Spoilt Bastard sings 'Spoilt Victorian Child'

The Fall as featured in Viz Comic:

Hat tip to DLR at MATB.

Ashford (Kent) and Ronnie Simpson (Glasgow Celtic)

Morphing Into A Music Blog (6)

OK, so I didn't get the Sunderland/Newcastle result right, and that doesn't bode well for my other predictions regarding the ultra-left TinTin movie. I better just continue with the blog making its transition from being a spew of words dedicated to solipcism, spgb'ism and seltic to a blog dedicated to solipcism, spgb'ism, seltic and the sampling of mp3s.

A few music blog links for your sampling delectation:

17 Seconds brings you Mark E Smith doing his 'vocal-ahs' to a series of cover versions from down the years. Naturally, 'Victoria' and 'There's A Ghost In My House' are listed; they were The Fall's biggest hits. But I'd never heard The Fall's version of 'A Day in the Life' before. Smiffy should have got a guest vocalist in for the Paul McCartney bit. Maybe Rory Erickson was busy that week.
The post also includes The Fall's cover of 'Mr Pharmacist'. The song that brought The Fall onto my radar all those years ago. Good stuff.

The Vinyl District is currently doing a brilliant series of posts on the seventies as seen through the speakers of AM radio. Simple but effective, he's taking that decade year by year with artwork from the period and accompanying mp3 links to sample tracks.
I'll be honest, I'm really waiting for his posts covering the second half of the seventies as I'm intrigued what sort of tracks he will post, but for the oldsters out there, he's already covered '70; '71; '72; '73; '74.

Check out the album covers from 1971. Never knew that James Dean Bradfield used to be in Badfinger.

Weekend Shots from The Vinyl District Vinyl District must have heard me, 'cos whilst he takes a break from the seventies series - apparently it's a Monday thru' Friday thing - he throws in a side dish of proto-punk tracks from 1977. Brilliant to finally be able to check out for the first time Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill's pre-Simple Minds band, Johnny and the Self Abusers, (a foreshadowing of Simple Minds descent into stadium politicised rock in the second half of the eighties, when he became known as 'Jim Kerr, the Self-Important Wanker'). The post also features tracks from The Buzzcocks (including Devoto), Tubeway Army, Radio Stars (why weren't they bigger?) and the Flamin' Groovies.

The Vinyl Villain has a post dedicated to Bourgie Bourgie, another Scottish band from the second half of the eighties who didn't pull their weight during the 'Great Pop Wars of 1984-1988'. (See such other non-combatants as Flesh, The Big Dish, Love & Money and Owen Paul.)
I totally remember that YouTube clip of BB from The Tube. Is it not enough that I have heavy recourse to eighties musical nostalgia that I have to be stricken down with fond memories of eighties music shows now? I'll be singing the praises of Razzamatazz next.

Just had a thought: Isn't every other post on Vinyl Villain dedicated to Paul Quinn in some way or another? I get it: 'Breaking Point' is a great track - probably the third or fourth track I ever tried to hunt down when I discovered the delights of file sharing - but, for me, PQ's finest four minutes will always be, 'Mud In Your Eye', his duet with Edwyn Collins off the Orange Juice's 1982 album, Rip It Up.

If I'm going to cut and paste write a blog about music blogs, I should throw in an mp3 to sample as a way of finishing the post.

Orange Juice - Mud In Your Eye mp3

That can be my contribution to the 'Remember Paul Quinn' Campaign.

Burnley Man

Leninist Vanguard editor, Dave Dudley, takes time out from his current self-imposed exile in Miami to shout Schadenfreude! in a very loud voice at the SWP and George Galloway over at Monesvain's Place.

Then again, it might not be the real DD. It may be an imposter doing a karaoke Dave Dudley for comedic effect. Who cares? This is post #997, and I will soon be able to put the blog on a low gas again.

Speedbumps

Current reading:

"You inherited a succession of your father's cars. The Austin Princess with its leatherette seats that performed skin surgery on bare flesh in hot weather. The two-litre Datsun automatic that rode up at the front when you hit the accelerator, like a speedboat. Your mother borrowed it once but couldn't find the knob to turn the cassette player down, and drove her Mothers' Union friends to a meeting in town with The Fall's Hex Enduction Hour in wrap-a-round stereo at full tilt on looped playback." (Quoted from Simon Armitage's All Points North)

How was Simon Armitage to know that over twenty years later art would be imitating life? OK wrong album, wrong continent and wrong lifestyle, but you get the gist.

Rob Gretton Sez

From Peter Bradshaw's gushing review of Anton Corbijn's 'Control' in today's Guardian:

Then of course there is his epilepsy: and Control boldly shows Curtis succumbing to a spectacular epileptic episode at the climax of one gig and having to be dragged off stage by mates and crew, who had no idea what to do. "It could be worse," laughs Gretton cheerfully as Curtis lies semi-conscious in his dressing room, "you could be in the Fall." That was the nearest Ian Curtis ever got to therapy."

A line so fine, that I'm surprised it wasn't Paddy Considine's 'Rob Gretton' quipping those words in '24 Hour Party People'.