The joys of composing a mixtape
It is hard to believe that the compact cassette format is over 40 years old. Invented by Philips in 1963, it was, in conjunction with the Sony Walkman, the iPod of its day by the late ’70s and early ’80s. Read the rest of this entry »
The start of a new feature from East of the M60
After complaints about this blog turning into a copy of The Guardian (yeah, right), East of the M60 is proud to announce a new monthly feature, ‘The Not So Perfect 10′. In the tradition of E4 and Channel 4’s repetition of ‘The Top 100…’ and ‘Top Ten…’ type shows, this regular feature will detail any ten randomly thought of topic by this blog. Read the rest of this entry »
Yes folks, it’s that time of the year again, ‘Comic Relief’.
What started off a ninety minute programme has mushroomed into an evening long telethon, with linked programmes. For the purpose of this post, I would like to hear your memories of previous Comic Relief years. I shall start off with my memories.
For me, 2001 was the best year, as I spent an hour outside the Stalybridge branch of Tescos, collecting for Comic Relief, dressed as an overweight Emily Howard lookalike! Ten years earlier, I was at school, and took part in a ‘talent contest’ singing the then popular Right Said Fred song ‘I’m Too Sexy’, followed by ‘The Stonk’ by Hale and Pace. In the same year, I brought the house down at the school hall with an impression of a washing machine for a version of ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’, organised by some sixth formers.
For the next part of this post, I shall make reference to the Comic Relief songs.
My favourite was the first ever single for the said charity, ‘Living Doll’. This was a version by Cliff Richard and The Young Ones (yes, Rik, Vyvian, Mike and Neil of the 1982 - 4 sitcom… heavv-vee!) from 1986. The most cheesiest one has to be ‘The Stonk’ by Hale and Pace and the Stonkers (which was a more blatant single; a trend followed by Right Said Fred with ‘Stick It Out’). This is due to the talent contest mentioned earlier.
The Singles (note, this is not a complete list; any additions welcome):
Your comments please…
Half Man Half Biscuit, 16 February 2007: Manchester Academy
With a near capacity crowd in the Manchester Academy, Birkenhead’s answer to Shakespeare had a solid performance, with this gig surpassing the Holmfirth one last September.
Opening the gig was fellow labelmates Calvin Party, in front of about 400 people, with their Echo and the Bunnymen meets James style of Indie music.
By 2115 hours, came the main feature, Half Man Half Biscuit who ran on to a snatch of ‘13 Eurogoths Floating In The Dead Sea’. Fifteen minutes before then, the Manchester Academy saw an extra 800 HMHB fans surge towards the venue. As with Holmfirth, they opened the gig with ‘S*** Arm Bad Tattoo’.
Friday’s gig saw a rather tight performance by Half Man Half Biscuit, with a mix of excellent new material from ‘Achtung Bono’ and a few oldies. Within the latter category were ‘4AD3DCD’, ‘Albert Hammond Bootleg’ and ‘Turned Up, Clocked Off, Laid Off’. Unlike the Holmfirth gig, ‘24 Hour Garage People’ lacked the musical samples (probably due to copyright issues).
Before the encore, HMHB dedicated their last song, ‘Joy Division Oven Gloves’ to Tony Wilson, given his recent battle with cancer. This was met by rapturous applause by the 1200 - 1500 fans at the Academy. Continuing the trend of using a cover version for the encore set, their choice was ‘Containers’ by The Fall from their 1980 album ‘Grotesque: After the Gramme’.
Ending with a snatch of ‘The Best Things In Life’ and ‘We’ve Built This Village on a Trad. Arr. Tune’ before then, Half Man Half Biscuit left me wanting a second encore and a week’s worth of cold turkey, cured only by listening to ‘Achtung Bono’ and ‘Back in the DHSS’ several times.
A fantastic night, and long may they continue. When’s the next gig in the North West…?
Roger Hodgson’s first UK tour for over 20 years
The former Supertramp vocalist will be playing six venues within the first fortnight of October 2007. He will be performing in Cardiff, Manchester, Glasgow, Bournemouth and London between the 1st and the 11th October.
Tickets for the non London shows will £35.00 (plus booking fee for those who pay by credit or debit card). The gig at the Royal Albert Hall (Tuesday 9th October) will be priced between £27.50 and £40.00.
For details of his tour, click on to http://www.rogerhodgson.com/documents/uktourpress.html.
The Manchester show will take place on the 3rd October 2007. Expect to see a review after this.
As well as being the title of a 1978 album featuring the 20 worst songs according to a Capital Radio show hosted by the late great Kenny Everett, the purpose of this post is about crimes against music.
The 1978 album released by K-Tel includes songs about drink driving, necrophilia and… three Jess Conrad tracks (poor man). My favourite musical disaster from that album is ‘Paralysed’ by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, along with Jimmy Cross’ ‘I Want My Baby Back’. If you can find a copy on eBay buy it straight away. It is a real education in musical composition and on how not to get to number one, nor gain extra friends via myspace.com.
My crimes against music are: lyricists who blatantly rhyme “touch” with “much” (so cliched) and songs switching octaves almost suddenly (the truck driver’s gear change). As for particular artistes, well, I would say anyone who butchers ‘Unchained Melody’, ‘Uptown Girl’ or ‘Agadoo’ to death, to the point all enjoyment is lost (I lied about the latter one).
As for particular songs, I would consign the following to Room 202 (Room 101 is too good for them) :
Above are my not so Fab Four. Filed under ’so bad they are good’, I would say these fit my criteria for Room 50.5:
Readers of this blog, I will invite you to add further comments and songs which would reside in Room 202, or Room 50.5.
Stuart Vallantine: A lover of rotten records as well as more decent stuff like Supertramp, ELO and the Toy Dolls.
Holmfirth Picturedrome, 21st September 2006
As British as Fish and Chips and Fawlty Towers with a sense of the absurd, Half Man Half Biscuit’s Holmfirth gig saw a tight performance from the Birkenhead Indie band.
Established in 1984, splitting in 1987, only to reform in 1990, Messrs Nigel and Neil Blackwell continue to write great songs with references ranging from ITV Wrestling contenders to hills and nondescript East Anglian towns. Last night, they didn’t disappoint.
Kicking off proceedings with ‘S*** Arm, Bad Tattoo’, their set lasted a full 90 minutes with 10 minutes added time for an encore. Applause and cheers were reserved for the old favourites like ‘F***** ‘Ell It’s Fred Titmuss’ and ‘Everything’s AOR’. Of the more recent material, ‘Joy Division Oven Gloves’ was greeted with a lively reception.
The highlights of the gig included an extended version of ‘24 Hour Garage People’, updated to include references to portable digital music players - complete with excerpts of songs which would appear on Sean Rowley’s ‘Guilty Pleasures’ album. The other one was ‘Disabled Blue Badge Abuser’, which used the bass line of one of their older pieces ‘Yipps’.
They opened the encore with a cover of ‘Caroline’ by Status Quo, before playing ‘Them’s The Vagaries’ and two classics from ‘Back Again in the DHSS’ (’The Bastard Son of Dean Friedman’ and ‘The Best Things in Life’). Suprisingly, there was no ‘Trumpton Riots’, which was seen a mild letdown by some.
Apart from that, this was a tight performance by Half Man Half Biscuit, and their 100 minute set was well worth the £15.00.
Key songs:
All in all, a great night.
Overall rating: 90% (Half Man Half Biscuit can never be equalled with their powers of observation on the minutae of life most of us take for granted and knowledge of all things obscure. Long may they continue.)
