Another One Bites The Dust

I haven't given too much time to searching music blogs for the last few years, due to having several years worth of stuff still to listen to!! and not really having the time anymore.
One of the few I paid regular visits to was an oldies blog called "Lord of the boot sale" which has been running for years and owned by a guy who used to help me out with missing B sides back in the days of "Grumpy's golden oldies". But sadly that is now gone just get the message "Sorry, the blog at lordofthebootsale.blogspot.com has been removed"  :(
Hopefully he is still healthy and has just decided to call it a day, but the trouble with internet friends is you really don't know why they disappear.

R.I.P's

Having not updated this blog in a while meant I missed out on these.

The last couple of years have been really bad for the deaths of musicians I grew up with :(
In the last couple of months we've lost David Bowie, Lemmy and Phil from Motorhead, John Bradbury and Rico Rodriguez from the Specials, Dale Griffin (Mott), Glenn Frey (Eagles), Colin Vearcombe (Black), Guru Josh. Last year we lost Natalie Cole, Steve Strange, BB King, Ben E King, Errol Brown (Hot Chocolate), Percy Sledge, Chris Squire (Yes) and many more.
Also DJ's Ed Stewart and Terry Wogan plus Cilla Black.
As I write this I've just heard Earth Wind and Fire frontman Maurice White has gone too.

Makes you worry for a few reaching those advanced years.
Although I think The Rolling Stones are all still fine (pickled and preserved)? :)

The Clean Up

Went through my "great places to visit" links and it's really sad how many great blogs have bitten the dust.
I remember spending hours going through so many on this list, but most have either been deleted or just don't post anything anymore.
Obviously I can't talk as this blog has been in a coma since my preferred file sharing site decided to delete everything, and I got fed up with a lack of feedback from the vast majority of visitors (obviously a small handful of people are exempt from that criticism).

Anyway most of the old dead links are now gone, and a few new ones added :)

Cassette Magic

Stumbled on this old archive of weird and wonderful music recently.
A digitised collection of old cassette tapes including some great stuff from around the 80's.
All free and legal to listen to - https://archive.org/details/noise-arch

Toyah - Blue Meaning

Only 36 years late, I never realised one of my Favourite Toyah tracks had a video.

Spring Cleaning

Finally found a bit of motivation to start cleaning up this blog, so the dead links will be gone along with a few rubbish posts.
Didn't want to get rid of most of the posts as they bring back good (and bad) memories, but all the old music links are dead and I don't plan to renew any of them.
I had originally planned to upload to a different host, but as I only got one comment from the 5,000 people who viewed my closing down post 3 years ago, nobody actually cared.
So if anyone new stumbles across this blog just treat it as an archive of some great tunes that have been around, and maybe you can pay the Apple corporation some of your money to listen to them?

Hanging On

No links left, all gone now :(

Eurovision 2012

My yearly Eurovision post :)
Sadly after a few really great years the last two have been very average, I watched the 2 semi finals and could only come up with 3 songs I liked and one of those got knocked out.
The extra six songs in the finals from the "protected countries" and hosts Azerbaijan weren't much better :(
My favourite song was the Albanian entry - Suus by Rona Nishliu which is a really weird song for this contest, Rona seems to have been inspired by Bjork and the film "the fifth element", her costume seemed to be a mix of the blue singer and Gary Oldman's strange outfit from that film and she looks a little like Bjork.
Her voice was incredible although I'm not sure what the song was about and to be honest it can't have had many lyrics as most of the song was taken up with her demonstrating her amazing vocal range.
My missus and the various BBC presenters all hated it, not missing a chance to say something derogatory about her but she finished a creditable 5th proving someone else liked it :)



My other choices were Estonian singer Ott Lepland and his song Kuula, I've no idea what the song was about but he also had a brilliant voice.
My third best fell at the semi finals and it really wasn't a great song but I just loved the concept :) an Austrian rap duo called the Trackshitterz singing a song with the chorus of Shake your booty which in Austrian sounded more like "fuckin in the popo"!! :)

The final was won by Swedish singer Loreen with a club track that was pretty average although the backing track was good, I think the Russian grannies were second and some bland ballad by Serbia was third.
UK hopes were riding on wrinkly old timer Englebert Humpledink and he did well to score 9 points and finish one from bottom, Irish twins Jedward didn't do much better probably meaning they will be back next year?

We'll do it all again in Sweden next year and hopefully the standard will improve, and just maybe the UK will put someone up who has a chance? didn't Morrissey offer his services?

That's That Then

As you might have gathered due to the lack of updates this year I have "Something better to do", I don't seem to have enough time to give this blog anywhere near enough the time it deserves :(
The fact that I have broken yet another computer and I'm typing this on a borrowed laptop has helped in this decision.

I won't delete the blog but will slowly get rid of the dead links so will end up with a much slimmed down version with the occasional you tube link or something.

Envious

You shouldn't be jealous of your kids, but I am slightly at the moment :(
My son who's currently in Cornwall met and had a chat with Mr Aphex Twin (Richard D James), luckily over the years I'd given him enough Aphex Twin knowledge to have a decent conversation with the bloke, so at least he knows I exist and am a fan :)
Son's comment on the meeting "I think you'd like him in person, really down to earth, even if his videos are crazy".

Poly Styrene R.I.P

Just saddened that another one is gone :(
Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot) died of cancer at the age of 53 yesterday.
Joining the likes of Joe Strummer, Sid Vicious, Ari Up, Malcolm McLaren, most of the Ramones and many many others in the great punk gig in the sky :(

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 2010

Special AKA - War Crimes

Stunningly good song from 1982 by the Specials which for some reason didn't manage to chart? Rhoda Dakar again on vocals.
The B side version is you'd expect a version of the A :)

01 War Crimes (The Crime Remains The Same)
02 Version

Fink Brothers - Mutants In Mega City One

The Fink Brothers (alias Suggs and Carl from Madness) released this gem in 1985, I have to admit I'd never heard of it when I picked it up in the 10p bargain bin of my local record shop but loved it as soon as I heard it.
The second dumb admission is that it was only when I picked up a Madness compilation a few years back did I know about the Madness connection.

01 Mutants In Mega City One
02 Mutant Blues

Urban Hype - A Trip To Trumpton

In a similar vein to the Smart E's record and indeed hitting the chart in the same month in 92 came Urban Hype's rave version of Trumpton, which is my favourite one of these type of releases which I've seen described as "toytown techno" along with the Prodigy's Charley.
Just realised I've posted all 3 of those so I must have liked this genre :)
Sorry Gobshyte I don't have the GSP version of Banana splits but it is on youtube if you need another listen.

01 A Trip To Trumpton
02 The Trumpton Remix (Edit)

Beats International - Dub Be Good To Me

Back in the days when Fat Boy Slim was known as Norman Cook from the Housemartins this excellent cover of the SOS Band song "Just Be Good To Me" took the UK charts by storm.
Featuring singer Lindy Layton this is so much better than the current cover version sung by Lily Allen.
The B side is an alternate instrumental version despite the title.

01 Dub Be Good To Me
02 Invasion Of The Estate Agents

Dr Feelgood - Roxette

The 1974 original mono studio version of Roxette, I think it lacks the feel of the live version posted previously but is still a great track and you can still imagine Wilko strutting backwards and forwards on this, the B side is a good version of the classic Route 66.

01 Roxette
02 (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66

Splodgenessabounds - Simon Templer

I originally bought this after hearing only Simon Templer (in the days when I would buy anything with an interesting title) before it became more famous for the third track which of course later spawned one of my favourite TV programmes.
This copy is a little bit tatty as I got it from a market because it had the picture sleeve, my first copy didn't have one.

01 Simon Templer
02 Michael Booth's Talking Bum
03 Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please

Boston - More Than A Feeling

Another of those classic songs that still sounds good today more than 30 years after release, like School's out this is again being used for a current TV advert keeping it alive for another generation.

01 More Than A Feeling
02 Smokin

Three Today

This blog is three years old today, I know I've been missing on and off during that period due to various computer problems, being cut off because I hadn't paid the bill and generally not having the time that I'd like to have to spend putting stuff on here but I'm still here :)
Sadly many of my favourite blogs during that period have gone for various reasons.

On a personal note I seemed to be cursed lately with bad luck, I told you about the computer problems but that followed on from my LCD telly I bought 3 years back dying the death for some unknown reason? I replaced it with my old telly which also died meaning I have gone from 37" widescreen to 26" standard to 14" portable in the last 6 weeks :(
My digital camera became the latest failure last night, it had been working fine but now I just get a blank screen if I try to take a pic, I can view previously taken photos so it's not the screen that's the problem??
My kettle went bang and even the toilet cistern broke so I worry about touching anything now .....

Back In Business

My son gave me his old computer and after a couple of weeks of running every type of anti-virus/spyware/adware/anti rootkit etc programmes I think it's safe to use.
I've stripped out all the best bits of 2 old computers and it seems to work and all those programs which make life easier seem to work with this one :)

Just looked at the description of this blog on Fuzzy and it seems people are used to me missing a few months so nothing has changed really :)


Hopefully something will be here by Tuesday which is the 3rd Birthday of this version of this blog, the original which was about a year older got deleted by me after getting in a mood after all my links were deleted.

Nothing Better To Do

Just putting a few thoughts into words ....
I probably have better stuff to do but I like the internet and listening to music and all other non productive ways of spending my non working hours so I'm on a bit of a downer at the moment.
To explain the computer has been living on borrowed time for a few months and might live on although I'm doubting it at the moment, after the last big crash I managed to bring it back to life and although not perfect has served it's purpose quite well until yesterday when the hard drive started making weird grinding noises and kept crashing, the ribbon cable change suggested seemed to have sorted the problem temporarily but the drive is definitely dying.
I managed an act of stupidity and short circuited my back up (slave) drive with a screw driver while the machine was still turned on (yeah I know ..) the blue flash and puff of smoke were a bit of a giveaway, so 320gb of music files are probably lost, I had some backed up elsewhere but non of the most recent ones :(
After stripping the computer down to the basics it finally came back to life very slowly so I have spent the last 12 hours copying what I can from my C Drive to a portable HD at a snails pace, I'm guessing it will crash again soon and might not return?

The current financial situation means a new computer is out if the question and even if I did manage to get one I'm not sure I'm clever enough or have the time and patience to transfer all those useful programs I've picked up in the last 7 years to a new machine and if they would work with Windows 7 (I'm on XP)?
My eldest son has offered me his old machine but that is older than this one and last time I fixed it for him it was full of every nasty you could possibly pick up :)

So at the moment this blog will be on hold, as everytime I've tried to upload stuff the PC has crashed so I'm not going to risk it for now.


On the upside I've just seen the traffic counter has reached 100,000 views since I added it, so thanks to all you people who have visited :)

Nazareth - Hot Tracks EP

And now a blast from one of the best of the Seventies bands.
This 1977 release showcased four of the best Nazareth tracks on one single.
Star billing for me is their version of Joni Mitchell's "This flight tonight" which still rates in my top 100 of all time.

01 Love Hurts
02 This Flight Tonight
03 Broken Down Angel
04 Hair Of The Dog

Smart E's - Sesame's Treet

One of those rave type versions of famous tunes that were popular in the early nineties, this one with a take on the Sesame street theme, which I think is one of the best.
The B side Magnificent reveals talent that was probably unfulfilled due to being lumbered with the novelty record tag.

01 Sesame's Treet
02 Magnificent

This Island Earth - Take Me To The Fire

Another of those bargain bin purchases from the eighties, for an outlay of only ten pence it was nearly always worth taking a chance on records you'd never actually heard of in the hope it was something good :) as this one is still in my collection I must have liked it.
Don't know much about the band and only recently came across anything else by them, but it's a good slice of mid eighties pop music and worth a listen.

01 Take Me To The Fire
02 Pearl Of Love

UB40 - Don't Slow Down

Yet another UB40 single, this one is from 1981 which I think is their best period and I like it so that's good enough for me :)
This is listed as a double A side, so you've probably heard both of them at some point in the past.

01 Don't Slow Down
02 Don't Let It Pass You By

Elvis Costello And The Attractions - I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down

One of my favourite EC tracks, at just over 2 minutes it's short and sweet.
The B Side is Elvis's version of his own song which was a hit for Dave Edmunds the year before.

01 I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
02 Girl's Talk

B52's - Love Shack

This one hit number 2 in 1990 making it the B-52's biggest hit, much as I like this it's nowhere near as good as all the tracks on the debut album over 10 years before, two of those are included on the B side, both recorded at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, Ohio on 2nd December 1989.

Another of those discs that has the wrong speed printed on the label, it says play both sides at 33 rpm but the A side is 45 rpm.

01 Love Shack
02 Planet Claire (Live)
03 Rock Lobster (Live)

Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap

The Rats first number one from 1978.
Used to have the picture sleeve of this but it's gone with the others, this is the wife's non pic sleeve version.

This one is topical for me as the company I work for has a rat problem and the traps go off quite a lot, if it helps anyone with a rat infestation Tomatoes seem to be the rats favourite!! they're not keen on Cheese or processed meats from Somerfields :)

01 Rat Trap
02 So Strange

Comsat Angels - You Move Me

Another slice of jangly guitars from the eighties, the Comsat Angels came from Sheffield and like a lot of good bands from that era failed to achieve any chart success despite being as good if not better than most of the household names around at the time.
The B Side Land is a good moody instrumental.

01 You Move Me (One Good Reason)
02 Land

Bananarama And Fun Boy Three - Really Saying Something

The second Fun Boy Three / Bananarama joint effort from 1982, this one had the Banana's listed first which is fair as they do most of the singing.
The B Side instrumental starts off a bit crackly but gets better.

01 Really Saying Something
02 Give Us Back Our Cheap Fares

Screaming Blue Messiahs - I Wanna Be A Flintstone

Only hit record for the Screaming Blue Messiahs from the late 80's.
Personal feeling is that this track is not one of their best and I even prefer the B side on this record, but as it's been proved many times before it's a matter of personal taste :)

01 I Wanna Be A Flintstone
02 Jerry's Electric Church

808 State - Pacific

Loved this tune at the time and still love it, to me it was like the soundtrack to the whole Madchester rave scene of the early nineties, a short period of some of the most inventive tracks of the last 20 years.

01 Pacific 707
02 Pacific B

John Peel - For Virgin Record Stores

Let's get some credibility back to this blog, these are really good.
Picked these up from somewhere (big thanks to Mr Original uploader, whoever you were) about 3-4 years back and only recently gave them a good listen, brilliant stuff from John Peel. All tapes recorded for use in Virgin record stores in 79/80 each one contains about an hour of current (at the time) releases with some great fill-ins by JP.
Not 100% sure of some of the band names and titles just going on what it sounds like to me.

-----------------------
For Virgin Record Stores 16/10/79

First up is one listed as being recorded 16th October 79.
Good selection here with 3 Specials tracks and the brilliant "Turn to red" by Killing Joke as well as some good ones I didn't know before like the Capital Letters and Freshmen tracks.

Great lines from Peel in this one include -
On Killing Joke "it could be Public Image having a joke at our expense except I don't think Public image are as good as that"
On the Girl track "Here's your chance to bang your head against something solid and immovable, a member of the Virgin staff perhaps"

(Part One)
Specials - Stupid Marriage
Killing Joke - Turning Red
Sneak Preview - Slugweird
Capital Letters - Unemployed
Home Service - Wake Up
Girl - My Number
Cabaret Voltaire - Kirlian Photograph

(Part Two)
Specials - Dawning Of A New Era
Freshmen - You've Never Heard Anything Like It
Pink Military - Spellbound
Jackie Lee - Do The Duck
Killing Joke - Are You Receiving
Phillip Rambo - The Sound And The Fury
Secret Affair - Let Your Heart Dance
Specials - Too Much Too Young
-----------------------
For Virgin Record Stores 05/12/79

Second of three of these Virgin stores tapes, another excellent selection with a few well known names thrown in.
Best Peel comments on this one - On U2 "A Boomtown Rats for the 1980's", and "wait until you hear the other side of the tape .. absolute crap".

(Part One)
U2 - Out Of Control
Kid Thomas - Rocking This Joint Tonight
Clash - Rudy Can't Fail
Beat - Tears Of A Clown
Ruefrex - One By One
Michael Campbell - Dubwise?
Capital Punishment - Save Your Kisses For Me
Undertones - Baby It Hurts

(Part Two)
Beat - Ranking Full Stop
Delta Five - Mind Your Own Business
Mikey Dread - Saturday Night Style
Clash - Working For The Clampdown
Screaming Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You
Mekons - Trevira Trousers
Derrick Morgan - Moon Hop
Rentals - New York
-----------------------
For Virgin Record Stores 19/02/80

Here's number three, another random selection of old and new from Peel.
This one had more tracks that I didn't know than the others but still worth listening to.
I guess these were done in one take as the Stunt Kites record gets stuck halfway through which isn't a good advert for a record shop.
The first track which sounds like it's from an early Jackie Chan movie is actually the 1979 German Eurovision song contest entry!! obviously Peel wasn't aware of this as he says it's "a wildly over the top record from Hong Kong".
Best Peel comment on this one - "buy, buy and then fuck off out of the shop"

(Part One)
Lamb - Dschinghis Khan
Clock DVA - Brigade
Derrick Morgan - Moon Hop
Bodies - Art Nouveaux
Selecter - Every Day
Cuff Links - Guided Missiles
Any Trouble - Yesterday's Love
Stunt Kites - Beautiful People
Burning Spear - Getting From Bad To Worse

(Part Two)
Jimmy Reid - Shucks Hush Your Mouth
Vice Versa - Genetic Warfare
Misfits - Horror Business
Paul Williams - House Rocking
Tiller Boys - Big Noise From The Jungle
Sugar Minott - Carry Me Gone To Jailhouse
Siouxsie And The Banshees - Happy House
I'm So Hollow - I Don't Know

Led Zeppelin - IV

The fourth of Led Zeppelin's untitled albums and one that most people will know even if they don't follow the band due to including the track that most people will associate with them "Stairway to Heaven", it also includes all time greats "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll" and five other great tracks although I'm not a fan of "The Battle of Evermore".
I still have this on vinyl which I think I kept because it came on pink vinyl (see below) and I hoped it would be worth something one day :)

Useless info - I downloaded well over 100 different versions of Stairway to Heaven from the WMFU blog a few years back, and about 10 were really good :)

01 Black Dog
02 Rock And Roll
03 The Battle Of Evermore
04 Stairway To Heaven
05 Misty Mountain Hop
06 Four Sticks
07 Going To California
08 When The Levee Breaks

Boot Sale Tales

I went out Sunday morning to a boot sale for the first time in over a year determined to buy some more vinyl, always in the hope of coming across someone selling the stuff I sold about 20 years for a pittance.
It was looking like a waste of time for the first 2 hours as every stall I went to that had boxes of vinyl were asking stupid prices for some poor quality stuff :(
One stall had a load of 12" singles and after going through the lot found only 2 that I might have bought in amongst a pile of crap, "how much" I asked, "a pound" she replied, "each?" "pound each" "anything off I buy a few?" "pound each" she says giving me a dirty look, now probably 95% of what she was selling you'd find in any charity shop for 10p.
The next one had some singles all in tatty covers and mostly scratched, "how much" "from a pound" was the reply, I saw a copy of Dr Feelgood's milk and alcohol on brown vinyl I'd sold my copy many years back when I was broke, "is this a pound" I asked "no that one's 3 quid" I was told :(

The boot sale was close to ending and I saw a box of singles with no covers, I was told they were 50p each, I said in that state the box full was only worth a pound and to my surprise he accepted it :) now most of them are virtually unplayable but 4 T-Rex singles for a pound seemed reasonable to me.








As I was walking back to the car one last stall had a box of albums, I started looking through and saw a few good ones and was told they were 4 for a pound, while going through them he said I could have the lot for £3 :)
So £3 straight in his hand and I got 82 albums and a laserdisc!! which works out at about 4p each, about half of them are by artists I have liked so it was well worth it, mainly 80's bands like Tears for fears, Human league, OMD, Erasure, China Crisis, Christians etc, although if I hadn't spotted the Yachts album I might have walked on and missed out.

World Cup latest

It all seems a bit strange around here at the moment?
The England flags are disappearing one by one from houses and cars up our street, there aren't any kids outside playing football in their new England strips, there has only been a few sirens heard flying past on the nearby main road less than a normal Sunday for some reason?
Everyone appears to be in a state of shock or more likely have all gone to the local seafront to lap up the sunshine on one of the hottest days this year while getting completly plastered and planning tonight's riots.
I don't have a German car so it might still be in one piece tomorrow, an I'm far enough away from the pubs and supermarkets so my house windows will hopefully survive.

Oh well another World cup over.

Edit:
The rant and other opinions moved to an upcoming footie blog as I've calmed down now.

Various - England Songs 2010

Every World Cup we get a selection of England songs, some are good and lots are bad this year is no exception, Here are 20 I've found this time, the Good the Bad and the Ugly.
The Good - Skatoons, We are Scientists and maybe Rik Mayall and a few others.
The Bad - The Competition, The Squad and many others
The Ugly - Terry Venables murdering an Elvis classic.

There are a few that grow on you with a few listens, but chances are you'll only listen to them until England get knocked out anyway, hopefully I'll still be playing them after July 11th, enjoy it while it lasts.

01 Beach - We Are England (The Flames Of 66)
02 Dile - Skank For England
03 Rik Mayall - Noble England
04 Squad - Three Lions 2010
05 Dizzee Rascal And James Corden - Shout For England
06 Chris Martini - When England Rule The World
07 Mitch Benn - Win One Lose One
08 Skatoons - The World Cup's Waiting For You
09 Twenty Teners - Oh Mr Fabio Capello
10 We Are Scientists - Goal England
11 Swagga - The Victory Bus
12 Terry Venables - If I Can Dream
13 Scaredy Cats - England's Lion Hearted White Shirt Warriors
14 Competition - Fabio
15 Shuttleworth And Mark E Smith - England's Heartbeat
16 Three Brians - We Are Engerland
17 Young Stanley - Sing It For England
18 England United With Spike - Grab A Stella Nelson Mandela
19 Barker And Hartley - It's Time For England
20 Chenille Steele - Come On You Lions

Frank Sidebottom

Sadly another death from the big C today, comedy musical act Frank Sidebottom (alias Chris Sievey) died at the age of 54.
I'm not sure I really liked much of his stuff but seem to have a lot in my collection, so he had something.

New Order - (The Best Of) New Order

Titled the best of New Order but I don't agree, personally I would expect the originals of songs like Blue monday and true faith rather than the later remixes but that's my opinion.
Don't get me wrong this is an excellent compilation of New Order's back catalogue and includes most of the finest songs of their first 14 years.
I still have the vinyl version of this which was one of the last new vinyl albums I bought before finally going down the CD route.
Also it has the classic "world in motion" at track 16 as it's world cup time again.

01 - True Faith 94
02 - Bizarre Love Triangle 94
03 - 1963 94
04 - Regret
05 - Fine Time
06 - The Perfect Kiss
07 - Shell Shock
08 - Thieves Like Us
09 - Vanishing Point
10 - Run 2
11 - Round And Round 94
12 - World (Price Of Love)
13 - Ruined In A Day
14 - Touched By The Hand Of God
15 - Blue Monday 88
16 - World In Motion