Phones

Funny thing the phone. I seem to have a completely different approach to phone calls than most of the people i know in that - i don't really want to get them. When i was growing up in a red brick terrace in the Midlands we didn't have a phone, the box at the end of the road was used for the rare phone calls we had to make (our friends and relations didn't have a phone either and most of them lived within walking distance). So you popped in.
There was one house in the street who had a telephone and that was the number we gave people for emergencies and they would come and get you. They didn't seem to mind the burden of this and were generally first in the know of any gossip or tragedy in the area. The trouble was a visit from the phone owners meant a fraught walk down the terrace because calls were always important - like the hatch, match or dispatch column in the local paper it could mean wedding bells, pregnancy or death so my Mum or Dad's heart would have been in their mouth when making this short trek.
I seem to not be able to shake this attitude so i have a cheap mobile that i rarely use (twenty quid credit lasts months) and i keep phone dealings from my land line short and blunt. Nearly everyone else i know has embraced the mobile as a social and entertainment tool filling their iPhone with apps that sound like a dog farting which they will only ever open once and then forget about.
It's not that I'm anti social but i prefer the face to face debating arena of the pub or workplace, however, for some reason, i like e-mails and texts probably because there's no human contact and I'm turning into a Dalek!

Kursaals

Quandary rhymed with laundry, superb!

Nick Lowe

Skeet Surfin' from Top Secret

The opening from the film Top Secret and a perfect surf parody.

The Standells Dirty Water

Love this song and the fact that this clip contains some of the most lack-lustre miming you're ever likely to see, although it must be almost impossible to lip synch the spoken bits. Classic nuggets era rock though.

The Banned - Little Girl (Live!)

I had this Nuggets-a-like cover version on vinyl. You could get on Top of the Pops on a slow week with any old schtick back then as long as you called yourself new wave.
The best part of this is the terrified look on the young girl that Tony Blackburn is manhandling at the end of the clip.

999 - Homicide

Here's a bunch of image conscious lads. Still going i believe. I didn't put this at the top of my likes list in the punk days but i think it stands up pretty well now.

Jan and Dean - Surfin´Hearse

Time for a surf song. This Jan and Dean song didn't trouble the charts but what a concept!

Lighten Up Morrissey

This is another band i had on vinyl in my formative years. This is a recent track that shows they've kept their sense of humour.

Family - In My Own Time

I'm trying to recall some of the bands that i really liked before pub rock and punk came along. This lot from Leicester were a big fave despite the double-neck Gibson. The book and film Groupie were based on their lifestyle. I saw them a few times live and whenever they came on they always seemed a bit of a gang as well as a group.
They split and Roger Chapman - after singing in Chapman/Whitney Streetwalkers - became, and still is, very popular in Germany ( the 'Hoff' it's ok to like).

Drummer Man by Tonight - powerpop on TOTP

The bass player with this lot, Russell his name was, used to play with Wilco before Norman Watt-Roy and he was pretty good, as i remember, the B-side of this 'Stroll on By' is a terrific song and they had an album which never, as far as i know, got a release. I'd like to hear it though.

Heeeere's Henry

I've been neglecting my blogging duties for a while now so i am making a concerted effort to put more stuff on here.
Over the last three weekends we've gigged at the Wheatsheaves, Frome cricket club and the Cross Keys at Corsley and had a fine ol' time doing the shows as per usual. I have got a weekend off now and am going to nip up the Griffin, Frome to have a couple of beers and check out the bands.
On the recording front we have recently recorded three new tracks at Western Star Studios. The tracks are called - Big Dawg, Tom Jones Show and Ton-Up Vicar - we also have a half finished number The Curse of Liberace's Tomb and these should all show up on our fourth album.