Mumbling Into The Void (slight return)

You know that list that I was never going todo again under any circumstance? Yeah, here it is. Day 200 so obviously - 200 more moments of wonder that you honestly, genuinely, really need in your life, whether you know it or not. Enjoy. Because there is NO WAY THAT I AM  EVER   doing this again. Marlena Shaw 'California Soul' - sun gone out? Two and a half minutes of this string soaked slice of soul will turn October to August again The Black Eyed Peas ' my humps' ....no sorry, that's clearly a lie. Wash your mind out with the first thirty seconds of the Pistols' 'Pretty Vacant' - more beautiful than the entire works of Mozart combined McAlmont & Butler 'Yes' - you've left Suede, what do you do? You go big, you go souly and you bring in the incredible Dusty Springfield vocals of the wonderful David McAlmont. Yes indeed. The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. The whole damn album. As the world around them went all psychedelic

Did I tell you about the time that my iPod spoke to me? Right, background detail; obviously I have everything that I own on my iPod and obviously I own everything that's worth owning and quite a bit that puzzles me as to why I bought it in the first place. I've got a 160GB Classic. I filled it, I bought a second. It's a necessity. Honestly. And one of the albums that I have on my iPod (iPod number 1 this is) is the soundtrack to the film Control. Control is the story of Joy Division leader Ian Curtis, the timespan of the band, Curtis' struggles with his failing marriage, his infidelities, his epilepsy and his depression. It ends with his tragic suicide just as the band were on the brink of becoming massive (not that it would have been any less tragic if they weren't) It's obviously a fairly heavy watch at times but a brilliant film with a real feel for the time that it's set in. The soundtrack contains the music of Joy Division, their peers and influences; I

You're probably wondering how our Tom came to be saved from drowning by a European Cup winning ex-England international. We were on holiday in Rhodes (should that be 'on' Rhodes as its an island?) Not recently, quite some time ago, 2001 to be exact. It was the holiday where Matty was only 9 months old and wasn't comfortable with the heat, wasn't happy about the idea of eating or drinking and wouldn't sleep; the holiday where I spent my time either pushing him along the seafront to try and lull him to sleep or carrying him round so that he could touch the trees. He was very big on touching trees. Tom had a great desire to jump into the deep end of the pool and we spent a great deal of time persuading him that this wasn't a good idea. Why can't I go in the deep end, he would ask. Because you're four we replied. To this he returned the quite brilliantly existential query; Why am I four? There's no answering that one. The deep end of the pool? That w

It's important to know where things come from. As ever, I'll explain. As ever, there will be a degree of preamble before we get to that explanation. On Thursday night Springsteen played Rome. As is his wont at the moment he pulled off a bit of a surprise. Obviously I'd suggested that J and myself should head to Rome or Paris to see him as a follow up to the trip that Tom and I made to Coventry. God knows it would have been quicker to get to Rome than it was to Cov. My powers of persuasion raised themselves to their usual levels and I spent Thursday night in work, came home, had my tea, went to bed. While I was living this thrilling lifestyle Bruce was revisiting a 40 year old album in a way that nobody in the crowd had expected; halfway through the set he threw in 'Kitty's Back' from 1973's 'The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle' - a nice one off. Except that he followed it up by playing side 2 of the album in sequence, in it's entire

I'd never been to a car boot sale before. J had wanted to do one for a while; clear the rubbish from the loft and the cupboard under the stairs (which is still referred to as PontyPandy, as Tom decided that was where Postman Pat's fictional village was located when he was three and on a major Postman Pat kick), make a few bob from it rather than just lashing it all. J's mum was also up for the idea, for very similar reasons. I had NO. DESIRE. WHATSOEVER. to ever do a car boot sale. I made my intentions very clear on this point. "Do you realise how I spend my life? I spend my life selling people stuff, do you really think I'm getting up at five o'clock on my day off so that I can sell different people different stuff? You and your mum can do it, I'm not. Ever" But I do like the idea of clearing the loft. Get a bit of floor space back, be able to get at my vinyl, get at my comics. And we could clear the study out a bit, turn it into the office/workspace

Waiting for the decking to dry. Slight miscalculation. I'm on holiday (third day thereof), the sun came out, I have (quite successfully) done bugger all. All day. Read some comics (Invincible by Robert Kirkman who wrote The Walking Dead, you know, the one you watch on telly. Read the first 20 issues in one sitting. Smart. I'm only ten years late on this) listened to some music, had some lunch, fell asleep on a giant bean bag in the garden. And when I awoke I had a bit of a bee in my bonnet. The decking has needed staining to ages but you need a couple of dry days to do that and when was the last time we had that? So I decided. Now. It gets done now. Went to B&Q (detest that place) got stain. Came home, washed the decking down with my nice shiny Karcher. No Rickenbacker but I have a Karcher. Priority failure again. The miscalculation? The sun's not on the decking this time of day. It'll dry in the heat but it's going to take longer. So I'm here, writing. The

Proof positive that you can find absolutely  anything  on the Internet. This (and lets hope you can actually see it, photos don't always show up on the blog for more than five minutes, I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I'm damned if I know what it is) is a photo that was taken sometime in the 80s but a quick glance probably told you that. To be as precise as I can it's probably 1985. I'm judging this by two things; 1. The site I found it on pinkfishmedia.net says its 1985. The guy that runs pinkfishmedia is holding one end of the Union Jack at the back of the shot, Nige from Half Man Half Biscuit is holding the other. 2. I can see four of us. No Jenny. It's after Geoff left but before Jenny joined. Our last gig as a four piece had been the week of Live Aid therefore this is early 85. So, 1985. Vanilla Beserk. Totally different life. Working for an insurance company which I hated, totally failing to pull at any point (cripplingly shy, unsure of myself, c

Know what I haven't rambled about for a while? The way music throws you back to moments in your life, the way songs bring out memories like nothing else on earth. As ever, the thought has been brought on by a couple of things that I've seen and heard over the last few days. As ever, 6 Music is involved but BBC TV is in there as well as is a post on Facebook. I was watching a Top Of The Pops 1978 that I recorded last week, trying to clear the Sky+ box down a bit (the entire series of Banshee? Deleted. Anybody want to tell me that I missed something epic?) It was one of the 70s TOTPs that the BBC is still able to show, there are very obvious 'skip' weeks in that period nowadays, and ELO were on doing (I say 'on doing',  they were showing the video of) Wild West Hero. I've come back to ELO late in life, Chris Silker (were he reading this, I don't think he is) would readily attest to my antipathy toward them in 79/80/81 when I was far too credible to be list

As I pulled out into the roundabout, the warning flashed up on the dashboard. Service needed NOW. That's 'NOW' not just 'now' which would be much more polite. Luckily I found the button that changes the display and made the rude interruption disappear. It was then that I realised that my Road Tax ran out yesterday and that I probably should have renewed it before now. Then I started musing in the fact that I seem to be constantly spending stupid amounts on this thing that basically just exists to get me from A to B and occasionally C, D etc. I'm fairly certain that there's a massive conspiracy between car companies and garages and that if we were just left to our own devices the damn things would just happily tootle along forever with no work required, no attention needed. It's simply that they build problems in so that they can keep garages in business. I haven't figured out how this aids the manufacturers yet (apart from the obvious needing a new o

I hadn't been working for HMV that long (my shop may still have been Revolver Records, there are probably 3 of us that remember that chain) so we're probably talking late 86/early 87 and I was working on the floor but heading back toward the counter as a queue was starting to from and help was needed. There was this guy near the singles section browsing through the cheap singles; tallish, wearing a blazer, a pair of John Lennon style 'pebble' sunglasses, a beret, bleached blonde hair poking out from under it. 'Jesus' I thought 'who's that knob that thinks he's Captain Sensible?' Remember Captain Sensible? Ex of The (quite wonderful) Damned, the first punk band to actually get a single out, the glorious 'New Rose', the first punk band to get an album out. Probably now remembered as the cartoon goths that covered Eloise in the eighties. And the good Captain himself, now remembered (if at all) as the one hit wonder that gained an unlikely nu

Well, it's the final of The Voice tonight as Team Tom faces off against Team Jessie against Team Will.I.Am against Team somebody else with a special musical guest in the form of Michael Buble. Which leaves one question. Just how fucking great were The Jam? We were watching Sky Arts' Isle Of Wight Festival coverage last night - for The Roses doing 'Fool's Gold' basically, ten minutes of quite wonderfully indulgent guitar soloing over a brilliantly locked in groove - and the closing credit sequence was soundtracked by a track that we hadn't seen; Paul Weller in full on Modfather flow, looking sharper than any 50+ man who's been doing the same job for 35 years has any right to, performing 'Start'. It's 33 years old, it's the most blatant Beatles homage you could imagine (Taxman bass line if you were wondering. You weren't, you all have immaculate taste, it's why you're here) and if it was released tomorrow it would still sound better

If you've been paying attention to this blog at all then you'll be aware that I'm more than happy to succumb to hyperbole; every record I talk about is the best album in the world, every gig is the best gig ever. Until the next one. I'm not even going to attempt any such claim here. Anybody that 'gets' Bruce Springsteen will understand that the only thing you can compare a Springsteen gig to is another Springsteen gig and anybody that doesn't get him won't believe the claims to greatness anyway. Suffice to say, there is nobody that does what Bruce Springsteen does, what the E Street band do, there is nobody that  can. A night watching 'The Boss' is like nothing else, it's a unique experience that you can only understand  by  experiencing it. The show is, as legend dictates, longer than anybody else's show and no two nights are the same; any two nights can be absolutely, wildly different. There will be surprises, there will be moments of w