Snapshots #376: The Snapshots Sale Is Now On!

Now that the Snapshots Sale has officially been started by Robin Zander, lead singer of Cheap Trick, you can all bag yourself a bargain - while stocks last! 

20. Tony Pollard is very confused.

Hard as it may be to believe, "Tony Pollard" is an anagram for a very young...

Dolly Parton - The Bargain Store

19. Don't tell your other half about these guys.

Keep that affair secret, whatever you do...

Secret Affair - I'm Not Free (But I'm Cheap)

18. Foibles.

The Kinks - Massive Reductions

17. Mr. Loverman (not Shabba).

He's the man from Love...

Arthur Lee - You Can Save Up To 50% But You're Still A Long Ways From Home

Short but sweet, that one.

16. Wayward Prince, initially Jesus, every one famous.

Prince Harry is rather wayward, the first letter of Jesus is J, but they're all stars...

Harry J. All Stars - Liquidator

15. Octopus Alfred wearing a hockey mask.

Alfred Molina played Dr. Octopus... Jason wore a hockey mask.

Jason Molina - It Costs You Nothing

14. Eastenders without a cause.

Cockney Rebel - Big Big Deal

13. The riddle of who's steering the ship.

Jimmy Riddle at the Helm...

Jimmy Helms - Gonna Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse

12. Four sub-par Stewarts fly high with mock King. 

They're a quartet of B-Rods in the Sky... with an Elvis who's not the King.

Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet - This Offer Is Unrepeatable

11. Use your powers of deduction to describe Cilla's laughs.

You needed a lorra lorra logic to figure this one out...

Lora Logic - Wonderful Offer

10. Overweight and covered in spots.

Fats Domino - What A Price

9. Tired / Hippocampus.

Hippocampus is the Latin name for seahorses. If you're tired, you need a Sleeper.

Sleeper - Sale of the Century

Seahorses - Sale of the Century

8. Useful for chipping away at the igloo.

Cold Chisel - Cheap Wine

7. Better than Steve Mason and Gordon Anderson.

Steve Mason and Gordon Anderson were the Beta Band.

T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles, and David Mansfield were...

The Alpha Band - Cheap Perfume

6. Senegal Intelligence Agency.

That would be the SIA...

Sia - Cheap Thrills

5. Crazy boys.

The Mad Lads - Don't Have To Shop Around

4. An insult to the Irish, and a Young man who talks to walls.

Faron Young sang Hello Walls, Mick is a derogatory term for the Irish...

Mick Farren - Half Price Drinks

3. Desperate / not depressive.

Desperate (Steely) Dan and the Manics (not depressives).

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

Steely Dan - Everything Must Go

2. What a Doctor and a Baker do at the bus stop.

Tom (Baker) Waits...

Step right up
Everyone's a winner!
Bargains galore!
That's right you too can be the proud owner of...
The quality goes in before the name goes on!

Tom Waits - Step Right Up

1. Get her out of the other way and you'll hear a crazy organ playing in your new build home. 

Remove "her" from "other way" and you get Otway. A crazy organ might be a wild willy... in a Barrett home.

John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett - Really Free

The Snapshots Sale Must End New Year's Day! Join us then for our final crazy reductions!

Hot 100 #71

The band SR-71 (named after a Lockheed fighter plane) have actually featured on this blog before as they recorded the original version of my favourite Bowling For Soup Song, 1985. They also had a couple other minor hits, most notably Right Now. Worth a listen if you like the early noughties American guitar band sound of Blink-182 et al.

Songwise, the number 71 proved much trickier for you guys. In fact, this is the closest this feature has yet got to...

Alyson tried her best with '71 I Think I'll Make A New World by the Magnetic Fields, from one of my favourite albums of last year, but as I may have mentioned when I began this feature many, many weeks ago, I'd ruled that album out; otherwise I could have featured one of its songs every week so far. Each track on the album is about one year in Stephin Merritt's life, so I could have chosen this glorious gem for '78 or this belter for '77 or this euphoric classic for '76... well, you get the picture. Time will sadly run out for this as an option come '66 Wonder Where I'm From, the opening track on 50 Song Memoir. Until then, you're welcome to suggest them even though technically they're disqualified.

The only other suggestion this week came from Rigid Digit - and yes, it was another one that could have satisfied multiple entries on this countdown: Saturday Gigs by Mott The Hoople...

In Seventy-one all the people come

Bust a few seats but it's just in fun

Take the Mick out of Top of the Pops

We play better than they do

That one's only got a couple more weeks to run too.

What else did I find lurking in my record collection for Number Seventy-One then?

The final track on the album Black Cadillac by Roseanne Cash is called 0:71. The record was written while Cash was dealing with the recent loss of her mother (Johnny's first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin), stepmother (June) and father, but 0:71 isn't actually a song... it's 71 seconds of silence. One second for every year of Johnny's life. A cool tribute, but hardly a "song" I can choose to represent 71 in the Hot 100.

Fortunately, I didn't have to rely on it because I also found this, from the late Jason Molina's second band (his first was Songs: Ohia). Some nice, laidback Americana for a Tuesday morning...



Which brings us to 70. Hopefully there'll be less tumbleweed next week, though I still expect some Mott The Hoople...