RIP - Jon Lord

It’s all going over the score. This upcoming shit fest down “The London” with scraps thrown around the country is an abomination. Nobody (that I determine to be of sound mind) cares. Why not just light a money bonfire? We’ve had some fitba tournament and Wimbledumb as warm acts, now it’s time for the headliner. The biggest shakedown to the taxpayer in this country ever!

The malaise that is sport doesn’t trouble my world in any way shape or form but this has nothing to do with “sport”. That was another of these notions that started out with honourable intent and got snaffled up. My tuppence worth – this should have been given to a developing nation or someplace that would have benefited. Not this pathetic little enclave. Now the designated security company has admitted they’re not up to the task and the army is being drafted in, just another episode in the knockabout, topsy-turvy spoof that is living in the UK 2012.

While the greedy stockpile their dough and hope that people will turn on one another like dogs across the planet, these are weird, disturbing times. The puppet masters are orchestrating the unrest, probably guffawing as the police wade into protesters on the streets of Madrid. Wondering where they should put together a flare-up next.

I keep hearing about “growth”. A word I equate with cancer. Whatever happened with just trying to maintain a reasonable level of business? Why does everything have to be about more? I was going to say sustain but that’s been co-opted like sustainable to be used as a buzzword by cloying twats who pretend to give a hoot about the environment.

As times go, I don’t much care for these.

RIP - Tim Cross

Got the word from BB Quattro a little while ago. My condolences to Tim's family and friends especially BB and Suzy without whom I'd never have met him. None of us will ever forget that drive from Barcelona to Madrid, sorta seems like it was yesterday. Anyway, sad news...

Louder than War obit

RIP - Lol Coxhill

RIP - Ernest Borgnine

New (to me) from Dundee... (Thanks to Murray Ramone for flagging it up).

At long, long, long last and proving the adage that all good things come to those who wait, and wait. And wait a little bit more. Voladoras debut album (on their own Marisa imprint) is finally out though typically only available on vinyl. It may well be up for grabs as one of those download shenanigans too someplace but to get the full seismic effect you need to play it the way recorded music was invented to enjoy, going round and round at a rate of 33rpm or thereabouts.

Stockholm’s premier beat girls + guy present their “True Love Stories”. These tales (14 of ‘em) undulate with an innate Cramps type swagger tempered with the swing of The Pandoras to arrive at a mighty racket that no rock’n’roll enthusiast will be able to resist.

These short sharp jags of tempo tantrum are the sound of a combo having big fun and giving not a fig for what the world thinks. If said planet feels the urge to join in then fine, if not - then perhaps even better. If you ever saw them then you’ll know what to expect and if you haven’t well – you’re in for a treat and a half when you do.

I have one complaint and it is this, the use of foul language on one cut. Shouldn’t a disc with a song (takes deep breath and apologises in advance for any offence the following title might cause) entitled “Paul Weller” have a parental advisory sticker on the front?

Bootleg Booze and Soundflat have copies of this bespoke chunk of vinyl so enquire at either of those. Or go direct to Vola Central...

The Wrecking Crew - Upcoming UK Screenings

UK Screenings of The Wrecking Crew -
Coming right up...

London
Bethnal Green Working Men's Club
Friday, July 13, 8:00pm - 2am Entry: £12 advance /£13.50 at the door
Tickets here and here
Exclusive London fundraising screening featuring:
Live Q&A with Director Denny Tedesco
Hosted by BBC London 94.9's Russell Clarke,
Fundraising Auction & After Party With DJ, BBC Radio's Sean Rowley,
and The Fabulous Penetrators - live

Glasgow
Stereo
Friday, July 20, 2012 6:30pm - 10:30 pm
Entry: £10 advance
Tickets
Exclusive Glasgow fundraising screening featuring:
Live Q&A with Director Denny Tedesco
Hosted by Francis Macdonald (Teenage Fanclub/Shoeshine Records/Spit & Polish)
Fundraising auction & DJ Set by Gerry Love (TFC/Lightships)

RIP - Eric Sykes

There’s been so much going on that I almost forgot that it’s 36 years today since we hit “the London” for one of those life-changing experiences. Then I saw Al Milman’s posting of Phyllis Stein’s photo of the Roundhouse poster and I was catapulted back in time. Maybe I would have had a career in banking if I hadn’t attended that show? Maybe I’d be refusing my bonus because I’d shaken down the world?? Well, we’ll never know but one thing I do know is that on that Independence Day 1976, my hayfever was playing up bigstyle but when those Ramones came on, they provided a mighty rush of sonic antihistamine. It was a hell of an evening.


The Ramones made everything possible. Perhaps even The Dictators getting over here to open for the reprehensible bottom of the billers a little over a year later. The Cramps were gestating at that point. Poised to become the force that had at least an equal seismic effect on, well, everything. Ditto Suicide.

And that brings us to the modern day and the ginger from Harry Potter playing Cheetah Chrome in a movie about some broken down old drinking haunt on the Bowery. Life taking the piss out of art to some degree, just as well we didn’t see any of it coming.

And Andy Dunkley, what a geezer!

The fate of popular music is in your hands...

RIP - Andy Griffith

(Just discovered via Scott Cornish's facebook post)

I was very excited about seeing “God Bless America”. Part of me hoped it was a documentary of sorts but it’s OK folks – I only partly suspended disbelief. Joel Murray’s portrayal of Frank is spot on. The facial expressions say more than the often laboured script and I didn’t realise this was Bill Murray’s brother but they do look alike.
For its shortcomings, there is a chunk of heart here. All the things that are slowly wearing us all down are identified and there for the grace of who or whatever, we’re all Frank(ie)s. At one point, I just felt so sorry for the guy and quickly realised that life post- Spinal Tap has just all gotten so spoof like. Who knows what’s real and what’s not anymore? Not me.

Director Bobcat Goldthwaite was at the screening with Joel Murray. They’re an entertaining double act and very funny. I don’t want to give too much away because you should see it. Maybe calibrate your expectations a little lower than mine but this, for the most part, ought to hit some kind of spot. The use of Alice Cooper’s “Hello Hooray” is truly great amidst a very cool soundtrack, one piece I’d swear was by ACC if I didn’t know it wasn’t the lady in question.

With elements of Waters and Bartel here and there it’s an entertaining ride. The “Glenn Beck” character wasn’t made to suffer as much as he deserved to but you can’t win ‘em all. A film festival screening might tend to be preaching to the converted. A better use of the film would be to screen it to the folks it goes after, those that accept the lowest common denominator shit that entertainment would appear to have become.

And try to see it in a theatre if you can. This is something to be experienced with other – preferably not like-minded - cattle.

Further to my update the other day, I’m spending a lot of time ruminating over the fact that I have maybe 20 years left. Give or take. I see the sands of time disappearing and although I don’t want to waste time at all, it feels like that is exactly what I’m doing right now. Still, motivation is not a commodity that’s in plentiful supply right now.

As I may have mentioned back yonder, the EIFF is on. Pulling itself up by the bootstraps after a couple of years in the wilderness. I’m scheduled to see “Sailor Suit and Machine Gun”. I even lifted my Cineworld embargo to take in “God Bless America” last night. Might go to the Filmhouse “Best of the Fest” screening tomorrow too. I hope the festival can recuperate to retain former glories.

Whilst in Auld Reekie last Saturday, I watched Kevin McDermott play a solo acoustic set to a scatttering of people in the square outside the Sheraton Hotel. I was never really a fan but as a progenitor of the Derek Amitri school of Scots Pop, he has his moments. I was thinking to myself, why isn’t this better attended but I’m not sure if anyone knew it was on. Couldn’t help thinking that if it had been in George Square in Glasgow it would have been an entirely different affair. How do you connect a prospective audience with something they might like if they just don’t care. Sure, the interweb can create a flash mob. It can lead the proverbial horse to the trough but it can’t make the blighter neck it.

A woman in the sparse crowd played and danced with her kids during the set clearly familiar with all the songs. Maybe she was related but I don’t think so. I prefer to think it was someone who this ultimately intimate setting meant something to. That’s the closest I’ve come to a romantic notion about the thankless world of the singer songwriter in a week. Last time was watching Eric and Amy do their world-class thing to a similarly less than rammed scenario. The week before out in Moss, it was different. The locals came in out in force to experience the phenomenon that exists on their doorstep. The entry price was just pennies more than the cost of a pint for chrissakes.

Over the past weeks, there’s been a bunch of stuff I never got around to posting. Not so sure I would have posted the earliest known photo of Lux and Ivy. After all it’s been doing the rounds for a while and as historically hysterical as some might find it, it’s sort of intrusive and I’m a little hyper-aware of that. I did make a note about Bert Weedon but it got buried in amongst a ton of other scribbles. So obviously, everyone in the UK knows he died but maybe readers overseas don’t. Or even don’t know his significance.

No idea if I'll ever catch up at this point or will ever find the time to try. Ideally I would disappear of the face of the earth to see out the rest of my tenure on earth doing something worthwhile with people that I like to hang with. Sometimes, I think it could happen and then I wake up.

Ostensibly a kid’s record, there’s more punk rock spirit swilling about the KinderAngst rumpus room than you’ll find on most albums of that actual persuasion right now. Or perhaps pigeonhole would be more apt.

The idea is that this will provide some top beat for your brat(s). Something that will ideally extricate young minds from the cesspit of talent(less) shows and the general malaise that haunts the mainstream. There could be no better role models for a mutiny agin the mundane than Ms Palmyra Delran and her compadre Rachelle Garniez.

Kicking off with “Alphabet City”, this is old school NY punk pop action the way it was before the lower east side got all Disney-fied. The absolute highpoint is “Rat” with Palmyra’s enunciation of “huh?” during “Let’s Play” running that a close second. It's so her I can't even begin to explain. One of these days the purported meet between Ms P and Amy Allison will take place and then we'll be in real trouble.

Debbie Harry guests on one song ("Do It Yourself") so that should help the profile but someone should be working this up into a series. This is a savvy set of songs for children of all ages and a franchise begging to happen. This market is very sophisticated these days and there’s actually hope that in a couple of generations time, O*e Dire*tion will end up in a war crimes court for their filching of the Ramones T-shirt design. As sacrilege goes – I applaud the idea but never has an institution been so badly misrepresented.

But these gals – their altogether fizzier brew might just jump start future generations to embrace popular music as true art and not another spreadsheet exercise. At this time on a Friday afternoon, anything is possible.

A festival with House of Rock style credentials in Italy this weekend. Nice bill.

Whether on the air or on the stage, Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. keeps cool this week with back to back shows! Relatively cool...
*WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27th / WFMU'S "SEVEN SECOND DELAY" SHOW / Broadcast live before an Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre audience! /

On the air at 91.1FM and wfmu.org / 6pm to 7pm

*THURSDAY, JUNE 28th / OTTO'S SHRUNKEN HEAD / 538 East 14th Street (just west of Avenue B) in ol' Manhattan

Two artificially cooled sets, from 8:00 sharp until 10:00 / No cover!
Tropically yours, Michael

Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co.

"Ballads, Boogies & Blues"