Petty Salted

Terrorvision were/are a funny one. Even in their heyday, I can't say I was much of a fan. Easy to forget, now, that they were a heavy rock act, albeit with alt pretensions. Perseverance was about as ear-friendly as it got for this 90s indie kid. But then there was Tequila, an entirely unrepresentative track, the Mint Royale remix of which got picked up and flogged by Zoë Ball in her Radio 1 breakfast show pomp. It soared to #2 in the UK chart, and possibly alienated a good section of the band's fanbase who preferred heavier fare - after all, this was a group that were hoovering up Kerrang! awards.

Anyway, the upshot of all the "salt, lemon and lime time" nonsense is that you will now often find Terrorvision making up the numbers on indie or Britpop-themed compilations... but that really wasn't/isn't their bag. They were capable of more sophisticated moments though, such as this track, offered up by the band for the 1995 War Child charity album, Help. I've listened to it a good few times, and read the lyrics, and am still none the wiser as to why Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt. Worth remembering that the latter, as well as being an entirely unpleasant character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was also a grunge-lite band from Chicago (and is again). Maybe Tom, who needs no introduction, was a fan.

Anyway, this is better than Tequila, and probably not what you were expecting from five rockers from Keighley. Enjoy.

Now, how are you getting on with that quiz?

Lost lyrics II

I'm all out of posts, so am recycling something I did once before that was semi-popular (for me, at least - all things are relative).

So here's a quiz. No, wait, come back! Fifty little snippets of lyrics that have become detached from their songs ... all you have to do is identify them. There's a point on offer for the song and another for the artist, making a predictable one hundred points up for grabs.

Clues? Pah! There's nothing obscure and no surprises either... all the usual suspects are here, let's put it that way. If you'd rather print a question sheet, there's one here, and there's only one rule: no Googling, AI or other technological help. This is old-school, to make you blow the dust off your hippocampus and fumble around in the memories of your youth. Sound good?

Answers will be published at the end of the month. Have fun.

1. Oh, in your council home, he jumped on your bones.
2. He has his future in British Steel.
3. I hear your voice, it's like an angel sighing.
4. Cut your hair and get a job.
5. He ain't too hip 'bout that new breed, babe.
6. You'll find me in the lavatory.
7. I said, "Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera."
8. Sir, it's the troops, jealous of youth.
9. Times were so tough, but not as tough as they are now.
10. Well, did I tell you before when I was up? Anxiety was bringing me down.
11. I don't need to fight to prove I'm right.
12. Can you picture what will be? So limitless and free.
13. Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup.
14. We don't talk about love, we only want to get drunk.
15. Boy, it's more than I dare to think about.
16. It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been.
17. Let's put our heads together and start a new country up.
18. By order of the prophet we ban that boogie sound.
19. My mind goes sleepwalking while I'm putting the world to right.
20. It's like I got this music in my mind sayin', "It's gonna be alright".
21. Everyone I see just walks the walk with gritted teeth.
22. Just when you think you've caught her she glides across the water.
23. Spinning on that dizzy edge, kissed her face and kissed her head.
24. I hated you, I loved you too.
25. Well, we drank champagne and danced all night.
26. Thought of you as my mountaintop.
27. Oh my friend you haven’t changed, you're looking rough and living strange.
28. Let all the children boogie.
29. The way she plays, there are no words to describe the way I feel.
30. But tell me, does she kiss like I used to kiss you?
31. Too much time's been wasted, so come and get my plateful.
32. All I need is a pint a day.
33. So in the absence of a way of life, just repeat this again and again and again.
34. And I went down to the demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse.
35. I'll see you baby when the clans rise again.
36. One and one and one is three.
37. They get a gang of villains in a shed up at Heathrow.
38. In Chinatown, hungover, you showed me just what I could do.
39. Don't wanna end up like no nine-day wonder.
40. Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know.
41. Sad days add to confusion, sad ways end in delusion, yeah.
42. She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak.
43. I'm a sex machine ready to reload like an atom bomb.
44. Looking back, she made us want her.
45. I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul.
46. I was half in mind, I was half in need.
47. Mother has to iron his shirt, then she sends the kids to school.
48. You and I should ride the coast and wind up in our favourite coats just miles away.
49. Lost your love of life? Too much apple pie.
50. The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear.

P.S. No answers, clues or spoilers in the comments please! Thanks.

Music Assembly: Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83: II. Adagio assai

In which I continue to haemorrhage readers...

I don't know much about Maurice Ravel, to be honest, aside from the one thing everyone my age knows: Torvill and Dean and Bolero. But this piece has nothing to do with ice dance or Sarajevo or 1984.

Perhaps if I'd paid more attention in actual Music Assembly at school, I might have learnt something else about Ravel. As it is, I learnt about this piece by listening to Stephen Mangan's Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. Stephen talked movingly about sharing it with his father during the latter's last days, and described it as a musical embodiment of living moment to moment. I don't think I can add much to that, really, other than to say I think it is a beautiful thing. Oh, and there's a bit about five minutes in that reminds me of Howard Shore's soundtrack to David Fincher's The Game, a film I absolutely love. So it works, for me at least, on multiple levels.

Adagio assai is a musical direction meaning very slow. It's like being back in Music Assembly after all.

You can hear the lovely Lauren Laverne casting Stephen away right here. And if this piece isn't to your taste, there's always yesterday's post...

New to NA: The Royston Club

The Royston Club are not from the Hertfordshire market town of the same name. In fact, the four-piece are from Wrexham, and have been plying their indie guitar trade since 2019. During that time they've recorded two albums and a whole slew of singles and EPs. Here's a track from each album, starting with Cariad from 2023's Songs for the Spine and then Missed the Boat (Jumped in the Sea) from 2021's Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars.

Okay, so there's nothing especially original here... but what they're doing, they're doing very well: it's an excellent noise, isn't it? I hear some Wedding Present-esque guitars in that second track too.

Lots for us all to explore at their website and YouTube channel, in other words.

I'm proud of the BBC

As seems to happen with depressingly increasing regularity, the knives are once more out for the BBC, amid allegations of news bias, poor editorial judgment and hidden agendas. That these knives are mostly being wielded by those with an axe to grind or a score to settle should surprise no-one, but still deserves greater scrutiny.

This is ostensibly a comedy song from Mitch Benn and is at least fifteen years old, so could do with updating. The sentiment, however, remains spot on. We'll miss it when it's gone, you know?

Sunday shorts: What Goes Around

I don't know anything about Jimmy Nebula other than that he seems to be in thrall of the Hulmerist on this track, particularly the lyrics of Jack the Ripper.

I have tried to find out a bit more about Jimmy, and looked in all the usual places, but really this is the only thing that stands out in any way. And even then it seems to abruptly fade out just as it gets going.

This has not been a great post, has it? Sorry. Feel like I've been scrabbling around the bottom of an empty barrel of late, dull scraper in hand.

Blue Friday: A Pleasure

Towards the end of my first year as an undergraduate, Hothouse Flowers played the uni. They were still riding the crest of their chart peak, Don't Go, and it was generally considered that the gig was "a big deal". Half of my hall seemed to have tickets. I did not. They all went and had a good time...

...whilst I mooched off alone to a nearby park on campus where the Heineken Big Top had rolled into town, offering a free gig by The Railway Children. All you had to do to get in was contend with a bar that only offered their anaemic gassy yellow excuse for a beer. That aside, the band were alright, as were local support act The Bardots. But I was determined not to enjoy myself, and succeeded.

The half of my hall that went to see Hothouse Flowers rolled back onto the corridor late that night, all buzzing. The girls were unanimous in their swoon for frontman Liam Ó Maonlaí, which of course made me like him and his band even less.

New to NA: The Drums

As ever, I'm behind the curve. The Drums formed in New York in 2008, shed members until only singer Jonny was left by 2016 and have basically been his one-man band since then.

This is a live run-through of their commercial highpoint, Money. I say highpoint because it sold enough to be certified Silver in the UK... but didn't chart. Did get to #15 in Australia though, so there is that.

I hear a songwriter who grew up on a diet of Morrissey/Marr. How about you?

Sunday shorts: You Never Wash Up After Yourself (live)

This, from Radiohead's excellent 1994 EP My Iron Lung, could just as easily have featured as a Blue Friday post, but it's short, so here we are.

I must get out once in a while
Everything is starting to die
The dust settles, the worms dig
Spiders crawl over the bed

I must get out once in a while
I eat all day and now I'm fat
Yesterday's meal is hugging the plates
You never wash up after yourself

A black box inside my mind

I've had this, from The Beta Band, in my YouTube Watch Later list for an age. Listening back, I'm not sure why I squirelled it away. I think maybe I was taken with some of the lyrics, notably "a black box inside my mind records the time we spent together". Also the bit about "...the line that runs from me across the universe to you alone", before morphing into a maudlin refrain of "Are you alone? Are you alone?"

Having said that, and for all my literary allusions/delusions, it's more likely that I was taken with the two occasions in this that drummer Robin Jones unchains his inner Keith Moon.

Whatever the reason, that was pretty good, right?