The best gigs are the squeezed-in gigs that you only find out about on the day they happen.
Frankie And The Heartstrings playing twenty minutes away? Yes please!
Never mind that this is Bath city centre we’re talking about, where everybody is so rich they have three cars each, and they all make a point of parking them all by the side of the roads of an evening, on the double yellow lines, in the disabled spaces, up trees, the lot.
I decide that I don’t want to give Bath City Council sixty quid so find a proper car park and ascend the mountain to where Moles Club is situated.
Haven’t been here in a very long while – the last time was a comedy gig circa ’96. My Gran had just died and my mate persuaded me to go out to cheer me up. One of the acts (Mike Gunn) dressed as an undertaker and did a whole routine about shagging his dead grandmother.
To be fair, it did make me laugh. Don’t judge me.
Didn’t really feel like I could go up to him afterwards to say thank you though, for fear of traumatising him into retirement. He’s still going strong on the circuit now, so I feel vindicated and not a little proud that he was able to continue his career thanks to my sensitivity.
Sorry that was a bit of a downer. Its OK, my Gran had a good long life, she was in her late eighties and didn’t suffer.
Frankie And The Heartstrings’ first elpee was one of my faves of 2011, came out of nowhere, 34 minutes of short, superbly crafted pop songs that reminded me at least of how Dexys Midnight Runners would have sounded as a pop band with no horns.
Singer Frankie Francis’ yelping delivery is pure Kevin Rowland and the band are exactly right – no huge solos, everything perfectly tailored for the needs of the song.
Check this Blue Peter style video for “Hunger” too.
And the new album’s only produced by Bernard smegging Butler, that’s all!
And they’ve just dropped a new free taster track from their new album (out in the noo year) –
They do four new numbers this evening, all instant classics – it says quite a lot when people sing along to a song they’ve never heard before.
The club is more than half-full, a great time is had by all.
People dance. And not just girls.
Setlist (courtesy of http://lilmissmosher.wordpress.com/ – thanks Miss Mosher. Great blog btw, you should all check her out)
This band is a bit special, and indeed about the time I write this they will be going onstage in Cardiff supporting The Cribs on their nationwide tour, which should give them the exposure they deserve.
All together now – “I’ll be yours – you’ll be mine – I’ll feed you milk – I’ll bring you wine”
There was this awkward, shy, Asian lad from South London.
He lived in an area where there were at best three or four non-white families and while he was growing up he was subject to regular racially-based jollity from the less tolerant neighbours and occasional threatened violence.
He was a pretty good runner so managed to avoid it becoming actual violence though 8=)
1976/77 was an awkward time to look different in London. The National Front was on the rise. (For younger readers, they were like the British National Party only they didn’t really bother to try to appear respectable)
They were gaining massive ground, certainly in London where at one point an opinion poll gave them 20% of the vote.
There was also this youth movement going on, based on some loud, fast guitar-based music people called punk rock.
The major figures (as far as this boy was concerned) were The Clash and the Sex Pistols.
The Clash released a song called “White Riot”, which on casual listening seemed to have troublesome lyrics that were certainly not intended by the song’s writers.
The Sex Pistols didn’t seem to be as political as The Clash, but they rocketed to national infamy after swearing on live teatime television.
The people who liked these bands dressed very strangely – torn jeans, weird,menacing haircuts and the occasional swastika.
The National Front saw this, and made certain assumptions about punks. The boy was a bit worried about this, although he loved the music. There were reports of the NF infiltrating gigs to try and recruit.
Then two things happened. The singer of the Clash introduced their version of the reggae classic “Police And Thieves” song on stage with the words
“This is a song written by a wog, and anyone who doesn’t like wogs can fuck off”.
And in the run-up to the local elections, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, a skinny, gobby, weird looking fucker called Johnny Rotten, whose quotes in the press and on TV mainly consisted of snarly put-downs and pisstaking, said the following about the National Front
“How can anyone vote for something so ridiculously inhuman?”
A clear, clear statement from the punk movement’s main figure that the racists were not cool.
Now this may not sound like a big deal in an era when anti-racism in all musicians is taken for granted, but believe me, back then it really meant something
The boy looked at Johnny and said “thanks mate”.
Part Two – The Man Looked At John (2012)
“Hello Bristol. Country Life. Do you want to see my knob of butter?”
John Lydon comes in for a lot of stick, some of it perhaps justified.
I know all about the butter adverts – but I can’t really complain about people “selling out” when I am currently working on a contract for a insurance company.
And the Pistols never claimed to be communists, did they?
And the stuff in the jungle on “I’m A Celebrity” was brilliant. I still maintain the old bugger walked out because he realised he was in danger of winning and becoming a National Treasure.
I’ve deliberately stayed away from the various Sex Pistols nostalgia-fests. Some things are best left in the past.
But Public Image Limited are a different matter. From the start, they were different, as far as you could get from the expected “John’s punk band” when the Pistols imploded.
Always managed to miss seeing them live though until this evening. I’m far more excited about it than a man of my age should be, strictly speaking.
PiL start with “This Is Not A Love Song” and within a couple of numbers its clear where the inspiration comes from – this is basically a white rock band playing with a dub reggae sensibility. Scotty’s concrete piledriver bass is an excellent rendition of Jah Wobble’s work on “Public Image” and “Metal Box”. What really gets me is how bloody danceable this all is – in ’79 you wouldn’t have DANCED to Albatross, but tonight it’s impossible not to.
PiL play for two hours, and for once, an old band playing the songs from the new album is if anything better than the greatest hits.
“Reggie Song”, “Deeper Water”, “One Drop” and “Lollipop Opera” (below) are all instant classics, fitting in seamlessly with the back catalogue.
If the gig has a low point – and in two hours this is inevitable – its some of the late eighties stuff where the band went all stadium rock. I do like “Rise” but I’m bemused that it gets the biggest reception of the evening.
Highlight for me is a powerful extended version of “Religion II” with blood-red stage lighting giving the impression of a church – a scary memory for all lapsed Catholic boys, on stage and off.
“Thirty years and you’re still scared of me. I am your friend. Your special friend.”
PiL were a long way ahead of their time, so they never really got the major recognition they deserved – and it always looked to nme as if Lydon was too concerned with being the outsider to play the game and clean up financially – and you have to respect that, I think.
Only in the past ten years, with record deals hard to come by and careering into middle age, has he mellowed to the point where he appears on TV and radio shows
He’s still prepared to play Johnny Rotten (see his recent appearance on Question Time). I didn’t watch it, to be honest – I didn’t need to, I knew exactly what he’d do and I was too busy listening to the new album.
Awesome evening, well pleased, and if my other Catholic musical hero can deliver as much next year I will probably be able to die a happy man.
I’m really going to miss the Olympics. On Monday we all go back to our normal lives. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.
Time, then, for the final instalment of the Olympics Top Twenty chart.
But first, a rundown of the Story So Far. If you like you can play this while you read the countdown
20. Bring On The Dancing Horses – Echo And The Bunnymen
19. Til The End – JaminRols
18. Swords Of A Thousand Men – Ten Pole Tudor
17. Poison Arrow – ABC
16. Lets Wrestle – Lets Wrestle
15. The Rowing Song – Patti Griffin
14. Sail On Sailor – The Beach Boys
13. Nightswimming – REM
12. Table Tennis Table – Gilberto Gil
11. Weightlifting Lulu – The Residents
10. Ambling Alp – Yeasayer
9. Dal Ni Lawr – Genod Droog
8. All I Want For Xmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit – Half Man Half Biscuit
7. Trampoline – Julian Cope
6. The Umpire Strikes Back – The Brat
5. The Canoe Song – Karl Denver Trio
The Canoe Song by the Karl Denver Trio. Best known for their fantastic version of “Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)” this take on the old Paul Robeson classic is in the same vein.
4. Bike – The Pink Floyd
Closing track on “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn” and one of Syd Barrett’s finest lyrics :
“I’ve got a mouse and he doesn’t have a house – I don’t know why, I call him Gerald.
He’s getting rather old, but he’s a good mouse”
3. Shot By Both Sides – Magazine
Plenty to choose from here, but I got a bit fed up with Bob Marley’s courtroom statement a while back. Joan Armatrading’s “Shoot The Pilot” nearly got in but nothing beats Magazine, for me.
2. You Can Do Athletics BTW – We Are The Physics
This song should be so much better known, as should the band. One of the best live bands I’ve ever seen.
And the Number One is …… (roll on the drums) …
1. The Gymnast High Above The Ground – The Decembrists
I’d forgotten how much I love this band – this is from the 2003 elpee “Her Majesty” and is just beautiful.
Day Twelve of the Lympics and inappropriate verbing is rife.
An unprecedented number of Team Great British athletes have medalled, or podiumed if you’d rather. In fact, twenty-one of them at the last count have golded.
The urge to verb unacceptably cannot be resisted.
As mentioned previously, there are 34 Olympic sports, too many to fit into a Top Twenty.
Some of the sports that didn’t “chart” included Handball. I have nothing at all against Handball. Indeed, the likes of Thierry Henry and Diego Maradona managed to bring it to a much wider audience, so fair play to them. But it is a difficult topic to “song” about.
And then there’s Water Polo. What to make of a sport where the referee can penalise fouls he hasn’t actually seen? (thanks trivia quiz machines of the 80s for that factoid).
Apply that logic to rugby union and you would have a match consisting of no tries and twenty or more penaltied to each side. Not much to be celebrated in song there.
Hockey, too, has not given us much in the way of music. Ice Hockey, yes, but that will have to wait for the next Winter Olympics.
So, to the rundown of positions #10 to #6.
10. Boxing
“Ambling Alp” was the nickname of Italian heavyweight boxer Primo Carnera. I don’t think he ever medalled at the Olympics but his career was widely assumed to have been controlled by the Mob.
He was immortalised in song by the mighty Yeasayer on their second album – a fine band who I saw a couple of times on their first low-key tour of those London venue too small to be designated “toilet”. The gig at the Windmill in Brixton, with about thirty people in the tiny room and the band absolutely playing their hearts out, was a cracker.
Sadly, there isn’t anything else on the follow-up “Odd Blood” that I like half as much as “Ambling Alp”. Enjoy.
9. Badminton
There aren’t many songs about badminton either. This one has a video featuring badminton, but hand on heart, I have no idea what it’s about as it’s in Welsh.
The song is called “Dal Ni Lawr” by Genod Droog. Good groove, good record, one of those that I suspect were I to be told what the lyrics mean, it would lose its charm and become somewhat mundane.
8. Football
Half Man Half Biscuit chronicle life’s little idiosyncrasies through the medium of humorous song. This is the second best song ever written about Subbuteo.
“All I Want For Xmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit” – Half Man Half Biscuit
7. Trampolining
A belting record from the hugely underrated Julian Cope. Mad as a box of frogs, and brilliant also.
6. Tennis
Tennis – The Umpire Strikes Back by The Brat
This is that rare thing, a genuinely funny novelty record.
When you’re watching the BBC’s tennis coverage and John McEnroe complains about bad behaviour on the court its always worth reminding yourself of this :
After seeing that, the record seems like an understatement if anything.
Don’t tell my sport-phobic wife or she will never let me live it down, but after a day of obsessively switching between football, swimming, archery (yes, archery!), rowing and equestrianism (which sounds a Bit Rude frankly) I have room for this thought.
The Olympics may have actually peaked with the admittedly magnificent Opening Ceremony.
Maybe I will rekindle my love for sport on the days to come, who knows?
Numbers 15 down to 11 of the Top Twenty Olympic songs are as follows.
15 – Rowing
I have to admit I enjoyed watching the women’s rowing this morning. Coxless pairs.
There aren’t too many songs about rowing out there and it was either Patty Griffin’s loverly “The Rowing Song” or the only tangentially rowing-related “Misery Is The River Of The World” by Tom Waits.
It took me quite a while to make the final choice but I finally decided that Tom Waits for no man.
14 – Sailing
Continuing on the watery theme, another sport we are quite good at is Sailing. And by “we” I mean the 1%, obviously. Plenty of songs to choose from here. The obvious one is the Rod Stewart number but I won’t go there – may give you the full reasons why I hate that song so much in a future blog entry.
I’m going with an early 70s song by the Beach Boys which doesn’t get played so often. Its not really up to their sixties heyday but it’s still better than bloody “Sailing”.
13 – Swimming
Finally in this evening’s aquatic segment – Swimming.
Glad to see while watching tonight’s pool action that they’ve outlawed those stupid full-length body armour swim-bling costumes, ostensibly because they give an unfair speed advantage but of course we all know that the only reason 95% of us tune in at all is to see some well-toned flesh, only they’re not allowed to admit that is the reason.
I never really appreciated this band when they were ubiquitous and played far too much on the radio, but much like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, when they come on the radio its always a pleasant surprise how good they could be – when you don’t hear them all the bloody time.
12 – Table Tennis
Who doesn’t love a bit of ping-pong? All sports should be named after the noise they make. Archery would be “phht-thud”, swimming would be “splish-splosh” and rugby would be “thwack-ouch”.
Gilberto Gil was the man who introduced reggae to Brazil (a Good Thing) with his version of Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” (a Bad Thing).
But we can forgive him because he also did this charming and catchy song about a table tennis table.
All together now “Table tennis table, ping pong, I and I”
11 – Weightlifting
Weightlifters are hard. They train until their hands and arms bleed, literally (or it isn’t counted as a good session).
I am particularly looking forward to seeing Khadija Mohammed competing for the UAE – a country which is a bit less hardline in its attitudes to women than, say the Saudis. Good luck to her – she won’t win, but her presence is symbolically more important than any medal.
And I’m going with a slightly less mainstream song to end with today from experimental collective The Residents. Not as weird-sounding as it was in 1971, but still pretty odd. “Weighlifting Khadija” would havebeen perfect, but its called “Weightlifting Lulu”.
That’s it for now. Numbers 10 down to 6 next time, as well as a few of the sports that didn’t make it, and why. Handball, my arse.
