I've not done one of these for a while, mainly because I've been struggling to think of any more songs I hated back when I was a kid but don't mind now. I can think of plenty I hated then and still hate now - I'd Rather Jack (Than Fleetwood Mac) by The Reynolds Girls always comes to mind, even though I really should have got over that by now. I mean, the Mac obviously had the last laugh on that one, didn't they? I'm sure there are other contenders I haven't thought of yet, and I'll get to those when I think of them, but here's one I couldn't possibly hate now as much as when it came out... I may even have developed a soft spot for it over the years.
5. Vanilla Ice - Ice, Ice Baby
All right, stop: collaborate and listen! My main reason for hating Ice, Ice Baby is plain to hear. The sample. Under Pressure. Queen AND Bowie. I mean, that's friggin' sacred, man! (Or it was when I was 18.) You don't mess with Queen AND Bowie! Even worse, old Robert Van Winkle (you can't make this stuff up) didn't even pay them for the sample at first and even tried to claim it WASN'T a sample and that he'd added an extra note (he didn't) which changed the bassline (it didn't) enough to avoid plagiarism (it didn't). To be fair, he later changed his mind on that, claimed his original quote was a joke, and paid up. (I suspect Queen AND David Bowie's lawyers might have had something to do with that.)
For a few precious weeks towards the end of 1990, nothing could stop Vanilla Ice. During that time, I hated this record. It put me off rap music (which I'd been tentatively dipping my toe into through the likes of Run DMC and the Beastie Boys) for a long time. Ironically, it'd take another white rapper - Eminem - to finally lure me back in, but that was almost a decade later.
Ice, Ice Baby was such a big, big hit that RVW wasn't ever going to be able to match it. As time went by, it became seen as a novelty record, leading the cool kids to turn against it in droves. In just over a decade, it went from being the first hip hop single to top the mainstream chart in America (and much of the rest of the world) to being voted fifth in a countdown of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped hating it... and it started making me smile. I'm not going to claim it's a great record: it's not. But it's stood the test of time better than a lot of music from 1990. And when Robert's big ice-skating comeback show - Vanilla Ice On Ice (I'm still not making it up) - was cancelled last year due to poor ticket sales, I felt genuinely bad for him. I guess he must have killed my brain like a poisonous mushroom...
Saw my old gigging mate Dave at the weekend, for the first time in about 18 months. Yes, we went to a gig. Probably my only one for this year. More on that soon. Anyway, he was telling me how he's taken the plunge and booked a ticket for Tom Petty's only UK date this year: Hyde Park in July. With Stevie Nicks in support. (What are the chances they'll do Stop Dragging My Heart Around?) I'm jealous, because Petty is pretty much top of my wishlist for artists I still haven't seen, but there's no way I could get to that gig. Even if I could afford it, I'm on holiday that week.
Maybe next tour, Tom, you won't just do one UK gig...
After the video, there's a silly little story I wrote a long, long time ago based on one of Tom's biggest hits...
1. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Learning To Fly
Learning
To Fly
Jonathan started flying to work the
day after the M62 pile-up. Two lorries, five vans and fourteen cars, three of
which were indisputably Audis. He didn’t get home ‘til after nine. Missed
Property Ladder with Sarah Beeney, which Jess had asked him to video because
they were doing Sheffield, so he caught hell from his girlfriend on top of
everything else.
He was sick of
it. The delays. The queues. The road rage. The utter lack of… civility. The
vanity plates with their 4’s that were supposed to be A’s and 7’s straightened
into T’s. The off-white vans with ‘I wish my wife was as dirty as this’ and
‘She is, mate’ finger-written on the back. The way that whenever you left a
decent stopping distance on the motorway, some arsehole always pulled into it.
The taxi drivers. The skip wagon drivers. The motorcyclists. And, yeah, the
Audi drivers. Eight years he’d been doing this journey now, to and from a job
that wasn’t worth half as much effort, and he couldn’t take it anymore. So the
next day, he left his car at home and flew. It took him just over quarter of an
hour, from Huddersfield to Leeds, as the crow flies. After that, he was kicking
himself – why hadn’t he ever thought of this before?
He
tried to calculate his average speed by putting a ruler on his Big AA Road
Atlas of Britain (pages 64 & 65 – rather annoyingly, his exact destination
lay smack in the centre binding), but got pissed off because he couldn’t figure
out the simple mental arithmetic that’d allow him to work out miles per hour. Throwing
the Atlas across the living room, he knocked over the Aloe Vera plant on the
windowsill, spilling soil down the back of the radiator. Genius! Similarly, he
struggled to estimate the average height of his flight-path – high enough to be
mistaken for a bird from the ground, he reckoned, but not so high he was in any
danger of headlonging the jumbos circling for Manchester Airport. He half
expected to be spotted lifting off, exiting every morning through the dormer
window in the attic (riddled though it was with bastard woodworm) but he soon
gave up worrying. People round here, they kept their eyes to the ground. Nobody
looked up, not in this street. As for his landing, he touched down as a rule on
the multi-storey carpark across from work. It rarely got so busy that anyone
was parking on the top floor before nine.
Bad
weather could be a problem – but it had been when he was driving too. He didn’t
get any wetter than if he were riding a bike to work, and he carried dry office
clothes in his backpack, arriving in plenty of time to change in the Gents,
even after that glorious extra half hour in bed. The rain didn’t bother him so
much – OK, it bothered him shitloads, but he kept trying to tell himself it was
invigorating. He thought about those crazy octogenarian Norwegians he’d seen in
that documentary on Channel 5, starting each day with a naked dip in the icy
fjord. They said it was good for you!
Low cloud was a
pain though – not only was it like flying through a sauna (except one where the
steam was freezing), but sometimes he ended up heading in the wrong direction
entirely. One time he was halfway to Burnley, and only a near-collision with
the Stoodley Pike monument set him right. Having broken a bone in his toe
kicking the top of the monument in one hundred feet high dudgeon, he couldn’t
put weight on that foot for a month, and really had to watch his landings.
After
a while, he started to take it for granted. Discovering he could fly had been
an incredible moment (tapered by the irritating idea that if it’d always been
possible, only he’d just never tried it before… he’d wasted so many unnecessary
years walking, driving, and catching the bus), but that was as far as it went,
and soon Jonathan wanted more. He tried out a few other incredible capabilities
– breathing underwater, shooting laser-beams from his eyes, sending horny
messages to Jess via telepathy – but nothing else took. It was the lack of
physical strength that niggled him most, and not just because he should have
been able to boot the top off that fucking monument… but because Jess wanted a
lift.
“Go
on then, Storkman – take me for a fly!”
But
he couldn’t get off the ground with Jess in his arms, couldn’t even feel the
boost from the soles of his feet.
“You
saying I’m too heavy?”
“No…
not at all. I couldn’t lift a skinny lass either…”
So
there was another argument. She wanted him to fly her to Paris. But even if he
had been able to lift her, he didn’t think he could fly that far in one journey.
He’d had to stop and rest for an hour in Kettering on his way to see Eric
Clapton at Alexandra Palace (saved fifty quid on the train fare though!).
What’d happen if he ran out of propulsion halfway across the Channel? Not that
it really mattered, he had very little desire to go to Paris without Jess
anyway (actually, he had very little desire to go with her, other than
to stop her moaning about all the blasted romance – and was that any reason to
do anything?) Anyway, after that, the flying really became an issue between
them.
“Maybe
if you worked out – developed some kind of upper body strength – the stork
could become an eagle…”
But
he wasn’t going to join a gym for anybody. And when Jess bought him the
dumbbells from Argos, he lost it completely.
“If
you’re not happy with me physically, then sod off and find somebody else!”
So
she did. And two nights later, the police were at his door, with a warrantfor his arrest. His solicitor told him not to
worry; the CPS couldn’t even decide what to charge him with. Public nuisance?
Flying without a pilot’s license? Common assault was suggested, but no-one
could take that very seriously. There was absolutely no precedent.
“I
haven’t assaulted anyone!” Jonathan protested.
“They
could try and argue,” his solicitor explained, in a drab, windowless office
that really needed a good dusting, “that you’re putting anyone who witnesses
you in the act of… ahem, ‘flying’… in direct fear of imminent force or criminal
attack… though first the prosecution would have to demonstrate malicious intent
on your part, or a propensity for violence which…”
Jonathan
hoped nobody had seen him booting the top of the Stoodley Pike monument; or
kicking hell out of his neighbour’s dustbin that time it’d blown over, spilling
yoghurt pots and teabags (how many teabags did that tosspot get through in one
week anyway?) all over their shared back yard; or putting a brick through the
windscreen of the green Audi with the ever-shrieking car alarm that was always
parked on the end of their street, but didn’t seem to belong to any of his
neighbours; or knocking over the temporary traffic lights up Scapegoat Hill
that’d been stuck on red three nights running; or…
In
the end, he struck a deal. No more flying to work, and no charges would be
pressed. MI5 wouldn’t be informed and The Sun wouldn’t be given his home
address. Jonathan was resigned to the outcome; he’d always known it was too
good to last. But he couldn’t go back to queueing on the M62 every morning, so
he quit his job and went on the dole, supplementing his income while he waited
for the first benefits payment to come through with various activities that he
refused to feel any shame about. They’d driven him to it, after all, the
bird-burglary (as opposed, you see, to cat-). Well, if they had him down as a
bad guy anyway – why not?
He was cautious
now though, taking care only to pursue such activities on dry nights, with no
moon, so nobody would see him entering via the unlocked skylights, bedroom
windows, and twelfth floor flat balconies that led to his loot. Wet nights, he
stayed in and watched stolen DVDs.
As
for Jess, apart from the time she had to call out the chimney sweep to extract
the dead stork from her flue, she never heard from Jonathan again. No great
loss there. Her new bloke worked for Ryan Air, and flew her anywhere she
wanted.
There's a game I like to play whenever I listen to an Eagles song: I try to guess who's doing lead vocals. Henley or Frey? I'm aware that occasionally it might be Joe Walsh, but rarely do I expect it to be Randy Meisner.
Mesiner came to the Eagles from the band that paved the way for them, Poco. He quit that band in the late 60s before their first album was released and was replaced on the album cover by a dog. He was a founding member of the Eagles along with Henley, Frey and Bernie Leadon, and co-wrote songs for each of their first five albums, most notably the one below on which he also sang lead vocals (the first Eagles hit not to feature Henley or Frey on lead).
Randy was described by other members of the band as a sweet, shy guy who didn't like being in the spotlight and the degree of fame the Eagles achieved in the mid-70s was too much for him... hell, when you read the stories, it must have been too much for any of them. He was replaced by the bloke who replaced him in Poco: Timothy B. Schmidt.
At some point in my teens, I made the switch from Radio 2 to Radio 1. Perhaps it happened when Terry Wogan left radio for his TV chatshow... which was never the ideal medium for him, though I watched it regularly from the age of 10. You did back then. 7 - 9pm, you watched whatever your parents were watching. Wogan. Corrie. Dallas. Blankety Blank. The Two Ronnies. They say kids these days watch too much TV, but we watched a hell of a lot of it when I was growing up. Yet I still found time to read - lots of books and comics. And play computer games. Atari. Spectrum 48K. And play out too. Maybe there really was more time back then. We managed to cram so much in...
Anyway, Radio 1, when I started listening to it... I couldn't tell you who was on the Breakfast Show, because I never listened to that. But I do remember Simon 'Our Tune' Bates, 'Ooh' Gary Davis and his Bit In The Middle, Janis Long (particularly her Friday Night Selectadisc show, which I've mentioned here before) and Steve Wright.
I loved Steve Wright when I was a kid. Mr. Angry from Purley. Sid The Manager. Gervais The Hairdresser. (Different times.) The Perv. Dave Doubledecks. God, I loved Steve Wright In The Afternoon. I used to tape it while I was at school so I could listen to it when I got home. More than anything else, that was the show that made me want to be on the radio.
I can't listen to Steve Wright today. Of all the current Radio 2 DJs, I find his self-aggrandising "Big Show" the most switch-offable. Even Evans, who I've loathed since the days of TFI Fridays... I can even listen to him, in small doses, without wanting to chuck the radio out of the window. But Steve Wright...
Has Steve Wright changed or have I changed? I think a lot of both, actually. His current show isn't the one I grew up with. Arguably that "zoo format" became old hat and needed to be retired. I think there's still potential in it, but not for someone as smug as Wrighty. Nowadays, the DJs I gravitate towards are the ones who love their music and let that show. Music has always seemed like an unnecessary interruption for Steve Wright... and let's not even get started on Panic again. (I wonder if Steve Wright was one of the reasons I was so against The Smiths back then? He obviously hated them, and like all impressionable teenagers, I went along with the opinions of my heroes.)
Back then, I used to dream about being part of Steve Wright's "Posse". We'll come
back to that another time, because there's a rather embarrassing story
connected to it.
8. The Sports - Who Listens To The Radio?
I don't know where I came across this song. Somewhere on the blogosphere. Possibly The Dude... or maybe Brian. It strikes me as the kind of thing Brian would dig. I love it, anyway, and really want to track down more by the band, Aussie New Wavers from the late 70s and early 80s. Very reminiscent of early Elvis Costello, who obvious has a few radio songs of his own which we'll get to eventually.
The best tribute I've read to Sir Roger Moore came from The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who concluded: "The Connery Bond was feared and admired... but the Roger Moore Bond was loved."
Roger Moore was the Bond of my childhood, and he will always be my Bond. Yes, those films might seem cheesy and corny now, they certainly don't have the grit of Connery, but they have a lot more warmth. And let's face it: Bond is essentially a ludicrous character. He works if you play him with a raised eyebrow (and no one had better eyebrows than Roger Moore), but take him too seriously and he becomes an unpleasantly violent, misogynist killer with little regard for the lives of innocents... which pretty much sums up the last two Daniel Craig films for me.
Sir Roger's first starring role on TV was in a BBC children's series based on Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Way before my time, but probably not before Jeff Lynne's...
Bank job in the city Robin Hood and William Tell And Ivanhoe and Lancelot They don't envy me...
Apparently, Roger felt "a complete Charlie riding around in all that armour and damned stupid plumed helmet".
I know lots of people can't do with Robbie's cheeky chappie routine, or his humongous ego... but I find both quite endearing... in small doses... because I really don't think he takes himself at all seriously. Just like Sir Roger...
Y'all know who I am I'm still the boy next door That's if you're Lord Litchfield and Roger Moore...
I tried to avoid songs that just reference James Bond for this chart: there are loads of them and I wanted my tribute to be more about Roger than his most famous role. However, The Toy Dolls do mention Roger (and Sean) in this ridiculous cartoon punk song, so...
Roger wasn't just Bond. Here's Paul Draper name-dropping the role that made him famous... The Saint.
You've got more halos than Simon Templar You've said more Betty's than Frankie Spencer Your gun is bigger than Captain Scarlet's Your face is covered in cheap mascara
As if Robbie Williams wasn't bad enough, let's further irk the musos with a pure slice of noughties piano pop. In my defence, Scouting For Girls may be annoyingly catchy, but they don't really sound like anything else that's been successful in the 21st Century. In fact, they remind me of Gerard Kenny...
Since I was a boy I wanted to be like Roger Moore A girl in every port, and gadgets up my sleeve
In which Gaz Coombes gets trapped in a cloud with an eclectic selection of heroes, including Peter Cooke, Oscar Wilde, Marvin Gay, Joan Of Arc, David Banner... and good old Rog.
When asked why he thought Amy had included him in the lyrics of her hit single, Roger quipped that she must have wanted a word that rhymed with 'door'... or couldn't think of one that rhymed with 'Connery'.
By the time I'm out the door, You tear men down like Roger Moore...
Originally released in 1986 (yes, Pulp were around back then: this was just before their second album), just after my Bond hung up his Walther PPK for good. Roger Moore apparently hated guns and was often quoted, post-Bond, saying how he hated the way the franchise glamorised "men with guns". Maybe that's why he played up the comedic elements of the character. And I'm sure that's why he appealed to Jarvis, who always likes a good Roger...
I know a woman with a picture of Roger Moore In a short towel and dressing-gown pinned to her bedroom wall She married a man who works on a building site Now they make love beneath Roger every Friday night... oh!
1. Wings - Live & Let Die / Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better
The two best Bond themes of the Moore era, from the band The Beatles could have been and the lady who found clouds in her coffee...
Now put your clothes on and I’ll buy you an ice cream.
