After a week’s Glasto-induced hiatus, everyone’s least favourite sort-of-mixed playlist is back with an all-new mix, and I thought I’d blow all of those cobwebs away with another LOUD one.
The usual elements are here: tone-setting opener, a couple of forgotten beauties (Gallon Drunk, anybody….?), along with a very brief ad break and a classic to round things off.
Admin time: any skips or jumps are down to the mixing software; any mis-timed mixes are down to me; all record selections are, of course, mine.
So, to quote Def Leppard (and now I’m typing this, I can’t believe I haven’t included it in this mix…some other time, maybe…): “Let’s Get Rocked!”
A couple of weeks ago, on returning from some time off work, Lauren Laverne tweeted out asking for suggestions for tunes to include in the Cloudbusting segment of her BBC 6Music breakfast show.
For those of you who don’t listen to her broadcast, the purpose of Cloudbusting is to blow away all the negative feelings which may be amassing on the weekly return to work. Which seems familiar…
As she has been doing this since before she switched to the Breakfast from her Mid-Morning slot, which I was at work for and so rarely heard, the fact that she does much the same as I do here should be considered entirely serendipitous: for once I haven’t stolen an idea from 6Music, although I can’t say hand on heart that I started first.
Anyway, I tweeted Lauren to suggest a tune; she ‘liked’ the tweet, so I thought I would be writing to say how I had gotten a record played on the UK’s greatest digital radio station.
But listening in that day, sadly my suggestion didn’t make the cut. So here it is instead, because even though you don’t realise it, what you really need to kick your week off is over six and a half minutes of a Dutch prog-rock band rocking out and yodelling at you:
I’ve just got home from the cinema (fourth time this year! I’m really making use of this “Unlimited” use monthly subscription, right?), and this time it was to see Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver”.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Edgar’s work, he’s most famous for the TV sitcom “Spaced”, and the subsequent Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, “Shaun of the Dead”, “Hot Fuzz” and “The World’s End”, all of which are great, “Spaced” and “Shaun of the Dead” especially.
“Baby Driver” is the tale of a young getaway driver who, due to a medical condition, permanently listens to music on one of his many iPods. I’ll not give away any more than that it has one hell of a soundtrack.
Put it this way: the first song you hear is this raucous corker:
When the lead character first hears this, he doesn’t recognise it, and has to ask the person playing it what it is. Now, it’s on occasions like this that I wish I wasn’t such a dad old loner, sitting in the cinema on my own with popcorn and Coke Zero spilled down my shirt, for what I wanted to do next was turn to my companion and say: “It’s “B-A-B-Y” by Carla Thomas, it’s on Stax Records, and it’s wonderful, as is the version Rachel Sweet released on Stiff Records in 1978″.
But as I leaned in to impart this knowledge, I realised that I didn’t know the person sitting next to me, and that maybe revealing my inner nerd to them wasn’t a great idea. That’s what this place is for, after all.
So yeah, a pretty darned diverse soundtrack which, if I didn’t already own about 90% of I’d be rushing to buy right now instead of writing this. I’m quite literally having to stop myself from posting every song from it that I own.
Anyway, what’s especially impressive about the movie is that it’s all choreographed to fit with the music being played; so guns are fired and reloaded to the beat, car gear changes are synced to chord progressions.
Oh, and Jamie Foxx, John Hamm and Kevin Spacey are all in it, which gives a fair indication as to the quality on show here. Jon Spencer also gets a brief cameo (as do Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Big Boi from Outkast. And probably loads more I didn’t spot.)
Midway through the film, a track appears which is just so incredibly well placed, so perfect for the moment, I reached down into my bag, pulled out my own iPod, and scrolled through to line it up ready to listen to, loudly, on the way home.
Now, ordinarily this would probably have gone unnoticed. I like there to be an exclusion zone around me when I go to the cinema, so I had reserved my seat in advance, this morning, and had made sure I picked one as I usually do: aisle seat, towards the back, with nobody either in front of, alongside (and preferably behind) me. But, as I already mentioned, someone was sitting next to me, a group of three lads, who I didn’t know, and who must have booked their tickets after I did, the cunning swines.
The one sitting next to me, who so narrowly escaped having me whisper about Carla Thomas and Rachel Sweet to him earlier on, clocks what I’m doing and leans over to me.
I show him my iPod, Dutch prog-rock track cued up ready to go.
“Nope. Deadly serious.”
“Fair enough,” he says, before leaning back to his mate sitting on his right, presumably, to pass on the knowledge.
The film finished, I left the cinema, and listened to “Hocus Pocus” several times on repeat as I walked home.
What I’m trying to say is: if you love music (and since you’re here, I assume that you do) and great films, especially ones with more than its’ fair share of car chases, do yourself a favour and go see this.
So, so much to get through this week, so I’ll assume you all know what we do here, and will dive straight in.
Last week’s records was “Inbetweener” by Sleeper, and the suggestions for records that link to that came in thick and fast. Now, I know I swore off fiddling around with the order last week, but as it turned out, this week there were several suggestions which followed similar themes so I thought I’d try to group those together, interspersed with the remaining ones.
And so to kick things off this week, here’s The Swede from Unthought of, though, somehow which just happened to be the first one I received:
“Louise Wener of Sleeper published an autobiography in 2010 entitled ‘Different For Girls’. ‘It’s Different For Girls’ is the title of a rather splendid Joe Jackson song.”
It most certainly is, and you need proof, here you are:
Wener’s post-Sleeper career has largely been based upon her writing skills; not only has she written that aforementioned autobiography, but she’s written several works of fiction too. Which made me think of this record, which contains my favourite mop-top guitar riff:
Don’t worry, it’s not all bout me this week! But “Reader Meet Author” leads us nicely on to SWC from When You Can’t Remember Anything‘s first nomination of the day:
“I once got stuck in a lift with Louise Wener AND the keyboardist from The Wannadies. There is no link here unless you want to post ‘Hit’ by The Wannadies, in all of its two minute brilliance?”
Of course I want to post that! It was going to feature in a future unrelated post, but I’m not adverse to posting the same song more than once, and I can always postpone that one:
Moving further away from Wener’s writing prowess and SWC’s stalker tendencies (I’m sure he’ll claim it was a work-related incident, though), here’s Charity Chic from Charity Chic Music:
“A sleeper is a train that transports you through the night – if you were to get a Midnight Train to Georgia like Gladys Knight and the Pips, chances are it would be a sleeper.”
Whenever I hear the name Gladys Knight & The Pips, I always think of Geordie adult comic Viz, to the snappily titled “The Viz Book of Crap Jokes: A Pitiful Array of Poor Quality Jokes from the pages of Viz” which I used to own but which seems to have got mislaid on one of my many house-moves over the years, and particularly to this, which young folks who’ve never had to use a public phone probably won’t understand:
Now, can we all give a warm Chain Gang welcome to the first of many new contributors who’ve been in touch this week. Here, from his frankly quite wonderful blog Is This The Life? is The Robster:
“I was going to suggest It’s Different For Girls until Swede beat me to it. So instead I thought about Louise’s first novel ‘Goodnight Steve McQueen’ which led me to the Prefab Sprout album ‘Steve McQueen’. But I never liked Prefab Sprout (a heretical remark in some quarters, but I stand by it) [In which case, we’ll skip playing anything by them – Chain Ed]. “There was also a book she wrote called ‘Just For One Day’ about Britpop which is as good an excuse as you could ask for to include some Bowie.”
The Robster continues: “Then I went down the sleeping route: Sleep by Godspeed You! Black Emperor would be a good one, but you probably don’t want to post a 23-minute instrumental, do you?”
Okay folks, brace yourselves. It’s become a bit of a tradition here on The Chain that we feature at least one cringe-worthy song every week. Not because we necessarily like it, but because…well, did you ever hear that quote, which I had always thought was attributed to mountaineer Chris Bonnington, that goes “Q: Why do you want to climb that mountain? A: Because it’s there.”? (A quick internet search tells me that it was actually first said by George Mallory, an English schoolteacher and mountaineer, born 1886, died 1924 trying to errm….climb Mount Everest. Not so smug now, eh, Mallory, old bean?) I digress – it’s the same principal here. So, babylotti, why did you recommend this record? Because you could. Or, as you put it:
“Inbetweener conjures one song up for me immediately. It’s that excruciating dance scene in the Inbetweeners film where they ‘move’ across the dancefloor to ‘We No Speak Americano’ that’s my suggestion, right there. Sorry.“
And just in case you don’t know the scene babylotti is referring to:
Which leads us rather neatly on to the next suggestion, and can we have a warm Chain Gang welcome to The Beard, who does not appear to be the biggest fan of the show which gave us such phrases as “Bus Stop Wankers!”, “Bum-der” and “Clunge” (I advertently described a cheesecake at a recent party as “looking a bit clungey”, not realising what that meant until the words were already out there. I am free to host the Great British Bake Off, in case anyone on C4 is interested).
Anyway, here’s The Beard’s suggestion:
“The plural of Inbetweener is Inbetweeners. The Inbetweeners was a mildly-amusing-but-quickly-lost-its-charm comedy. One of the protagonists was called Jay. A more famous Jay is Jam Master Jay. ‘Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse)’ by his band, Run DMC, is ridiculously good.”
Since we’re on a rap/hip-hop vibe, here’s Rol from My Top Ten:
“Literal link again: the only song I have in my collection with Sleeper in the title is Nightbus Sleepers by Dan le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip. Not usually my bag, musically, but I love Scroobius Pip’s rambling rhymes”.
Seems a bit quiet around here without George this week, doesn’t it? Time to rectify that, with more of his Tottenham Hotspur links:
“Sleeper is a film by Woody Allen. Dave Allen was in the Gang of Four, leading to Dave Mackay of Tottenham Hotspur (their finest ever midfielder), leading to Andy Mackay of Roxy Music, and Ladytron.”
“At the risk of looking as if I am stalking George by copying everything he comes up with (it’s all a coincidence honestly) [I knew it! You might call it stalking, we call it spying! – Chain Ed] my first thought was also that Woody Allen was in a film called Sleeper with one-time partner Diane Keaton, but we all know that Woody also had a long-term relationship with Mia Farrow. [Phew! I wondered where you might be going with that for a moment there. I was dusting off the word ‘allegedly’ ready for quick insertion – Legal Ed] Now Mia was once married to Frank Sinatra so I could go down that route but instead, in the interests of championing the Guilty Pleasure tagline yet again, I will go down another route. Ms Farrow starred in the excellent film Rosemary’s Baby and back in 1970 Edison Lighthouse did really well with Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) – I think the brackets are important!”
Anyone whose services as the resident pop nerdo boffin in pub quiz team will know how invaluable knowing where the brackets go in a pop song title is. My favourite one that catches people out is Heaven 17’s “…(And That’s No Lie)” which you’ll note quite literally has no words that aren’t in brackets.
Time for a warm welcome to the third of our new contributors this week, which comes from within Alyson’s sleeper cell humble abode:
“Don’t know if my other half is allowed to join in but out of interest his suggestion probably falls into the Guilty Pleasure category also and it’s The Gambler by Kenny Rogers – The opening few lines being relevant to a) Sleeper trains b) Being too tired to sleep c) Railway lines are laid on sleepers.”
Tick, tick, tick, as The Hives once said, as did the nit nurse at my Junior School (although The Hives also added the word “Boom!”).
I’ve digressed again. Here’s King Kenny (no, not that one. Or that one. This one):
If you didn’t catch Kenny Rogers’ Sunday Afternoon Legends slot at Glastonbury back in 2013, you can see it here. Well worth a look, in my book.
Anyway, before I forget, a warm Chain Gang welcome to Alyson’s other half, Jamie.
Now, as they say, for something completely different, and to my final suggestion for this week. “Inbetweener” comes from Sleeper’s debut album, “Smart”. Smart is a word which has several different meanings: Well dressed (The Great Gog will expand on this in a moment); to be in pain (as in “Ouch, that smarts a bit”), or to be clever.
If you’re the opposite of clever, then you could easily be described as intellectually-challenged, or just plain stupid. That’s S-T-U-P-I-D:
Since I’ve just mentioned him, here’s The Great Gog:
“One can be said to be smart if one is wearing one’s Sunday best. Off the top of my head, the only song I can think of that references Sunday best is The Icicle Works’ “Who Do You Want For Your Love”, in its second line. And it’s a particular favourite of mine.”
Not one I was overly familiar with before getting your suggestion (I really don’t know how this one passed me by, to be honest), but it’s fast becoming one of mine too:
A suggestion which coaxed The Swede back for a second stab:
“I’ve now got Elvis Costello’s ‘Sunday’s Best’ as an earworm, a song that’s as relevant today as it was in 1979, if not more so. It also contains the line ‘…Sleepy towns and sleeper trains….’, so can be designated a double-linker!”…
…which in turn caused ructions with The Great Gog’s working day:
“Whilst staring at an increasingly confusing spreadsheet at work, I’ve just remembered that Madness’ “Our House” makes mention of Sunday best. Needless to say, it is currently ear-worming…”
“I was once in the audience of Jools Holland, it was a Hootenanny special (filmed in August) but one of the acts there was Audioweb who performed their minor hit ‘Sleeper’ – they had more chart success with their ragga indie version of ‘Bankrobber’.”
As it’s a Clash cover, let’s dedicate this one to George:
“As my obligatory second option”, Badger continues,”another song on the debut Sleeper album was ‘Lady Love Your Countryside’ which was a slight piss-take of supposed political rebels S*M*A*S*H and their ‘feminist anthem’ ‘Lady Love Your C___’ who actually turned out to be posho college boys. Either way ‘I Want to (Kill Somebody)’ was a great three minutes of Tory baiting”:
Now, since Audioweb have been mentioned, here’s Swiss Adam from Bagging Area:
“Sleeper was a song by mid 90s Manchester dub/rock/electronic and Audioweb, an actually pretty good piece of mid 90s music. The 12″ came with not 1, but 2, Andrew Weatherall mixes.”
Now these are mixes which I did not own. But fear not, I thought: Swiss is renowned for being a bit of a Weatherall nut, so I figured I’d just pop over to his blog, type Audioweb into the Search function, and get them from him, only to be met with the following message when I did:
“No posts matching the query: audioweb”
Gah!
Anyway, I managed to track down the following two mixes. I’ve no idea if one, or the other, or both for that matter, are in any way Weatherall related (although they both sound pretty similar to these ears…)
Okay, time for Comment Showboat of the week, which undoubtedly goes to Dirk from sexyloser. I’d get comfy, if I were you:
“A ‘sleeper’ these days is of course not only a person, who, like you and me do, goes to bed in the evening and, well, sleeps. No, a sleeper is a spy planted in advance for future use, but not currently active (not necessarily a terrorist, back in the golden days of the cold war we just had spies, you know, for younger readers, all harmless stuff!). This may be hard to believe, but fear not: there is a movie which might shows it all: ‘Salt’. In it, Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, who is accused of being a Russian sleeper agent and goes on the run to try to clear her name.
Now, as you might or might not know, Angelina Jolie announced that she and Brad Pitt go ‘different ways’ from now on, a divorce will come soon, I’m afraid. Very sorry to hear this, and I would just l.o.v.e. to help Angelina in those difficult times of misery, but I fear that Mrs Loser would have severe objections against my noble offerings. So, Angelina, the only advice I can give you currently, is to see your future positively and to sing along loudly to Huey ‘Piano’ Smith & His Clowns’ ‘Free, Single And Disengaged’: a neat song indeed and, coincidently , my tip for this week’s ‘Chain’.
PS – Angelina, if you’re reading this, there is no current Mrs Jez, and you seem exactly the sort of headcase that some of my ex-girlfriends were clearly readying me for. Call me, maybe?
Sticking with the Cold War/Spy angle, here’s Alex G from We Will Have Salad:
“OK, other people have done railways and spies. So let’s combine the two, and what springs to my mind is James Bond getting into a bit of a scuffle in “From Russia With Love”. As it happens, I have a soft spot for Matt Monro, so let’s hear him singing the title song from said movie.”
You’d have to be pretty annoyed if you were Matt Monro. Your most famous record (as far as I know, feel free to provide alternatives) and you don’t even get to feature on the sleeve. Such is life.
Now a warm Chain Gang welcome back to Kay, who continues the theme:
“Sleeper made me think of a sleeper cell – cold war, John Le Carre novels, Russia etc ….then Russia made me think of Babushka by Kate Bush”:
Which just leaves us with George’s second suggestion, and for what I think is for the fourth time on the trot, it’s related to Tottenham Hotspur:
“In Sleeper, the singer was Louise Wener. Louise was/is the name of a pop-singer who is married to footballer Jamie Redknapp, son of former Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, who signed Dutch footballer Rafael van der Vaart. And speaking of things Dutch leads to prog-flute band Focus, and their song House of the King. a splendid pop prog song with flute-ing and hand-clapping.”
My knowledge of Focus, I thought, began and ended with “Hocus Pocus”, until I heard this and recognised it as the theme tune to Steve Coogan’s BBC comedy series “Saxondale”, so truly thanks for pointing me in its direction (don’t let the word “prog” put you off, George is right, this really is splendid):
And that’s it for another week. Of course, none of us guessed the official link to the official record, which I’ll have to concede is a better link than usual, if still not a patch on any of ours:
“…From Sleeper – part of an earring – to a hit from Dutch band Golden Earring…”:
(Relax ladies: all of the members of Focus and Golden Earring are either married or dead).
So: let’s be having your nominations for records which link to “Radar Love” by Golden Earring”, along with your explanation of how you got to it, via the Comments section below, in time for me to source and write this by the same time next week.
For the past seven days, I have been picking out songs for this week’s Friday Night shenanigans, popping them into an order that felt right, and trying to think of something vaguely amusing to say about them.
But then on Thursday, I got some news which made me change this week’s theme entirely.
So, here are this week’s tunes; the tunes I intended to post this week would be next week, but I have next week’s planned already, so the original ones from this week won’t feature next week, but the week after that, unless anything happens in the next couple of weeks that makes this week’s get postponed for another week.
Everybody clear about that?
Ok, so this week’s theme is…well, let’s see if you can work it out. And please don’t write in, it’s just for fun. Nor is it particularly tricky.
In case you were wondering, this is not the version used on the “Reservoir Dogs” soundtrack; that’s a cover version recorded by Nashville group “Bedlam” who certainly sound scary, don’t they readers? I bet they have a “You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps!” sign on their studio wall.
By the way, have you ever noticed – and I do not claim to be the first person to have ever pointed this out – that the traditional depiction of a magic carpet, is not a carpet, but a rug?
Look:
That’s a rug, that is. It’s got tassles on the corners!
Mind you, apart from the historical precedent that had been set, I can see why Disney continued to refer to it as a carpet in their 1992 film Aladdin: too many references to rugs might have put Elton John off writing the songs for The Lion King.
Now who are these shifty looking chaps peeking out from behind some trees? It’s only blimming 60s rock pioneers and runners-up in the 1968 “World’s Worst Hide ‘n’ Seekers” Creedence Clearwater Revival, that’s who:
Yes, that was some proper yodelling you just heard there.
When I used to go clubbing, a mate of mine was into his progressive house music big time. At some point or another he heard the term “progressive rock” and was curious, so he asked me if I knew any bands he should check out. I mentioned “Yes” and “E.L.P.” which drew a blank look. Well, Dum Dum, if you’re reading this, that was prog 1970s style. I do hope you didn’t waste any money.
Moving on to 1982 now, and a song which I seem to remember used to get this 12 year old boy a little bit hot and bothered when the video came on Top of The Pops:
I think it’s the line about “silk and satin, leather and lace, black panties with an angel’s face” that made me blush so. And if you think that’s rather lame, you should have seen the state I was in a year earlier when this was a hit:
Girls did not look like that in my class, that’s for sure. I might have turned up a bit more often if they had.
Anyway, I digress. The more astute of you will have noticed a magical theme through the songs so far, and that’s because here in the UK, 2016 claimed another celebrity from my childhood with the death of TV magician Paul Daniels.
When I was a kid in the late 1970s and early 1980s Daniels was everywhere: he had his own magic show on BBC1; hosted several game shows, and even had a children’s show called “Wizbit”.
It struck me recently, in a particularly dark moment, that one of the reasons so many popular entertainers from my youth have died recently is because I’m no spring chicken anymore either, and since they were generally about 30 years older than me back then…well, it’s hardly surprising. Yeh, I know, bleak, right?
Anyway, in his later, post-regular-TV-appearance years, Daniels became a bit of a figure of fun, a relic of those light entertainment shows from the period which had been banished from the TV listings by alternative comedy, by satellite and cable, by the mass media’s lustful craving for something a little saucier than he and the lovely Debbie Magee could ever produce. I always found that a little sad and distasteful, especially as he always seemed to take it all on the chin, and even play up to it to a degree. He’d made his fortune and got out while the going was good, what did he care?
But I come here not to bury him but to praise him. He always seemed a good egg to me (although it was pretty funny when he was hospitalised after Sooty hit him in the face with a pizza. True story. Shouldn’t laugh but…could an anecdote be any more 70s children’s entertainment?) and he was a genuine influence on my life, albeit briefly; I tried to take up magic in my youth, buying a pack of Paul Daniels Playing Cards and a book of card tricks, which I think I gave up on after a couple of weeks of realising I couldn’t even shuffle the bloody things properly.
So when the news of his death broke on Thursday, I was genuinely saddened and decided to dedicate tonight’s Music Club to him, and dig out a few tunes with a somewhat magical quality.
Surely, somewhere, there must be a 60s-themed bistro called “The Lovin’ Spoonful”, right?
I’m absolutely gutted that I posted Super Furry Animals “God Show Me Magic” on here a couple of weeks ago, or that would be in this list. As it is, here’s a couple that I can’t really avoid posting:
From one of their most commercially successful albums, which, coincidentally, was released the year after their iconic performance at Live Aid (I’m sure those two facts are in no way linked) this to my mind marked the end of Queen’s final purple patch. The next album, although yielding a Number One single in “Innuendo”, also saw them writing songs about being an Invisible Man (something it’s very hard to imagine Freddie Mercury ever being – and yes I know Roger Taylor penned that one, no need to tell me) and twatting about on top of steam trains at the Nene Valley Railway (near my childhood home) in the “Breakthru” video. Mind you, they probably had more pressing matters on their minds at the time…
Count yourself lucky I didn’t post the Barry Manilow version.
Time for a factoid: did you know Manilow nicked the chord progression for this from Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor, Opus 28, Number 20? Don’t believe me? Check this out:
Maybe he didn’t write the songs that make the whole world sing after all.
What finer recommendation do you need for a song than that it was included on the soundtrack of “Happy Gilmore”? So I’m told, anyway. I wouldn’t know. Never seen it. Might be a very funny film, though I somewhat doubt it.
“Happy Gilmore” stars Adam Sandler, so I will never watch it. My default setting when it comes to Sandler is “Avoid”.
Though I have seen “The Wedding Singer”, but that had Billy Idol in it, which just about saved it.
Something a tad more contemporary now. From their third album “Bruiser”, and the main track on their 2010 “Kusama EP”, the much under-rated:
The Duke Spirit’s fourth album “Kin” is out in April, and I cannot wait. But I’ll have to. Stay with me til then, won’t you?
In 2007, frustrated by their record label’s decision to basically ignore their “Twilight of the Innocents” album, Ash started describing it as their “final album” and made it known that henceforth they would be eschewing the album format. This sparked many a rumour that the band was about to split; instead they began releasing a series of singles, a new one every fortnight between October 2009 until September 2010 on 7″ vinyl and digital download only. That’s 26 singles in total (take that, The Wedding Present, with your feeble 12 singles in one year!), one for each letter of the alphabet, hence the whole lot being released on two…erm…albums, pithily called “A- Z Series Volumes 1 & 2”.
This was the first, and watch out, it has one fuck of a bassline:
I was hoping to track down a clip of when they walked off Top of the Pops after host Richard Bacon introduced them as a band that had been put in a “fat melting pot of talent”, but apparently it was in the rehearsals so there is no footage. Ho hum. Bacon is said to have tried to apologise and claimed he was referring to their status, not their appearance. Course you were, Richard. Course you were. And you only did the one line of coke too, right?
Next, a band who’ve never really made it big over here in the UK, which is a shame, for they made some really great power pop records in their time. This is from their 1977 album “In Color” (that’s not a typo, they’re American, that’s how they spell “colour”):
As usual, I seem to have gone on a bit longer than I intended again, so just two more to go.
I was going to post Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s “Magician’s Assistant” but then I listened to it and remembered just how depressing it is, being about self-harm and suicide and all, so I decided against it. But the mere allusion (or should that be “illusion”? Ha, see what I did there?) to the lovely Debbie McGee allows me to post this classic TV moment:
And yes, that’s Peter Hook playing the walk-on music.
Hands up who want to hear Kelis? Very well. This is from her third album “Tasty”, the follow-up single to 2003’s “Milkshake”, when she was in full-on saucepot mode:
…who as I’m sure you know is actually Norman Cook in one of his many chart-busting guises.
And that’s yer lot, as they say.
Next Friday night I’ll be watching Underworld at The Roundhouse; it’ll be the first time I’ve ever managed to see them (quite how I’ve avoided them all these years is beyond me), so next week expect to see me trying to pretend I know something about dance music, other than tunes which I got out of my tree to back in my clubbing days.
A History of Dubious Taste 