1. BEST ALBUM:
Seasons Of My Soul - Rumer
2. BEST SONG:
Aretha - Rumer
3. BEST LIVE ACT:
The Wutars
4. BEST TV DRAMA:
Mad Men
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0094j1x
5. BEST TV COMEDY:
30 Rock
http://www.nbc.com/30-rock/
6. BEST TV NEWS SOURCE:
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
7. BEST RADIO STATION
5Live
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/
8. BEST RADIO SHOW
In Tune - Radio 3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp0c
9. NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR
The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/
10. BEST WEBSITE:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
11. BEST THEATRE PRODUCTION
Twelfth Night, Duke of York’s Theatre, London
12. MOST MEMORABLE MEDIA MOMENT
The Bigoted Woman
13. BOOK OF THE YEAR
Stephen Robinson’s biography of Lord Deedes
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Remarkable-Lives-Bill-Deedes/dp/0316730335
14. MAN OF THE YEAR
David Cameron
15. WOMAN OF THE YEAR
Shelagh Fogerty
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Magnus Shaw's pick of 2010
1. BEST ALBUM:
Postcards From A Young Man - Manic Street Preachers
Life affirming return to form, complete with fat riffs, hefty hooks and a Bunnyman.
2. BEST SONG:
Time Of The Season - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
The new Lee and Nancy make the best Christmas single ever with effortless cool.
3. BEST LIVE ACT:
Pet Shop Boys - Pandemonium Tour
An unforgettable experience. Pop as ballet, opera and musical theatre.
4. BEST TV DRAMA:
Mo - Channel 4
A career best performance from Juile Walters and every moment believable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raoXCB93nlg&list=SL&has_verified=1
5. BEST TV COMEDY:
Peep Show - Channel 4
The current season could well be the best yet. Bain & Armstrong writing out of their skins.
http://www.youtube.com/show/peepshow?pl=0E4453C0DDBF06E6&ob=showav_e
6. BEST TV NEWS SOURCE:
Channel 4 News
The Snow / Guru Murthy dream team still in a different league.
http://www.channel4.com/news/
7. BEST RADIO STATION:
BBC Radio 5Live
Derbyshire, Bacon, Baker, Nolan and the marvellous Rod Sharp. What's not to like?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/
8. BEST RADIO SHOW:
Richard Bacon 5Live
It's the depth of research that makes all the difference.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pstlg
9. BEST MOTION PICTURE:
Kick Ass
You can keep the confusing Inception, this was original, fun, funny and brilliant.
10. BEST WEBSITE:
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com
Because we couldn't nominate The Rocking Vicar.
11. NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR:
The Guardian
Particularly the Saturday edition. They have Brooker, after all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
12. BEST THEATRE PRODUCTION
Ghost Stories
How scary can a play be? Really, really scary as it happens.
http://www.ghoststoriestheshow.co.uk
13. MOST MEMORABLE MEDIA MOMENT
Australia's Next Top Model
Unbelievable - even after 20 viewings
14. BOOK OF THE YEAR
How Entertainers Took Over The World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy
Marina Hyde
The power of sleb has never been diced and sliced in such an efficient way before. Read and gasp in horror.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celebrity-Entertainers-Took-World-Strategy/dp/1846552591
15. FOOL OF THE YEAR
Louis Walsh
Commented that black performer Paige Richardson was like a 'little Lenny Henry'. We rest our case. (Although Nick Clegg had a lucky escape).
Also enjoyed:
- Getting On telly comedy.
- The Inbetweeners more telly comedy.
- Fyfe Dangerfield's 'She Needs Me'.
- The Cornbury Music Festival
- The Splendour Festival.
- Downton Abbey on the telly.
- The Apprentice on the telly.
Magnus Shaw, December 2010
Postcards From A Young Man - Manic Street Preachers
Life affirming return to form, complete with fat riffs, hefty hooks and a Bunnyman.
2. BEST SONG:
Time Of The Season - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
The new Lee and Nancy make the best Christmas single ever with effortless cool.
3. BEST LIVE ACT:
Pet Shop Boys - Pandemonium Tour
An unforgettable experience. Pop as ballet, opera and musical theatre.
4. BEST TV DRAMA:
Mo - Channel 4
A career best performance from Juile Walters and every moment believable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raoXCB93nlg&list=SL&has_verified=1
5. BEST TV COMEDY:
Peep Show - Channel 4
The current season could well be the best yet. Bain & Armstrong writing out of their skins.
http://www.youtube.com/show/peepshow?pl=0E4453C0DDBF06E6&ob=showav_e
6. BEST TV NEWS SOURCE:
Channel 4 News
The Snow / Guru Murthy dream team still in a different league.
http://www.channel4.com/news/
7. BEST RADIO STATION:
BBC Radio 5Live
Derbyshire, Bacon, Baker, Nolan and the marvellous Rod Sharp. What's not to like?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/
8. BEST RADIO SHOW:
Richard Bacon 5Live
It's the depth of research that makes all the difference.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pstlg
9. BEST MOTION PICTURE:
Kick Ass
You can keep the confusing Inception, this was original, fun, funny and brilliant.
10. BEST WEBSITE:
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com
Because we couldn't nominate The Rocking Vicar.
11. NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR:
The Guardian
Particularly the Saturday edition. They have Brooker, after all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
12. BEST THEATRE PRODUCTION
Ghost Stories
How scary can a play be? Really, really scary as it happens.
http://www.ghoststoriestheshow.co.uk
13. MOST MEMORABLE MEDIA MOMENT
Australia's Next Top Model
Unbelievable - even after 20 viewings
14. BOOK OF THE YEAR
How Entertainers Took Over The World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy
Marina Hyde
The power of sleb has never been diced and sliced in such an efficient way before. Read and gasp in horror.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celebrity-Entertainers-Took-World-Strategy/dp/1846552591
15. FOOL OF THE YEAR
Louis Walsh
Commented that black performer Paige Richardson was like a 'little Lenny Henry'. We rest our case. (Although Nick Clegg had a lucky escape).
Also enjoyed:
- Getting On telly comedy.
- The Inbetweeners more telly comedy.
- Fyfe Dangerfield's 'She Needs Me'.
- The Cornbury Music Festival
- The Splendour Festival.
- Downton Abbey on the telly.
- The Apprentice on the telly.
Magnus Shaw, December 2010
Saturday, 18 December 2010
An actor's life for me
If somebody won a raffle and the prize was to take a penalty kick at half time during a match at Old Trafford, it would be deemed a touch excessive if that raffle winner then went on to describe themselves as a professional footballer for Manchester United.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is incredibly kind in describing me as a writer and an actor. I’m comfortable with the former description and in some ways I’m quite proud of at least part of the work I’ve written over a period of (Lawks!) thirty three years. Yet describing me as an actor, even though I’ve popped up in a few films and TV titles here and there, is rather too much like our Old Trafford raffle winner for comfort.
Allow me to describe my place in the Pantheon of thespians with the background to a typical appearance from one of the entries in the IMDB.
It helps to know someone.
In 1989, I was talking with one of the most marvellous people I ever met in the entertainment industry; to this day it astonishes me that his name remains largely unknown beyond those who worked with him.
Edgar Davis left his home in Liverpool in the late 1940s, changed his first name to Noel (after Noel Coward) and began to find work in London as a character actor, usually playing small parts and specialising in rather effeminate characters. He said that he gave up acting after arriving at a moment of clarity on the stage at St Martin’s Theatre, in the mid 1960s. He claimed that he couldn’t shake off the notion that acting was a ridiculous and absurd profession “pretending to be real people”.
So Noel Davis bounded into a second career as a casting director after falling into a working relationship with Gyles Brandreth at the Oxford Playhouse. It was my luck to come to find myself in Noel’s company several times in the 1980s – I have never known anyone able to tell more fascinating, scandalous, showbusiness stories – recounted with an airy wave of the hands, and a flamboyant genius for mimicry. He made me laugh until it hurt.
Noel Davis was the casting director for ‘The Krays’, Peter Medak’s beautifully shot film about the rise of the East End twins, Ronnie and Reggie.
“My dear, you’ll be perfect for a small role. A thug of course!”
Of course.
So this is what it’s like being an actor.
First Positions: I was called and asked to arrive at a scout hut in Whitley, Berkshire, on a Friday afternoon, put on a hat and walk up and down. Various people behind a table said things like “Mmmm yes....” and “Mmmm no....”
Then what seemed like an army of men and women were measuring every limb, my collar, my hat size, my height, my weight. They took photos and wrote lots of information on sheets of paper attached to clipboards.
One week later I was in ‘Angels’, the theatrical costumiers on the edge of Covent Garden. All the information gathered in the scout hut had been sent to ‘Angels’ and now they were to clothe me accordingly in the manner of a 1950s thug from the East End of London. Finding a hat to fit my rather large head proved a challenge, and in the movie stills you can see that the biggest hat available still sat atop my head rather in the manner of a benign vicar instead of a vicious and devil-may-care mobster.
Ext. Establishing Shot: A cold, damp, extremely early morning in a rather grim and muddy park in Reading.
I was playing the (non-speaking) part of an unnamed family friend accompanying the Kray Twins (played by Gary and Martin Kemp) and Jimmy Jewel as we walked across a fairground to a boxing booth. Billie Whitelaw was walking towards us, and whilst we’re name dropping, Michael Elphick was one of my fellow uncredited thugs.
We were all in this park, in Reading for at least twelve hours, until the light began to fade. Of that twelve hours, I estimate I spent about two hours eating (you rarely find better food than on a film location; bacon sandwiches are usually heavily in demand), nine and a half hours either chatting in the trailers or reading the PG Wodehouse paperback I had intelligently brought with me, and a maximum of thirty minutes ‘on set’.
This was nothing unusual and is the general rule for TV or movie filming. 95% doing nothing, 4% standing by, and 1% filming.
Ext. Long Shot: Two weeks later. A forlorn street in London.
Still with the hat wedged down to my ears I was asked to blend into the background as a variety of very short ‘pick up shots’ were gathered. Unsurprisingly, this took a couple of days, during which I ate several bacon sandwiches, sat in trailers, and read another book.
I cannot give you a clear reason why Charlie Kray, the older brother of Reggie and Ronnie, was employed on the set of the movie, as a consultant. You may, however, draw your own conclusions.
When not interrupting a shot and driving the first, second and third assistant directors to distraction with his ‘advice’, he spent much of his time seated next to me and I think, mistaking me for a real villain, he regaled me with stories and rather implausible anecdotes about what it was ‘really’ like when he and his brothers were, errr.... protecting people and businesses.
So well did we engage that Charlie told me that if ever I was ‘in trouble’ I would only have to call him and it would be ‘sorted’. He wrote a touching note, which I really should frame, in which he gave me some advice for my career, and also his phone number in case anyone needed, you know, ‘sorting out’.
The Denouement: Nearly a year later. The premiere of The Krays; Leicester Square.
From the time a movie is shot, to the time it is first shown, those involved in the making of it have probably worked on ten other projects. There is an inordinate amount of fussing about, re-shooting, editing and re-editing, before the movie joins the queue for a suitable general release.
Thus it was the summer of 1990 before my girlfriend and I strode along the red carpet with the air of two people born to be recognised as true stars of the screen. Except that nobody did recognise us so we queued up for the Kia-Ora instead.
Now Mary-Ann was (and probably still is) a lively girl with an equally lively and loud personality. She knew how to laugh.
When my big moment arrived in the fairground scene, and I wandered across the forty foot screen in my stupid hat, she laughed so uproariously and with such gusto, that heads turned, and leading members of the cast, and honoured guests, twisted round in their seats to ‘tut’ and frown at this outburst.
This reaction rather deflated the occasion of my thirty-fifth birthday (for it coincided with the premiere) and instead of a triumphant dinner in the rather swish restaurant in Covent Garden, I was treated to a volley of guffaws as Mary-Ann relived and reprised my fedora festooned characterisation of a rather too amiable-looking hoodlum.
The Review: Mary-Ann and I lasted about another month. Charlie Kray was never in a position to sort anyone out for me, as he was convicted of drug offences and died serving his sentence. Noel Davis survived casting me and the hat in ‘The Krays’ and continued work as a successful casting director until he died in 2002.
The Internet Movie Database counts my appearance as ‘acting’.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
This week I have:
Listened to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album; I suspect we may have a merrier time than Phil this year.
Watched Stuart Baggs get his come-uppance on The Apprentice; I doubt we have seen the last of ‘The Brand’.
Recklessly bought a 4x4 gas guzzler without ever seeing it or test driving it; I may live to regret this.
Lunched in an Italian restaurant in Soho, swapping disgraceful stories about working at the BBC in the 1980s.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is incredibly kind in describing me as a writer and an actor. I’m comfortable with the former description and in some ways I’m quite proud of at least part of the work I’ve written over a period of (Lawks!) thirty three years. Yet describing me as an actor, even though I’ve popped up in a few films and TV titles here and there, is rather too much like our Old Trafford raffle winner for comfort.
Allow me to describe my place in the Pantheon of thespians with the background to a typical appearance from one of the entries in the IMDB.
It helps to know someone.
In 1989, I was talking with one of the most marvellous people I ever met in the entertainment industry; to this day it astonishes me that his name remains largely unknown beyond those who worked with him.
Edgar Davis left his home in Liverpool in the late 1940s, changed his first name to Noel (after Noel Coward) and began to find work in London as a character actor, usually playing small parts and specialising in rather effeminate characters. He said that he gave up acting after arriving at a moment of clarity on the stage at St Martin’s Theatre, in the mid 1960s. He claimed that he couldn’t shake off the notion that acting was a ridiculous and absurd profession “pretending to be real people”.
So Noel Davis bounded into a second career as a casting director after falling into a working relationship with Gyles Brandreth at the Oxford Playhouse. It was my luck to come to find myself in Noel’s company several times in the 1980s – I have never known anyone able to tell more fascinating, scandalous, showbusiness stories – recounted with an airy wave of the hands, and a flamboyant genius for mimicry. He made me laugh until it hurt.
Noel Davis was the casting director for ‘The Krays’, Peter Medak’s beautifully shot film about the rise of the East End twins, Ronnie and Reggie.
“My dear, you’ll be perfect for a small role. A thug of course!”
Of course.
So this is what it’s like being an actor.
First Positions: I was called and asked to arrive at a scout hut in Whitley, Berkshire, on a Friday afternoon, put on a hat and walk up and down. Various people behind a table said things like “Mmmm yes....” and “Mmmm no....”
Then what seemed like an army of men and women were measuring every limb, my collar, my hat size, my height, my weight. They took photos and wrote lots of information on sheets of paper attached to clipboards.
One week later I was in ‘Angels’, the theatrical costumiers on the edge of Covent Garden. All the information gathered in the scout hut had been sent to ‘Angels’ and now they were to clothe me accordingly in the manner of a 1950s thug from the East End of London. Finding a hat to fit my rather large head proved a challenge, and in the movie stills you can see that the biggest hat available still sat atop my head rather in the manner of a benign vicar instead of a vicious and devil-may-care mobster.
Ext. Establishing Shot: A cold, damp, extremely early morning in a rather grim and muddy park in Reading.
I was playing the (non-speaking) part of an unnamed family friend accompanying the Kray Twins (played by Gary and Martin Kemp) and Jimmy Jewel as we walked across a fairground to a boxing booth. Billie Whitelaw was walking towards us, and whilst we’re name dropping, Michael Elphick was one of my fellow uncredited thugs.
We were all in this park, in Reading for at least twelve hours, until the light began to fade. Of that twelve hours, I estimate I spent about two hours eating (you rarely find better food than on a film location; bacon sandwiches are usually heavily in demand), nine and a half hours either chatting in the trailers or reading the PG Wodehouse paperback I had intelligently brought with me, and a maximum of thirty minutes ‘on set’.
This was nothing unusual and is the general rule for TV or movie filming. 95% doing nothing, 4% standing by, and 1% filming.
Ext. Long Shot: Two weeks later. A forlorn street in London.
Still with the hat wedged down to my ears I was asked to blend into the background as a variety of very short ‘pick up shots’ were gathered. Unsurprisingly, this took a couple of days, during which I ate several bacon sandwiches, sat in trailers, and read another book.
I cannot give you a clear reason why Charlie Kray, the older brother of Reggie and Ronnie, was employed on the set of the movie, as a consultant. You may, however, draw your own conclusions.
When not interrupting a shot and driving the first, second and third assistant directors to distraction with his ‘advice’, he spent much of his time seated next to me and I think, mistaking me for a real villain, he regaled me with stories and rather implausible anecdotes about what it was ‘really’ like when he and his brothers were, errr.... protecting people and businesses.
So well did we engage that Charlie told me that if ever I was ‘in trouble’ I would only have to call him and it would be ‘sorted’. He wrote a touching note, which I really should frame, in which he gave me some advice for my career, and also his phone number in case anyone needed, you know, ‘sorting out’.
The Denouement: Nearly a year later. The premiere of The Krays; Leicester Square.
From the time a movie is shot, to the time it is first shown, those involved in the making of it have probably worked on ten other projects. There is an inordinate amount of fussing about, re-shooting, editing and re-editing, before the movie joins the queue for a suitable general release.
Thus it was the summer of 1990 before my girlfriend and I strode along the red carpet with the air of two people born to be recognised as true stars of the screen. Except that nobody did recognise us so we queued up for the Kia-Ora instead.
Now Mary-Ann was (and probably still is) a lively girl with an equally lively and loud personality. She knew how to laugh.
When my big moment arrived in the fairground scene, and I wandered across the forty foot screen in my stupid hat, she laughed so uproariously and with such gusto, that heads turned, and leading members of the cast, and honoured guests, twisted round in their seats to ‘tut’ and frown at this outburst.
This reaction rather deflated the occasion of my thirty-fifth birthday (for it coincided with the premiere) and instead of a triumphant dinner in the rather swish restaurant in Covent Garden, I was treated to a volley of guffaws as Mary-Ann relived and reprised my fedora festooned characterisation of a rather too amiable-looking hoodlum.
The Review: Mary-Ann and I lasted about another month. Charlie Kray was never in a position to sort anyone out for me, as he was convicted of drug offences and died serving his sentence. Noel Davis survived casting me and the hat in ‘The Krays’ and continued work as a successful casting director until he died in 2002.
The Internet Movie Database counts my appearance as ‘acting’.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
This week I have:
Listened to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album; I suspect we may have a merrier time than Phil this year.
Watched Stuart Baggs get his come-uppance on The Apprentice; I doubt we have seen the last of ‘The Brand’.
Recklessly bought a 4x4 gas guzzler without ever seeing it or test driving it; I may live to regret this.
Lunched in an Italian restaurant in Soho, swapping disgraceful stories about working at the BBC in the 1980s.
What Everett?
Over Christmas, BBC Radio 2 is presenting both a tribute to the late Kenny Everett and a new show created from edited highlights of Everett’s programmes. As a pre-amble, various presenters have been posing the rhetorical question ‘Was Kenny Everett the greatest DJ we have ever known?’
One isn’t supposed to answer rhetorical questions, but no, he wasn’t.
Have you ever known a person who, through nervousness or shyness, always talks in a funny voice? Well, Cuddly Ken made a career out of that. But that’s not to say he wasn’t a pioneer. Before his shows began, comedy radio came in the form of sketch shows like ‘Round The Horne’ or the surreal antics of ‘The Goon Show’. Music radio tended to stick to the rigid format of link, record, link, record – and Everett deconstructed the format to mix sound effects, characters and gags with the discs. Because of their novelty and unpredictability, his broadcasts gathered quite a following, but that didn’t mean they were consistently hilarious and it certainly doesn’t make him the best DJ to ever appear on British radio.
Kenny Everett was born Maurice James Christopher Cole on Christmas Day 1944. A contemporary of The Beatles, he passed up an opportunity to join the BBC light programme in 1962 in favour of a job with the Radio London pirate ship. His rise to prominence had begun and with the scuppering of the pirates he joined the nascent Radio 1 in 1967. This rise wasn’t without turbulence; he was famously dismissed from both Capital and Radio 1 for jokes so tame by today’s standards they would now slip by without a mention. Less well known is the fact he was already familiar with his P45 having been dismissed from Radio London for criticising their religious output.
So Everett was clearly a loose cannon, no doubt. And that anarchic streak naturally endeared him to his listeners – and later, through his Kenny Everett Video Show on LWT, his viewers. But to my mind, he was never reliably funny. As the first TV performer to include the laughter of the crew, it could be suggested he was breaking barriers, but it is just as possible he was simply garnishing rather weak material. Sketches about breasts, about transvestites and nakedness – if anything, on telly, he was no more than the alternative Benny Hill.
Arguably Kenny’s nadir was his appearance at the 1983 Conservative Party Conference where he bounded onto the stage to suggest bombing Russia and kicking away Michael Foot’s stick may well make good policy. Whether he genuinely held right wing views – which he would be perfectly entitled to – or he was simply acting up, was a matter of some debate. But there was little doubt he had made a fool of himself.
Those who knew him well confirm that Everett could be a difficult, even tormented, man – and it seems his fluctuating religious beliefs conflicted with his homosexuality to produce periods of real unhappiness. It’s not unusual for comics to be depressive. Cleese, Milligan and Hancock all suffered this way and Kenny Everett would be suitable addition to the list. His broadcasts were always performances and were surely an outlet for (and escape from) his frustrations.
So, with this popularity, rebellious adventurousness and undoubted skill with the most basic of studio equipment, why was Kenny Everett not the finest DJ the UK has ever heard?
Well, despite the fact he actually toured with the Beatles and produced two of their Christmas records, he was never about the music. Pop was merely the filler in his shows. As with many of the presenters who followed his style (Steve Wright being the most notable example), he was always itching for the disc to end to clear the air for more Kenny. For die-hard Everett admirers this posed no problem. They tuned in to hear the characters, noises and voices that were the stock-in-trade of his programming. But to be exalted as disc jockey, it is necessary to be passionate about the music you play. Think about the definition of DJ – a presenter who is carried by the discs, rather than someone who spins the playlist minimum in order to allow themselves the maximum exposure, no matter how entertaining that non-musical content might be. And although to these ears he rarely produced belly laughs, I wouldn’t deny his ability to entertain.
Sadly, Kenny Everett was one of the first high-profile broadcasters to succumb to HIV infection and while it is clear Chris Evans, Johnny Vaughn and many others were there to take on his mantle, he was never truly replaced. As an originator, mould breaker and unique comedian, he died with his reputation as strong as ever and his place in radio history assured, but it would be wrong to accept him as the greatest DJ of all time. But in all fairness, it was a title he never claimed for himself and perhaps others shouldn't try to glue to his memory.
Magnus Shaw, December 2010
One isn’t supposed to answer rhetorical questions, but no, he wasn’t.
Have you ever known a person who, through nervousness or shyness, always talks in a funny voice? Well, Cuddly Ken made a career out of that. But that’s not to say he wasn’t a pioneer. Before his shows began, comedy radio came in the form of sketch shows like ‘Round The Horne’ or the surreal antics of ‘The Goon Show’. Music radio tended to stick to the rigid format of link, record, link, record – and Everett deconstructed the format to mix sound effects, characters and gags with the discs. Because of their novelty and unpredictability, his broadcasts gathered quite a following, but that didn’t mean they were consistently hilarious and it certainly doesn’t make him the best DJ to ever appear on British radio.
Kenny Everett was born Maurice James Christopher Cole on Christmas Day 1944. A contemporary of The Beatles, he passed up an opportunity to join the BBC light programme in 1962 in favour of a job with the Radio London pirate ship. His rise to prominence had begun and with the scuppering of the pirates he joined the nascent Radio 1 in 1967. This rise wasn’t without turbulence; he was famously dismissed from both Capital and Radio 1 for jokes so tame by today’s standards they would now slip by without a mention. Less well known is the fact he was already familiar with his P45 having been dismissed from Radio London for criticising their religious output.
So Everett was clearly a loose cannon, no doubt. And that anarchic streak naturally endeared him to his listeners – and later, through his Kenny Everett Video Show on LWT, his viewers. But to my mind, he was never reliably funny. As the first TV performer to include the laughter of the crew, it could be suggested he was breaking barriers, but it is just as possible he was simply garnishing rather weak material. Sketches about breasts, about transvestites and nakedness – if anything, on telly, he was no more than the alternative Benny Hill.
Arguably Kenny’s nadir was his appearance at the 1983 Conservative Party Conference where he bounded onto the stage to suggest bombing Russia and kicking away Michael Foot’s stick may well make good policy. Whether he genuinely held right wing views – which he would be perfectly entitled to – or he was simply acting up, was a matter of some debate. But there was little doubt he had made a fool of himself.
Those who knew him well confirm that Everett could be a difficult, even tormented, man – and it seems his fluctuating religious beliefs conflicted with his homosexuality to produce periods of real unhappiness. It’s not unusual for comics to be depressive. Cleese, Milligan and Hancock all suffered this way and Kenny Everett would be suitable addition to the list. His broadcasts were always performances and were surely an outlet for (and escape from) his frustrations.
So, with this popularity, rebellious adventurousness and undoubted skill with the most basic of studio equipment, why was Kenny Everett not the finest DJ the UK has ever heard?
Well, despite the fact he actually toured with the Beatles and produced two of their Christmas records, he was never about the music. Pop was merely the filler in his shows. As with many of the presenters who followed his style (Steve Wright being the most notable example), he was always itching for the disc to end to clear the air for more Kenny. For die-hard Everett admirers this posed no problem. They tuned in to hear the characters, noises and voices that were the stock-in-trade of his programming. But to be exalted as disc jockey, it is necessary to be passionate about the music you play. Think about the definition of DJ – a presenter who is carried by the discs, rather than someone who spins the playlist minimum in order to allow themselves the maximum exposure, no matter how entertaining that non-musical content might be. And although to these ears he rarely produced belly laughs, I wouldn’t deny his ability to entertain.
Sadly, Kenny Everett was one of the first high-profile broadcasters to succumb to HIV infection and while it is clear Chris Evans, Johnny Vaughn and many others were there to take on his mantle, he was never truly replaced. As an originator, mould breaker and unique comedian, he died with his reputation as strong as ever and his place in radio history assured, but it would be wrong to accept him as the greatest DJ of all time. But in all fairness, it was a title he never claimed for himself and perhaps others shouldn't try to glue to his memory.
Magnus Shaw, December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Plain song
Instrumentals. I don’t like them.
It’s simply laziness on the part of the composer. Sitting at the piano or hunched over the guitar and constructing a tune, it’s the easy route to loll back in the chair and say, “That’s it! My day’s work is done. My opus is complete.”
I’m telling these idle songsters that they need to (as we tune observers like to say) walk the extra mile and add some words to their little melody. What sort of career would Elton have enjoyed if he hadn’t realised the limit of his capabilities and subsequently handed over his albeit catchy compositions to the care of Bernie Taupin. A very limited career is the answer.
What joy Bernie has brought with his well considered lyrics – well, like those for ‘Island Girl’ for example:
I see your teeth flash, Jamaican honey so sweet; Down where Lexington cross 47th Street; She's a big girl, she's standing six foot three; Turning tricks for the dudes in the big city.
Island girl; What you wantin' wid de white man's world; Island girl; Black boy want you in his island world; He want to take you from the racket boss; He want to save you but the cause is lost; Island girl, island girl, island girl; Tell me what you wantin' wid de white man's world
She's black as coal but she burn like a fire; And she wrap herself around you like a well worn tire; You feel her nail scratch your back just like a rake; He one more gone, he one more John who make a mistake.
Oh... no, wait a minute. That’s racist, sexist, and several other ists too, I imagine.
Yet the point is still valid; Elton’s instrumentals are usually doomy affairs, aimed at the dead or dying.
Instrumentals rarely bother the compilers of the charts, because they generally follow the Elton Rule in that you may hear them once or twice, say ‘meh’ and move on to something you can sing along to. Successful instrumentals are usually associated with a visual ‘pick-me-up’ which helps them sell a few copies by association as they form the aural backdrop to television shows or movies.
A list of instrumental hits that have edged into the top twenty in the Billboard Charts shows an almost exclusive adherence to that movie association. In my extensive research (OK, a quick look at Wikipedia) I found that no instrumental has troubled the Billboard Top Twenty since 1996.
We have fallen completely out of love with instrumentals. We’ve had to tell them that it isn’t them, it’s us. We just don’t feel the same and we need to start hearing new tunes. Ones with words.
Yes, I can hear you at the back, shouting out with your Booker T and the MGs, and your Classical Gas. The former’s canon is made up of tunes that are only heard as add-ons to TV shows, and the latter (and its ilk) are just showing off pieces that we listen to with respect; then we say ‘meh’ again, and play Abbey Road.
The most vital deficiency of the instrumental is that the writer can only prompt you in an abstract way. They can only paint a possibility of engagement. They might be able to lift your mood, or lead you to reflection, but they aren’t letting you in.
Words are our most powerful tool. Words stop wars; they break hearts and have the power to repair them.
A tune without words is a monochrome landscape, a dreamless sleep, a straight line that leads us nowhere. Composers of melodies – bring us your words, your thoughts, your dreams, your curved lines, and colour in our panorama.
But maybe don’t give the lyric writing gig to Bernie Taupin.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
This week I have:
Bought a new car without seeing it or test driving it. What could possibly go wrong?
Marvelled once again at the survival instincts of Stuart ‘The Brand’ Baggs.
Not been knowingly kettled.
Listened extensively and repeatedly to the Greatest Hits of Scott Walker, and The Walker Brothers
Not listened to any instrumentals.
It’s simply laziness on the part of the composer. Sitting at the piano or hunched over the guitar and constructing a tune, it’s the easy route to loll back in the chair and say, “That’s it! My day’s work is done. My opus is complete.”
I’m telling these idle songsters that they need to (as we tune observers like to say) walk the extra mile and add some words to their little melody. What sort of career would Elton have enjoyed if he hadn’t realised the limit of his capabilities and subsequently handed over his albeit catchy compositions to the care of Bernie Taupin. A very limited career is the answer.
What joy Bernie has brought with his well considered lyrics – well, like those for ‘Island Girl’ for example:
I see your teeth flash, Jamaican honey so sweet; Down where Lexington cross 47th Street; She's a big girl, she's standing six foot three; Turning tricks for the dudes in the big city.
Island girl; What you wantin' wid de white man's world; Island girl; Black boy want you in his island world; He want to take you from the racket boss; He want to save you but the cause is lost; Island girl, island girl, island girl; Tell me what you wantin' wid de white man's world
She's black as coal but she burn like a fire; And she wrap herself around you like a well worn tire; You feel her nail scratch your back just like a rake; He one more gone, he one more John who make a mistake.
Oh... no, wait a minute. That’s racist, sexist, and several other ists too, I imagine.
Yet the point is still valid; Elton’s instrumentals are usually doomy affairs, aimed at the dead or dying.
Instrumentals rarely bother the compilers of the charts, because they generally follow the Elton Rule in that you may hear them once or twice, say ‘meh’ and move on to something you can sing along to. Successful instrumentals are usually associated with a visual ‘pick-me-up’ which helps them sell a few copies by association as they form the aural backdrop to television shows or movies.
A list of instrumental hits that have edged into the top twenty in the Billboard Charts shows an almost exclusive adherence to that movie association. In my extensive research (OK, a quick look at Wikipedia) I found that no instrumental has troubled the Billboard Top Twenty since 1996.
We have fallen completely out of love with instrumentals. We’ve had to tell them that it isn’t them, it’s us. We just don’t feel the same and we need to start hearing new tunes. Ones with words.
Yes, I can hear you at the back, shouting out with your Booker T and the MGs, and your Classical Gas. The former’s canon is made up of tunes that are only heard as add-ons to TV shows, and the latter (and its ilk) are just showing off pieces that we listen to with respect; then we say ‘meh’ again, and play Abbey Road.
The most vital deficiency of the instrumental is that the writer can only prompt you in an abstract way. They can only paint a possibility of engagement. They might be able to lift your mood, or lead you to reflection, but they aren’t letting you in.
Words are our most powerful tool. Words stop wars; they break hearts and have the power to repair them.
A tune without words is a monochrome landscape, a dreamless sleep, a straight line that leads us nowhere. Composers of melodies – bring us your words, your thoughts, your dreams, your curved lines, and colour in our panorama.
But maybe don’t give the lyric writing gig to Bernie Taupin.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
This week I have:
Bought a new car without seeing it or test driving it. What could possibly go wrong?
Marvelled once again at the survival instincts of Stuart ‘The Brand’ Baggs.
Not been knowingly kettled.
Listened extensively and repeatedly to the Greatest Hits of Scott Walker, and The Walker Brothers
Not listened to any instrumentals.
The man who invented punk rock
For those of you too fresh of face and short of tooth to remember, the punk movement spewed into the mainstream from the basements of Soho and shops of the Kings Road during the feverish summer of 1976. For many, it was the most radical and exhilarating injection popular culture had experienced since the birth of rock ‘n’ roll in the Fifties. So, unsurprisingly, its most influential figures became household names: Johnny Rotten (nee Lydon), Joe Strummer, Siouxsie Sioux and even Billy Idol.
However much punk was a musical overhaul, it was also a visual revolution. The hacked, coloured hair, the torn and painted clothing and, yes, the safety pins, were just as significant as the roaring sound. The clothes were largely the creation of Mclaren’s partner, Vivienne Westwood (who you know), but the graphic design was the work of Jamie Reid (who maybe you don’t).
Reid was born in 1952 and educated at John Ruskin Grammar School in South London. But it was at Croydon Art School, while taking part in a protest sit-in, that he met the young Malcolm Mclaren. As well as a huge enthusiasm for anti-authority activity, the pair shared a fascination with the Situationists.
Founded in 1957, The Situationist International group was made up of revolutionaries and artists, hitting its peak during the unprecedented French wildcat strikes of May 1968. This movement is worthy of an article in its own right, but for now it is sufficient to say that Mclaren and Reid saw a real connection between the civil unrest of Paris and the dire state of British society in the mid 70s. Initially the two were simply friends – Malcolm’s ambitions lay in shop and band management, while Jamie became involved in the subversive newspaper Suburban Press. Nevertheless, it seems their careers were destined to intertwine. When Malcolm pieced together and launched Sex Pistols from his shop ’SEX ‘ in Chelsea’s World’s End, he knew exactly who to recruit as the in-house graphic designer.
I’ve always thought Mclaren had no real idea just how explosive his band would be and he certainly found their immediate notoriety quite worrying. So it’s safe to say, Jamie Reid was equally unaware of the incalculable influence his work would have, long after the demise of the Pistols and punk itself.
Reid’s creativity and anarchic flair are so impressive, it’s very difficult to single out one aspect as the most important. That said, the ‘ransom note’ typography , used almost every time punk is referenced, was Jamie’s concept (from his publishing days) and instantly lashed itself to the language of punk as the Sex Pistols’ logo and on the sleeves of their early singles. But there can be very few British people over the age of 40, who do not recognise Cecil Beaton’s photographic portrait of the Queen, photocopied and corrupted by a safety pin jammed through her mouth.
Of course, we’re somewhat unmoved by anti-monarchist sentiments these days, but the strikingly rebellious and outright dangerous nature of this work at the time, cannot be underestimated. If Sex Pistols built their fame and power on a mixture of anger and outrage, Jamie Reid’s designs doubled their potency. He created sleeves for the monumental singles: ‘Anarchy In The UK’ (a shredded and defaced union flag), ‘God Save The Queen’ (a version of the ‘Beaton’ montage), ‘Pretty Vacant’ (a bus with its destination showing ‘Nowhere’ and ‘Holidays In The Sun’ (a mocking cartoon vacation brochure) – each as provocative and challenging as the single within.
In 1997, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Pistols’ ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ album (another Reid masterpiece of violent yellow and shocking pink), Jamie released limited edition prints of his best known punk designs and has, more recently, produced artwork for the fusion band Afro Celt Sound System. He is still a working and highly regarded designer and artist, mounting exhibitions like Peace is Tough at The Arches in Glasgow and the Microzine Gallery in Liverpool, where he now lives.
A career retrospective, May Day, May Day, was held in May 2007 and his work can also be found at L-13 Light Industrial Workshop in Clerkenwell, London.
Perhaps inevitably and rather pleasingly, Reid was also a leading light in the campaigns against Clause 28, The Poll Tax and The Criminal Justice Bill.
Sean O’Hagan of The Observer once described the ‘God Save The Queen’ sleeve as “the single most iconic image of the punk era”. For me, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to adjust that to “any era”.
Magnus Shaw – December 2010
However much punk was a musical overhaul, it was also a visual revolution. The hacked, coloured hair, the torn and painted clothing and, yes, the safety pins, were just as significant as the roaring sound. The clothes were largely the creation of Mclaren’s partner, Vivienne Westwood (who you know), but the graphic design was the work of Jamie Reid (who maybe you don’t).
Reid was born in 1952 and educated at John Ruskin Grammar School in South London. But it was at Croydon Art School, while taking part in a protest sit-in, that he met the young Malcolm Mclaren. As well as a huge enthusiasm for anti-authority activity, the pair shared a fascination with the Situationists.
Founded in 1957, The Situationist International group was made up of revolutionaries and artists, hitting its peak during the unprecedented French wildcat strikes of May 1968. This movement is worthy of an article in its own right, but for now it is sufficient to say that Mclaren and Reid saw a real connection between the civil unrest of Paris and the dire state of British society in the mid 70s. Initially the two were simply friends – Malcolm’s ambitions lay in shop and band management, while Jamie became involved in the subversive newspaper Suburban Press. Nevertheless, it seems their careers were destined to intertwine. When Malcolm pieced together and launched Sex Pistols from his shop ’SEX ‘ in Chelsea’s World’s End, he knew exactly who to recruit as the in-house graphic designer.
I’ve always thought Mclaren had no real idea just how explosive his band would be and he certainly found their immediate notoriety quite worrying. So it’s safe to say, Jamie Reid was equally unaware of the incalculable influence his work would have, long after the demise of the Pistols and punk itself.
Reid’s creativity and anarchic flair are so impressive, it’s very difficult to single out one aspect as the most important. That said, the ‘ransom note’ typography , used almost every time punk is referenced, was Jamie’s concept (from his publishing days) and instantly lashed itself to the language of punk as the Sex Pistols’ logo and on the sleeves of their early singles. But there can be very few British people over the age of 40, who do not recognise Cecil Beaton’s photographic portrait of the Queen, photocopied and corrupted by a safety pin jammed through her mouth.
Of course, we’re somewhat unmoved by anti-monarchist sentiments these days, but the strikingly rebellious and outright dangerous nature of this work at the time, cannot be underestimated. If Sex Pistols built their fame and power on a mixture of anger and outrage, Jamie Reid’s designs doubled their potency. He created sleeves for the monumental singles: ‘Anarchy In The UK’ (a shredded and defaced union flag), ‘God Save The Queen’ (a version of the ‘Beaton’ montage), ‘Pretty Vacant’ (a bus with its destination showing ‘Nowhere’ and ‘Holidays In The Sun’ (a mocking cartoon vacation brochure) – each as provocative and challenging as the single within.
In 1997, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Pistols’ ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ album (another Reid masterpiece of violent yellow and shocking pink), Jamie released limited edition prints of his best known punk designs and has, more recently, produced artwork for the fusion band Afro Celt Sound System. He is still a working and highly regarded designer and artist, mounting exhibitions like Peace is Tough at The Arches in Glasgow and the Microzine Gallery in Liverpool, where he now lives.
A career retrospective, May Day, May Day, was held in May 2007 and his work can also be found at L-13 Light Industrial Workshop in Clerkenwell, London.
Perhaps inevitably and rather pleasingly, Reid was also a leading light in the campaigns against Clause 28, The Poll Tax and The Criminal Justice Bill.
Sean O’Hagan of The Observer once described the ‘God Save The Queen’ sleeve as “the single most iconic image of the punk era”. For me, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to adjust that to “any era”.
Magnus Shaw – December 2010
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Trouble rap
The Guardian’s Weekend magazine recently featured Jay-Z as its cover star and interviewee. In the piece, Jay-Z explains the lyric to the song ’99 Problems (But A Bitch Aint One)’ is actually a decoy. Apparently it has been crafted to cause alarm in the narrow minded, prejudiced critic who may well be enraged by the use of the word ‘bitch’ to describe women, when the bitch in the recording is actually a police dog.
Yes well, all very clever, but there are two fundamental problems with this. For starters, the song wasn’t written by Jay-Z (a fact he either didn’t reveal, wasn’t known or was excluded from the article), so the supposed ironic trick actually belongs to fellow rap stars Ice T and Bun B.
The second – and far more relevant issue is this: Jay Z’s material is frequently derogatory to women and often accuses them of attempting to seduce him in order to steal his wealth. Beyonce excluded, presumably.
"Many chicks wanna put Jigga fist in cuffs
Divorce him and split his bucks
Just because you got good head, I'm a break bread
So you can be livin' it up?"
Jay Z, Big Pimpin’
The interview was conducted by Simon Hattenstone and it wouldn’t have taken a few minutes of his journalistic time to expose the hypocrisy in Jay-Z’s argument, but this wasn’t his tack. As is so frequently the case when white middle class media types rub up against rappers, he was busting a gut to show how Hip-Hop is largely misrepresented and its content misunderstood.
Sometimes, of course, this is true. KRS1 is a rapper who has spent most of his career producing intelligent songs which challenge the excesses of his contemporaries. Miss Dynamite also used a lyric to question rap’s love of diamonds, when so many of these gems are produced by impoverished and imperilled Africans. But these instances are very much the exception.
Many rap recordings are riddled with aggressive misogyny, an unhealthy glamorisation of firearms and a depressing tendency to equate money with achievement. Unfortunately, this is an inconvenient truth for the broadsheet hack attempting to acquire street credibility by praising a particular Hip-Hop artist and who, by overlooking it, betrays an inverted snobbery.
If another musical genre (let’s say a strand of Heavy Metal) leant so heavily on such reactionary philosophy, it would surely be roundly and rightly condemned by the liberal media. When it is released by a former gang member from the Bronx or South Central LA, it is somehow transformed into street poetry and induces much head nodding and chin stroking. Indeed, a great many Hip-Hop artists have latched onto this notion, attempting to explain away the promotion of physical and sexual violence as social commentary. Sorry, but I simply don’t buy this.
"Fatal attractions is mad real
Last bitch I deaded got mad and swallowed 50 Advil's
They say money make the world go round
Material things make a hoe go down"
50 Cent, After Me Chedda
This lyric is not a commentary of any sort. It is the juvenile spewing of an emotionally backward idiot, but it is so rarely described as such, its passage into the cultural mainstream is almost entirely unhindered. This fawning and forgiving by the commentators of the left leaning media is similar to the slack jawed sycophancy one sometimes sees in those enchanted by highly attractive but reprehensible members of the opposite sex. And it’s just as pathetic.
None of this would really matter if Hip-Hop had no traction, no profile, no influence. Somewhere in this sorry world lurks a band called Skrewdriver who are really no more than racist skinheads. They’d like to think otherwise, but they are no threat to anybody, as they are almost universally ignored. Hip-Hop is very, very different. Rap acts account for an enormous proportion of the music industry’s income and most of that revenue comes from young men. While I am sorely tempted to resist the connection between any music form and bad behaviour (I had to undergo all that with punk), I see evidence of Hip-Hop’s (or at least some of its purveyor’s) negative influence in many places. The prevalence of guns in some urban estates, the rise of gang related assaults, the attitude of some young men to crimes like rape – all have echoes in the songs of enormously rich and spectacularly popular Hip-Hop stars.
Now, it would be a fool who claimed any youth movement accounted for all society’s failings, but if a disenfranchised young man admires artists claiming their aggressive criminality and shoddy treatment of women have led to success; and that success is illustrated by their gaudy displays of monetary wealth, what conclusion is the kid supposed to draw?
I must emphasise, I am not in any way flirting with the notion that black men are corrupting white children. That would be vile and completely untrue. This is absolutely not about race: Eminem’s raps frequently feature him fantasising at length about murdering his ex-wife, after all. Neither am I siding with the right leaning press who would seek to ban something as innocuous as a micro-scooter as well as most rap recordings. Censorship is the last resort of the coward and is as dangerous as a style of music advocating the ownership of automatic weapons.
However, I would be very keen to see journalists with access to high-selling music stars have the cojones to criticize and challenge infantile, dangerous bile wherever they find it. Rather than getting all dizzy and excited by the presence and heady edginess of deeply credible (but terminally unpleasant) recording artists like the currently incarcerated Lil Wayne. For everyone's sake.
"And the E is for ever elegant Erica
a sweet red bitch we used to call her Miss America
I aint gon lie now
Erika is a dog"
Lil Wayne, Alphabet Bitches
Magnus Shaw, December 2010
Yes well, all very clever, but there are two fundamental problems with this. For starters, the song wasn’t written by Jay-Z (a fact he either didn’t reveal, wasn’t known or was excluded from the article), so the supposed ironic trick actually belongs to fellow rap stars Ice T and Bun B.
The second – and far more relevant issue is this: Jay Z’s material is frequently derogatory to women and often accuses them of attempting to seduce him in order to steal his wealth. Beyonce excluded, presumably.
"Many chicks wanna put Jigga fist in cuffs
Divorce him and split his bucks
Just because you got good head, I'm a break bread
So you can be livin' it up?"
Jay Z, Big Pimpin’
The interview was conducted by Simon Hattenstone and it wouldn’t have taken a few minutes of his journalistic time to expose the hypocrisy in Jay-Z’s argument, but this wasn’t his tack. As is so frequently the case when white middle class media types rub up against rappers, he was busting a gut to show how Hip-Hop is largely misrepresented and its content misunderstood.
Sometimes, of course, this is true. KRS1 is a rapper who has spent most of his career producing intelligent songs which challenge the excesses of his contemporaries. Miss Dynamite also used a lyric to question rap’s love of diamonds, when so many of these gems are produced by impoverished and imperilled Africans. But these instances are very much the exception.
Many rap recordings are riddled with aggressive misogyny, an unhealthy glamorisation of firearms and a depressing tendency to equate money with achievement. Unfortunately, this is an inconvenient truth for the broadsheet hack attempting to acquire street credibility by praising a particular Hip-Hop artist and who, by overlooking it, betrays an inverted snobbery.
If another musical genre (let’s say a strand of Heavy Metal) leant so heavily on such reactionary philosophy, it would surely be roundly and rightly condemned by the liberal media. When it is released by a former gang member from the Bronx or South Central LA, it is somehow transformed into street poetry and induces much head nodding and chin stroking. Indeed, a great many Hip-Hop artists have latched onto this notion, attempting to explain away the promotion of physical and sexual violence as social commentary. Sorry, but I simply don’t buy this.
"Fatal attractions is mad real
Last bitch I deaded got mad and swallowed 50 Advil's
They say money make the world go round
Material things make a hoe go down"
50 Cent, After Me Chedda
This lyric is not a commentary of any sort. It is the juvenile spewing of an emotionally backward idiot, but it is so rarely described as such, its passage into the cultural mainstream is almost entirely unhindered. This fawning and forgiving by the commentators of the left leaning media is similar to the slack jawed sycophancy one sometimes sees in those enchanted by highly attractive but reprehensible members of the opposite sex. And it’s just as pathetic.
None of this would really matter if Hip-Hop had no traction, no profile, no influence. Somewhere in this sorry world lurks a band called Skrewdriver who are really no more than racist skinheads. They’d like to think otherwise, but they are no threat to anybody, as they are almost universally ignored. Hip-Hop is very, very different. Rap acts account for an enormous proportion of the music industry’s income and most of that revenue comes from young men. While I am sorely tempted to resist the connection between any music form and bad behaviour (I had to undergo all that with punk), I see evidence of Hip-Hop’s (or at least some of its purveyor’s) negative influence in many places. The prevalence of guns in some urban estates, the rise of gang related assaults, the attitude of some young men to crimes like rape – all have echoes in the songs of enormously rich and spectacularly popular Hip-Hop stars.
Now, it would be a fool who claimed any youth movement accounted for all society’s failings, but if a disenfranchised young man admires artists claiming their aggressive criminality and shoddy treatment of women have led to success; and that success is illustrated by their gaudy displays of monetary wealth, what conclusion is the kid supposed to draw?
I must emphasise, I am not in any way flirting with the notion that black men are corrupting white children. That would be vile and completely untrue. This is absolutely not about race: Eminem’s raps frequently feature him fantasising at length about murdering his ex-wife, after all. Neither am I siding with the right leaning press who would seek to ban something as innocuous as a micro-scooter as well as most rap recordings. Censorship is the last resort of the coward and is as dangerous as a style of music advocating the ownership of automatic weapons.
However, I would be very keen to see journalists with access to high-selling music stars have the cojones to criticize and challenge infantile, dangerous bile wherever they find it. Rather than getting all dizzy and excited by the presence and heady edginess of deeply credible (but terminally unpleasant) recording artists like the currently incarcerated Lil Wayne. For everyone's sake.
"And the E is for ever elegant Erica
a sweet red bitch we used to call her Miss America
I aint gon lie now
Erika is a dog"
Lil Wayne, Alphabet Bitches
Magnus Shaw, December 2010
Flip side
The first stage would be hearing the single on the radio. Something unidentifiable would hit your ears and force you to take notice; Dionne Warwick’s voice, Phil Spector’s kitchen sink production, George Martin’s strings, a Tony Hatch chorus.
In England you would hear these songs on the radio, by and large, via only two routes. The pirate radio ships rolling about on the North Sea, or in the evenings, the drifting, ‘say hello and wave goodbye’ signal from Radio Luxembourg. There was an added shiver of expectation, a frisson of additional excitement, in hearing this new music through such unreliable sources.
Nostalgia is a curious friend. We recall summer days and warm cosy relationships and seem to have a common filter system that removes the memory of the dark clouds, the frustrations and the sadness of break-ups.
No group wears stronger rose-tinted spectacles than those perched on the nose of the obsessive lover of pop music; in particular those of us who retain enough brain cells to remember the 1960s, and the unique pleasure in returning home having bought a 7” vinyl single.
The riffling through the cardboard dividers on the shelf in the record store; sharing, briefly, time spent in the company of the mini-skirted, unattainable shop assistant as she re-touched her lipstick for the tenth time that morning (yes, it probably was, in reality, a grumpy bearded bloke but remember we have the magical spectacles in place).
The transaction: exchanging 7s/6d for the untouched copy of the single from the shelves behind the counter, and the singular pleasure of walking home with the purchase safely held in the paper bag; proudly on display if the single was bought from “Staines Records & Tapes”, but less so if the bag carried the logo of “Rediffusion” or “WH Smith and Son.”
There are several chapters to be written about the wonderful designs and artwork of the seven inch single in the 1960s; the tactile joy of removing the record from the sleeve, handling it carefully, with the tips of the fingers gracefully caressing the edge. As we’re wearing the magical spectacles of history, we’ll leave for another day, the frisson of disappointment if, at this stage, the buyer noticed that the little hole in the middle of the record appeared to be off centre, for experience had taught us that this was an inevitable precursor to the sound of Diana Ross or John or Paul appearing to sing whilst undertaking a particularly gruelling ride on a rollercoaster. Other hurdles to overcome were warping (singer sounded as if about to vomit), a faulty pressing of the vinyl (singer would leap, mid verse, to the final chorus), or a scratch (singer would be accompanied by an unwanted click track).
Assuming the piece of vinyl was in reasonably good shape, there was a moment, a brief snapshot of time, as the single was placed on the player and the needle clattered on to the lead-in, where a tangible rush of endorphins would be felt that could never be bettered by any artificial chemical. Whether listening through the plastic tinniness of a portable record player, or the grandness of the family stereogram, you owned the Beach Boys, or The Ronettes, or The Searchers. For two minutes and fifty eight seconds.
Then you’d play it again; then again; then again.
After this would come the journey of discovery, a small adventure that had the potential to double the pleasure; an excursion that is denied to the twenty-first century downloader.
The ‘B side’ has no place in 2010. The hungry click culture of i-Tunes means you find what you want, and consume it without any physical contact with the product. In the most unlikely event that you come across an unheard tune from your favourite artist, you can preview it from a hundred, maybe a thousand, different sources. The unknown is all too readily known in seconds.
There was a time, a different world, where that single, after its tenth play, would be flipped over. On the other side, the ‘B side’, would be an unknown song. Often artists regarded this as a chore and simply threw on a tune that was rejected as a ‘proper song’ on the basis that no-one would bother too much. It was, after all, a ‘B side’ with its inferred secondary status.
The smarter artist, or perhaps more likely their manager, discovered that despite the lower rank of the ‘B side’, royalties from the song writing and thus publishing were shared equally with those of the ‘A side’, and so it became far more attractive to have your song placed on the flip. All too often this led to a further dip in standards because the quality of the song had no bearing on the size of the royalty cheque.
Juggling the record and feeling their first steps into this adventure, the single flipper could be dipping into a tombola of horror, or entering a pop Narnia.
It’s ever harder to imagine in today’s culture of instantaneity, but consider the whoosh of revelation when, after playing “I Get Around” ten times, turning it over and finding the masterpiece “Don’t Worry Baby” waiting for you. Two minutes and forty two seconds of genius tucked away, sitting patiently and not expecting an audience.
“Be Bop A Lula” was the first song that Paul heard John Lennon sing. That would never have happened if John hadn’t turned over from the ‘A Side’, “Woman Love”.
... and that leads us neatly to the greatest ‘B side’ ever. Tucked away on ‘the other side’ of Paperback Writer, and recorded during the Revolver sessions, ‘Rain’ really does hit you with a sonic blast, because it was one of the first tracks recorded at Abbey Road using a new balancing system that allowed music to recorded and reproduced louder than ever before.
Featuring an early example of psychedelic-styled phasing and a touch of backward vocals, Rain was written by John Lennon after he experienced a monsoon-like downpour in Melbourne, and is an antidote to the traditional British moans about wet weather.
As a bonus, the film made to accompany the song was shot at Chiswick House (where you can still walk in the footsteps of The Beatles) in West London. Highlights include John squinting short-sightedly at the camera, and Paul looking a bit self-conscious about his broken front tooth.
This week I have:
Been snowbound in Berkshire for three days. I’m enjoying it but then I haven’t run out of coffee yet.
Listened to a lot of ‘B Sides’. The Beatles are the most consistent flip-siders by a huge margin.
Watched our World Cup bid presentation – it made me a bit tearful. It seemed to have the opposite effect on the FIFA delegates.
Pre-snow, had lunch in central London, where, at the next table, two Guardian journalists spoke rather loudly and candidly about that morning’s editorial meeting.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
In England you would hear these songs on the radio, by and large, via only two routes. The pirate radio ships rolling about on the North Sea, or in the evenings, the drifting, ‘say hello and wave goodbye’ signal from Radio Luxembourg. There was an added shiver of expectation, a frisson of additional excitement, in hearing this new music through such unreliable sources.
Nostalgia is a curious friend. We recall summer days and warm cosy relationships and seem to have a common filter system that removes the memory of the dark clouds, the frustrations and the sadness of break-ups.
No group wears stronger rose-tinted spectacles than those perched on the nose of the obsessive lover of pop music; in particular those of us who retain enough brain cells to remember the 1960s, and the unique pleasure in returning home having bought a 7” vinyl single.
The riffling through the cardboard dividers on the shelf in the record store; sharing, briefly, time spent in the company of the mini-skirted, unattainable shop assistant as she re-touched her lipstick for the tenth time that morning (yes, it probably was, in reality, a grumpy bearded bloke but remember we have the magical spectacles in place).
The transaction: exchanging 7s/6d for the untouched copy of the single from the shelves behind the counter, and the singular pleasure of walking home with the purchase safely held in the paper bag; proudly on display if the single was bought from “Staines Records & Tapes”, but less so if the bag carried the logo of “Rediffusion” or “WH Smith and Son.”
There are several chapters to be written about the wonderful designs and artwork of the seven inch single in the 1960s; the tactile joy of removing the record from the sleeve, handling it carefully, with the tips of the fingers gracefully caressing the edge. As we’re wearing the magical spectacles of history, we’ll leave for another day, the frisson of disappointment if, at this stage, the buyer noticed that the little hole in the middle of the record appeared to be off centre, for experience had taught us that this was an inevitable precursor to the sound of Diana Ross or John or Paul appearing to sing whilst undertaking a particularly gruelling ride on a rollercoaster. Other hurdles to overcome were warping (singer sounded as if about to vomit), a faulty pressing of the vinyl (singer would leap, mid verse, to the final chorus), or a scratch (singer would be accompanied by an unwanted click track).
Assuming the piece of vinyl was in reasonably good shape, there was a moment, a brief snapshot of time, as the single was placed on the player and the needle clattered on to the lead-in, where a tangible rush of endorphins would be felt that could never be bettered by any artificial chemical. Whether listening through the plastic tinniness of a portable record player, or the grandness of the family stereogram, you owned the Beach Boys, or The Ronettes, or The Searchers. For two minutes and fifty eight seconds.
Then you’d play it again; then again; then again.
After this would come the journey of discovery, a small adventure that had the potential to double the pleasure; an excursion that is denied to the twenty-first century downloader.
The ‘B side’ has no place in 2010. The hungry click culture of i-Tunes means you find what you want, and consume it without any physical contact with the product. In the most unlikely event that you come across an unheard tune from your favourite artist, you can preview it from a hundred, maybe a thousand, different sources. The unknown is all too readily known in seconds.
There was a time, a different world, where that single, after its tenth play, would be flipped over. On the other side, the ‘B side’, would be an unknown song. Often artists regarded this as a chore and simply threw on a tune that was rejected as a ‘proper song’ on the basis that no-one would bother too much. It was, after all, a ‘B side’ with its inferred secondary status.
The smarter artist, or perhaps more likely their manager, discovered that despite the lower rank of the ‘B side’, royalties from the song writing and thus publishing were shared equally with those of the ‘A side’, and so it became far more attractive to have your song placed on the flip. All too often this led to a further dip in standards because the quality of the song had no bearing on the size of the royalty cheque.
Juggling the record and feeling their first steps into this adventure, the single flipper could be dipping into a tombola of horror, or entering a pop Narnia.
It’s ever harder to imagine in today’s culture of instantaneity, but consider the whoosh of revelation when, after playing “I Get Around” ten times, turning it over and finding the masterpiece “Don’t Worry Baby” waiting for you. Two minutes and forty two seconds of genius tucked away, sitting patiently and not expecting an audience.
“Be Bop A Lula” was the first song that Paul heard John Lennon sing. That would never have happened if John hadn’t turned over from the ‘A Side’, “Woman Love”.
... and that leads us neatly to the greatest ‘B side’ ever. Tucked away on ‘the other side’ of Paperback Writer, and recorded during the Revolver sessions, ‘Rain’ really does hit you with a sonic blast, because it was one of the first tracks recorded at Abbey Road using a new balancing system that allowed music to recorded and reproduced louder than ever before.
Featuring an early example of psychedelic-styled phasing and a touch of backward vocals, Rain was written by John Lennon after he experienced a monsoon-like downpour in Melbourne, and is an antidote to the traditional British moans about wet weather.
As a bonus, the film made to accompany the song was shot at Chiswick House (where you can still walk in the footsteps of The Beatles) in West London. Highlights include John squinting short-sightedly at the camera, and Paul looking a bit self-conscious about his broken front tooth.
This week I have:
Been snowbound in Berkshire for three days. I’m enjoying it but then I haven’t run out of coffee yet.
Listened to a lot of ‘B Sides’. The Beatles are the most consistent flip-siders by a huge margin.
Watched our World Cup bid presentation – it made me a bit tearful. It seemed to have the opposite effect on the FIFA delegates.
Pre-snow, had lunch in central London, where, at the next table, two Guardian journalists spoke rather loudly and candidly about that morning’s editorial meeting.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
15 signs your band is breaking up
1. The singer's girlfriend is sitting in on rehearsals and giving notes.
2. The bass player is having a birthday party. Rest of band not invited.
3. Guitarist has written a new song called 'For God's Sake What's The Point?'.
4. The road crew have their own band. They're getting more gigs.
5. Everyone takes their gear home after band practice.
6. The drummer's van is full of painting and decorating kit.
7. You all live in different towns.
8. Band logo on bass drum has been painted over.
9. Bassist is taking calls on iPhone between songs at gigs.
10. Singer spots band's PA system in window of Cash Converters.
11. Two band members sign up for vocational college courses.
12. Physical violence a common feature of band meetings.
13. Manager opens kebab shop.
14. Keyboard player blocks drummer on Twitter.
15. Singer in prison.
2. The bass player is having a birthday party. Rest of band not invited.
3. Guitarist has written a new song called 'For God's Sake What's The Point?'.
4. The road crew have their own band. They're getting more gigs.
5. Everyone takes their gear home after band practice.
6. The drummer's van is full of painting and decorating kit.
7. You all live in different towns.
8. Band logo on bass drum has been painted over.
9. Bassist is taking calls on iPhone between songs at gigs.
10. Singer spots band's PA system in window of Cash Converters.
11. Two band members sign up for vocational college courses.
12. Physical violence a common feature of band meetings.
13. Manager opens kebab shop.
14. Keyboard player blocks drummer on Twitter.
15. Singer in prison.
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