And the race is on! Every Saturday morning, you line up on the starting grid and try to get pole position on the Snapshots racetrack. But who will identify the ten pop stars below in time - and who will take top place on the podium for working out what connects their songs?
(Hint: it has nothing to do with motor racing.)
On your marks, get set... go!
10. Any owl can get mixed up with a dying salesman.
9. How Freddie Mercury got his mail delivered.
8. Rogue traders.
7. Dispose of your oracle.
6. Jocko Jeans.
5. Madonna's only just begun to feel W.O.L.D.
4. Plane company I don't want to fly with.
3. Sounds like what happens when the king's daughter gets involved with some old punk.
2. Archer, Model, Soldier...
1. Bob, Buzz and Bowl + 97.
If your car broke down in the pit stop, the answers will help you across the finish line tomorrow morning.
As I recover from our whistle-stop tour of The North, taking in Carlisle, the Lake District and That Edinburgh (of which, more anon), I shall take a moment to point you towards a guest post I wrote for SWC's always excellent No Badger Required blog. This month's theme is all about music's greatest females. Those of you who have been serving a lengthy sentence in the Top Ten Dungeon will hardly find my selection a surprise... indeed, I may have even recycled some of my previous plaudits, because if you can't plagiarise yourself, then who can you plagiarise? Anyway, you can read my offering here. Then add NBR to your blog roll if you haven't done so already, because it's never less than hugely entertaining and enlightening.
But before you click on the link, take a few minutes to enjoy some more musical ladies, bang up to date this time. They're called The Last Dinner Party, and I look forward to hearing a lot more from them...
When I was a kid, I hated being dragged into C&A. I wasn't interested in clothes (still aren't, to be honest), and they didn't even have a toy section. Boring! I'm not sure I ever shopped there as a grown up either, not because I've ever been fashionable, but just because Top Man or Next seemed like more obvious places to go if I absolutely had to buy new clothes that weren't just band T-shirts. I guess I missed my chance as C&A closed all its British stores by 2001, although it's still going strong in other parts of the world.
C&A was named after Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer, two Dutch brothers who started selling middle-aged clothing in the city of Sneek way back in 1841. Little could they suspect that many years later, their names would be immortalised in pop lyrics. How many songs make reference to C&A will remain a mystery, as both lyrical search engines and discogs refuse to filter by two initials and an ampersand... but here's a jolly little jingle written by Roger Greenaway (the songwriter responsible for "You've Got Your Troubles" and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)" (which actually sound remarkably similar when you listen to them back to back) and Lord David Dundas. So now we know where he got his jeans from!
Before we get to the song most of you will be expecting, here's Belle & Sebastian with another perfect slice of kitchen sink drama, glumly reflective of the times when most of the country bought their clothes from C&A...
As I say, there may well be other songs that name-drop C&A... but my usual sources failed me. Fortunately, we have this, a timely reminder from The Specials that the man in the street (or the Man at C&A) is powerless to stop politicians destroying the world if they so wish...
As a sequel to George's Rainbow Post yesterday, I decided to respond to Martin's Challenge and pick one song for each colour of the rainbow. Only one song!?! Impossible. So instead of picking the obvious tunes, I went looking for some lost gems...
RED
Eat were from Bath. They formed in 1986 and released their debut album, Sell Me A God, in 1989. Red Moon is taken from that, a record which reached #10 in the album chart... though its follow up, four years later, disappeared without a trace. Eat reformed in 2014 because that's the law now.
ORANGE
Romeo Void came out of San Francisco in 1979. They're full of New Wave goodness, and the vocal ramblings of Debora Iyall on this track make me wonder if Florence Shaw from Dry Cleaning is a fan.
YELLOW
This is probably Devendra Banhart's most well-known tune. Was it in an advert at some point? Probably. I prefer not to look that up.
GREEN
Liverpool 1982 welcomed Candy Opera onto the scene, with a similarly lush romanticism to Prefab Sprout. They stuck around until 1993, much unappreciated. And then came back in 2020 with a new album. Because that's the law now. This is one of their older tunes...
BLUE
The X-Certs were Bristolian punks who occasionally flirted with reggae flavourings between 1978 and 1981. I chose this because they're singing about "blue movies", which seem both innocent and antiquated in today's world of wall-to-wall internet pornography. Simpler times.
INDIGO
I have to admit that I struggled a little with indigo, particularly as Martin had already bagged the Peter Murphy track. Then I remembered my favourite Frank Sinatra album, In The Wee Small Hours, and this timeless Duke Ellington tune...
VIOLET
Levon Helm was the drummer in The Band. You probably know that already. He also released some very fine solo records. This comes from his 1980 album American Son, and it's really quite lovely.
Sam and I are away on our annual Boy's Getaway this week. In fact, we should be enjoying our All You Can Eat Breakfast as this post goes live, prior to a two hour drive up to That Edinburgh for a whistle-stop tour of the obvious touristy bits, minus any charity shops... because, what would be the point?
Luckily, George offered to step in with a Namesakes post for you all to argue about in my absence... thank you, George. The stage is all yours...
RAINBOW #1
Sitting amongst the many many albums that never get played is one I bought on its release in 1978. Not played for over 40 years, but I do seem to remember the last track on side 2 being a slow dirge-like song that is a most un-heavy metal 7 minute bore-fest called Rainbow Eyes. The album is Long Live Rock ´n´ Roll, by Rainbow. With Ronnie James Dio on vocal. I could say “when they were good” but I won’t. For some reason the bottom left of the cover has a small, 1cm, square cut out of it, which could have been me although I’ve no idea why I did it (I did the same thing with Moonflower). Here’s the best song on the album, one that I very much enjoyed then and still do now! It’s a live version, and apart from admiring the effortless guitar-playing of Mr Blackmore, I was also very much taken with that top he was sporting. Although it would look ridiculous on me...
(If you liked that, and why wouldn’t you, the Sons Of Apollo do a belting version.)
Are there any other Rainbows? Well, yes of course. Are they as good as the Ronnie James Dio “Rainbow”? Judge for yourselves...
RAINBOW #2
First of two Nordic Rainbows, the Danish one, who shot to fame in 1978, made one belting album, then quit. Well, they played many concerts in Denmark, made one album, then called it a day. One website said they were a partyband that played their own music plus covers of Toto, Earth Wind & Fire and many more. They had to change their name because Mr Blackmore felt threatened that his Rainbow would lose out in popularity stakes to Denmark’s finest.
RAINBOW #3
Good call, Ritchie. Next, Norway’s Rainbow, from Sarpsborg. They’ve been releasing albums sporadically since 1977 yet Wikipedia has the gall to omit them from the “musical artists and bands” section of their Sarpsborg page! One of their songs is Bye Bye Baby Goodbye... but you can sob with relief into your hankies because (a) it’s not THAT song, and (b) I’m not posting it here. Instead, you have this soft rock-pop tune for your listening ears...
That has more of a Toto influence than the Danish band. And what better to follow something from Denmark and Norway than this from Sweden...
Now for an allegedly Hi NRG Rainbow, from Canada, written by Allan Coelho (Allan Rabbit to those familiar with Portuguese, and not be confused with former Portuguese PM Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho, or Peter Rabbit). One single from them. That was it.
RAINBOW #5
This 1960s psychedelic pop band released one album in 1969 before calling it a day.
Not bad, but it’s no Gates Of Babylon.
RAINBOW #6
At least one reader will be delighted to learn that’s there’s a reggae Rainbow, from Rockfort, East Kingston (Jamaica, not outer London).
RAINBOW #7
Finally, and I know CC will like this, a jazz Rainbow (featuring Will Boulware), from their one album, Crystal Green...
A plethora of Rainbows, seven in total (and how pleasing is that, one for every colour).
I'm especially grateful to George for writing this post, because Rainbow was on my long-list for this feature, so he's saved me the agony!
