51

51

Tuesday

The Damned & The Dickies... oh yes it is!

Cap 'n' Dave are waving bye bye
 

Stan Lee being a Dickie




















Two for the price of one.  Read a full review of their recent Birmingham gig, with additional pictures, here at Louder Than War.

Feel free to leave a comment!

Brian James Grand Cru

It seems only fair to give a bit of a mention to Brian James 2012 album release.

Sneaked out without fanfare amid the 35th anniversary of 'Damned, Damned, Damned', his 'Chateau Brian' set is as far away from an anniversary cash in as it's possible to get. 

If anyone had a right to cash in on 'Damned, Damned, Damned', it's James.  After all he wrote the damn thing!

But no, the original Damned guitarist has been going his own way for a long time and this album is little more that James' acoustic guitar and piano for the most part.  It's a fairly mixed bag - James has for a long time been a great guitarist in need of a singer & lyricist.

But anyone who was lucky enough to see him reprise his old 'Damned, Damned, Damned' material a couple of years back at The 100 Club will know he remains a fine player and nobody plays 'Damned, Damned, Damned' quite like Brian James.

You can hear tracks from 'Chateau Brian' here.  

Monday

12 for 2012

Top albums of the year lists... is it just me or does it get progressively more difficult as the years blur together?

Handily, Killing Joke have anticipated the problem for me with 2012.   So that’s on the list then.

Let’s see

1.    Killing Joke – 2012
It sounded like it might be a bit close to concept album territory from the publicity and all the usual corruption and ecological collapse themes are well to the fore here, on one of KJ’s most coherent sets.  Like a fine wine KJ just get better with age.

2.    Jim Jones Revue – Savage Heart
Brilliantly delivered manical rock ‘n’ roll.  Perhaps not quite the equal of ‘Burning Your House Down’, but let’s face it, that was some act to follow.

3.    Guile – Alone On The West
Marvellous dark psychedelic debut trip from the criminally under-rated Staffordshire band.

4.    Stranglers - Giants 
At its best, as good as anything from the band this side of the millennium.

5.    Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral
Most rounded effort yet from the man most likely to appear on someone else’s album.

6.    Barry Adamson – I Will Set You Free
Uneven, but when it’s good, it’s far more satisfying that Magazine’s own 'Know Thyself' return.

7.    Brian James Grand Cru – Chateau Brian
The other side of the 35th anniversary of ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ – the man who wrote those riffs in reflective mood, with little more that an acoustic guitar and piano. Somewhat erratic, but worth it for '
Crawlin' My Way Back Home'.

8.    Peaking Lights – Lucifer Dub
After two pleasingly blissed out bass driven pop albums this venture into dub territory, was the logical next step and with it Peaking Lights appear to have made the album that's been lurking within them all along.

9.    Iggy Pop – Apres
Iggy Pop sounding far more comfortable rumbling through a set of easy listening standards, that being a Stooge and following up some of the finer moments from 'Avenue B'.

10.    Jah Wobble & Keith Levine – Ying & Yang
It’s difficult not to like anything with that internal organ shaking bass, and here Wobble & Levine have come up with a far more interesting album than PiL’s ‘This Is PiL’.

11.    Meteors – Doing The Lords Work
You know what you’re getting with The Meteors.  That doesn’t make it any less welcome.  When you can play a guitar like Paul Fenech, this is what you should be doing.  Not sure about their cover of ‘Paranoid’ but time spent listening to Fenech play guitar is never wasted.

12.    The Orb and Lee Perry
Worth a mention, just for the wonderfully bizarre partnership.  Working with The Orb makes Lee Perry look like a regular guy.  Well, almost...

13.    Joy Division – Warsaw
Not new.  Not from 2012 and not even an official release. But inspired by catching Peter Hook’s The Light, I went back to this album, one I probably hadn’t heard in years, and found it stands up rather well.

Bubbling under;
Stan Ridgeway – Mr. Trouble; clearly being indulged in the hope he turns into Tom Waits,
Brian Jonestown Massacre –
Aufheben; more drone rock par excellence.

Push comes to shove, Killing Joke, Mark Lanegan Band and Guile make the top three, in no particular order.  

But overall I'm going with 'Blues Funeral' as the stand out album of 2012.


Sunday

Man at work...and play

Putting in a shift in Birmingham

Killing time at a well known shopping emporium

If only all jobs were like this!

The top picture is one of an exclusive set taken for a forthcoming review for Louder Than War, the bottom one was one posted on Twitter by the Captain, (a self portrait?) from his day off in the Second City.

Wednesday

No Buts, with The Ruts

After an enforced break, just tying up a few loose ends...

The result of a long and by turns, hilarious, poignant and uplifting conversation with Dave Ruffy and Segs from The Ruts DC was published by Louder Than War a while ago now.  You can read it here.  But I must also mention a companion piece by Philip Thompson who got the short straw of having to come up with a different interview only a week or two after I'd covered all the obvious stuff.

Credit where it's due, Philip pulls it off.  And his picture's are better too!

Saturday

Return of the Ruts DC

Really looking forward to catching the Ruts DC tonight, previewed here on Louder Than War.

Which is as good an excuse as any to post this curiously affecting video of The Damned's Limit Club, which was of course written about the late Malcolm Owen.

 

Thursday

Icelandic death art rock

Happened to catch Dead Skeletons at The End (the old Bar Academy), with the mighty Guile, the other night.

Here's a couple of pics...



Wednesday

You couldn't make it up

That used to be a favourite phrase of Kelvin MacKenzie's.

Kelvin used to be the editor of the Sun newspaper in the 1980's.  Notoriously he chose to run a story in the aftermath of the Hillsborough tragedy, under the headline 'The Truth', making lurid claims about the conduct of the Liverpool fans on that day 23 years ago.  It wasn't any kind of truth and the city of Liverpool has never forgiven him.

Now, it appears, Kelvin has instructed his lawyers to write to South Yorkshire Police seeking an apology for the 'personal vilification' he's suffered, because, as we now know, it was South Yorkshire Police who were the source of that Sun story.

Kelvin claims that many other publications picked up the same story and is now wondering why the Sun was singled out.  Well it might have something to do with other newspapers deciding to check their sources, finding they couldn't substantiate the Police's claims and treating the story very differently, Kelvin.  Just a guess...


Tuesday

Happened to catch a rather splendid psychedelic wig out by Moon Duo on Radcliffe and Maconie's 6Music programme earlier today, called 'Circles'.

Couldn't find it on a quick shufti round the 'net, but I did find this...


More of the same, which is no bad thing.  It's easy to see why Mark Radcliffe suggested Suicide-lite and Spaceman 3, although there's also a hint of Iggy & the Stooges in there, or perhaps that's just the one note piano, which is very reminiscent of 'Now I Wanna Be Your Dog'.

Clearly mining the same seam as fellow travelers Wooden Shjips, (which is no surprise as Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson is in fact half of Moon Duo, along with Sanae Yamada).  It appears West Coast psychedelia is alive and well in San Francisco. 


Friday

Rant no.1


A Passing comment on the Vuelta a España.  Best Grand Tour of the year, by a distance.  An absolutely mad course, with ten mountain top finishes.  Far more compulsive viewing than the Tour De France (not withstanding Wiggins win), and yet... 

This really isn’t sour grapes, but, just when cycling seemed to be getting its self-respect back, we have riders who have served drug bans filling two of the three podium spots in Madrid.  Hmmm.  Unfortunately it seems that in some countries getting caught doping is still seen as little more than an occupational hazard, and too many riders feel they can come back as if nothing has happened, other than being unlucky enough to get caught out.

Which I suppose makes David Millar’s long and loud criticisms of the doping culture he himself succumbed to before coming back to ride clean, all the more commendable.  There, it’s not sour grapes, honest.

[Climbs off soapbox and exits stage left]

Rant no.2

Back on the soapbox with a plea to the director of BBC’s generally splendid Match of the Day:  Will you please make up your mind about your graphics?

If it’s not bad enough that substitutions are now announced merely by a caption in the bottom left hand corner of the screen while play continues, now it seems we have to cope with not one, not two, but three different graphics to introduce the teams, and if we’re lucky the system they’ll play, as the start of the game.

First up we’ll get a full screen line up and system type graphic while Motty, Pearcey or whoever witter over it, telling us who’s in who’s dropped to the bench and who’s got a groin strain.




Fine.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that.  So we’d better change it then.

Rant no.3

OK, I’m on very dodgy ground here, taking a pop at Chris Boardman – a man whose forgotten more about cycling than I will ever know.  Since breakfast.

But he recently appeared on BBC radio 5Live’s breakfast show and seemed to dismiss the wearing of helmets and high visibility clothing as valid safety precautions when discussing  British Cycling's road safety campaign.

Arguing that we need a cultural shift in the UK, Boardman said; “The emphasis shouldn’t be just on the cyclist. We’re creating a symptom without looking at the cause. If someone gets shot on the street, the answer isn’t that everyone should wear body armour. You say – ‘hang on a minute, maybe we need to look at the reasons behind this?’.”

The key word there is ‘just’.  Of course road safety is more than just down to cyclists and yes I would love us to follow the Dutch and Danish examples of legislation that puts far more emphasis on car drivers’ responsibilities.  But as a regular urban cyclist I do my best to be seen and be safe.  In exchange for which I would like not to be ignored, cut up, forced off the road and abused by drivers about non-payment of mythical long abolished taxes on a regular basis.

Cycle lanes, legislation and sensible speed limits would all be welcome.  But there are a lot of roads in Britain and a lot of car driving voters, so I think we know how likely it is that we’ll see cycling lanes or new speed limits anytime soon.

So while I’m all in favour of campaigns like this one and really hope that we can affect a sea change in British transport policy and learn from the Dutch and the Danes, I’m not hanging up my helmet just yet.

After all, no cyclist chooses to crash into a car.  We tend to come off worst!

[Falls off soapbox and abandons ranting]

Thursday

Never mind the shopping bags...

here's the Ramones.

Some fantastic footage from their legendary New Year's Eve 1977 show at the Rainbow.


This was the gig that went on to be released as 'It's Alive', quite possibly the most perfect live double album ever.

Absolutely wonderful.

Friday

Mark Lanegan talks to Tea & Toast & Rock & Roll...

Well, OK that's pushing it a bit, I was wearing my Louder Than War hat at the time.  But I got to sit down with Mark before his recent gig in Wolverhampton and talked about the success of 'Blues Funeral', his up coming anthology and the Gun Club.

Mark also revealed that he's planning to record a new album of covers and will be reconvening with Greg Dulli for another Gutter Twins album.  But not before completing another Mark Lanegan Band record.

Quite a work ethic for a supposedly laid back character!

Read the full interview here.

Thursday

Music Loving Johnny Plee - Happy Birthday

It would have been, well I suppose it still is, the great man's birthday today.

So much has been written about the impact of John's radio shows, that it seems almost superfluous to add any more.  But anyone who heard the door to a whole new world open up, when listening to Peel, way past  'bedtime' as an impressionable teenager, knows what a lasting impact 'the unpleasant and disorientating racket' of the John Peel Wingding made.

It's put far better here at the rather more professional We Love All That blog.  And of course the online John Peel archive which includes gems like this is exactly what the internet should be for.

Pass me a red wine... 

Monday

Bomber Command over Disneyland?

On display outside the Johnny Cotter gallery...
Familiar with the Dickies back catalogue Mr C?
Or, a day trip to the seaside.

Time was when Folkestone was just another fading English seaside town, with only a brief flirtation with booking interesting new bands (we're talking early '80's so think New Model Army, Brilliant and er, The Milkshakes, at dingy 60's nightclub Pipers), to suggest any kind of cultural life.

Fast forward to 2012 and Folkestone is being pre-fixed with words like 'groovy'.  As David Coleman might have said, 'quite extraordinary!'

It's been going on for years of course, as artists have long had a fascination with the Kent coast for its open sky and natural light.

More recently Saga mainman Roger De Haan has invested in 'The Cultural Quarter' an arts led regeneration of the harbour area that's led to the Triennial arts festival, a string of small creative businesses opening up on the Old High Street and lots of spin offs, like music events, such as the 'Skabour' festival.

All highly commendable.  And then the global economy went belly up. What's that do to your average arts led regeneration?

No doubt it's been tough, but even the response to the inevitable empty shops, ends up producing yet more photo opportunities on a day at the seaside, thanks to the 'Hidden Gems' project...

Maria Slovakova  - artwork as part of a display 
at the excellent Googies art cafe


Sunday

Pop Eats Itself (again and again)

A quick post, I know it doesn't matter, I know I shouldn't care.  But The Clash's 'London Calling' being used in an advert?  It just seems wrong.

I know 'Should I Stay, Or Should I Go' got re-released off the back of a jeans commercial, becoming a far bigger hit than the original single and plenty of Clash songs have made it to film soundtracks, with varying degrees of success.  But the effect of hearing 'London Calling' co-opted for the benefit of a large British airline, still doesn't sit well.

Friday

Pop Eats Itself (again)

A rather tired old cliche now, I know, as pre-teenage kids wear Motorhead t-shirts as fashion accessories as a matter of course, without even the slightest knowledge of the work of Mr Kilminster & co.

But old punk iconography in the High Street still makes me wonder.  What next?  UK Subs slippers?  And more pertinently, whose licensing this stuff and where is the money going?

Such is life it seems for bands who are now routinely described as 'legendary' or 'iconic'.  Either you become accountants like U2 or you get ripped off.

Of course Tommy and the estates of Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee may be getting a slice of the shopping bag action.  I don't know.  Or perhaps it's Sire Records or their global owner who owns the rights to this Ramones artwork?

Like I said, I don't know, maybe it's the graphic designer who came up with the Ramones 'seal of office' in the first place, who should be topping up his pension fund.  Or has the copyright holder shuffled off this mortal coil?  Unlikely as copyright generally covers a set timeframe or the author's lifespan plus 70 years.  So ownership should fall to their beneficiaries, rather than becoming out of copyright.

OK, I'm not a lawyer, but that's my guess.

What I do know, is taking this photograph got me thrown out of the shop I saw it in, amid demands that I delete the photo.  Well as you can see, I chose to delete a photo... oops guess it wasn't the right one.

Back in the day, I had a Ramones t-shirt, bought at a gig of course.  Saddest thing is, I rather like the idea of punk rock shopping bags, I'd just be a bit happier knowing that the bands featured, or at least a retirement home for distressed punk rockers somewhere on the south coast, was benefiting from the deal.

Somehow, knowing the fine upstanding reputation for ethical trading of the high street shop this picture was taken in, I doubt it.

Monday

Wiggo, sideburns, scooters and yellow jerseys

Hardly had time to watch this year's Tour de France, let alone write about it as last year - for reasons too tedious to go into, but had to post a belated comment on Bradley Wiggins ride into history.

He may be efficient rather than flamboyant on the bike, he's certainly benefited from the no expense spared team Sky have built around him, but every other rider who laid down a challenge, got an answer from the Kilburn Mod.

But that's not the best of it.  Wiggins, you suspect to the frustration of the team Sky PR machine, is not media trained to within an inch of his life, to trot out bland platitudes.  Ask him a question and you'll get an answer.  As demonstrated by Wiggins f-word strewn response to yet another insinuation about just how it was possible to ride clean and achieve all Wiggins has this season.  For a slightly more reasoned variation on that, see Wiggins excellent tour blog from The Guardian here.

That's still not the best of it.  We know he collects scooters, loves real ale (although I suspect that's a strictly rationed indulgence at the moment) and may own a record or two by The Jam.  But better still than all that, was his reaction as he stood on top of the podium as the newly crowned winner of the Tour de France.

Tuesday

Punk Britannia...slight return

While on the subject of the BBC's 'Punk Britannia' season, both the John Cooper Clarke and The Adverts documentaries were excellent.  Although I found it curious to see Attila The Stockbroker pop up on 'We Who Wait', but not on the JCC film.

Clearly Attila and TV Smith are kindred spirits, who've undoubtedly shared a stage in their time.  But the heavy use of comedians to offer us a view of the impact of the Bard Of Salford, was a bit one dimensional.  Of course Johnny Clarke influenced them, but what about the 'ranting poets' who followed hot on his Chelsea booted heels?

Attila and the late Seething (later Steven - and Susan for that matter, but that's another story...) Wells were chief amongst the protagonists.  It was under this banner that a certain Porky The Poet got his first audience as well. He's better known as Phil Jupitus these days.

As for the man who brought us 'Russians in the DHSS' and 'Libyan Students from Hell', he's still doing it - much like TV Smith you suspect, gigging out of a suitcase and just about breaking even.

Now that's punk rock - and long may they continue.
 

Still Censored - after 35 years!

Despite myself, I am enjoying some of the BBC's 'Punk Britannia' coverage - if only as an antidote to the tedious House of Windsor soap opera.

But, listening to the eminently reasonable Gideon Coe's contribution this evening, it was surprising to hear that The Damned's 1976 Peel session - played in full and still sounding stunning - was censored.  The F-word being rather more subtlety edited out than the traditional BBC beep that graced it at the time of the original broadcast.  But censored it was.

Apparently the word fuck is not acceptable at almost 10 o'clock at night on 6music.

Hmm, what exactly has punk rock changed then?

Saturday

Buzzcocks - Ever Been Onstage With Someone (You Shouldn't've)?

Oh dear.  A rather worrying review of the much vaunted - and now it seems - controversial, Buzzcocks 'Back To Front' gig in Manchester last week, on Louder Than War. It seems Mr. Diggle 'hit the sauce more than usual' as a friend and fellow Buzzcocks fan put it.

That same friend saw Buzzcocks in Dublin recently and reports that Stevie D (to give him his football nickname) was 'fairly restrained'.  Let's hope Joe Whyte's view that "the sooner Shelley dumps Diggle, the better" doesn't prove to be the case - however understandable the sentiment may be in the light of the "poor, under-rehearsed shambles of a gig" he witnessed.

Shelley & Diggle have often been likened to a bickering couple, who despite everything, know they are better together than apart.  I've seen it myself some years ago at a fairly unpleasant 'punk all-dayer' with Diggle reveling in the drunken chaos, while Shelley looked like he couldn't get off-stage soon enough.

The body language that night suggested a band that was falling apart, but they carried on then, although the fallout from a high profile home town gig may be harder to patch up.

Buzzcocks recent albums (particularly 2003's self titled 'Buzzcocks') have been excellent.  But 'Flat Pack Philosophy', their most recent set of new material, was released in 2006.  Perhaps it's time to get back in the studio and get off the nostalgia treadmill?

A Real Jubilee...

‘Let out all the prisoners, ‘cause that’s a Jubilee’ sang The Stranglers in 1978 on ‘Do You Wanna?’.  Never gave it much thought at the time, as it was possibly one of the weaker track on the superb Black And White album.  Their best in my view, but other opinions are available.

These days, a quick search on the 'net and it turns out they had a point.  The concept of a Jubilee is mentioned as far back as Jewish and Christian fables, apparently.  Not sources I am particularly inclined to credit with much accuracy, but clearly the idea has been knocking around longer than the monarchy.

The idea of a Jubilee being a period of remission and forgiveness, occurring once every fifty years, when slaves would be freed, debts wiped clean and prisoners pardoned, is certainly a more interesting concept than Brian May playing his guitar on top of Buck House, or whatever nonsense is being planned this time.

So how about, for this Jubilee, making all the subjects of this country into citizens? Or wiping out international debt?

Thought not.  Have a Bank Holiday, wave your plastic flags and be grateful to the ruling classes.

Wednesday

Joe Strummer - London Is Burning (AKA Burnin' Streets) Myspace mix

Bumped into this alternate take of Burnin' Streets from Joe Strummer's excellent 'Streetcore' album the other day on my mp3 player.


It originally surfaced - at least to my knowledge - on Myspace around the time Streetcore came out in 2003. 

Although it can be found on You Tube (see above), it's a strangely neglected version and being almost completely reworked from the final album version, deserves an airing.  Pay attention!


Sunday

Guile on Louder Than War

Good to see Guile on Louder Than War here

Meanwhile the band continues to put up excellent footage from their gig at The Public


Saturday

WTF?


A few weeks back these curious adverts began springing up on billboards I was passing on a daily basis.

At first I just dismissed them as the marketing slogans for a new Manic Street Preachers album.





Well perhaps not.  But they had that shouty pseudo-intellectual feel to them and you could see the bafflement on the faces of passing motorists.  Which is no bad thing.

But what essential consumer item were they trying to flog?

Thursday

What 'B' sides were for

On one of those endless trawls of cyberspace, I bumped into this marvellous example of the dying art of the 'B' side:

 
 
Bringing an obscure song to a new audience, or possibly just larking about in the studio with a spare hour of recording time to kill.  Either way 'B' sides used to produce gems like this on a regular basis.

Which inevitably made me go and search out the original, which readers of a certain age may recall was by the Dodgems, one of the gloriously off kilter bands to emerge in the first throws of punk, pawing their grubby mitts towards their 15 minutes of fame. 

More by accident than design you suspect, the came up with this:


A classic, pure and simple.

Sunday

Killing Joke - MMXII

Is it possible for a band that's been together for over thirty years (give or take few line up meltdowns) to still be coming up with the goods?

On the evidence of 2010’s Absolute Dissent, which saw the first recordings with the original line up since Revelations (1982) then the answer has to be ‘yes’, as anyone whose witnessed the band live recently will already know.

But can they repeat the trick with MMXII?

Trailed as being their ‘end of times’ album, it could be argued it’s the album Killing Joke have been threatening to make since Jaz Coleman did a runner to Iceland back in 1982 precipitating the end of the original line up amid dark mutterings of an impending apocalypse. 

Which is a theme Jaz has returned to on more than one occasion since then, although recently, seemingly calmer and more stable than in the past, he’s moderated his views claiming we stand on the edge of a new way of living, rather than the end, lights out.

Residents of Greece for example, might even think he’s on to something...

So what does all that mean for MMXII?

Tuesday

Songs From The Last Century

Makes them sound old doesn't it?

But that would be the point of The Guardian's 'Old Music' feature.  

Obviously it doesn't need to be re-blogged by me (if that is indeed what I am doing?), but I cannot resist mentioning today's entry:

Johnny Thunders 'You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory' is just a timeless classic.  

Finding it by chance on my regular lunch hour footie gossip surf reminded me that this one song justified the whole of Thunders, notoriously uneven, career.  And it was a more interesting read than why Andy Carroll's a bit of a numpty.

Read it here 

It's also one of several excellent articles in the series, not all of which I agree with, but you could do worse than spend your lunch hour reading about gems from Killing Joke, Ramones, Magazine and Teenage Fanclub.

Saturday

The Stranglers - Giants

For those of us who just can't help ourselves and have to check out the numerous You Tube clips of new material prior to an album's release (yes, I know, guilty as charged!), the first thing that strikes you listening to 'Giants' is how much better than expected it sounds.

No, that's not right.  That's the second thing.  The first thing that hits you is 45 seconds into track one, when the unmistakable bass growl of JJ Burnel kicks in.  It still sounds awesome.  It is awesome!

'Another Camden Afternoon' is a lazy, lolloping instrumental opener, almost as if the band are rousing themselves and flexing their muscles.  A pleasing enough start.  

Wednesday

Lost In Music - Mark Lanegan Band, Institute, Birmingham

You're album's riding the crest of a critical wave that already suggests 'Blues Funeral' will be recognised as one of the best of the year and demand for tickets for tonight's show has been strong enough to see the gig upgraded to the main room at the HMV Institute and yet as Mark Lanegan follows his band onstage he seems to wince in embarrassment at the roar that greets him.

Curious behaviour from a seasoned performer.  No acknowledgment to the crowd by word or deed, not even a pause to bask in the moment.  Yet this is a man with seven solo albums to his name stretching back to 1990.  And that's not even considering the plethora of collaborations, side projects and guest vocalist recordings and gigs to his name.

As has been well documented, until fairly recently, Lanegan operated in something of an 'altered state'.  James Dean Bradfield has claimed that despite having done an entire US tour together, Lanegan did not speak to him once during the course of their weeks in close proximity!

Now despite the bedraggled appearance Lanegan is clean and yet still his onstage persona is that of a man who would rather be someplace, anyplace else.

Hanging off the mike stand staring intently at a spot on the stage about a yard to his right - his default setting between songs - you almost wonder if he can go through with this.  By a cruel irony we have come to see a man seemingly crippled by nerves.

Then the magic starts.  As the band kick into 'Can't Come Down' Lanegan opens his mouth and out comes THAT voice.  That husky, death rattle barritone that seems to at once, envelope and threaten the listener.  And we know why we are here.



Sunday

Killing Joke - Manchester Academy

Manchester sees Killing Joke in fine form.  As is becoming a habit with the rejuvenated Joke, early tour dates see various new songs road tested before the band settle on the ones that will become a fixture for the tour.

Perversely one of the songs that hasn't made the cut is new single 'In Cythera'. Played at Exeter and Bristol, but by Manchester it had been dropped.  But as it is a more reflective song about love and loss, it did sit a little bit at odds with the majority of the new material which sees Jaz & co raging at the ecological and economic implosion of the world.

Manchester 10/03/12 setlist - lovely!

Wednesday

We Watch The Sun Go Down...


Sunset over Smethwick. Nothing to write home about in itself, but while taking this picture I was listening to Wire's 'Pink Flag' album.  For me early Wire means 'Outdoor Miner' and 'Dot Dash' of course.  Can't say I was a massive fan at the time - probably way too much going on for a simple lad like me.  But there I was standing at the bus stop when up pops the sublime 'Mannequin'.

Music does not always stand the test of time, but remarkably this track, from 1977, seems far better now than I remember it...


Losing (My Religion)


Quite how a Portsmouth fan and a sometime Glasgow Rangers fan found themselves at Reading's Madejski Stadium to witness Pompey roll over and have their tummy tickled is a story almost as convoluted as how their respective clubs have become England and Scotland's 'crisis clubs'.

So leaving aside the curious experience of being guests at Reading's excellently appointed, out of town football experience, as it's no doubt described in a glossy sales brochure, not aimed at the likes of me, is another story, for another day. But things quickly became even more curious once the game got under way.


Sunday

A Nice Taster...

... for the return of the Joke.


This is a fan made unofficial video of 'Rapture' from the new album, 'MMXII' due for release in April.

Well done to those involved in putting this together, far better than the minimum effort Swinefarm version! 

Tuesday

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, here's what The Public looks like...


...not your typical gig venue!

Monday

Guile - a proper video

Unlike the rather shoddy audience filmed videos available of Guile at http://www.youtube.com/user/macworld77 here's a far superior clip of the band taken from their gig at The Public, in West Bromwich.


Sunday

Tall Boys - Interaction Centre 1984


The band formed by Nigel Lewis after he left the Meteors. The Tall Boys also featured fellow ex-Meteor Mark Robertson on drums and former Girls At Our Best! guitarist James Alan.

Here's a mixing desk recording of the band at the Interaction Centre in London from 24th August 1984.

d/l