Imagine you're a new parent, dreaming that your precious little cherubs might one day grow up to form their own band... and maybe even achieve the ultimate musical accolade of being featured on Namesakes. If so, don't let your offspring call their combo The Offspring, because they'll have missed their big chance...
OFFSPRING #1
We start today in southern England in the glorious year of 1972. This Offspring appear to have released only one record... though it did get them an appearance on LWT. Mike Brayn would go on to write disco tunes about UFOs for Sylvia Love. The honour of getting your song on a Bob Stanley compilation would have to wait for another 50 years or so...
New Wave snyth-pop group from 1982 featuring Bo Diddley's daughter, Tammi McDaniel, on vocals. Or so discogs would like us to believe. Further investigation appears to reveal that guitarist Scott Deverin Smith was also a Diddley collaborator, and that Tammi's sister, Terri Lynn McDaniel-Bridge, was also in the band. If that's not enough, Bo gets a songwriting credit on the B-side under his real name Ellas McDaniel. I can't find that track online, but it's possible it's a snythy remake of this.
Definitive Californian pop-punks who made it very big towards the end of the last century by mocking middle class white kids who talk like black inner city rappers. With nine UK Top 40 hits under their belt (including a Number One), they're not to be sneered at. (Not that that will stop George.)
Now then, Job Seekers... I bet you're wondering why Pauline isn't holding a camera?
Don't question, Pauline, your workshy layabouts! Lounging around on a Sunday morning when you should be out looking for WORK! Remember what Yosser Hughes said: "Gizza Job!" Now get out there...
We lost Michael Parkinson while I was away on holiday, but I couldn't find a single song that mentioned him... and I wanted to spare you all Parky's favourite, Jamie Cullum. Oh, very well then, in his honour... here's my favourite Jamie Cullum song, the one where he admits to being a Morrissey fan...
However, the day I heard about Gary's passing, news also reached me about the death of a personal favourite: the legendary Jimmy Buffett. You may well roll your eyes incredulously, but I'll never tire of this tune...
Having dipped more than a toe into his back catalogue over the years, I could name you many more great Jimmy Buffett tunes, but none are quite as good as Margaritaville, a song that gave birth to an entire industry of restaurants, hotels, casinos and even retirement homes. For a man whose music championed an idyllic beach bum lifestyle, he certainly knew how to make money. And he made quite an impression on the Celebrity Jukebox too...
When I heard of the Jimmy's passing though, one song immediately sprang to my mind. It's recorded live (or made to sound that way) and features a perfectly timed guest appearance by the great man himself. It also asks that very important question, "What would Jimmy Buffett do?"
(And it's not the only song to do that, as Keith Robinette will tell you.)
So let's raise a glass to Jimmy, for whom heaven must surely be Margaritaville. And if you think it's too early in the day, just remember: It's Five O'Clock Somewhere...
Louise and I binge-watched the first series of Yellowjackets over the past week. It involves a girls' football team (or "soccer" team, as this is the US) that crash-lands in a remote area of the Canadian mountains in the mid-90s and remain stranded there for almost two years. The show also catches up with four of the survivors in the present day, with a stand out performance from Melanie Lynskey, and a savage double act of Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci that regularly had me laughing. Out loud. Although I shouldn't need to add those last two words, since laughter is generally out and loud. It's rare we internalise laughter and if it's quiet then it's not really laughter, is it? It's a snigger, at best. But I digress...
Yellowjackets mixes horror, suspense and black comedy to great effect. It's Lost with cannibalism, and more of a sense of humour. The soundtrack is pretty cool too, featuring a lot of carefully selected 90s hits, including welcome returns for Belly, Liz Phair and The Offspring. (I was also surprised how many of the more poppier tunes I felt an affectionate twinge of nostalgia for... step forward, Montell Jordan.) It's not all 90s all the time either: occasionally the soundtrack ventures further back, with Kim Wilde's Cambodia getting a rare spin, alongside... well, this...
Although I have a small amount of time for early Ultravox, I'd long since dismissed their biggest hit as over-played radio twaddle. However, it cropped up prominently in two separate episodes of Yellowjackets, and hearing it again after all this time sent a fair few shivers down my spine. Suddenly, the gated reverb sounds menacing, Midge Ure's desperate vocals truly tragic, and the elliptical lyrics bordering on meaningful. Proof positive that a new context can make you reconsider any song... Midge's moustache, on the other hand, still looks like something the cat could lick off with a spot of well-placed cream... and I somehow doubt the ladies from Yellowjackets would stop there.
I always imagined it was BBC interns in the Blobby suit that Edmonds played some weird fetish game with by making them wear the suit...
Who was the death?
Jim Steinman.
The Footloose guy? Wasn't that the other day?
I only saw it today. He didn't write Footloose. That was Kenny Loggins. He did write Holding Out For A Hero, but that's a lesser work. He also wrote all the good Meat Loaf songs, plus Total Eclipse of the Heart and some stuff that Celine Dion murdered, but was done far better by others.
Chuck Berry + Phil Spector + Springsteen + Wagner + a shameless sense of melodrama and hyperbole = Jim Steinman.
Wagner as in...?
Or Wagner as in...?
Richard.
Seems like it could be a little of both, actually.
I think that's a fair point.
Did I ever tell you about how one of my old best mate's girlfriend's parents were Rod Stewart and Tina Turner tribute acts? Big ones.
They had a house in Penistone. One of the massive ones on the river.
We used to stay over a lot. They were really nice and loved hosting us all the time. They had a recording studio in their garden where they, and other tribute acts would record.
One of the most surreal moments in my life is waking up, hungover, walking into their kitchen and seeing Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan and Meatloaf smoking weed.
Sounds like that Pulp video...
I don't think I've ever seen the video. I thought it was the video to Disney Time. No idea why.
And now I remember that Disney Time is on Cocker's solo album.
I'd forgotten that track completely.
Some forgettable tunes on that album. Especially when it starts with the swagger of Don't Let Him Waste Your Time. It definitely trails off.
Maybe. I love that final Pulp album though.
It's the one I've listened to the least. Listening priority in order: This Is Hardcore, His N Hers, Different Class, PULP. Does anybody even count the first two?
By Pulp do you mean Intro?
There were 4 albums before Intro / HnH. All contain interesting material, but not up to later standards.
Fairgroundis a terrible song and that's all I can think about with their old stuff.
For me, We Love Life is the perfect coda to their career. I love TIH (favourite album of 90s) but I prefer that they went out on a happy note.
Scott Walker too. Pop sensibilities SW, not mad old hermit making unlistenable twaddle SW. Quite an achievement.
First text from the boss this morning came through at 6.20.
Tell her to leave you alone. That is not just not on, it's absolutely pathetic.
I have.
Send her an envelope full of flour. Make her think it's ricin or anthrax.
She'd only ring me up and ask her what I thought she should do with it.
Well, this week's Taskmaster should hopefully cheer you up. A very funny one.
One word.
Casserole.
I await the vague upward curl at the edge of my mouth.
In reply, Ben sends the following video...
I think that's the least hip song you've ever sent me. I respect that.
No. That would be this one...
I found this record in a shop years ago. And I'm still not positive that Tennille is not actually attracted to muskrats.
Nah. Captain & Tennille are acceptable kitsch.
That song should never be acceptable. And The Cap is a prick.
*Was* a prick
I didn't realise you knew him.
We used to go to the same milk bar.
I've never been able to hear Secret Smile in the same way since someone told me it was a metaphor for a vagina.
That's uncomfortable.
Maybe you're mixing it up with the film, Teeth?
Was that the Barry Gibb biopic?
That's what I thought I was settling down for...
That film would have been even scarier if her nether regions had Barry Gibb's face. And maybe a big medallion and huge white collars.
That needs to be optioned as soon as possible.
My Saturday night treat this week is my Covid jab.
Well, you're lucky. I'm still here without one.
Just got down to the under 50s. But I thought you might have been fast tracked because of your history.
Nah. That'd involve competence at a national level.
Maybe they have you down as an insurgent. You'll be last on the list, after Putin's undercover agents.
On a more positive side of all that, last year this week I was sat gasping for breath walking up stairs. Today I ran 10k for the first time in my life.
Marathon next?
I think I'm going to try for a half marathon next year. Maybe Manchester, which is flat compared to Sheffield.
Rol replies with the following image... which Ben chooses to ignore.
I wish I could grow a 'tache like that man in the background.
I have a weird obsession with middle age men and moustaches.
My hair is too blonde otherwise I would definitely just have a 'tache.
Has to be like an 80s businessman 'tache, though.
When I was a child, I used to watch the Thin Blue Line. I was too young to understand it but it had Mr Bean and I liked the moustache man.
That's a real generation gap thing. For my generation, Mr Bean was a betrayal of Blackadder, and we never forgave Atkinson.
My early years were spent watching the Three Stooges, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes etc, so Mr Bean was right up my alley. As was Baldy Man.
I had to Google Baldy Man. Never knew he had a TV show. I only remember the Hamlet ad.
I don't remember much of it, just that I used to find it hilarious.
I miss the Hamlet ads. When I was a little, my dad smoked cigars. I loved the smell. Eventually he graduated onto pipes. Then one day, in my late teens, the doctor told him: they're killing you. So he quit. Cold Turkey.
That's admirable.
I think I'm too young to remember smoking ads.
I feel like I've seen them but not sure how much of that is due to seeing them on shows later.
I remember the billboard ads for Lambert and Butler.
TV was pretty much all smoking ads and booze ads when I was a kid. And scary ads warning us all not to die or get murdered.
And only one channel could show ads.
Indeed.
Have you seen The Offspring's Covid inspired song? It defies belief.
I last listened to Americana.
I know the singer got his PhD in infectious disease over the past few years though.
That probably explains the covid germs flying around in the video.
Why would anyone want a PhD in infectious diseases?
The music I hear more often than anything else at the moment is nursery rhymes. Sam is particularly fond of The Grand Old Duke of York (popular gay icon - after all, he had 10,000 men), The Muffin Man (do you know him?) and Pop! Goes The Weasel (as close as Sam gets to pop music right now). Because my head is full of little else - I even wake up in the night with them drilling their way into my dreams - here are ten songs inspired to some degree or other by traditional nursery rhymes of yore...
(Special mention, for those of you who remember the 80s, to Cock Robin... who sound better than I remembered, despite their unfortunate name.)
And this is why I thank the pop music gods I was born when I was. Because, yes, today's teenagers may pride themselves on their love of the "classics" from the 60s, 70s or 80s... but how many of them will ever even hear this choice cut from Ray Parker Jr.'s original band? You could trawl youtube for decades and never stumble across this gem: cheesy 70s soul at its finest.
OK, so the old English nursery rhyme "Boys and girls come out to play" probably wasn't much of an influence on The Offspring. Sue me; I wanted to hear this again.
Stretching the theme a little, though this is the only song I can think of to mention Nursery Rhymes in the title. One of Terry Hall's less successful recording ensembles, yet just as wonderful as anything else he's ever lent his vocal talents to. Ha, happier times, ba, ba, better days.
I'd be prepared to hear an argument for this being at Number One, considering it not only involves the titular pepper-picker but also Jack 'n' Jill, Jack B. Nimble, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs and many other childhood favourites. They even throw in a reference to Weebles: "the turntables might wobble, but they don't fall down".
I wasn't familiar with the nursery rhyme "A-tisket, A-tasket, A green and yellow basket" as a child. I only discovered it through the epic, melancholic melodrama of the Shangri-Las, a band with a truly unique sound. If you're only familiar with Leader of the Pack, give this a spin... I doubt you'll ever have heard anything walk the tightrope between aching beauty and high camp hysteria quite so bewitchingly.
1. The Bluetones - Solomon Bites The Worm
One of the Bluetones' best, wherein a mightily chunky guitar riff supports a playful retelling of the story of Solomon Grundy, bundled up with a joyful "grab life while you can" message because "you've only got 7 days". Which only goes to demonstrate that Mark Morris and chums were always a far more interesting Britpop prospect than the Blunder Brothers of Oasis. (BTW, Britpop is 20 years old this year. What does that make us?)
So, those were the nursery rhymes Sam can investigate when he's a little older... and I managed to avoid all mention of Mary Had A Little Lamb by Wings.You owe me for that.
If I didn't like this song anyway (come on - it's Cosmo!), I'd be won over by the video which begins with a long debate between Cosmo and his mate about Star Wars, Star Trek and The Hulk.
No longer running at midnight, Kevin Rowland returned earlier this year with his long-awaited comeback album... only 27 years after the last one. And damn it if it wasn't a stone cold classic.
1. Billy Joel - She's Got A Way
Back in the early 70s, fame seemed a distant dream for the young, ex-boxer Billy Joel. When he finally managed to land a record deal, the producer mastered the recordings at the wrong speed. John Peel would have been proud. Years later, that ill-fated debut album, Cold Spring Harbour, was re-released at the correct speed... and revealed some truly gorgeous songs. This is one of the best.
As I've said before, and I'll say again: if you don't like Billy Joel... you don't like music.
They're all the thing's she got. But which one gets you going?
