The Sound Suite Cocoon

Starting A Business From Nothing Or I How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Unemployment

2009-04-28T10:57:00.002Z

Dear Folks,

The time has come to take a different turn - I shall explain further...

After twenty odd years of drifting from one substandard job to another, I finally jumped ship from my fairly secure life in the public sector and decided to completely loose my marbles and go it alone. Naturally this meant jumping every conceivable ship I had sailing in my local waters (home, car, life etc) and totally sending out for the little men in white coats, yes, I was going to start my own business...

Gulp! So there I was no money (and I mean, no money) not a lot to sell - I am not destined to become some flashy designer, or inventor, but what I could do was the same secretarial stuff I had been doing for the last three years - aha! That would be it - I would start up a VA (virtual assistance job to the rest of you) company and work from home..

Let's hold it there - working from home - let's repeat that little glittering phrase for just a second - it sounds wonderful doesn't it - "work from home" so I will tell you where I went wrong with this initial starry eyed approach and we'll move on...

Working from Home or Waking Up to the sheer scam of it all

Okay, so I started to give up my job (boo, hoo!) and look for work on the Internet for a suitable working from home job. Let me cut to the chase here - there actually isn't one. What happened started off on the right foot - all those wonderful millions of pages just waiting for me to crawl through after I had put in my three worded search - what luck - all these pages of Google wonderland just waiting for me to read! As you would have expected, after the three Google page, the old momentum left me and the bladder was starting to fill, so off to the loo, and back but with just enough time to reconsider my approach and my three worded search and on to to something a little more tangible.

How about.... "genuine work from home jobs" Yes, that sounds more like it! I searched only to find a load more scams telling me, "NO THINS IS THE REAL THING! JUST SIGN HERE, SEND US $250 AND WE WILL GIVE TO PERMISSION TO SACK YOUR BOSS, BUT HURRY, THIS IS A LIMITED OFFER AS OF TOMORROW MORNING, IT WILL COST YOU $465!!!

Sigh.....

Okay, so that search didn't work so I moved on to a whole long list of other rewording scenarios which all led me back to the same scam, and after all this clicking I was doing unexpectedly to this website, was allowing the geeky nerd sitting with his PC programmes in his bedroom, more money that I could ever dream about...

Double sigh!

After several dozens of hours and a sore bum later I decided that the world was not going to give me a good genuine deal as much as I tried and tried to look, so there was only one more thing to try - I could work for myself. All I needed to do was a bit of advertising, a couple of leaflets and some groovy business cards and I would be away!

But, wait. I figured, now sitting here in my same old tracksuit bottoms and my messy makeshift office (the spare room without a bed) would anyone really want to hear this or would I simply be typing for my own therapy? So I will tell you what, drop me a line and I will keep typing tomorrow!

Taking The Reins Or How To Ride Smack The Pony

2009-04-15T20:22:00.003Z

Taking a leaf out of the ancient theory of 'door kept open' for material, the largely credited, 'Smack The Pony,' did just that. Appealing to the most daring of new comedy writers, this brave sketch show embarked on a journey through the female psyche exposing her for all her foibles, faults and intimate thoughts. Reading through the long, endless list of material masterfuls, is a bit like running ones eyes down a school board of past Sports captains. With the idealists at the helm, 'Smack The Pony,' engaged the minds of the audience and endangered lives at Channel Four staff.
Where as female comedy writers had stepped into the safe zone of placing humour on the shoulders of fictional characters, the performers of the 'Pony' club threw themselves onto the fire for all to laugh at instead. Life had been a notably safe haven for the inspired writers at the Beeb when a certain Miss Victoria Wood had been on the throne. Casting a wise eye across the set we find the comfortable characters of Mrs Overall and Babs. Although these extraordinary women made us laugh, chortle, guffaw and generally titter at their outrageous and highly amusing scenarios, we still had yet to tread the unreliable waters of our own misgivings. In short - it was only the most sturdy of relationships that could survive an episode of 'Smack The Pony.' Yet, wait to be shocked; there were just as many male writers collaborating on this show as there were females…

Setting out on it's ambitious four year run, the show could only grow from strength to strength and judging by it's ratings, the spell was already working before the end of the first series. Writers Fiona Allen and Doon Mackichan teamed up with well established comedy actress, Sally Phillips to engage on their stripping of the mysterious female allure. Since these new comers were already attuned to the preciseness of what tight knitted observational humour should entail, they instantly knew how far to go. Obviously to the moon and back, was just simply not enough as their goal was not to shock, but to force the audience to laugh nervously.
Like most comedienne writers of the more recent generation, they have had to rely on a good old wrench up the ladder from someone more well established. Phillips, perhaps the innovator for Catherine Tate's style of humour, first found herself playing a brief role along the cracked path of Steve Coogan's 'Alan Partridge.' It was also here that Scot girl, Doon Mackichan made her acquaintance with modern humour in the factious chat show. From a slightly different angle, Allen found a great wealth of experience by taking on minor key roles in sketch shows including 'Goodness Gracious Me,' and 'The All Star Comedy Show.' The show was set to be a platform where these new age writers could simply vent off their diversities for half an hour each week. What actually transpired was to be and Emmy winning cult show from which now, future female writers consider to be one of the most important benchmarks in British comedy history.

What the trio of young talent gave us was an edgy feel to the way we appreciate sketch show comedy. Since the days of afore mentioned, Victoria Wood, the world had come a long way along the A road of observational humour. Where Wood had touched upon an area more inclined to be of a class breaking nature, Allen, Phillips and Mackichan shoved Wood into a 'Jean Brodie' Basque and set her out to dry. 'Smack The Pony,' had shudderingly dealt with the unspeakable, the inscrutable and the damn well shoved under the carpet. Whilst using the very title of the show as a slang term used in female masturbation, it was fairly obvious (or not to most of us) how far this type of unfelt comedy would intend to go.
After the first series, one could get a feel of the pattern that was being repeatedly used. As a loose tribute to the previous 'Not The Nine o'clock News,' the show would end with a mock up of a recent music style of anthem - a running ending snatched by many a comedy show which never fails to delight audiences. Another key slot was a quick firing video shot where the trio posed as women looking for dates - a video dating link in it's tackiest form. An idea originally conceived by Victoria Wood, in which she, along with other characters posed as members of the public venting a personal niggles on screen. Another link to this sort of 'on the street' one line humour was also given ground by university chums, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. In their show, they devised a series of one lines, thrown away by members of the public half way through their interviews. Effective and used to the hilt since Python, roots to any remedy of comic humour can usually be traced back to someone or show which appears totally unrelated. 'Smack The Pony,' was, in that sense, no different.

Touching on the very personal issues of what women seemingly experience from time to time, it was not primarily a show for female eyes only. One could almost hazard a guess that there were many a man watching through slatted blinds and frantically taking notes. A lot could be learned about a woman's mind through the eyes of some serial flaunting cheap gags on the fairer sex on Channel Four.
Something that sounds all too familiar on the channel that taste forgot, even so, 'Smack The Pony,' how ever it was taken, was undoubtedly a new turning point for female humour, shifting the pattern for female writers to delve more into the realms of comedy possibility.
Everything was out in the open for thirty minutes each week and the format of this well adjusted show in disguise certainly rolled around mischievously through the fields of modern unpredictability. We were subjected to skits dwelling on the dullness of parties, lousy sex and bad jobs. Each only showing us a few seconds of cringing time, these skits were loving crafted to reveal the truth behind the complexities of the female world. Some held our gaze through the masterful play on words in flittish dialogue, whilst others, silently step over our souls to stamp, whole heartedly on our pride. What other show made us howl like banshees on a thirty second skit of the extraordinary lengths a woman would go to park her car in an empty car park ? Gliding and dancing around each space not making up her mind until deciding on horizontally park across four spaces and walk away without a second glance - perfect visual and factual comedy.

Since the event of such factual genius, the road has laid bare over some considerable time. What seems to have taken shape since has been a reflection back to the good old days of fictional characters in general scenarios. A void seems to have been widened and the future of observational comedy in it's direct sense is a free for all.

Until then, we have guys in drag, wheelchairs and bondage to keep us amused, well, some of us, at least……

But, there is always Green Wing….

Written by
Fiona Allen
Doon Mackichan
Sally Phillips

sam1942 - mduffy 2009

Need some ideas about how to earn a bit of cash on the web? Click Here!

I is for Illusionists...

2009-04-07T17:35:00.003Z

Derren Brown - Inside A Box With The Thinking Woman's Crumpet...

From the most ordinary of beginnings in the clutches of Croydon in Surrey, a young University student by the name of Derren Brown decided on a life changing career in hypnosis purely by chance. After an inspirational dip into such a 'job,' he became fascinated with psychology, illusion and magic, yet staying firm that anything to do with 'the other side of life,' as Colin Fry affectionately terms it, is a belief best left to the believers. As time went on, he delved into deeper questionable theories. Quickly learning magic, he embarked on mind reading and suggestive techniques to prove that the human mind was easily 'suggestible.' Eagerly focusing on how a person can be predictable in thought, decision and activity, Derren Brown first came to our cynical screens in the form of his first television series, 'Mind Control,' aired in 2000, which explored these possibilities.

Energetic, entertaining and dusted with characteristics of Victoriana and Music Hall, this modern day Vaudeville wonder man comes complete with a smile warm enough to melt even the most sceptical of hearts. Using humour, charm and grace, he becomes an easy focus of attention. The eyes of the gazing audience are quickly taken in by his mesmerising being, so much so that we are totally under his spell.
It was no wonder to a perplexed television audience, that these first shows gathered astonished praise and equal scepticism. When the generation of the audience and magician are the same, one can't help thinking of the mediocre Paul Daniels as a figure to compare any future talent with. Who else did we have in those days? Derren Brown is, without saying, a far cry from the sword throwing Hans Moretti and the fumblings of Mr Daniels, who used his assistant as a simple and visual distraction, so when we looked upon Derren Brown, we could only stand in disbelief. From cold sweats of a possibly fatal shot to the brain in 'Russian Roulette' (Ch4, Oct 2003) to appearing to cut off the oxygen to the brain to walk on broken glass in 'Something Wicked Comes This Way' (Ch4 Dec 29, 2006) we have witnessed pain manoeuvring illusions that have made us gasp, cower, cry, laugh and even at times, jump to the safety of behind the sofa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Mind Control' Comprised of six programmes to wet a tricksters appetite, he skims the surface of a human being with such depth that he merely entices us with his unique style of 'magical' entertainment that only became apparent to his audience over the coming years. When one looks back on this, ever so primitive series of DB skills, (rather like a visually, circus paraded C.V,) it only becomes clear to us how much he has 'grown' with us over the last , now, seven years.

The programmes were shown in 2000 as follows but not in the right order of broadcast…

Powers of Suggestion…

Pinpointing a theme where upon he presents himself to us in nothing far from the style of American nut, David Blaine, he immediately captures the 'street theme' of displaying his suggestive powers over the most diversely, mutant cynics - the reluctant shopper.
A Saturday afternoon, wandering around the Whitgift Centre in Croydon has never been a mind altering experience, especially if you live close by, yet the 'off the cuff' tones of Derren Brown gently coming across the public speakers shouldn't have made any cause for alarm. Yet, whilst no one actually noticed, the man himself emerged from the top of the food hall with microphone in hand and a trusty cameraman at his side, he begins what appears to be a dull, non eventful monologue about a special offer situated by the lifts. On mentioning the lifts, he drops in a subtle comment about stopping suddenly and asking everyone interested in the offer to put their right arm up in the air on the word 'now.' Allowing the fading in of some creepy music, the shoppers stun themselves as well as each other in realising that they are all standing around with their right arms in the air.

The idea behind this suggestive persuasion is a fairly simple one; we are born into a world that his already suggestive in itself. Many mind theorists had already decided that we live in a social climate where we are 'rounded up' mentally and socially. The extremist of this would be George Orwell's 1984 and the Big Brother theory that we are 'conditioned' to think and act in a certain way that is regarded as acceptable as we are taught these structures from our surroundings. Here, the microphone is the authority, just like telling a child not to go near the oven when it's on as it is hot, a crowd of wandering shoppers are relaxed and hearing instructions subconsciously and act accordingly in their conscious world. It is known as the 'thinking in a box' theory.Sounds easy, so what do we have as a result? A miserable afternoon around Croydon's dullest shops turns into a spectacle of wonderment and intrigue. For once locals didn't have to rely on hoodies invading Burger King for equal delight…

Seeing the Future…
In a programme aiming at the nervous sector of the sitting at home audience, DB focused on clairvoyance, but not how you and I would know it. Whilst having the ability to grab complete and utter strangers in the the middle of the street, presumably still in London, (which is not a great idea on the best of days,) he engages on a tour of how he can tell these innocuous shoppers tell about themselves that they could only know. How does he do this, well, if you can follow the last explanation, then it shouldn't be do difficult; this approach to 'mind reading' is actually a trick used by more people around us than we care to think, called 'cold reading.' No, it is not the Gas man coming round, but the simple way of asking a question and getting the right response. If it can be seen it generalist terms, one can tell someone something about themselves and wait for a physical answer; the way they respond in nervous laughter etc, acts as a strong guide as to how that person is feeling or what they do for a living….and in conclusion in this programme…?

Mr Brown is perhaps the only man alive who can stop the only happy, smiling Ethnic man in Carnaby Street who works in a police station.
Most wouldn't have cringed at being called 'shifty'….

The Art of Distraction…
A programme in which DB plays the Artful Dodger by 'fleecing' some unsuspecting chap haplessly sitting on a bench on a platform, waiting for a train. DB takes his watch, tie and wallet out of his inside pocket, all on account of handing it back to poor Anthony after the experiment had concluded.
So perhaps Channel Four might have received a few complaints when it was shown that Derren Brown managed to swindle the winning ticket out of a cashier at a dog track (probably Wimbledon) but this 'skill' had already been handed to us a century ago in the form of the Artful Dodger. Orphaned children in a Dickensian world were used by thieves to pick the pockets of wealthy gentlemen because they were small, nimble and unassuming. Although these attributes don't work well for DB, the theory is still there, by cheaply, if you like, distracting the victim with one hand and allowing him to focus his mind on something other than your thieving hand, so much can actually be achieved as being fleeced is the last thing they expect is happening to them…

Now, now, come on, hand it back…

Memories are made of this…

DB is unwisely let loose on a casino den and wins (naturally) above everyone one else at the table. How? By placing little red stickers on certain everyday objects around the room, of course!
By focusing on a room full of clutter, it should be easy to play a game of blackjack. As DB allows us to say, 'why didn't I think of that,' a few times, he shows us how you recognise objects around the room and relate them to a certain card. You do this 52 times, of course. Great, if you have 52 objects in the room that remind you instinctively of a particular card. Each time the card it used, you remove a red sticker…

Since your opponents are bound to notice you hoping about the room removing little red stickers off the Wedgwood, we get to wonder if Mr Brown is telling us how he really wins two and a half grand at the table in the space of ten minutes or is he pulling our legs?
If you could do it, would you really tell everyone else about it? So this is the thinking behind it all; He imagines the room and all the objects in it, (of course!). It is a feature in his series that shows his great skill in memory, procedure and focus on each card that it is dealt and striking it off an imaginary list. A craft that was used by the Greeks from around 82 BC…

Well, who the Hell can remember back that far..!?

Illusion or miracle…?
Again, DB stuns the English speaking world at a posh black tie party full of debutants and young conservatives with parents with too much money (or the Oxford University Ball, in other words). Perhaps on hindsight, the last person you would invite to such a shin dig would be Derren Brown especially if he has been clutching a black envelope in his hand all evening, and then suddenly asks for everyone's attention. The agreeable young Stephen Fry wanna bie steps up to be blind folded, (perhaps only the second time in his life, the first being, to choose a title). DB offers the rest of the crowd to take a look at the picture from the envelope without breaking into hysterics. No noise must be given away to the blinded chap by his jolly good chums as they are then asked by DB to scream out in their minds only, the name of the picture on the card. A few sniggers are let out accidentally when they are presented with a picture of a tractor.

Although screaming in ones' mind is perhaps only a past time that us parents perfect over the years, it is still just as difficult to figure out how before un blind folded, the chap in the chair got the picture right.
On reflection, the tractor boy thought it might have been some art of suggestion before he was originally sat with black cloth over his eyes. We spend the rest of the evening, mildly pondering over how it was done, but this is what we can gather…

A little more tricky to explain, but the general reasoning is what has been labelled since the Victorian times as 'sixth sense.' A cop out, it would seem, but there is a definite common ground found in the art of thought transference and what is also known as'cryptesthesia.' This is the basic power of transferring thought onto paper in a sealed envelope. Again, it is the power of suggestion. Hudson in 1893 said that '..when suggestion is actively and intelligently employed, it is always effective…' To write an account of what is a logical explanation for thought transference and in this case, on a wide scale where a room full of people are engaging in the same thought, is fairly unrealistic. We are all capable of powers beyond belief. As DB himself says, he doesn't claim to be anything or do anything that the rest of us can't achieve ourselves after careful study and practice.

Pain Killer…

Okay, so this one does go beyond the realms of sheer human belief. Actually turning pain on and off like a tap it something that would have come in handy during child birth, so why turn it into an art form. Surely, the switching it on should be left in the capable hands of sado masochists. Apart from being a fairly good album by Judas Priest, 'pain Killer' takes is into the cliff hanger part of the series, a little something for the audience to chew on until the next show which wouldn't be on for another year.
So, in this programme, DB gathers together four medical students which drops down to three when one of the girls, suddenly decides that she doesn't want to participate as soon as the words 'tooth ache' are mentioned, a sensible girl. Then by subtle voice and suggestive words, the two of them start to rub their jaws complaining of toothache. The understanding here being that 'pain is objective,' once the thought or the idea or the sight of blood it that, that it the point that pain is then felt….

In an instant at a slap of the DB's hand on the table, the pain is gone. A moment later, after asking permission, our two giddy med students are then shocked once more to find DB threading a needle through the other students hand who is unaware that he feels any pain. Dazed students sit in front of him wondering how the hell he did it. Meanwhile, the forth unparticipating girl is still running…perhaps not.
So the theory is? DB's answer is again simple; '…pain is subjective…' He believes that you feel pain if you can witness the point of where that pain is being felt. If a finger bleeds, you do not feel that pain until your eyes are directed to the sight of the blood pouring out. That sounds fair enough, so yet again, we are faced with that infamous power of suggestion. Not a feat that you could master in the advert break of Corrie, yet this theory, obviously from years of practice actually works. It has, at times, been proved to be of great use, especially for women experiencing fears of child birth pain. (If only I had known that six years ago, perhaps I wouldn't have bothered with gas and air,) yet surely this now proposes the question of painkillers in the form of aspirins and the like. Do they work or is it the power of suggestion in out minds that makes us believe that taking it will make the pain go away? Studies of this question crossing over the barriers of science is a conversation best left after a bottle of Jack Daniels at three in the morning…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is sad, yet it has to be noted that this man who makes you proud to come from near Croydon has also had his fair share of broad critics since the word go. Somehow, what one reads from the severest of sceptics, seems all too complimentary rather than insulting. Brown has, and also makes a point of stating at the beginning of his shows, that '..I am often dishonest in my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty…' thus showing that he his always willing to be open about any form of category that his audience cares to put him it. He allows us to be open with our own understandings of his illusions at the same time as he is shows us he is also open to questionable arguments. He does not ever label himself as a magician, a hypnotist or psychologist, yet if one was to describe him with these words, he would, I think, blush, and accept them as compliments.

He is whatever you wish for him to be, just the same as he allows us to be what ever he wants us to be in his company. He won't harm, insult or put anyone in a situation where they would feel threatened or uncomfortable, but if you feel the curiosity take hold little, he will warmly welcome you to experience the delights he offers. Magical, illusionist or just plain confidence trickster, he is a warm echo from the past of how entertainers of a different century conjured up the senses and the imagination enough to make eyes light up and mouths drop open.
Let us embrace a forgotten era where men inspired us to be amazed at the feats a human mind and body could withstand, from plunging into a tank of water, chained with little way of escape to tricking you out of your last penny, it's an art that needs to be applauded, in what ever shape it shows itself in.

So, the next time Mr Blaine wants to shut himself in a box somewhere above London without food, water or any means of getting down, I suggest you watch a few re runs of David Copperfield magically making a tiger disappear on stage with his twinkling eyes and equally twinkling teeth.

Yet, if you want something that won't shock you, stun you or make you work out where all the mirrors are, I please allow me put a suggestion of my own into your thoughts;

Mr Derren Brown appears on our stages across the country in another tour this year, do what I have done and buy a ticket…

Mr Brown is currently filming for Channel Four for another series scheduled for Spring this year.

He will be appearing in his one man show this year on tour. For dates, please go to his website, www.derrenbrown.co.uk (It is a website that also displays his intriguing and rather unusual caricatures of famous people.)

©sam1942 ciao/dooyoo and anywhere else in cyber space
Find some highlights of 'Mind Control' on the DVD; 'Derren Brown - Inside Your Mind,' although an actual DVD of the original series is unavailable.
DVD - amazom.com £62.
Channel Four Shop online - £19.99

m.duffy 2009 re issued for blogger

Off Yer bike, My Dear!

2009-04-03T09:37:00.003Z

Whilst rambling around my depressed town early this morning on my poor excuse for a mountain bike, a surprising thing occurred...

Now, bearing in mind I usually ride without a helmet and on the pavement for a perfectly good reason and this is due to the immense traffic we have thundering passed each day including trucks and various larger than life vehicles. However, there on the other hand a labyrinth of alleyways, paths for bikes and other weird and wonderful cycle lines particularly built for bike, making my town a reasonably nice place to come and ride one's push bike. Apart from these leafy paths, there are also a number of subways which take the rider in to a safer way to beat the angry traffic, but it here I must stop...

These subways are meant, built quite wide enough, for those on foot and on two wheels. As there is ample room for one to pass the other, there is much smiling and mounting of "morning" as one passes. Yet these wonderful excuses for a bike ride rather than to jump in the motor also hide darker tales. Like many subways, or at least anywhere where the daylight can't reach, one always finds the lower side of life. If one is to get mugged for instance, it is more than likely to happen in a dull lit subway rather than standing in the busy entrance of Debenhams...

Am I right or am I right?

Okay, so this morning I was accosted. For a start by someone who was literally old enough to be my father if he has taken his time finding a wife, shall we say. Good heavens! I am almost 40 and I do believe I was told off for being on my bike by, again I shall say it, literally an old man!

For a brief moment there I was quite complimented for it has been many decades since I was told off and particularly a stranger and for that second I was transported back to a time of odd socks, snotty noses and smiles. Of grubby knees, friends and a life full of quiet bliss, farmyard smells and peace amongst a community. Yet this second was, as I say, brief. Suddenly I was thrown back into the evils of 2009 and the real world - a far distant place from my quaint and perfect childhood, and back to a point in my life where I was obviously disobeying the rules as an adult - shame on me!

Yet having said all of that and the mere fact this old man is now not sitting in front of my now allowing me to have my say as a citizen and a member of the public who must argue their point, there was one very good reason why I decided not to dismount in the subway at the point of being ticked off and the reason is this - I felt, or at least, I feel in the world right now that there is probably more chance of a lone female like me being mugged or worse in a subway than actually my knocking a pedestrian to the ground whilst I cycle through.

Now, I should have said that at the time - my reason sounding perfect as I tap away at the keyboard in the safety of my own house and away from that cruel subway, but I didn't why? One word - Hoodie.

Yes, you knew that the word would rear it's ugly head somewhere in the proceedings, and there it is. There was a young man, whose face I could not see due to the hood walking in front of me, a little way in front to be honest, but still enough for me to be concerned by his presence, so I really should have said to my ticker off-er, "look, you see that hoodie in front walking through the subway, what if he has a knife and I have silently, like a jolly good abider of the Highway Code, dismounted my trusty steed? What do I do then if he suddenly takes an interest in my rucksack? I can't mount my getaway cycle that fast, he would have me to the ground in time and where would I be then? No! I must make a stand! I WILL cycle through this dark subway, because we live in a world where we are NOT safe!"

That would have sounded good don't you think, but I didn't say a word, I just smiled and continued to half cycle through the dim, yet as soon as I got close behind the hoodie, I over took him and pedalled like mad, and why? Because we can't trust anyone. So what's the conclusion behind this tale? Wouldn't it be nice if we still lived in a world and I say 'still' because it was once there and really did exist, where I should have said to the old man, "Yes sir," and dismounted my bike without another word.

How the world has changed, so instead I cursed the old man under my breath and carried on riding my bike, because I his generation would say "it is better to be safe than sorry" the only difference is now today, is that we say it with a totally different meaning....

M.Duffy
Easter 2009.

Beatles for Sale... and then again, just about anything else for that matter

2009-03-29T15:32:00.002Z

So, the time has come - it must be just about the one and only saying being used rather flippantly in recent times. We are all losing a grip on reality. We read on a daily basis how many jobs are going as this company and how many shops are closing in that Mall, so it is not surprising that we turn to selling up and moving out - even that retirement in the south of France is looking ever more rosier in the world's flat economic climate.

Car Boot Sales should be on the rise, but what do we do when filling up the Escort at 5am on a wet Sunday morning simply does not appeal to the average person? There is always the internet, Ah yes, that computer is sitting idle in the corner of the kitchen is starting to look appealing, isn't it? After all, there must be millions of internet millionaires out there surely, so it can't be that difficult - you'd be surprised. Yet what I have found recently is that we can start looking at those old record collections and dusty CD's and think about making a few extra pennies. So, what I have found are the following sites -

If you check out this website first, you will be met by a comprehensive page full of other site sellers which can sell your old record and CD collection for you for a small commission, although 15% appears to be the average cost they will take for a sale. For the budding seller it is a good place to start first although I will stress how important it is to read the terms and conditions of these sites. Most will state that you will not be charged for selling your stuff but you can't be too careful. For the top UK site, Netsounds, you will be asked at the end of the registration form for your bank account details and this will put some of you off. However, they are worth looking at but be prepared for a good hour in front of the pc uploading your stuff, espcially if you have an enormous collection like yours truly! Yet if you are a buyer looking for the odd album which is for a fact not in production anymore, why not have a glance at what I have to sell? Have a look at the list below and make me an offer, only if it is for one album, anything sensible will be considered.

Postage and packing will be 50p for each CD. Not able to accept credit cards.

ALBUM ARTIST SERIAL NUMBER

Echoes Pink Floyd 2435361112
Definitive Collection Tony Christie 249827867
Illumination Paul Weller 99750948927
No Angel Dido 4321832742
Wild Wood Paul Weller 4228285132
Elements Mike Oldfield 2438390692
Boogie Wonderland Various 99749768024
Ultimate Big Band/Swing Album Various 4321556652
Stripped Christina Aguilera 4321961252
Legend Lennon 2438219542
The Rat Pack at Christmas Sinatra/Davis/Martin 9845850182
The Best of OMD Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark VI 793582
Reptile Eric Clapton 93624766
Graceland Paul Simon 7599-25447-2
The Very Best of Level42 3145593732
Beverley Hills Cop 1 Soundtrack 881190872
The Very Best of Meatloaf 99751374329
Greatest Hits ELO 99745035724
Stop Making Sense Talking Heads 2435224532
The Very Best of Ray Charles 8122-79822-2
The Other Side of the Mirror Stevie Nicks 77779254224
Cocteau Twins Victorialand 5263706022
The Definitive Simon and Garfunkel 6374464
Digitally remastered Velvet Underground 31453-1252-2
Back to Black Amy Winehouse 251713041
Just Enough Education to Perform Stereophonics 33197182926
The Best of 1980-1990 U2 3145246132
Falling into You Celine Dion 99748379221
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Music Madonna WB9-325583008245
Greatest Hits Vol 2 Madonna 9362-48000-2
2 CD Deluxe Edition GOLD The Stranglers 7611942572
The Best of M People 4321613872
The Best of Ruby Turner (no sleeve) Ruby Turner n/a
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Save Me - Collectors Ed No 1 - 5" CD Single Fleetwood Mac 759921552-2
Love Aztec Camera 2292-42202
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White Ladder David Gray 8573829832
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Wishing Martine McCutcheon 2438505272
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56 Elvis 7863-66856-2
Face Value Phil Collins 7777863252
Scissor Sisters Scissor Sisters 249866058
Captain Swing Michelle Shocked 4228388782
Beggar on a Beach of Gold Mike and the Mechanics 2438401432
Ace is Wild Mark Lamarr's various 32698068128
"Slang" Limited Ed Souvenir Pack + cards Def Leppard LC0268
The Very Best of The Commodores 3145305472
EV3 En Vogue 7559-62097-2
Crash! Boom! Bang! Roxette EMI 8-28727-2
Perfect Hits 1975-1981 Generation X 94632185426
40th Anniversary Anthology Billy Fury 4228448742
Break Every Rule Tina Turner 7777463232
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TAMLA Motown Gold Mowton 3CD Box Set immaculate 4400163012
The Very Best of (DR) The Eagles 7559626802
Katmandu Peter Green 3655156102
On an Island Dave Gilmour 9463556952
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Duke Genesis 2438398922
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Give me the Reason Luther Vandross 99745013425
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Cooler Shakers Northern Soul Various 14797293199
Eliminator ZZ Top 7599-23774-2
A Hard Days Night The Beatles CD 7777464372
Saturday Nght Fever Soundtrack - various 4228253892
BackBeat movie soundtrack 2438395082
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Fat Dance Hits Various 29243012521
90125 Yes 8122-73796-2
The Very Best of Sheryl Crow 249861092
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Rise Gabrielle 549-752-2
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The Everly Brothers The Everly Brothers BLCD 021290095442
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Hits of the 80's Various 4321446882
Sticky Fingers The Rolling Stones 2438395252
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Get a Grip Aerosmith 2064244442
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She was only the Grocer's Daughter The Blow Monkeys 35627474125
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Kylie Kylie Minogue 61919200320
Rockabilly Various 777799879-2
Born in the USA Bruce Springsteen 99708630423
Kiln House Fleetwood Mac 7599-27453-2
The Blues Years Fleetwood Mac 17615226621
The Greatest Hits Gerry and the Pacemakers 20214119126
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It's Spelt Speciality Various 2966760012
Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac 7599-27241-2
The Very Best of Air Supply Air Supply 7192607570
The Best of The Alarm The Alarm 2434937512
Future Games Fleetwood Mac 7599-27458-2
The Times They Are A-Changing Bob Dylan 99751989226
Floorshakers! Northern Soul various 14797292369
Headlines and Deadlines A-ha 7599-26773-2
We're Slammin' Alabama Slammers 18901129008
The Original Gene Vincent 7.24349E+11
To Whom it may Concern Lisa Marie Presley 2435905220
What's Love Got to do with it Tina Turner 7777894862
Fuzz and Nonsence We've got a Fuzzbox... 37300054629
The long road home John Fogerty 2521896892
The Wedding Singer Various 9362-46840-2
Life in Slow Motion David Gray 50504679766-2
A Secret Wish Propaganda 30094025424
Anthology Y+T 17615928624
White Lilies Island Natalie Imbruglia 4312913422
The Velvet Rope Janet Jackson 2438447622
On through the Night Def Leppard 422-822533-2
Collection John Lennon 7777915162
Please Please Me The Beatles CD 7777464352
The Sound of Fury Billy Fury 4228206272
The Hard Line According to Terence Trent D'Arby 99745091126
Alex Loves Alexander O'Neal 9995179825
Rattle and Hum U2 14474000720
The Lost Boys Soundtrack - various 7567-81767-2
Piece by Piece Katie Melua 298700192
Live at the Adelphi *SIGNED COPY* Pete Best Band PBS CD 1000
Promises and Lies UB40 7777882292
Too Shy and the singles Kajagoogoo and Limahl 2438272222
A New World Record ELO 18665219823
Billy Idol DR Billy Idol 2435328602
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band The Beatles CD CDP746442-2
Hysteria Def Leppard 4228306752
Disco Pet Shop Boys 7777464502
Godfather of Soul James Brown 3145500402
No Angel Dido 4321832742
You, Me and Us Martine McCutcheon 2438482102

http://www.moremusic.co.uk/links/data_revue.htm

Vatican Forgives John Lennon's 'Bigger Than Jesus' Speech

2008-12-01T20:17:00.003Z

It has to be one of the most famous misquotes of the 20th Century, yet this week, the Catholic church have "pardoned" Beatle front man, John Lennon as it is 40 years since Lennon was reported to have said that the Beatles were bigger that Christianity.

The formal pardon was given, many would argue 40 years too late, but would the late, great John Lennon be pleased, or would he be bothered? To be honest, he probably would have thought nothing of it. It would be the state of the world and all it's conflicts he would have been more worried about.

The misquote came from an interview which he gave when The Beatles were at their height of fame and world domination. He was reported to have said that he thought the band were bigger that Jesus and Christianity all over the world. What he actually said was that he believed that music/rock and roll, and even the band itself probably meant more to the young generation of fans all over the world, than religion, which, if you think back to those days of "Beatlemania" is probably not far off the truth.

The comments were reported back to the magazine which was going to publish the interview were mis-read for what ever reason, be them innocently or not, in 1966. No matter, the words angered religious leaders across the globe. The British icon was shot dead in New York, outside his apartment in December 1980.

He supposedly said to a journalist,

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I do not know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity... We're more popular than Jesus now."

In a press conference later, John Lennon told the waiting newspapers that he had actually meant that he thought the band was more popular at that time. Sadly, even all these decades later, there is still some degree of skepticism over what he meant when the remarks were made.

However, yesterday published in the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, John Lennon was officially pardoned, stating that Lennon had meant that he was "blaming the group's immense rise to fame for his comments..."

In the meantime, the editors wrote...

"After so many years, it sounds merely like the boasting of an English working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success."

This month in the UK, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Beatles, White Album, and it appears that the Vatican has praised the album also saying that "only "snobs" would dismiss the Beatles' songs...."

I guess there has been an issue of iPods around the smallest state recently...

Based on an article from www.woai.com

http://www.woai.com/entertainment/story.aspx?content_id=c081595e-3b06-40c6-962e-d153a2a8d84d

Sound Suite Cocoon article written by MDuffy 2008

Propaganda Puppet Mickey Mouse Turns 80 And He's Still the Political Nazi Figure

2008-11-26T19:29:00.002Z

Mickey Mouse is 80 this week - there are very few entertainment figures in front of him - Fats Domino springs to mind, yet those early days of Mr Mouse where dark. He was banned from Germany in WW2 and the Italians didn't think he was fascist enough.

It was a bleak day on December 15, 1937, weather wise, but more of the life expectancy of a certain Mr Mickey Mouse - the new, hot-off-the-drawing-board cartoon character who literally took the world by storm and almost caused quite a storm whilst doing it.

Thousands of miles away across the sea in the UK, while American artists were congratulating themselves on creating a masterpiece of animal/cartoon history, politicians in the House of Commons were asking themselves some pretty interesting and serious questions.

First was the story of the published comic strip, "Mickey Mouse" in Belgrade. The accusations were so severe that it spelled the end of one British journalist's career.

"Mr Mander (Wolverhampton East, Labour), asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he would state what action he proposed to take with reference to the expulsion of Reuter's correspondent, Mr H. D. Harrison, from Yugoslavia on the ground that he transmitted to foreign countries a statement that a "Mickey Mouse" comic strip in a Belgrade newspaper had been banned because it bore on national politics."

The press ran the story almost ten days before...

Mickey Mouse as a "revolutionary"

"According to reports from Belgrade the Yugoslav censor for art, literature, and drama has recognized in Mickey Mouse a dangerous agitator and ordered the Politika to surrender to him for destruction the latest strip or two (drawings and text) portraying Mickey Mouse's adventures, which have been appearing in serial form exclusively in that paper. There is happily no ground to fear that Yugoslavia is in any danger of losing touch for long with the personality or the activities of Mickey Mouse. But Mickey's activities in the guise of a "Prince" acquainting himself with the alleged corruption existing in high places in his country are regarded by the censor as containing revolutionary doctrines which must not be allowed to penetrate to the unsophisticated citizen...."

The infamous MP Anthony Eden (Foreign Secretary during World War II, briefly serving as Prime Minister (1955-1957) said in reply to Mr Mander,

"I was informed by the Yugoslav Government on December 7 that, in spite of repeated warnings, they had on many occasions had cause to complain of Mr Harrison's presentation of news to the British public. The Yugoslav Government further stated that they had been obliged on the occasion of Mr Harrison's last dispatch, dealing with an act of the censorship, to intimate to him that his continued presence in Belgrade would be undesirable. His Majesty's Minister at Belgrade took the matter up with the Yugoslav authorities, but they informed him that they were unable to alter their decision. It will be realized that the grant or withdrawal of permission to reside in any country is entirely a matter for the Government of that country to decide..."

Yet the story didn't stop there and the 'disgraced' journalist was not going home without a fight. All sounds a tad too far - after all, this is only a cartoon character, so surely this extremist event should not have resulted in a journalist being given the boot out of another country, and just when you would have thought that someone on the bench would have been on his side. Mr Eden said:

"It is not a question of whether it is right. We have always claimed for ourselves the right of acting as we think fit in relation to foreigners living in this country and as we attach importance to that, clearly I cannot take action which contradicts it...."

Not a good start for one of the world's most famous characters, yet it was in 1930, only a few years before where Mr Mouse had found himself banned from Germany - the "latent anti-German feeling" he apparently raised in the air, in a statement at the time, the German Board of Film Censors said,

"...the "artist evidently aimed at a comic representation of an action in the War. While the victorious mouse is distinguished by the French kepi, his enemies the cats are clearly recognizable as the German Army by their German steel helmets".

So before we begin to believe that Mickey Mouse started the war, in 1938, the Italians decided to jump in on the act, they banned the cartoon mouse for not being fascist enough, yes, you read that right. Yet he was eventually welcomed by the Nazi's in 1940 when Mickey met propaganda and put him in a film 'Naughty Naughty' to show how the Nazi movement saw America...

We have forgiven him since then....

MD 2008

The Reason Why I Call Myself Planet Janet...

2008-11-03T17:47:00.002Z

Or rather not these days...

Thirty-ish, pen pushing, council worker living south of London. People have asked me why I call myself Planet Janet - it is not only my name here but also...

It is the name of, a strip club in south west Minnisota, a pub in Cheadle, near Manchester which only opens on Mondays between 2 and 4pm, a funky clothes shop for short sighted ladies under the age of 20 on the Kings Road in London, a famous female painter from Eastern Romania who can only paint with her feet, a sixties hippy and radical journalist who used to hang out with Vivienne Westwood and Rodd Hull, a former Bunny Girl and mistress of Hugh Hefner who was given the nickname of Thud, because of her over active thyroid, a writer of poetry who's main subject is pigs and pig farming, a Swedish nanny who was famous for inventing the self cleaning nappy, a Russian Guiness World Record holder for downing the most cabbage based vodka's over the age of 82, and oh yes, I almost forgot, the name behind the most famous of all Monty Python sketches, the one where Terry Jones does NOT dress as a woman and each second word in the whole scene is "bottom."

That last one may not be true...

By The Way, Which One's Pink...?

2008-09-15T16:34:00.002Z

In the midst of the psychedelic sixties, a band emerged from the haze of the darkest London suburbs called The Abdabs. In 1965, three ordinary guys named Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright were the basis of this new band and it was only when they requested the poetic genius of Syd Barrett that they thought that the name Pink Floyd had more going for it. At least it meant some would take their music seriously…

It was Barrett who supplied the gentle, drifting vocals and guitar. He was also responsible for the bizarre, ‘out of this world’ lyrics. He became the leader, guiding his newfound flock into depths of creation and shrouded, unspoken imagination. Richard Wright graced our ears and took us to distant plains of the mind with his keyboards. Nick Mason was the man behind the beautifully timed drums and percussion and Roger Waters was responsible for bass, more percussion and vocals.

It wasn’t long before they were a resident musical interlude at certain discerning clubs. Already with the ‘Ally Pally’ under their belts, they had there, headed one of the most presstiduous psychedelic events in music history. It was a gruelling 14 hours titled the ‘Technicolor Dream’- a perfect fuzz filled name for a gathering of musicians, travellers, hippies and other walks of life. It was one of those ‘you had to be there’ type events, but for Pink Floyd, it was enough to grace the ‘amateur hall of fame.’

Their first single release was the ordinarily titled ‘Arnold Layne’ in March 1967. (About a thieving washing line transvestite.) The Position of number 20 was a modest claim for a new diverse band, for when a time when everything ‘swung’ and the chart was a ‘free for all’, it was a chance for Pink Floyd to strike a timely chord with the alternative listeners. ‘See Emily Play’ immediately followed this single and it reached an impressive number 6. It was surprising that due to these fairly well ranking singles, the band didn’t release anything until December 1979; 12 years had gone by with only a handful of albums to go on before we heard the unique ‘Another Brick In The Wall Part Two.’ It was obvious from the start that Pink Floyd were not a band to bash out one single after another, in fact, this band were playing to a more selective audience of intellectual listeners who sat cross legged and analysed music intensely rather than bopped to it.

In the hysteria of the late Sixties, it was clear that Barrett’s lyrics were being fuelled by a strong drug addiction. Unfortunately for geniuses of that era they either swam with the drug fuelled tide and rode on the waves of creative writing or they sank like a stone whose voice, no one could understand. It was the latter that crowned Barrett. Because of the failed man finding LSD more favourable than writing studio work or turning up to gigs, a talented young man stepped in by the name of David Gilmour whilst Barrett fell out. The shadow left shortly afterwards under a strained cloud. The band then could have been in trouble creatively, no unlike the legendary Peter Green on leaving Fleetwood Mac. The backbone had been Barrett and the rest practically picked short straws as to who was going to write.

From 1967 to 1975 they released 10 albums, all doing well in regard to position and staying power. The release of ‘Atom Heart Mother’ hit the number one slot straight off and ‘Obscured By Clouds’- a soundtrack released in June 1972 managed an almost permanent residence completing 82 weeks in the album chart.

‘Wish You Were Here’ was their second number one album. Released in September 1975, an album indirectly dedicated to Syd Barrett who strangely turned up one-day whilst the band were recording the six-month album. His presence certainly their in the control room and yet also on the album. Even though it had been several years since Barrett left, Pink Floyd still hadn’t got the ghost out of their systems. ‘Shine On’ was a specific tribute to Barrett and even seen as a letter to him from the member of the band. Perhaps the title of the album itself may denote certain smugness towards Barrett at the success he had decided to leave behind. Already with ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ behind them, perhaps their greatest album to date, they could afford to poke a little fun at the defenceless Syd Barrett, although, Waters was reported to have said in recent years that when recording this album, they had all wished they were somewhere else….

With only five tracks but yet all of some considerable length, it was chosen to be digitally remastered in 1994 and this is the album that can be purchased today. Written predominately by Waters, it wasn’t seen as their greatest album but to a newcomer of Pink Floyd, it offers a good starting point without commitment…

Known for their adverse ‘Salvador Dhali’ style album covers, these sleeves represent the depth of the creation within. Pink Floyd represented themselves, a ‘no holes barred’ approach to experimental rock. Mixing futuristic machine themes and strangled keyboards with mellow guitar riffs, they wrote a line that undoubtedly appealed to all.

The opening our album is the piece titled ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)’ I shall call them pieces as any Pink Floyd album is quite like listening to a instrumental tale, (Peter Gabriel’s Genesis minus the lambs and foxes) rather than just an album with one track following another. Pink Floyd presents us with themes rather than songs and they flow gently together like one long artistic project, so this is how I will try to respect that….

It is Wright that has the upper hand as this first piece opens gently, soothing us for what is to come. Gilmour idly teases the strings for a short time that is rather like a backdrop for soaring over the Scottish Highlands. A harsh four noted riff sounds like satanistic bells and then we are finally taken into the extended introduction to the piece. Gilmour flutters effortlessly around the strings to a mellow and sleepy blues theme. The whole theme to this piece is bluesy jazz whilst the member takes us through the instruments at their fingertips. Wright works his way through the repertoire of the keyboard just as Gilmour, who sounds instantly woken from heavy sleep? The listener get this feeling that they are just masters at instruments and is pleasantly surprised when their voices blend beautifully, however, like with all Pink Floyd albums, it is the quality of music that is the fundamental basis for the success of this band, not the lyrical content although it has always seen as an added bonus What does ironically make the album work is the primary subject, Syd Barrett and in this piece they are truly talking about his life, his highs and falls. ‘Well you wore out your welcome with random precision, rode on the steel breeze…’

What we do experience with this first piece is fusion of both instruments and musicians. They naturally inject each piece with euphonious conclusions of mind and spirit. This first piece breathes life and that life is consistent from beginning to end.

With souls cleansed and mind free of all dark, intrusive thoughts, we are awoken to the second piece from this album entitled ‘Welcome To The Machine.’ It is the second leg of our journey. As with all albums by wide ranging artists, and it even can be said for commercialism, production line Brit pop to an extent, that an album is a piece of history in the long range event of that artist/bands life. Here, we are exposed to the joys and more than not, sorrows that were the epitome of Pink Floyd.
A man presses a buzzer to open a steel door inside a giant machine orientated factory, presses another buzzer and the pulse of the machine from behind the door thunders louder as we hear another door open. It is questioned where the direction was pointing when Roger Waters wrote this futuristic, harsh piece. Through the lyrics we can hear perhaps another tribute to the downfall of Barrett, but we must remember that by the time this album was recorded, the flattened, worn out, crushed spirited Pink Floyd were yet another super group to become disillusioned with touring and screaming to crammed stadium audiences who wailed so much that they couldn’t have possibly heard the band above the din. Like The Beatles had retreated to the studio for something for them, Pink Floyd had become distant to the world and Waters couldn’t bear the stadium thought again. Ironically what they had created with this album was another run up the ladder nearer to another packed out stadium.
The door closes on this synthesized, unmelodic piece. It is a cold piece and holds none of the warmth from the previous piece. The machine is unwelcoming and after a listen once or twice, we may start to feel uncomfortable with the musical content laden with lyrics that show no emotion. To describe a machine using lyrics and sounds, then it’s perfect.

Waters then presents us with another solitary written piece entitled ‘Have A Cigar.’ A heavy blues theme runs the length of this piece and the lyrics are little tongue in cheek. We experience some beautifully gliding pieces of Gilmour’s guitar work. To turn the tables, the listener becomes the listened. This piece ends with the actually the track being played on a radio. Our listener get fed up and tries to find another suitable station, he flicks around for a short while when his ears stumble across a slide guitar being picked away at in solo mode. The listener picks up a guitar and picks out an accompanying riff to the radio. Gently, our other members join to open the fourth leg of our tour around the minds of Pink Floyd, entitled ‘Wish You Were Here.’

This piece was collaboration between Waters and Dave Gilmour. We wonder actually if they are perhaps reciting the lyrics to each other. To say that this might be yet another piece directed at the lost presence of Syd Barrett could be open for argument. I feel that in this stage of the album, they could well be having a dig at each other. We must remember that despite the title of this piece and the album, this was not a time of exciting highs for the band. They were practically worn out form working and the untrained ear through their voices can hear it. The lyrics, ‘So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain…’ may be seen as the idea that Pink Floyd were running thin creatively still from the departure of the very visionary who lead the members through the eyes and mind of himself. With the theme on the same vein as the blue than blues piece, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, we find that perhaps this is the album where we hear the band playing collectively, not unlike The Beatles, all so individual at the time, coming together to produce the very together ‘White Album.’ The piece is soothing to our ears and we hops soothing to the players, despite the digging lyrics. The wind blows and dies and the listener shudders as perhaps another ‘Machine’ piece, but what we are hearing is apart from a double note from the bass of Waters, is the second and concluding part of the story which is titled ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two).’

Predominately instrumental, it is a part two, but yet not sounding the same. The members ramble around their instruments like a quick practise session in the studio of nothing at all before recording. Perhaps this is how part one actually started off in the fist place? Gilmour shows us exactly what he can do with a guitar, he leaves nothing to the imagination of sliding great lengths up and down to the plundering blues drums of Mason, then suddenly the tempo changes and we hear the unmistakeable twang of guitar that can only be ‘Part One’, with a quick burst of recognisable lyrics of Part one to please the listener, its time to linger back into a meandering guitar riff, a tap of soothing drums and percussion and the band are back to pleasing themselves again. Once again Gilmour and Wright play at a double act together and we wonder if we are being intrusive to there private jamming session.

There is a certain isolation that comes across from Pink Floyd. It is almost as if they have taken on the gloomy persona of Barrett to complete a highly acclaimed album. The mood is somewhat dark and pessimistic throughout and we asked ourselves what this album had been designed for. What we do understand is that it is there to illuminate how a strong influence of one man can have such an effect on the lives around him, even when he is far from the person he really is. We can feel a harmonious pull together from the members although it is perhaps tinged with an element of pain and even anger at the long departed Barrett. I do feel that the fundamental bottom line of this album and what it actually meant flew far above most heads at the time. It is only when the lyrics are read as words then we get an idea of what was hidden within.

Musically, it was as ever inventive, dream inspired and insightful as the next Pink Floyd album, but one ends up seeing through that and finding the whole experience a little disturbing. The album, I have to be honest leaves me feeling uncomfortable, but I am the type to take notice of lyrics! It is an album worth having on a musical term. It portrays Pink Floyd at their second best, behind ‘Dark Side Of The Moon.’ But it feels strained, as said before, they had wished they were somewhere else…

Pink Floyd today look more like our dads rather than accomplished gods of rock, and very wealthy ones at that too. They will continue to be worshipped as long as there is a shop to sell their records. Incidentally David Gilmour is on tour (again?!) packing out venues no doubt. He is covering a range of European dates including three at the Royal Albert Hall this year (May 29-31) These tickets will go very quickly.

As regard to another electrifying reunion since Live 8, that’s debatable…

I bought ‘Wish You Were Here’ about five years ago for around fifteen pounds. Unfortunately in the high street shops, because Floyd CD’s go by the bucket load, they will always hold a high price.

PJ MD 2006/08

Why Women Live Longer And Are Happier Than Men

2008-07-18T18:29:00.003Z

It is well reported that women do live longer than men, yet does this mean we live happier lives, and should we blame this on the bonds we have from carrying children? Researchers in the UK seem to think so.
The study at the University College in London took a close look at the lives of around 9,800 people, who are of retirement age or slightly younger, and found that those over the age of 50 and female, were more likely to have a positive outlook on life and were found to be enjoying their golden years far better than their male counterparts.

Yet the fact that you need to be female to be happy and have a longer existence weren't the only qualities which needed to be present - wealth was a strong factor in the way we live out the rest of our lives - those who were in the poorer communities could only expect to live a shorter time after 50 than those who either came from affluent areas or indeed had better jobs with equal retirement packages.

The main factor for a brighter future for the female over 50 appeared to be that they could relax and enjoy their twilight years simply because they needed not to look after their families any longer and take advantage of doing things for themselves instead for others. As many of us will have children in their adult years by the time we reach 50, we can slow down and do all the things we said we would want to do one day. Men, on the other hand work all their lives (well, most of them) and this continues well past the age of 50, thus disallowing time to spend on past time pursuits.

According to the co author of the study, Dr Elizabeth Breeze, the fact that women spend much of their adult lives caring for others who actually look forward to retirement rather than dread it, played an interesting part in their longevity.

She said,

"There is a difference between the way men and women view their quality of life and they are influenced by slightly different things. Women are affected negatively by caring for someone else or if they are not in employment but if they see their children and family more they are positively affected."

Those in the entertainment business seem to have their best years at work after the age of which many of us think about giving up work. Those looking fabulous and still loving life are Meryl Streep, 59, Helen Mirren, 62, and Judi Dench, 72. All of which have played their best characters in their more recent years than when, they were younger.

English actress, Helen Mirren said of the subject and who it related to the movie game,

"A weird thing happens to male actors, especially movie stars, in my experience. They become grumpy old men. A young male actor feels that all the girls want him - he's a star. As actors get older that sense of not being in control of their destiny grates on them and they get grumpy."

The study found fundamentally that out of all studied who were born before 1952, out of the poorest, they had double the chance of not seeing 2008, than those who were wealthy.

Perhaps what came as a surprise from the results of the study is that you are more likely to live longer if you are married. I wonder how many of us would agree with that statement - perhaps Elizabeth Taylor would have a thing to say on that issue.

Another fact that I must point out along with that statement is that you need also to have either a degree or have a professional career - my question is does this depend on either you or your partner? I guess it would make a difference...

For the original article,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2304223/Women-happier-than-men-and-enjoy-life-more-in-old-age.html

mduffy 2008

picture from www.healthyeastleigh.org.uk

Have Your Teacake And Eat It: How The Price Of A Cake Takes The Biscuit...

2008-06-30T18:23:00.003Z

It just goes to show how much the cost of simple Value Added Tax can be to the humble taxpayer. Today, the UK Treasury is having to cough up a massive £3.5m bill, because the wrong VAT was added to a supermarket teacake
The European Court of Justice has ordered the bill to be forwarded to the UK Treasury as the wrong VAT was added to a Marks and Spencer's teacake. The foul up has cost the Treasury the whopping sum of £3.5m meaning that somewhere down the chain, it will come out of public pockets, rather than the government.

In the UK, VAT is not imposed on to food - it is one of the very few categories which actually gets away with not being stamped, yet the mistake on the humble teacake has been going on for around twenty years at Marks and Spencer, so the cost has been going up and up without anyone noticing. At the present time, most traditional bakery consumer items such as bread, cakes, flapjacks and Jaffa Cakes are exempt from being given VAT on top of their regular price, however, according to UK tax laws, it is still payable on cereal bars, shortbread and partly-coated or wholly-coated biscuits. A fine line, now clearly visible.

Since the UK tax officials in 1994 had officially understood that the teacake had been wrongly titled as part of the biscuit family, the food and clothing chain had to fight a far way to get the VAT back which had been wrongly paid.

The problem has been whether to class the item as a biscuit or a cake - no one has actually never been really sure, yet the rather sickly item covered in chocolate, light marshmallow and biscuit underneath has always trodden that fine line between cake or dunking biscuit with the British cup of tea.

It has been an argument which has now come with a hefty bill (we think of very little else in the UK Treasury,) and customers have been wrongly paying the VAT for two decades, so surely, we should be compensated? How many teacakes have been noshed by the Great British public in that time is beyond comprehension. Come to think about it, there is a pretty gallon or two of tea which has washed this expensive item down also.

The retail chain Marks and Spenser have too been treading a tight rope over the last few years as they have become notoriously out of touch with fashion and growing trends, so this little announcement was hardly going to be pressed against their valued customers - losing anymore of the middle class clientele would be disastrous for the iconic chain.

So, coming to the rescue, the European Court of Justice has decided that to give the money to M&S would be only "unjustly enrich" them so it was decided that despite the fact that the VAT has to be repaid in full, the final say so has to come from the British Courts - hopefully the House of Lords will also tow the line in agreement over the final decision.

In the meantime the Lords and the boys at HM Revenue and Customs will decide what is to be down and who should actually pay, naturally the taxpayer will but through what channels is yet to be shown. SO far, the doors have been tightly closed over any negotiations.

In a statement from Revenue and Customers, it said,

"This is a very complex judgment on which it would be premature to make any comment until the House of Lords has handed down its judgment."

Probably quietly sweating somewhere, M&S will find out the outcome as soon as humanly possible. So far a spokeswoman for the chain told BBC News,

"We are pleased with the outcome which endorses our position. We're optimistic that the House of Lords will now find in our favour and hope that this will conclude the matter and draw a line under this protracted litigation."

Yet the situation is not as easy as it sounds and it were down to just a case of someone paying back a fee then it wouldn't be so bad, but there are complications. Companies, until three years ago in the UK, came under one of two categories - repayment or payment traders. Marks came under the payment heading whose sole responsibility was to pay VAT to the government every financial quarter, sounds simple enough? No.

M&S wanted to state in the courts that although they paid the VAT, other supermarkets who trade generally as food markets (as opposed to M&S who sell food on the side, if you like) these shops were treated "differently on the issue of chocolate teacakes." Sounds more like sour grapes rather than teacakes...

In other terms, M&S say that they were not handed back the VAT as other main supermarkets were. Perhaps it seems that this may be a short sharp nudge in the ribs for Marks and Spencer to decide whether they are a clothing chain or a food chain.

HM Customs officials had added a fly in the ointment for M&S saying that the chain would not have been that better off if they had received the VAT back, yet this surely isn't about money, it's the principle am I right? A chain as giant as M&S aren't going to quibble about money are they? (We'd be surprised!)

So, as a result, the trade tribunal's opinion, there is likely to a payment of no more than 10% (£350,000) - anything more than that would be, in their words, an "unjust enrichment of the company."

On the other hand, European Court of Justice say that a separation of each heading should be paramount - to differentiate between payment and repayment traders should be not so vague so to avoid such a fisticuffs in the future.

As usual, the House of Lords will have the last say.

After all, it is the House of Lords who run the country....

mduffy 2008

picture from wwww.bignjuicy.co.uk/teacake.gif

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7340101.stm

Confessions Of A Giant Panda Finally FIlmed

2008-06-27T18:38:00.003Z

If there has ever been an animal on this Earth who has had to endure a very public sex life, it has to be the Giant Panda. Despite the fact that this animal seems to rarely "get it on," the reasons why have now been revealed.
Okay, so they have now made yet another documentary of what actually separates mankind from animal, or at least, in this case - what is actually incredibly similar. The BBC have come up with yet another painful programme which highlights the pros and cons of being a humble, common or garden, Giant Panda, and in this case - the chaps at the Beeb have literally left no stone unturned.

The whole thing has been filmed. In human terms it would be the equivalent of first meet to no phone call, to being seen drunk out with his mates, to first date six months later, to first snog, then a quick romp which involves pants around the ankles and upright in a parent's wardrobe, (or so I have been told) yet in Panda terms, it means a "no holes barred" sequence of whats has been described as a "boisterous beginning to a noisy ending," the sex life of the Giant Panda is not caught on camera and uncomfortable viewing, it can only be.

The the good old, Beeb, the Natural History team have created for BBC Two, the two part documentary called "Wild China" and have beautifully captured these "magic moments" somewhere which was previously rather secluded but now, laid bare in the bamboo forests of China's Qinling mountains. Like in human terms, a guy trying to get a date with a honey is not always easy and why should it be any different if you're a 25 stone Giant Panda? Even in the heart of the lush forests, the guy still has to fight off a couple of lads from the block to get his girl.

It has been regarded by the BBC team as being the type of behaviour you would not find in an ordinary zoo, and not surprising, this is normally the part when the pair of fruity Pandas retreat into their sudo-mock plastic/concrete honeymoon suite and then are dutifully hollered at by every other species in the zoo in the hope to put the male off - this, as we all know, usually works.

Yet we see a different side to the perils of the horny male Giant Panda - he even finds comfort from the other male hopefuls by hiding half way up a rather tall tree. He even tries to impress the female with certain tricks and talents he has considered may be well suited for the art of chatting up - we are told that the Giant Panda goes about making loud noises which sound uncannily like a Wookie from Star Wars. (You see girls, they will even try it in the animal world - how deluded the male race are!)

Told perfectly by Gavin Maxwell, the producer of the series, Wild China,

I liken it to Chewbaccas in a pub brawl. Most of the time, pandas live by themselves. It's only in the mating season that they come together; and that's when they start these extraordinary vocalisations. The sounds are so unlikely and just the last thing you would expect a panda to make. When you get two or three males together with a female there's an awful lot of barking and shouting going on.

Naturally the two-part film took months to record, including talking very sweetly to the Chinese authorities for actually letting the film crew get into certain areas of the mountainous range which has never been done before.

The range is a peculiar place and very much like nothing elsewhere on Earth. Sound travels incredibly quickly across the forest. Even bamboo grows so thick that it is hard to see daylight through it, let alone a frustrated Panda. The creatures may be enormous but they are likened to a rabbit caught in the headlights if you get too close. In fact, the BBC team came up with the idea of the animals being rather like mini quad bikes.

Mr Maxwell explains,

They're like mini-quad bikes and once they go, they're off and they're very hard to keep up with...

Of course, as we have said, it 's not the first time we have seen a couple of heavyweight Panda's getting it on in the middle of a forest. As Mr Maxwell went on,

"Occasionally, you will be sitting there quietly trying to keep in the background and the males will suddenly come charging out of the bamboo towards you. They're really fired up, they're breathing hard and panting, and you can see the steam coming out of their mouths. They seem like different creatures altogether."

If kind of makes you wonder if Darwin was right about the Apes bit at all....

First seen on Digital Journal.
m.duffy 2008

The Art Of Block Voting On Eurovish Or How The Cold War Is Alive And Singing

2008-05-26T10:22:00.003Z

So another year has passed and the event of the centenary from which was born the phrase, “Euro-trash” has come and gone, yet the result of the pop-lacking, spine-curling Eurovision Song Contest (or for those of us slightly older, Song For Europe) which was standard laughter and ridicule has since been swept away with what is not political egg on 56 million faces sitting like lame ducks in the UK. It is of course, Eurovision and from what was a word which made us smile, is now nothing but a sick joke.

Russia won this year, and to be perfectly honest with you, I actually could have told you that – not that I have access to any secret inside information, only a map of Europe and a rough run down of whose won it in the passed.

For a start, we should pose the question – What is Russia doing in it in the first place, and since when have they been a part of Europe? Surely the answer to this is that they are only a part of Europe when it suits them, and that it, in present times, one night in May each year. On viewing the rather interesting map featured in The Sunday Mail today, you will be able to spot the pattern referred to like a referee in a football match who has decided to turn up for the start of play wearing a pink tutu.

All countries guilty of adorning Russia with 12 points are nestled cutely along side the side of the mighty Russia almost simulating the Iron Curtain. (Perhaps that should be Irony Curtain) All these countries, namely, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Lithuania and the Ukraine, form a comfortable line from north to south which of course, were all former sections of the great Soviet Union.

The further away from the East one travels along the path of Eurovish, the cold the points became – a line can also be formed, almost straight in fact, from West to East (from the UK, Germany and finally in Poland) all group together are the losers, all scoring a measly 14 points each taking joint 25th place. Desperately holding on to our finger tips we were determined to stick together – the three countries disliked the most, as a German newspaper noted as a front page headline the following day “Why Doesn’t Anyone Like Us?” Doesn’t this all sound rather like an aftermath of the Second World War?

No, we can’t possibly keep blaming our failing efforts on the War, by jolly, that was 60 years ago, not even when we are along side bringing up the rear with Germany, and what on Earth is Poland doing with us? If anyone should be feeling blue after the cringing events of Saturday night, it should be Poland, and we certainly won’t blame our magic man Mr Andy Abraham, did the East have a problem with former dustbin men? Is it because the song sounded too much like soul and for therefore too American? Rubbish, if my ears did not deceive me, that girl from Greece was from the New York Bronx, and by jeepers, didn’t the song remind you of Ms Britney Spears?

We could spend the rest of this dreary, damp Bank Holiday Monday wallowing in out own self pity at another failed attempt at Eurovish, and in the north winds which engulf our proud land today, it would certainly be the best setting, but lets face facts here, “Even If” was a damn good song and could never be collectively bagging and thrown into a corner with painfully bad Skooch of 2007 and our of tune Gemini from 2006 – it is political and whether we like it of not, we have to follow our own sturdy leader here, Sir Wogan and take out 40% and just go home.

We don’t need to be in Eurovish and even if we just have a good sulk and tell those weirdoes in the East to rearrange their voting ideas and then we just might consider coming back – until then, they are on their own – learn the hard way Eastern Block, just the same as we did.....

Out of the 9 million of us Brits who tuned in on Saturday night to watch the hanging, drawing and quartering of Mr Abraham, we knew deep down in our hearts, we were in for the stake. Yet we still subject ourselves and in a previous report from my good self, even if we had won, we would not have celebrated but would have had to go and take a lie down – we can’t win – we don’t know how to react.

The weather still would have been the same today, whether we had won or not and would our mood have been any different – I guess not – we are a fickle country and if we can find fault in either ourselves or other countries, we will. We are Brits and proud of being so, so on that note, we will do what we always do, fold our arms tightly, say “We told you so,” and join in next year for the more of the same....

After all, we don’t like change, do we....?

©mduffy 2008-05-26

A Few Of My Favourite Things - A Profile....

2008-04-25T19:49:00.004Z

Headline:
Taking Views Beyond The Fridge

Hometown:
London

Neighborhood:
Okay during the daytime

Local Favorites:
The eldery chap who lives at number 2 and the two Border Collies who live at the end of my road

I Belong To:
My cat - she owns me.

When I'm Not on Topix:
I am writing for nothing somewhere else

Read My Forum Posts Because:
I'd read them if it was me

I'm Listening To:
The voices inside my head

Read This Book:
Tricks Of The Mind by Derren Brown

Favorite Things:
Theatre, books, Richard E Grant's legs and 1970's music

On My Mind:
Being a great writer and a profound thinker and why you cannot buy Fruit Salads anymore

Blog / Website / Homepage:
http://soundsuite.blogspot.com

I Believe In:
Anything that educates, inspires and generally puts your faith back in humanity, oh yes, and eternal youth - it's a long shot....

The Tragedy Of A Much Loved And Irreplacable Children's Entertainer

2008-04-16T18:13:00.003Z

Mark Speight, who has been missing for six days, has been found dead at a London train station, presumed hanged. It is the end of a tragic story of two people of incredible talent, and lives destroyed by drink and drugs...

Today in the UK, we mourn the loss of someone who could even be described as 'iconic.' He was a much loved children's TV presenter who had entertained both children and parents for over a decade with his wacky and wild approach to educational and artistic TV.

On screen, he was an enigmatic, presence whom children across the UK and thanks to Sky TV, across many areas of the world, was one of laughter and fun, yet in real life, he had been suffering. After the tragic death of his fiancee in January, his world had taken a dive and the loss had left him in a downward spiral, he had felt, there was no escape from.

Early yesterday morning, Transport police officers found his body in a remote part of one of London's most busiest railway stations, Paddington. There are today, unconfirmed reports that he was found hanging, almost definitely suicide. A post mortem test will show today what and how exactly he died. The death, police say is "unexplained," yet the rest of us know that he had a broken heart since loosing his love, Natasha Collins.

The 42 year old and 31 year model had been presenting a TV show for children when they first got together, but her career in broadcasting failed to take off at such a rate as Speight's did. He had a clearer presence on TV than her, so she moved into modelling and became a familiar face in magazines. The two had shared a flat together in North London, but soon found that their careers led them into a world of drink and drugs. Both figures of priceless talent, ended due to too much "partying."

Three months ago, Mark Speight awoke to find Natasha lying in a bath, full of boiling hot water, dead from an overdose of drink as well as 60% burns across her body. The pair had been quietly "partying" the night before at their home and had both taken a concoction of sleeping pills, drink and cocaine. During the middle of the night, Natasha got up to run herself a bath, but died as a result of an unknown heart defect and scolds to her body. Shortly after Speight was arrested for murder, but released very quickly afterwards, yet he had never recovered. When he had woken after that fateful night, he discovered the horrendous body of his fiancee in the bathroom and since then, had never been able to set foot in the home they shared again.

Over the last three months, Mark had spent every minute at her mother's house, close to Natasha's family, they became a tower of strength for him, but he proved to be not strong enough himself to cope with the loss of his Natasha. This week, the family, including his father and brother mourn the loss of two much loved people.

Where mark had worked on TV, the BBC said in a statement,

[quote]"This is very sad news and our thoughts and sympathies are with Mark's family and friends.
Mark was a hugely talented and very popular presenter for many years." [/quote]

At the officers of [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7345486.stm t=_blank]Mark's agent, Billy Marsh Associates[/url], Jan Kennedy told BBC News of how much the shock of his death has saddened the company. She said,

[quote]"Caring and compassionate in everything he did, Mark was truly gifted in life and we are proud to have represented him as a friend and client for almost 20 years. He was blessed with a remarkable personality, great artistic talents and the wonderful warm ability to communicate those skills with people, especially children of all ages. With his sensitivity of spirit, coupled with his dynamic presence and natural enthusiasm, he was loved and respected by his adoring family, friends and colleagues everywhere in the media."[/quote]

Our thoughts go to both families. A special tribute video has come from [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwClokGVSkQ t=_blank]YouTube.[/url]

mduffy 2008

Dear Mo - Let It Rest. Is The Title Of Murder What You Really Really Want...?

2008-04-08T18:35:00.002Z

The verdict on the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and her companion, Dodi al Fayed has resulted in "gross negligence" at the hands of Henri Paul and the paparazzi, yet Mr al Fayed is disappointed. Would he have preferred murder?
The six month slog at the Old Bailey in London for the grief-stricken father Mohamed al Fayed is now over. After campaigning for jury a of six ordinary women and five ordinary men as well as a complete public hearing into the deaths of his son and Princess Diana, the result has left Mr al Fayed lost for words. After stepping quietly out of court this afternoon, he did not stay to address the awaiting press, but went home to be with his family. The result - not what he had wished for, yet in his statement read by his team outside today, he expressed his bitterness and disappointment in the case, yet thanked the jury for doing their job.

The judge and jury decided on a verdict of "unlawful killing" at the hands of Henri Paul, their driver that night, and members of the paparazzi. They also found that the two passengers in the rear of the black Mercedes, Dodi and Diana, were not wearing their seat belts. Henri Paul was found to be over three times the legal drink driving limit. A collaboration of these events are said to have led to the deaths.

Bitter and defeated, Mohamed al Fayed has refused to accept the verdict, yet knows in his heart of hearts that he has no choice but to. Thoughts of the court and those involved have gone to Mr al Fayed and his loss. Included in the list of these people was former Met Police chief Lord Stevens, who expressed his wish for Mr al Fayed to accept the outcome and bring closure to the ten year battle.

According to the BBC News website, "The jury returned joint verdicts of unlawful killing through grossly negligent driving - or gross negligence manslaughter."

It is thought to be the most expensive investigation into a human death in criminal history. British taxpayers have obviously been hit with the "bill" to the tune of around £10m. Yet as Mr al Fayed approaches the 11th anniversary of the car crash which killed his son, Henri Paul his driver and Princess Diana, he will be thinking again about the events which surrounded their deaths in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris on the 31st of August, 1997.

As the former police chief, Lord Stevens said outside court today,

"I do hope everybody will take this verdict as being closure to this particular tragic incident and the people who've died will be allowed to rest in peace.."

Yet in Mr al Fayed's statement which was read out today for his millions of supporters around the world, he said,

"For 10 years I have endured two police investigations. The French and the Scotland Yard inquiries were wrong. These inquests prove it. They said it was an accident and their findings are now dismissed."

Yet it has far from brought closure on the subject for those of us around the world as since the verdict was announced today in court, dozens of radio stations and news channels have discussed it, analysed it and focused on it and will continue to do so for a very long time to come, and why? Because we are human and in a case where we think there has been an element of deceit, sensationalism, deception and passion, we will be there, talking about it.

Mr al fayed had said,

"The most important thing is it is murder."

So is that what we really would have wanted to hear? Would that have allowed us and Mr al Fayed peace and understanding? Would we have then been able to put closure on the matter and laid the Princess and her companion to rest? Probably not, we would not have stopped there and neither would have Mr al fayed.

So it actually might not end here. There is a possibility of this case coming back to court again. Would Mr al fayed be ready for a new challenge, or would he simply be seen as a man who cannot let something go? Such a challenge would consist of a High Court judicial review, and that would mean more press coverage and a possible country fed up with hearing Mr al Fayed gone one again. He has had a lot of support from the UK, but surely enough is a enough? The press agent, Michael Cole said,

"That is a very difficult route but we are keeping all our options open."

Yet there might be a stick in the clause for Mr al Fayed. A scrap of small print suggests that it is "not possible for the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute foreign nationals for deaths abroad, even if the victim is British. All of the paparazzi involved were foreign," according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Even now thought, we can imagine Mr al Fayed sitting at home mumbling the words "murder plot" over his evening meal. Yet there are events of the case itself which leave a bad taste in the mouth - the fact that the butler, Paul Burrell refused to appear in court again after he was cross questioned over certain details, the mother, Mrs Shand Kydd who described her daughter, Princess Diana as nothing more that "a whore." The plot will continue to thicken and make head line news for ever.

Yet even the Princess's own family have kept quiet over the case. On leaving court, neither the Earl of Spencer, her brother or her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale said anything. Only her long time friend and occasional holiday companion, Rosa Monckton, spoke after the result, she said,

"The inquest had been incredibly intrusive. I think there's a lot of her life that has come into the public eye that should never have been there. That's been a very unfortunate side-effect of this inquest. One must never forget that he (Mohamed al Fayed) lost a son. I just hope now that he will find some sort of peace."

We do, as a nation and a world united, have to agree...

PJ Digital Journal 2008

Pink Hair, Bad Taste And Good All Round Sauce - Show Us Your Fuzzbox

2008-04-03T15:40:00.004Z

Somewhere back in the early to mid Eighties, (no one exactly knows when) four dizzy school girls got together and decided to do something with their lives in Birmingham rather than be destined to grace the checkouts in their local Tesco’s. Sisters Jo and Maggie Dunne (four years older) were eagerly learning to play lead guitar and bass respectively whilst Vickie Perks only had eyes for being a front lady with microphone in hand and petite, blonde Tina O’Neill, already had drumsticks in her tiny grip ready for her first lesson. Not really coming up with any great ideas for a band name, one of them came up with the idea of playing around with one of the instruments they were now rehearsing with. A ‘Fuzzbox,’ to describe it in his entirety, is a guitar pedal used to create a distorted sound. It was first used by Jimi Hendrix and was an essential item to create a surround sound of blurred or ’fuzzy’ noises in rock music predominately. It also was and still is, a certain piece of equipment used by many punk groups around at the time to give the very essence to a punk rock sound. Thus ‘We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It’ was born…

Although with their brightly coloured rags and market off cuts image that was more Barbie than pure punk, they were appealing, but albeit out of date. Gracing the Indie charts was about as good as they could get in their early days. Too clean and well made up for anything along side The Slits, they took their place next to fellow extreme make up appliers, Strawberry Switchblade in the quest for pouts, powder, ribbons and vacant expressions. Now well equipped and fully all lessoned up on their respective instruments, they were ready to release their first single.

Signing up for Vindaloo records (they were the first and the only label around willing to take a chance on the colour blind quartet) they released the AA sided record ‘XX Sex/Rules And Regulations’ in April 1986. It was Toni Basil’s ‘Mickey’ all over again. It was racy, ever so girlie and pumped up to the hilt with far too much bass, and certainly not enough glam to tame the record buying public. Their video promo was an embarrassing arrangement of flitty scenes of a derelict street and all the gravitating stunning shots of a kid brother on too much Tizer. The single itself, flopped at number 41 and failed to rise any higher, but it did take the number 1 spot in the Indie chart. With it’s squeaky chant ‘There must be more to life…’ it seemed that Fuzzbox were going to have to pull something better out of the hat if they really wanted to keep away from the food isles. It is however, one of those tracks that since their readily acquired fame a couple of years later, that we sit back now and analysis for any deeper hidden meanings. ‘XX Sex,’ will just go down as a crap song. Their over usage of hollering and whooping screams certainly weren’t going to put them down firmly in the punk hall of fame, but it seemed that for a brief moment, they managed to achieve something of a albeit, teddy boy retro feel with ‘Rockin’ With Rita.’ Teaming up with mediocre ‘where are they now,’ fellow nerds from the same label, it’s heavy Duane Eddy feel should certainly pull in the Seventies Teddy Boy ravers, even if they were all out of work Dads by now. Again, the timing was poor and yet again, it’s a track that we look back on fondly and remember the days of fancying the bloke working the Dodgems at Blackpool…

‘Love Is The Slug,’ was actually their second charting single and took all the chic out of girlies in white stilettos dancing around handbags reluctantly at some cheap disco on a Saturday night (probably in Kidderminster) It was pure Siouxie Sioux with its dull, draining vocals and lacked any real imagination. Yet it was typical of the time. It sounded dreary and almost to the point that the band were being held hostage whilst recording it. It wasn’t until the bubble gum ’What’s The Point,’ that we felt a definite change in the way their were reflecting the music scene around them. Released in February 1987, it was time that punk image of on the way out and they made a point of starting to dull down their look without it being too much of a shock to the last remaining punk buyers. Strangely but this time, they were creating an alternative to the ever popular ‘The Bangles‘, who were happily having a jolly good time in the middle of the road pop charts. Meanwhile, Fuzzbox were climbing the ranks through the Inidie scene. Not an accomplishment by any all female set up until now. Surprisingly, this up beat, rockabilly track failed to do anything higher than number 51. Although they were Indie Queens , it was actually the commercial pop charts they were after…

They knew by this time that it wasn’t just their alternative, working class, struggling lyrics that would have to change. They couldn’t sing about snogging at the disco, having a pint with the boys and doing the washing up anymore. The green netting had to go as well as the leggings and pink and blue hair.

After coming to blows with the Vindaloo label, they switched to the U.K section of WEA for their next single, and ’International Rescue’ was chart bound in February 1989 after a rather silent two year break.
It was yet more apparent in this track that Fuzzbox had a definite humorous side. We had all be aware of their antics as their video performances up until now had always been a touch risqué and tongue in cheek. With this particular track, we see two of them dressed up as Thunderbirds along with villain played by Adrian Edmundson. All an incredible piss take but we wonder which is more the stronger, the pee out of Thunderbirds or themselves. Either way, the trick had worked, they had reached number 11 and were now ell on their way to creating another angle to Eighties pop music. Already regulars on certain programmes such at The Tube on CH4 and (who could forget?) The Old Grey Whistle Test! They were certainly about to have their most explosive 15 minutes of fame.

Still just as noisy, yet now all wearing the same colour, they appeared to be tamed somewhat, and only admitting to writhing about on the floor during video sessions and gigs. They were now even bigger, more glamorous and profession, miles away from their amateurish, badly styled yet energetic theme. The music was more rock now than Indie. It had edge, sex on legs and was beautifully aggressive. The Spice Girls were a bunch of cabbage patch kids in still in baby grows compared to Fuzzbox. These girls were certainly all for girl power. Instead of a cosy night in and perhaps a snog goodnight; Fuzzbox would have worn you out then chucked you out after ordering you to serve them breakfast in bed.

‘Pink Sunshine,’ followed and sat rather ecstatically at number 14 in May 1989. One thing that could be said for this band who were songwriters, producers and masters at their own mixing, they knew exactly how to control their market. Not throwing too many singles in all at once in a desperate attempt to win the crowd over, they would instead, sit back and observe carefully, delegating as to what to release first. This particular track, ‘Pink Sunshine,’ was, by their own personal standards a track that should be released during the summer. A track full of jollity and a real summer theme of bright sunshine and fun, they felt that it would have been a better hit if it hade been released a month or two later. They were probably right, but we would never know.

Perhaps their biggest track was their last noted single release although a couple more did follow. A swift, and also unaccredited solo by the legendary Brian May from Queen, ‘Self,’ was definitely Fuzzbox going out just as the album from whence this track came suggests, with a, ‘Big Bang.’ Angrily hogging number 24 in August 1989 it was the summer when all girls learned how to sneer successfully. It was meaningful as well as mean. We hated everything that moved whilst listening to this track. Men cowered in fear at a thousand young teenagers growling with the strength of a hundred PMT’s. It was an awakening for both listeners and Fuzzbox themselves, but bitter resentments and disagreements between the label and the band members, meant that any further work was going to be limited.

Notably the most poignantly titled, ‘Walking On Thin Ice,‘ which was originally by Yoko Ono, was released somewhere around 1990 whilst the band went off on an epic tour of the far East. It was a desperate track not just in it’s theme but it flopped dramatically and the bitterness became too much. The band decided to cut their losses and continue with the tour, despite an awareness that Vickie was hankering after a break to peruse a solo career. Something, even today, she is still trying to find.

They returned home, recharged and fairly flat in their sense of the band’s now iffy direction. Work on a new album was meant to take place, but reconciliations between the band and the label proved to be not worth it. From the unfinished ’Out Of This World,’ album, a final single was released just at the point hat the band decided to split up. The significantly titled, ’Your Loss, My Gain,’ heralded the second line of ’..and you know things will never be the same again…’ seemed to be the band’s swansong. It was time to jack the whole thing in and follow more personal plans. The enigma of Fuzzbox had come to a sad ending and quite literally, all four went their separate ways. Tina is now an Art teacher whilst sisters Mags and Jo have gone on to write for other artists as well as DJ ing on the underground scene. (Must be ever so tight manoeuvring turntables around on those escalators…)

===========================================================

Looking back on this band, we wonder if it could have been possible for this band to have kept going. Leaving the scene on such a creative high, it always seems such a shame that band’s depart company when to appears that they could have had so much more to say. We had watched Fuzzbox grow and we grew with them, from their messy, embarrassing and over coloured take on punk (almost an insult to true punk rockers) they were, only briefly mind, to punk what the Cheeky Girls were to pop music; petty much an insult, but they broke away, rather glamorously from all that and became the most sort after girly group in the late Eighties, if only for a couple of years - hence the idea that they had literally, 15 minutes of fame.

With no real tuneful notes in their heads, they certainly had learnt to play their instruments well considering they couldn’t play a note at first. They were so bad, it was genius. They looked awful, they couldn’t sing and their arrangements were about as professional as the Mini Pops yet they still stick in our heads and the world of Indie pop is a very dull and uninteresting place without them even today. It has been 16 years since they had us reaching for either the remote for the volume button to go up or reaching for the kettle in the kitchen. An attempt to make a come back did appear once somewhere in 1998, but quickly fizzled out the same year.

It was time to put the sequins and hairspray away and go back to listening to some dire ‘Best Of 2006,’ album instead. Somehow it doesn’t have the same feel….

Fuzzbox were and will always remain so as;

Vickie Perks - vocals
Tina O’Neill - drums
Jo Dunne - lead guitar
Maggie Dunne - bass guitar

Albums to run out and elbow old ladies for;

‘Big Bang,’ 1989

‘BBC Sessions,’ 2002

‘Look At The Hits On That!’ 2004

www.fuzzbox.tv.

Vindaloo/WEA record labels
©mduffy 2006

There's A Worm In My Head And A Fish In The Bed

2008-03-25T14:33:00.003Z

Nestled quietly South West from Birmingham off the infamous M5, sits Stourbridge. Unassuming and fairly shadowed by the great Midlands city, it presented to the British indie pop scene a misshapen motley crew of four young men in 1986 who called themselves The Wonder Stuff. It was the brain child of it’s front man Miles Hunt; a mop haired, opinionated student type whose tongue in cheek humour was to become very essence of this unique band.

After a minor collection of flopped singles, the band caused an unusual stir with their highly acclaimed debut album ‘Eight Legged Groove Machine’ in August 1988, which ignited attention within the masses of public school types eager to adapt their intellectual tendencies towards a surrealistic way of appreciating modern music, not unlike the generation of the late Sixties breathing a sigh of relief at the Monty Python boom. Hard nosed and a furious dip into the growing craze of indie music, they led the way of future bands, some of which, are still around today. The Wonder Stuff’s adaptation to jumpy, enthusiastic, good feeling music still echoes through many striving bands even now.

This presentation of silly, comical lyrics fused with a folky approach sounded, as in their 1989 album, ‘Hup,’ not unlike a cross between The Goon Show and The Waterboys. Edging away drastically from the depressing, wrist slashing effects of traditional folk music, the band sold their concept through these incredible catchy lyrics that made their presence felt in any drunken hour before last orders. I can recall, as an impressionable grungy teenager, religiously playing and replaying this album, scribbling down every word so that I could sing along with utter gusto with my even more impressionable college friends.

It was a wise idea to take on two added guests for a fuller impact namely organist, James Taylor (not THE Taylor) and banjo wizz kid, Martin Bell (not that one either!) who created the complete folk sound that was a strong drive throughout the album. Released in October 1989, it became one of those albums that completed the helter skelter tour of the Eighties decade in music. The adoring public, delighted in such an optimistic album that it reached number 5 in the album chart, thus dressing the ears with all the hope and anticipation that the final months of a closing decade could only bring.

With it’s strong, dark colours of black, gold and electric blue, the album cover by ’Daylight Robbery,’ was rather like being shouted at from point blank range. Short and perfectly named, it was the ideal title for a ‘sit up and take note’ kind of album. It’s 12 tracks entwine themselves not just around the listeners ears but takes a hard dig into the imagination. Colourful and intricate, it’s lyrics draw up scene’s in the listener’s mind. Pictures form through thrashy sounds and shouted vocals, making it still exciting to indulge in even after it’s release almost 17 years ago.

Opening with the intriguingly titled, ‘Thirty Years In The Bathroom,’ the track takes us through a Pink Floyd style introduction in ‘Wish You Were Here,’ with it’s frantic flick through the frequencies of radio stations before throwing us head first into a hard hitting indie theme laced with surrounding bass lines and harmonious lyrics. The voices gel like melting chocolate, something that fails to reflect in many indie bands. With it’s opening line, of ‘my lavatory has been my sanctuary,’ we have a pretty definite idea as to what the rest of the album has in store. It mixes unusual styles and instruments, rarely heard in indie music including bongos and banshee wails. Hardly an uplifting piece, it still has a pleasant style to it and will not fail to please the most hardened on indie fans.

Through ‘Radio Ass Kiss,’ we are prepared to be enlightened with the surpassing talent of this lively band. Taking the mood up a notch, we are opened now to sound distortions and tambourine based backings not unlike those we had been delighted by in the band, Pop Will Eat Itself, who, at the same time, gave us the diverse approach to listening to extraordinary sounds.

Like a dive into the extremisms of strangling folk music, ‘Golden Green,’ is subtle enough to even please your grandmother. I fondly remember my father asking me to turn the album down, then promptly telling me to turn it up when hearing the gentle rhythms of that tinkling banjo break in this track. With it’s unique lyrics, we danced around with pretend tambourine and fake fiddle whilst chanting ‘..she’s taken all my vitamins, used up my lighter fuel…’ It has a totally undated feel and will still defiantly urge foot tapping and finger clicking for years to come. The first of the only two single releases, for me, it captured a certain spirit of what was felt within the young generations of the day. For a free thinking student, it was a time of sitting around in a large group of the fields with a out of tune guitar and not a care in the world. Launched onto the single charts only a month after the album release, it failed to capture anyone else’s imagination, sadly. It managed only number 33.

The silliness of ‘Lets Be Other People,’ fills the veins of this album with the same amount of unimportance yet fits beautifully in this album that not fail to impress even on first hearing the album today. As with the dreamy ‘Piece Of Sky,’ reflects a mood of lying around in tall grass on a sunny Summer afternoon. ‘So take a jump and steal a piece of sky..’ speaks of a devil -may -care attitude that I can still remember fondly that was very much of the day. Perhaps that is where the album dates itself, but however it may feel to the listener, it captures a uniqueness not unlike rock and roll first touched upon in the early Fifties.

The manic ‘Can’t Shape Up’ if fast paced and gives hunt the stage for which he can project his ability to chant wildly into a violently moving microphone. Thundery and tinged with the smoothness of wistful backing ‘oo’s and arh’s’, the guitars are taken on a quick blast around the studio and the band members are expected to keep up with it. Like ‘Windmills Of Your Mind’ on speed, this racy track takes on a slightly psychotic feel and the band show us a side of this albums soul searching personality. Like an human being, the unsettlement of the lyrics shows a vulnerability which is found in all of us. It is the strength of the sound in this powerfully charged rock themed song that holds the whole thing together. This track was, as I gather, recorded for the album at The Mayflower in New York on the 9th of May 1989.

The next and last single release of the album is the sturdy ‘Don’t Let Me Down, Gently.’ Emotionally charged in it’s lyrics, it is on a par, in my mind, with The Beatles, ‘Help,’ in the sense that it portrays a vulnerable state. However, in this case we listen to the story of a love drawing to a close and how that can effect the way we deal with things on a begging scale. Still punched out in a rock themed, glittering manner, we fall short of actually hearing the words, rather more the want of shouting them out to any passing being, whether they have personally let us down or not! With the words, ‘..I don’t think of you, do you think of me, is that often or not at all, and if you have to let me down my friend, then kick me to the floor…’ we can be excused when we jump hysterically around the floor, far from being kicked but more elated at such a ‘feel good’ record. Drum filled and exhaustingly accurate, indie style, this hit should have done better than it did. Failing to hit the top ten, it trailed at number 19 for a couple of weeks, it had been a ‘smash’ of a record, but only to the few that could appreciate it’s alluring quality. If anything, Hunt’s sneering, critical lyrics should have been enough to quash the thirst of anyone under the age of twenty five at the time, yet, sadly, the genius of it’s repetitive, skipped drum beat went unnoticed to most.

It would appear on the outset that ‘Cartoon Boyfriend,’ that this track could have been pinched from folk obsessed rockers The Waterboys. Yet, this track set in a minor key shows a darker side to the humorous Wonder Stuff. It tells of a stereotypical existence set to a backdrop of a weeping fiddle and a slower beated theme. Still of the perfectionist quality, it still, even in it’s depressing subject has a catchy, foot tapping anthem. Perhaps it is this that makes us enjoy the shockwave filled ’Good Night Though’ even more. Subtly absorbed in a sea of random guitar riffs and short lived drum beats, it lacks any tuneful quality we have now got used to from this album. It does, however, display the talents of someone with a harmonica. Voice distortion, very much in the same theme as Transvision Vamp were known to use from time to time, it holds all the harmonious charm of depressive pop/punk band, Public Image Limited. Perhaps it all albums are allowed a ’bum’ track, then this is it for ’Hup.’

Separated to the extreme from the last track, ’Unfaithful’ stands alone in it’s very simple dreamy, Irish folk sounding theme. Roaming across the counties of Ireland is probably suited if one wants to imagine the perfect setting. Fiddles are romantic and the beats are as gentle as a summer breeze, and it is it’s refreshing appearance that is the ultimate idyllic interlude for this rock stretched album. So, it is not a surprise when we are presented with that familiar charm of Hunt’s sneering vocals and the sound of a indie band performing tightly together in ’Them, Big Oak Trees.’ Suddenly, lyrics are meaningless and music is silly, yet pleasing. Which ever mode this band ever performed, it was inoffensive and charming and this track is unmistakeably The Wonder Stuff at there jumpy, happy best.

For the final track of this epitomised album, ‘Room 410,’ climbs the same musical ladder as the beginning of the album. It would seem that we have been taken on a complete tour of the many faces of this band and here we are back where we started. What does seems apparent is somehow PWEI were a discerning influence or perhaps the other way around. PWEI took indie by the neck and made it danceable by using bass backing tracks and a mixture of samples pinched from just about everywhere and anywhere. Here, we find TWS doing just that. One could sit and try to pick out every sample used, yet even though it was PWEI’s old trick, it is still stamped across with the hallmark of The Wonder Stuff by the long drawn out angelic notes by the lead vocals and backing. Musically, it somehow has became, in my mind, an epitome of it’s very own. This track can be heard in a multitude of other singles released by the same number of bands since 1989 and with this in mind, it surely puts this album on the same classic pedestal as all the other great albums in British music history.

After the sudden death of Rob ‘The Bass Thing’ Jones in 1993, their bass man, the idealism of The Wonder Stuff appeared to fall into the darkness. Sometimes, in music history, a band loose direction after the passing of a band member, yet others, have found inspiration and light. After finding the drive to carry on and only two top five albums after, they performed their farewell gig at the Phoenix Festival in 1994.

Several flopped projects have since come and gone and only the statutory compilation releases her and there remain. Forever in their debt, we have learnt great lessons from this band; to enjoy music with an indie flavour, with jollity and humour.

Perhaps if got the world to enjoy life in the same way, the world would be a nice place to visit again….

Martin Gilks - drums - who sadly died in a motorcycle accident in 2006.
Malcolm Treece - vocals/guitar
Miles Hunt - vocals/guitar

And special guests;
Martin Bell - fiddle/banjo
James Taylor - Hammond organ

Written by The Wonder Stuff
Polydor 1989
4228411871

©mduffy 2006

The Man In The Red Suit Or How The British Still Love Lurve...

2008-03-17T12:13:00.005Z

In Concert - Alexander O'Neal
The Alex Loves Tour
Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Saturday 15th March 7.30pm

Born in November 1953, Alexander O Neal was pretty much destined to become the king of retro- soul. Big shouldered and probably the only man on earth who can swim the butterfly successfully, he strutts around, throwing arm gestures at the drummers when he wants them to round up a song. Prancing up and down on stage from the early 1980’s, he was firstly known for his wild antics on stage using a bed and inviting poor unsuspecting females from the audience to come up on stage and cavort around while he sang them into bed. Perhaps, and it wasn’t until I saw him in concert, that it dawned on me where UK home grown star, Lenny Henry found his inspiration for his love machine character, Theophilus P Wildebeest. It takes a long time for me to get these things sometimes...

So the original lurrve machine is knocking on now and don’t be fooled, he may have had noticeably had surgery recently and perhaps doesn’t jump up and down on a bed, so much as perch a buttock on a bar stool these days, yet his voice has never once failed him – like Elvis, in a concert only six weeks before he died, we will, inevitably be saying the same thing about Mr O’Neal.

So he doesn’t sell out at Wembley Arena anymore and he is a long way from Vegas, but he is happy in Tunbridge Wells on a miserable night next to the cop shop and we are happy to have him there – okay, so “Are you ready for some lurve, Tunbridge?” Doesn’t have the same romantic, Manhattan ring to it, especially when the crowd yell back “Wells! It’s Wells!” after him – yet we amazed by this American presence who loves his UK audience, so much that for the last few years, he doesn’t seem to have set a foot outside Croydon. Yet that suit can still deliver as well as twenty odd years ago, he was the god of soul and just about any middle class, middle aged woman would have still rather thrown her kickers on stage at Mr O'Neal than Tom Jones and yes, even at 55, he still gets that - except on this occasion, it was the bra that came off, then was promptly and rather unattractively stuffed back on her top heavy chest in front of the man himself - he averted his eyes - as only a "all true man" would...

He strolled on stage, surgery allowing, at the Assembly Halls on his last night for “a while.” He toll of touring takes it’s heavy toll in the visual presence of either weight loss or sets of wrinkles across the forehead, visible only from the third row back. Yet when he decided to turn the show into a “party” instead, we all got a good look at what life on the road really means.

The band were uniform, black musicians, very talented and at the beck and call from the master in the fire engine red suit. His backing singers, bountiful and dressed like Mica Paris also were to the heel of the big man, each sang professionally, which seems an odd thing to say, but in this day and age when we are presented with the sloppiest of bands on the Brits, it’s mildly comforting to see a band not only dress well, work together but managed to hit the same key. The big guy wouldn’t have it any other way of course, his vocal uplifts and represents a fading era of soul artists – real ones, who sing about love, romance, always getting the girl and never in a minor key – that helps - as a rule, I can’t stand ballads and only Whitesnake would be an exception here, yet when it comes to Mr O’Neal you not only will forgive him anything but you’ll be there saying to yourself, “Gee, I know how that feels!”

He was solidly on stage for an hour – another feat of endurance that is rarely seen these days. I remember donning a grassy hillock to see Level 42 last year in the shadows of a castle on a chilly August eve, and wondering why on earth I had paid an extortionate amount of money to see my teenage heroes only on for 40 minutes – a disgrace I thought, so to see a grown man, sweating in a way that only Lee Evens would be proud of, I was gingerly impressed.

Since gathering up a normal level of hearing again, I have managed to dig out the old LP’s, have a jive to a few classic dance numbers as well as blow the dust off my sudo – Miami Vice jacket and dream of a long gone day of roller discos and first snogs – I even went out and bough his new album – something a very rarely do on the strength of a concert, yet it has to be said, the man may be aging and the limp getting more visible, but I beg you to find another artist who sold out at Wembley Arena twenty years ago, six nights in a row, who even now, jumps into the audience and dances with them, sings with them and shakes them warmly by the hand as he smiles and dances by – it was a party and not a gig which I witness, but an invitation to share an evening and a dance floor with one of the greatest entertainers and nicest guys in the world – love still lives and as long as Mr O’Neal is on stage – the world is a better place.....

©mduffy 2008

Dragged Away At 45rpm

2008-03-06T14:51:00.002Z

Not accusing myself too much of actually liking anything recorded by anyone in the last 15 years, I practically fell over Travis in the street. Whilst out on a dreary day hunting down vinyl like a 45rpm seeking missile, I came across a beaten up, super scratched copy of ‘The Invisible Band.’ As I peered at the cover wondering if I should have picked up my glasses on the way out that morning, I found myself struggling to find the band in amongst the heavily wooded picture. Hence the name of the album, I guess. I flipped over the case in search of a track that I might have once heard of. I found one or two and promptly realised that this little fact was enough for me to make a purchase….

Scottish/English rooted Travis went through great up heaved changes around their humble beginnings in 1991. As a female and two brothers were replaced, what we were left with was then the line up that still appears today, although since their collective album ‘Singles,’ in 2004, they have seemed to have died a quiet death due to gigs here and there, their studio life has taken a back seat. Gaining approval as being winner of Best Album twice at the Brit Awards, they have taken a firm place in the archives of Brit Pop as being one of the great innovative leading bands in modern indie music. Lacing together a simplistic career with wistful tunes and dreamy chords, Travis would appear to have had their day and what remains is the quality that they uniquely produced with such albums as this one, released in 2001.

Falling fowl to the category of ‘crap name, no future,’ they regarded their first band name Glass Onions to be the kiss of death, they wisely changed it to Travis and suddenly it was ‘hip’ to have heard of them. Giving warmth and light to their work, they somehow became a land mark in Nineties pop culture. This quartet of young lads fresh faced and clean cut, fashioned by Man at C&A, were far from rebellious rockers. There attempt at making good records came naturally to them and this album is an example of their gliding capability to quite accidentally, fall over perfectly entwining songs.

On the surface, this album, to the untrained eye, will cream out the word ‘depressing’ to you and perhaps it bought in an average mood, then it is an album best to avoid until a poor mood passes, but if one can get passed their sullen tone that appears throughout the album, then a certain lightness comes through. These four accomplished musicians have created here a gentle succession of tunes that will sooth the soul and warm your spirits. Therefore, it really isn’t any wonder why this album didn’t do anything else other than climb proudly to number one in June 2001.

Melodic and sung on occasions most angelically, it is a question that drifts through the mind as to how Fran Healy on vocals can ever hit such high notes and remain there foe a considerable length of time. The zombie ‘Afterglow,’ is the epitome of Travis at their hallucinating best. The notes swim gracefully off Healy’s vocal chords to an accompliment of sweet guitar riffs that are barely being played at all. It may be a track that one either adores or can’t wait to skip over, but what should be noted here is their ability to embrace a feeling; a mood and hold it there, somewhere in mid air and entrance the crowd with it for as long as they wish.

The depth of thoughtfulness of this considerably young band can be felt through their clever string arrangements in ‘Indefinitely,’ The title is repeated over and over like a hypnotic style whilst the backing drifts out of ear shot not even giving the listener any time to realise it. It is quite obviously striking to the listener how a young band or the most ordinary fellas could attempt to write with such depth and emotion that can surely only come through age.

The mood is strong from beginning to end and one will feel that after al while, you are not listening to an album but to someone’s musical funeral. There are hidden tributes in every song, it’s up to you to figure out if they are personal to you or them. The sullen approach worked well ten years ago, the Nineties were leaving bitter tastes in our mouths and the future seemed hazy and nothing seemed definite. House prices were going up, so was inflation, taxes and few pay rises were being handed out. I find that Travis were probably to the best band to have around to reflect the social impact, and this album last came around three years too late.

On hearing the final dying sounds of the album, you will not doubt beginning to realise that the ‘jolliest’ track on the album was ‘Sing,’ a hit for them in May 2001 which reached number 3, a perfectly well timed release just in time for the dreamy thoughts of an approaching Summer. However, compared to the rest of this album, this track is about as happy as a New Years Eve drunken crowd jumping up and down to a Status Quo record. It is the Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep of it’s time in regard to the career of Travis who have only given us reflective moods, sobering tones and mind altering vocals.

Nothing can be knocked here as their ability to bring a tear to the eye is unmatched, yet many will find this album will bring on too many miserable memories. However, if the listener can get over the depressiveness of this work, and experience the talented composition beneath, then it is an album to treasure.

Featuring another fairly decent hit for the band, this album presents us with ‘Side,’ which was released as the A side of a live version of Travis’ take on Mott The Hoople’s ‘All The Young Dudes,’ which, I personally, would have preferred to hear as a single itself. Only sitting at number 14 in September of 2001, it is a song that represents the end of Summer. Again, perfectly timed to reflect a mood of another year coming to an end. The lyrics, ‘..the grass is always greener on the other side,’ may be poignant to the time of year and should, perhaps have achieved greater success. In the same vein, the uplifting ‘Flowers In The Window,’ should have done better, for those of you who may remember and for others that will be shocked to hear, this track only got to number 18 in March 2002. It is frilly, and ever so female with it’s title containing the word, flowers. It is a sweet piece but it seems more to me too wistful and takes me back to a Ben Elton line of that ‘wistful time of the month…’ Should this be an album to quench all PMT woes? I wonder, I shall try it next time…

You can have too much lace, pink bows and dreamy twitches of surrealism. Travis didn’t have the punch that drives me to appreciate a band or even worship them. I guess coming from the generation that brought us Spandex, glitter, platforms and Dave Hill from Slade, it is no wonder that Travis passed me by…..

I found them though, eventually….

In 2002, drummer Neil Primrose broke his neck from a diving accident nearly ending Travis for good, thankfully, he made a good recovery and the band hope to release another album in 2007.

Tracks include;

Sing
Dear Diary
Side
Pipe Dreams
Flowers In The Window
The Cage
Safe
Follow The Light
Last Train
Afterglow
Indefinitely
The Humpty Dumpty Love Song (did he ever get it on with Hamble?)

Travis are;
Fran Healy - vocals/guitar
Dougie Payne - bass
Andy Dunlop - guitar
Neil Primrose - drums

ISOM 099750305027
HMV £7.99
Virgin £9.99
©mduffy 2006

Puffed Up Or Dragged Out - The Pros And Cons Of The UK Smoking Ban

2008-02-29T13:31:00.001Z

On July 1st in the UK, it will be a day like no other day - the smoking ban will hit with a vengeance, but who will benefit? You would think all of us, but you would be wrong

In the UK, we will take our final puffs of 'fresh air' as many smokers call it and stub out the very last of the ciggies in ashtrays around the country confined within four walls of any public area. For that day, smoking will be banned in all indoor public areas. The ban will eventually take us to the comfort of our own homes for a drag with very little else where to go.

Surely the results should be good, and as an ex-smoker myself (it still feels odd to say that, personally) I kicked the weed a year ago after twenty years of the addiction. I know, I can feel the slaps on my back and the warm hand shakes from here thank you, but we have to ask ourselves is getting people to pack up really the answer?

It will effect us all, man, woman and child, smoker and non smoker and anyone who thinks different should take a second look. It is an addiction we fell in love with during the War years, when the silver screen was glamorous and lovers lit up to a back drop of air raid sirens and flashes of doodle bugs hitting the streets. We read books on the subject and our pitted love affair with the cigarette lingers like the very last drag still wafting through the eternal air. Yet are we know living in a dictatorial society, where a futuristic vision will be of secret smoking and search lights after dark hunting out smokers like smoke seeking missiles and loud hailers ready to shout something similar to, "come out with your hands up!" It is certainly not as extreme as I had already thought.

Yet we are fascinated with the small stick which is becoming increasingly untouchable, like Eve and the Forbidden fruit, there are still many of us who will crave that pleasurable inhaled cocktail of chemicals - sad, but alas, true.

Yet the UK government has decided to call time on our rendezvous with rat poison and bring the final nicotine stained curtain down once and fall all. The men in black suits are the people who govern our lives and tell us what is right and what is wrong. After all, most of the time, we just take their word for it. We understand what the ban means for us as a nation and how much it will save on taxes, the NHS and medical science, but what will it mean for us as individuals. As one BBC reporter put it, "nothing in life is exempt."

How about thinking about it in a different way. If you have been or are a smoker, how did you start? The law, as it stands in the UK will force smokers out onto the streets, in the face of the passing public. Suddenly - smoke and the cigarette is now on show.

Picture this; you are with your friends at the bar, they step outside for a fag which leaves you alone with your drink. Do you go out and join them to save yourself from looking like a nerd all alone? Many would, and this is how most of us started in the first place, because our mates were doing it.

One man, Andy Hughes from the already smoke banned Scotland, had this to say,

[quote]"If the smoking ban in Scotland had not been introduced I would still be a non-smoker. I started because I was being left in pubs and clubs alone for long periods of time, while the rest of my group were outside chatting and having a smoke. I put up with it for a few weeks but in the end I decided to join them. Being an asthmatic, I had always been against smoking. I never used to let anyone smoke in my car or house. When someone smoked in my company in a pub, I couldn't wait until they had finished their cigarette. It was still something I had a real dislike of and a habit I considered to be disgusting. Now I'll regularly smoke up to 20 cigarettes on a night out. I still don't smoke when not out having a drink and I hope it stays that way. There's no doubt a lot of good has come from the smoking ban, it's a lot more pleasurable having a drink in a smoke-free atmosphere and I'm sure healthier for bar staff and non-smokers, but for myself it has come at a price." [/quote]

It is certainly worth thinking about. I guess most of us would not want to believe that man's story and yes, there will be the very few who will probably be the same as him. Very few, I say again, but all the same, an added number.

We go back to the previous idea of the vision of the future of people being reduced to smoking at home. Instead of waiting until the baby sitter has arrived, they will light up at home, where many of them have children. The dangers of passive smoking then irrupts from within the home instead of the confines of the local boozer. What do you make of this theory? True? Surely if we are to protect anyone with this ban, it has got to be the future generations, never mind ourselves. We are all adults with our own minds. If someone wants to go to an early grave, then let them. Just don't take the children first.

What will the ban do to Global Warming? There seems to be now where to run to in conversation without someone bringing up the GW words. We can't turn on the TV without something like the polar caps melting or increasing hot summer weather to deal with to make us all feel bad. As if we have enough to deal with on a daily basis anyway, so again, we look at the effect of the future generations - picture this again; everyone is at the same pub. You have either joined your friends inside or out, it doesn't matter right now, so the entire pub is outside smoking away and puffing up into the atmosphere a cloud big enough to send vast communities for miles around into a sea of panic. Need I go on?

Would we really think that it would have any effect on jobs and employment other than a few thousand Benson and Hedges workers finally throwing in the towel and walking out. Chefs, yes chefs are cashing in on the ban. According to one UK employment agency, Gumtree.com, the demand for chefs has increased around the pub circuit since the ban was announced last Christmas.

Pubs are feeling the need to keep the drinkers. Smoking and drinker are old friends and such friends will never part, or will very reluctantly, so pubs can't get enough chefs to make dishes wonderful enough to entice the drinker back in to the bar. Many heavy smokers will give up on the pubs all together and reach for the local 'off licence' instead for their booze.

And finally, the worst of all cannibal predators - the paparazzi.

Many celebrities smoke, either to keep their weight down, look cool (still, it works for some) and generally cope with the pressure of the press, and it is the latter who will be waiting for them when they step outside their favourite haunt for a few puffs. Click, click, flash, flash. There's another scoop for the front page, and no doubt, it will keep the likes of us employed for a few more years before these wondrous stars kick the habit and step instead to join the rest of the world who have long since given up on the weed....

Happy writing everyone...

PJ 2008

The Wizard Of Oh! The Life And Writings Of Christopher Lloyd

2008-02-12T15:06:00.000Z

It occurred to me only the other day that we don't give our writers enough credit these days. If I have to hear my husband go on about how Bob Monkhouse should have been knighted, I may have well thrown up, yet he has a point. Sir Bob is not the only one who has popped off to the great Sunshine Club in the sky - we should have had Sir Peter Sellers, Sir Tony Hancock and even Sir Graham Chapman, so why is it that we just don't give our writers the attention we deserve? Notice there is a link between these great men, and not just the fact they are men - they are comedy writers and it's the word "comedy" that we have such a problem with...

I was trying to think of a similar comic genius from the States, with regard to writing capabilities and it hit me - as a avid fan of the long suffering Frasier, I had know from an early age that behind the cross between Seattle's elite and an English Country Estate who is Dr Frasier Crane, there is a Christopher Lloyd itching to jump out - no surprises there, but would we be surprised if we realised that it is the same man who was behind the silver haired dollies, we loved as The Golden Girls? Surely that takes some sort of genius - or at least be in touch with his feminine side - the same man, writing for men and then for women - can you find a similarity between Frasier and the Golden Girls? I'm buggered if I can....

Christopher Allen Lloyd was born in Stamford in Connecticut in 1938. He has starred in over 60 films between the years of 1975 to present date. He is a phenomenon – he appears to us like a friendly made scientist who has the childlike charm and inquisitiveness of a baby yet has all the wisdom of a wizard – all knowing and all giving. He makes you feel safe when flying around in a time machine and you believe him that everything is going to be okay and that Marty McFly will always get back to 1985, time and time again, no matter what happens. He is a showman, a craftsman who has given us magical and timeless characters on screen himself or as ones of equal importance he has created himself to be played by others. He is a tireless figure in Hollywood, constantly working and creating more magic than Jim Henson.

Tall, lanky and with arms almost as long as his legs, he has inspired all those over the age of fifty to keep working and most important of all – keep dreaming. His wide-eyed gasp of shock, bewilderment and sheer disbelief about everything known to man is how we are presented with Jim from the hit series, Taxi.

He has played them all – the very good and the very bad, but when you have trained effortlessly in theatre before being eclipsed in film, you know how to work an audience, steal the best shot and covert the best line – the lights upon you will light you only – you have to do the rest and that is what we get from Lloyd.

Following acting at the tender age of 14, he had decided then that to do another job for the rest of his life would be criminal. He was shy and painfully at that so that act would be merely a cover up. He is outrageous both in himself and in his characters; he also projects this into his writing which, in my mind has given us the very bets of him. He drudged around the local theatres working for a dime most nights, finely tuning his craft of improvisation and technique. Eventually moving to New York where all the greats felt drawn and to the Actors Studio in particular, he studied and eventually landed himself a place on Broadway in Red, White and Maddox, in 1969.

He ventured into Shakespeare, where he found his voice – he boomed to the back row with such vigour that this soon landed him roles were he would utilise his voice just as much as he would use is body. In 1973, his work paid off and he won an award for his character in Kaspar.

Perhaps his finest moment to date might have been his very first – working his way into the depths of film, he landed himself a supporting role in 1975’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest starring Jack Nicholson. Playing in front of the camera is hard enough for an amateur but when the part is of a mental patient, the weight is really on the shoulders. This, over the nest couples of years landed him the regular role of Jim, the driver you wouldn’t get in a cab with and ex druggie still hallucinating all these years later, in Taxi in 1978 and the rest was history, at least until 1983, and two Emmys later.

Two years later he was cast as Doc Brown in the BTTF trilogy along side a fairly unknown Michael J Fox. Since then he has remained as private and has shied away from interviews and will only work with companies who will not insist on him appearing in public. He is still the wizard of the movies and we still love him....

2008 mduffy

Stack Another Orchestral Layer On Top, Why Not!

2008-02-03T19:31:00.001Z

Journey’s tour of duty from progressive rock to pop rock didn’t reach its peak until the mid eighties when after the heights found by the release of ‘Raised On Radio,’ (May 1986), the band suddenly and very surprisingly split deciding individually to follow solo pursuits. The beginning of their ‘journey’ started with the release of two albums. The self titled, ‘Journey’ in April 1975 and the quickly followed ‘Look Into The Future,’ in January 1976. The birth of the rock band from San Francisco, California was introduced to the public with strong ‘art rock’ themes. A swathe of guitars and mixed strangled keyboards were the fore front of frightening fast drum rhythms that were the basis of their primitive progressive roots. Using experimental guitar riffs and collaborating different textures of sound, it was doubtful, at first as to were the band was heading musically. Their ‘Look Into The Future’ album was a definitive soup of grungy, depressingly loud hard rock and light ,airy soft rock pop.

Formed in 1973, a few line up changes had taken place under the guidance of manager Walter Herbert. Once a road manager for Santana, he had not been a strange, unknown face to the band as vocalist, Gregg Rolie and guitarist Neal Schon were both ex Santana members, in fact it was Rolie who had co founded Santana with Carlos Santana only a couple of years previously. By the time ‘Look Into The Future’ had been released, guitarist, George Tickner had left the band. (The rather famous vocalist Steve Perry didn’t join until 1978, the man who gave the band their supreme, unique sound.) Liverpool born Aynsley Dunbar replaced Prairie Prince on drums who subsequently went on to a successful career with The Tubes. Ross Valory, however, remained sturdy on bass who, incidentally once was a firm member of The Steve Miller Band.

Originally named ‘The Golden Gate Bridge,’ an unusual rock band title, they were advised shortly after forming to change their name by Herbert who decided on a public vote through a local radio station. A name for a rock band should be just one word, but never more than two. With one name, they could be easily remembered and recognised, and besides, ‘The Golden Gate Bridge’ sounded ridiculous, thus, Journey was born. Not, however, the only time that the music industry has called for the help of the viewing or listening public. More recently, Wet Wet Wet asked the public’s help when choosing the name for their album which was decided upon someone calling in with ‘Popped In Souled Out.’ I now promise not to mention Wet Wet Wet again in this review…(!)

So here’s the ‘Look Into The Future’ album, and we start off with the cover. Brightly orange with a large paperweight in the middle, the scene is looking through one doorway after another (the same effect when looking into a mirror in front of another.) Our four members are in a hazy blue as though Scotty is about to beam them onto an unknown planet to save the world from the dreaded cling ons. With all the visual trappings for a progressive rock group stuck in the mid seventies, our members are splendidly clad in enormous perms and somewhat shiny jumpsuits. Hoorah for prog rock fashions…!

Released by CBS, we will only encounter eight tracks on the entire album. This is pretty much a standard role call for a progressive rock album. Not very well known in the U.K, this particular album doesn’t seem to be noted as being a position holder in the U.K chart at the time of release. In fact, British releases didn’t appear until 1982. Albums up until now had only been recognised by the U.S charts. Only four albums released between March 1982 and May 1986 managed to swim across to our shores and only a pathetic two singles appeared over here throughout their career. The first one, ‘Don’t Stop Believen’.’ only scraped in at number 42 and stayed in the charts for a very short month. It will probably be not surprising that a lot of you will wonder who on Earth Journey are…

Despite the efforts of Journey to please the crowd around them in the seventies, it wasn’t until their album, ‘Infinity’ released in 1978 that they finally found superior rock band status. When this album went platinum, they thought that they could go no further and the future was bright. Actually it wasn’t, when celebrating their good fortune on this album, Aynsley Dunbar was escorted, shall we say, out of the studio due to indifferences with other members of the band. I felt that there was always an underlying resentment for Dunbar as his career to date when joining the band read more like a Who’s Who in the rock world. Journey’s and Herbert’s financial asset, Nightmare Productions took Dunbar to court over overpaid wages to the tune of sixty thousand dollars, but Dunbar shot back and managed to successfully sue Nightmare Productions for 3.25 million dollars for a long list of angst’s including unfair dismissal from the band. Nightmare productions, in every sense it would seem…

Although Journey are now far from our minds, their influence is still felt in rock bands today. Very much of their time, their biggest followers were bands around in the mid seventies to mid eighties the same as them. It is quite a debate as to what might have happened if Journey had stayed together. Perhaps not quite the same status as Pink Floyd, but they wouldn’t have been far away from it. For those who dote on their aging progressive rock, you would certainly not need to be told about this album. For those who fancy finding out where Spinal Tap came from, then move the dusty records up an inch and make room for a rock band who needs to be remembered…

©M.Duffy originally published in 2006 at - http://paperback-sam.livejournal.com/

Back To The Future Then Hell And Back - A Lucky Man's Story

2008-01-29T15:32:00.000Z

Usually I can’t stop writing. I find myself full of words, writing, speaking, it flows from somewhere. Sometimes at work I have to do presentations, speeches and try to make them as funny and as entertaining as possible. Why? Because that's what is expected of me, yet today, for the first time I find myself saying nothing. If there is one thing I can say is this: my words - be them rubbish or otherwise, I came across a very special and quite significant interview on YouTube. An interview by Michael J Fox filmed in 2002 for an American chat show/news item.

Today, I find myself trying to forward this piece of film in some way. I can’t. I’ll just show you this instead…..

To Michael J Fox….. Your platform, Sir….

Let The Auntie Of All Relatives Entertain You, You And You!

2008-01-29T15:07:00.001Z

It has appeared to us mere BBC license holders this week that a new wave of globalisation is about to hit the television airwaves and it’s all from our friends at White City.

The BBC have announced that due to incredibly wonderful profits from fairly flat, yet glittering shows as “Now Strictly Come Dancing” the keen idea is to now sell the show all over the world. Why not? I hear you cry, it is just another commodity, after all. It should be exploited. We have done many a good turn over the decades with the shipping over of Benny Hill series’ to the US. So what is wrong with the slim built Japanese getting an eyeful of their very own Natasha Kaplinksy in a sequined gown and peep toe sandals? Absolutely nothing. Yet let us remember that we were here first.

There is something also very worrying about the idea of the global and highly profitable market of selling TV. We worry, just ever so slightly that there is some little country out there somewhere who is going to be a damn fine better job of what ever we have presented them with in the first place. It is not that long ago that we made the remotest mistake of selling on the unstoppable and yet physically cringe making idea of “The Office” from Messer’s Merchant and Gervais. What happened next?

The Americans took it and boy, they took it, shook it and dropped on the studio floor to see if the cleaner would sweep it up. And it worked - irritatingly. So what are we to gain from the Global TV market? Well, not only will we be able to promote Terry Wogan onto a universal platform other than the Eurovision orange box he is so used to, we can pride ourselves on reaping in a pretty £100 million profit.

However, the BBC are in a matter of crisis with staff being laid off and the ongoing matter of too many people in TV and Radio who are not even getting a wage. But that’s showbiz. Yet if we can get Heather Mills McCartney to step aside from her billion pound divorce row in the courts just for a quick twirl on the stage of “Dancing With The Stars” then viva la world! Let’s sell, sell, sell!

mduffy 2008.

Lock Up Your Comedians, The Americans Are On The Prowl...

2008-01-21T14:19:00.000Z

Comedy ain't what it used to be Richard Morrison Oh dear. The critics are being beastly about the latest cinematic exploits of Mr Bean. via Times Online

What have we done to comedy? The appeal nowadays seems to be pointing towards the rough, the blue and the downright border line. Gone are the days of wholesome family viewing when we would reach out to our friend, the telly, and welcome The Two Ronnies with open arms. We still do to a point, when we are celebrating 70 years of them. Will we still be housing this ritual for French and Saunders in 50 years time? We may well be, but 120 years of the Two R’s?

Certainly! So where was the turning point from the era of cosy, ‘know-where-you-are’ TV, to in -your-face, smack -me -with -a -kipper, Oh -my-God, did-he-just say-that? Kind of humour? I guess we could trace the roots of all that is alternative back to cheeky little chappies, ‘Not The Nine O’clock News’ when just about everything was in the firing line and much of Britain was left reeling in guilt. When we had laughed at Eric Morecombe dressed as a Roman with a bad script and Glenda Jackson wrestling with her flat lines of Cleopatra, we found ourselves the next week giggling at hedgehogs being flattened by hefty trucks and vicars getting the bashing treatment by little known comedian, Rowan Atkinson. Oh how did the world go completely wrong? It didn’t. Not really, we just allowed more freedom with script writers.

Not The Nine was one of the first sketch shows post Python which allowed young and unsolicited writers to come in and take a shot at a three minute slot. Many took the bull by the balls and sent in tonnes of the stuff. This was, for a few, the start of life long careers within either the BBC or a giant trampoline into other areas of comedy. It started up a whole new slant to the way comedy was written and performed. Up until then, it had either been stand up, Python or men standing around in front of BBC microphones putting on silly voices. The age of the general muck around was here to stay. Leaping forward some twenty years or so, we can look back and see a definite pattern, but where is comedy going to take us in the future?

The dreaded ugly head of the statutory situation comedy is back on the prowl leaving us with a few years left of Robert Lindsay in ‘My Family’ to endure, having said that, we would not have seen the talent of Kris Marshall come to the fore, if it wasn‘t for this piece of domestic aptitude. The world of comedy has also seen the stand up come back, then to fade, then to come back again. It would occur to me that the art of stand up goes around in stages, depending on which way the wind is blowing. Just when we thought we could happily snuggle with bliss to the wit and integrity of Eddie Izzard on stage, he suddenly turns tail and heads for the bright lights of Hollywood in search of a bigger pay packet.

So what are we left with in the meantime? It would seem that right now, we are waning somewhat with not so much as a repeat of Porridge to look forward to when sitting down to beans on toast. The Office has lost it’s cringe effect after too many re runs of David Brent finding the dildo, and we are left with a desperate feeling of hankering after an episode of ‘Bless This House’ just for something familiar to watch. The world is an open stage right now for British comedy since selling the very last of our talents or script ideas off to the other side of the pond. At the same time we find ourselves hanging most affectionately on to such historical figures as Stephen Fry and John Sessions hoping that they will forever stay British.

Mr Fry has a passion for Radio Four. So long as we can hold down Woman’s Hour for a few more years, we should be okay….

mduffy 2007

The Computer Age Takes It's First Limbs And Soon We Will Have No Backbones

2008-01-17T15:51:00.000Z

Ready for today's economics lesson? Okay, everyone take your seats, leave your pencils and notebooks in your bags, flip up your desk LCDs, pull out your control pads, and...first one to secure our borders ... via PC World

It is a wonder what will happen to the human race over the next thousand years or so. Whilst aimlessly wandering around the Natural History Museum recently (and free, I hasten to add, but not for much longer if the Tories have their wicked way,) and as I strolled passed the giant shape of the largest animal of Earth, the ‘big,-can’t-think-of-another-word, whale,’ it suddenly occurred to me that us mere mortals who are standing upright, destroying the world, will have to evolve yet again and what for this time? What reasonable notion will jump to the fore, leaving us no choice but to move with the times and change the way we sit and move our limbs?

The computer.

They may be a part of out past time right now. We socialise on them, we shop, move house, go on holiday and even meet up with old friends and find new lovers, but the human race will have to adapt to our new friendship we have with the QWERTY keyboard and the 15 inch screen. Our back bones will be the first on the list for Mother Nature to scratch off with her eco friendly finger nail, that’s if she has any. We will be more curved I feel in the way we stand as from now on, we are only going to sit, hunched over a desk for most of our lives.

After all, we certainly don’t have to get up and do anything these days. Wait for it, there will be the day when we can pee through a tube so we don’t have to got to the toilet, just in case we miss that vital snore at 2am on Big Brother Live on line. She will also take a good look at our knees, so not only will we be forever peering at the floor, as if looking for that contact lens, but we will permanently be sitting down.. She might even come up with a plan that will mean we will never have to get up again. So what is in store for all these plastic, unreal, Barbie doll types we see flexing their abs on every shopping channel on Sky?

Will they finally give in to the yearning of the Pc or will they burn themselves out of existence simply through shortening the 10 second abs down to ‘abs-done-before-you-are’ theme? Who knows, yet I think we can safely see them attempting to take a feel-the-burn class for your fingers. We are heading for that downward spiral into technology Hell if we are not too careful. Cascading through a surge of deeper, darkening Ad words before coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the online ocean, stuck forever in the sludgy sands of Google.

It can’t be all as bleak as that, so what can we do to stop our feet healing up and our knees to become permanently locked in a right angle? We can still believe that there is more to our web like existence than a Pentium processor. We can press that circular switch on the tower, and swing round to take a look out of the window.

The sky may not be it’s bluest today, but it’s till worth checking out to see if your knees and feet are still working ok….

mduffy 2008 (pJ)

HRT - Hot Rampant Theatre or How To Get An Entire Company To Swallow The Menopause

2008-01-07T19:41:00.001Z

FIVE floors up, on the roof deck of Soho House private members club in central London, invited guests are gathering for the launch of West End producer Paul Elliot's latest touring enterprise. via Living.scotsman.com

We have had just about everything thrown at the unsuspecting audience as we can handle in the West End. The Vagina Monologues where followed by something to do with someone's penis hanging out, so are we at all suprised when it is women of a certain age who are getting a shot at centre stage this year?

When trying to think of a show surrounding the not so hilarious change in a woman's life, I am quickly brought back to one side splitting night of recent months where I sat through a night with Jenny Eclair and her sweaty, bristly legged stand up show with equally puffy, yet energetic supporting cast. So if we have had the best that the Menopause can offer an unsuspecting audience, how can we be educated further in the art of agression and willingness to take up smoking?

A new musical is about to hit our stages with great pizzazz and mountains of Tena lady. It is called Hot Flush! A Menopause Musical. What exactly this will entail I have yet to realise yet we can be sure of a night of hot sweats, no sleep and lack of an sexual content. To be honest, on the first night of their tour, The King's Theatre will not know what's hit them.

Not only does this cast insist of a few household names from the past (and probably the first time you will see Marti Webb smiling and cracking a joke) but it will inform, entertain and downright shock anyone under the age of 45. It should be worth a look, even if only to make sure Webb doesn't coin the opening line,

"Take that look off your face....."

mduffy 2007

Big In Australia, We Lift The Lid On Little Britain

2007-12-28T18:56:00.000Z

Little Britain's grotesque characters are ready to shock and entertain us live on stage, says JAMES WIGNEY. via The Advertiser

After reading an article reviewing the lastest stage show of the UK export, Little Britain, I found myself fascinated on another country's take on our British humour. We have known for decades how if we ever wanted to get in the U.S's good books, we just send them a dozen copies of Benny Hill shows or even a knotted hankie to remind them of the days when the Americans could not get enough of Monty Python, so when I read how the cast of LB were going down under in Oz, I was quite surprised to find that the country who gave us surfer dudes, heavenly bodies and Neighbours, actually are easily shocked by over weight men dressed up as women.

Perhaps they never looked at Dame Edna Everage in the same light, she was, notably a Queen in her country: fully dressed, made up and beautifully cutting with her remarks to our home grown Michael Parkinson when in conversation, yet LB has probably taken the reality of transvestites a little too far. I personally don't like the show, but then again, I grew up on a steady diet of Blackadder and was inspired to write for a living after being exposed to such cleverly crafted wit and historic wisdom.

It is this sort of upbringing in middle class suburbia which takes a horrible hold and refuses the patient to ever see past Stella Street ever again. Despite the audience roughly having the same chance of being hauled up on stage as you would expect at a Derren Brown show, at least you are not going to be exposed to giant licks on the forehead by the UK's biggest trickster. However, we can imagine that since the big wigs of the Beeb won't travel any further than Tolworth Roundabout on location, we can safely say that anything goes when on stage with Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

The further they are from censorship, the more vile they become. This new style of rock and roll is booming; meaning that the unlikely pair are selling out over there as well as a year over here. They have shocked a few million with their bare buttocks and overly theatrical script which first appeared on Radio Two six years ago. The concept of these grotesque figures actually representing the United Kingdom is something we should revolt over on a national scale, yet we find ourselves embracing these darkly macabre characters as if they have moved in next door. We are shifting the comedy to the unimaginable, yet as a country, no matter what we dish out, we will always lead the world with a chuckle...

mduffy 2007

From Cleese To Cheese - The Injustice Of The Panther Returns

2007-12-12T18:14:00.000Z

"...Monty Python star John Cleese is set to play Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the sequel to the remake of Pink Panther...." via ContactMusic.com

I wonder what you will make of this. Forget the genius of Sellers - the sullen face, the unmovable moustache, the trench rain coat which only Colombo has been able to pull off since and now picture the Ministry of Silly Walks and put Cleese in the place of a lead figure in the never ending story of the Pink Panther.

Does anything sound vaguely wrong or at least a tad bonkers to you? Yes, I thought so. There will never be another Sellers, yet don’t be me wrong. Before you think I’m off on one of my daunting trips down the valley of the lost souls of stardom, I have actually read the article clearly and it is not Cleese doing the injustice of Sellers, but the equally unjustified and criminal act of the other failed character post-Sellers….Chief Inspector Dreyfus.

Those chaps at MGM just don’t know when to give up do they? I guess if Sellers was smiling down right now (and to be honest, I would think he would have better things to do - getting drunk with Milligan and wearing toilet seats around their necks springs to mind) It practically makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when I hear the word “franchise.” It’s an Americanism - and as much as I am in love with the word “cheeseburger,” the former is one I can never feel at home with. Manic legend Steve Martin is set to play the aging Clouseau, but never as good as the original.

I guess to a equally aging Seller’s fan myself, it would be like a Ford Mondeo posing as a Ferrari. Quite the ends of the scale. Don’t get me wrong (for the second time) but this whole bumbling throw together of a major point in comic film history is rather like getting Brad Pitt and Hugh Grant to do a hash remake of Some Like It Hot - there are some things not to be tampered with - ever and the Pinkness of the Panther is one of them. We have until 2009 before we are subjected to this awfulness of general lack of imagination.

Until then - we can always look forward to a few more Pirates Of The Caribbean movies. I guess in a few decades time, they will want to get their money grabbing hands on Depp too… And guess who else is in it, I bet you can never guess... Pink of course - why the name was made for the Panther screen. The critics are already on their backs on this one - we shall wait and see yet it would not be the first time that the powers that be have got it all wrong.

The bookies will have their day when the box office sellings go through the roof....

m.duffy 2007

Forgotten Insects - The Rise And Fall Of Altered Images

2007-11-26T19:47:00.000Z

The birth of this band from the wee darkest depths of Glasgow happened purely by accident in around 1980. Scruffy school mates by the strangest names of Tich, Tinny, Johnny and Caesar were struggling to get away from the school dances and town halls, getting paid peanuts to sweaty, drunken crowds of kids whose ears were just about as in tune to the music as the band were.

It was only when the older brother of Johnny, by the name of Gerry decided that his girlfriend at the time's little sister Clare, had a fairly pretty singing voice and that a girl fronting the band might give the guys a bit of a boost. It is these life changing moments that one only hears about in the music industry (like the timely meeting of Lennon and McCartney at a village fete) that bring fame and success all rolled into one. Fate, as we call it seems to strike at the strangest times. These split second occasions don't happen anymore, or at least, the industry doesn't allow for them to happen any more due to 'bands' and music being mass produced, like a conveyor belt. This is an album review on one of the last bands not to have been produced in this historical and fatalistic way. Some kids got together quite naturally and the rest was history.....

This album is not just another 'hits' album. Its extensive in the fact that we are also introduced to some newer tracks. What does happen here is that we are taken on a journey around the career of Altered Images. Since Miss Grogan has gone on to what a lot of us would call, better things on Sky Channel, VH-1, she hasn’t needed to fall back on any royalties from her songs. However, I understand that she couldn’t resist temptation and had a solo single out this year called 'Love Bomb.'

In the early eighties they only released three albums. 81' Happy Birthday. 82' Pinky Blue and 83' Bite. In this time they only released eight singles. The highest position and perhaps their most famous single, 'Happy Birthday.' This one reached number 2 in September of 1981. (It was kept off the top slot would you believe by 'Green Door' by Shakin Stevens.) 'Happy Birthday', and other hits are featured on this album. An album that, in my opinion is worth scrapping the rest for and just reaching for this one off the shelf instead.

The album starts with a short 'intro' not unlike Cyndi Lauper's album, 'A Night To Remember' when all that can be heard is a scratchy record also at the end of the album and we think that our stereo is on the blink. This intro for Altered Images is a simple glockenspiel (and yes, I did have to look that word up) with Clare repeating 'Happy Birthday' in the distinctive tune. We are immediately struck by the clearness of her voice. She is pitch perfect and her voice echoes like tiny bells. Actually, listened to it carefully, it sounds as if this has been recorded again for the release of this very album. Her voice is still spot on, yet sounds a little older. The same intro was used on their first album 'Happy Birthday' and also used again to close the album.

We are then lead into there first hit, and not a memorable one, but this album has been produced as a tour through the bands chart history. 'Dead Popstars' has a title that would sound at home on a Smiths album, and at only the highest position of sixty seven, spending only a fortnight in the charts, we are not holding too much hope out on this being a stormer of a track to listen to. Even so, this band did, eventually take the world by the balls and became one of the greatest British bands to find fame in less that two years. This is track 2 on our album here, and it starts with a rather dull and depressing riff in flat. Their heaviest influences at the time when they were finding their feet was Siouxie and the Banshees. Little surprising really as this is the band that we think we are actually hearing. This influence has a strong presence within this track. It also paints the picture of the time. Released in March 1981, it was towards the end of the mass punk era and the picture is clear. Clare uses her untamed voice to curl up at the end of every note like a childlike impression of Toyah Wilcox. It also has distinguishing themes of Depeche Mode. It shows all the markings of a new band trying a sound that reflects those of their contemporaries at the time. The lyrics are dull and interesting, and possibly not the best way to open album, but I guess Altered Images are well established enough to throw an awful early single in the knowledge that the listeners aren't going to turn it off immediately.

Track three is the very intriguing 'Insects' and we feel that Clare really has turned into one by the way she uses her voice to enhance her lyrics. We are starting to hear the Altered Images we know and love come peeping through. The band aren't creating so much noise in this track. We can distinguish instruments. We can hear the beginning riff more clearly. The band now feel that they are working together rather than competing against each other in the previous track. Its also a better stab at the chart. We are surprised to learn that this wasn't released. It appeared on their first album 'Happy Birthday' released in September 1981. This was supposed to be their finest album, but that was debatable. Their best work was yet to come. Still 'Insects' is a humorous tune especially the hissing Clare tails off the track. You can imagine her bending low down to the crowd enhancing her voice as she twists herself.

Track four is the better known 'Love and Kisses'. We are hearing true Altered Images. This was also featured on their first album. The drum effect throughout the track puts the listener in mind of and early Adam and the Ants track. This tribal usage of drums were popular with most bands in the early eighties. It is well rounded theme to the era of the time. We had left the punk era behind now, and with all music at the time, it reflected that. Perhaps the one track that could be the answer to the question of their immediate success was ‘Happy Birthday,’ and was here that they entered commercial stardom. The band create a pop style now by breaking away from their punk roots, to simply make money. Clare was famed for bouncing and jumping her tiny frame around the stage. For this track she simply couldn't keep still. The lyrics are catchy and its a tune that has been played over and over again for millions once a year, every year. The single stayed a massive seventeen weeks in the chart. The album, released in the same month, was only given its extensive credit simply on the strength of this record being so popular. Chosen as one of the most perfect party records of the decade with its jingling guitar riffs and rolling quick drum beats, regardless whether its anyone's birthday or not....

Incidentally, the album was produced by Steve Severin, also the producer of Siouxie Sioux. So we can understand the doom filled desperation sound of the forgettable ‘A Days Wait..‘ The lyrics are not of now what we see as Altered Images style, and the tune is rather tuneless. It was released in 1981, but thankfully, didn't do anything.
Perhaps we were relieved with songs like 'Small Without Me.' By the sound and usage of synthesiser, we can gather that it is a recent track, although I have not record of this track at all. All I can decide is that its one of those tracks thrown into a 'hits' album to startle the listener. It starts with a tambourine fuelled riff that sounds rather like Lenny Kravitz. The mono radio effect is used on Clare's voice like and this is also used with her as she also sings backing vocals and its a taste of Altered Images could still cut the grade if they were still releasing singles today. Her voice sounds fuller, more mature and the slightly 21st century indie sound suits the whole band.

‘I Could Be Happy,’ is simply a mirror of 'Happy Birthday' in its style, beat and not far away from the same melody but perhaps slightly flatter. We also hear a choir effect to wrap the track in something that doesn't sound so enclosed. One gets the feeling with some of their tracks that its rather like standing in a life with the band and Clare performing in between floors. Released in December 1981, and even uses some chime bars to make the track sound seasonal, it did reach number seven in the UK charts, hanging around for twelve weeks in total. Not surprising that in 'See Those Eyes' and we back to commercial hits making time. Now we are hearing the definite sound that was unmistakeable Altered Images. Clare's vocal is an octave lower which allows her lyrics to come over clearer. The problem with their tracks to this date is that Clare's voice had been stretched to its limit therefore understanding her lyrics was difficult. Featured on the 1982 album, 'Pinky Blue' it was also a fairly successful hit released in March of the same year and attained the position of number eleven. It wasn't of the same calibre of 'I Could Be Happy', it had something missing from the usual releases. Perhaps, it was after this single, the band came to a decision to change the format and the style of their records. A sort of, move with the times, if you like. It was hits after this time that took on a whole new sound.

Also with the titled track of the same album, 'Pinky Blue,‘ it does at first, sound a little too bubblegum and leg warmers to the listener and we panic at the thought of Altered Images turning into Barbie. It open with a futuristic sound of lazar guns. In all honesty, if Altered Images hadn't done this track, then Transvision Vamp would have snapped it up in quick time. Clare Grogan is certainly bubblegum but more fishnets in need of some repair rather than leg warmers. She waters down her impression of Toyah but sounds more Tracy Ullman. It didn't do much for the increasing fast repertoire for Altered Images, only achieving a poor number thirty five.

Track eleven is the titled 'Forgotten', and this first opening beats sound half nicked from New Order's 'Blue Monday' In fact, if they had hired a female vocal, this is what they would have come up with. Clare, like many female fronting leads of the time actually couldn't sing. It was a time when an actual voice was not required. It wasn't long before we heard 'West End Girls' completely talked through, although brilliantly by The Pet Shop Boys. Was this the style they were now toying with? No, the next track spelled a new beginning, although a short one, but also opened them up to a whole new audience, and in my mind, had finally landed them fair and square on the map of famous British pop.

'Don't Talk To Me About Love' threw a number seven at them, but should have done better. Within this track we hear a tune, Clare singing and good backing vocals, and a cute guitar riff that could be whistled if fast enough. Released on the 19th of March 1983, it really couldn't have got any higher. Its release was purely bad timing. Unfortunately, they were forced to remain at number seven due to 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' by Bonnie Tyler being at number one, one month, then 'Lets Dance' by David Bowie the next. The pressure to release anything better than that was far to high for the student band from Glasgow. These were old pros sitting at the top, and there was no room for Altered Images. But, on the other hand, what did the chart matter when you had best selling albums and one of your greatest fans was John Peel, who followed them overtly. He once said '...say what you like about Altered Images, they could rip the s**t, both on record and no stage, out of a lot of bands of that period.' It was true, Altered Images did and yet laid the path straight for future bands like, The Primitives, Garbage and Transvison Vamp. Grogan had made jumping around and acting girlie alright. It wasn't cool anymore to be old and mysterious all heavily made up. It was 'in' to be acting like its your twelfth birthday, wearing rolled up baggy trousers and brightly coloured beads around your neck. She, above all represented other kids walking down the street. So in the next song, ‘Love To Stay, which is
slightly Human League in their latter day theme, is cured from all the bouncing and throwing oneself around the room knocking the coffee table over. Its thoroughly produced on a keyboard, and we hear no U2 guitar take offs. Clare is strangely at home with this melodic enchanting track. It sooths and irons out the creases formed by new romantic punk.

'Change Of Heart' is where we are introduced to pretty awful sounding synthesisers sounding like an end of pier dance organ. With lots of arrs and ooos, its a little sixties sounding, somewhat retro, not unlike the style that Diana Ross tried to produce with 'Chain Reaction'. Again, we can hear that they were prime influences to Transvision Vamp. We now start to see that pop history is just a chain of events and sounds.
Moving on to 'Bring Me Closer' is, and I must say, a very well worked disco track. Lots of clapping and not short of a roller disco classic. Its Sister Sledge if you like. Madonna could have pinched this for 'Confessions On A Dance floor.' It contains cool sax breaks and swaying violins, fresh off Love Boat. Its a little on the cheesy side, but as I said, works, but please, Altered Images, don't do another one! 'Las Vegas Lullaby' is a shock to the system. Its simple and sweet but not sickly with its tinkle tinkle bells and slide guitar. Its Clare being rather serious for a moment. After all, she has matured in years as well as voice. Unfortunately, this is the first we've heard it.

The album finishes with the statutory awful, time filler mix of some hit we've already heard on the album. This time its 'I Could Be Happy' that they've ruined by putting some funky beats to it. Its too heavy on the 'Blue Monday' feel. If I wanted to hear that, I would have reviewed 'Substance 1987'. The intro goes on for far too long, then jut when you think you actually might be hearing the track for real, it goes back into a loop of hefty intro again. So please, don't make Clare sound like Jive Bunny. I couldn't take anymore.....

In short, this album makes you stop and think. Should we just cast the CD to one side and perhaps play it again when there nothing else better to do? We've just cast aside someone's life there! These youngsters dedicated their lives to making music. With pop so soulless and cold today, it can make you one minute into an overnight sensation, then drop you like yesterdays fish in the morning. At least Altered Images lasted a smidge longer than that…

Tracks included;

Happy Birthday intro
Dead Popstars
Love And Kisses
Happy Birthday
A Days Wait
Small Without Me
I Could Be Happy
See Those Eyes
Pinky Blue
Forgotten
Don’t Talk To Me About Love
Love To Stay
Change Of Heart
Bring Me Closer
Las Vegas Lullaby
I Could Be Happy (MR mix)
Happy Birthday outro.

©mduffy 2006

Out On The Wiley Windy Moor.... (Or That One Were Nyles Invites Daphne Over...)

2007-11-16T19:43:00.000Z

Catherine Bush recorded her first demo under the financial guidance of Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd. Presenting it with shaky hands to giants EMI, they signed her and she quickly issued her fist single. The self penned ‘Wuthering Heights’ went straight to number making her the very first British female solo artist to accomplish this feat. Followed only a month later by her release of her first album, ‘The Kick Inside,’ went almost achieved equal success by placing itself at number three in the album chart. An album written totally by her, she had already been well experienced in singing and writing. Forming her first band titled KT Bush with her brother, Paddy at the tender age of sixteen, she had already been composing on her piano since she was eleven. A pure child prodigy, she was destined to become the strangest, most curious of all female artists to tread the musical ground.

Boldly walking the very male path of art rock, she was self assured and focused to the very last penned note. Studying music, dance and mime, she incorporated these art forms into her every movement both musically and visually. The latter, perhaps fitting her operatic voice, she used visual dress to accentuate her music leaving the viewer mesmerised at such a performance of dance as well as voice. Her creativeness was originally inspired by her love of all that was the occult and the supernatural. Collaborating with her passion for classic literature, she chose to use classical heroines for the themes of her earlier songs. Theatrical epics were what she actually produced, probably wasted on the general buying public at the time, she managed to touch a chord and drew into her a still and very attentive audience.

Casting a drifting shadow of mystery around her being, she was shy, thoughtful and deeply sensitive when being interviewed, a situation she was far from comfortable with. Touring very little, she, over the years became introverted and felt awkward as though her place in the world had been and gone. Building a fortress around herself, she apparently, although briefly, changed her name to Kathy from Wuthering Heights. (Yet it does not take too much thought to work out that this name was a shortening of her own name anyway..) Feeling disillusioned with the world and the music industry she felt that her music did not have a place and she curled herself up in a little ball to the world and ‘disappeared’ for over a decade. Eventually coming to the surface by the nagging voices of surrounding influences, she conducted herself into writing suddenly, a new album, ‘Aerial,’ again, a mythical character but this time, her recognition was for her composing and her ability to surprise with the most extraordinary prose and music to fit. Not so much now gawped at for her striking beauty as a young woman. Now she was older, stronger and more a legend with starry eyes looking now up at her, rather than those early years where it had very much been the other way round.

Self designing her own studio at her home, she spent hour after hour perfecting sounds and effects for her records. She craved for the ability to create a visual effect through music to plant an idea into the listener’s head. She accomplished this by using her knowledge on classic literature. Having that imaginative brain herself, she found it easy to use descriptions of not just scenes in her music but recreating feelings and emotions of those characters who were devised so many years before her time. Catherine Bush from Bexleyheath in Kent had written her own first album from start to finish marking the start of a career that made her into the most influential British female artist of the twentieth century and beyond…

Moving on to this featured album, it includes the number one ‘Wuthering Heights,’ from February 1978 and ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes,’ which reached number 6 in June the same year. Both songs featuring the fantastical lyrics that she was quickly becoming famous for, and also her voice swooping up and down like a fun fair ride made her vocals more often than not difficult to follow. May it be then a blessed relief to us to find the lyrics written down on the back cover. It is advisable to read these words through thoroughly before attempting to understand the album through playing it. Once fully educated, we can proceed with the album in hand…

The first track is titled ‘Moving,’ and it promptly introduces us to the sounds of whales, are we surprised? No, this is a Kate Bush album after all and we should be prepared for anything. What we do hear throughout the album is a prominent piano by her fair hand as well as a vast array of instruments all cunningly conceived on intelligent keyboards. Whilst focusing on inspiration from Celtic and Eastern sounds, we find this theme amongst the tracks. Even the front cover shows our heroine dangling from a kite with a red dragon fiercely portrayed on it and to the left, we see a giant eyeball, although, who’s it is, remains a mystery. With Mr Gilmour at her side, she boldly stepped in the public eye with this album which was recognised more as a personal diary of all her accomplishments in composing to date. Never afraid to experiment with styles and textures of music, she was the first female artist to walk into a predominately man’s prog rock territory. This first track is fundamentally flat in chord and solemn in lyric. What we are immediately struck with is the clarity of her translucent voice. What we can’t understand is the words. I actually found that this feat was just as difficult listening through headphones! Her voice has a natural four octave range so to keep up with what she is actually singing about is difficult beyond belief. This track is soothing when perhaps the opening track to an album should require some more energy. A strong drum backing together with electronic keyboards surround the song with drifting and winding depths of feeling. Again, we have to remember that this is an album for Kate Bush, damn what the public think…ah, those whales again….

‘The Saxophone Song,’ opens with out us actually realising. Sounding like the continuation of the previous track, its feature is that Pink Floyd sound. What we do discover is that her voice sounds like that of a twelve year old, primitive and faint, but yet handling its work well. Produced by the firm hand of out hero Dave Gilmour, a song about saxophones probably isn’t out or the ordinary for a man whose band is obsessed with the instrument. I do believe Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’, designed the entire album around what appeared to be just a saxophone. Again, what we find to be residential PF is the endless rolling theme of a bizarre instrumental breaks towards the end of the track. Rather meaningless and perhaps unfitting on a Kate Bush album, but yet peacefully at home on a concept Pink Floyd EP.

‘Strange Phenomena’ appears to be on the same theme as the previous two tracks. Her vocals are however, on a catty theme and we await for the slightest mieow! Perhaps the backing vocals weren’t Kate at all, but a small litter of kittens allowed to roam freely around the studio. The rain drop effect of the piano is entrancing however, since up until now her voice has been soothing and transparent, she extends now into a theatrical trance using her voice as an acting tool, rather like that of a musical piece featured in an Andrew Lloyd Webber show. The theme takes on different shapes and styles in the same vein and the music shifts and changes tempos which we still find easy to keep up with. Yet, this strange mysterious piece unfolds in our ears then without warning, whole track fades out as quickly as it faded in.

Perhaps ‘Kite’ and the previous track should had swapped titles as this is basically a blind mixing of a Specials backing, Barbara Dickson and a little Stevie Wonder as a side order. The alley cat vocals of Kate whine and whinge throughout the track and leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth. The opening lines are of somewhat a disordered understanding, ‘…Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o, my feet are heavy and I’m rooted in my wellios…’ We wonder who the devil she got herself together to compose the next two tracks. An extreme effect of the previous track, we imagine her curling her body around the microphone stand, twisting and turning in a Gothic dance. This theme is generally a grunge reggae effect. These tracks we find, as the album rolls on, become more experimental as if she is dipping her toes in our ears to see what she can get away with before we find it too diverse to cope with.

‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes,’ is a stripped down idea of what Kate Bush would sound like if she ditched the floaty scarves, makeup and thigh length boots and stood alone with microphone in jeans and scruffy trainers. This track practically slams us in the face after the gradual climb into insanity from the previous songs. Like a blank canvas, she suddenly presents us her in her naked form vocally. Simple we can feel her song and her words seep over us like syrup. This is how Kate Bush should be heard. Without the poise of the fancy backings, she expresses herself most deeply in this type of song, simply because there is no scope to be anything else to us.

‘Wuthering Heights,’ is not just a song about a slightly abnormal girl called Kathy and some dopey bloke called Heathcliff who was more interested in looking moody and shouting a lot than he was in Kathy. Personally I don’t know why she bothered with him, and the idea of a pop song written about a classic, depressing, full of consumption novel seemed, at the time to be rather extreme and incomprehensible. However, Miss Bush pulled it off. We now want to run across the foggy open hills across the damp sodden ground with flounced skirts and scratched bare legs from all that heather. It is time to fantasise and dream deep and heavy and launch ourselves into all that is unreal. This track was pure musical escapism. We detested the staginess of her usual vocals whereas, this track, although in character of a fictional tragic love story, we delight in her performance as Kathy. The super intelligent keyboards along with its player being Duncan Mackay and hugging percussion and Celeste, gives the impression of a forty two piece orchestra with all the trimmings. The presence of Mike Oldfield is strongly felt in the instrumental break fading out the track after a long performance centre stage. This track was the very key of the door that was the gateway to the massive career of Kate Bush. We will all be remembered for one thing and this was it for her. Self penned and all her own work, she got her number one in Feb 1978 only a month before this album was released to present a fairly reasonable number 3. It appeared again some years later as a vocal B side to a track called ‘Experiment IV’ in November 1986.

The next track takes on a rock theme which rather takes us by the curlies. ‘James And The Cold Gun,’ for some incredibly sad reason doesn’t actually suit her. It is almost like asking the very young Aled Jones to sing a Suzie Quattro song. Kate’s voice is far to prissy and doesn’t carry the balls for this song. We wonder what it is actually doing here. Hey, what’s this? Has Rick Wakeman just walked in with a keyboard under his arm? Bless her, she did put as much of herself into this track by flicking each lyric up at the ends and her favourite paw licking feature in her lyrics, but perhaps this might have been a good time to either take a walk round the block, sit under a parked car or scrounge a saucer of milk…. Just as she stops singing, we actually get to here a pretty good backing track. I felt sorry for the poor musicians who would have done a better job if this track had been purely instrumental. Poor Kate, she was never meant to be a rock chick, so we forgive her just this once, just please Kate, don’t do it again…

‘Feel It’ is much suited to her cat like approach to her songs. Dreamy and solely accompanied by piano, she can dance a waltz around the room with this instrument. I do believe she was probably born sitting at a piano and singing a love song…this was the only style that ever actually suited her. Such classic lines reflect the type of person she was and probably still is,’…a little nervous laughter, locking the door, my stockings fall onto the floor…’ such timeless lyrics that never fail to sink into one’s conscience. I begin to feel that this heavy presence of Pink Floyd didn’t do much for her at all in this album and it is brief episodes like this track, that we hear Bush for the singer that she really is..

On the same theme but a little on a lighter note, the next track, ‘Oh To Be In Love,’ is about the right borderline for Miss Kate. She really shouldn’t delve any deeper into the rocky anthems that are best left to a singer like Pat Benetar. Having said that, this and the following track were firm live favourites. Let’s hope the arrangements for these songs were better on stage. Kate’s voice was always far too delicate for anything to harsh. What we don’t find in these final tracks is the same rawness and energy as in the first opening track from this album. She, admittedly resolves to entertain us by using her dreamy, fantasy style which she does best. Her brother’s mandolin gives the track a Spanish theme although probably not fitting but it somehow does give the track a fuller sound. What we find is little touches that no other female artists used. We’re no, however sure about the ‘ho, ho’s’ that appear as backing tracks for the chorus, but they do compliment her extraordinary vocal range that even young choir boys can only dream about…

‘L’amour Looks Something Like You,’ is fairly self explanatory and needs not further description on the subject front. What we are looking for is something other than what we’ve endured on the last previous tracks. Kate quickly resorts to stretching her vocal chords to an extreme extent but very little else happens. Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing dull and momentous about Miss Bush, but one found that an entire album of her and her music only was pretty heavy going and one had to be in the right frame of mind to withstand such torture on a vocal scale. At first her wonderful, trill vocals are a novelty, however, after several ballads all sounding the same as the last but on a different arrangement, then it does become similar to pulling teeth…With this particular song, I will leave it with one thought for you as a line from the song..’..all the time I find I’m living in that evening, with that feeling of sticky love inside…’ That, was anyone’s guess…

‘Them Heavy People’ is perhaps just a track with bad grammar, but its doesn’t sound too bad on initial hearing. Again, we can hear the slight rustle of something on a Jamaican front that, it has to be said again, doesn’t suit. She was, I feel a female version of Bryan Ferry. He could grasp the style and the feeling of a ballad instantly and give it such depth of emotion that his ballads were really quite incredible, but give him something on a lighter, rockier note, and he sounded as though he was being dipped up and down in a hot barrel of tar. For this on a female hand, we find Kate in the same bucket of the black stuff they put on roads….

‘Room For Life,’ opens and we are almost gagging for room to breathe from this album, however, actually this song is about being pregnant. Bought, as many millions of copies were, on the assumption that all the tracks were just going to be off shoots of the soaring highs and lows of ‘Wuthering Heights,’ we are disappointed particularly when someone has received a set of bongos as a birthday present and brought them into the studio and has a little play in the background while the others are recording. It rambles on without a thought for its listener and we feel perhaps that it was about time this little cat went out for a walk around the block…this calypso theme really does nothing for the litter of kittens she has as backing vocalists.. Perhaps there were no parked cars outside the studio that afternoon to go and hide under waiting for an engine to start before making a bolt of safety…

‘The Kick Inside,’ opens and we feel the urge to hum an INXS track and can’t think why…A song, I believe is about a poor young girl who has become pregnant by her brother, a strong subject for a singer to cover, especially when reminding ourselves of this being of the seventies. The thing that strikes me at the end of this album apart from utter joy, is the lack of lyrics on each track according to the lyrics on the back sleeve. I guess we should feel that we have been spoilt with over powering instrumentals. If only that had been the case, I feel no need to feel overly struck by any instruments, perhaps a hit over the head with a collection of percussion items might have had a more powerful impact. Suddenly the track finishes….

Do you think she heard us…?

Idiosyncratic art rock is probably, as you can gather is not my scene and will all fairness Kate Bush, her work towards the mid to late eighties was strong, powerful and transporting to levels of effects and layers of sounds so beyond our dreams and sometimes, nightmares… if we can get passed these strange, prima Donna ballerina days then everything would be justified. I guess, in conclusion, what we find the most hard to believe that this young woman who gave us this far less than average album, also gave us the entrancing and demon filled , ‘Running Up That Hill’…

Sadly, for sometime after the glitz of the seventies stardom she had received, she became ridiculed and laughed at for her eccentricities. Wanting to be taken seriously as an artist, her come back about a year or so ago ignited more public praise and recognition that she could ever have hoped for. After fading out like an old has been star, she gingerly blew the dust off her shoulders and set out to make a name for herself once more. Not as strikingly beautiful, she appears today like a reflection of your younger child’s pre school teacher, or perhaps that nice woman who lives across the road who’s husband goes out to work every day in his clean Mondeo…..Time has not worn well on our Kate, but she was, the one and only songstress of her time whether we liked it or not. For those infancy years, I feel that the very tragedy of Kate Bush was the fact that ‘her time’ was several hundred years ago…

With that decade of solitary confinement behind her, she can only hope to equal her popularity today. An achievement that I feel is beyond those dizzy, ‘Wuthering Heights‘……

Kate Bush; Vocals/Keyboards
Paddy Bush; Mandolin
Del Palmer; Bass
Ian Bairnson; guitar
Duncan Mackay; Keyboards with Andrew Powell
Stuart Elliott; drums
David Paton; bass
Morris Pert; percussion
Brian Bath; guitar.

Recorded at AIR London Studios; July/August 1975 and 1977
Picture above appears thanks to wikipedia.com

©mduffy 2006

High Powered Rocket Boots...

2007-11-10T18:29:00.000Z

Thrown forward as one of the greatest self made singer/songwriters of the twentieth century, Elton John was, to most, that geeky, yet overly flamboyant looking guy in ’larger than life’ sized spectacles jumping wildly at a piano. Forever set in ebony and ivory along side the likes of Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder, these men were the innovators of the legendary MOR, or as we lesser mortals know it, ‘middle-of-the-road’ music.

After tripping over the writer, Bernie Taupin in 1967, the two were soon to become almost as household as the Lennon and McCartney machine. Shelling out bluesy rock, to prog, to slow, wrist slashing ballads was easy for the song writing duo and the uncontrollable mixture of the 1973 album, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ was no exception.

By the time of it’s release in October that year, Elton John had already enjoyed the splendour of having achieved one previous number one album, the undisputedly exceptional ’Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player,’ in February 1973 and five top ten singles. ’Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ was just another number one album it would have seemed, both over her and ’over there,’ where, in the U.S, it held the number one slot for an impressive eight weeks.

Presenting to us a Lowry tinged illustration on the front cover, Ian Beck provides, in my mind, the perfect setting for the musical content within. Showing us young ‘Elt’ stepping through a torn poster to another world, not unlike Dick Van Dyke in ‘Mary Poppins,’ it features a dazzling pair or red platform boots and a small wind up piano. Faded, deliberately, this album showed, even on first release, all the makings of what a classic album should look like. It is, a known thing that all the greatest albums ever recorded had such uniquely presented album covers. I can’t think of an album where this has not been the case.

This colourful album, in more ways than one, certainly can justify it’s proud place as being one of those great albums of all time. Lavish in it’s content, it glides through every possible genre worth trying. It proves to us that his music, only actually found in those early years, could be just as outrageous as his growing wardrobe. Mismatched and inconsistent it may be to the expertly trained ear, yet these little epics of genius observations over ride this potentially disastrous point and allow the album to stand a distinguished place in any diverse record collection.

However, on the flat side, it is dated and this is always a tough concept for a classic album to shake off. Many a listener under the age of thirty will happily dismiss this perfectly formed album as one of those records best left to Dad’s reflective moments, but even still, there is a lot to be learned from this dangerously arrogant legend in his young, free spirited youth. Let us not forget either, that this was Elton in his expressive, ‘couldn’t-give-a-monkeys’ era and long, long before the dreaded cartoon sound tracks…. Anything pre that first fateful collaboration with Sir Tim Rice, is worth listening to.

The first double album to have been produced by the artist, and agonisingly, not the last opens with the depressingly titled, ‘Funeral For A Friend.’ Introducing us to the very depressing bells, wind noises and organs that one would expect at a truly sad occasion, what we eventually hear is something, somewhat along the lines of Rick ‘The Rock Wizard’ Wakeman. It is Elton’s attempt at prog rock, ‘Yes’ style. Entwining swirls of screeching synths and whining guitars, it is a classic example of prog rock at it’s probable worst. Not everyone’s cup of tea, yet if The Alan Parsons Project lurks unintentionally within your record collection, then you should be pleasantly surprised.

‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ opens up the show which we will familiarise as the glam rock’ spirit of John in the glitter boot seventies. Other tracks on this same tinsel wrapped theme will present themselves as ‘Grey Seal,’ the tongue in cheek lesbian themed, ‘All The Young Girls Love Alice,’ the uncomfortably fast ‘Your Sister Can’t Twist,’ and the ever impressive, ‘Saturday’s Alright For Fighting.’ Yes, but not in those platforms, you don’t….

The reflective bug, that not just waves over Father’s across the world, also gave Elton John a quick slap on the back when we hear a strong throw back to the mellow, melodic 1972 album ‘Honky Chateau,’ in the tracks titled ‘Harmony,’ ‘Social Disease,’ and the biographical Monroe theme, ‘Candle In The Wind.’ These tunes, laced heavily with piano backing and lazy lyrics are probably the best of Elton John’s ballad work. Somehow, in those early years, he could create a soothing, yet dangerously meaningful song with very little around him. The only difference here, in the album as opposed to ‘Honky Chateau,’ is the featured element of strings. Given to these ballads in ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ they result in a fullness and polished sound, thus pounding out the future path for famous John ballads and we came to love and hate. I personally enjoyed the slightly raw approach to the songs from ‘Honky Chateau,’ but it is, down to personal preference.

Reggae (I can see you cringing!) also makes a guest appearance on this eclectic album, although we are relieved when Elton decided not to take up the calypso way of life permanently. Strangled beyond recognition, the reggae, as we would know it, is trying it’s best to break out of the John piano mould.
Intended as a pun about a certain incident whilst recording the album from a Jamaican studio refusing to co operate, the track doesn’t work for me. Having said that, we must appreciate that this was as experimental that this songwriter was ever going to get after this moment, so we forgive him, just this once. ‘Jamaican Jerk Off,’ being the title, perhaps says it all about the general feeling of hardship being stuck in a hotel room writing, instead of being in a studio that simply would not play ball.

We can enjoy this musical roller coaster ride with great enthusiasm when noting it’s time and it’s artist. Surprisingly un commercial, it was complete breathing space for the artist at the most creative time of his life. Swamped in his later years by too much money and a regimental industry, artists over a certain age are simply not allowed to be free thinkers, well, not today anyway. Perhaps what we have here in this album is a big, oozing slice of music history. When we also remember who was around at the time with exceptional albums; Mike Oldfield, Genesis and the irrepressible Pink Floyd, it is then that we can slot ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ with placid ease.

It marks a certain point in experimental time. It’s just a shame that the music world today cowers at the sight of such expressiveness for there is no room for it anymore. Money and the proven fast making of the green stuff has pushed out the talent once and for all.

For this album, don a Caftan, light a joss stick and if you are a certain age, enjoy the trip back to a time when music was actually….well… music.

Music by Elton John and words by Bernie Taupin.
Elton John - piano
Davey Jonstone - Electric guitar/acoustic and backing vocals
Dee Murray - Bass and backing vocals
Nigel Olsen - drums and congas
DJM records 1973.
Recorded (eventually) at Strawberry Studios somewhere in France.
Bought on vinyl for four pounds, record collectors fair, South Coast.

©m.duffy 2006.

Forget Footlights, Bring On The New Interactive Talent Troop

2007-11-05T19:20:00.000Z

"Steve Coogan's online sitcom allows viewers to write the script. Our writer joins in the fun - or tries to Stephen Armstrong I am trying to get my first joke on air...." via Times Online

It makes one wonder what sort of world the entertainment business has been drawn into. Would it have acceptable to the young Peter Sellers if he had stumbled across a website (what’s a website Eccles?) where upon he saw thousands of people sitting in their humble households banging out amazingly witty and funny scripts for the very first interactive sitcom?

I guess he would have scratched his head and wondered if Michael Bentine had been behind it, yet this is exactly how the world seems to be writing it’s next ground breaking hit. We don’t leave it up to the masters of A League of Gentlemen or just about anyone who every stepped accidentally into Cambridge Footlights, no, we sit in out comfortable armchairs, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil and jot down a scene which would make even Victoria Wood bang her head repeatedly against the nearest piano and say “Why didn’t I think of that??” As a writer I wonder if this whole “come one everyone, anyone can do this” scheme of things is generally a good idea. I am of the old school who engages in a delightful mode when I recall the plights of some of the best loved writers of my proud generation - Stephen Fry, Ben Elton and “Knight-me-now-why-don’t-you" Richard Curtis didn’t suddenly see the Pearly Gates fly open and St Peter stand with beaming smile and a laptop in his arms, inviting you to have a go.

It all sounds a little too easy. As a harmless writer and mediocre comic, I have grafted over several minutes (or even a couple of hours, you know) to find the nearest sweetie at the Beeb who just might take pity on me and a few scraps of meaningless script I may have to offer. So with a similar tone to a long distance runner, who on his last mile, has been offered a lift from a bus driver, perhaps I should be grateful.

I shall, no doubt itch the scratch I have now formed irritatingly and get off to type my next revolutionary dialogue on this genius diversion thought up by Mr Coogan. It is tempting, so if there is a choice between the steady churn of rejection emails from the Beeb and a night of a thousand stars on the Steve Coogan Show, then I know where I’ll be going....http, anyone..?

mduffy 2007

Stephen Merchant: The Greatest Comedy Answer To The Guy From The Mr Muscle Ad...

2007-10-27T07:05:00.000Z

"....Stalking hesitantly into his quaint local pub, a little late and a lot hungry, Stephen Merchant cuts a disarming figure....." via The Independent

We have seen them come and go, all the Clara Lane's of this world - the continuous roll of comedies from Perry and Croft, yet in this, 2007 we see a lifetime achievement award go to Richard Curtis (which is about ten years over due) and at the same time we find ourselves bowing very low to the ground in front of a geeky guy with floppy hair and NHS specs.

It could be none other than Mr Merchant. Perhaps the time had come for Ricky Gervias to stand aside from his nervously, quake making David Brent and let his side kick take a stand. Through 'Extra's' we have seen a shift in the way we deal with celebrities.

It has occured to me that we may never need to see another Ant and Dec fiasco in an Ozzie jungle again to let us believe that celebs are real people. Stephen Merchant is real, or at least we think he his. His brand of comic talent is the kind we only catch ourselves thinking briefly about in our most private moments, only to snatch ourselves away from the shameful thoughts we have just experienced. Merchant brings forth these embarrassing dreams and shoves them straight into our faces leaving us to cringe slowly leaving a permanent dent in the undentable sofa. Yet if we saw him in the street, we would rather think of him as an assistant manager for the deli counter at Safeway's and not the remarkable, award winning, son of a so and so he actually is.

We can only squerm uncomfortably at him having a play with himself under the desk in his office in one 'Extras' episode. So real was that piece, we could imagine he was probably doing that for real. That's how inspiring his comedy really is. We don't find ourselves laughed at him - we are actually laughing at ourselves...

mduffy 2007

Metal Gods Of Hope And Glory

2007-10-21T12:00:00.000Z

Probably the most unlikely successful heavy metal band ever to come out of an unassuming Birmingham was the unbeatable, unstoppable Judas Priest. Named, surprisingly after an early Bob Dylan track (and it is here where the connect between Judas Priest and folk music starts and stops,) this motley bunch of guys looking like scaffold workers in 1980, appeared to us, as rather what Def Leppard would have looked like if they hadn’t discovered setting lotion seven years later.

By 1980, they were already causing madness and complete mayhem across the airwaves since their humble beginnings way back in 1969. In famous rock band style, they went through the usual mixture of line up changes practically every day of the week. Through their haze of sweaty gigs, a new dirty haired miserable face would appear in front of a drunken teenage sea of metal victims. It became common place for the spine of any rock band to under go abrupt ‘surgery’ every once in a while and Judas Priest were certainly no exception.

‘British Steel,’ released in 1980, is still regarded today as JP’s highest acclaimed album. Perfectly polished and beautifully cleaned, despite it’s raw, gritty content, this album still stands firm in the rock album hall of fame twenty six years after it’s release. With five albums already under their hard leather belts, (the first two, were released but didn’t chart) they, unwittingly embarked on the peak of the band’s career. It was to be ‘British Steel,’ that gave the band their yard stick. Notably, due to the charisma of this extraordinary album, it quickly became the same yard stick for every one else…

Perhaps it had been the unmistakeable line up of this band at the time of recording the album that was the key to it’s incredible success. Rob Halford lead the vocals throughout the set with Glenn Tipton on lead guitar, Dave Holland (who left in 1988) on drums, all recruited by the ‘masters of metal,’ the creators, K.K Downing (guitar) and Ian Hill (bass.) This line up lasted another eight years, that’s some record in the hard, cruel world of heavy metal.

Collaborating with Hill and Downing on all the tracks, the mighty, mop haired, studded Halford seemed to give the band it’s urging driving force that was so desperately needed to put the finishing touches to the powerful album. Presenting us with only nine tracks (the usual set of a vinyl L.P in those days) it still only just enough to make us, the listeners, want more. Like a intimidating angry dog, this album shows off quite a bite and to an old rocker like me, it was still just as captivating and exciting to listen to it again. Even the pain of all those head banging headaches seem to fill my head once again.

We can sufficiently lose ourselves in this ocean of thunderous, thrusting rock without feeling threatened by a beast that is unfamiliar. For those of us who perhaps didn’t take Judas Priest into our hearts until the end of the bands’ career, this early mastered album is still appealing to the numbers amongst us who hung up the leather a long time ago. Even the teeny boppers who sit surrounding us will still blush at the shock of actually recognising the odd track here and there within this album. The fast, Motorhead themed, ‘Breaking The Law,’ was used as ‘the’ Beavis and Butthead track and could forget the steadiness of ‘Living After Midnight,’ which always reminds me of The Eagles in forceful mode, will trigger off some foot tapping if not the odd spark of air guitar among us. Even the union moving ‘United,’ will have us standing with pride in an Arthur Scargill kind of way….

‘The Rage,’ perhaps will not appeal to the masses on a reflective note. This dirty, hill climbing track is dipped generously in molten lava with such metal grace that one can almost smell the band from here. Yet if we sit back and let the maturity of this band flow over us, we will no doubt stand at the end of ‘Steeler,’ and sing whole heartedly, ‘God Save The Queen.’ If only those hyper paced drum solos could be tinned, then we would not ever feel an empty feeling ‘metal starvation’ ever again. It is embarking on one of these rock journey’s that I find myself aching, longingly for the music industry toady, to run incredibly hard into a brick wall. There must be a corner to turn eventually, surely we cannot go on churning out such spirit crushing, conveyer belt rubbish for all eternity? This is why I think it is important as well as inspiring to dig up such gems as Judas Priest and give them a damn good airing, whether they want us to or not.

We are so spoilt in this album to be allowed to witness a hard working, beer swigging band create a piece of British rock history. The first track, ‘Rapid Fire,’ virtually says it all, if this isn’t rock’s interpretation of a dozen machine guns firing then I don’t know what is. The speed of this band really is quite worrying. The pace is unimaginable, and I also don’t agree that it is a good idea to visualize the band playing this track, you’ll only make yourself sick. Complete with it’s grinding factory like sound effects like an advert for ‘Terminator,’ the second track, ’Metal Gods,’ is a title that you couldn’t possibly argue with. It was tracks like these that put JP high up on the pedestal of British rock. The only other true fore runner of the sound they pigeon holed between punk and progressive rock, was Iron Maiden. Both bands, it was true had us hypnotised by their leads, high pitched wails, unlike rivals, AC/DC who, had yet to hand over the microphone to an equally high creaming Young. Places like Donnington would not have ever been the same without them…

So, if the album title and the cover (picturing a razor blade, an example of British steel) wasn’t enough to stir up any patriotic thoughts in your head, then perhaps never mind. There are not enough things in this country today that make you proud to be British. What we do have is too many things that make us ashamed rather than proud.

Things were a great deal different in those days. Particularly for bands like Judas Priest. The hard rock members of this outfit, today are fast approaching their sixties. If there is one thing that this album will do and that’s stir up emotion in any Union Jack hugging Brit. There is something very patriotic about this album and about the feeling of it. It’s steady, forth right and dependable like a faithful pet, it will never let you down, and it will always be there in a crisis.

For old rockers, new ones and even those who have never dared to taste the delights of British rock, this album should NOT be in a record collection by any means….

It should be sitting on the mantle piece….

Tracks include;
Rapid Fire
Metal Gods
Breaking The Law
Grinder
United
You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise
Living After Midnight
The Rage
Steeler

All songs written by Halford/Tipton/Downing
CBS records 1980
Bought at a record fair 2005 for three pounds.
©mduffy 2006

From Dino To Funny Bones - The Hollywood Love Affair With Lewis And Martin

2007-10-21T11:14:00.001Z

I recently acquired a copy of the new autobiography from Jerry Lewis co written by James Kaplan simply titled "Dean & Me."

Told in that familiar all American southern droll, Lewis takes us to a place on a street corner in Manhattan, March 1945 where he was to be introduced to one of the most charismatic singers and certain icons of a generation, Dino Crocetti, or better known as Dean Martin. The Monkey met the straight man - singer versus the slapstick.

Envisage a chance meeting - not unlike the church fete where John Lennon was introduced to Paul McCartney or the throwing together of public school student namely Peter Cook and working class London boy, Dudley Moore - it would seem that such legendary characters simply don't fall into each other's laps any more, not by pure chance anyway, yet in this book, the chance was completely fatal - in it's not so final sense - Lewis crossed the street with a pal and hands shook. History was made.

What followed was to be the most popular, successful and highest paid comedy duos in entertainment history, not just in the 20th Century but for probably this one as well. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin's reign over the airwaves, concert halls, night clubs including the renown Copacabana, sliver screen and television lasted for ten years, not to mention the decades which followed when even now, a newer generation of Lewis and Martin fans are coming into the world. Watch how a bunch of five years olds go potty over re-runs of The Colgate Comedy Hour.

Their humour was timeless, effortless and still just as exciting today as it was in rigid, tight lipped, post war America. They were to the States what The Goons were to Britain - new and uncharted ground.

What has also contributed to their allure is their tragedy - with ever comic line there comes the darker side - sadness and with Lewis and Martin, their ten year friendship/partnership ended with a three show stint at the Copa in July 1956, after which, they shook hands and went their separate ways. What actually happened after would happen on the very same street where they both lived - a few doors away, but not a word spoken for twenty years. The Rat Pack followed for Martin - and a life and act either drunk or pretending to be. For Lewis, he went on to be one of the greatest solo comic geniuses on film for decade after decade, although critics scorned him for simply making films as "therapy" either focusing on the highs of Lewis or the downfalls of Martin, "The Nutty Professor" (1963) being the most criticised...

The pair did share a brief and happier time in reconciliation in the late eighties, but it was not enough to repair any professional troubles they had parted over thirty years before.

Dean Martin died in 1995.

The book is a, to coin a cliche, a masterpiece, yet the true shock of it is, it is not a story of a comic duo who came and went, but a bond which never broke between them - it is the ultimate love story.....

From Her To Eternity - The Life And Memory Of Deborah Kerr

2007-10-19T18:37:00.000Z

As the more elder of us would agree, there were some people we grew up with on the silver screen, as it were, who made the world of the cinema more magical and enigmatic than it ever could have been. The golden age of the movies saw not just the greatest scripts ever written, not to mention the best, most quoted lines ("Frankly my dear, I couldn't give a damn...") amongst others but the most alluring faces we could ever wish to conjure up in our own wild imaginations.

Yesterday, we said a tearful farewell to one of our own kind in England - like many other famous future movie stars, like the vacant Bob Hope, we saw Deborah Kerr leave the English shores for a far more glittering career than British films could ever give her, and it was yesterday, we said another farewell to her, but this time, forever.

After reading probably one of the most heartfelt and warming obituaries in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, I felt, (and it is not often I do this...) to print a handful of lines which were written about her and her extraordinary Englishness which appeared in the paper.

To Miss Deborah Kerr - we will miss you....

(Featured in The Daily Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/18/db1804.xml )

"Kerr was the unfadingly ladylike and prototypical English rose whose red-haired, angular beauty and self-possessed femininity distinguished more than 50 films in four decades of cinema.


	Kerr: "prototypical English rose"

She made serenity dramatic; and though her poise might be ruffled at critical moments in scenes of passion (most famously exemplified by her encounter on the beach with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity in 1953), her well-bred airs and social graces made her a model of British womanhood in Hollywood.

Her best-known film was probably The King and I, in which she played a haughty governess opposite Yul Brynner's Siamese monarch; and her principal problem as an accomplished actress was to convince Hollywood of her sensual potential. Although she herself was a more spirited, relaxed and informal person than her image on the screen suggested, producers were reluctant to cast her in passionate roles.

Nevertheless, when they came her way - as they did after From Here to Eternity - her type of refined sensuality proved refreshingly attractive, since it hinted at hidden desires and forbidden feelings, giving her acting an extra edge and interest."

Sit back and enjoy now the original theatre trailer of the film we will remember her for the most, The King And I......

Silly Things To Do In The Office - Part One....

2007-10-09T17:58:00.000Z

Figure 1 - the boat race....

Muzzy - The Furball Who Will Take Over The World (With A Little Help From Your Kids...)

2007-10-07T17:06:00.000Z

The award-winning, BBC MUZZY program is the most respected children's language course in the world. via Baby Center

There have been some diverse and somewhat disturbing children’s characters along the way ever since Eric Idle thought it would be rather amusing to conjure up a heart-warming tiny tots programme. That, moment of black and white Sixties wonderment worked - but only because Idle and Palin used their natural wit, charm and were A Class rated for eternal smiley faces, but Muzzy? I’m not so sure.

At least the brilliant cast of Do Not Adjust Your Set, amongst other children’s archive celebrities weren’t trying to send subliminal messages to kids to make them chant a different language in their sleep, yet there is something certainly sinister about the over fluffed, slightly stoned Muzzy which to me, as a parent, leads me into reoccurring nightmares of Teddy Rucksbin. I rather get the feeling that Muzzy could well be the type of toy that should never be left at home with a child, alone. There might be, at any given moment when, by pure accident, the head of the French speaking rag doll swivels 360 degrees and tells the child to go and kill mummy and daddy. Perhaps I actually have nothing personally against the character - I just don‘t like the way we are now being told to educate our children.

We should, as parents be reading to our kids, teaching them to rights and wrongs and even, if we are feeling a trifle daring, teach them another language, but to leave it down to a green, furry faced, dazed and a tad too patronising fluff ball, strikes me as being just that little bit too lazy. A bright kid can be irritating at the best of times, particularly a six year old who can speak fluent French. As a self confessed grumpy old git and avid follower of the goddess of grumps, Ms Jenny Éclair, I find such child prodigies at little too hard to take in.

It would seem to me that we should now subject ourselves and our children to a series of intellectual past times to either justify our abilities to rear super kids or simply just to annoy other parents at the school gates. Either way, I have found that the BBC have the ingenious knack of jumping on the parental bandwagon and feel obliged to panda to our every weakness. It is the devil dressed rather charismatically as the Devil, and it works - every time….

PJ 2007

Turn Left At The Isle Of Monty And Gaze Fondly On The World Never To Be Copied

2007-10-01T18:36:00.000Z

The crew of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Photograph: BBC/PA Monty Python's Flying Circus has been voted by UK Gold viewers the most influential comedy series ever - not just the best, but the most influential.

As I trundle my way through the religion which has become anything to do with the very essence of British comedy, particularly over the last forty years, I find myself quite pink with something along side “peeve ness” when discovering an article here on the good old BB of C about how Monty Python was actually not as influential as we all would like to think it was.

I read on, only to find myself, a devotee of MP, actually agreeing with it’s content… According to UK Gold viewers (and they do know a thing or two about good programmes from the glory days, you know) the most inspiring and influential of all British creations, comedy wise, was indeed Monty Python’s Flying Circus. A sentence which in my mind, does not need to be followed up by an explanation. Yet at the same time, I cannot help but feel that this article is indeed right - it was regrettably uninfluencial - we learned as writers a great many ways to explore a joke and yes, the word “spam” will never have such a comical outlook, but only now stand as that very word to describe unwanted emails.

MP was, as we like to say, a void - all on its own, with no means of setting up a bridge or even a fairly reliable train link to it’s shores - a masterful island which sits happily, surviving all that new writers throw at it, displaying all the greatest points of youth and what a jolly good public school education will get you if your parents had enough money. They were for the poor of us - yet a product of very much, the middle class education system. A dying breed. So therefore, I pose the question - what was exactly influential about them? As individuals, I could sit with legs entwined around a Chesterfield all night long, delighting my taste buds around a selection of the highest wit and childlike play of Palin and Idle or I can sit stern faced and morose and discuss like a University 1977 paper on the levels of intellectual silliness of Cleese and Chapman, but what would be the point, I here you say - none - they were, as a group out on their own, never to be repeated and never to be forgotten.

Perhaps, in hindsight, they were the very pinnacle where everyone since has wanted to reach but can’t - the very article when other writers thought to themselves, “damn - that’s exactly what I was trying to do and now some other bugger has come and done it!” One can also imagine many saying the same about The Goons - as much as they were brilliant, silly and downright funny - they never meant to be anything else - influential? No, just innovative, mind-bending and original. Unique beyond copying. As MP were and are - never copied. Just a giant trunk from which everything else grew….

m.duffy 2007

And now for something completely different....

I'm Covered In Bees!!!!

2007-09-02T09:46:00.001Z

In tribute to yet another genius we have lost to the Americans, this is a smallish taste of that mascara wearing, fish net legged, basque strutting comic delight we call Eddie Izzard....

Ed - get on the next place home - we miss you.

For Those About To Rock....

2007-09-02T09:39:00.001Z

Clutching at a semi decent rock straws is one of those things that this country has been fairly good at over the years. Only perhaps do we have the likes of Def Leppard and Iron Maiden still in our sights, or at least in the back of our minds at one point or another, but if we were to delve deeper into the historic vaults of rock music then we would find, still, on giant golden thrones in the middle of a pile of guitars and babes, there would be AC/DC.

In perhaps the greatest epitome of British hard rock was the cluster of dirty, miserable, hairy truck driver looking guys from Glasgow who, after a short time on Scottish turf descended upon an unsuspecting Australia to make their fame and fortune. Luckily for the metal starved English youth, it wasn’t long before the came back again. Half Oz and half Scot, we still claimed them as our own. (The Bee Gees went and we got AC/DC back, to me, that was a fair swap.)

Rearing their unwashed heads through the punk sodden crowds in London was a brave feat to achieve in 1976. Since Oz had given them their free rocking, grit eating, humorous attitude, London and it’s suburbs hadn’t got a clue what was about to hit them. Up until then, the public had been pampered by rock and prog rock bands whose names came in threes, usually surnames, strung together to sound sturdy and a force to be reckoned with. With AC/DC, suddenly beer, a front man in school boy uniform, filthy hands and saucy lyrics were dished out to the man in the street on a mammoth sliver platter…

Unfortunately, most would comment that take away the dirt and the lyrics and your left with The Krankees….Somehow the idea of little ‘Jimmy Krankee’ releasing an album such as ‘For Those About To Rock,’ leaves a taste in the mouth not dissimilar to lemon curd…

Spitting in the face of up tight, white collared commercialism, this album’s initial release in November 1981 was taken with a pinch of salt by the press and adored by the growing AC/DC fan base. Seen today as the typical rock anthemed album (whatever that’s supposed to mean) it captures a mood amongst the younger metal plated generation rather like Spinal Tap cloaked the business of failing old rocker comebacks. Settled into life without Bon Scott after the blacker than black rock tribute of July 1980’s ‘Back In Black,’ they were finding their feet at last ,and the scuffed trainers of traditional metal bands fitted them comfortably.

Shortening the track lie up down to ten tracks, this album certainly pointed the rest of the following bands in the right direction. Produced again by the master, John ‘Mutt’ Lange who eventually gave us Def Leppard, this album was perfectly tighter than a Gnat’s arse. Hitting only the number 3 spot in the album charts in the same year (‘Back In Black’ had been number 1) it was proving to the band that the buying public were not just interested in reading between the lyrics of a band missing one member to a drunken binge.

To sum up any AC/DC album, one normally only has to focus on one track per album. Like a lot of rock bands around at that time, the emphasis was always on one particular track to ‘sell’ an LP. Obviously, the title of the first track and album, ‘For Those About To Rock,’ doesn’t need much of an imagination work out for the listener to conger up some idea as to what the album is all about. With opening short, yet mind burning guitar riffs and the lines, ‘..stand up and be counted for what you are about to receive..’ along with just the wail of that strangled vocal will be enough to set a steady bang of the head moving. Yet the pinnacle of this track is the cannon effects ignited with Johnson’s screams of ‘Fire,’ leaves one thing left to be said about this track; if we ever have to stand, as a country, civilians and all, face to face with an enemy again, I want AC/DC to be standing in front of me, amps connected and clad in Harley Davidson tee shirts with mic’s in hand. Then, I’d feel safe.

After the militaries of the opening track and it’s ‘off to war’ approach that this band create so well, we are lead into an album complete with ‘Hells Bells’ styled humour and dare I say it, ‘danceable’ rock. ‘I Put The Finger On You,’ is AC/DC at their up tempo best, although forget to try and compete with Johnson’s vocals that, are similar to a cockerel being savagely murdered in the middle of night after a 60-a-day habit. One is for sure, you will find throughout this album that as usual, AC/DC never end a track half heartedly. Each is given the full crescendo works in true rock style. Even with the bluesy ‘Inject The Venom,’ Johnson gives a unique performance of unaccompanied rolls up and down the scales with ease with lines like ‘..no mercy for the bad is they want it…’ (I won’t argue with that) It proved and still does, that even though they were a metal, hard rock band, they were not shy of turning their hands to other genres and turning them into their own creations. It will by the titles of these tracks that will make you smile. They were, it must be said, were the only band that got away with writing titles such as ‘Let’s Get It Up.‘ They just don’t write stuff like this anymore…

Perhaps the trashiest track on the album is ‘Snowballed,’ and let’s face it, if there are any devotees to their music out there, you will not have to reminded that AC/DC could work wonders with any title cantered around the word, ‘balls.’ Throwing up and around the metronome, they were never suckers for keeping the same rhythm throughout at track. Forever leaving the listener dangling from the great height of a riff, they were inclined to drop you from that great height, not waiting a moment for you to get up off the floor. So at least when tracks like ‘Evil Walks,’ rolls around, you feel for a moment that your soul has been saved. Perhaps not the most eventful card of the pack, this track will no doubt have you reaching for the kettle, although the momentum is taken down a notch them guided back up again to make sure you’re still breathing, this track shouldn’t be cast off into the ‘mediocre box.’ It will just give you a minute to flick through the live shots in the inner sleeve, but be careful, the pictures are so ‘live’ the sweat may even catch you in the eye; photos that you could even smell from here…

‘C.O.D’ and ‘Breaking The Rules,’ will no doubt give you all you need to know about the sturdiness of the juggernaught we loving know as AC/DC. Just remember to turn the bass down on your system unless you have likeminded neighbours. It is these tracks minted with bluesy breaks and tightly knitted backing vocals and back breaking drums, you could almost believe that they are using the back of a 16 wheeler as a bass drum. Rock music doesn’t get much powerful than this.

On the close of this extreme voltage album, the last two tracks hardly wind down the theme at all, but when would you expect a rock album to? The misbeated, thunderous ‘Night Of The Long Knives’ and the finger clicking, thoughtful ‘Spellbound’ takes us on a haunting journey back to the days of Bon Scott. That rambling, truck driver feel is echoed particularly through this last track, it is almost a brief, yet subtle tribute to the missing member.

Although they, unlike Def Leppard, hardly ever had a ‘hit’ they still have left huge dents in out minds over the last thirty or so years. Now the old men of metal, they still have an engaging appeal, only know their faces actually do look that miserable and twisted naturally. However, there is still something to be said that each album has appeared back on our record shop shelves re mastered, re packaged and just as enticing. Since it’s release in 1981, this album was sent back, in 2003, brushed up and polished to the shops to take pride of place in the ‘metal/rock’ section yet again.

It all sounds just as good as it did then.

For Those About To Rock,’ 1981

Tracks include;

For Those About To Rock
I Put The Finger On You
Let’s Get It Up
Inject The Venom
Snowballed
Evil Walks
C.O.D
Breaking The Rules
Night Of The Long Knives
Spellbound

Brian Johnson - vocals
Angus Young - guitar
Malcolm Young - guitar
Mark Evans - bass
Phil Rudd - drums

www.acdcrocks.com
©mduffy 2007

Roll Up Your Sleeves For A Taste Of The Good Life

2007-08-22T17:14:00.000Z

Whilst the great British public were settling back in comfortable armchairs to witness the anecdotes of David Croft and Jimmy Perry once a week, a new breed of comedy writers were climbing, ever so quietly up the ranks..

John Esmonde and Bob Larbey may not have names that are easy to roll off one’s tongue and perhaps aren’t as well known to the average brain as their counterparts, Croft and Perry, yet I will wager you that you know of at least one of their credible comedy moments. After finding their feet through the airwaves writing quick fire sketches for the BBC’s Home Service programme, ‘I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again,’ from 1964, it was to feature budding stars as pre Python, John Cleese and future Goodies; Brooke-Taylor, Garden and Oddie. They decided that their writing partnership could take on better scope in the world of television. Writing the class shifting comedy, ‘Please Sir!,’ in 1968, their next big success was to in be 1975 when they wrote, practically side by side, the Air Force cadet comedy, ‘Get Some In,’ starring Robert Lindsay, but the more memorable of the two, was the middle class, suburban story, ‘The Good Life.’

Charting the highs and lows of a childless couple in middle class Surbiton, pushing away from the comfortable, corporate world of nine to five, it seemed the perfect idea to produce a comedy through social acceptance and class barriers. Sounding more like a Sociology lesson, this show set out to prove, if anything, the world of money and status wrong. Esmonde and Larbey had already tackled the boundaries of the class system in a class atmosphere (if you pardon the pun) in ‘Please Sir!,’ when bumbling, well educated John Alderton finds himself being taught rather than being teacher to a class full of working class South London school. If you could possibly take your eyes away from the fact that the average age of the actors playing the parts of the kids was around thirty, the show seemed much less harmless than originally thought. Thus, the writing duo became known within the walls of the BBC, to write gentle, easy going comedies which didn’t ask in return for depth of thought from it’s viewers.

It’s four key characters were names who were not known the trained television eye. The head of the team, the enthusiastic, Richard Briers, presented us with the idealist, Tom Good. Briers had played minor roles in television since the mid Sixties and trained at RADA. Finding an edge for theatre, he would spent most of his career successfully finding his way to tread the boards. Setting Tom up with an equally enthusiastic wife first came in the shape of serious supporting actress, Hannah Gordon. Turning the job down, next in line was unknown Felicity Kendal, still waiting for her break into television. Chirpy, pretty and young enough to be Barbara Good, she got the part - a role which was to be her most noted through her entire career.

Next came the job of casting the social climbing neighbours. Originally scripted to be only minor supporting roles, it appeared to Esmonde and Larbey that the relationship between the Goods and the Leadbetters, (Margo and Jerry next door) was just as significant as the actual plot line. The elegant housewife with no sense of humour, Margo went to experienced actress in TV and stage, Penelope Keith and long suffering, middle management employee went to repertory trained, Paul Eddington.

Dusting off his suit for the last time, Tom Good hangs up his nine to five image on his 40th birthday, leaving behind all the comforts that his money had given him. Keeping hold of the beautiful house in Surbiton (the show was not actually filmed in Surbiton at all,) he decides on a life of self sufficiency with his wife, Barbara. Selling the car and buying a pig and a goat, they set about growing crops in their semi detached back garden much to the disgust of their neighbours. Whilst Jerry feels it a capital idea and praises Tom in various occasions, his wife, Margo is appalled and makes no quibble in saying so. A social animal, Margo fills her days at home with the Women’s Institute and local amateur dramatics, for which she is keen, to act herself. The general joke is on Margo most of the time, where upon, she finds herself fin situations of mud and muck out of the goodness of her helping heart. She finds comfort in her friendship with pig tailed, Barbara who behaves ten years Tom’s junior at times, and often cries on Barbara’s shoulder. Though it is apparent that Jerry fancies the young, mucky faced Barbara in her dungarees and wellies, he only admires her from afar. At the same time, it is humorously apparent that Tom finds the upper class, hockey club girl, Margo just as attractive in her flowing Seventies dresses and bouffant hair. A subtle under current in the show, these attractions only come to the surface in an episode where the four taste Tom’s home made wine.

Not so much a show featuring self contained plots, the gags are minor and run gently through the entire series like a steady stream. The laughter is brought upon through the relationships between the couples, both experiencing the same neighbourhood, yet worlds apart in their lifestyles. As Tom, on occasions is almost persuaded to return to his mediocre office employment by the well meaning, Jerry, he never buckles. Very rarely showing strain from his new found life change, he still holds a certain arrogance at the supposedly automatic appraisal from his suffering wife. Trying her hand at everything including making their clothes, Barbara is a character who has found herself in a situation she would have preferred not to embark on. Missing her little luxuries, she puts these feels aside for the adoration she has for her husband - a relationship that is full of giggles and physical attraction. As opposed to Margo and Jerry, for ever proving that money doesn’t give you everything - their marriage is based on his job whilst trying to find some comfort through their flatly uninteresting hobbies…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘The Good Life,’ appeared to be of the same inoffensive quality which gave it’s audience the ability to laugh at a system rather than themselves. Mixing the audiences on a physical scale, it’s appeal was felt by both sides of the pay packet. This was a barrier uncrossed through British comedy in previous years. Since the only shows that may have come close before, used the cunning disguise of the generation gap to hide the social point being made. ‘The Good Life,’ thus, found itself on the map of social good nature.

Larbey and Esmonde also found the key to good humour where perhaps the afore mentioned, Croft and Perry had failed. ‘The Good Life,’ like the rest of the Larbey and Esmonde list, only ran for short runs. ‘The Good Life,’ in itself, only ran for four series‘. Since Croft and Perry had, had their share of criticism for letting a show run for two years longer than it should, the smaller writers, won fairer hearts through shorter shows. Hence, ‘The Good Life,’ ceased after only 30 episodes.

The genuine appeal to the show was the good natured approach to snobbery on one side of the fence and muck and penniless pride on the other. Although the Good’s slum into poverty is totally through choice, it appears to be acceptable. We do still wonder, how on Earth the Good’s still manage to pay their mortgage when Tom sees no qualms with bartering with the local Gas board with some home grown potatoes to pay a bill. Yet to this couple who have still managed to keep their social novelty, their class rank is still very much in tact. Perhaps giving the rest of society’s self building sufficiency a clean break from stereotypical mockery, ‘The Good Life,’ provided a warm, peace offering to such people and handed back their dignity. If Tom and Barbara can achieve it in middle class Surrey, then it’s okay to wash clothes in the sink and eat everything from the garden.

However sensational the idea may have been, I can almost guarantee there is no one living such a lifestyle in Surbiton today. That may have something to do with the fact that you have got to be earning in excess of forty grand a year to live their in the first place (my brother does), yet this idealism leaves a warm feeling in the soul and tragically, it is now that we find this show dated. It was on it’s time and although it wasn’t truly historic like most shows created by Croft and Perry, it still gives the viewer the realisation that a life style such as this could only have been remotely possible in Surbiton, some thirty years ago. It is the general cost of living today that makes the epitome of ‘The Good Life,’ so inexcusable. So there, it is left in the decade when it could have been possible…

A special episode was performed in front of Her Majesty, The Queen and The Duke Of Edinburgh. Noted as being one of her favourite shows, the Duke may have only liked it for Felicity Kendal in wellies and bunches…

©m duffy 2007.

Ode To A Writer....

2007-08-04T19:36:00.000Z

Scribbling, writing, hoping.
Screwing, binning, shredding.
Sending, submitting, praying.
Watching, wishing, waiting.

Receiving, exacting, thumping.
Elated, ecstatic, published.

I sit, turn on and the buzz beings to smell,
With flexed fingers, I move my mouse and click,
The whining hum of tower and delightful warmth-
From computer - turning, working it's magic,
I surf with generous ease....

©m.duffy 2007

The Spray To Get Stuck To....

2007-07-27T18:40:00.000Z

Whilst still dreaming of the day that I just might have big hair like Kate Bush or that dark haired one in Heart, I aimlessly trudge through the sweaty, over crowded shops in my local High Street on a Saturday afternoon like some ritual, looking for that infamous product that will turn me from dull, flatly ordinary brunette to luscious, incredibly stunning raven haired beauty.

In my cluttered bathroom cabinet, I possess almost every conceivable product that I might have gazed at in wonderment over the years and thought, at the time, that it might do the trick. The ultimate goal of fabulous looking hair. Not incredibly graced with the wondrous locks naturally, I have to prepare myself for the depressing job of trying to find something that will give my hair the same result of sticking my finger in a plug socket. I spot, by chance something that may well see me kissing my flat hair days goodbye; may I introduce the ‘super fast, grab you by the nuts, whooper dooper ultra strong power volumising spray!’

I make a quick decision to buy it and make my escape quickly home before the assistant notices my pancake hair. For the price I paid, a hard earned £2.95, it seems like a shot in the dark. I am not usually the type that pays out heftily for anything unless I know it’s going to work. However, curiosity has taken this cat by the scruff and dragged her over to the counter with opened purse, so, pleased with my purchase, I trot home with joy in my heart.

A super fine liquid bounces around in the small, pale blue bottle like spring water. I have always been keen on Shockwaves products but always imagined that punks with spiky hair do’s would want to buy this stuff instead of me. In my bathroom, I squint at the tiny words on the back. It says;

‘Hold!’ (with four purple dots after it….sounds hopeful, although what exactly these dots mean, leaves no firm question in my head so I skip that and move onto the next line…) It asks me a question….

‘Need Added Volume With An Added Finish?’ (Well, yes…I suppose, but what finish? Have I just unwittingly purchase furniture polish or perhaps that brown stuff you paint onto fences?) I move on again…It now appears that this clever print is trying to tell me that this revolutionary product with ‘shape, hold and control‘…(I wonder perhaps I should be spraying this onto my four year old instead of my hair…) Then I see that it apparently ‘gives added volume with an ultra strong hold..’ Well, if I didn’t already read that on the front of the bottle in the shop then I guess I wouldn’t have bought it, right? It shouts, ‘No Stickiness!’ I think I actually want stickiness. This word, in my mind, and when applied to my hair tells me that it is working. I don’t think I’m on my own here in this statement. Then it lies to me, and luckily I had already prepared myself for such a fib; ‘Brushes Out Easily!’ Nothing that goes with the word ‘stickiness’ ends in ‘brushes out easily.’ Not in my world anyhow.

Then the print doubts my intelligence, another question..’Need To Know How?’ (Yes, while you’re at it, you might as well tell me how to use this and what hair on my body I need to spray it on. After all, I have just landed from Mars, tutt!) ‘Apply To Damp or Dry Hair.’ (You mean I could have used this in the shop instead of buying it?) It tells me, ‘no stickiness’ once again, and I feel sucked into to its believable existence. ‘For extra volume, spray onto to the roots and blow dry.’ Now, for anyone who has tried to use a gel like product in the past and the container tells you to blow dry, you know for a fact that the gel will dry into something that resembles glue and is plainly obvious to all who pass you by so I feel that an element of brushing might help afterwards, at least to get out the U-hu effect…

I wash hair then wildly spray away to my hearts content. Happy with the amount that I have sprayed, I regain consciousness (as the smell and spray essence is a little over powering) and try to then master the art of a jolly good blow dry.

Now I shall mention the stickiness bit. To my past knowledge of such products, I expect some stickiness, but perhaps I was not ready to as much as I did encounter. The stickiness was over whelming to say the least. From beneath my locks, I felt the product was practically clinging onto to my scalp for dear life. Now with the feeling resembling wearing a rather fetching swimming cap, I try to ‘style’ my way to complete glory. My hair now feels the consistency of straw. I pick up the bottle at study it carefully. Then I attempt to put down the bottle and find that it has now stuck to my hand. Now humbly near tears, I then precede with a small party piece in which I remind myself of that elderly French mime artist who Des O’Connor used to have on his show a great deal who did a rather amusing mime of something being stuck to his hand and then on the inside of his jacket pocket. I feel myself now loosing control over my purchase and then manage to put it down without loosing any skin. Sticky is not the word. I now get the impression that this stuff is everywhere other than the very place it should be and that’s on the roots of my hair.

However, after a good deal of shaking one’s head and pouting a lot in the mirror, I finally get to grips with my wild style. I found this spray has a mind of its own and if not a fully qualified hairdresser or carpenter, I feel that others will have the same experiences too.

I study bottle from floor level, remembering not to venture picking it up again…

Another question…tutt.

‘Need The Expert’s Tip?’

Now they tell me!

‘For beautifully defined hair ends, use Shockwaves Control Eazy Endz!’

(Sigh)

I doubt I shall be buying that too. I can imagine long queues of sticky handed women traipsing back to Superdrug with six inch long hair in spikes and lining up for yet more sticky stuff. I resist.

I read the ingredients to see if there is anything there I can pronounce… As well as the usual alcohol (not advisable to drink if style becomes that uncontrollable after using the product) I see it does contain water and a lot of ‘parfum’ It also advises to run under warm water if the nozzle becomes blocked. A feat, I think I will practise for a while as I feel that this may happen more than once.

What I do like to see, although never use, is these website addresses on the most unattractive products. If I felt the strong need to not to end my life, I could look up the website or even join a little chat room! There are some phone numbers to call both in the UK and abroad if my tears didn’t stop by themselves, all well readable if you are three centimetres high or if you have fantastic eyesight.

The Verdict On Hair;

I received some strange looks from the playground this morning on dropping my child off at school from the other worried looking mums. Ha! At least I am trying to do something with my hair! Some look concerned, others give my promising nods of appreciation. My hair now feels thicker, and even in the slight morning breeze, it doesn’t budge an inch! Yes! Mission accomplished! If only this stuff had been around in the early eighties when I donned myself in baggy Louis XIII shirts and lip-gloss. I could have joined in with all those Flock Of Seagulls gigs my friends were going to!

I must work on that stickiness on the bathroom walls. Once I have perfected the art of re decorating, then I just might stick with this!

Conclusion;

I do like this spray only because, since stuck in a time warp, I feel that I should be still donning rock hard hair. Please only use if you a true Adam Ant fan, otherwise if you want to be more like AndI McDowell in the skin care ads, then give this shockwaves thing a wide berth and grab some of that face putty instead.

This may have been some use to you.

Thanks for persevering.

Four Hippies And A Penguin...

2007-07-20T06:29:00.000Z

Following the welcomed arrival of the young and now married, Christine McVie to the line of Mac, the band now complete with guitarist, Bob Welch, wasted no time in writing and recording a new album. Since brushing off any acknowledgeable Peter Green quality, what we find in this album, ‘Future Games‘, is the foundations of the Fleetwood Mac we knew as one of the greatest international bands of the 20th Century.

After the raw, bluesy feel to the previous, Kiln House, it seemed that the addition of a soft, female voice, melted the minds of these scruffy, beer drinking musicians. Their work stands out on this album as creative and gently inspiring. The general outlook of this album is melodic and serene due to it’s two newest members yet, unfortunately it lacks the harsh rock and roll element of the original line up, still in a coma since the abrupt departure of Peter Green. It comes across, as altogether dipped, quite unrepentantly in thick honey to the point that it oozes perfect smoothness. The guitars are drowned out by unassuming bass and calmed vocals. Many would argue that the arrival of Christine was the end of Fleetwood Mac as their small fan base had come to know them, but I disagree. I think the change here within the band was merely a change that needed to happen. Times were moving on and the band had to stay in the running if they wanted to create a bigger impact on the music industry. Still slightly small fry, they were not prepared to go quietly into the dusty vaults were all the failed bands go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1971, Fleetwood Mac had already gone through giant disruptions on a massive scale. The voice behind the shadow of Green had been Jeremy Spencer. Whilst he gave ‘Kiln House’ it’s exciting and humorous side line, he was also weak in the presence of drink and drugs. Like Green, he became disillusioned with the world around him and turned to religion as a warm comfort. After doing a disappearing act during one of the band’s tours, he was found, eventually in amongst a strange religious cult named the Children Of God. Both parties deciding to leave the other alone, and whilst out there, they picked up Bob Welch. Since the only man nearest to completing the line up for the blues era from Green was Spencer, the band quickly followed a more middle of the road feel which was brought in by Christine due to her previous folksy experiences with Chicken Shack. It is the basic qualities of this feel that is the underlying current of the most successful Fleetwood Mac records to date.

The simplicity of the album is first recognised in the details of the album cover. A list of the tracks, a collection of small, black and white photographs and one including a penguin., a list of the members and the ones who have gone. Interestingly, it also states that Spencer was one of the founder members of the band in 1967. It was founded originally by drummer Mick Fleetwood, guitarist Peter Green and a musician called Bob Brunning who went on to write the biography, Behind The Mask, capturing the bands’ existence. All it shows here, is that Spencer was, then and still now, regarded as one of the very important members of the band’s history. Green’s name still heralds a tribute by the band on stage, yet this is also the same legendary blues player who was found sleeping rough in South London back in the Eighties. I guess, sometimes there’s no accounting for recognition…

This short and minor acknowledged album is regarded as another one of those significant land marks in the history of the band. Due to the graceful engineering of Danny Kirwan and Christine McVie, they steered the drifting ship towards a more pleasing sound. Since it was Green’s ambition to generate something different (the reasoning behind ’Albatross) it would appear that in this album, FM have simply joined the rest of the world. It is notably a breakthrough in the career of each of it’s musicians, yet, it was not the way Green would have wanted to go. I guess he would say it was too wet…

The opening ’Woman Of 1000 Years,’ is more watery than Jefferson Airplane with it’s wistful guitar picked up from Albatross, although this track lacks the originality and magnetic quality of the latter. It is dreamy and beautiful but FM fans at the time must have been gravely disappointed. The blues had been washed away with the bath water. ‘Morning Rain,’ on the other is a point from where the first album to feature Buckingham and Nicks came from. Completely taken over by the strong influences of Christine, it now becomes apparent where the original sound of the latter day FM came from. She was a strength and direction of the band from the day she joined. If the rest of the them had been behind the wheel, then Christine was the SatNav.

Bringing her piano/keyboard techniques to the band, it opened up new experimental doors for them. Adding that certain jazz feel to the band, the element was still strong for the bass line to continue to be blues. The vocals were shared up using Christine’s slightly deeper, nasally vocal as a poetic compliment to the male leads. It is then perhaps in ‘What A Shame,’ that she lets the guys off the hook. Bringing in a diversity of John Perfect on sax, the blues edge takes a hold once more. A genre that always haunted the band.

Green’s ghostly ‘Black Magic Woman,’ with it’s voodoo presence, is still a personal favourite in the band’s set on tour today. This instrumental piece imitates a jazz/blues feel that we found in the soundtrack of The Blues Brothers. It’s not a definitive track here, but it shows that the band, at the time, were keen to try other things. This is also apparent in a smoothed out ‘Future Games,’ where it would seem the band were experimenting with a Who sound. With it’s distance vocals, it comes across as a bit of a mess. Thankfully, with the gentle yet tuneful ‘Sometimes,’ the direction of this album becomes clear. The track is laced with playful riffs and minor keys giving it a romantic approach. A good, strong track with vocals to match. Perhaps the track of the album that stands out the most, it doesn’t appear to be a Fleetwood Mac typical record. This track sounds, like any early track from a big rock group should, totally unrecognisable. What is surprising though is that the flat and mediocre ‘Sands Of Time,’ was the only single release from this album. It failed to make a mark on the chart. It is uninspiring and dull on the ears, yet still Christine through and through…

Moving towards that folksy, more relaxed theme due to the arrival of Mrs John McVie gave Fleetwood Mac a different perspective on the world. It changed their mood, the way they wrote and the way they composed. If previous albums were anything to go by, to drop the blues was probably not a good idea, yet what we find on this album is hints of the band to come. Each note is carefully crafted and skilfully produced in it’s feminine essence. If we compare it with the last album, Kiln House, it’s Future Games that stands out to the be the for runner of the Buckingham/Nicks revolution. Any albums before the entrance of long skirts and higher voices seems to be a thrown together, shouting heap of masculine, truck driver blues…

So what if the blues element is absent from here, at least they perfected the art of producing something more polished.

Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks replaced Bob Welch in 1975.

Danny Kirwan left in 1972 and attempted a solo career.

Tracks include;

Woman Of 1000 years
Morning Rain
What A Shame
Future Games
Sands Of Time
Sometimes
Lay It All Down
Show Me A Smile.

Fleetwood Mac in 1971 were;

Mick Fleetwood - drums
John McVie - bass
Danny Kirwan - guitar and vocals
Christine McVie - piano and vocals
Bob Welch - guitar and vocals.

1971 Warner Bros. Records Inc.
©m.duffy 2006

HMV - £7.99 delivered
Virgin - &9.99 delivered
Amazon.com - CD - £9.98/Vinyl

A Concert For Diana, But Who Were They All?

2007-07-15T18:09:00.000Z

Last weekend was one of those times when you didn’t know what to feel. One minute we were staring the enemy in the face as they tried to repeatedly blow us up with car bombs or burn us inside one of our airports, and the next we are leaping up and down in front of a stage, wailing because it’s the first time we’ve seen Duran Duran perform live. It was a weekend to remember, yet something bothers me. We know how to deal with the society we now live in. Every time I step onto a train and head to London, I am immediately texted by several close acquaintances who tell me to call them as soon as I get there and as soon as I arrive home. London, my home city, now is a playground not for just the rich and famous but for the terrorists among us - we are dicing with death when we board a train or a tube. I have a close friend who drives a tube train - a wonderfully paid job, but in the light of recent years, I wish he was still working at the bank.

However, surprisingly enough, it is the Diana concert I feel somewhat disturbed by. It was, at previously mentioned, a delight for us thirty something’s to see Duran Duran and how much John Taylor has aged, on stage once more, and I am convinced that somewhere up above us, there she was, bopping away to ‘The Reflex’ with the rest of us, but I thought that when we feel the need to tribute someone in such a fashion, we do it by attending to their own wishes and their own tastes. I rather get the feeling that Diana was sitting up there with a puzzled expression trying to figure out who Lily Allen is, or is supposed to be. I do wish, and perhaps this is my age talking here, that we had kept the show to music that she liked and that was of her time. I don’t mind sitting through Sir Elton so long as he doesn’t pout off stage as he was reported to have done this year, but where was George Michael? The Princess’s favourites just weren’t there, and this got me thinking, is it because if we had booked Tony Hadley and Martin Fry of smooth and lip glossed ABC, not one would have come?
I do believe it goes deeper than that. Diana was a mega star in her own right, despite the fact that she hated it. She was a legend, a goddess and for me, that twinkling princess who married her prince and tried to live happily ever after except we wouldn’t let her. No, I think the thing that crawls though my bones is that we will always have to celebrate her life with a six hour show at the Stadium. If we had booked Spandau Ballet, we would have been lucky if we had filled the Arena. And as a result of this sad tale, we can’t seem to celebrate someone as rich in personality and individualism as she, if it means we can’t have simultaneous broadcasts of a mammoth show. I think an intimate gathering of her very favourite musical heroes would have been far more fitting. Nellie who? I don’t think it was all really Diana’s scene….

It's A Bitch Convincing People To Like You...

2007-07-06T18:16:00.000Z

Suitably camp and beautifully adjusting to life in the B52’s lane, the Scissor Sisters have quite simply squeezed into the most teasingly unconventional gap in the musical market before anyone else had dared to spot it. They are glamorous and extravagant in show, yet on the quiet, they appear to be a visual fusion between The Primitives and Alien Ant Farm. In regards to the impact they have on this mere mortal is that stranger than strange X factor feel. On one hand, I shall, unfortunately, forever remember Eton Road’s second to last flopped attempt to stay in the competition by covering ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing,’ (in which I feel Anthony could have made a successful career out of being the next member of the Scissor Sisters) and again, on visual appearance, they rather remind me of that oddly shaped group that went out on the first show…‘The Unavoidables’ or who ever they were. It was this song and the first on the ‘Ta - Dah’ album that shot to number 1 over here in September this year. This album was released only eight days later, a shrewd move considering the track was still sitting at number one, so consequently, everyone rushed out to get it. The public weren’t going to hang about on purchasing the second album by a band who played instruments, were made up of boys AND a girl and actually wrote their own songs, a feat in anyone’s charts nowadays…

This bunch of not so oddly shaped Earthlings came from somewhere out of the campest clubs of New York City around 2001. Capturing the glam scene of all that was glitter boots and heavy eyeliner, the Scissor Sisters (of which, neither are actually sisters) have certainly taken their adequacies of being a pop/disco band and adding all the colour and flamboyance of Moulin Rouge and Barnum, thus creating the strangest of sounds, lyrics and at the same time, regenerating some themes of some pretty dire groups gone by. Racy and Matchbox spring to mind…

Taking the most incredibly delightful personal names, these people, who all look as though they should go out and get themselves decent jobs, are a blessed relief due to the fact that it’s fairly obvious to the untrained eye, they are not kids. They do, however, playfully tease us with their takes on alternative themes and fresh new sounds. The disco feel is strong in their most popular track in their career so far, ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.’ It is complete with lazar sounds not unlike the stuff that lived comfortably on a Donna Summer record. They may appear fun loving and on the list of a children’s disco CD along side The Tweenies and that hideous song from Lazy Town, but don’t be fooled, their hidden meanings go further down to a more adult level. Naively, we may fail to notice that their band name comes from a lesbian position, and on the members initial meeting at a fancy dress gig, two of them had come as late term abortions; I shall leave that up to your imagination to conger up an image of what ever that is…

Various other members were found through ads in local New York papers at the same time vocal song writer gave up his job as a stripper in a gay club. (Still want that cd for little petal’s seventh birthday party?) No matter, one can’t get away from the exuberance of this band. They are intriguing and enticing to the mind, even though some of their tracks are too much like ‘The Scaffold,’ and Gilbert O’Sullivan, we can get over those tracks. ‘I Can’t Decide,’ is almost the question that they asked on the particular genre of this track. It’s too ‘When I’m 64,’ mixed in with a Mud B side. The honky tonk piano perhaps should only be left up to Elton John in his more madder moments. However, it still shows, in it’s complete absurdity the wackiness of this hyper glam band. It shows to us how they are simply not afraid to delve into certain styles that we dared not ever play again. Strangely it was Elton John that collaborated with them on ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.’

It is almost unbelievable to think that such tracks as ‘Lights’ were actually recorded only last year, they sound that old. The funkiness of this track can only be created by a handful of white guys in larger than life shades and some black dudes with lamp shade designed Afro’s. This is disco how we remember it and it surprisingly sounds fresher than before. If you’re not strutting your stuff by the end of this track, you don’t have a pulse. In the same vein, the Goldfrapp imitation of ‘Kiss You Off,’ gives the sinister slant to the album where Ana takes the lead vocal. The glam disco feel is still just as strong and so is the idea of the flamboyance of this band. Their inspirational edge on something that is regarded as dated and dusty is giving that sparkle back into those awfully embarrassing office parties that we have to endure (mine is imminent). The ‘Night Fever,’ styled song is probably enough to get the David Brent’s of this world up and throwing themselves around. You will find track after track of sheer disco brilliance. I wonder perhaps if this was what Madonna was after when she had the idea of ‘Confessions On A Dance floor.’ On this album it works and somehow Madonna’s album of this year didn’t work. I guess what they should have done is swapped titles. It is in the very middle of this album we get to feel the strong resemblance between the song writing talents of the band and their mentors, eighties Bouffant hair babes, B52’s.

Yet they also conger up a great amount of depth in ‘Land Of A Thousand Words.’ The mood is taken right down to Velvet Underground level and the mood evolves around a Lou Reed styled vocal. It’s deep and meaningful with swathes of violins and soft, swamping backing vocals. A track to sway your legs to, if you feel the need. A suitable interval for this album, and although this was a hit for the band, I didn’t think it truly has a place on here. They could have quite have easily continued the party theme right the way through and held it together without the whole disco idea being too in the listeners face and ears.

What also appears on this album is a bonus track of no importance. It’s Gary Numan creepy and probably doesn’t suit the album as it should perhaps be better for Robbie Williams when he is having one of his Bipolar days. It’s feeling is too metal (if at all) and was recorded on a day when all their glitter Spandex was in the wash. It doesn’t fit, and yes, it shows the diversity of this band, but it’s a style that doesn’t suit the ears. So, I guess on a lighter note, we can be grateful for the ‘Voice Of The Beehive,’ Barbie themed ‘Paul McCartney’ which is a tribute to the music of this great man who should have signed a pre nuptial agreement (never mind Paul, you know for next time)

=====================

Taking that opened throated sound from the BeeGees and mixing it with Madonna ‘dance floor,’ beats, they have managed to avoid being laughed at and listened to seriously. One is almost quite eager to see them continue their sequenced existence, giving George Michael great waves of jealously (damn! I wish I could have dressed like that!) If of nothing else, anyone who can successfully bring back Spandex isn’t all bad. Looking at them admiringly now, even with the one who looks like Graham Norton in shimmering silk and lip gloss, it is no wonder that their audience is predominately people in their thirties and forties. I personally welcome them. They take me back to days of Lionel Blair’s, Les from Bay City Rollers and The Sweet. Arh! Good days!

So now, we can gather up in our arms all those outfits from the attic, we can brush down our Elvis ‘Vegas’ suits and Car Wash wigs and enjoy glam rock and the art of disco. The Scissor Sisters have brought it all back. So let’s go unconventional and uninhibited into the night. The dance floor belongs to us 30 something’s, yet again…

Ditties included;

I Don’t Feel Like Dancing
She’s My Man
I Can’t Decide
Lights
Land Of A Thousand Words
Intermission
Kiss You Off
OOH
Paul McCartney
The Other Side
Might Tell You Tonight
Everybody Wants The Same Thing
Transistor *

(*Bonus track)

HMV £10.95 (ripped off, should have gone to Tesco’s.)
Polydor Records 2006.
They will be touring Europe from 7 April 2007

www.scissorsisters.com.

Scissors Sisters are;

Jake Shears - vocals
Baby daddy - bass guitar/keyboards
Ana Matronic - Mistress of Ceremonies vocals and percussion
Del Marquis - lead guitar
Paddy Boom - drums (it is thought)

(and no one else who had a silly enough name to join)

©m.duffy 2006

Would You Care To Dance...?

2007-07-01T18:31:00.000Z

Rock legends, Fleetwood Mac stunned home grown American audiences when the band announced a one off special come back gig with the original ‘Rumours’ line up. Despite all the tantrums, splits and divorces that have cloaked the band with the same sensationalism as Electro Shock Treatment, they still managed to hold their heads up high and smile affectionately at each other throughout the performance. It was filmed for television and shown so late one night on BBC1 that the entire world forgot to tape it. The ‘soundtrack’ of the phenomenal occurrence was this perfectly produced album, ‘The Dance.’

With a inner sleeve that depicts the band in incredulous poses of well lit miracles, it is hard to imagine this band still sounding, and above all, still looking exactly the same. If only for Mick perhaps looking a touch greyer around the gills, it is amazing to see Stevie ‘Tinkerbelle’ Nicks still looking not a day over ‘Rumours.’ If Diana, the Princess of Wales was the most photographed woman of the 20th Century, then Fleetwood Mac were the most beautified band. Their charisma is quite staggering to the point that they appear out of this world. It is hard to believe that the two old gits at the back, one on drums, the other on bass, once shared the back of a transit van to use as transport and dressing room when their biggest venues was either The Swan in Fulham or The Toby Jug in Tolworth. (If you have ever patronised these establishments as much as the author here, then you will have some idea as to the impact of their fame.) So, through countless line up changes, solo careers plus members leaving and then suddenly returning after admitting never to darken the studio door again; here we are with yet another, masterpiece…

In the Summer of 1997, Fleetwood Mac showed off their immortal talents for a special gathering for MTV. (Well, anyone would say yes to MTV), and the result was this polished live album. Perhaps there are very few bands in this world who can get away with a pitch perfect live set. The Stones, is about the only other band who can pull off a live performance, but then again, Jagger never had a pitch perfect voice. For a band who managed to fuse live sounds and studio effects with imagination and versatility, Fleetwood Mac had tricked us over the years with what was ever better, live or studio recordings? In this set, they show also their ability to put on a shining performance. Born to play live, their feed from an audience where they do, feel the most comfortable.

The usual suspects are all here. There really is not need to remind ourselves how ‘The Chain’ goes or the fiddly bits of ‘Go Your Own Way,’ end, so there is no room for disappointment here. We are, however, treated to a clutch of pieces that may have passed us by. To be a truly focused FM fan, one has to be totally converted to a new type of religion, that is to say, a lifestyle where upon you are obliged to listen avidly to every album and single B side. It is the latter, where you will always find the best gems. Even on a live recorded show, ten years after the reality of ‘Tango In The Night,’ (in Christine McVie’s die hard Brummie accent,) they can still surprise, just when you thought you knew all there was to know. A running theme of percussion gives a new twist to ‘Everywhere,’ the dreamy anthem from ‘Tango..’ mixes beautifully with the darker, more disturbing ‘Rhiannon,’ that follows. Nicks proves with this track that although her vocals have certainly deepened over the years, it can only be a good thing. An atmosphere of bewitching tales surrounds this aging singer now, who, dare I say it, is growing into an ever more fascinating woman through her older years.

Buckingham has to flex his rhythms somewhere doesn’t he, and even he, an accomplished guitarist and songwriter in his own right, has leant heavily on the steadfast-ness of the world of Fleetwood Mac for his hunger penetrated recognition. The extraordinarily titled, ‘I’m So Afraid,’ may not be everyone’s cup of tea and certainly exposes us to the introverted side of the band, is the baby of the Buckingham limelight. It twists through the chords and spirals out of control towards the end as all great Buckingham tracks do. We’ll let him be and flick over to the next. One cat howling is enough for one evening, I think…

Yet the night is young and much merriment is in store for a frantically over paid audience of media this and that so why not throw them off balance by shoving in a jolly ditty entitled, ‘Temporary One?’ If Buckingham has a mental illness, it would be a split personality. We still are in awe of the fact that this musician of the highest calibre can set our brains a’ wondering if he is quite well one minute and transfix us the next with he cutesy harmonies and jumpy Tweenie lyrics. Can this man be okay with himself, or does he just mull over paranoia behind closed doors? Who knows, if being a member of FM can dampen his extraordinary soul every so often then he can play anything backwards if it makes him happy in the privacy of his own front room.

Strangely a track pops up here which we also find on the massive come back album, ‘Say You Will,’ which they didn’t record for another six years. The folksy themed ‘Bleed To Love Her,’ appears in this 1997 set, a track that they were working on for a while before this set was even recorded. Another trick of the FM clan here, they write a song, record it a few times, play around with it for a while then shove it onto an album six years later and make us all believe that it’s new. (!)

We have to mention that there is many a snap still left in a floppy piece of celery, and this acoustic take on the yet thunderous ‘Big Love’ is a piece that will force you to reconsider who is in your top ten of greatest guitarists. I shall not say too much here, only that if Lindsay Buckingham is not on your list after this track, then you need the nearest audiology clinic…

Of course a Fleetwood Mac concert would not be the same without Stevie input and she doesn’t fail to inspire us here either. Giving us the very best of her lowered vocal, she rocks us to sleep with an emotional and yet, magically musical rendition of ‘Landslide,’ with her friend, ex lover and guitarist, Lindsay Buckingham. Watching these two perform in a single spot light will take the oldest of the audience back to when these two were young, in love and impressionable. A gentle and very romantic moment. But fear not, our ears are in for a stage breaking treat as we move towards the end of this perfected album. We are thrown back an era with the loud, chants of ‘My Little Demon,’ and perhaps the best track on the album that certainly needed no real introduction, back to back with another Nicks delight, a gentle country themed love song, ‘Silver Springs.’

We are subjected to ‘Go Your Own Way,’ in full band filling style which leads neatly into an even mightier ‘Tusk,’ and then finally ‘Don’t Stop,’ the swansong of the band complete with marching band, streamers, balloons, fireworks and questions of ‘well, this is all very well and good but where the hell has the band gone…?’

This military, glossy ending captures a warmth in the heart and a melting of the soul when we suddenly realise that the world is not as threatening and as violent as every one thinks it is. It is still warm, heart felt and sincere, if we just look hard enough, and on the days that we fail in their search for humanity, we find an album by a band who we can trust and hug, not to mention, forgive for all those line up changes that just really didn’t work…

Just when we thought it was over, the album, ‘Say You Will,’ was released in 2003 and they, again enjoyed a handful of minor single releases from it. It didn’t feature Christine McVie. She had been reported to have been touched by the desire to retire from the band…

Solo projects for certain members will always pull the band in different directions for the rest of their days.

Tracks included on this album;

The Chain
Dreams
Everywhere
Rhiannon
I’m So Afraid
Temporary One
Bleed To Love Her
Big Love
Landslide
Say You Love Me
My Little Demon
Silver Springs
You Make Loving Fun
Sweet Girl
Go Your Own Way
Tusk
Don’t Stop.

www.fleetwoodmac.com

On ‘The Dance,’ FM were;

Lindsay Buckingham
Stevie Nicks
Mick Fleetwood Mac
John McVie
Christine McVie.

HMV - £7.99
The video of the show is available from HMV
Reprise records 1997
©m.duffy 2006

Cat

2007-07-01T18:23:00.000Z

Breathing. Like a soft stroke over brushed carpet,
She purrs contentedly. Then
Stretch, slowly, gracefully,
Pushing each claw firmly out to view,
Soft licks of her nose and she -
Blinks, slow and momentarily.

My cat - all knowing, thinks.
Walking, padding, silently
Across the rug.
She stops, sniffs and paws on an invisible spider,
Making it’s way towards the door.

The sun develops a ray of sparkling light,
Through an open window.
It steals from my cat her brilliance,
Each whisker poised and proud.
She soaks the sun and closes her eyes -
Masterful and happy,
My cat….

Don't Move A Muscle For Thought Activated Television Is On It's Way

2007-06-25T13:18:00.000Z

For the ultimate in laziness, why not have a colourful and heavy device strapped to your head so that from now on, you can change the channel on your TV just by thinking about it

It is the invention that couch potatoes have yearned for ever since the television was invented. The extremist of these beings will tell you sure enough that to lift a finger and push down on a button on the remote control is seriously hard work. It can damage your fingers, nails and just about any muscle in your body to have to work under such conditions...(?)

So, our friends in Japan have answered the potatoes calling and produced a device that will not just look similar to a crash helmet dipped in paint but will help make those precious fingers and nails just that little bit more safe.

Eastern scientists at the forward thinking Hitachi empire have already sorted out how to embrace the power of thought - illusionists have been doing it for years, so it wasn't very hard for the men in white coats to come up with the technical version. So far, by using this strange device which resembles something out of Dr Strangelove, a toy train can be moved, along with the helping hand of lots of different coloured wires and a near by electrical socket.

They say, it is only matter of time and some more money, that they will be able to transfer that power to change the channel on an ordinary TV.

It is known as optical topography and it can literally read minds - that is to say, it is a hypersensitive piece of equipment which can measure the blood flow to various ares of the brain which is triggered by a thought or an imagine in our minds.

As well as deciding how much blood flows to create a physical reaction of a thought in the mind, the device sends tiny infrared lights into the brain which travel along optical fibres to a computer which then records the actions taken by the brain - the thoughts.

All the computer is doing is decoding a signal from the brain. Each certain signal will determine which channel the person is thinking of, thus the computer will read that code as a certain channel and change it on command from the brain.

Yet, joking aside, this ingenious piece of technology will not only allow people never to get off the sofa again, but computer keyboards will work in the same way. We will be able to think text and have it appear on a screen in front of us.

The real clever bit is that severely physically handicapped people who do not have the ability to communicate by any other means will be able to 'talk' to the outside world. We will be able to know what they want, how they feel and what they think...

Now, that's clever....

The Computer Age Takes It's First Limbs And Soon We Will Have No Backbones

2007-06-21T21:16:00.000Z

It is a wonder what will happen to the human race over the next thousand years or so. Whilst aimlessly wandering around the Natural History Museum recently (and free, I hasten to add, but not for much longer if the Tories have their wicked way,) and as I strolled passed the giant shape of the largest animal of Earth, the ‘big,-can’t-think-of-another-word, whale,’ it suddenly occurred to me that us mere mortals who are standing upright, destroying the world, will have to evolve yet again and what for this time?

What reasonable notion will jump to the fore, leaving us no choice but to move with the times and change the way we sit and move our limbs? The computer. They may be a part of out past time right now. We socialise on them, we shop, move house, go on holiday and even meet up with old friends and find new lovers, but the human race will have to adapt to our new friendship we have with the QWERTY keyboard and the 15 inch screen. Our back bones will be the first on the list for Mother Nature to scratch off with her eco friendly finger nail, that’s if she has any.

We will be more curved I feel in the way we stand as from now on, we are only going to sit, hunched over a desk for most of our lives. After all, we certainly don’t have to get up and do anything these days. Wait for it, there will be the day when we can pee through a tube so we don’t have to got to the toilet, just in case we miss that vital snore at 2am on Big Brother Live on line. She will also take a good look at our knees, so not only will we be forever peering at the floor, as if looking for that contact lens, but we will permanently be sitting down..

She might even come up with a plan that will mean we will never have to get up again. So what is in store for all these plastic, unreal, Barbie doll types we see flexing their abs on every shopping channel on Sky? Will they finally give in to the yearning of the Pc or will they burn themselves out of existence simply through shortening the 10 second abs down to ‘abs-done-before-you-are’ theme? Who knows, yet I think we can safely see them attempting to take a feel-the-burn class for your fingers. We are heading for that downward spiral into technology Hell if we are not too careful. Cascading through a surge of deeper, darkening Ad words before coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the online ocean, stuck forever in the sludgy sands of Google.

It can’t be all as bleak as that, so what can we do to stop our feet healing up and our knees to become permanently locked in a right angle? We can still believe that there is more to our web like existence than a Pentium processor. We can press that circular switch on the tower, and swing round to take a look out of the window. The sky may not be it’s bluest today, but it’s till worth checking out to see if your knees and feet are still working ok….

©m.duffy 2007

The Unsurpassable Mr Barratt...

2007-06-18T18:42:00.000Z

Starting as a series of short monologues of only eight minutes long first shown on BBC2 in 2000, ‘Marion And Geoff,‘ was a show, through no fault of it’s own, which became mild cult viewing. Hushed and unadvertised, the series was meant to be a time filler in the avant-garde BBC2 evening schedule. Eleven of these short scripted pieces were produced giving us a personal, but brief insight into the life of the unknown cabbie, Keith Barratt.

He first comes to our screens in the throws of a divorce and it is in this, that he represents a state of mind that just simply isn’t normal. What he is actually experiencing is what many of us would give up breathing over - a messy divorce with a wife who mentally abuses him along with her new lover who is possibly the father of one of Barratt’s two children. Sons he adores, yet he is not allowed to visit. Just some of these aspects would have the rest of us seething, bitter and at least, mildly aggressive yet, Barratt is calm, uplifted, optimistic and full of understanding. All attributes, we couldn’t possibly be in this sort of circumstance - this is the key of this torturous comedy. He fills our despair for him with lines such as ‘…if it wasn’t for Marion, I wouldn’t have met Geoff,’ whom he sees as a ‘smashing guy.’ (I hear your screams!) There was something critically exceptional about a certain type of person who can, in an extraordinary way, be contented, unnaturally like the captain of a sinking ship, as it slips into the deathly, icy waters. Undoubtedly, the word, ‘Fine’ has got to be the most misused word in our language. Add another two ‘fine’s’ on top of it and you have the makings of a person contemplating suicide, murder or both. Yet Barratt takes this flippant word and decorates it with flowers and a red carpet leading up to it and even worse - means it.

The camera sits in the same position, (on the dashboard on the passenger side,) and he talks freely at most, yet what holds our gaze is the flickers of realism that sometimes appear in his expressions. Deep inside, he is crying out from behind his iron exterior and throughout his journey of acceptance and understanding, we can see him come across failed attempt after another to see his children. His wife, would, quite frankly have him disappear for ever since successfully turning his children against him. Unknown to Keith, they don’t really want to see him anyway.

So if it isn’t enough that the programme is named after his estranged wife and her boyfriend, our key character bases his entire existence around the two people who have systematically destroyed his life, yet he praises them. We wonder if it was this peculiar, unnatural outlook on the world and it’s failings that lead to the infidelity of his wife in the first place. Not unlike the extreme’s in which Gordon’s Brittas’s wife is driven to by her irritating husband in the BBC’s ‘The Brittas Empire,’ another situation comedy of the early Nineties which featured around the same annoyingly bright character.

Rob Rydon and co writer Hugo Blick gave us perfectly timed pieces that quickly became addictive for the viewer. We found ourselves tuning in every Tuesday night at ten to ten to find out how Keith was, along the bittersweet path to seeing his ‘little smashers.’ (The affectionate and misconstrued term he used to describe his children.) Each time we visited him, like invited, amateur psychiatrists, Keith was sitting behind the wheel of his trusty cab, waiting for his customer of that day. He talked as one would to a friend - a friend who knows the people he is talking about. We quickly drew up visual conclusions as to what these awful people were like. (The other of the show’s producers, the diverse, Steve Coogan appeared briefly in one episode in the second series as Geoff.) We, the cringing viewers, found we wanted to throttle Marion and her bit on the side, but all Keith wanted to do, is embrace them.

The second series saw Barratt in a higher position. Swapping his cabbie licence for a cap and suit, he began working for a wealthy American family and their brattish kid who finds joy in putting down at any given moment, this tormented driver. This time, the show gave us 20 minutes more per episode of excruciating viewing two years after the first pain ridden series in 2003. Before this second shot at the soul took to our telly’s, Rydon reverted to the West End stage to torture the world in 2002 for s short run of monologues. (the second most watched show through the hands of an audience since Derren Brown’s 2006 tour.)

Eventually, the BBC decided that enough was enough, and since Rydon had wanted to close the story before it got too suicidal, the hapless character was given a spoof chat show in 2004. Despite the old cliché of most loved fictional character taken to greater strangulated heights of the showbiz emporium, it actually worked. Only because it wasn’t allowed to run too long. Barratt, the chat show host got to ask minor celebrity couples about marriage, relationships and sex. Only aired in that one year, it ran long enough not for the genuine novelty of the character to wear off into ghastly cheese ridden commercialism.

In Conclusion…

We have never experienced such tortures in a comedy situation before as we do in ‘Marion And Geoff.’ We witness his personal thoughts, his fears, (very few) his feelings for a better future where they can all be happy together (yes, all of them,) but we know this will never be. It is, about as black as comedy gets. We applaud him for his courage against a world that the rest of us would emigrate from, and the
struggle we have with this extraordinary concept of this unique character is the unquestionable force of which we are drawn in by. We are friends with Keith. We know him and agree with him (and hate ourselves in the morning.) We admire his emotionless views and cry out when his situation is laid bare in all it’s unfulfilled despair. He is harmless and it is this, if anything, that we warm to.

Much is still to be learnt from Keith Barratt - as unbelievable as it may seem.

Keith Barratt - Rob Rydon

Written by Rydon and Hugo Blick
Direction - Blick/Steve Coogan/Henry Normal.

Series one - September to November 2000 BBC2 DVD £13.97 on Amazon.com and £15 from the BBC shop.
Series two - January to March 2000 BBC2. £19. BBC Shop.

By the compilation of I and II on DVD from the BBC shop for £26.99.

©m.duffy 2007
Ciao and dooyoo
2007

Well, Dye My Hair Orange And Call Me Ziggy!

2007-06-13T19:26:00.001Z

Throughout music history, I doubt there will ever be another artist to will produce the same amount of albums as David ‘dye my hair orange and call me Ziggy’ Bowie.

The controversial and predominately dance album, ‘Let’s Dance,’ was his staggering 23rd album by the time it was released in April 1983. Since the days of strong make up and new romantic themes twenty years before Boy George, Bowie had never ceased to stun, shock and amaze audiences across the world. Taking on various visual characters over the years, the famous of these being Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke, it would have seemed that these guises were now far behind him and that what we saw, standing in front of us in the early eighties was the real man himself.

Notably, the best era of his life, (depending on how old you are) the eighties seemed to open up yet another twist in the extraordinary career of this now sneering, hardened young man from his equally sneering native Brixton. He had already embraced the eras of glam rock and new romantics, both of which, he had literally invented, so the vast stage of dance music was just another challenge to try, and very successfully he did.

Incorporating some of his most powerful compositions, ‘Lets’ Dance,’ was to be the most poignant of his releases during the eighties decade, but it was towards the eighties, that his song writing talents took an awkward nosedive, but only temporarily. However, one could argue that ‘Let’s Dance’ was actually the height of his career and that it was going to be an album that he never quite reached the dizziness of again…

With no actual track listing on either the album cover or the inner sleeve (apart from a tiny list in the corner which only becomes visible at a later date), the album has already thrown you into immediate confusion and at the mercy of it’s artist. (We take this review, primarily from the vinyl release) so, whilst feeling increasingly giddy from reading the disc, whilst it spins effortlessly around on the turntable, we discover the list as follows;

1. Modern Love
2. China Girl
3. Let’s Dance
4. Without You
5. Ricochet
6. Criminal World
7. Cat People (putting out fire)
8. Shake it.

Perhaps the initial strike of worry here is that it only features eight tracks rather a cheat for the purchaser by today’s standards, but this was how vinyl was in ‘the good old days.’ Nevertheless, the content of the album is a pure dedicated moment to the decade that we celebrate so much (we were spoilt with the four hour programme on ‘things that embarrassed you about the eighties’ which appeared on TV last week.) The first track; funky, jumpy and hand clapping-ly exhausting, it is fitting for the awful picture of Bowie on the front cover complete with long shorts and boxing gloves. If this track won’t have you jumping around with leg warmers and a ra ra skirt by the end of the first chorus, I defy that you ever remembered the eighties in the first place. This particular track marked a point in time when music was undecidedly dull and lifeless. We were, at the time, surrounded with synths and electronic outfits, and the sound of the real band with real musicians had faded away, or at least, just on a long holiday, so with the arrival of the refreshing sound of Bowie’s thunderous drum beats and swirling guitars in this album, it was a light relief to hear ‘happy’ dance music again. This particular track was uplifting, and dare I say it, jolly. Released in March 1983, a month in front to the album release, it flew to number one, his fourth in his career so far.

On the other side of the proverbial coin, we had the nest track being, the extreme, sultry subject of ‘Chine Girl,’ a collaboration, originally with Iggy Pop way back in 1977. Surprising actually, when it’s freshness seems almost fitting, musically today, as it was then. It’s back drop, dripping with sex also heralded the very banned video, which naturally, boosted the sales of this as a single even more. Released in quick succession in June 1983, in sat, impressively at number two. With it’s slight slant on an oriental backing loosely tapped out on synths, it was appealing due to Bowie’s super sexed, deep vocals and those infamously darkly spoken words, ‘oh, baby, just you shut your mouth..’ Funny, how the only thing that springs to my mind on hearing his track, is the incredible length of the young lady’s nails! A strange track, that is instancing even if it does feature a guitar solo that sounds incredibly like Chris Rea’s ‘the Road To Hell.’ Nevertheless, it is a track that steals the show on this album.

The slightly more upbeat, Let’s Dance,’ may have you believing that it could be a take on some Black Lace B side with a title like that, but, I found, in my youth that it did nothing to want me to get up and dance. Perhaps I still had, in the back of my mind, the shamefully bad acting of Patsy Kensit on ‘Absolute Beginners,’ where the track, ‘Modern Love,’ came from. However, this track oozes yet more sex appeal which I must admit, never did anything for me since my mother, at the time, with her short hair and striking cheek bones, was stopped in London as asked for her autograph , when she declined, the person promptly told her that ‘Let’s Dance wasn’t that good anyway…’ Enough of that, this track is frighteningly strong in it’s simply drum a compliment and ordering lyrics. ‘Put on your red shoes and dance the blues,’ he shouts, okay Dave, what ever you say. With that gravely voice and a face to match like he has just eaten something similar, you are hardly going to argue…

It would appear that ‘Without You,’ is somewhat disappointing after we are treated to the very best of what is on offer so far. Perhaps labelling the same as a Harry Nilsson record was the first mistake and using the same disjointed beat of ‘Ashes To Ashes’ as it’s opening bar was the second. However, this track is unassuming and inoffensive in that it shows no apparent equality to the previous tracks and dose not wish to stand in the same vein anyway. It is merely a track thrown on in the middle to allow you to go and put the kettle on. Whilst Bowie reminds us that even in his’ old age’ here, he can still hit those very high notes without the request of any sharp implement to the going area.

So, surely we shouldn’t be even more disappointed when we hear ‘Ricochet,’ but we are. Pushing towards the military aspect of Bowie’s, sometimes, compositions, it is disjointed and angular in it’s sound. It is held together loosely by the seems and hangs in the air life a damp shirt on a breezy day. The introduction to a brass section that appear to be playing along to a totally different track does not do the track any more justice that it urgently needs. Please avoid, this track will not have to in the same frame of mind when discovering a dynamic invention…Thankfully this track didn’t even appear as a B side to anything…

‘Criminal World‘, on the other hand, offers a similar theme to ‘Let’s Dance,’ at the break. Since this perhaps is the only good reason for listening to this track, I should leave it there, but I must admit, this track, will irritatingly grow on you after a few plays. It is not actually too bad, and perhaps judging on the excellent of the first three tracks, the rest of the album should have been built up on just these three themes, not unlike The Housemartins’ début album, ‘London 0 Hull4,’ where they took the popularity of ‘Happy Hour,’ and built the entire album around just that one track. It was an immediate success, and I think that’s what Bowie should have done here. These last track show no apparent reason for appearing on this album in the first place. Again, ‘Cat People,’ gathers a little more in the intelligence department, although this is short lived perhaps only on this particular track. It is a short enlightenment to the initially three tracks. Using the same hollowed guitar break as ‘Modern Love,’ this track is perhaps the nearest we get to that perfect fou8nd at the beginning of the album. Pleasantly recognisable as a Bowie classy hit, this track will get your feet tapping again after a long break so far…
Released as a single in April 1982 (strangely a while before the album0 it only got as far as number 26.

The final track on this mixed album is ‘Shake it.’ No, not an early Fleetwood Mac hit or even a remote track by The Swinging Blue Jeans,’ it is, unfortunately rather like listening to ‘Let’s Dance,’ in a minor key. I got the idea, on hearing this track, that Bowie had come to the end of his budget for the album ant they had to come up with something quick and cheaply to finish off the album. The stretched backing which has of course, been pinched from the title track, does not give out any impression of a classy Bowie hit. We can remember the painfully cringing project entitled, ‘Tin Machine,’ which the great man brought to us from 1989 to 1992, and we have, what I consider to be a taster of that right here. Some fairly mediocre backing singers were brought in here to jazz up the dullness of this track, yet they fail to do that successfully. This track appeared as the B side to China Girl.

This album can only be summarised as this; it hangs completely off the success of it’s first three tracks. It would appear that Bowie if far better working alone on a composition rather than allowing a small team of writers to write for him. This comes to the fore in his interpretation of a song. If it is a track that he has given birth to alone, he performs it with better voice, character, and a strong element of perfection and quality. When it is the ‘brain child’ of someone else, it is comes through in his performance. We get to hear both solo work and team writing in this album, and when listened to on a couple of a occasions, it becomes more and more apparent that this is the case, particularly with this album.

‘Shake it, Modern Love, Let’s Dance, Without You and Ricochet,’ - all written by David Bowie.
‘China Girl’ - written by Bowie and Iggy Pop
‘Cat People’ - written by Giorgio and Bowie
‘Criminal World’ - written by Peter Godwin, Duncan Browne and Sean Lyons.
EMI 1983
Produced by Bowie/Nile Rodgers

©m.duffy 2006.

The Glittering Era Of Big Hats And Lots Of Penguins...

2007-06-08T18:21:00.000Z

Folk rock legends, Fleetwood Mac changed the face of this genre when they applied themselves with the diversities of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in 1975. This young, talented, but fairly broke couple joined the group after the bands long, established career with Christine Perfect (McVie) as the only female vocal. Domineering the folk rock world with their bluesy sound mixed in with the sultry, low tones of Perfect up until this time. The Nicks/Buckingham outfit launched the group on a unsuspecting, wider audience allowing the alternative talents of the song writing duo to unfold.

In this album we find the very greatest song writing accomplishments from this English/American band up until the time of its release in 1988. Only a year after the incredible success of their 87 album, Tango In The night, it was a wise decision to launch this greatest hits album with immense gusto on the public. Including hits from their ’white album’ in 1975 which was the debut album for Nicks and Buckingham up to Tango In The Night, it was a quick scan across the years of the full five member outfit. It was also the same year in which the master behind their success, Lindsay Buckingham decided to leave to peruse a long awaited solo career which was only accepted with optimism by a limited audience. We saw the entry of Billy Burnett, son of the legendary fifties swooner, Johnny Burnett, and guitarist Rick Vito. These two well accomplished guitarists appear on the inside cover photograph with the remaining members of the Fleetwood Mac. It was a brief union with the two young men and after a tour, Fleetwood Mac went through a transition where they came to realise the great gap in their creativity was the unusual, and departed, Lindsay Buckingham.

Presented in no chronological order, these tracks skim over the very tracks that paid their bills. The highest ranking singles of that period are all here, although many Fleetwood Mac followers, myself included, would argue that their very best and most imaginative work is very much absent.

Perhaps, and I say this with in trepidation, the first track we hear on this fairly standard album is the very over rated ‘Rhiannon.’ Marked in history as the single with the most haunting sound of Nicks’ croaky and witch like voice, it failed in my mind to have any lasting effect. I would have preferred to have seen the appearance of ‘Gold Dust Woman’, from the ‘Rumours’ album. Firmly seating itself along the bench of mysterious, tribal drum based singles, it is still a favourite amongst Fleetwood Mac fans. Released originally in March 1978, it was not surprising that it failed to make any indentation at the time. Failing to even make the top forty, it now only has come into its own in recent years as being probably one of finest of Fleetwood Mac tracks. With it’s unmistakeable guitar riff at the opening, it reveals a tune that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anything else. For anyone lucky enough to have witnessed them live, it was a chance where Nicks would perform the most gliding of dances across the stage covered in floating scarves. A trade mark which caught in quickly with the help of this record.

Undoubtedly, the most optimistic, feel good record by any artist in the twentieth century was ’Don’t Stop.’ Lyrically born out of emotional break ups and fraught tensions among the members at the time, it appeals to anyone wanting to cheer up and look forward to better things. Fast, catchy and most sing able, this track it a welcomed relief after the minor keys of the previous song. Led, vocally by Buckingham, he wasn’t the world’s greatest singer, however, he could put his entire being into a song and chant it with vast amongst of energy and strength. It is just merely his vocals on this track that are endearing, fascinating and so full of happiness and hope that keep this jumpy, finger clicking track timeless and ageless. Even in the event of it failing to crack the top thirty in April 1977, it was uplifting enough to stay on our minds for decades to come.

The equally forward thinking, ‘Go You Own Way,’ follows in hot pursuit on this album, continuing in a happy theme. It is just as vibrant and glowing in its musical anthem. Very much, lyrically in the ‘it’s over’ subject, it still holds us in that bright light of joyful wisdom. Stronger in lead, Buckingham sings a more powerful melody and the great agile chants are only left to the chorus. Including a spiralling guitar riff at the break, it is as definite and conclusive as its subject. Strangely, we remember that back in February 1977, we didn’t think much of it. Scraping into the top forty as if no one was looking, it failed to amuse us enough to buy it. We find this hard to believe as this track, again, marks the dignity of the band as well as proving themselves to be craftsmen and professionals at their work.

Winding down, we now take a glimpse at the strong vocal led album, ‘Mirage’ released in July 1982. The face of Transatlantic music was changing rapidly and this album showed us the path that Fleetwood Mac chose to follow. This track is a predominant piece of vocal led harmonies that was the very basis of the ‘Mirage’ album. The thunderous instrumental qualities had been dropped, albeit briefly. In this track we find another side to the band. Not only were they all accomplished musicians, individually, but they could also come together with immense tight knitted voices and use themselves as the back bone of a song. ‘Hold Me,’ was, in verse, a strong yet soft union of the voices of Buckingham and Christine (Perfect) McVie. Woven together like voices of Siamese twins, this track is light, airy and laces electronic keyboards with acoustic guitar. Released in July 1982, it surprisingly failed to enter the chart successfully despite it’s unique production and perfectly formed vocal performance.

Another of their ‘hits’ (and I really can’t stand that word) is ‘Everywhere,’ taken from their 1978 Tango In The Night album. Led by Christine McVie, her voice was just soft and graceful enough to carry this whispery tune. Atmospheric and mysterious, this track epitomised the essence of the Tango album. A slight right hand turn for the band musically, it transported the band firmly into the grasp of the young set. Released in April 1988, it towered over all at number four. The highest position for the band since the arrival of Nicks and Buckingham. Dressed in swirling keyboards and a messy backing of the band’s vocals, it is unlike anything ever heard before its release.

Nick’s, ‘Gypsy,’ seems bland in comparison to the rest of this album so far, but as it sinks into our ears, we realise that it was just as much a atmospheric and polished piece as the others. Nick’s crackled, country sounding vocal was as mysterious and as ‘Celtic’ as the subject matter. She brought to the band her ballet styled glides of dance to the stage and her fascination with witchcraft, fairies, ghosts and anything magical entwined her song writing capabilities. The musical backdrop was always just as fitting, as with this record. Released in September 1982, it sat at a miserable number 46. It was a pity but the public weren’t quite sure how to accept this occult style of song and sound.

Probably the best track on this album is the inclusion of a very little known song. ‘As Long As You Follow,’ is led again by Christine who is in haunting heaven. This track bathes you in dreams and relaxes you with its soothing slide guitar giving it a touch of country and at the same time, it will dip you in melted chocolate. Allow this track to lap you with the waters of gentleness. The backing arrangements of the rest of the band’s voices will make you think that they quickly invented surround sound and multiplied vastly over night. Soft and sincere in its subject, it is a moving piece yet inoffensive. It is Fleetwood Mac proving to us that at the time of this albums release, they could till pull a brand new rabbit out of the hat with ease. Released in November 1988 with an exceptional live cut of the rock anthem, ‘Oh Well,’ as it’s B side, it climbed rather pathetically to number 66. Not fitting for the Yazz filled charts at the time of the late eighties, it fell on deaf ears. It is within this set on this album, that it truly belongs and nestl4es in cosily very well.

The slightly up tempo-ed ‘Say You Love Me,’ is a quick jaunt back to Christine’s days with Chicken Shack as the feel of this song is very much the same, (pre Fleetwood Mac for this singer/song writer) this track has been taken from the ‘white album,’ of 1975. Stripped of all puff and fluff from the other tracks, this is certainly dated in its production yet it still stands the test of time as a song in itself. Piano based, Christine is at the keyboards and leads both the lead and the backing vocal. Slightly folksy, it is a camp fire song, with lots of swaying and joining in. Simple in its subject, it is far from the same in its quality. Chirpy and reluctant to give us any more than it has to, it is a pretty, for want of a better term…Released in November 1976, it only managed number 40. All of these flat positions will come to the listener as a massive surprise. It will also make you wonder how on Earth this band ever became as big, internationally as they did…

The boring, whining ‘Dreams,’ appears next, and one can’t help but remember back to recent days when The Corrs literally took this song, ripped it into shreds and threw it around the studio a few times. Then allowing the bruises to show, they promptly released it as a single of their own. It is still only the very fact that Nick’s vocals of here, a very young, squeaky quality, that we still remark on this track as being ground breaking. Personally, it never did anything for me…In July 1977, it reached number 9, so we must have liked it at the time. All I know is that I was too young to buy records at the age of five….

Dancing our tango, we are thrown forward a decade as we are launched into ‘Little Lies.’ Given the first class vocal treatment by Christine McVie, it is laced with the haunting backing vocal of Stevie Nicks. Full in it’s base drum beat and neatly decorated with tiny bells and dancing keyboards, juts the percussion element in this track was worth an Oscar. It is enchanting and provocative (but not as much as ‘My Sharona by The Knack..’) and it will cast a spell over you in the shape of a tall, lanky Mick Fleetwood shaking fierce looking Maracas and chanting..’you will enjoy this record…!’ Released in September 1987, it reached number 5.

Perhaps the most captivating song of the album is the ever distant ‘Sara,’ (pronounced, Sarah) This track it a strong tribal drummed theme that grows ever more cloudy and mysterious as the song continues. Stevie’s young, gypsy voice is swathed in soft, whispered backing vocals led by Buckingham who was a man who could do feminine whispers one minute and bear like growls the next. Stevie’s voice trails off to much that you actually feel that she’s walked away from the microphone and ground out of the building. She is practically standing outside in the street by the end of the song…. I jest, but it is hard to capture this track in a simple piece of prose. It is to be listened to for its amazingly crammed in content. Fleetwood Mac very rarely leave any room left for more percussion improvement and this track is no exception. Released in December 1979, it went straight over our heads and landed itself at number 37. Perhaps it had been a little too deep and meaningful for us to really appreciate it.

Perhaps ‘Tusk’ could break the hardened prog rock audience of the mid seventies with a bit more gusto. It certainly worked as we all rushed out to get this tribal motioned piece with its experimental brass section and whirling chants of muttering voices. It all sounds awfully like some extreme Yes piece, but somehow ‘Tusk,’ cut the mark with us. The title came from, apparently, the word that Mick Fleetwood calls his manhood, for want of a better expression! First appearing on the double album of the same name in 1979, it shot straight to number one. Led, creatively by Buckingham, it gave us an insight to the future solo workings of the artist. He had, however, found his experimental behaviour slight clipped in the band, thus prompting his departure in 1988. This track uses the same set up as some of The Beatles working for Sgt Pepper. Creating a back drop of crowds of voices, it chants it’s title at repeated moments. Released as a single in October 1979, it only reached number 6. Still, a piece of creative Mac and still treasured amongst fans.

Ending the set, Stevie gives us a performance that would have also suited one of her successful solo albums. Laced with the atmosphere of the members of Fleetwood Mac, it is still a strong Nicks piece. Most average music fans will find this track too middle of the road and too dull, yet Nicks fans (like myself) will be pleased with its appearance. It engages in the usual mass of swirling noise that became the back drop of the very flat and equally received 1990 album, Behind The Mask.’ This terrible album was about the worst composition that the band had come up with so far. The event of Buckingham leaving was strong enough t o allow the creativeness of the band to come crashing down to the ground. Any decent Fleetwood Mac fan will notice the disappearance of Buckingham in this track. It lacks the punch and the unique originality that Buckingham brought to the band. However, it is fundamentally a Nick’s track. Listeners may feel free to use this particular track as a taste of her solo work if already not experienced.

As with all ’greatest hits’ albums, one gets the impression that you’re actually listening to the band but only listening to the bits they want you to hear. It’s a ’Hey, this was all our good stuff, so forget the bollocks we gave you in between, this is everything we want to be remembered for, and we are strapped for a little cash, so please feel free to buy this, even though our fans will have all of these tracks already…’ It is this piece that I have chanting in the back of my mind when ever I see someone drudging out another hits album. Fleetwood Mac, I guess, for this time, could be forgiven as it was their best release until almost ten years later with ’The Dance.’ It also marked, and celebrated the arrival home of Buckingham and ’Say You Will,’ followed in 2003, just after a …wait for it…another hits album….arrrrgggghhhh!!!!!

In conclusion, it is a record of all their best single releases, but as you can see, those releases didn’t amount to much at the time. Personally, their best work in the 1975 to 1988 period is very much missing. If you could possibly dig deeper into your pockets, then the albums worth purchasing here are the very ones where these songs came from…or for those of you who are lazy and just want a brief history, then you may, buy this one. It will guide you, although, quickly, through the life of Fleetwood Mac….

But there was a hell of a lot more to them that this…….

….But that’s another album…..

Stevie Nicks - percussion/vocals
Mick Fleetwood Mac - drums and general mucking about
Lindsay Buckingham - guitars/vocals and anything he could get his hands on
Christine McVie - writer/performer/pianist and generally nice all round person
John McVie - ex husband of Christine and a fairly good guitarist….

All songs written by Fleetwood Mac
1988 Warner Bros Records

Songs taken from;

‘Fleetwood Mac’ 1975
‘Rumours’ 1977
‘Tusk’ 1979
‘Tango In The Night’ 1988.
Bought on vinyl at a record fair for three pounds, also on CD for six pounds 2001

©m.duffy 2006

After The Boys Of Summer...

2007-06-05T17:42:00.000Z

Don Henley is, of course, better known to many of us as the front man and the voice behind The Eagles. After a ‘Long Run’ of Country rock hits throughout the seventies, the need to spread their individual wings by 1980 had become to great for most of the band. Henley was the most successful of the bunch although a fleeting brush with the law came his way before he could actually get any solo efforts of the ground. A young girl was found drugged in his home in California. He was fined, rather heavily and took some rehab to please the judge. Noticeably, it was a stumbling block in the shape of a thirteen foot brick wall and any solo releases were put on hold until the following year.

Henley was one of five of the members of The Eagles who went on to make solo records. His collaboration with Stevie Nicks with her single, ‘Leather And Lace,’ proved to be somewhat of a trampoline for him. Already well known, he had enough experience behind him to create one of the most successful solo careers from such a big, world wide rock band.

‘Building The Perfect Beast,’ was only his second album release. Reaching an average number 13 in the album charts in February 1985, it appeared that because it had included the biggest hit, ever for him, ‘The Boys Of Summer,’ that it was likely that Henley could have followed this album with something even better. The truth was, that this was about as good as it was going to get for the solo artist and that a reunion with the rest of The Eagles, eventually, was bound.

As it was ‘The Boys Of Summer’ with it’s credited drum machine intro and atmospheric synthesizer on top of traditional modern pop rock managed the same scoring in the singles charts (number 12 in December 1984) as another ex Eagle, Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat Is On,’ only a month after in January 1985. Frey had produced, in his single, all the optimism and forward thinking that Henley’s hit had very much lacked. There was something rather sombre within ‘The Boys Of Summer.’ It’s desperate theme of man chasing after woman who has had her eyes looking afar all Summer long, is wearing and very much haunting to the listener. The video that accompanied the track was also a little disturbing. It showed a video film clip of a young couple dancing around on a sandy beach while someone watches on a big screen. With it’s effect rather like swooping vultures and knee shaking heights from the tops of mountains, it stays in the mind with an unhealthily image. Obsessive and morose, this track is excellent in its true form and has become one of those classic themed anthems for every year between now and September. The verses tell of the singer watching ‘you,’ and noticing the things you are doing and the clothes you are wearing. In any other situation, it is something that one could be arrested for, yet in a Don Henley track, it is about full on, hurting love and all very one sided. You want to shout at the record player and yell, ‘Don’t bother! She’s not worth it!’

Perfectly edited that this mean song would be the first track of the album. The cover can be seen as a little unsettling as well. A sepia effect photograph shows our man, with arms folded staring straight at the listen with firm, deep seated eyes. Looking older, and not so countrified since his days as a long haired cowboy in The Eagles. He had brought to his solo career and grittiness in his voice and a dirtiness in his songs. This album is harder and more defiant than anything I ever heard by The Eagles. It will entrance you and probably turn you away from The Eagles Greatest Hits. Anything before will just not sound the same. Usually, when a front man leaves a band, he takes the fundamental elements of that band with him. With Don Henley, we hear nothing of The Eagles within his own music. Like The band had just been a dream, we have a man standing before us, presenting us with something that you wonder may have been suppressed for that decade of Country dirge.

Since we have settled back comfortably from the first daring track and perhaps turned the front cover of the record away, we can try now to digest the true meaning behind the words, Don Henley. This next track speaks in a different tone altogether. What we do hear is a little on the shoowop shoowop side. Leaving behind the genre that put The Eagles into the same category as Bob Dylan and Poco. Henley now gives us a touch gentler and more romantic than the desperation of ‘The Boys Of Summer.’ A nice low guitar riff sets that optimistic feel that we so urgently needed. Tuneful and dated in today’s standards, we now get the impression quite firmly on our minds of how old this album actually is. He is now giving us an insight into his own experiences of how to go about romancing a young lady. The usual do’s and don’ts of life. The backing track of ’You Can’t Make Love’s’ ooo’s lightens us and we sway to this delightful rock love song.

Take your partner’s please for this next 80’s fusion of fast rock and roll. ‘Working on the Highway’ by The Boss springs to mind here. Henley strains his voice to octaves that Aled Jones would have proud of. This catchy, furiously swinging track is foot tappingly fun. Jive or Line dance you way around the room, just please remove anything breakable from the room first, like the dining table… ‘Man With A Mission,’ transports us back to that desperate to find love theme again, but in this high in the sky feel, we have to let him off…

Bringing us back down from the ceiling with an almighty bump, we now drag ourselves through the statutory ballad that artist just can’t do without on a standard rock album. ‘You’re Not Drinking Enough,’ will undoubtedly, lead you to drinking heavily just to get through the track. We had ‘Desperado,’ Thanks Don, we don’t need any reminding…. Perhaps he should have given this track to Bon Jovi if you really wanted to do some damage. Even I think Aerosmith stuck their noses in the air at this one. That strangled, Steven Tyler vocal doesn’t suit our Henley boy here. The Stones could have retired on this track, although, I feel ‘Wild Horses,’ was probably the best ballad to drink to for just the enjoyment. This track will just leave you with a hangover before hitting the bottle.

The title of this next track is something we would all agree with. ‘Not Enough Love In The World,’ is the sort of statement one would come out with after drinking too much to frown the sorrows of the previous track. The mood is taken up a notch and we can dry our eyes now for a brief moment. A middle of the road feel to this rock track, that really isn’t the way we would normally perceive as rock. Released as a single in July 1985, the Americans were less than impressed with this flat track. Any Don Henley fan would appreciated it. Other mortals will be bored with it almost immediately.

‘Building The Perfect Beast,’ was obviously a title that Henley was rather impressed with. As the title track of the album and at the same time, it managed to appear no less than twice as a B side to other tracks, he must have felt that it just wasn’t making the grade enough to be a single all by itself. It’s Lord Of The Rings feel to its intro escapes quickly into a hard rock riff. We are suitably impressed until someone decided to plug in that synthesizer and we are left with something that reminds us heavily of Thomas Dolby. The backing vocals, deep and whispered, we get the impression of a factory trying to build a large metal object with lost of heavy stuff and steam. Not a memorable track, even as a B side. Henley’s vocal takes on that successful Glenn Frey theme that worked for him, but not for Henley. The break fills us with dread with those sectioned trumpets and silly vocal sounds. We wonder if Henley had actually thought about this track before recording it. It is distorted and makes hardly any sense. Best to skip this one I think and put on ‘The Reflex’ by Duran Duran instead. The only artist/band ever to make something worth listening to on the same theme was Pink Floyd, which, still didn’t make any sense, but I believe that was the point.

On the same vein, we are now subjected to ‘All She Wants To Do Is Dance,’ but in all honesty, I wonder what sort of dance the ‘she’ is supposed to be doing to this track. Slowish, and heavy going like trying to run through sand, the young lady in question is going to find the funky chicken abit of a handful, which doesn’t leave her with much of an option. Released in the same month as the album, it was probably a poor mistake on Henley’s part. It held no sparkle to be a hit. It failed to do anything in the U.S. Apart from ‘The Boys Of Summer,’ which also managed number 12 over here. None of the other releases from this album failed to make a dent in our charts in the U.K.

‘Sunset Grill,’ sounds rather like an order in a Little Chef. Perhaps it should have been as this track is poor at the first, yet the bridge of the verses doesn’t sound too bad. Henley has been at the depression pills again, well, he has already said it himself, ‘You’re Not Drinking Enough…’ At a staggering six minutes and 22 seconds long, it becomes painful and we are not just talking about those notes that are just too high for the aging vocals of Mr Henley.

‘Driving With Your Eye’s Closed,’ is not something I suggest you ever try, although turning your lights off at night driving through the lonesome lanes of Surrey is somewhat scary. Speaking of scary, this track will not fill you with any promise either. I do believe that there is little to the album that is actually worth the effort. If you adored ‘The Boys Of Summer,’ as a single and never got around to actually buying the single and have always hated yourself for it, then I suggest that this album is a good buy. However, if you just liked the track as an average thing but were curious as to what an album by Henley would be like, then I suggest you try listening to something else. I would recommend, if I may, ‘Inside Job,’ that was released in June 2000, or perhaps, best stick with any old Eagles albums…

‘Land Of The Living,’ is what we will be desperate for when listening to the final track of this album. At least our lovely young girls as backing singers give us a little light relief. However, Henley tries his hand at a touch of reggae which doesn’t fill our ears with too much dread. It’s listenable but not on a UB40 level. The instrumental track is soft and this gives the idea of an acapella theme at the break. Probably the most down to Earth track of the album. Short in length, it would have been better if the whole album had been perhaps on this theme throughout.

In conclusion, I must add that I was a little disappointed with this album as a whole. Henley should be, on our minds, some rock God in his own right, however, with a small collection of Eagles records within arms reach, I feel that I should have stuck these on instead. Henley, may have had a successful career and be better known for his work than the other four who left for solo careers from the band, he hasn’t lived up to his famous name with this album. I guess there is a moral to this album. When having such an explosive hit as ‘The Boys Of Summer,’ then if would have been wise to stick with that old title of One Hit Wonder.

Then, at least you would get a mention throughout the rest of time on Channel Four documentaries…

We breathed a sigh of relief when The Eagles reformed in 1994, quickly releasing the very impressive ‘Hell Freezes Over.’

They , after reuniting, promptly released everything they had ever recorded from the early days.

Building The Perfect Beast 1984
Words and Music by Don Henley, Stan Lynch, Danny Kortchmar, J.D Souther, Mike Campbell and Ben Tench.
Produced by Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar and Greg Ladanyi
Greffen Records
Mike Campbell - guitars/synth/perc.
Steve Porcaro - synth.
Danny Kortchmar - synth/guitar
Larry Klein - bass
Don Henley - drums
Guests appearances from Lindsay Buckingham and Patty Smyth.
Bought originally for seven pounds, Woolworths, 1985
Now available in CD shops for around the five/ten pound mark.

Also on dooyoo 2006
©m.duffy (sam1942) 2006