One day I'll get accustomed to this new 'puter set up... but until then.

There's a screening of "Last Shop Standing" at the GFT in Glasgow on Sunday 14th April at 7.45pm. Yes, this coming Sunday. It's the Monorail Film Club film for this month to tie in with the Record Store Day bunfight on the following Sunday. Other than The Nomads offerings, I am not partaking in this exercise.

Couldn't get the Del-Lords.com thing to work so get with the Elvis Club vibe here in the meantime...

RIP - Annette Funicello

So far so good. 5 days into April and I've jumped on here every day. Ever since I ceased to be off on a Friday afternoon, it takes longer to get organised. It's shortened the entire weekend experience.

Why in the name of the wee man would anyone pay upward of £100 a pop to see The Stones kick the last vestige of their integrity? That's just for a ticket. No travel, no food, no drinks, no merch. Nada.

Time was when it might have only been "rock'n'roll" but that ship long since sailed.

For much the same price tag, you could fly to Spain. You could see a great band in a fantastic venue with an audience that really knows how to shake it down. Not to be confused with the shakedown that's going on down in the big smoke this summer in any way shape or form.

And talking of the stuff that you can believe in, I need to get blogging about Ms Palmyra's "You Are What You Absorb". Lucky for us, she's been exposed to nothing but choice gear. More about which over the weekend.

It's still winter but at least it's dry. Plus it's nearly Friday and we don't get diddled out of an hour this time. So things are fairly optimistic on the sliding scale. I heard today that those Young Fresh Fellows are heading for Espana in June. I'm currently trying to justify to myself that I should go and further reinforces the urge just to relocate.

Full details when I know the venues, etc. It would be such a hoot!

Ain't all this North K stuff just a wee bit like living in a Team America scenario? I guess if it wasn't potentially serious, it would have been amusing for 5 minutes. Really wish I had the impetus to start the *bay activity I've been threatening. There's bloody stuff everywhere and if I did it could fund my adventures overseas. And before I forget, I'm not doing Record Store Day this year. Other than getting the Nomads release, it's getting the body swerve. Last year's episode soured the whole thing.

A record store isn't just for the third Saturday in April. Leave the "special edition" snaggers with their scores. If you are taking part then buy something that's not on the "official" list. Like everything else, it all started of as a great idea and was quickly hijacked by greedy bastards for "investment" purposes or worse. Your local store will have something you want the before and the day after. And probably the day after that. You folks all know the script.

Here's Team YFF going full steam during their last visit out this way...

BBC listeners have recently voted some record by Coldplay as their favourite album of all time. That was a statement I saw on the news today. Hmmm, news. I’m not sure that I’d call it that. What a searing indictment on a nation that is. But as the de-evolution of the UK progresses it’s not entirely surprising. Nor is it disappointment, because being in a permanent state of low expectation nullifies that. Remember the adage “Guilty until proven innocent”. That’s something of the rule to any probable exception.

I’ve also taken to keeping the RIPs on the DL, with the exception of Jess Franco yesterday - that one was important to mark. There are so many and it’s depressing. I’m not that particularly bothered about my own mortality but all of these are markers. So maybe I’ll resume when this thing picks up steam. If it ever picks up steam. There are some anomalies with the browser and with this being modern and all, it doesn’t react the way it always did. When I attempt to investigate, I get distracted or a full-on mind freeze descends. Sometimes both.

 

Anyway, tonight's task is to try and deal with some of the e-mail that's awaiting being answered. I'm making no promises.

Sadly, Jess Franco passed away yesterday. Simon Birrell is way more qualified than I am to "say a few words"...

Jess Franco and Lina were one of history's great couples, right up there with Lux and Ivy. I was privileged to meet and work with them over the years and my only regret is that I didn't see more of them towards the end. I first met them in 1992, just after moving to Madrid. I was helping out my buddies Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs on their book "Immoral Tales" and one of my missions was to track down Franco. This was when he wasn't making movies (post "Don Quixote") and nobody had heard of him or gave a fig. My first impression was of a deeply cultured man who did exactly what he wanted in life, without a giving a hoot for anybody else's opinion or agenda. I was doubly fortunate in meeting Spanish critic Carlos Aguilar the same evening, a friendship that continues to this day. The three of us drank late into the night, then after Jess staggered back home, Carlos grabbed me by the collar and said, "And now let me tell you the TRUTH!". He proceeded to spend the next hour debunking a large part of the stories that Franco had just told me.

Cathal Tohill and I later travelled down to Sitges to meet Jess and Lina. They were exceptionally gracious with us, a couple of hard-up fans who had somehow come across their work. I was supposed to work on the unfinished "Golden Beetle" with them, but a new job came up and I couldn't go to the shoot. That's a regret - my life would have taken a very different course if I'd chucked in the job and just gone. Later, I translated a series of their scripts from Spanish to English; Jess wrote in Spanish but shot in English. So "Killer Barbies", "Marie-Cookie", "Tender Flesh" and others are partly my fault. I remember watching "Tender Flesh" on the sofa with Jess and Lina and not understanding a damn word of my own dialogues. The actors had an uncertain grasp of English, there was no dialogue coach, and my dialogue was probably unpronounceable anyway.

They came over to my flat one day with a scheme for getting a grant to make movies for CHILDREN. Their proposal to the EU (which I translated) contained a line which lamented the "recent tide of sex and violence in cinema" and recommended the financing of a series of wholesome family films. I asked Jess, "So who made all those dreadful movies, then?". He didn't bat an eyelid and replied, "Some bastard!"

That day I had hoped to impress Franco, the jazz expert. I didn't know jazz, but I did have plenty of old obscure music. I put on an LP by Steve Gibson and Red Caps, a 40s group so obscure even their parents had forgotten them. As we were discussing the proposal, Jess suddenly shushed me. "Buddy Tate", he said, referring to the music. Ever the sophisticate, I said, "Oh no, that's Steve Gibson and the Red Caps". "No, no", he replied, "I mean the SAXOPHONE!". It was a Bear Family issue, so it had the session details and yes, Buddy Tate played on that track and only that track. So much for my in-depth musical culture; I couldn't even approach his encyclopaedic knowledge.

In exchange for one of the scripts I translated, Jess agreed to appear in an animated web series I directed, a project for Planet Hollywood. He did a great, if hard to follow, voice over for the mad scientist character. His old colleague Jack Taylor was lead voice for the main villain. I loved the fact that he would appear in a marketing vehicle for a company that represents everything detestable and vulgar about modern Hollywood.

There are a lot of stories doing the rounds about Jess making movies and not paying people. I worked with him knowing the stories and fully expecting never to get paid. Who cares? I was going to work with Jess Franco! My own experience is that he paid little, but paid every dime he promised.

The more I think about it, the more apt the comparison with Lux and Ivy is. They were a couple who built their own world, beyond anything in the rest of the universe. We were privileged to peek in to their world from time to time, and lucky to see the end results.

The last time I saw Jess and Lina was some 10 years ago in Madrid. We'd drifted apart when he moved to the south of Spain. It was at the book launch for his excellent autobiography (inexplicably unavailable in English). We were delighted to see each other and stopped to gossip for a while. He was still walking, but with difficulty. "I'm going to die shooting!", he said, and that's pretty much how it turned out. He soldiered on to the end, even after Lina died.

Cathal, Pete and I used to call him "The Great Man". After all these years, and even after the last, decadent, uneven movies, it's still absolutely true.

 

Many thanks to Simon for the piece and the photos.

How does the text on this thing look in your browser? It looks small to me.

I still plan to maybe try and do something with the look but let's see if anything happens with the regularity gambit first.

1st April huh? And much of the stuff we’ve woken up to today is beyond a joke. As the fabric of this septic isle goes to further rack and ruin in the misguided hijacking of the term "efficiency" – all that remains to be considered is really, how far can too far go.

 

Austerity is here to stay. Or so it seems. Not as catchy as “rock’n’roll” is it? I’m pretty sure that any ditty about it won’t warrant a gazillion hits on youtube. So yeah, here we are. A bunch of folks experienced a White Easter. That’s not some kind of racial stereotyping, merely a statement of fact. Temperatures are below seasonal average but the people are hot under the collar. Blighty – and all of the rest of Europe has been sold down the river while the financially rich get richer and the rest of us get right royally humped. As perceived efficiencies is met – actual services disappear. The Police and Fire Departments have become single forces as of today, the wee man only knows what kind of mess will ensue through that premise.

Perhaps they’ll be controlled via scripts from offshore call centres? Not nearly as ludicrous a possibility as it seems in the pursuit of the almighty buck. The alleged “government” can collectively go and take a something that rhymes with that at themselves. Is there no end to the humiliation? Of course, another war or some big catastrophe might really play into their hands. We’re all potential cannon fodder while divide and conquer as a concept is rolled out across the western world. Barry Maguire’s estate may be up for a dollar or three if he lands the theme song. It’s an ill wind... as you know.

I went to see a film called The Happy Lands yesterday. It’s about the 1926 Miners Strike that ran for some months beyond the General Strike and how it affected an area of Fife in particular. It was subtitled because some of that dialect has been found to be a tad difficult to “unnerstaun’” even in the central belt. But the message is that nothing much has changed. The wearing down process may have morphed and multiplied but the essence is the same. I almost never went. It was verging too much on the dreaded costume drama for me but it really works. It’s part documentary – mostly dramatisation – and indeed the localisation was of particular interest. Recent events here have placed emphasis on the concept of family. And how it is far more important than money or trappings.

As families and communities fracture because of greed and kow-towing, it seems to me that we’re all in danger of going under in the pursuit of some creep and his or its bottom line.  Often dressed up as progress, change for change’s sake is seldom improvement. It’s a power trip. Evangelisation takes on many forms and I’m not impressed with bullies, blowhards or combinations thereof. It’s all seemingly out of control. Way so.

Anyway, enough of my blather, this thing is 36 years old today and I mean to attempt and post something every day until I head for Stockholm at the end of the month.

 

Let’s see what happens to this supposed “college try”.

RIP - Paul Williams (Crawdaddy creator)

I know.

Said this thing was going to jumpstart. Well, there've been a few curveballs here and there that have gotten in the way. The enforced regime change with all this new hardware is taking a wee bit of acclimatising to also. Just finding time recently has proven to be problematic. All that considered, it is my intention to stir this thing into life. Maybe even change the decor now that I don't have to pedal so fast to make the screen flicker.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, I'm just glad it's Friday night and I have no place to go. The weather here is grim but not here in the bunker. So let's see how the weekend pans out. No promises or expressions of achieving anything much.

Thanks for dropping by on the off chance something might have occurred, Something will when you - and I - least expect it to.

Still haven’t been able to shake this thing back into action but I made it out two nights in a row on Thursday and Friday. Two shows, two duos. Dynamicly intact.

It was the welcome return of Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby to Glasgow. As always, the audience should have been bigger but those that were there were treated to this unique experience. Nobody else does what they do and even if they did, they wouldn’t come close to this level of entertainment. That’s what they do, they entertain. It’s not a choreographed chunk with the same banter at every show. It’s always tailored to the moment. It’s a pleasure to witness and hear. They deserve to be appreciated far more widely but these two are resigned to the slog. One day the world will catch up. It has to. The set closer of “Leaving On A Jet Plane” indicated what that would have sounded like had it been tackled by yon Velvet Underground for the third album. By the time it wound out, the meleé could well have come from VU and Nico.

So it was a late finish early on Friday morning. Once those Wrigbys headed for Gateshead, I returned to the reality of phone-rassling.

So by the time it got to the evening, the consideration of dragging myself into Edinburgh. Had I considered that the town would be chocka with rugby supporters, it may well not have happened. However, I flaked out the last time I was supposed to catch The Creeping Ivies so I figured extra effort should be made. The last time I was in The Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh was when Amy (Rigby) played there with her daughter Hazel. And strangely, I’d just talked to Hazel when her mom called her from here in the bunker.

Anyway, it’s a nice room and the Ivies were on a 4 band bill sweetened for me by a 10pm curfew.  I missed the first one. The second one wasn’t too offensive but the third one kind of was. I won’t name names but completely the kind of thing that exasperates me. Ironically desecrating the Boney M songbook is a pretty lame schtick but they had an entourage, one of which introduced them and I’m still trying to uncurl my toes.

The Creeping Ivies are very possibly the best “new” combo in Scotland. The two person group formation has thrown up much that I can’t take more than 10 minutes of. I include The White Stripes in that. But these kids have a magic ingredient, they also look great in addition to making a low down shakin’ chill-inducing racket. They’re honing their chops right now as they impatiently wait for vinyl copies of their “Stay Wild” album to drop.

This is an analog noise that sounds OK in a digital format but they were born to make slabs of wax. Their “Rock’n’Roll Party” EP is begging to be unleashed as a 7” example of the way it can still be done. The best thing about ‘em is that they’re not contrived. There’s a genuine magic that can’t be plotted via the modular antics that so many employ.

So I was glad I caught them finally. They exceeded expectation and I don’t experience that sensation too often.  

I like the concept of routine. Rewritten to suit myself of course but as I get longer in the tooth I struggle to get to grips with change. Not the kind you keep in your pocket, the kind that prods you into having to learn. Not that I’m against learning per se but I have parameters. So I have this new computer. Once I get set up with wi-fi I hope it might avert me from crashing out on the sofa because I’ll discipline myself to use it in another room.

 

Aye. Right. I can hear you think and this is not unfounded but once I get up to speed then what was once normal service could happen again. Efficiencies that actually improve things could also be brought to bear. For instance, maybe I’ll be up for doing artwork and stuff again if anyone gives a hoot. I would be kind of nice to piss about with that again but who knows how long it'll take me to get to grips with this. Hopefully not long because I'm not reknowned for my patience.

 

 

A car clutch failure looked like it might impinge on yon weekend just past but it didn’t wreck things completely. It complicated logistics here and there but not three much. Saw a movie called “Bring Me The Head of the Machine Gun Woman” that was shown as part of Frightfest.

The plotline of this Chilean exploitation flick doesn’t stand too much scrutiny but its several degrees more fun than Django. Caught an episode of Hellfjord, need to see more before I can decide how contrived to a perceived demographic it actually is. 

From there, I met Magnus Dahlmann off the airport bus. He’d made the journey to catch the Sunday Monorail Film Club Screening of Big Star – Nothing Can Hurt Me. Making its long-anticipated debut in a town that has long played a part in the growth of the legend of the band. I would argue the point with anyone that a certain band from Bellshill is almost singularly responsible for giving this much of a hoot, the film plus a US-centric path and tells the story the way it probably needs to be told. While the DB’s and REM or whoever certainly were torch bearers, "Bandwagonesque" is hands down the follow up to Radio City. I think there’s room for a film about Alex to be made aside from this but this is pretty excellent. Personally I found some of it very moving. Articularly the inclusion of that Cramps Memphis footage on the big screen and the Panther Burns clips.

I’m glad Drew DeNicola sanctioned the film to the film festival because of the strong bond that Scottish pop has with that Big Star skewed-anglophilic sound. Having Magnus here allowed scope for wandering around town pointing out hotspots where celebrations of the band have taken place over the years. By the time it makes it to DVD, I’m sure there’ll be a ton of extras but take any opportunity to catch it in a theatre that you can. 

February is almost over. We’re all over the dank, driech cold dark winter. The intention of doing this every day hasn’t exactly worked out but I’m breaking in some new hardware so who knows how March will shape up.  It certainly starts well with the return of Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby. The immediate world is always a better place with them around.