Last Friday Night, Part Of Me wondered if anyone would get this week's Saturday Snapshots clues. Luckily, once the Fireworks kicked off yesterday morning, you made short work of them. Alyson and C were the early risers (Alyson even drafted in her London hosts to help) with two points each. Lynchie beat them by half a point, Charity Chic got another two and Chris was brave enough to admit to remembering Deep Blue Something. In the end, nobody guessed the song from #1, but that was probably my fault for not pointing out in the comments that nobody had got it. There were certainly plenty of guesses. Hopefully the explanation below will suffice.
A candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper:
"What are the answers to this week's Saturday Snapshots?"
Well, it's up to you guys to work those out from the clues below: title and artist, please. Don't go Running Scared!
10. Philosophical doctors don't disappoint.
9. Sindy & Barbie remain over 18 metres.
8. Standing on one leg whilst fixating on the second person.
7. Tim Booth gets canonized: I knew that was going to happen.
6. In the navy, it's non-specific: Audrey.
5. Tokyouth. How leg joints get around town.
4. What should I wear to play football? Will it warm me up or cool me down?
3. Choose your station.
2. A new Glynn joins short Henry... but doubts his methods.
1. Silky tube finds doctor enamoured with tabloid.
It just hit me, like a punch in the gut... I am now as old as Rex Bob Lowenstein.
And his name is Rex Bob Lowenstein
He's forty-seven, goin' on sixteen
His request line's open but he makes no bones
About why he plays Madonna after George Jones
Rex Bob David Saul Lowenstein only exists in a song, but he's been a hero of mine since I first heard his name back in the early 90s. He was the DJ I always wanted to be. A DJ not confined by playlists or genres, a DJ who defies his bosses and plays whatever the hell he wants... or whatever the hell his listeners want.
Of course, that doesn't end well for him. That's radio for you!
Now Rex Bob David Saul Lowenstein
Quit his job a week later, but before he'd leave
He locked and bolted the control room door
And played smash or trash till they cuffed him on the floor
Well they drug him into court and the judge said, “Rex
“I've got to lock you up, for what I'm not sure yet.
“But your boss here says he thinks you're wrapped too tight.
“But, by the way thanks for playing ‘Moon River' last night”
Back when I first heard Rex Bob - played by Bob Harris on his much-missed late night show in the early 90s - I imagined some grizzly old DJ of a similar vintage to the hero of Harry Chapin's WOLD. I mean, 47... imagine being as old as that! It was unthinkable.
And now here I am... and it doesn't seem that old at all. Those of you who are older are no doubt wishing you could be 47 again. Time plays tricks on us all.
The closest I ever got to being Rex Bob Lowenstein is this blog. I can live with that.
Have you ever grown as old (or older) than a character in a song you always thought of as much older than you? There's a question to get you scratching your heads...
Last week, when Alyson revealed that she had 83 blog post ideas pending, I was forced to check my own drafts folder. I was ashamed to discover 345 posts waiting to be completed. Some of them are no more than a title and a couple of songs, others are drafts of posts I've already published (so they need deleting) and others I've been reluctant to tackle because I was finding it hard to narrow the list of songs down to just 10.
Well, I'm going to try and tackle a few of these over the summer, to see if I can cut my drafts down to a least... I dunno, 330? Let's start with ten songs about spies... with a special mention, of course, to the very first Billy Bragg album, Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy, from which this is a superb way to kick off your recording career...
And now, onto the real spy songs. Be careful... they're watching you!
She's one of a dozen Yet you've seen the state Of the other eleven So hold onto her Stay focused Don't let your eyes stray low And watch her with interest Keep the springtime at bay
She's got spies and they're looking out for me But it's not like the KGB, it's just a game we play She's got hooks meant for catching fish at sea And she's casting them out and about to catch me unaware
Some kind of kinky role play thing going on there.
That Martin Rossiter could be a bit creepy at times...
Honey are you listening? I'll make you stay at home Can't afford the risk I want us to go on As a sign of my love I've a spy in the clubs So I'll know if you go I will know
...then again, he was probably just trying to keep his lady safe from this lot...
It has to be said that Pulp's ultimate Spying Song is Babies, in which Jarvis hides in the wardrobe of his mate's sister and spies on her until she discovers him. There are a couple more twists in that story.
But I Spy is pretty special too. And once again, only Jarvis Cocker could get away with lyrics like these...
And it's just like in the old days I used to compose my own critical notices in my head "The crowd gasp at Cocker's masterful control of the bicycle Skilfully avoiding the dog turd next to the corner shop"
Imagining a blue plaque Above the place I first ever touched a girl's chest
But hold on You've got to wait for the best You see, you should take me seriously
Very seriously indeed.
Cause I've been sleeping with your wife for the past sixteen weeks Smoking your cigarettes Drinking your brandy Messing up the bed that you chose together
And in all that time I just wanted you to come home unexpectedly one afternoon And catch us at it in the front room
You see I spy for a living And I specialize in revenge On taking the things I know will cause you pain I can't help it I was dragged up
My favorite parks are car parks Grass is something you smoke Birds are something you shag Take your "Year in Provence" and shove it up your ass!
As mentioned earlier, I could easily have gone another ten of those. Which top secret tunes would you have included?
To Scarborough then, where I spent some of my holiday last week. Although we stayed near Scarborough, we did spend more time in Whitby, Filey and Robin Hood's Bay. I do know a song about Whitby, which I'll feature another time, but sadly couldn't find any that referred to either Filey or Robin Hood's Bay. Lynchie was curious as to when exactly Robin Hood visited the North Yorkshire coast, and iffypedia only offers a vague legend about him seeing off some French pirates there once. But even outlaws deserve a holiday, surely?
Anyway, Scarborough, birthplace of rock band Little Angels and folkie Eliza Carthy (no, neither of her famous musical parents were born there). Scarborough may also attempt to claim Robert Palmer, and yes, he may have grown up there, but he was actually born much closer to my own home. There's a reason I call him Batley Bob.
I'm sure we can all name an obvious song about Scarborough.
However, this week's selection comes from Art Brut's Eddie Argos and Dyan Valdes of The Blood Arm, from their short-lived but much-cherished (in this house, anyway) collaboration, Everybody Was In The French Resistance... Now! Only 31 views on youtube as I write this post... let's see if we can get them up to at least 35, shall we?
American metal band 36 Crazyfists (named after a Jackie Chan movie) welcome us back to the Hot 100 countdown after a week's break. Let's get straight onto your suggestions...
Martin started us out with what may well seem the obvious one. Alyson seconded this and added a little extra commentary...
The song was written over 25 years ago but nothing seems to have changed, in
fact in anything things have got worse. Red haired singer Briana
Corrigan left the band because of it, feeling that the lyrics criticised
the glamour models rather than the industry that pays them.
What
are we doing to a large chunk of the female population who seem to
think the route to happiness and success is still via grossly enlarged
chesticles. Argh.... Sorry rant over!
No need to apologise, Alyson, you can rant here anytime you want.
To be honest, that was almost this week's winner as I used to love that song, but Mr. Heaton has done pretty well out of this countdown so far, so I decided to go in a different direction.
Ow, she's a brick house Well put-together, everybody knows This is how the story goes She knows she got everything That a woman needs to get a man, yeah, yeah How can she lose with the stuff she use 36 24 36, oh what a winning hand
Beyond
the gleeful 70s objectification of larger ladies, you can imagine
British DJs having to bite their tongue every time they played this
record so as not to add an extra word to the title.
How about a groovy foot-stomping early '60s instrumental from The Shadows - 36-24-36 (no idea what it's about though, a phone number
perhaps or a bank sort code?)
Did they have sort codes in the 60s?
Finally in this particular subsection, Bobby Bland knows a lady with similar dimensions...
Placebo - 36 Degrees (That would have taken the bronze medal this week from me.)
However, Lynchie, Charity Chic and Rigid Digit all agreed on this week's winning tune. Not that this is a democracy - your votes really don't count. Not unless I agree with them. (Insert your own comment about the current establishment here.) Luckily, I did agree... Jesus Of Cool is a great album!
Next week - the minimum age requirement to stand for election as President of the United States of America. Age requirement, not IQ. Any ideas for 35?
Going on holiday with a 5 year old is an exercise in endurance. Relaxation is not on the agenda. Up at 7 every morning, staggering (and often failing) to stay awake past his bedtime at the end of each long day. Good fun, but as the old cliche goes... now I need a holiday to recover.
We spent the week on the east coast: Scarborough, Whitby, Filey & Robin Hood's Bay. Some nice walks, delicious (if unhealthy!) food, lots of slot machine arcades, even a day at Flamingo Land, on which daddy carried the bags while Sam, Mummy and Grandad braved the rides.
We also took a boat trip on a "replica" of Captain Cook's ship and raced round the Dracula exhibition, which daddy had more nerves for than Sam. On exiting, I reassured the boy by saying, "See, that wasn't scary at all, was it?" The man in front of us grunted: "Only thing scary about that was the price!"
On the last day, I took my son to Reighton Gap, the holiday camp my parents always took me to as a child. It's changed a lot in the last 30-40 years. The pebble-dash cottage we stayed in has long since been knocked down and now it's all fancy caravans. The concrete path to the beach that was breaking up when I was a lad has now completely eroded. It was a bit of a death trap back then, to be honest, and would be condemned by Health & Safety these days, but back in the early 80s we gleefully took our lives in our hands and clambered down the post-earthquake concrete without even a thought of litigation. Residents take a different road to the beach these days. There's even a tractor ride to take them up and down. Lazy buggers.
The WWII battlements on the beach that I played on and around as a child are still there, but greatly diminished. The slot machines I used to play in all night, back when 10 pence would last ten minutes, emptied my wallet in the same amount of time... nowadays, apart from the rigged 2p push games, the minimum you pay is a quid, and the game's over in a flash. Could it be that things actually were better when we were kids?
Musical accompaniment for the holiday came via a couple of summer compilations I made, featuring the tracks in My Top Ten Change The Weather Songs (which was mostly a success: although we didn't really have beach weather, and the one day we tried it blew a gale) plus other typical holiday faves: The Boys of Summer, Lovely Day, Summer In The City, and this, which given that we took Sam out of school for a week to save money (although we're awaiting a fine from the local council for doing so!), it was cheering to hear him singing along at the top of his voice almost every day...
Welcome back to Saturday Snapshots. Yesterday's clues were so fiendish, you may well have needed a Black Magic Woman to help you work out the answers. Hopefully you didn't have to make a Soul Sacrifice to Satan, or Santa, or anyone with a similar name. Sigh. Let's put the crowbar away and get on with the answers...
Yesterday saw a closely fought three-way battle between Alyson, Chris and George... who might have been a joint winner with Chris, had he not gone off to brush his teeth, allowing Lynchie to sneak in and steal his final point. So Chris takes this week's crown. Thanks for playing, as always.
10. Starting fires with a score of tiny cars makes you sick.
A score is 20.
Matchbox make tiny cars. Matchboxes contain matches to start fires. But really, when was the last time you used a match? I get quite nostalgic when I see one.
School was out for summer... but now we're back... and so is Saturday Snapshots. Hope you all got along without me around to Poison the blogosphere for the past week.
Identify ten artists and songs from the clues below, please. They're tough - No More Mr. Nice Guy!
10. Starting fires with a score of tiny cars makes you sick.
9. Constant pain at the depressed diner.
8. Above all, John and Bobby confused L.A. with Berlin.
7. No king, no queen... but still up for it!
6. Harry Connick and Sammy Davis find an Irish boy where rabbits dance.
5. What the BBC used to be: Supermarine!
4. No to the Easter punk, yes to the bird of prey... a romantic shortfall.
3. Run run run run runaway spelling aid - I bet that information has just astounded you!
Look, I'm on holiday and I can't think of any Cheryl Cole songs off the top of my head, so you'll have to make up your own puns today. Likewise I have no idea who won this week as I'm writing this on Thursday night. I'm sure whoever got up first did very well indeed. Thank you all for playing... unless nobody did this week, in which case: yah boo sucks.
Brief answers / explanations follow...
10. R.E.M. slows down and shouts like crazy.
REM is Rapid Eye Movement. Slow it down and it becomes SEM... add a shouted bellow.
