Who was your favourite?

I cannot imagine a time when this title sequence will fail to make me feel joyously young again, even if only for one minute ten seconds...

And what a theme tune!

Cryptic-schmyptic

I may or may not have too much blogging time imminently, for reasons too numerous to go into. In case I don't, I'd thought I'd just leave something here that might last passing readers a while. And I'll be honest, I was also inspired by Rol's Saturday Snapshots series, with their cryptic clues.

So here's a crossword. All answers are bands or solo artists. If you've been reading this blog long enough you'll have an idea of my musical taste, so you'll have a head start there, I should imagine. Either way, you'll probably solve it all in a lot less time than it took me to compile. Some clues are cryptic, some are straightforward, and there may even be an anagram or two. Oh, and you might want to click the grid to view it a little larger than it displays below.

ACROSS		DOWN
1	Purveyors of dead air space (9)	2	Essential French duo (3)
4	Pentito (10)	3	New York childminders (5)
5	Covered 41A's feast day (7)	4	Velveteen trash (5)
7	...but neither Jane Fonda nor Donald Sutherland (1,2,5)	6	Bald, bony? (3,5)
9	Panacea, they dropped the 'easy' (3,4)	8	Suicidal Swedes (3,9)
11	A hand reached down to him (5,5)	9	Liverpudlians who always had one eye on the cover (3,3)
13	Over experienced (4,7)	10	Symbol's mother (5)
14	Oh Susanna! Plus three. (3,7)	12	Neither acoustic nor heavy but philharmonic (1,1,1)
16	The beginning of all bands (7)	14	A modest, dizzy bunch (3,6,5)
21	She stopped wearing cardigans (4,7)	15	Spanish archer (5)
23	Dancers of the leggy mambo (3)	17	Tight fit (but not Tight Fit) (7)
24	Bickle boys (6)	18	Kopavagur's finest (8,7)
25	Time for Sleep for these indie also-rans (6)	19	When Bob was sweet, not mouldy (5)
27	Insistent insect (4,3)	20	Sounds like they should be Alan's favourite band (1,2)
28	Allowed the country to quiver (1,1,6)	22	Shy poets bop (3,4,4)
30	Shoegazing was easy (4)	25	Ann Coates (9)
31	They bore a rose banner (4)	26	Quite good (3,12)
32	Rearrange Mancunians (3,5)	29	He plays guitar (6,4)
34	Locus of deoxyribonucleic acid (4)	32	They saw off the fear (5)
37	Sad aviation (4,10)	35	The decline of ... (7,3,5)
40	They reflected in the en-suite (3,4)	36	Alternate heroes' stetson (3,5,5)
41	Still suitable for miners (5,5)	38	No longer an attraction (5,8)
42	Gift chosen from a list (3,7,7)	39	Changing man (4,6)
45	Goes well with Streetband hit (3,3)	43	Not Middleton, not burning (4,4)
46	Gave 41A an extra verse (6,7)	44	Gaussian smudge (4)
48	After-hours training for the philharmonic (1,1,1)	47	Is Georgia the dream state? (3)
49	The Office Block Persecution Affinity (3,5)	51	(W)hole lot of water (5)
50	Gave Val Kilmer his finest hour (3,8)	53	Fallen in French farce (7)
52	Not as hard as stainless steel (4)	54	Diminutive Cornish or Devonians (6)
55	Their sophtware did not sell well (9)	56	Pre-Banksy stencillers, Essex anarcho-punks (5)
57	They always sounded so happy (1,1,1)	59	Gudmund's daughter, once sweet and die-shaped (5)
58	Multiple stationers (3,6)	60	Left the opera Scott-free (5)
61	Scouse anglers? (4)	63	Grunge Yoko and co (4)
62	Change for vending machine (6,4)	65	White Van men (4)
64	Kubrick's favourite band? (11)	70	Entwistle (2)
66	Handy for nurdling, if Gallic (5)
67	Not the high street soap pedlars (4)
68	Kept in a creel? (4)
69	Oh, duo screwed (7,5)
71	Not Screaming Lord Sutch's backing band (7)

Rose(-tinted) crush

My first real crush as a boy, after the prototype crush I had on my second teacher (the brunette-hair-down-to-her-waist, guitar-playing, hoop-ear-ring-wearing Miss Broad) was Lindsay Wagner. Or, more precisely, her most famous screen role, Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman. You could keep your Charlie's Angels as far as I was concerned (although I watched that too, of course, and did sort of like Jaclyn Smith), it was the tennis-pro turned schoolteacher who somehow warranted a multi-million dollar upgrade after a parachuting accident that always did it for me. She had brains (a schoolteacher knows everything when you're that age, right?), was super-powered (a bionic arm to go with bionic legs and, erm, one ear) and looked nice enough to make me feel funny in a way I didn't really understand at the time. It's no coincidence that the girl I always ran after when playing kiss-chase in the primary school playground looked like a pint-sized Jaime...

Watching clips now, The Bionic Woman hasn't aged terrifically well. It's hard to imagine watching whole episodes, even through the rose-tinted haze of nostalgia. By contrast, contemporary shows like Columbo and The Rockford Files still hold up, I think. But anyway, Jaime Sommers... the title sequence is archetypal Seventies US fare: the premise, the background, and lots of lingering shots of the star. And then there's a little clip of Jamie defeating a HAL9000 rip-off, in a race against time before they get nuked. Yes, really. Heavy stuff for a show aimed at kids, and actually pretty well done, I reckon.

Now, let me wallow.

Blogging. Not blogging.

On the way to work this morning, I was mulling over what to blog about next. Maybe the next Clandestine Classic, or how I might encourage more Fantasy Cover Version submissions. Or maybe an original piece... perhaps a review of the new Blade Runner film. So what would I write about that, I wondered? How visually stunning it is? How it adds to, rather than detracts from, the original? Or why it might be, in the words of one broadsheet, "under-performing" at the box-office? (A bit too long? Dystopia fatigue? Misogyny or misandry? Pick your keyboard warrior on that last one, I've heard both views.)

Except everyone who writes about films online is writing about Blade Runner 2049 already. If you want a straight journalistic review you could do a lot worse than Empire, and if you want a neat blogged summary you should pay Cultural Snow a visit.

So not Blade Runner then.

Maybe I could finally pull something together to celebrate a pretty much life-long love of walking up hills and mountains? You know, throw in some details of notable summits bagged, add an amusingly captioned photograph or two, maybe a lament to crumbling knees and the fact that my highest peaks are probably behind me, that sort of thing. Endcap it all with a YouTube embed of Kate Bush, maybe. But no. Because no-one wants to read that really, do they? Apart from me.

I find myself veering towards the sort of posts I was writing back in 2006/7/8 that were highly personal and a bit raw: a sort of primal scream into the ambivalent ears of the world. But, if website stats are anything to go by, even fewer people want to read that, so really, what's the point? I wonder if anyone is actually still reading this even, or whether it got abandoned midway through the first para? In the unlikely event that you are still reading, why not enter something in the comments to show me you've got this far - let's say, oh, I don't know, the name of the first single you bought.

What desperate cannibalism it is that allows the mind to consume itself.

Maida Vale-able

For your listening pleasure: MaidaValeAble.zip (Need unzipping software?)

Edited 04-Oct-2017 13:00 - original file replaced with 320kbps version.

This month, I am late to the party with...

...the fact that Steve Coogan doesn't like Paul Dacre or the Murdochs. Neither do I.

Clandestine Classic LIII - You've Got A Friend (cover)

The fifty-third post in an occasional series that is intended to highlight songs that you might not have heard that I think are excellent - clandestine classics, if you will. Maybe they'll be by bands you've never heard of. Maybe they'll be by more familiar artists, but tracks that were squirelled away on b-sides, unpopular albums, radio sessions or music magazine cover-mounted CDs. Time will, undoubtedly, tell.

I've been thinking about cover versions a lot lately, mainly fantasy cover versions. Mainly, but not exclusively. Because you see, the other day I heard James Taylor's version of this, itself a cover, on the radio. And then, of course, there's the Carole King original. It's undoubtedly a brilliant, beautiful record, in Carole's hands and James's. Thing is though, when I think of this song I don't think of either of these renditions. I think of today's classic.

The Housemartins were, as most readers of this blog will undoubtedly already know, a jangly 80s indie band from Hull - in their own words, "the fourth best band in Hull" (the three bands that were "better" were apparently Red Guitars, Everything But The Girl and The Gargoyles). As you will also know, they had their big breakthrough moment with Happy Hour, helped no end by the Aardman-esque claymation video, and had their only number one around Christmas 1986 with an a capella cover of Isley/Jasper/Isley's Caravan of Love. And of course The Housemartins begat The Beautiful South and Norman Cook, in all his guises.

Enough intro though. The band clearly knew their way around a good cover version, and today's classic is no exception. It was recorded by the band's last line-up, in which drummer Ted Whitaker had been replaced by Dave Hemingway, an added bonus of which was Dave's nice backing vocals. The band play the song with a straight bat, perhaps mindful that the original is so well known, their only real digression being the complete omission of the middle eight.

And that's it really. A straightforward rendition of a well-loved song, simple and stripped back, with Stan's acoustic guitar to the fore. On the face of it, nothing staggering. But this is the version I always hear in my head first when I think of You've Got A Friend, and if I should ever ill-advisedly try to perform it in public, I'd take my cue from Paul and Stan, not James or Carole.

You can pick up today's classic on the career retrospective Now That's What I Call Quite Good, and you should because The Housemartins were excellent, in my view never really given the recognition they deserved. And if you are wise enough to invest in that album, you'll also get a copy of the Housemartins' track that I almost chose for today, Step Outside, another beautiful slice of Paul and acoustic Stan. It's a gem. But anyway, just because I've been thinking about cover versions here's today classic - enjoy.

This is the sort of song that gets covered to death, so if you prefer a different version, let me know in the comments. And if you still haven't submitted your fantasy cover version, what are you waiting for?

Sometimes these words just don't have to be said

A nine-year old blog post from this very blog has made its way, lightly edited, into a new and frankly astounding, heavyweight coffee table book about The Wedding Present, entitled Sometimes These Words Just Don't Have To Be Said.

My entry is a bit journalistic if I'm honest, being a gig review for a blog rather than something I wrote with publication in mind. Even so, I'm quite chuffed about this. There I am, look, on pp333-334.

You can scoop up Sometimes These Words Just Don't Have To Be Said from the band's Scopitones website. It's not a cheap book, but then it is a monumental slab of hardback. I'd buy it, even it I wasn't in it.

If you'd like to read the original, unedited blog post, which includes a couple of decent photographs not featured in the book, plus a paragraph on the support act, that's here. I was particularly pleased with the photo of Gedge mid-song - I took that on a Sony Ericsson K750i, for goodness sake! A non-smart phone with a 2MP camera!

Fantasy Cover Version #8 - if Elvis Costello covered "Can't Get You Out Of My Head"...

A blog series that you can contribute to...

Here's the gist. I want to hear about your fantasy cover versions. Simply make the case for the cover version that you'd love to hear but, fairly obviously, does not actually exist. And send me that case, here. By case, I mean explain why artist X covering song Y would be good, don't just send me their respective names.

Eighth guest contributor is another Mark, this one from the excellent blog So It Goes... Mark made a couple of brief suggestions in the comments of an earlier FCV. I've chosen one (the one that features a semi-clad Kylie, obviously) and - you know the drill by now - embellished with some YouTube evidence. Mark writes:

I love this idea! [How about] Kylie's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" ...

... done as a deeply stripped back, slowed down piece by a "I Want You" creepy Elvis Costello?

Works for me, Mark. After all, it's clearly a song that lends itself to the odd cover version, And Elvis has previous for covering other songs pretty well too.

Think you can suggest a fantasy cover version this good? Then please, try your luck and remember - the more you make the case, the better! The list of past submissions may inspire you.

Inelasticity

Okay, so I left school 28 years ago. It's a long time since I studied Physics formally. But I still remember all about springs.

A spring at rest just sits there, doing nothing. Slowly put some energy into it, say by stretching it, and it gets longer. Stop putting energy into it - let go, in other words - and it releases that energy, recoiling back into its rest state. It can recoil because it has the property of elasticity - it pings back to its pre-stretched state.

Now, the more energy you put into a spring - the further you stretch it, in other words - the more energy is released when you let go and it returns to its rest state. In other words, the recoil is louder and more violent. However, it still goes back to how it was, because of its elasticity.

But (sorry, there's always a but) what if you stretch a spring too far? Eventually, it will go past its elastic limit, the point beyond which it can no longer return to its rest state. It deforms permanently, in other words. From childhood, you may remember this as the point at which you knackered your Slinky.

Here's the part where I leave established science behind and go into personal opinion. Ready? Here's a picture of a giant spring, courtesy of NASA.

And every day we're stretching it further, with carbon-fuelled climate change, pollution, overpopulation, and more. Is it any wonder then that the recoils (hurricanes, earthquakes, monsoons, landslides, and everything else) are getting more frequent and more extreme, as the spring tries to return to its rest state? What will happen, I wonder, when this spring is stretched beyond its point of inelasticity?

Apologies. I'll get back to blogging about music and television soon enough. After all, "Earth as a spring" is just a theory that I haven't described very well, cannot evidence with demonstrable science and cannot prove. Can't help but feel that 7.5 billion researchers are working on that proof every day though.