Shelley (1980)

 

Monday Toonage #5

The wonders of discovering a cracking song via an acclaimed American television drama about two meth manufacturers in New Mexico. From episode six of the first season of Breaking Bad, The Silver Seas 'Catch Yer Own Train':

Downton Abbey doesn't deliver the goods like this.

The video? Looks like a student project. Talented swines.

Monday Toonage #3

This week's choice was inspired by 'The Forgotten Eighties' thread over at Urban 75. The Mersey Mouth's finest three and a half minutes:

Monday Toonage #2

This song kicked in on my iPod whilst I was doing the laundry last tonight. I just had to put it on repeat for four extra listens:

According to its wiki page, 'Livin' Thing' "was named by the UK's Q as the number 1 'Guilty Pleasure' single of all time – a list designed to celebrate 'uncool' but excellent records . . ." 

'Uncool' my arse. It's a stone cold classic. If you consider 'Livin' Thing' a guilty pleasure only to be listened to when no one else is around, then you need to remove your hipster head from your arse pronto.

Actually, when you look at Q's top ten of uncool records, there's at least 6 and a half classics listed. Q's got a bare arse cheek throwing out the uncool label at anyone. When I do occasionally read Q magazine on the subway, I furtively hide it in an old issue of Workers' Hammer, so no one will point and laugh at me for paying ten dollars for a magazine that has Eric Clapton on the front cover . . . again.

The Watching Post

I first mentioned them on the blog six years ago when they were still known as Girls In A Coma but, after buying their debut album in 2007, Girl In A Coma fell off my musical radar. Their latest single suggests I have a lot of catching up to do.

A great song for those of us who still have a soft spot for jangly guitars.

. . . and Owen likes the trains in the video.

Occupy Downfall

I promised myself I'd never post another Downfall spoof on the blog until I'd actually watched Downfall itself but this one's too good to overlook:

*UPDATE*

Downfall is now on Netflix Instant. Expect another twenty Downfall clips posted on the blog in the coming week.

Hat tip to Philippe-Antoine over at Facebook.

Lovely Thatch

If Meryl Streep's hair doesn't win the Best Special Effect Oscar at next year's Oscars I'll eat my bunnet. I wonder who they got to play Diana Gould in the film? A toss up between Judi Dench or Helen Mirren, I guess.

Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is playing who? Geoffrey Howe just sent Denis Healey a stick of Blackpool Rock with the words 'Fuck You' written through it.

Maybe it's just me, but if that trailer is anything to go by then Jim Broadbent and his prosthetic nose were seriously miscast as Denis. He really would have made an excellent Michael Foot.

Bore'em Hill

Another quiet Sunday night in the Swedish part of Brooklyn.

The poor bastard didn't stand a chance.

If only he'd discovered Världssocialism, the Swedish language journal of the WSM during that period satirised in Lukas Moodyson's wonderful 2000 film, 'Together'.

He wouldn't have sold many more papers, but he would have kept his sense of humour and wouldn't have been obliged to learn the lines to The Internationale.

Sunk by the Belgrano

A phlegmatic River Plate fan accepts their first ever relegation in the club's history with a restrained good grace.

My father-in-law speaks Spanish. Maybe I should send him the link to ask for a line by line translation?

Hat tip to 'Chip Barm' over at Urban 75.

April means the 30 Day Song Challenge

From the other place.

A music meme with a difference. Thirty days, thirty musical taste questions. If I had my blogging mojo switched on, I'd have activated a file sharing account but, in these blocked times, You Tube is my friend.

day 01 - your favorite song

Christ, kick off with the hard one. How can you have a favourite song? . . . or novel, film or Socialist Standard front cover, for that matter. If you're anything like me, you have 20 or 30 favourites, and you flip between them from month to month suiting the mood, the season or your angst level.

Favourite song? How's my angst level? Ask me next week and it'll be something different but, at this moment in time, this old standard still does it for me every time. Probably listened to it over a thousand times, and I've never got sick of it.

I'm cheating myself a bit with the embedding of The Tube video when, in truth, I first discovered the song via this performance on Top of the Pops.

But surely you can watch both?

Sentimental Socialist

You know when you hear a song for the first time, and you instantly recognise that you are going to love that song for the rest of your life; none of that, three months down the line What the hell was I thinking? cascade of regrets (yes, Maximo Park, that barb is directed at you), but a song that you have to play again and again, and when you do stop listening to it, it's less a case of you edging yourself away from the tune in your head, stereo, iPod and Computer, and more a matter of life getting in the way.

That's how I'm feeling about the song '1985' right now. It was the opening track off of the Manic Street Preachers 2004 album, 'Lifeblood'. Christ, how did it take me three years to stumble across this song? I guess that must have been during my Delgados period - not period I regret, I hasten to add, btw - but the joy of stumbling across a track you absolutely adore is tinged with the bitter-sweet feeling that you missed out on the track first time round.

Kara is already sick of the song but, to borrow one of her own lines, I'm "Psyched. 17-year old style."