Some boys do, and some boys don't...

April 17th – “I had that Eddie Cochran in the back of the cab the other day…” 
I gather that, on this day in 2007, the band Arcturus officially announced they were splitting up…? Who they? I've never heard of them even when they were together…but then they've probably never heard of me so… More importantly, on this day in 1960, Eddie Cochran, someone I have heard of, finally made it to the third step; he was just 21. I've often fancied that he could have given Elvis Presley a run for his money, had he lived…which he didn't, so…but his music lives on…unlike him…this is becoming maudlin…and repetitious; sorry.

Unlike Mr. Presley, Mr. Cochran thought it was OK to travel to Great Britain…(just maybe not by taxi)…to Great Britain as it was then, not like now; the United Kingdom…not for long if the Scots have their way… whereas Elvis always fought shy of coming over here. I guess he was worried we’d discover that he was, in fact, three people, all of them two-headed electricity meter-readers who couldn't sing at all… All a bit weird really. I mean would it have been SO bad for Mr. Presley to pay us a visit? Would have made an awful lot of people very happy, certainly happier than finding out after the event that the man they adored, the man who’d died in particularly distressing, closet circumstances before they’d had chance to see him live, had indeed (supposedly) visited us; but after dark, on an airstrip, for all of ten minutes, en route to somewhere far more important than Prestwick…so that’ll be just about anywhere else  in the universe then…and claimed he had absolutely no idea where he was: doesn’t get any better with the telling, does  it? Bless. That’s the level of esteem he held the British contingent of his fan club in. He touched down, signed a few ‘graphs then we waved him off…great.

Eddie Cochrane, on the other hand, who gave us Summertime Blues (The Who did an excellent version of it on the Live at Leeds album and Blue Cheer did it fair justice too) who also gave us C’mon Everybody, the ultimate party song; who also gave us Somethin’ Else, what can only be described as, I venture to suggest, sublime pop, this Mr. Cochran came to visit his fans in England, stayed a while, did some gigs and then was travelling between gigs in a private taxi…and we killed him; great.

Then we had the audacity to allow Dave Dee (of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich fame) to learn his chops on Mr. Cochrane’s impounded Gretsch guitar in order to gift the world with Bend It; now if that isn't rubbing salt into the wound…

Touched a nerve there, I think...

April 16th – Hell hath no fury like a retailer scorned.

The power’s in the music! Nope. The power’s in the music-maker?” Nope. The power’s in the retailer, schmuck! 

I think I can speak from first-hand experience when I say that, of all the people standing in line for a hand-out due from a successful artistic endeavour, the creator of that art is the last one to be paid and the first to suffer a shortfall if that endeavour begins to stall. Let’s take books. The writer’s work is on the shelf, sells for £9.99 of which the author, unless he/she has an agent (can’t get an agent ‘til you get a book published, can’t get a book published ‘til you've got an agent) gets 20p of that… Yup, a whole 20p. The fact these ‘helpers’ would have nothing to sell if the writer hadn't written the book has nothing to do with anything;

“It’s the overheads, dear boy…”

The small independent sellers are, on the whole, fairer in their dissection of the profit margins given and received as they’re in a boat of similar build (careful wording there). Ones success is reliant on the other and one also has an opportunity to build a rapport with them that spreads further than the end-of-year balance sheet and the cries of;

“Only sold how many?! At what profit margin?! Drop her/him!”

At a small independent, you can call in for a cup of coffee, talk about the parlous state of the industry, agree that you’ll soldier on and how you can help each other survive…of course they’re not all like this; the boutique-type;

“I do this because I LOVE the literature, dahlink”

types of places where they only want names and faces on their roster do nothing to further the cause…fame groupies and art snobs…but they’re few and far between; thank goodness.

The sad part about all this is that, no matter how we rail about their undue influence and ability to make-and-break we also know they hold the majority of the power. These are the people who lobby the Grammys, the Orange, the Booker, the Emmys, the Academy, the charts, the top ten listers, the best-seller listers, the record play listers, the review writers and retail outlets… So, it came as no surprise to hear that, on this day in 1969, the Hudson’s chain pulled all Elektra records from off’f their shelves, thereby causing Elektra to drop the band, MC5, because MC5 had said, when they heard that Hudson’s had refused to stock their album ‘Kick Out the Jams’;

“Fuck Hudson’s”.

Jesus, talk about sensitive… Are Hudson’s still in business?

Banned Band

April 15th – It’s very similar to how bad government works. What you do, you see, is create a climate of fear and suspicion in large sections of the community the fear of which allows you to do two things.

1) Advertise the existence of a shadowy figure called the Booger Man as something tangible…but ephemeral.

2) Pass legislation in the name of protecting the people from this Booger Man.

It’s what happened in the Blair years, the erosion of hard-won, historical freedoms in the name of the terrorist threat (and we let them do it…and we’re seeing the use of these powers in the run up to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, where the suggestion is that to even upset someone by your opinion about that odious, greedy, nepotismic, arrogant lady is tantamount to holding extremist views. That the Blue Rinse and Tiara brigade will somehow have their sensibilities corrupted if they so much as hear a wrong word about Mrs. Thatcher). Where everyone who doesn't toe the government line is considered anti-establishment and their next step, after saying;

“I didn't particularly like her or her policies”,

will be to start hurling various weaponry at any figure of this establishment…wouldn't you think that anyone with even half of someone else’s brain (half of ‘Abby-Normal’s’ for instance) would be able to recognise why the Ding-Dong, the Witch is Dead movement is such a success, recognise just what it’s actually about and why? No, on second thoughts, no; that would involve deep thinking not knee-jerk political idiocy; would require more than the kind of feathered thinking that comes from living a life of sheltered privilege…

Well, that’s the same kind of thinking that bans pop songs because of the threat to the national consciousness. On this day in 1971, the Illinois Crime Commission (only in America) issued a list of drug oriented pop records that were banned to help safeguard the public good. Among them were:

Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit – using imagery from a seminal piece of English literature, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll; story’s that entertained Grace Slick, the lyric writer, as a child and which she developed into a song that, although referencing drugs (a hookah-smoking caterpillar, who is already in the books) was far, far more about developing your imagination by searching for experience not listening to propaganda: 

Procul Harum’s  A Whiter Shade of Pale – about as indecipherable as any pop song concerning the development of a relationship between a man and a woman can be, apart from ‘MacArthur’s Park’: 

Peter, Paul and Mary’s Puff the Magic Dragon – about growing up and losing your childhood, one’s loss of innocence...like The Snowman....

Well thank goodness the inability of our rulers to see beyond this fledgling ‘Big Brother’ attitude has meant that all three songs have gone on to garner the praise and circulation they so richly deserve, in spite of those interested parties called ‘vested interest’ using their smoke and mirrors to create shadows to frighten us all with…

Not so funny, girl...

April 14th – I have a dilemma…well, I have more than one, but this one is sort of tricksy, anti PC (if you’ve got a skin with the sensitivity of a new-born piglet left out in the sun) but quite sort of…uplifting in its own, quirky style. 

I’ve mentioned before (ad nauseum) about my feelings for what are laughingly called modern musicals. Of how it seems that any historical, social or peripheral-to-the-human-race story, regardless of its interest or suitability, gets turned into a musical; I await the day when the musical, ‘Scenes from My Colonic Irrigation’ comes rolling into the theatre with a certain amount of trepidation… 

So, musicals. It just seems they are all prepped to the same template; the lost love of summat with the found love of summat all with a little sexual difficulty of one sort or another along the way just to confuse the plot even further…and plenty of room for the woman’s showstopper number followed by the guy’s showstopper reply all shoehorned into the drama no matter how unsuitable or inappropriate. And I hate to say it, but these two numbers in particular (the guys and gals but, in truth the majority of the songs and the dance routines) are so much like the last ten you saw and…so…well, so gay. Maybe it’s that androgynous style of singing complete with the massive, high-pitched, over-the-top dramatic last note (complete with unnecessary vibrato) and the sudden ending-snap to black on the  rapid, skip-leap exit closure that the character always uses…?

Anyway, best stop now, I guess I’m in enough trouble as it is. Anyone here like Barbara Streisand? Thought so (more trouble brewing then). Never been a fan (nor she of me, I hear, so, works both ways) as I find her voice akin to that noise of chalk down a blackboard or the noise a cat makes just as you switch on the blender. It’s the nasal, shouty-shouty way she puts over a number that I can’t get on with and, I have to be honest and say that I never thought she could act her way out of a paper bag (nor she of me, I hear, so, works both ways). Well, cut to the chase, on this day in 1969, she shared the Best Actress Academy Award with none other than Katherine Hepburn – Ms. Streisand for Funny Girl and Ms. Hepburn for The Lion in Winter…Katherine Hepburn…she of ‘African Queen’ and ‘On Golden Pond’ fame…THAT Katherine Hepburn.

Now I don’t know about you but I really can’t see how Ms. Streisand could be considered to be in the same acting solar system as Ms. Hepburn but, OK, let that pass, that’s just subjective. Putting Funny Girl, which is basically a film about an unknown, ugly person becoming a beautiful super-star (gosh, there’s original, a kind of Ugly Betty forerunner…but with songs, if you can imagine anything that bad) and losing her husband in the process (selfish, but an opportunity for that; ‘massive, high-pitched, over-the-top dramatic last note (complete with unnecessary vibrato and the massive, high-pitched, over-the-top dramatic last note – complete with unnecessary vibrato – and the sudden ending-snap to black on the  rapid, skip-leap exit moment) alongside The Lion in Winter, a film about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine which contains classic lines like;

“If you think you’re going to put that boy on the throne there’ll be bacon in the treetops come morning!” ?

No competition.

There would be no struggle for me to choose between the two actors; Ms. Streisand, by all accounts was a difficult and self-serving actor to work with who put her self first and the work second; Ms. Hepburn, by all accounts, was a supportive and giving co-actor who put the work first and herself… Nope, Ms. Hepburn would be the girl for me, every time…until…

Not so very long ago (2008) Ms. Streisand donated 5 million dollars to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in L.A. to fund the develop a women’s heart education and research programme; so, that’s me shot up the fundament… I mean, OK, so she could afford it but that’s not the point is it? But I still dislike modern musicals and I've not gone furry-wurry or, indeed funny-wunny about Ms. Streisand …but…y’know, credit where it’s due.

Come in Number 9, your time's up!

April 13th – You’d think, after 44 years of sloggin’ the circuit, that you’d probably want to pack it up, wouldn't you? I mean, the music business is good, but it aint that good…is it? 

You've got to be some sort of masochist to think that this is a good way spend your one circuit round right up to the point when you’re 60+ years old and, let's face it, are on the downward slope of life no matter how charitable we want to be. Dave Brock certainly gets my vote for The Rock Musician With The Most Staying Power, particularly when you consider the hoops both he and the band, Hawkwind, have jumped through during that time.

As is the case with a large number of the bands and musicians that have featured in this guff I write, drugs, booze and breakdowns have contributed in a large part to the direction, musicality, personnel dynamic and longevity of many hands, no more so than Hawkwind. OK, promise you won’t look? OK, promise… Your starter for ten: how many members have there been in Hawkwind since its inception in 1969? 

Forty-Three! Yup. 43…and five of those are now dead.

That’s almost as many members as years. They've done the biggest festivals and the smallest halls in our suburban surroundings, toured the States and Europe, released 29 albums (and argued their way through most of them). If you did a schematic of their rock family tree however, you would find they've contributed, in one way or another either, through past members or musical influences, to an array of bands and musical genres that formed the backbone of the musical scene in 80’s and 90’s…so, not so big a waste of time as I first thought…and to name a tour that they finished on this day back in 1975 as The Dead Singer Tour…? Got to be worth doing forty+ years just to put that on your C.V.

Mr. F. Zappa; the shortened version.

April 12th – There’s several things you probably wouldn't do. You wouldn't invite Ian MacGregor to give the podium speech at a miner’s conference, you wouldn't invite Daffy Duck to give the keynote speech at a conference for geese destined for the foie gras trade, you wouldn't invite Michael Gove to speak. And my guess is that, at a conference of the National Academy of Recording Arts (those folks who hand out the Grammys) you wouldn't ask Frank Zappa to give the keynote speech… 
Our boy Frank has made this column before (Jan 10th) and you all know that I hold him high esteem; let’s face it, anyone who can make an album called, Have I Offended Anyone? or Joe’s Garage and include a song on each, respectively, called, He’s So Gay and Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? gets my vote.

My blether in this daily, pompous strut I write tries to encapsulate my love (and sometime hate) of the music industry. Music has been my constant companion since as far back as I can remember; it’s been the soundtrack to many of my most treasured moments and caused some of my most embarrassing tirades and, contrary to popular belief, I really do try to keep this stuff as short as I can. With that as the backdrop, I read Mr. Zappa’s address to the top-table of musical movers and shakers on this day in 1968 and I just shake my head at my own inadequacies. 
Here, for your enjoyment, is Zappa’s full speech to the National Academy of Recording Arts (the Grammys):

“All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!”

Thanks, Frank, for reminding me how to do ‘brevity’.

How the hell do I know...?

April 11th – I guess in many ways I’m as predictable as a clock. The things I enjoy most in life are the same as most folk and are things that I never tire of. Just ask the gang who work in Café’ Neros; I walk across the road and they’re already getting the medium latte, four sugars on the go. I did tinker with the idea of walking in there one day and saying;

“No. What did you do that for? I want a skinny Americana with warm milk…”

but I don’t think I could stand the look of disappointment on their faces if I did. There are certain things that cause the majority of us to drop into automatic pilot in much the same way. Small babies in arms widen the eyes; boxing matches cause the watcher to dodge the punches; genuine compliments redden the cheeks; the sight of great food makes us salivate; muddy white dogs make us want to paint like Monet… OK, I made that last one up, but all of us are predictable in some ways. But this predictability also leads to deep, deep confusion when I’m faced with the conflicting female images we’re presented with each and every day.

I’m a puzzled chap. When I watch the film, Grease (now there’s a bold statement) you tell me what’s wrong with the character of Sandy in the beginning of the film? I thought she was lovely; and why does she have to dress and act like a cigarette-smoking hooker at the end of the film in order to be taken seriously and get her man? What was wrong with her in the first place…? Was it because Danny couldn't afford to look uncool to the gang by going out with just an ordinary girl and, if so, what does this say about him…and, more to the point, Kennickie? Why does Rizzo not have to be pregnant in order for her to get her love, Kennickie, to stay with her? Why would you want to be saddled with an arse like Kennickie in the first place? A guy who’s willing to drop you if you become pregnant…by him…? For me it fills out all the tick-boxes for female stereotyping that, so I’m led to believe, women rail against.

I gather from the silence that I've completely misread the movie… I have, haven’t I? Well, I never said I was anything else but predictably confused, did I? Is it because I’m so conditioned by repetitive press and ad-copy that I now fail to differentiate between lady and hooker? If so, why? It would seem my conditioning is complete. You see, this is the same stereotype, dress like a hooker to get taken seriously and get your man, which Cher uses in the video Dead Ringer for Love and for me, I get. Not that I don’t find a leather-clad Sandy unattractive; not at all. It’s just the story thread in Grease that rankles a bit is all, whereas the video for Dead Ringer… has no a pretension to be about anything else but carnality. Grease confuses lust with love whereas Dead Ringer… is all about…well, shaggin’ really…Yup, I know, I need to get out more, right, point taken. For those of you that know me, this’ll give you some idea of why I seem to be ‘away with the fairies’ most of the time; my head works like this all the time.

What it was, you see, was that on this day in 1988, Cher won her Best Actress Oscar for her role in the film, Moonstruck and I sort of compared the two persona; Dead Ringer Girl, out for a shag and seemingly so desperate that she’s willing forge a union with Meatloaf, and Loretta Castorini, the confused daughter in Moonstruck who's sweet, sensible and yet looking for a love that's only found in novels… (Cher really is excellent in the movie although, for me, the mother – Olympia Dukakis – steals the show).

So, we have these two characters that Cher plays and it just occurred, it’s no wonder blokes like me are confused. I’d prefer to spend my life with Ms. Castorini and kindly, thoughtful Sandy and yet what I’m peddled by press and TV is Dead Ringer Girl and a slinky, leather-clad Sandy… Confused? You will be after the next episode of…