Friday Ain't All About Sport

The greatest band of the eighties???? How did the Factory Records not sign them? Why isn't Squire on more greatest guitarist lists? So many questions and because it's Friday I've no answers but I do have She Bangs The Drums which means happy days. Possibly chemically induced but happy days all the same.

The Friday Sport Preview Post Yokey

Its almost the weekend and tonight we are going to be enthralled by the first ever Friday night Six Nations match when the flakey French take on those pesky Welsh. The French have Benoit Baby at outhalf tonight which makes absolutely no sense to me. The guy cant kick, so I'm expecting some serious kamikaze running of the ball. Its shaping up to be a cracker and unfortunately with that selection I can't see the Welsh Grand Slam bid being derailed. Livremont really wants his head examined in my opinion, just play Skrela for god sake.

Parry is also about to lose his job at Liverpool, it has only taken fifteen years of gross mismanagement for him to reach this point. Perhaps he should apply for a job in this basket case company. Liverpool are without doubt destined to drop more points away to Middlesborough this weekend after putting on such a good show at Real midweek. Logic goes out the door as regards this club.

Bet of the weekend would have to be the Arsenal to win to nil at home to Fulham (11/10) so I'm putting the house down on that one. Also I've decided UEFA Cup is far more exciting than Champions League football mainly because Man City just can't defend. On the music front I reckon this is the song to get us all through the current economic nightmare. If it works for Obama it should work for us... hopefully

The Internet Is Ruled By The Power Of Suggestion

Literary pretensions showing once more when I say the internet is ruled by the power of suggestion, well according to John Gray it is anyways. So lets see if it is... Today I suggest eighties cheese. All music videos from this day on will take the form of five minutes films, story line and all.

I Wish Bands Fought More, It Was Very Entertaining

After an Oasis binge yesterday it is only fair to remember those heady days of the nineties when inter band fighting was rife and have a Blur video today! Ah yes back in the day of all that tabloid generated angst Blur were the intellectuals riposte to the Oasis sledge hammer related approach. Also Blur are reforming and performed last night at the NME awards (see here) so Coxon and Albarn return, high brow popular music returns. This is classic nineties track End Of A Century...

Jenny's Coming After You!

Stellastarr* have been slated for some reason in the press of here. Their first album was released here in 2003 and their sound pre-dates that of the Editors and most definitely White Lies and I can't for the life of me understand why they are not more popular. They have a sound something akin to Echo and The Bunnymen however this track is more reminisint of a Pixies track probably due to the backing vocals having a distinct Kim Deal vibe about it. This was the best I could come up with off youtube. Maybe its not a mystery anymore why they ain't so popular. Here is stellastarr* and Jenny.

You Just Can't Shake Tradition

I'm ever so slightly edgy today for some reason. It's the start of crazy religion penance season in these parts and I've decided to stick with custom (for rationale behind this argument see Dawkins God Delusion and the social power of religion even if you believe the dogma is bollocks). Anyways I'm gone cold turkey on two mainstays of everyday life for forty days. In celebration of this I'm sound tracking my fragile mental state with one of the Gallagher brothers more catchy numbers. If I end up in the desert being chatted up by a devil at least I'll have that opening riff in my head to keep me on righteous path!

Wine Will Be Flat And Currys Gone Cold

As disturbing as an Anthony Burgess novel, with a rhythm section of Foxton and Buckler and the lyrical genius of Weller. Despite the grainy nature of the footage and the poor quality of the sound Down In The Tube Station At Midnight is as raw and punchy today as it was thirty years ago. The Arctic Monkey owe a slight debt of gratitude to these boys. Less than 500 views, there is just something fundamentally wrong with the world.

Tenuous Link For Having A Santogold Video

Pancake Tuesday is the business. Everything smelling of lemon and sugar. You have to give it to the church, the only thing they ever did right was incorporating all those pagan festivals to dupe all the natives into taking up a crazy religion. Irish people were always suckers for any religion once they made a festival for eating (take note Scientology).

I'm on total Oscar overload at the moment mainly because people should be talking about far more serious issues (see here) and also trying to figure out how such a poorly developed study gets published in the first place (who is doing the peer review, I want answers!!), social Darwinism/sociobiology strikes again.

Also just finished reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, its my favourite offering of his, mainly due to the lack of the hated Arsenal scoring in the last minute to defeat my beloved Liverpool (see Fever Pitch). Anyways this got me thinking about the importance of lists, a recurring nerdy theme throughout the book, and it dawned on me that as far R'n'B or whatever its called these days my list only contains one artist, Santogold. Any video where for some reason they begin by sitting on a horse and then move through a series of mock violence scenes deserves to be praised. I haven't a clue what is going on but the song is catchy, just cant get those beats out of my head. Also gmail is down apparently... the end of the world is nigh!

Damn China In My Head

It's Monday which is never a good thing. On my way into work I heard this song on the radio and I can't get it out of my head, so now I am going to inflict it on an unsuspecting internet. There is only so much eighties cheese that should be played in the morning. T'Pau 1987 is one of those guilty pleasures that involves big hair, power ballad singing and a lead singer that looks suspiciously like Nicole Kidman in Days Of Thunder and of course an obligatory sax solo. Its a crazy crazy mix. Remedies for removing eighties power ballads from one's head will be greatly appreciated.

For Once Some Negativity

Since I've started writing this blog it has been nothing but positive. Just writing about the music I like and generally not being hyper-critical. This evening that's all going to change. I think its time the world should know about my deeply hidden dislike of all things U2. This month sees the release of their new No Line On The Horizon which comes highly acclaimed by all accounts. However like ever newly released Woody Allen film which always comes highly acclaimed this release has left me feeling ever so slightly disappointed and wondering what all the fuss was about. Music officiandos will scoff at my lack of musical understanding but I just don't get U2. I know Bono is on this save the world vibe and they had the good grace to knock Bryan Adam's"Everything I Do, I Do It For You" off Number 1 all those years ago with "The Fly" but their music does absolutely nothing for me.

If I'm honest (which I must) I will put my hands up and admit I have a soft spot for the Joshua Tree but every release after that seems to be met with mass hysteria and even greater album sales and I for one am at a loss to explain (feel free to leave a comment and explain what I'm missing). I don't like going all negative but the reviews on today's papers (I'll admit I'm a bit of a populist) were gushing in their praise and I am left just shaking my head. There is only so much distortion peddle the Edge can get away with! Anyways to counter the general U2 love in, I'm posting a truly bizarre video playing a song from one of the Dublin bands that were considered to be the next big thing in the early eighties before U2 broke, just to show what everyone missed out on. Here is The Blades and Not A Ghost Of A Chanceand on a 45 to boot...