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!

The List #5: Fake Tans & Styrofoam

More random stuff that I've been listening to and feel I ought to write about...

Bilk are from Chelmsford. The lead singer's nasal Essex accent remind me of Jonny Itch from The King Blues, if you remember them. They have a similarly in-your-face 21st century punk style, but they're not as political. They mostly just sing about girls, having fights, and taking the wrong drugs. Oh, and a little bit of social commentary...

I spend too much time, getting too deep
I'm laying in this single bed, but I can't sleep
There must be more to life than tinder swipes
And posting shit on Instagram for meaningless likes
Where I'm from there's teen mum's sipping booze
Whilst the babies takes twos from her B&H Blues
The boys are in gangs
The girls push prams
To spend all their money on some shitty fake tans

Since he produced the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? in the year 2000, T-Bone Burnett has become a legend of the Americana scene. He also put Robert Plant together with Alyson Krauss, and going further back in time was a huge factor in the success of Counting Crows, Los Lobos and Gillian Welch. 

Before all that though, he played played drums on this...

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralysed

...don't ask...

...and he played guitar on Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. After that, in 1976, he joined with two other stragglers from that tour to form The Alpha Band. They released three albums which iffypedia tells me were "particularly notable for their intelligent cultural critique". Which might be why I've getting into their songs, although I've no idea what this one is about...

I'm not sure whether they still publish the Encyclopaedia Britannica, or whether it's just been replaced by the aforementioned iffy website, but if they do, and you manage to snag yourself a copy, I imagine you'll find a picture of New Yorker Joanna Sternberg under the entry for either "lo-fi" or "bedroom recording studio"... 

The Tyla Gang were on Stiff Records in the 1970s, which is how I came across them on a Stiff compilation I've been working my way through. Lead singer & songwriter Sean Tyla was also the driving force behind Ducks Deluxe. Here's their song about Styrofoam, which I wasn't surprised to discover was the only song about Styrofoam in my collection, although I do have an album by these guys...

The Styrofoam Winos - Stuck In A Museum

I don't know why, but I was compelled to investigate if anybody else had ever written a song about this particular brand of closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam, and I was rather horrified to discover this...

Daniel Powter - Styrofoam

...at which point I went back to the Tyla Gang for succour.

Finally for today, Richard Hawley has a new record out. He's one of those artists whose work I'll buy without having to listen to it first, because he's never let me down. Nothing's changed there...