Too Much Apple Pie

Not Every Song from the Sixties is a Classic

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:30:00 +0000

The new single by The Dreaming Spires is officially rather good!

It's out as a download-only from Monday, with an album scheduled for the summer. Nice.

What lies beneath

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:57:00 +0000

A post-Housemartins, pre-Fatboy Slim Norman Cook released this gem of a single featuring Lester Noel from North Of Cornwallis on lead vocals. For Spacious Lies missed out on the pop 40 but by crikey it deserved better!

Montreux Pop!

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:47:00 +0000

You can barely move in the summer months nowadays for the sheer volume of music festival coverage on TV - some good, some bad, but most indifferent. But the televisual festival landscape was a very different place back in the mid-80s, oh yes. Unless there was a special one-off event such as Live Aid in 1985 or, umm, that Free Nelson Mandela thingy a few years later, you'd be left with the BBC's annual (highlights-only) coverage of the Montreux Pop Festival from Switzerland in May.The line-ups were generally frighteningly mainstream but as I was going through my prime mainstream pop years at the time, that was perfectly fine with me.

As you're wont to do when you get to a certain stage in life, I suddenly became nostalgic for these programmes this morning so thus scuttled over to YouTube to relive them. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins and Bananarama miming along to their biggest hits has lost a lot of its lustre down the years but there were some real gems in there amongst the QVC diamonique bracelets. Have a gander at this lot!

Agnetha Faltskog - One Way Love (1985). Although this track from her second solo album conspicuously failed to bother the chart scorers over here, it sounds rather good to me, and certainly deserved better. She may well be singing over the top of a backing track here but who cares? It's Agnetha off of ABBA!

Talk Talk - Life's What You Make It (1986). OK, so this one is actually from the Montreux Jazz (Mmm, grrreat) Festival but it's a rare performance of the band just as they were on the brink of going all noodly and experimental - and this one is definitely being played completely live.

Colonel Abrams - Over & Over (1986). There's a nice bit at the start of the following clip where the interviewer asks Colonel Abrams what his real name is, to which he replies "Colonel Abrams is my real name". Hmm, right, if you say so Colonel. While Over & Over failed to emulate the success of his monster hit from the previous year, Trapped (which peaked at #3 while spending 23 weeks in the UK singles chart), it's still a game effort from the militarily-monickered moustachioed man. He left his epaulets at home for this one but still cuts a dashing figure in that tweed sports jacket. Try getting [insert name of modern-day equivalent here. Titchy Streisand?] to pitch up in one of those!

So there we have it. They don't make them like that any more (the sports jackets, the pop festivals or the pop stars), more's the pity. The Montreux Jazz Festival is still going strong though, which is kind of comforting in a way, even if it does involve jazz.

Running out of ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:06:00 +0000

Saw what may well be the most poorly-conceived compilation album I've ever laid eyes on the other day, Now That's What I Call Running - ironically, a really lazy title. There are no songs about running on it. Even if there were it would still be a nonsensical name - unless it were chock full of audio clips of people running, which come to think of it would be an even dafter concept (although it would at least involve some logic).

So anyway, no 'running' songs whatsoever, however tenuous. No Keep On Running, No Run To You, I Ran or Road To Nowhere (which, come to think of it, would have just the right rhythm and tempo for jogging); hell, no Tears For Fears or their largely-forgotten 1986 charity single Everybody Wants To Run The World, adapted from the then ubiquitous Everybody Wants To Rule The World in about five minutes as part of that year's big Sport Relief campaign. There wasn't even an attempt to introduce a touch of levity into proceedings by including Jarvis Cocker's Cunts Are Still Running The World (although in fairness that may have risked alienating the target audience). As for the absence of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill (or, if the rights were a problem, a cover version of said track), words fail me!

Instead the compilers have plumped for a hodge-podge of largely baffling and presumably cheap contemporary filler such as Sexy & I Know It by lmfao (Deluded & You Don't Know It, more like), Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (about renowned keep-fit freak Mick ~~Jogger~~ Jagger) and, erm, Maneater by Nelly Furtado, with just the odd concession to anyone with an age or IQ over 15. Honestly, though, 1 out of 10 for imagination. To borrow an expression from the type of person who'd presumably be in Now That's What I Call Running's intended demographic, whoever cobbled this old guff together can jog on.

While we're on the subject, the following video features much jogging and is very funny, so you should have a look!

The Whispers - My Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Saw this and thought of you.

Random Swedish Song of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:14:00 +0000

The first in an exciting* new series! I have a memory stick full of Swedish music which I shall shuffle whenever the mood takes me and then post the first track that comes up each time. The memory stick doesn't contain any Europe, Sylvia, Herreys or Ace of Base (yet) however, so no need to panic!

Frida Hyvönen - London mp3

*Excitement levels can go down as well as up. Consult your GP if symptoms persist. Too Much Apple Pie is not an equal opportunities employer.

Dim & distant

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:08:00 +0000

Shed Seven - Chasing Rainbows mp3

ABBA: The Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:20:00 +0000

I've featured more than my fair share of Swedish music on this blog over the years, but none will ever quite match the majesty of that generated by original Swedish superstars ABBA - of course it won't. Tonight I've been rewatching 1977's ABBA: The Movie in its entirety and even now I'm taken aback by quite how brilliant the songs are; even the "plain" old album tracks. Amazing to think that the band's chart career wasn't even at its halfway point by this stage either, so there were still shedloads of classic hits the guys hadn't yet got around to writing.

Actually, the film was probably shot at the perfect time in terms of capturing the band at their happiest and at the zenith of their powers, before an inevitable jadedness crept in and inter-band relationships became strained or fell apart completely. That's not to suggest for a second that the quality of the music lessened as the years went on, as the latter, more introspective songs were every bit as strong as the ones featured here.

But watching the movie you do get a real reminder - if any any were needed - of just how huge this band were at the time and how much they meant to people, as they tour round the major cities of Australia to general adulation and frenzied excitement, belting out the hits with real gusto; it really is a joy to behold. And blimey, could those girls hold a tune.

There's even a paper-thin plot tacked on, as a Tommy Vance-lookalike radio DJ is tasked by his station manager with securing an exclusive interview with the band and thus spends the whole film chasing them around mostly in vain - with vaguely hilarious consequences. Oh, and there's also a variety of roles for Lou Carpenter from Neighbours and lots of gratuitous shots of Agnetha's rear of the year. What more could you ask for?!

The movie is, somewhat improbably, available to stream in its entirety, completely gratis, online - so why not set aside 95 minutes and take a thoroughly enjoyable trip down memory lane.

Get Down Shep!

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:14:00 +0000

Big shout out to my homie Viv (@vividly on Twitter) for flagging this up: Pan's People and some adorable dogs get down to Gilbert O'Sullivan on the Christmas 1973 edition of Top of the Pops. Watch out for the camera-shy mutt in the middle taking the lyrics rather literally half a minute or so in!

Song of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:28:00 +0000

Cud it be magic!

~~Cud - Oh No Won't Do mp3~~

Cud's 2012 UK tour dates

Office Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:44:00 +0000

Spike spotted a very funny moment during the following Channel 4 News report on Cameron's trip to the States to schmooze with Obama; if you skip to around 4 minutes & 40 seconds in you'll see the President being mobbed by lots of (presumably pre-approved) wellwishers at the side of a basketball court while Cameron is initially out of shot before the camera pans round to show him standing anonymously at the back of the crowd looking on pensively, much like David Brent eyeing a more popular figure hogging the limelight at a sales conference they're both guest speakers at. Basically, Obama's Cameron's Chris Finch. It really does make for marvellous viewing.

Action Biker - By Myself mp3

Now you see them...

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:06:00 +0000

This is quite a sight to behold: Richborough Power Station on the Kent coast's cooling towers and chimney being demolished this morning. Probably best viewed with the sound muted if you have a low 'inane soundtrack' threshold.

Talking of inane soundtracks...

~~Five Star - All Fall Down mp3~~

(Come on, it's a great pop song!)

Let's get Fizzical

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Let me tell you a little bit about Jay Aston...

Song of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 12:04:00 +0000

I wish this lot could be a bit more prolific, as there are few things quite as joyous as a good Suburban Kids With Biblical Names track. But that's modern bands for you: bone idle. The Beatles used to release about twelve albums a week in their day, you know. Such nice young men as well; always so well turned out. Well, that is until they got mixed up with the alcopops and the Benson & Hedges and started knocking about with that awful Yogi Bear fellow in India and Wales. All you need is love? All you need is a spot of National Service and a good kick up the backside more like. I blame the parents.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Trumpets & Violins mp3

Painful

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:07:00 +0000

I'd been feeling rather pleased with myself the other day when picking up the best of Dinosaur Jr on CD for 99p in a charity shop. At least that's what I thought I'd bought. It wasn't till I played the CD for the first time earlier today that the full horror of what I'd done became apparent - the disc inside wasn't actually the best of Dinosaur Jr at all, but an album by the Offspring. The horror!

How Lowe can you go?

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:54:00 +0000

We were lucky enough to see Nick Lowe and band play live in his old stomping ground in Kent last week, as part of the world tour that's about to take him, and indeed them, to Australia and the USA. But if you're in the UK - and especially the south eastern part of it - there's still time to see Mr Lowe and co before they depart these shores, as they're embarking on a a mini-residence at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's fashionable West End for the next five nights (March 7-11). And tickets are, as they say, still available. (Click here for details.)

I can pretty much guarantee that you'll have a thoroughly enjoyable evening anyway - but then you really don't need me to tell you that. Here's one he didn't play the other night, but which still sounds absolutely brilliant almost three decades on: Half a Boy & Half a Man missed out on the UK top 40 when it was released, in 1984, too, peaking at #53. How's that for inexplicable?

Mildly Interesting Lowe Fact: Nick's 1979 hit Cruel To Be Kind (which he did play the other night) peaked at number 12 in the British, American, Australian AND Canadian singles charts. At least it did if you believe Wikipedia.

"Your bill is rubbish!"

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:10:00 +0000

A revealing clip. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is taken to task by a doctor over the government's controversial Health & Social Care Bill (i.e. their plan to privatise the NHS by stealth), during a visit to the Royal Free hospital yesterday. Here's a useful hint for governments: if the name of your policy is invariably preceded by the word controversial, you've probably gone wrong somewhere.

Apparently BBC News managed to miss out on broadcasting this story - which just makes it doubly handy that literally millions of licence fee payers read this blog.

DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING

Fame, fame, fatal fame

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:28:00 +0000

I don't know about you, readers, but I'm getting increasingly cheesed off with celebrities not only getting their names into the titles of TV and radio programmes when interviewing someone talented or illustrious, but also having the cheek to put their own names first in the show's title e.g. Spoony Meets Sir Alex Ferguson (Five Live, the other week) and Jo Whiley Meets Annie Lennox (Sky Arts, next week). Do the programme directors or whoever really think that the audience give a toss who's asking the questions?

"Oh, well, I was going to watch that exclusive interview with Sir Paul McCartney in which he gives fascinating new insights into the band dynamics within The Beatles and on his real feelings about Yoko Ono, but since I found out Fearne Cotton's not simpering witlessly at him throughout I've completely gone off the idea. I think I'll watch Celebrity Juice instead."

Or maybe they do, I dunno. I just think we're careering down a very slippery slope here and if we're not careful we could realistically end up watching or listening to programmes like Tim Lovejoy In Conversation With Lionel Messi; Olly Murs and Nelson Mandela: A Meeting of Minds; and When Jordan Met Noam Chomsky. Balls to that.

While I'm on the subject of (for want of an original phrase), dumbed-down TV, enough of the panel shows already! Barely a day goes by without a new one appearing on the TV or wireless, and they all seem to feature the same small pool of guests - mostly stand-up comedians with the odd journalist or TV presenter thrown in for good measure. And the formats are getting flimsier and flimsier. Talk about ever decreasing circles. (Now there was a good show.)

Anyway, must dash. My favourite stand-up's just completed a gruelling three-part challenge involving an egg and spoon half-marathon through the villages of Sussex, a non-stop bike ride around the deck of a ferry between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, and swimming three laps of the Olympic pool doing only the doggie paddle. All in support of ~~his new DVD~~ Comic Relief too. So yeah, I've been so inspired by his actions that I've decided to try something new myself: I've booked tickets to see him at the o2 next month. Great guy, lot of work for charity. Doesn't like to talk about it though.

Freewheel - Starfriend mp3

Grey day hilarity

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:16:00 +0000

Heard this on the wireless this morning and it made me laugh a lot. Simon Munnery improves The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds no end with this, ahem, slightly less quixotic interpretation.

Simon Munnery - Grey Clouds mp3

Scorchio!

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:38:00 +0000

During this evening's 6 o'clock bulletin, the weather presenter on Anglia Tonight promised us "T-shirt weather by the end of the week". With these words I can only surmise that she must have set herself some sort of Chris Packham-esque shoehorning-in-song-titles challenge, only with Lucksmiths tracks rather than those by The (not-Luck)Smiths.

Actually, thinking about some Lucksmiths song titles - Sunlight In A Jar, Cat In Sunshine, Weatherboard, Shine On Me, Friendless Summer, Warmer Corners, Spring A Leak, Good Light, ~~Brr It's A Bit Nippy Out~~ - this might just work!*

The Lucksmiths - T-Shirt Weather mp3

*if only it wasn't entirely implausible.

Now that's what I call 1991

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:04:00 +0000

Right then, where do we all stand on Curve? I seem to remember them getting a bit of flak in the music press all those years ago, although I can't quite remember why. Bandwagon jumpers? Too shoegazey? Not shoegazey enough? Major label chancers? Singer too good-looking? Guitarist too hairy? I dunno. To me they were like a slightly gothy Lush and, although not a massive fan, I did fork out for Coast Is Clear, which still sounds pretty fine to me two decades on. Am I wrong or am I wrong?

Mildly Interesting Pop Fact: Curve blew so much of the budget for this video on wind machines that they ended up having to shoot it in black and white. It wasn't just because they were trying to look arty or anything. Goodness me no.

A light that never goes out

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:41:00 +0000

If only the British music press could stop wetting themselves over First Aid Kit for five minutes, they'd see that there are other Swedish artists worth getting excited about. None more so than the ridiculously talented Frida Hyvönen, who releases her third album, To the Soul, in April.

The first single from it is Terribly Dark, which perhaps doesn't quite match up to the quality of some of her previous songs musically, but as ever the lyrics are a cut above what you'd expect from yer typical modern-day popster, and unlike some others I could, and in fairness already have, mentioned, Frida never affects an American accent when she sings. What more could you ask for from The Swedish Kate Bush?

Song of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:18:00 +0000

This one went down like a lead balloon at the 1986 Royal Variety Performance, culminating in Princess Margaret calling Matt Johnson an "absolute fucking disgrace" and throwing her tiara at him from the royal box. Bit harsh - but what else could he do but suck it up?

Pointless pontificating and a bit of Bergman

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:10:00 +0000

If, by some unfathomable sequence of events, I were to become controller of programming at ITV (just go with me on this one) the first thing I'd do would be to schedule Ingmar Bergman's Persona for 8pm the following Saturday on ITV1. That'd wake the buggers up / traumatize their children / make them switch over to ITV2 / get me the sack immediately. Good film though.

(The film's up in its entirely - well, in eight parts - on YouTube if you fancy it.)

Actually, me putting Bergman's name before the title there reminds me of a bloke - let's call him the wazzock - who appeared on Pointless the other night. In the final (because he made it to the final - of course he made it to the final) the wazzock was asked to guess any films that had won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival since 1975. So this he duly did, but not before he'd shown his expertise by blithely and needlessly announcing the names of each film's director before giving each answer.

This extra director information really wasn't necessary, so the wazzock was to all intents of purposes showboating when giving his guesses as "Roman Polanski's The Pianist", "Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies" & someone or other else's something or other else, rather than just naming the films. Oh, and of course one of the answers - Secrets & Lies - turned out to be pointless (of course it was) and thus earned wazzock that day's jackpot. I don't have a picture of him to hand but his expression immediately afterwards was much like this:

So anyway, the moral to this tale is this: if you're good at trivia and you ever happen to appear on a TV quiz programme where such knowledge is a boon, don't embellish your answers unnecessarily. It just makes you look like a massive arsehole.

The Bear Quartet - It Only Takes A Flashlight To Create A Monster mp3

Play your cards right

noreply@blogger.com (Kippers) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:25:00 +0000

Ah, Valentine's Day. The greetings card industry's annual attempt to piss off single people everywhere. Must be fun if your birthday happens to fall on this particular date though, as it would deceive your postman into thinking you're massively popular with the laydeez/gentlemen, what with him or her having to deliver a load of cards bearing your name every 14th Feb. (Alright then, so not that much fun really.)

Valentine's gripes aside, I'm a sucker for a good love song, and this is one of the very best. Magnus Carlson joins Acid House Kings on the wonderful Will You Love Me In The Morning.

Acid House Kings & Magnus Carlson - Will You Love Me In The Morning? mp3