Just looking at the landfill that's set for April 16th. Not much that I really give a hoot about but if you do and you want anything then let me know sooner rather than later. Nothing much going on here today because I'm heading for Edinburgh shortly.

Nothing on at the pictures that I want to see. Particularly the computer-generated Yogi Bear. What the heck is that about? And also I'm a little pre-occupied with trying to get bunker stuff done during a week's holiday that's coming up. If it all goes like eveything else lately then it'll be an unmitigated disaster. Still...

Remember, Cindy Woolf in Leith tonight. Get along there if you can.

In an eerie coincidence, having just posted that Wunderle/Terry clip - I just heard from Cindy Woolf of the Springfield, Mo. parish to the effect that she's playing in Leith tomorrow night (Sunday 3rd).

Someplace called Bond #9...

A wee while ago I was hanging stuff on the walls when all of a sudden I just about ripped the top of the middle finger of my left hand off. Ketchup all over the place except thankfully not on the wall itself. Anyway, I don't trust these hooks I got now so I ended up on here. The copy of First World Manifesto turned up today too so I'll get a few spins of that sorted out while I'm waiting on the flow to stop.

Anyway, I was perusing fezbook and I saw this from Kogar. Pretty exciting. I've never seen the film he's talking about but presumably it's the source of the stills that became those early promo screen prints? Hope to see the actual thing one day.

And this morning, I "shared" this on fb but seeing as it's almost a decade since Joey left us, then it seems fitting to post it here too. It's amazing that stuff like this can still turn up in these pre-packaged, product placed times.

From J. Wunderle via Joe Terry on fezbook...

RIP - Don Hill

Thirty four years ago today, NBT #1 made its debut. In many ways it seems forever ago. Who could ever have thought it would still be going albeit not in physical form? Not me. “Still going” is a subjective statement. I’m beginning to doubt the double bluff that existing online is the way to the future. I used to have an attention span and while I seriously do try to keep up activity, I consider that I just keep going over the same old ground.

To that end, I feel like a phony that should just chuck it and walk out Reggie Perrin style into the sea. A scientifically proven to be past it’s sell by date to the point of whiffy fossil. Or should I be working on an NBT app and navigating into the choppy waters of iPadmania?

There’s no fool like an April one but somehow I manage to fly that flag for the other eleven months too. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up like everybody else...?

Couple of things this coming weekend...

Hamell On Trial April 1st at The Bay – 142 West Regent Street, G2 2RQ Glasgow.

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THE GO-GO, 11th Birthday Bash Part 1, requests and old faves from the early days.. Saturday 2nd April, Upstairs @ Studio 24. 11pm til 3am. Free B4 11.30 £5/4 after that. DJ's Tall Paul & Big Gus play 60s mod, garage, soul, girl-groups and psychedelia.

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RIP - Farley Granger

My thanks to Mr Duff for this report from Edinburgh last night. My thoughts on the JJR are known and to be honest, I never really got The Bellrays either but I never saw them and I won’t make it to Glasgow tonight. One thing I do know is that they shouldn’t be opening for these hokey sonic snake oil salesmen.

Without actually trying, I must have seen the Jim Jones Revue 9 or 10 times now - they've either been supporting someone I wanted to see or have been playing for free somewhere nearby - and I could never put my finger on exactly why there was such a fuss about them, or why I couldn't find it in me to care. Sure all the necessary ingredients are there, but despite repeated viewings and much benefit of the doubt all that volume and noise just doesn't communicate. Nearly every early review of the Revue namechecked Little Richard and the MC5. I have to say I never got the connection to the Five.

It took Mr Boyle's throwaway comment last night to expose what the real comparisons are. "It's like Spedding playing with Freddie 'Fingers' Lee" he said to me and in that instant it became clear - the JJR references are mid-70's rock'n'roll pastiche. They've a lot more in common with Crazy Cavan & The Rhythm Rockers or The Wild Angels or others of that breed than the 'oh-so-much-cooler' touchstones that usually get brought up. Add a wee dash of Slade Alive and you've got the JJR down. Exaggerated, overdone and soulless rehashes of historic high-points is what they deal in.

The Bellrays, who supported (!) the JJR last night despite being trumpeted as 'Aretha Franklin fronting the Stooges' are in truth a good deal more than a hodge-podge mix of the more obvious points of your record collection. They were the real stars last night. The real sweat and raw rock'n'roll that they brought to bear last night was a privilege to witness. Lisa started out a little shaky, the voice was all there but she seemed nervous. By the time they kicked into Sun Comes Down she's lost all self-consciousness and the whole band sound totally at ease. They close the show with Black Lightning, the album opener and despite calls for more, the DJ comes over the PA and it's over.

The Bellrays were triumphant. I believe that they're only doing Edinburgh and Glasgow before heading off to Europe. If you have the chance, I'd recommend you catch them at Tut's tonight. You can skip the headliners and still get home at a reasonable time too.

Coming up around Easter weekend… Vinilissimo will release 180g slabs of

“Songs The Lord Taught Us” (200 copies in purple wax) and

“Psychedelic Jungle” (200 copies in green wax).

A crowd-pleasing black vinyl edition of each will also be available.

Enquire with regard to availability here.

We’re nudging April here and several situations haven’t been resolved. The one saving grace this weekend was the screening of “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains”. Selected and intro’d by Ms Tara Quinn who also had these rather nifty commemorative badges made for attendees.

I guess I hadn’t seen it since the mid-80’s on video. Actually, I thought it was older than 1982 but the memory plays strange tricks when you get to be of my vintage. And not necessarily in a good way. But some night this week I will hunt out my copies of The Tubes records. For auld lang syne or whatever. What do you want from life anyway?

Ray Winstone looked positively Richard Jobson-esque and as for the band… jings.

Friends, Romans, countrymen! Lend us your ears as Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. returns to its last-Thursday-of-every-month residency at the always temperate Otto's Shrunken Head!

THURSDAY, MARCH 31st / OTTO'S SHRUNKEN HEAD / 538 East 14th Street (just west of Avenue B) in Manhattan / Two colossal shows, from 8pm sharp until 10pm / No cover!

Classically yours,

Michael

Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co.

"Ballads, Boogies & Blues"

I guess this Ray Davies Meltdown information is old news but maybe some of you haven’t seen it?

Mr Ulf just sent me the link to the Record Store Day stuff... as if the world didn’t have to contend with landfill enough but there is the odd morsel here and there. If you’re out yonder and feel the need to have any of it then let me know and I’ll see what can be done to hook you up.

Leaving the fracas aside and the Blink fan commentary to the effect that the band sucks, “First World Manifesto” came out a week or so ago. In terms of packing a punch (oops), this is a tight wad of songs that don’t take themselves too seriously.

The dynamics take in the Weasel canon you (should) know and love and mix it up with a notion that’s not far from vintage Who in terms of high octane pop thrills. A dash but not so ramone-ic as The Riverdales with a Dickies vs Big Country via Fastbacks guitar harmonic and Barracudas snarl here and there. “Follow Your Leaders” kicks things off with lyrics that are likely to goad the haters from the get go. There’s no real let up after that so you’re either with them or you’re not.

The pace and inherent frequencies are pretty much what the doctor ordered. I don’t know what people expect from music anymore or if they even care. They’d rather piss about with a mobile phone or gab to their buds, preferably it would appear, using the former.

There are 14 songs on FWM, the killer for me being “Fortune Cookie” that includes the lyric “each day I’m just a little closer to forgetting then I’m reminded there will be no happy ending”. That one really hit a nerve. “Baby Talk” includes a section that I’m pretty sure is Ben lampooning a certain singer who I won’t/can’t mention because I don’t use language like that. “Come and See The Violence Inherent in The System” presumably seemed like a perfectly harmless song title at the time... (originally entitled "What? The Curtains??")

With the band handing in their collective resignation, the season finale on this is all a little early for my liking. The dust must settle of course but c’mon – this isn’t what the punk rock wars were fought for. For the towel to be thrown in at the first sign of soapy (bubble - trouble) surely? This fezbook piece by Joe King of The Queers is the only thing I can find that isn’t a pantywaist condemnation. Hopefully not so far down the road, something will happen to allow things to roll on forward again. Sometimes things escalate and spiral out of control. We’ve all been there I’m sure. If you haven’t then you’re a spotty oik that oughtta come back after some life experience.

Ben Weasel (Foster) is a stand up guy. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly or otherwise and I imagine that's why so many spineless divots are having a field day. Having admitted that he fucked up, the guy should be allowed to put this experience behind him. It’s unlikely that he’ll forget it so the sooner the whining ceases...

Meanwhile, it’s a wee bit early then to ponder whether 2012’s gathering will be renamed South by Screeching Weasel but you never know. Like MC Lars stated "Hot Topic is NOT punk rock".

I have never felt older (give or take) than I did during the sets by the two opening bands in London on Wednesday evening. Regurgitating several decades of what has already been reconstituted to death, this was the musical equivalent of turkey twizzlers or whatever. One of the members of Cymbals looked like Chesney from Coronation Street from where I was standing. The poster said something about the other act being called Prehistoric Penguins, if it’s the same group and they changed their name then change it back. I know I could google to validate that but I already burned way too much time experiencing their, er, music.

Openers, Echoes – all the good names are already taken. We know this but come on, “you’re ‘avin’ a giraffe” as the ex-Eastender says on the ad, that often plays in the breaks between Corrie, the one with “Sinbad” in it. A soundtrack for the impending Royal Wedding that was so horrendously generic that it’s quite possibly headed for the stratosphere.

Last time I was in this venue it was February 1991 or thereabouts, when Dave Alvin and The Allnighters played. The evening before the first Gulf War broke out my memory serves me like one of those wheels on fire. Or maybe that should read misfires.

Nothing sells out anymore but this show did and it’s a testament to Matt and Kim’s unique thrash pop sensibilities that the place was packed to the rafters. This is without conventional support ala magazine hype and airplay on what passes for radio these days. It was perhaps the most rapturous response I’ve ever seen an act get down there. They even kick off with “Yea Yeah” these days so you’ll get some idea about the energy levels by close of play. Such boisterosity is only fitting for the wall to wall anthems and “Northeast” might slow things down a little but the way it builds is nothing short of stadium-mungous. “Sidewalks” finally gets a UK release next week but I’ll be damned if this audience wasn’t entirely conversant with the new material already.



These positive vibrations are at odds with what is sanctioned by NME type quangos. This might mean that it takes a little longer to infiltrate an actual audience here in Blighty where people seem to depend on being spoon fed but the medicine will go down, I’m certain of that.

They were supposed to go see Screeching Weasel in Austin last Friday night and for one reason and another couldn’t go. Kim told me that she’d heard that Ben had hit someone and that the gig came to an end. And sure enough, when I got home there's all this stuff about what happened that has turned into a feeding frenzy. Not having been there, I’m not qualified to comment but I don’t recognise the Ben Weasel monster that’s being painted in cyberspace.

I did think about being flippant. That I might try to deflate it by chalking it up to equal opportunity but of course no-one can condone hitting women of either sex. Reading the “punk rock” commentary that follows the Jim DeRogatis report is pretty sickening but ultimately typical of how the cyber-bush telegraph works. Violence never got anybody anyplace and I’m sure that no-one regrets the situation more than Ben does at this point in time.

Don’t let any of this colour your enjoyment of “First World Manifesto” though, more about which later.

For those around the environs of Glasgow, don't forget this special Monorail Film Club screening on Sunday.

I'm just back from London, playing catch up and mourning the fact that this weekend will be an hour shorter in duration.

Them Fleshtones are headed for Europe... word on an Amsterdam show just in. More to follow!