"Everyone's a star when they close their eyes..."

In which I make some lists...

Lots of notable people came out of Pennsylvania: Kevin Bacon, Donald P. Belisario, Leroy Burrell, Charles Bronson, Kobe Bryant, Chris Columbus, Bradley Cooper, Bill Cosby (erm...), Brian De Palma, Steve Ditko, Tina Fey, W.C. Fields, Jonathan Frakes, Richard Gere, Jeff Goldblum, Keith Haring, Kevin Hart, Bernard Hopkins, Michael Keaton, Gene Kelly, Grace Kelly, Irvin Kershner, Jeff Koons, Dean Koontz, Richard Lester, Joe Namath, Arnold Palmer, Ezra Pound, Zachary Quinto, Man Ray, George A. Romero, David O. Selznick, Amanda Seyfried, M. Night Shyamalan, Martin Cruz Smith, Will Smith, James Stewart, Sharon Stone, The Sundance Kid (really), John Updike and Andy Warhol. Even Rocky Balboa, right? Pat yourself on the back if your know everyone on that list, well done. On the flip side, that also means you're in the same circle of life's Venn diagram as me, which deserves sympathy more than a pat on the back.

Anyway, from the world of music, don't forget these: Christina Aguilera, Frankie Avalon, George Benson, Solomon Burke, Sabrina Carpenter, Chubby Checker, Perry Como, John Coltrane, Jim Croce, Stan Getz, Daryl Hall, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Joan Jett, Patti LaBelle, Mario Lanza, Lisa Lopes, Teddy Pendergrass, Pink, Trent Reznor, Todd Rundgren, Shanice, Taylor Swift, and Tammy Terrell. Oh, and The Julies.

Their Lovelife EP is thirty years old, somehow. Tempus doesn't half fugit... Here's Boy Wonder.

Watch me hurt myself again
This movie never ends
It just keeps playing on and on
Everyone’s a star
When they close their eyes
Well how come I keep mine
Open all the time
I don’t want to know
And I don’t want to be
A love story
My soul’s on fire
So you light a cigarette
I thought you’d be through with me
But it isn’t over yet
UPSET, MOVIE SET, READY SET GO

Don’t try, don’t wonder why
I can’t look you in the eye
Maybe I’m looking for myself
You said it happened only once
One time, well maybe sometimes
But now it happens all the time
And now my soul’s on fire
So you light a cigarette
I thought you’d be through with me
But it isn’t over yet
UPSET, MOVIE SET, READY SET GO

Here’s my daredevil stunt scene
The one where I’m thinking
Of someone other than myself
You said it happened only once
One time, well maybe sometimes
But now it happens all the time
And now my soul’s on fire
So you light a cigarette
I thought you’d be through with me
But it isn’t over yet
UPSET, MOVIE SET, READY SET GO
(It happens all the time)

TLAP: Mash Gang Alcohol-Free Journey Juice Fruited Hazy IPA

Going to hit 20 different alcohol-free ales this year? Better get fruity then...

Mash Gang Alcohol-Free Journey Juice Fruited Hazy IPA

What's it like? In a word, fruity. I mean, really fruity: mango and lime, predominantly. And it's really nice too. It's just that it's more fruity soft drink than alcohol-free IPA, however much the name might try to convince us otherwise. It's like having a can of Lilt, but with less sugar. Or, if Lilt isn't obsolete enough for you (it's Fanta Pineapple and Grapefruit now, don't you know?), maybe a can of Quatro. Don't get me wrong, this is very drinkable, and I've been hoovering up the four-pack I bought, but I just can't think of it as an ale, however hard I try - it's too fruity. And because it comes in compact 330ml cans, it's easy to drink straight from that, and so you don't even get the visual reinforcement of seeing it in a glass and thinking "this is a beer". Maybe others agree, and that's why it's on offer in the supermarket right now. Having said that, even the offer price doesn't compare favourably to a four-pack of your mass-market soft-drink of choice. And that's a problem for Mash Gang, I would say. All that, and we haven't even covered the terrible name yet.

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Maybe.

Would I drink it all night? No.

Stats: <0.5% ABV. Calories 18 kcal/100ml. Currently on offer at £5.50 for a 4x330ml cans, from Waitrose

Stars: ★★★⯪☆

You'll be relieved to know I'm not going to force Don't Stop Believin' on you for my "journey" connection. Instead, here's some trippy Small Faces: from Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, this is The Journey, with Ronnie Lane on lead vocals.

Randcamp: Halloween

Blimey. Took my life - okay, my ears - in my hands searching for tracks on Bandcamp with "Halloween" in the title. What a load of old balls! Lots of very heavy tracks, often with something-or-other-core in the description. Oh look, we're a scary band, apparently, and what better way to show that than with lots of black and red and songs about the occult. Yawn. But I persevered, and found these three, at least.

Meg and Dia Frampton are sisters, which might explain why their voices gel so well. They come from Salt Lake City, if their Bandcamp bio is to be believed, though their Twitter/X suggests both Texas and Canada, so who knows. Their Halloween is from 2009.

Hugh Lindsey is a singer-songwriter from Huntsville, Alabama, with a declared interest in melancholia. His Halloween seems to be a metaphor for his disintegrating marriage. Given that this was released in 2021 and includes the line "Take your mask off", Hugh felt the need to make it plain he was not a post-Covid anti-masker. So that's good.

Grimm are from Vancouver. Like Hugh, their track is also from 2021. Again like Hugh, Grimm's lyrics are like a little short story ... albeit a story that doesn't really go anywhere.

There we go then, three Randcamp tracks for Halloween. Any give you the shivers, in a good way? Or did they all just give you the creeps?

Happiness

I think about this short film, by animator Steve Cutts, a lot. And now, so will you. Sorry.

"I'm just learning new things with the passing of time"

I went to a gig at the weekend. I didn't have to go far to get there, but the wind and rain dampened my enthusiasm, to the point that I almost didn't bother. But a bought ticket is a bought ticket and, since it wasn't the cheapest, I ventured out into the squally night.

Support was from The Inspiral Carpets, can you believe, or the current iteration thereof, at least. Since Tom Hingley got off the reunion bus in 2011, the band have re-recruited their original, pre-fame vocalist, Stephen Holt. He tries his best, and I don't like to be critical, but it was like watching a competition winner where the prize was getting to sing lead vocals. He wasn't terrible, far from, but he lacked stage presence. Still, it was nice to hear Saturn 5 and This Is How It Feels get live run-outs.

The headline act was The Wonder Stuff. Talk about a contrast in front men: Miles Hunt remains opinionated, energised and totally unfiltered, even after all these years. It's been a while <checks Songkick - 32 years! Impossible!> since I last saw the band live and, like The Inspirals, they've had lots of line-up changes since: indeed, only Hunt and his "brother from another mother" Malcolm Treece remain from the classic line-up. But the songs... oh, how the songs endure. And oh, how so many of them remain lodged in some recess of my brain, just needing a live setting to trigger recall.

A lot of bands would close with Mission Drive, if not the whole set then at least the bit before the encore, such is its four-minute elegy-into-anthem transition. But The Wonder Stuff opened with it at the weekend, and built up from there. It was quite the show, and I came away glad to have braved the wind, the rain and, worst of all, my own pre-gig malaise.

Because I had forgotten just how many songs of theirs I knew and loved, you might have done too. Take a peak at the setlist:

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.