Welcome along to another edition of Snapshots, where I give you a real Sophie's Choice... do you identify all the artists below first to help you work out the connection... or will spotting the link help you name the performers?
Let's see how quickly you solve it this week...
10. Smashed up Z-Cars.
9. When a Snapshot maker's clue is particularly hard to decipher.
8. Half Boy, Half Pickett.
7. Get some unanimous okra mixed into your green salad.
6. Found in a shoe box.
5. Bus, Bunch, Blood, Bees... all washed out.
4. Obliteration.
3. Keeps Clapton's clothes clean while he's eating.
2. DOA Hipster comes apart.
1. White mites, white eat.
Head on back to Marvin's Room... or My Top Ten as it's otherwise known... for the answers tomorrow morning.
A few more songs from the never-ending list of tunes I'm trying to keep up with... and this time, it's all tunes I can't buy on CD.
Often, I find myself listening to an album on the interweb or via some other magical means, and I like it so much that I want a copy on the shelf. Lately however, I've come across a number of records that are just not available on CD. In some cases, it's a vinyl (or cassette!?) only release... in other cases, the record is only available digitally, like this one from Howell Dawdy...
I've featured tracks from Howell's 2021 album Smells Like Love here before. It's only 8 songs long, but every one's a winner and I'd gladly shell out some coppers for a physical copy. Sadly, Howell appears to be an internet-only guy...
In a similar vein, we find Norwegian Americana star Harald Thune, whose 2020 album The Backbounceability of Humans was a particular favourite during Lockdown.
Harald's website is a little sparse, with spaces for biog and tour details, but not even a tab for shopping, and his music appears only to be available via streaming. Which is a shame, because there's a Harald-shaped hole on my CD shelf...
Kevin Morby is considerably more well known than either Harald or Howell, yet his last record was only released on vinyl.
This is a tragedy as it's a companion piece to his previous album, 2020's This Is A Photograph, a CD that has pride of place in my collection. I'd love to own a piece of plastic and paper containing the follow-up, but it looks unlikely to happen...
So desperate am I to own a CD copy of the debut album by Wolves of Glendale that I went on their website (where it's vinyl only, I'm afraid) and emailed them through the "Contact Us" link asking if a CD was forthcoming. No reply.
Maybe CDs really are a dead format.
Oh well, here's a cautionary tale about the hidden dangers of gym membership...
It's a sad day for Huddersfield with the announcement that our local WH Smith is closing down. The Piazza Shopping Centre, a wonderfully 70s concrete carbuncle (built two years before I was born) is to be demolished and replaced with some shiny space age Jetson's promenade... and Smiths has elected not to seek an alternative location in the town.
There are those who argue (quite vocally on local areas of the book of faces) that Huddersfield town centre has been dying slowly for years now, and that this is another nail in its coffin. I'd rather not be drawn into such debates. The town centre where I spent many a happy Saturday morning with my mum, stopping off at all the local newsagents (including Smiths) to see what new comics I cold find... that place is long gone. But so is the culture that fed it. Back then, in the pre-internet era, I could buy four comics for a pound. Nowadays I'd be lucky to buy one and get change from a fiver. You can't turn back the hands of time.
Here are a few songs in honour of WH Smith. You may have won the battle with John Menzies, but nothing lasts forever...
Let's start not in Yorkshire, but over t'other side o' Pennines...
The next track is also a very personal tune, from a collection written during lockdown. I can't find out much about the artist, but he's definitely a Slow Burner...
Tiberius isn't on Snappychat or Instagrass or any of the newer-fangled social networking sites. He checks in with the Book of Faces once or twice a day, mostly to keep up with old friends, drop the occasional witticism and play along with the daily quizzes one or two of his more eccentric peers post. And he quit Tweeter (which he'd rarely used anyway) when Elon Musk turned it into a dystopian autocracy named after an LA band featuring Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and D. J. Bonebrake.
“If I went an hour without my phone, I would be really stressed.”
“I was talking to people online when I was ten.”
“I would much rather have been born in the Eighties. I would have been working a lot harder.”
“You get a buzz if someone likes your comment. So a phone does give you quite a lot of validation, which is unhealthy in large doses – but it does feel good.”
That last one brings us back to Tiberius. Because, as previously mentioned, Tiberius does write a blog. Something which he claims he only does as a way of relaxing and focusing his mind on his two main interests - music and writing. Tiberius frequently states that he does this purely for himself, that it doesn't matter if other people read his witterings or leave an agreeable comment, and yet... and yet...
Remember our discussion about the benefits and pitfalls of writing?
Remember our brief look at that wonderful feel-good brain chemical dopamine?
According to Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford University’s dual diagnosis addiction clinic, we are all dopamine addicts when it comes to social media (and that must include blogging). According to the Grauniad...
She calls the smartphone the “modern-day hypodermic needle”: we turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet.
(I couldn't resist slipping that one in. I know: I'm beyond hope.)
Social media, and the internet at large, is directly responsible for the rise in unhappiness in the developed world over the past 30 years. Could the microcosm of the blogosphere be just as responsible for this as TikTok, Tinder and Pornhub? Surely it's not as bad as those appalling supervillains? Well, if it's encouraging our dopamine addiction... maybe.
Dopamine causes addiction because of how the brain works in response to it. After any pleasurable experience (which causes a dopamine release), the brain responds with a process called homeostasis. Which basically uses the lyrics of Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn! (or the Book of Ecclesiastes, if you want to get Biblical) as a template for self-regulation.
Or you might say it's following Newton's Third Law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every up... there must follow a down. Or a downer, to be more precise.
When we binge on pleasurable things, homeostasis means “our brain compensates by bringing us lower and lower and lower,” says Lembke. Each time the thing becomes less enjoyable, but we eventually become dependent on those stimuli to keep functioning. We spiral into a joy-seeking abyss.
And when it comes to the internet, there's nothing to stop us feeding our addiction. If we're hooked on booze or drugs, eventually we'll run out of the substance in question, or run out of the funds needed to procure them. If you're addicted to social media because of the tiny dopamine spikes that come from a like or a thumbs up or a smiley... or a blogging comment... then short of them turning off your electric (and the batteries on all your mobile devices dying simultaneously), there's nothing to stop you gorging yourself to the point of gluttony.
Which makes Tiberius question... how much blogging is too much blogging? Is up to (and sometimes over) a thousand words a day just too much? In devoting so much time to the dopamine-inducing thrill of blogging, is he denying himself the comedown? What is that doing to his brain?
The problem with calling yourselves Cast is that you're immediately fighting it out with the Cast recordings of every Broadway show in history. Not to mention The Cast of Hollyoaks, The Cast of Casualty or The Cast Of Grange Hill (et al.) whenever they choose to release a record.
Beyond that, Cast is a pretty dull name for a band. Will any of these acts rise above their mediocre monikers? You decide...
CAST #1
Mexican symphonic prog band who first got together in 1978... and were still going strong in 2021. I'm sure that many of you will be pleased to hear that they are "similar in style to early Genesis".
CAST #2
Sweetly synthy soul from Italy in 1980...
THE CAST #3
Canadian metal band from the early 90s.
The lead singer has a very nice purple shirt.
CAST #4
In 1991, bassist John Power left The La's because he was sick of playing the same songs every night for 6 years while Lee Mavers tried to get them to sound the way they did in his head. Or something like that. Those with far more time than me can fill you in on the comical history of The La's, I'm sure. Anyway, Power went off with the drummer from Shack and a couple of other guys and formed a band which Noel Gallagher once described as a "religious experience". I think you can all make up your own punchlines to that.
I was a huge Britpop kid (well, as I was in 20s, but I still felt like a kid)... but I never got too excited about Cast. I mean, they were slightly more appealing than Oasis, but then so is dysentery.
Perhaps the best that can be said about them is that they were Alright...
CAST #5
This is the sound of Norwegian hip hop in 2005...
CAST #6
And here's some Romanian hip hop from a similar epoch. I would say it keeps them off the streets, but looking at the video, that's clearly not the case.
CAST #7
Something a little gentler on the ears to finish today. Ben and Jessica are from Vancouver, and this is how they sounded just last year...
Which Cast would you cast? And which Cast would you cast aside?
This started a few months back, but I usually found that at least if I left a reply to someone else's comment and ticked the box, then I would receive subsequent comments in my inbox. Now even that has stopped working.
This isn't so bad for that day's post as I can check in and see if there are any comments to read and reply to, but as it also effects previous day's posts, I find myself having to check back through the past week and discovering new comments I've missed.
Is anyone else having the same issue? I've also found it to be true when I leave a comment on another blogger-based blog - like Charity Chic's. I no longer receive a notification to tell me if there's been a reply. One of the things I enjoy most about the blogosphere is the fun little conversations that crop up in comments boxes, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with them now the notifications have stopped. I've checked my spam folder in case they'd started going in there, but no joy. Wordpress comments still appear to be working fine.
Those of you who are on blogger - is this happening to you also? And for anyone else who leaves a comment on this blog, do you still get notifications if someone replies? Is it just me?
Snapshots invites you to a Caribbean beach today, all expenses paid. I figured Barry Bloom and the Gibson Brothers would give this week's link away, but I had to avoid the really obvious songs...
(Although I'm fascinated by that last one, particularly the snazzy grey sweater that Billy wears in the video which appears to have a rip in the shoulder. Couldn't someone have bought him a new one for the shoot?)
10. Classical superhero meets Alex The Frozen Chimp in top gear.
This is Nicki Minaj. She's someone the young people dig. Despite that, she sings lots of songs about things from the past. Like Princess Diana, Transformers baddy Megatron and the 1997 big snake movie Anaconda. She also likes to dress as Bugs Bunny. Isn't that sweet?
Here are ten songs that have nothing to do with Princess Diana, Transformers baddy Megatron or the 1997 big snake movie Anaconda... just as I suspect Nicki's songs have very little to do with those things. But what are the songs about... and who sings them?
10. Classical superhero meets Alex The Frozen Chimp in top gear.
9. Top of the Corner Shops.
8. Flowery copper.
7. Badgers paint their homes for camouflage.
6. The kids were just crass... with God-given ass.
This is the kind of question that fills me with joy, because if Sam cares what a song is about, he's clearly engaging with it. In the case of Moon Shadow though... I really don't have an answer. I have an idea... but it's not one that Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam or Steven Demetre Georgiou appears to agree with. Neither is it an interpretation I see echoed by online "experts". Does this mean I'm wrong?
Any number of poets, writers and lyricists will tell you that when they let their words out into the wild, it's not up to them to enforce an interpretation on the audience. Some writers actively refuse to discuss the "message" behind their stories, preferring to allow the individual reader or listener to infer their own meanings. Sylvia Plath wrote...
"Once a poem is made available to the public, the right of interpretation belongs to the reader..."
Nick Cave agrees, saying that when he writes songs, he wants his listeners to come to their own conclusions. He refuses to "take away their power by attaching my own meaning to them".
This is the power of art - we add our own connotations, beliefs, prejudices, life experiences and emotions when we consume it. As I often tell my students: in English, there are no right answers. You just need to be able to explain your own interpretation so that it makes sense to someone else. They might not agree with you, they just need to be able to see how you've arrived at your conclusions.
Moon Shadow, then, is not - for me, at least - "softly tailored folderol from Cat Stevens [which] shows his whimsical side". Nor does it persuade me to "See life as it is, right now, and [not] compare it to others' lives, or other times in your life." Neither am I convinced of any religious message behind the lyrics, despite Stevens' later conversion from Christianity to Islam. Although interestingly, when that conversion took place, Yusuf Islam stopped singing any of his old Cat Stevens songs... except this one, which he later claimed was his favourite.
In 2009, Cat Stevens tried to explain Moon Shadow to Chris Isaak...
"I was on a holiday in Spain. I was a kid from the West End – bright lights, et cetera. I never got to see the moon on its own in the dark, there were always streetlamps. So there I was on the edge of the water on a beautiful night with the moon glowing, and suddenly I looked down and saw my shadow. I thought that was so cool, I'd never seen it before."
Which all sounds very positive, doesn't it? Over on the tube of you, people agree. Some call it "the ultimate optimist song". "There's something about the imagery of total freedom and dancing under the moon," says an old 'hippie kid', "which appeals to my wild self." Another youtuber, who says the song got them through a very dark period, explains, "this song is like, 'No matter how dark it gets, it can always be worse... but there's always light".
If you want to consider alternative interpretations to songs, youtube is definitely the place to look. In the past week, quite a few American commenters have suggested Moon Shadow as "the official song of the 2024 solar eclipse". While someone else can be found reminiscing over the time it was used in an episode of Airwolf with Jan Michael Vincent. This was my favourite though...
"Now I know why Moonlight Shadow sounded better in my childhood. It was actually Moon Shadow!"
And let's not forget this quirky little reimagining: an animated fairy tale devised by Cat Stevens and narrated by Spike Milligan in which a boy and his cat attempt to rescue the moon when it falls out of the sky...
Faced with this overwhelming barrage of evidence that Moon Shadow is a sweet, life-affirming tune... am I the only one who finds it creepy? And by that, I mean creepy in a good way. Creepy in an excellent way!
Yes, I'm bein' followed by a moon shadow
Moon shadow, moon shadow
Leapin' and hoppin' on a moon shadow
Moon shadow, moon shadow
Have you ever seen the movie It Follows? To me, the Moon Shadow is like the monster from that film. Some kind of weird supernatural entity that's following Cat around, menacing him, threatening to rob him of his hands, his eyes, his legs and his mouth...
And if I ever lose my hands
Lose my plow, lose my land
Oh, if I ever lose my hands
Oh if, I won't have to work no more
And if I ever lose my eyes
If my colors all run dry
Yes, if I ever lose my eyes
Oh if, I won't have to cry no more
The interweb suggests all this graphic body horror is linked to the time Cat Stevens almost died from tuberculosis back in 1969. His recuperation led him to reconsider his spiritual side, and may well have spurred the fears voiced in this song.
And if I ever lose my legs
I won't moan, and I won't beg
Oh, if I ever lose my legs
Oh if, I won't have to walk no more
(Meanwhile, back on youtube, there's always some Debbie Downer ready to spoil the party...
"All I can think of is the videos I have watched from Palestinians. The boy with no arms, a missing leg (and a missing foot and ankle on the other side). Listening to this, the day after the opening of the trial in The Hague. That tragic genocide has ruined this song for me.")
And if I ever lose my mouth
All my teeth, north and south
Yes, if I ever lose my mouth
Oh if, I won't have to talk
It's great that Cat can remain so upbeat - defiant, even - while being pursued by this vicious phantom... but maybe that's because his motive isn't escape. Let's not forget, this Cat is armed and dangerous...
Oh yes. And here comes the Edgar Allen Poe twist... the Cat wants to get caught!
Did it take long to find me?
I asked the faithful light
Oh, did it take long to find me?
And are you gonna stay the night?
Hooohahahahahahahaaa. Imagine those lines delivered in Vincent Price tones and maybe you'll get where I'm coming from. It's worth noting that Cat amps up his own delivery here, adopting a much more in-your-face singing style than the alluringly amiable tone he uses for the rest of the song. For me, that's the bit that confirms all my theories. Suddenly the tables are turned and the hunter becomes the prey.
"This song is really weird, dad? What's it about?"
It's about monsters, son. Monsters that want to eat - your hands, your eyes, your legs, your mouth. And it's about how to catch them... and make them pay.
Engelbert Humperdinck vs. Muhammad Ali... who would your money be on? Well, in the Title Fight, Cassius Clay may well float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but Arnold George Dorsey has a Lesbian Seagull in his corner.
Lesbian Seagull was written by songwriter and gay rights activist Tom Wilson Weinberg in 1979 in response to a university study of long term monogamous lesbian behaviour in seagulls on Santa Barbara Island, USA. Engelbert's version later featured in the movie Beavis And Butt-Head Do America and was released as a double A side single with The Red Hot Chilli Peppers version of Love Rollercoaster.
"Beat that!" I hear you cry. I'll be Damned if I can't...
That was the Captain's 1984 b-side of There's More Snakes Than Ladders (as almost featured in this week's Saturday Snapshots). They should both have been hits, if you ask me.
Here's one that Ben suggested. He describes Alpha Male Tea Party as a Maths/Post Rock band. Make of that what you will. I'd be more impressed if they could afford a singer. Still, this one did make me think of George...
However, then I heard this... from gay country star Orville Peck - you know, the guy who wears a mask and loves rattling cages and challenging redneck prejudices. And guess what? He's only roped Willie Nelson to help chuck his latest brickbat... and it's a doozy. Willie, of course, has never been one to shy away from ruffling a few feathers... and at 90, I guess he's long past worrying about upsetting the more conservative members of his fanbase. (UPDATE: Ernie kindly informed me this is a cover version, previously done by Willie, but originally recorded by Ned Sublette back in 1981... when I'm guessing it would have been a lot more controversial.)
Orville Peck & Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other
By hook or by crook, Sam's football team, The Hawks, made it into the local cup final. They were very much the underdogs, and had been all season. It was easy to tell him to relax and enjoy it, that it was just another game, and it didn't matter if his team won or not. What an achievement it was getting to the final anyway! We were proud of him whatever the result. All these things were true, but they were far more true for us, his parents, than for Sam himself. At his age, you still believe that life is fair and that if you try your hardest, the underdogs will come out on top... just like in the movies. Winning is everything.
The opposition were a better team though, so the result was inevitable. They also had some particularly unpleasant supporters (mostly older brothers, I guess) who heckled Sam's team from the sidelines and made the final even harder. They were playing in a proper stadium too - well, there were stands on one side, so it was more like an actual stadium than anywhere they'd ever played before. Sam told me later that this in itself made the game tougher - he'd rather just be on a field in the middle of nowhere, like usual.
Regardless of all this, the Hawks did OK. They didn't win, but they had some good chances and kept the effort up right to the end. They played better football at times, but the goals just didn't come. Still, a 2-0 defeat wasn't the worst they've suffered this year, and we all felt they could hold their heads up high. (Look at me, writing about football: using the vernacular!)
Although initially sanguine in his defeat, Sam felt the disappointment later in the afternoon. He bounced back pretty quickly though. I admire his resilience... I hope the world doesn't beat that out of him. It's easy to say that losing in a situation like this is a better life lesson than winning... but that's no consolation for a ten year old.
Unbelievable... but true. There's more than one band called The Rolling Stones...
THE ROLLING STONES #1
Let's start in 1930, thirteen years before Mick 'n' Keef were even born. The original Rolling Stones were Jimmie Adams and Bud Jamison, a pair of singing comic vagabonds who toured the US in the early 30s.
THE ROLLING STONES #2
Next stop 1958. Well, 1955 to begin with, as these Rolling Stones originally started out as the backing band of one Lucky Hill from Mississippi. Three years later, they were backing one Andy Anderson (not to be confused with Neighbours love song warbler Angry Anderson). Presumably, Lucky Hill had retired by this point and was living off all the cash he'd made by, ahem, inventing rock 'n' roll...
THE ROLLING STONES #3
From the same Philadelphia-based record label that released a song by "The Beatles" in the mid-70s. Apparently these guys were originally called The Time Tones. According to the label, this was written by M. Jackoff, J. Lemmon and K. Richard, produced by Mickey Most, Andrew Loog Oldham and Philip Spector, and featured "Charlie Watts on toilet".
THE STONES #4
Not technically Rolling, but it takes some stones to name your band The Stones in 1982. These guys were from Dunedin in New Zealand though, so perhaps they'd never heard of Mick n Keef?
ROLLING STONES #5
Whereas these American punks were clearly just taking the piss in 1987... in more ways than one.
THE ROLLING STONES #6
From 2019, and a cassette only release called Who the Fuck is Mick Jagger? The Very Best of the Rolling Stones. By this point, all bets are off.
THE ROLLING STONES #7
Not chronologically the newest Rolling Stones, but I saved them for the end anyway... despite being unable to find any info about them on the interweb.
Which Rolling Stones gathered no moss... and which were like a complete unknown?
