Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty Anna MacColl (10 October 1959 – 18 December 2000) was an English singer and songwriter. She recorded several pop hits between the early 1980s and the 1990s, including "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" and cover versions of Billy Bragg's "A New England" and The Kinks' "Days". In addition, she sang on hit recordings produced by her husband Steve Lillywhite, most notably "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues.

At the age of 41, MacColl died after being hit by a boat in Mexico.

Early career

Kirsty MacColl was the daughter of folk singer Ewan MacColl and dancer Jean Newlove. She and her brother, Hamish MacColl, grew up with their mother in Croydon, where Kirsty attended Park Hill Primary School, Monks Hill High School and John Newnham High School, making appearances in school plays. At the time of her birth, her father had been in a relationship with folk singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Peggy Seeger since 1956 (a relationship that would continue until his death in 1989), and already had a son with her.

Last Train

Last Train refers to a bid just below game level in the agreed suit. A Last Train bid is typically made in a bidding sequence in which one of the partners has already indicated slam interest.

A survey in the magazine The Bridge World showed a strong consensus approving the Last Train convention, with the following definition:

The convention was both devised by Jeff Meckstroth and named by him after the Monkees song "Last Train to Clarksville".

Because Last Train is a bidding convention with a special meaning under a partnership agreement, subject to National Regulatory Authority rules it must be alerted. In the absence of any partnership agreement, most players would interpret the Last Train bid as a control bid, showing a high card value in the suit named.

Examples

1♥ - 3♥
4♣ - 4♦

The 4♣ bid shows a club control and slam interest. If the partnership has agreed to use Last Train, the 4♦ bid indicates extra values (i.e., responder's hand is at the upper end of the strength range indicated by the 3♥ bid), and invites partner to continue exploring slam. 4♦ does not show a diamond control, although of course responder might have one.

The KLF

The KLF (also known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, furthermore known as The JAMs, The Timelords and other names) were a British acid house band of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Beginning in 1987, Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) released hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, and on one occasion (the British number one hit single "Doctorin' the Tardis") as The Timelords. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label, and became the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991. The duo also published a book, The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), and worked on a road movie called The White Room.

From the outset, they adopted the philosophy espoused by esoteric novel series The Illuminatus! Trilogy, gaining notoriety for various anarchic situationist manifestations, including the defacement of billboard adverts, the posting of prominent cryptic advertisements in NME magazine and the mainstream press, and highly distinctive and unusual performances on Top of the Pops. Their most notorious performance was a collaboration with Extreme Noise Terror at the February 1992 BRIT Awards, where they fired machine gun blanks into the audience and dumped a dead sheep at the aftershow party. This performance announced The KLF's departure from the music business, and in May 1992 the duo deleted their entire back catalogue.

Last Train to Trancentral

"Last Train to Trancentral" is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by The KLF, including "Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent)", a commercially successful single of April 1991 that reached # 2 in the UK Singles Chart and achieved international top ten placings. "Last Train to Trancentral" is a central song within The KLF's work, and is distinctive for an uplifting string-synthesiser break.

Origins and versions

"Last Train to Trancentral" is related to The KLF's unreleased earlier tracks "E-Train to Trancentral" and, from the 1989 soundtrack to their film The White Room, "Go to Sleep". Both the film and the soundtrack were abandoned in 1989, due to spiralling costs and the commercial failure of the soundtrack single "Kylie Said to Jason". However, much of the musical material was salvaged and substantially remodelled to form the basis of their later, commercially successful work. In particular, bootlegged copies of "Go to Sleep" reveal many chord sequences and melodies later used in "Last Train to Trancentral".

Pump Up the Volume

Pump Up the Volume may refer to:

See also