Things That Are British – Los Bastardos Reunidos

January 8, 2021 // 1 Comment

Hmmm

New Bowie single celebrating his birthday.

Nice enough, but lacks the gut-punch raw emotion of Lennon’s original.

November 10, 2020 // 2 Comments

I’m Sure We Can All Relate Redux

Somehow never heard Billy Bragg’s original until the other day. Early twenties suck as bad as the teenage years, just for different and more complex reasons.

Sorry-not-sorry for providing lyrics …

I was twenty one years when I wrote this song
I’m twenty two now, but I won’t be for long
People ask me when will you grow up to be a man
But all the girls I loved at school
Are already pushing prams

I loved you then as I love you still
Though I put you on a pedestal,
They put you on the pill
I don’t feel bad about letting you go
I just feel sad about letting you know

I don’t want to change the world
I’m not looking for a new England
I’m just looking for another girl
I don’t want to change the world
I’m not looking for a new England
I’m just looking for another girl

I loved the words you wrote to me
But that was bloody yesterday
I can’t survive on what you send
Every time you need a friend

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
It’s wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care

October 27, 2020 // 5 Comments

Peter Grant Doc

An ok documentary about the kind of manager all bands need but few get. Wears thin in places, but few documentaries don’t.

October 22, 2020 // 2 Comments

I’m Sure We Can All Relate

Buzzcocks on Top of the Tops in 1978, because we could all use some today.

Also, there’s this! Available in January.

October 12, 2020 // 2 Comments

Spitting Image Is Still Around

And still pretty funny.

October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 // 3 Comments

You Bastards Never Tell Me Anything!

Like that the Vapors put out a new album this summer!

September 11, 2020September 11, 2020 // 4 Comments

Shit

There goes one of my boyhood crushes.

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020 // 3 Comments

Shaken, Not Stirred

I’m all for Daniel Craig. Skyfall is one of my favorite films of the last ten years. Fleabag was brought in to liven up this script. Bodes well.

August 11, 2020August 11, 2020 // 2 Comments

They Call Me Naughty Lola

VERY British personal ads from the London Review of Books. All are witty, many are pants-wettingly funny. Here’s a taste …

Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite. Box no. 9612.

I’ll see you at the LRB singles night. I’ll be the one breathing heavily and stroking my thighs in the ‘art’ books. Asthmatic, varicosed F (93) seeks M to 30 with enough puff in him to push me uphill to the post office. This is not a euphemism. Box no. 4632.

I once found the perfect match in this column, but then it turned out to be an ad I’d written two years earlier that they’d forgotten to publish. Still, you have to admire my consistency. Man, 43. Consistent. Admiring. Admirable. Box no. 4321.

In a certain light I look like Robert Mitchum. In a certain light, you look like Kim Novak. More usually, I look like Shrek. More usually, you still look like Kim Novak. Yes, you’re very unlucky. Now pass me the Doritos and get over it. Box no. 3917.

My favorite Ben & Jerry’s is Acid-Boiled Bones of Divorce Lawyer. They don’t make it, but, damn, I can taste its sweet, sweet ice-creamy softness already. Bed-sit-living doctor (M, 54). Box no. 6321.

Shy, ugly man, fond of extended periods of self-pity, middle-aged, flatulent and overweight, seeks the impossible. Box no. 8623.

July 10, 2020July 10, 2020 // 4 Comments

And now for some REAL dancin’

I’m not much of a Joy Division fan, as I can only take so much post-industrial Midlands desolation. But this one’s pretty good, and Ian Curtis’s stage gestures are interesting to say the least, especially when he really cuts loose at around 3:00.

You bastards might know way more about these guys, so my apologies if what follows is common knowledge. It’s pretty widely known that Ian Curtis hanged himself of the eve of what would have been their first tour of the U.S. Beyond that, I’ve picked up a few interesting facts over the years:

-They formed after seeing the Sex Pistols perform in Manchester. That same gig also inspired the formation of The Buzzcocks and The Smiths.

-Their bass player developed his style of playing in the upper register because when they started out, his amp was so shitty that it wouldn’t reproduce lower notes without sputtering.

-Ian Curtis had epilepsy and based his stage moves on his seizures, to the point that his bandmates could not tell when he was having a real one. This predictably led to some disatrous gigs.