Poll Results - How to spell New York?

A knife, a fork, a bottle & a cork...

That is the way you spell New York!

The 13 best albums of all time - #1

All Mod Cons - The Jam

From the scratch that heralds the 1,2,3,4 count of the title track to the fade out of the Central Line tube bound for Ealing Broadway, every track of 'All Mod Cons' echoes down the years with the refreshing arrogance of youth mixed with the tender frailty and exuberance of first love.

The explosive attack of The Jam's debut album 'In the city' had been swiftly followed up by their second LP 'This is the modern world', which whilst featuring a couple of standout track (The Modern World & Here comes the weekend) had left the majority of crirtics and punters alike wondering if Paul Weller (Lead singer/guitarist & prime songwriter) had what it took to break out of the already tightening constraints of punk orthodoxy.

All Mod Cons not only proved that Weller did have the nous, skill and vision to change direction but that by doing so he could take the late 70's UK music scene by the scruff of the neck and galvanise a whole generation of followers to embrace a musical tradition that went back to the sixties sounds of The Who, Kinks & Small Faces. Whilst at the same time toughening them up for the hardships of Thatcherism and the 80's that were just around the corner.

1. All Mod Cons
The opening track sets the tone perfectly for what comes next. Clipped, purposeful and knowing. A short attack on time wasters and their ilk. No sooner has the clear Rickenbacker cut through than the track's ending feedback segues neatly into...

2. To be someone
What intially seems like a straightforward attack on the hoary old rock gods living on past glories, the boring old rocker of yore now content to piss it all up the wall in the comforting company of cronies and groupies. Actually turns out to be (with the benefit of hindsight)a more compassionate reflection on the transient nature of fame.

3. Mr Clean
Another full frontal attack, this time on a typical 'suit'. Weller's snarling put down of the nine to fiver implies quite clearly that a life of 'getting pissed at the annual office do" is nothing to be proud of.

4. David Watts
A bouncy cover of Ray Davies' Kinks classic. David Watts is the captain of the team, head boy and all round lucky git. The shared Weller/Foxton vocals work well, one of the few examples where a cover version most probably improves on the original.

5. English Rose
Originally regarded as a 'hidden track' by Weller. A soft acoustic ballad that showed a tender side that allowed young punks & mods everywhere to admit that perhaps there was more to girls than just pushing in front of them in bus queues.

6. In the crowd
'In the crowd' was most probably the biggest musical step forward that The Jam had taken to date. An intricate sub-psychedelic track that portrayed the protagonist as an outsider and harked back to their debut album's stand out track 'Away from the numbers'.

Side 2
1. Billy Hunt
Weller's daydreaming anti-Watts gets side two off to a blistering start.

2. It's too bad
Another jaunty song of failing love, carried along on Foxton's poppy bass run.

3. Fly
A second outing for Weller's 12 string acoustic and another hymn to the intoxicating beauty of first love.

4. The place I love
Whether it was about Woking, England or a mythical Albion 'The place I love' is a positively joyous track and another example of Weller aiming to distance himself from the punk elite and "not within a yard of their trendy do's".

5. A-Bomb in Wardour Street
DOCTOR MARTENS A-P-O-C-A-L-Y-P-S-E!!

6. Down in the tube station at midnight
According to Tony Blackburn it was a tawdry celebration of violence. According to everyone else it was The Jam's finest hour!

All Mod Cons was quite simply the sound of swinging London and suburban Surrey being pepped up with an amphetamine surge that knocked all contenders into a safety pin covered cocked hat. With one album they went from middle of the pack to the front of the line and they stayed there (with a couple of wobbles) until Weller pulled the pin in 82 and headed off to a Cappuccino flavoured future!

Oh I say...

England number one test playing nation? Are you serious?

It would seem that they are.

Meanwhile, in downtown Tottenham there is a Sly & the Family Stone album going on.

When summer turns bad...

Long days, light nights, warm throb of youth overheating on the Leys estate or in Toxteth or Tottenham or Moss Side. One little spark and the whole tinderbox goes up!

Kah-boom!

Poll Results - Thing we miss most about England

1 - Friends
2 - Football
3 - Family

New Fall album imminent

Must be time, surely...

Crackdown, dull glow
from laptop reveals
horrors, horrors
and the dull thump
of a bedroom discotheque
at the end of the terrace

they are not coming today
but they are coming
they are coming
are coming
coming
soon

The freedom of the press

To do as they please?

Maybe, just maybe things are changing... Even if it is only for a day!

Home of the Hits

3747 and rising!

Thank you...

The thrill of shopping

In the early 80's it was impossible to buy Big E levis, button down Ben Sherman shirts or even proper Clark's Desert Boots. You had to hunt the length and breadth of the country for the sniff of one of these original items.

"Have you heard about the mythical charity shop in Brighton that's got a whole box of button down Ben Sherman's?"
"There's a place in Bath that sells Big E's."

Such snippets of crucial information would be passed on at gigs or football matches only to the selected few. Many leads would turn out to be false but some did bring success. A pair of faded Big E's in Camberwell being a particularly memorable find.

But now of course you can get rare Lee Stormrider jackets, Big E's and a million different shades of Ben Sherman's all at the touch of the return button. I'm not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing. Just that it is now a different experience and one that takes away a little of the pleasure that wearing the right clothes should always bring.

Wimbledon

"...Championship point!"

Fred Perry, Dan Maskell, Lemon barley water, Bjorn Borg, Roger Taylor (no, not him out of Queen), Evonne Cawley, Roger Federer, Henri Leconte, Roscoe Tanner from Lookout Mountain Tennessee, The Graveyard of the Champions, Pimms, late night doubles matches featuring Frew McMillan & Bob Hewitt, David Vine, the resplendently miserable Ivan Lendl, Jeremy Bates, Betty Stove, Ilie Nastase and of course Des...

Music Shop Hell

Enter a music shop these days and the first thing that will happen is this… After a respectful period of time to acclimatise to the well lit environs and pleasant low volume clatter, tinkle & hum of assorted instruments being respectfully put through their paces, you’ll be greeted by a helpful shop assistant asking if you were ok or if they can give you any advice. Which leads one to immediately raise the not unrealistic question in one’s own mind; what sort of tomfoolery, skulduggery and out and out weird buggery is this?

I don’t expect my general health or well-being to be in anyway an item of concern for the patch bearded, heavily tatted beanpole sales ‘consultant’. Nor am I in anyway expecting any sort of advice from him on anything. Have I stumbled into MacDonalds for music? Is this the KFC of Rock?

When I go into a music store I expect the following five things to be present without fail.

1 – A deafening wall of sound to be emanating from the back of the shop, where the three shop assistants are storming through a set of quite ludicrously precise King Crimson covers.

2 – A small but uncompromisingly menacing coterie of girl friends and leather clad proto Hells Angels are listening with one ear whilst rolling up the largest doobie to have been constructed since Jimi rolled a whopper at Monterey (Please insert your own ‘maan!’ exclamation at this point).

3 – The overpowering stench of stale cigarettes, Lynx (for gits) and burnt rizlas mingling with the smell of damp carpet and overflowing toilet.

4 – A wall covered with flying V’s and Gibson Les Pauls, another wall packed with studded straps and skull ‘n cross bone motif gig bags and one wall with a broken glass cabinet propped in front of it featuring a till, an entry level Kays Kiddiecaster (sans strings/neck/pickups) lying underneath a sheaf of unpaid invoices and an ashtray made out of the remains of a melted wah-wah pedal.

5 – A small stand featuring sheet music, balsa wood acoustic guitars recorders & melodicas.

Nothing else!

I don’t expect help, information, a wide array of mint condition Rickenbackers, Gretschs & Fender Jaguars to choose from! I expect to be ignored, sneered at, ripped off and dismissed. So, I am starting a ‘campaign for the return to arsey music/persecution shops with obligatory longhaired stroppy muso shop assistants who belittle you at every turn!

CRAMPS begin here!

Punk Rock Tear Ups

Going round to a friends armed with a clutch of 7" singles and blasting them out the window, down the street, through the station, beyond the pub, over Marine Parade, over the beach and out there to the wild blue yonder!!!

Top 5 Tear Up Tunes
1. We are all Prostitutes - The Pop Group
2. Complete Control - The Clash
3. In the City - The Jam
4. Smash it Up - The Damned
5. City Hobgoblins - The 'Mighty' Fall

Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons

This is the future, our future:

With the curtains drawn, french windows open and the low hum of a lawnmower cutting through the spring calm, I was transported every Saturday morning to my future, our future.

The year is 2068… A team of Zero-X astronauts are investigating the surface of Mars after unidentified radio signals emanating from the planet are detected on Earth. The source is discovered to be an extraterrestrial base, which is attacked and destroyed when the explorers mistake a harmless sensor device for a weapon. The inhabitants of the settlement, the Mysterons, are sentient computers that form a collective consciousness. They are the remnants of the original Mysteron race, extraterrestrial life forms that originated in a galaxy other than the Milky Way and maintained their colony on Mars for 3,500 years before understandably abandoning the planet at the turn of the 20th century. Possessing a rather handy partial control over matter, the Mysteron computers draw on their power of "reversing matter" to rebuild the complex before vowing revenge for the unwarranted aggression.

Reversing matter, also described as "retro-metabolism", allows the Mysterons to re-create the likeness of a person or object in the form of a facsimile that is under their control. This ability is used to conduct a "war of nerves" against Earth, in which the Mysterons issue threats against specific targets (from world leaders and military installations to whole cities and continents) and then destroy and reconstruct whatever instruments are required (whether human or machine) to execute their plans. The presence of the Mysterons is indicated by two circles of green light (the "Mysteron rings") that trail across scenes of destruction and reconstruction. Although the Mysterons are able to manipulate events from Mars, their actions on Earth are usually performed by their replicated intermediaries.

The leading Mysteron agent is of course Zero-X mission leader Captain Black. He is killed and reconstructed during the incident on Mars. Previously, Black had held the rank of senior officer in Spectrum, an international security organisation inaugurated in 2067 that mobilises all its personnel, vehicles and other resources in response to the Mysteron threat. Spectrum is led from Cloudbase, an airborne headquarters positioned at a height of 40,000 feet above the Earth's surface, and has outposts in all major cities. The organisation employs operatives of many nationalities, of whom the most senior hold military ranks and colour-based codenames, are stationed on Cloudbase, and answer directly to the commander-in-chief of Spectrum, Colonel White. Cloudbase is defended by the Angels, an interceptor aircraft squadron, and the organisation boasts a fleet of Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles (SPV) hidden in secret locations across the world.

Captain Scarlet becomes Spectrum's foremost weapon in its fight against the Mysterons after the battle on Mars, in which the Mysterons threaten to assassinate the World President as their first act of retaliation. The original Scarlet is killed in a car accident engineered by the Mysterons and replaced with a Mysteron reconstruction. However, when the Scarlet duplicate is shot by Spectrum officer Captain Blue and falls to his death from a tall structure, it returns to life with the consciousness of its human template restored, and is thereafter free from Mysteron control. Scarlet's ex-Mysteron body possesses two remarkable abilities: he is able to sense the presence of other Mysteron duplicates in his vicinity, and if he is injured or killed, retro-metabolism restores him to a state of top health. Now able to deploy suicidally reckless tactics to thwart Mysteron threats, Scarlet repeatedly braves the pain of death in the knowledge that he will recover to face the Mysterons once more. (As an aside it should be noted that the existential horror of perpetual life was never explored in too much detail…)

While Scarlet and Spectrum defend Earth against the threat from Mars, it is found that Mysteron reconstructions are particularly vulnerable to electricity and that they are detectable on X-rays, to which their biology is impervious. Consequently, two anti-Mysteron devices, the "Mysteron Gun" and the "Mysteron Detector," are developed to aid Spectrum. A three-episode story arc charts the uncovering of a second Mysteron complex under construction on the Moon, its destruction by Spectrum, and efforts to negotiate with the Mysterons on Mars via a crystal power source, salvaged from the complex, which is converted into an interplanetary communication device. A failed attempt at satellite surveillance of the Martian surface, aborted military conferences and the sabotaged construction of a new space fleet hinder Spectrum's plans to return to Mars, and the organisation is unsuccessful on two occasions in apprehending Captain Black. The penultimate episode of the series depicts a Mysteron assault on Cloudbase with the use of armed spacecraft, which is ultimately revealed to be a nightmare dreamt by one of the Angel pilots. The finale is a flashback episode that ends inconclusively with regards to the war between Earth and Mars and the fate of Spectrum and the Mysterons.

The real names of the Spectrum officers who gave their all to protect us from the Mysteron threat…

Codename, Real name, Nationality
Captain Scarlet, Paul Metcalfe, British
Captain Blue, Adam Svenson, American
Colonel White, Charles Gray, British
Captain Black, Conrad Turner, British
Lieutenant Green,Seymour Griffiths, Trinidadian
Captain Ochre, Richard Fraser, American
Captain Magenta, Patrick Donaghue, Irish
Captain Grey, Bradley Holden, American
Doctor Fawn, Edward Wilkie, Australian
Destiny Angel, Juliette Pontoin, French
Symphony Angel, Karen Wainwright, American
Rhapsody Angel, Dianne Simms, British
Melody Angel, Magnolia Jones, American
Harmony Angel, Chan Kwan, Japanese

Smarties (Take 2)

You'd be foolish not to... Well, it is the Easter Weekend coming up!

Dreamtime...

Tangerine dusk, slipping into the old bus depot
with only one journey on my mind...

The Art of being an English Gentlemen (part 8)

Roll over, roll back, inhale & recall...

A month or so of sobriety botched in a thrice. Rummage through mohair jacket to find a boarding pass, some dollars and a pair of black persol sunglasses. Plonk sunglasses on, throw blinds open, recoil in horror at the city below and plunge into white hot shower. Resurface 20 minutes later in black merino turtle neck, slate grey mohair suit, stout black brogues, head back to bedroom to find dark brown arm floating up from under the sheets.

Kiss arm and still raw lips, make excuses and head to the nearest bar with the longest champagne list. Start at the beginning and plough on through...

A snatched memory of an air hostess and a late night bar. That's fine, that's good. The only question is...

What am I doing in Istanbul?

Poll Results - Bond Villains

"No Mister Bond, I expect you to die!"

1 - Ernst Stavro Blofeld
2 - Sir Hugo Drax
3 - Goldfinger
4 - Dr No
5 - Count Lippe

James Bond novel #3 - Moonraker

Without doubt Moonraker is the most underestimated of the Bond novels, probably because it was one of the few early books that wasn’t adapted for film until much later (and a fairly lamentable adaptation it was too, with Roger Moore gooning his way through a very poor script and the normally excellent Michael Lonsdale playing a demented Drax).

The novel begins with M asking James Bond to investigate the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, who is winning a lot of money playing bridge at M's favourite club, Blades. M suspects Drax of cheating, but although claiming indifference, he is concerned why a multi-millionaire and national hero, such as Sir Hugo, would cheat at a card game. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to "cheat the cheater" — aided by a cocktail of powdered Benzedrine mixed with non-vintage champagne and a deck of stacked cards — winning £15,000 and infuriating the out-smarted Drax.

Drax is the product of a mysterious background, unknown even to himself (allegedly). As a supposed British soldier in WWII, he was badly injured, and stricken with amnesia, in the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at his field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army hospital, however, he would eventually return home to become a major aerospace industrialist.

Now, Drax and his firm are building the "Moonraker", Britain's first nuclear missile project, intended to defend the United Kingdom against its Cold War enemies (c.f. the real Blue Streak missile). Essentially, the Moonraker rocket is an upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid hydrogen and fluorine as propellants. It can withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures in its engine thanks to the use of columbite, of which Drax has a monopoly. Therefore, because the rocket's engine can withstand higher heat, the Moonraker can use more powerful fuels, greatly expanding its effective range.

After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him, and also to investigate what may be going on at the missile-building base, which is located between Dover and Deal on the coast of England. Oddly, all of the rocket scientists working on the project seem to be German.

At his post on the complex (where he is billeted in the Drax mansion), Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful Special Branch agent working undercover as Personal Assistant to Drax. He also uncovers some clues concerning his predecessor's death, concluding that the former Security Chief might have been killed for witnessing the clandestine delivery of some secret cargo by submarine off the coast.

Drax's henchman Krebs is caught by Bond while he snoops through his room. Later, an attempted assassination nearly kills Bond and Gala under a landslide, as they swim beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes Gala to London where she discovers the truth about the "Moonraker" (by comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook picked from Drax's pocket) - but she is caught. She soon finds herself captive at a secret radio station (intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system) in the heart of London. While attempting to rescue her in a car chase, Bond is captured, as well.

It turns out that Drax was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia. In fact, he was a German commander of a Skorzeny commando unit and the saboteur (in British uniform) Graf Hugo von der Drache who set the bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured, himself, in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital, in order to avoid allied retribution - though it would lead to a whole new British identity. Drax, however, remains a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Third Reich Fatherland and his prior history of social slights he suffered as a youth growing up in England before the war. He now means to destroy London with the very missile he has constructed for Britain, by means of a Soviet supplied nuclear warhead that has been secretly fitted to the "Moonraker". He also plays the stock market the day before to make a huge profit from the planned disaster.

Brand and Bond are imprisoned under the Moonraker's booster engines so as to leave no trace of them once the Moonraker is launched. But before this first (supposedly un-armed) test firing, Bond and Gala escape. Gala gives Bond the proper coordinates to reprogram the gyros and send the Moonraker into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence all along, Drax and his henchman attempt to escape by Russian submarine - only to be killed as the vessel flees through the very waters onto which the "Moonraker" has been re-targeted.

Later, after their de-briefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Gala, expecting her company - but they part ways after Gala reveals that she is engaged to be married. It is the only Bond novel (discounting some of the short stories) in which Bond does not end up having a romantic relationship with the girl.

Moonraker is my favourite Bond novel, not least because there are no cinematic comparisons to blur the imagination. The Kent setting also resonates. In later years I couldn’t help but try and draw some comparisons between Sir Hugo Drax and Robert Maxwell, although for all of his many failings Maxwell was certainly never a Nazi!

Not a lot of people know that: The first adaption of Moonraker was on South African radio in 1956, with Bob Holness providing the voice of Bond. “I’ll have a consonant please M.”

Home of the Hits

2000 and rising. Thank you very much!

Dreaming - How I should live!

I should be living by the sea, only watching the BBC. Sitting on a 1950's sofa, whilst wearing Bass Weejun loafers. I should be painting angry self portraits, I should be riding a 1940's bicycle, listening to old blues on a battered dansette or grooving to hip tunes that I haven't written yet.

I should be living a purer life of honest endeavour with a beatnik wife. I should be writing stuff that rhymes, instead of stuff that wastes your time.

I should be living like this.