Mumbling Into The Void (slight return)

Okay so here's how yesterday's actual blog would have started if things had gone to plan; "We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold" - no, hold on, strike that, that's Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. What I meant to say was; "We were somewhere around Stafford in a miserable queue on the M6 when the Caramel Bites became too melty and icky to eat any longer. Not the greatest start to a blog ever (I don't think I'm ever going to top 'so, erm.......I killed a dog') but it amused me while I was driving. Or rather while I was standing still in a stupidly, unbearably hot car with the prospect of a supposed two hour drive turning into a four hour slog. My intention was to blog it from a spot on Coventry City's pitch while we waited for Bruce Springsteen to hit the stage. And here's why I didn't; Picked Tom up from college at 3.15pm, straight from letting out. I was on a half day (goin...

6 Music is currently playing Bowie's 'The Next Day', the brilliant title track from his brilliant comeback album - album of the year by some distance. But you're okay, I'm not going to bang on about Bowie again. I'm going to bang on about me again. And the reason? The song that they played immediately before Bowie was The Style Council's paen to unity and the strength of the power of the people, 'Walls Come Tumbling Down' which we  kind of, sort of  used to do live back in the misty days of our time in pop. Back in them there eighties. We had a song called The Wall. Nothing to do with the Pink Floyd concept album based around loss of identity caused by the pressures of fame, childhood trauma and loss. Where their album was about grand schemes, theories and ideals ours was about.....well, about two minutes long to be honest. At least it was until it grew a little bit. It was a two minute, two chord thrash, ( E minor to D for the verse should you wish ...

You know those mornings when you accept that it's the other blokes that are the real men and not you? The mornings when you admit that you just don't know how things work but everybody else does? When you know that it's all the others that are the proper adults and you're just a guy who works in a record shop? Yeah, one of them. I got the tyre sorted out his morning, you know, the flat that I'd been pumping up every other day because I was too tight to buy a new one? Went to the garage round the corner, "Do you do just tyres?" No, but he knew somewhere local that did. So I went there. "I've got this flat that needs, well hopefully fixing if you can do that? It's like a slow puncture?"  Because, and I can't state this often enough,  I don't know how these things work.  I've no idea whether you can just fix a flat tyre or whether it needs a whole new one (which is probably why garages end up selling me a new one) It turned out t...

This is how I came to Bruce Springsteen. At least, it's the way that I remember it. I was stood in a physics class in what must have been early 1980. Hungry Heart came on the radio. I have no idea why the radio was on in a physics class but there you go. 'Thats pretty decent' I thought and left it there. Ste Beb bought Billy Doyle the 'Born To Run' album on vinyl (it could only be that or cassette at the time) for his 18th birthday. Late 81/early 82 then? The cover looked pretty cool, stark white background, one man leaning on the back of another, a guitar and a sax. I don't recall linking the cover with the previous single. Then there was The River; stood in the hallway of a Parisian hotel on a sixth form holiday, Feb 81. 'That' I thought 'is bloody great' and did no more about it. 'Atlantic City' was heavily played on The Old Grey Whistle Test and was clearly utterly brilliant. Again, I did no more about it. The ubiquity and sheer colos...

No. I'm not there. I wish I was. Is there any realistic prospect of getting to Finsbury Park (somewhere in London by all accounts) before The Stone Roses hit the stage? The sun is blazing, it's a perfect evening for a gig, I watched them in the rain this time last year, I'd like to watch them in the sun now. And when I say now, I mean now. This very second. I feel left out. I feel I'm missing out. I want to see them again and I want to do it without some idiot pissing down the back of my leg. Have I told you about this yet? Well, I hit Heaton Park relatively early in conditions that would best be described as monsoon-esque, found myself a nice little spot, couldn't get into the semi circle in front of the stage, too late for that, managed to get basically two people away from the barrier that cut across the field; a little walkway for the celebs to walk to and from their raised platform seats, a path for John Bishop to go and get a bevy basically. So I was nice and ...

Of all the things that we've ever lost, the one I miss most is Flat Duck. I'll elucidate. There are things that disappear, that get left behind in time, that somehow go astray; things that you know for a fact that you had one day and the next day they'd gone. Then there are the things that you can pin down to the exact moment, the exact place, that you lost them. It doesn't make them any less lost. Flat Duck falls into the latter category. I've a history of losing things. I can remember vividly the first comic that I ever bought. I was five or six, we were going to Speke Airport, the old one opposite where I now work, with Nan and Grandad. Not to go anywhere, for a day out, watching the planes and I bought a Spider-Man comic in the shop at the corner of the street next to my Nan's road (Dryden Street, Bootle). Spider-Man had a cold, he fought the Vulture, I was hooked. I treasured that comic and the one where Batman solved a murder that was committed by somebody...

Look, if you're not taken by the music ones or don't like lists ( Hi J) it may be worth just skipping today. Still here? Right, the thinking was this; you need more songs that will enrich your life and this is what I live for so here's 150 of the buggers. The only criteria is that they couldn't be obvious, they had to be songs that most people might not have heard. Oh, and they had to be basically bloody brilliant. (There WILL be repetition. And spelling mistakes. This took ages, I'm REALLY REALLY not doing it again. Honest.) So, Spotify or YouTube at the ready to check these out? Here we go....... 150 Basically Bloody Brilliant Songs The Wild Swans 'Young Manhood'  - "I don't believe in an act of war, I don't believe in empires anymore" - The Wild Swans mission statement, very English, imperial but rebelling. The Wedding Present 'Silver Shorts' - a top 10 single every month for a year, only Elvis had done that before. An argument d...