crowd reactions are getting a little bit tired.
Some examples of which are:
A Chelsea player falls over, cue Northern teams mass chants of
"Chelsea Rent Boy, Chelsea Rent boy"
Everton player falls over, cue
"Cheating Northern Bastard"
Everton fans start singing, cue
"In your Liverpool slums, you look in a dustbin for something to eat. You find a dead rat and you think it's a treat... Etc"
Everton player disuptes with referee, cue
"Calm down, calm down" in comical Harry Enfield scouser manner
Other teams responses are equally tired and laboured
Arsene Wenger gets up from the bench, cue
"Only one Arsene Wenger, with a packet of sweets and a cheeky smikle, Wenger is a f***in' paedophile"
Jose Mourinho gets up from the bench, cue Man City fans
"That coats from Matalan, that coats from Matalan..."
Actually that was bloody funny when they did it - the first time.
As for Chelsea's response to the god awful dirge "Liverpool, Liverpool" it doesn't bear repeating. Also Liverpool's songs about Busby Babes, United songs about Matthew Harding and Leeds United's songs about anyone
Although their song about "Cockney fan he is dead, escalator on his head..." is so surreal that it passed off with nothing more than a bemused shrug by most West Ham fans.
Top five favourite football banalities include:
"Yoooooooooooouuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeee Shhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttaaaaaagh"
"Who's the Wanker in the black"
"She fell over, she fell over"
"My old man said be a Palace fan, I said f**k off b*ll*cks you're a ***t"
"Score in a brothel, you couldn't score in a brothel"
Some examples of which are:
A Chelsea player falls over, cue Northern teams mass chants of
"Chelsea Rent Boy, Chelsea Rent boy"
Everton player falls over, cue
"Cheating Northern Bastard"
Everton fans start singing, cue
"In your Liverpool slums, you look in a dustbin for something to eat. You find a dead rat and you think it's a treat... Etc"
Everton player disuptes with referee, cue
"Calm down, calm down" in comical Harry Enfield scouser manner
Other teams responses are equally tired and laboured
Arsene Wenger gets up from the bench, cue
"Only one Arsene Wenger, with a packet of sweets and a cheeky smikle, Wenger is a f***in' paedophile"
Jose Mourinho gets up from the bench, cue Man City fans
"That coats from Matalan, that coats from Matalan..."
Actually that was bloody funny when they did it - the first time.
As for Chelsea's response to the god awful dirge "Liverpool, Liverpool" it doesn't bear repeating. Also Liverpool's songs about Busby Babes, United songs about Matthew Harding and Leeds United's songs about anyone
Although their song about "Cockney fan he is dead, escalator on his head..." is so surreal that it passed off with nothing more than a bemused shrug by most West Ham fans.
Top five favourite football banalities include:
"Yoooooooooooouuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeee Shhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttaaaaaagh"
"Who's the Wanker in the black"
"She fell over, she fell over"
"My old man said be a Palace fan, I said f**k off b*ll*cks you're a ***t"
"Score in a brothel, you couldn't score in a brothel"
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Two-Tone Tours
The Special AKA, Madness, The Selecter, The Beat, The Bodysnatchers...
Sweating, heaving, non-stop skanking! Bloody marvellous! With Terry & the gang reuniting (sans Jerry) and even coming to play Sydney. It is time to play a small but humble tribute to the whole two-tone movement which swept across Britain in the blinking of a black & white checked eye!
Built on a message of racial unity, top tunes and double danceable 'riddims', the two-tone tours charged up and down the country, mashing up the various Top Ranks and Guidhalls in an orgy of joyous excitement. The Selecter (lead by the particularly fine Pauline Black) would set the bill running, before those magnificent Nutty Boys bounded on stage full of North London bonhomie and their rockin', skanking fairground, reggae nooise. Then The Specials (AKA or otherwise) rounded off the evening with a slightly punkier more menacing set of ska classics and JD penned monster originals.
Even now I can still feel the cold sweat freezing on me as we walked home from Brighton Top Rank, soaked to the skin, overjoyed at the night just gone and wondering where on earth to get shades like Suggs and haircut like Terry Hall. All the while singing One Step Beyond, Long shot kick de bucket, Rat Race, On my Radio, My Girl and A messsage to you Rudy...
Go ahead and rediscover the joys of two-tone in fact why not enjoy yourself it's later than you think!
Sweating, heaving, non-stop skanking! Bloody marvellous! With Terry & the gang reuniting (sans Jerry) and even coming to play Sydney. It is time to play a small but humble tribute to the whole two-tone movement which swept across Britain in the blinking of a black & white checked eye!
Built on a message of racial unity, top tunes and double danceable 'riddims', the two-tone tours charged up and down the country, mashing up the various Top Ranks and Guidhalls in an orgy of joyous excitement. The Selecter (lead by the particularly fine Pauline Black) would set the bill running, before those magnificent Nutty Boys bounded on stage full of North London bonhomie and their rockin', skanking fairground, reggae nooise. Then The Specials (AKA or otherwise) rounded off the evening with a slightly punkier more menacing set of ska classics and JD penned monster originals.
Even now I can still feel the cold sweat freezing on me as we walked home from Brighton Top Rank, soaked to the skin, overjoyed at the night just gone and wondering where on earth to get shades like Suggs and haircut like Terry Hall. All the while singing One Step Beyond, Long shot kick de bucket, Rat Race, On my Radio, My Girl and A messsage to you Rudy...
Go ahead and rediscover the joys of two-tone in fact why not enjoy yourself it's later than you think!
Friday, 12 June 2009
Suss Punks
"This is the way, step inside..."
Long macs, demob suits from second hand stores, Kafka, Camus and Gitanes. Nietszche, Wire, Joy Division, Ballard, town shoes and very pale skin. Sitting in the Spartan drinking one very slow mocha. A far away look and abject, sweet abject misery. John Peel, the library, Penguin classics and Herzog. No pogoing, just shuffling and the misery my friends, the misery. TS Eliot, Wim Wenders and a distinct lack of irony.
Oh, what fun we had...
Long macs, demob suits from second hand stores, Kafka, Camus and Gitanes. Nietszche, Wire, Joy Division, Ballard, town shoes and very pale skin. Sitting in the Spartan drinking one very slow mocha. A far away look and abject, sweet abject misery. John Peel, the library, Penguin classics and Herzog. No pogoing, just shuffling and the misery my friends, the misery. TS Eliot, Wim Wenders and a distinct lack of irony.
Oh, what fun we had...
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Left wing political parties
Labour Party (don't laugh)
Young Socialists
Militant Tendancy
Socialist Workers Party
Trotskyites
Anarchists
Revolutionary Hedonists (Now they were Champagne Socialists)
Workers Revolutionary Party
Revolutionary Workers party
Situationists
Nihilists
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that we weren't necessarily "in it to win it'. Oh well, hey ho - here we go again!
Young Socialists
Militant Tendancy
Socialist Workers Party
Trotskyites
Anarchists
Revolutionary Hedonists (Now they were Champagne Socialists)
Workers Revolutionary Party
Revolutionary Workers party
Situationists
Nihilists
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that we weren't necessarily "in it to win it'. Oh well, hey ho - here we go again!
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Record Shops
Cramped, shimmering temples of the soul
I remember going to visit Paul Murphy's record shop, somewhere on Berwick Street. Past the The Blue Posts, by the market, in the door, down some steps and there they were, laid out before me like a thousand ebony stars fallen from the skies. Records by artists I'd never heard of, from countries far and wide, just stacked waiting for me to discover. And I stayed there for hours pondering which ones to buy, hoping against hope that I'd find an extra tenner in my pocket. Rent, schment!
It wasn't just Paul, the Portobello Road had some fine secrets hidden away too as did the back street lanes of Brighton, the second hand stores of Old Town, Paris, Melrose Avenue - Where I finally tracked down two copies of Dizzy on the Riviera!
No special offers, 2 for 1 DVD honey traps. Just good honest record shops, selling the key to my soul.
All hail Murphy, Rough Trade, Soul Jazz, Mambo, Honest John's etc etc!
I remember going to visit Paul Murphy's record shop, somewhere on Berwick Street. Past the The Blue Posts, by the market, in the door, down some steps and there they were, laid out before me like a thousand ebony stars fallen from the skies. Records by artists I'd never heard of, from countries far and wide, just stacked waiting for me to discover. And I stayed there for hours pondering which ones to buy, hoping against hope that I'd find an extra tenner in my pocket. Rent, schment!
It wasn't just Paul, the Portobello Road had some fine secrets hidden away too as did the back street lanes of Brighton, the second hand stores of Old Town, Paris, Melrose Avenue - Where I finally tracked down two copies of Dizzy on the Riviera!
No special offers, 2 for 1 DVD honey traps. Just good honest record shops, selling the key to my soul.
All hail Murphy, Rough Trade, Soul Jazz, Mambo, Honest John's etc etc!
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)