Paul Morley Tony Morley was once my hero

Further to this post on the blog from a few days back, Snappy Kat was kind enough to post a link to the 'notorious' 1981 TOTP appearance by Magazine.

Sad to discover that it wasn't the 'event' I was expecting from the vivid description in Simon Reynolds post-punk bible. Any stage fright from Devoto had less to do with caught up in the occasion, and probably owed more to being struck dumb by David 'Kid' Jensen's positioning when introducing the band. I always wondered where Ricky Gervais got the inspiration for that pose in the second series of 'The Office'.

Should have known that any story that had the name 'Paul Morley' attached to it would have a certain je ne sais quoi.

However, every cloud had a silver lining and, via the comments accompanying the YouTube clip, I discovered the following nugget of useless post-punk information:

"The guitar lick in 'Lipstick' was given to Devoto by Shelley for use in Magazine's 'Shot by Both Sides', one of 2 Magazine-recorded songs co-written by Shelley, the other being 'The Light Pours Out of Me' by Devoto/McGeoch/Shelley. 'Lipstick' was actually written before 'Shot by...', even though 'Shot by...' was released first on Mon, Jan 16, 1978." [Info via here.]

Shelley, as in Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks fame, not that other Shelley anti-hero bloke from the post-punk era.

What with my trained tin-ear for all things musical, I find it difficulty to hear the overlap between the two tracks. And that's despite the fact that I've listened to both tracks on numerous occasions down the years. But it is a good excuse to post some early eighties stuff on the blog for sampling purposes:

Magazine - 'Shot By Both Sides' mp3

Buzzcocks - 'Lipstick' mp3

Old Waves

Morphing Into A Music Blog (5)

Accidents Will Happen I hope it amounts to more than Elvis Costello doing a 'Phil Caine'* ('Don't like paying the taxes . . . . they've got no ambition in Britain'.) Just don't tell me that he lives in Chelsea, Manhattan.

Time's Up I listen to the first couple of U2 albums and always want to cut Bono some slack, but when I read him spouting shite like this in the Rolling Stone:

"Just being in D.C., and meeting all the people I've met - I've now been going there for nearly ten years. They let me in their rooms and they listen to my rhetoric or invective or whatever it turns out to be. And I come away from that city not with nausea but with admiration. These people work like dogs. These lawmakers, they're trying to move between their families back home and Washington. All of them could make much more money in the private sector. Not all, but most of them are there for the right reasons. There's very little glamour. And they're listening to me, who's completely over-rewarded for what I do."

. . . I just want to take an axe to his Joshua Tree. I don't think I've ever witnessed a smarmier politician than that *@#%. I don't care if he thinks he's doing it for the right reasons. Spot the reference to the Buzzcocks' 'Spiral Scratch' EP in the interview, and wonder if Bono thinks it's 1993, he's Damon Albarn and he's talking about his new album, Modern Life is Rubbish.**

Step Back in Time That's enough ranting about the posters on your wall falling to the floor, back to when old waves was post-punk, and the best track from Scritti Politti's 1979 EP, '4 A-Sides'

Scritti Politti - P.A.s mp3

For extra credit, flick through Robert Lumley's 'States of Emergency', whilst wondering out loud 'Whatever happened to Big Flame?'***

*The alternative name was Michael Collins. You figure it out.

**Yep, first found out about Bono in the Rolling Stone via The Blogging Equivalent of U2 (Had a soft spot for the early stuff. Turned into bloated insufferable wankers ever since.)

***Yep, I know Green Gartside was a YCLer and had a bad case of the Gramscian MT's to prove it but, in an alternative universe, back in 77/78 he should have been the activities officer of the St Pancras branch of the Lotta Continua