TLAP: Lucky Saint German Weissbier

I'm having to widen the net if I'm to review 20 different alcohol-free ales this year. Example?

Lucky Saint German Weissbier

What's it like? Well, it's an alcohol-free take on a classic wheat beer and, if you like wheat beer, I think you might like this. It certainly looks the part, with characteristic cloudiness and a big head. It tastes the part too: full-bodied, some slightly fruity notes but basically an unmistakable wheat beer flavour. Some will like this more than others. I certainly liked it more half way through the pint than I did the first couple of mouthfuls. Bottom line: I don't drink a lot of wheat beer, but I can say this compares reasonably with its alcoholic wheaty cousins. I've had worse!

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Yes.

Would I drink it all night? No.

Stats: 0.5% ABV. Calories 23 kcal/100ml. Currently on offer at £2 for a 500ml bottle, from Ocado

Stars: ★★★⯪☆

For a wheat beer, you can probably guess the obvious musical connection I've shoe-horned in at the end. But to show that I'm not completely on autopilot, I have at least tried to find a different version of Wheatus's biggest hit. To wit, here's an acoustic Teenage Dirtbag.

A lot can change in two years

There was a plenty of love for yesterday's post, featuring a 1979 Cure B-side. But just two years earlier, things had been quite different.

Still known as Easy Cure, the band won a talent competition in early '77, which led to them getting a recording contract with Ariola-Hansa. After a bit of line-up shuffling, which included Robert taking on vocal duties (he'd previously just been on keys), the band recorded their first demos at London's SAV studios during October and November 1977. This is the version of I'm Cold they recorded back then, and it's very different. More punk-influenced than goth, and more new wave-sounding than punk, this is an intriguing glimpse of what might have been.

Ariola-Hansa baulked at this and the other demo's recorded, and dropped Easy Cure from their contract in March 1978, having released nothing. Guitarist Porl Thompson left in April, Smith changed the band name to The Cure, a new demo tape was recorded and by September '78 the band were signed to Chris Parry's newly formed Fiction label. Crucially this had backing and distribution support from Polydor. Debut album Three Imaginary Boys followed in May '79, and by August the band were supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees on tour. Then in October came the single Jumping Someone Else's Train, the B-side of which was yesterday's version of I'm Cold.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

"I'd love to love you, girl, but..."

As we plough through autumn, towards winter, the heatwaves of the summer suddenly seem very far away. I only work from home a couple of days a week now but today is the first of the season that I've been chilly in the spare bedroom that masquerades as my office. Chilly enough to root out some fingerless gloves to type in. And chilly enough to also dig out what just might be my favourite Cure song ever.

I know, I know, The Cure have had many, many great songs, but for me I'm Cold is Bob et al in a nutshell. Originally the 1979 B-side to Jumping Someone Else's Train, it later found its way onto the cassette release of Standing on a Beach - The Singles, which is where I first heard it. Only the cassette release got the B-sides, so lucky me, I guess. Anyway, it's all there in my view, the slightly discordant guitar sound, the detuned bass, Robert's vocal style, lyrical themes, the lot, and all in less than three minutes. Genuinely, this is one of my absolute favourite Cure tracks, and not just because I, too, am cold: my body may be made of fire, but my soul is made of ice.

Oh, and Siouxsie Sioux is allegedly an uncredited backing vocalist on this, though if you can hear exactly where you've got better ears than me. Admittedly, that isn't saying much.

You're begging me to stay
But I'm laughing in your face
You're so desperate
Not to let those years of care go to waste
But it was you who wanted love, not romance
You've got to pay the price
My body may be made of fire
But my soul is made of ice

I'm me, I'm cold
I'm cold, I'm told
I'd love to love you, girl, but my body
But my body has just been sold

You're begging me to stay
But I'm laughing in your face
You're so desperate
Not to let those years of care all go to waste
But it was you who wanted love, not romance
You have to pay the price
My body may be made of fire
But my soul is made of ice

I'm me, I'm cold
I'm cold, I'm told
I'd love to love you, girl, but my body
But my body has just been sold

Homonyms #10: Contact

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

It's time we made contact...

It's also, I think, the first time I've featured anything by Mick Jones' other band, Big Audio Dynamite. Their Contact dates from 1989 and, whilst it shows its age in many ways, there's still a lot to love in this video: Mick's 12-string teardrop guitar for one; the sample of The Who's I Can't Explain at 2:50 for another; the extended acid-lite coda (if only as a historical curiosity)...

I've written before about how much I like Stewart Copeland's songwriting efforts for The Police, and their Contact is another one of his. Maybe there's something about Sting singing someone else's lyrics that punctures his bubble a bit, or maybe I'm just partial to Copeland's skewed worldview. Whatever, this is from the band's second album, Reggatta de Blanc.

Other acts who also wanted to make contact include some early 90s oddness from Phish, sci-fi electronica from Daft Punk, well-known Moroder-lite disco from Edwin Starr, and this slice of not-aged-well from Pizzicato Five. Plus who knows what else.

So, Mick or Stewart - does either or both inspire you to make contact?

TLAP: Brulo Lust For Life IPA

If I'm going to do an end-of-year chart rundown, I need to have reviewed 20 alcohol-free ales, right? So I'd better crack on.

Brulo Lust For Life IPA

What's it like? I was intrigued by a quote from The Guardian's review of this: "The Rolls-Royce of alcohol-free beer". That's a big statement, the implication being that it is a class apart. And you know what? It just might be. It's not just a tasty, quaffable AF IPA, it's a brilliant IPA full-stop. You know when you see people claim that they couldn't tell the difference between their AF beer and a "proper" ale? Well, this is justifiably one of those. I'd go as far as to say this double dry=hopped IPA is tastier, smoother and slips down easier than a lot of "real" IPAs I've had too. And although it's got a fruity undertone (peach? Mango?) it isn't too fruity, like some AF ales, so you never forget you're having a beer and not a can of Lilt. Very highly recommended.

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Yes.

Would I drink it all night? Yes.

Stats: 0.5% ABV. Calories 17 kcal/100ml. Currently on offer at only £5 for 4 x 330ml cans, from Morrisons

Stars: ★★★★★

Given the name of this IPA is "Lust For Life", you're probably expecting a song of the same name, and who am I to disappoint? Except this is Lana Del Rey exhorting you to take off all your clothes, not Iggy Pop.

Oh, go on then. I spoil you.

New to NA: Hitsujibungaku

The algorithm served this track up to me on some social media or other and it caught me off guard. It's Addiction by Japanese indie band Hitsujibungaku. I like this, I thought, it reminds me a bit of... who? Lush, maybe? Curve, more likely? But who else?

I gave up thinking about it in the end, content to enjoy the 90s crunchy guitars and chugging rhythm. No idea what the song's about, as only a couple of lines are in English. If Google Translate is to be believed, there's a verse that includes the lines "So take me somewhere, Preferably off the phone-screen, Because I want to feel alive." And that's something we can all get behind, I'm sure.

I've got a feeling this might become tiring if listened to too much, but that might be because I'm a terrible curmudgeon. What do you think?

The literal translation of Hitsujibungaku is "sheep literature", for what that's worth.

Oh, and do you think the drummer took their look from the girl who crawls out of the TV screen in The Ring?

Where you stop and the world begins

I found this picture earlier this week, whilst doing a little housekeeping/pruning of my phone's camera roll:

The date and time on the picture tell me that I took it in Aarhus, Denmark, at the tail-end of August 2024, and given that these are some of artist Jenny Holzer's Truisms, it was almost certainly taken in ARoS, a brilliant modern art museum (and very cool building). Whatever, you might say that these truisms feel a bit like ... (drumroll) a design for life.

Yep. That's how bereft I am of blogging ideas.

Obsolete Monday

This has been in my YouTube Watch Later list for ten years, waiting for me to do something with it. God knows what I've been waiting for. You've probably all seen it already, it's had 10 million views after all. But who doesn't want to see someone playing the saw?

Whatever, here's Orkestra Obsolete, hitting all the right notes with their 1930s instrumentation.

TLAP: Old Speckled Hen Zero

At the end of the year, I'll do a chart rundown. Better get a few more reviews in then...

Old Speckled Hen Zero

What's it like? Well, this is an interesting one. Back in our younger day, The Man Of Cheese and I had many a happy but spectacularly hammered night out that involved significant quantities of regular Old Speckled Hen. Although not the strongest ale (nor the weakest, in our defence), it seemed able to generate disproportionately large hangovers. I was curious to see what I'd make of the neutered version, then, and the news is good: it's alright! The twin malt four hop brew delivers plenty of flavour, and you actually feel like you're having a beer when drinking it - this sounds obvious but so many alcohol-free ales seem to have overlooked this crucial element. Not too sweet either. As a result, this is right up there in the top quartile of alcohol-free ales, in my view. Footnote: I even felt slightly sub-par the morning after drinking this, but that may just have been a deeply-engrained Pavlovian response.

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Yes.

Would I drink it all night? Quite possibly.

Stats: 0.05% ABV. Calories 12 kcal/100ml. Currently a steal at only £4 for 4 x 440ml cans, from Morrisons

Stars: ★★★★⯪

Old Speckled Hen is produced under the Morland Brewery name (though that is now owned by Greene King, and Zero is brewed at GK's excellent Bury St Edmund's site). But anyway, Mor(e)land gives, gives, gives me more, more, more...

Homonyms #9: Come Together

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

Today we examine two different takes on, ahem, unity. Of sorts.

Our first Come Together is by Blur, from their oft-maligned debut album, 1991's Leisure. I say maligned but, thinking back, I seem to recall most people (myself included) were just a bit disappointed that it wasn't all as good as There's No Other Way. In fairness to Damon et al., they set themselves quite a high bar there. Anyway, here's their very-91 offering.

I usually write something here along the lines of "there's always a bigger fish" ... and so it is today, for this is the brilliance of Come Together by The Beatles, a popular Scouse beat combo who I feel may go far.

Poor Blur, I've just lined one of their lesser moments up against one of the greatest moments of the biggest band of all time. Anyway, other acts who also want you to come together include Primal Scream, The Internet, Spiritualized and, er, that's about it, I think; everyone else just covers The Beatles.

So, do you want to come together, or do either of these drive you apart?