Happy Birthday, Boss!

Bruce Springsteen is 60 (!) today but obviously not ready for his pipe, slippers and Ovaltine just yet. Above is a pic of Bruce, Clarence and Mighty Max on stage in Des Moines, two nights ago.

Happy Birthday, Bruce! Keep a rockin' !!
These are better days, baby

There's better days shining through

These are better days

Better days with a girl like you

English Rose

Happy Birthday to Billie Piper, 27 today!

Soundtrack: Honey To The Bee by Billie

Looks like we got us a reader

Two quotations on the subject of books:

Graham Greene from Travels With My Aunt:

"One's life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand."

From the Facebook page of an 18-year old work colleague:

" I cant reed or right n if i did i wuldnt spend money on poxy books."

OK.....

I go through phases of reading different genres until I get sick of them. I had a sf / fantasy phase a while back and read

Nova by Samuel R Delaney

Beyond The Golden Star by Hannes Bok

Winter Warriors by David Gemmel

Use Of Weapons by Iain M. Banks ( don't forget the "M" )

The Werewolf Principle by Clifford D. Simak

More recently I had a "ripping yarns" sort of phase and read

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

Going Solo by Roald Dahl

The Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony Hope

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian

To make a change from all that testosterone and empire-building I've just read Graham Greene's Travels With My Aunt, a funny and witty story of repressed , retired bank manager Henry Pulling and his outrageous aunt ( or is she? ) who whisks him around the world, involving him with drug deals, fortune tellers, war criminals and CIA agents. The next book on my "to be read" list is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, which looks far heavier ( in content, not weight ) but is such a well-regarded novel and is the basis of Peter Jackson's next movie, so I thought I'd best give it a go. Anyway, it only cost me 50p (!) secondhand, sorry "pre-owned", from a local charity ( Slimbridge WWT ) so what the hell. Oh, yeah: while I've been reading all the above books I've also been ploughing through Michael Palin's Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years, a real doorstop of a book but well worth it.

Soundtrack: Abbey Road Medley by The Beatles

Favourite Gig Fridays: Metallica

OK, this week I'm growing my hair, splashing on some patchouli, wearing my leather jacket no matter how hot it gets, and turning this motherhumper up to 11, 'cos it's Metallica time!!
To be more precise it's September 1988 at Newport Centre, the Damaged Justice tour. I'm there with Mark, Jon, Matthew and Steve ( where are all those guys nowadays? ), we've just missed support band Danzig but we're not too bothered 'cos Metallica hit the stage just as we walk into the venue, and EXPLODE into first song Blackened. Riffs, drums, screams, strobes, volume! Before we know it the song's over, a few choice f-words from James Hetfield and we're on to For Whom The Bell Tolls, our eardrums destroyed already.

And that's the way it goes, one mighty slab of sound after another crashing down on our heads, beating us into submission. To be honest, I could do without the bass solo ( a way of apologising to Jason for mixing his bass so low on the album? ) and Kirk's Hendrix tribute, the kind of self-indulgence I thought "thrash" metal had left behind. But who cares anyway? Metallica steamroller their way through classics like Harvester Of Sorrow, Creeping Death, One ( the strobes! the helicopters! ) and Last Caress ( yay! ) until the inevitable occurs: with a blinding flash their Halls of Justice stage set crashes to earth in a completely Spinal Tap, none-more-metal kind of way. It's ridiculous and perfect at the same time. A final encore of Whiplash and the band are gone, taking our hearing and sanity with them.....

Soundtrack: Last Caress, Helpless, Crash Course In Brain Surgery, For Whom The Bell Tolls and other sweet love songs by the mighty Metallica.

Gregory's Girl

I've just watched Gregory's Girl ( on BBC4 ) for the first time in ages. After all these years it still stands up as a warm, charming and funny movie about awkward adolescents in pursuit of love. Or, at the very least, a snog in the school corridors. Some lovely, naturalistic performances from John Gordon Sinclair ( where is he now? ), Dee Hepburn and Clare (Altered Images) Grogan.

Here's Dorothy showing the scar on her leg to a smitten Gregory.

"Bella, bella!"

District 9

Just got back from District 9. Interesting place to visit, wouldn't want to live there.....

As usual I get round to watching a film after half the western world has already seen it, and my opinion is instantly old news. But I'm gonna give it anyway...

So, I'd heard all the hype: first-time director, unknown star, $30m budget ( cheap by Hollywood standards ) etc. etc. But all that doesn't tell you what an exciting, visceral and ultimately moving film District 9 really is.

Refugee aliens ( known only as "prawns" by an uncaring world ) find themselves living in squalor in Johannesburg townships, dreaming of home, abused and exploited by humans, their seemingly dead mother ship floating uselessly above them. After 20 years of tension the authorities decide to clear the slums and deport the prawns to concentration camps further away from the human population. As part of this operation, company stooge Wikus ( played by first-time actor Sharlto Copley ) is sent into the prawn slums to organise the ethnic cleansing, only to be caught up in the prawns' struggle and to realise the extent of human cruelty...

District 9 is a startlingly good film, full of intensity, suspense and jittery energy. And the same goes for Sharlto Copley in an amazingly real performance as a man who changes both emotionally and physically throughout the movie, until he is unrecognisable as the corporate drone introduced in the early scenes. The special effects are incredible in their realism: the aliens and their ship are treated as a part of the landscape, as much as the rubbish-strewn slums around them, and not as some cheesy spectacle. And when the action scenes kick in about half way through the movie they're astonishing, having an impact that directors like Michael Bay could only dream of, and all from a novice film-maker! Let's hope the inevitable call from Hollywood doesn't spoil the promise of Neill Blomkamp, writer and director of this exhilarating movie.

Monday morning blues

Monday morning? Forget it! You can go to work, we're happy where we are. Wake us at teatime.

Favourite Gig Fridays: Gloucester Guildhall

Something different this week: this post is all about a venue not a band.

My home town of Gloucester is not exactly filled with an abundance of buzzin' rock venues. Apart from a few pubs and the very occasional gig at the local leisure centre, there's really only one venue that counts, the Guildhall Arts Centre, purveyors of fine live music since 1988. The city council's loss was the gig-goer's gain as the grey old men moved out and the Victorian ballroom became a "performance space." With a capacity of 300 or so, the Guildhall is an intimate venue where bands tend to fall into three categories: new bands on the way up, old bands on the way down, hot bands doing warm-ups for tours or "secret" gigs. It boasts some well-preserved architecture, a decent bar/cafe, and a chance to check out the latest art exhibition if the band is too boring.
Here's a short list of some of the bands I've seen there over the years: Primal Scream, Catatonia, EMF ( Gloucester boys! ), The Supernaturals, Symposium, Lambchop, Carter USM, SMASH, Carbon/Silicon, Stiff Little Fingers, UK Subs, The Damned, Antiproduct, and many more.....

I also once "crept the boards" of the Guildhall with the semi-legendary Death Planet Commandos, but that's a story for another day.
My next Guildhall gig: Northern Ireland's finest, Ash, on their A-Z Tour. Can't wait!

Tippi Hedren and feathered friend

Tippi Hedren from one of my favourite Hitchcock movies, The Birds ( 1963 ), looking ice-cool as ever. You might say unruffled.....

A good film for spotters of genre actors, The Birds also stars Rod Taylor ( The Time Machine ), Veronica Cartwright ( Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Alien, Flight Of The Navigator, The Witches of Eastwick ) and Jessica Tandy ( ...er, Cocoon ).

Who Follows The Followers?

Welcome to new Follower, The Groovy Agent ( Ol' Groove, the Groovester, Groovemeister General ) of Diversions Of The Groovy Kind fame. ( That's a lotta "Groovies"! )

I'm especially pleased to have Ol' Groove as a Follower of this humble blog: Diversions... is one of the first, and still the best, blogs I've followed. An almost supernatural effort must go into his detailed and entertaining posts. Check 'em out, and.....

Stay Groovy, baby!!

Movies With Matthew

Hi to new Follower, Matthew K, from the excellent blog Capes On Film.

Check out Matthew's blog for tons of good stuff about superheroes in the media.

Fly over there now :-)

Marvel Annual 1972

A bit of an oddity, this one: a Marvel annual produced by former UK magazine and comic publishers Fleetway. There is a "Copyright IPC Magazines Ltd., 1972" notice on the inside front cover, so it seems likely to me that the annual was published after the demise of Odham's Power Comics but before Marvel UK debuted with Mighty World Of Marvel no. 1.

I've had this book since I was very young and have always loved the cover painting of a happy-looking Hulk having a little disagreement with some soldiers and their big gun. No idea who the artist is but the realistic figure-work is very much in the tradition of UK war comics of the time. Superheroes were minorities in Brit comics back then so, I suppose, it made commercial sense to give the impression of a war comic which just happened to feature a green-skinned monster.

Hulk smash genres!!

Favourite Gig Fridays: Crass

The early 1980s: Punk as a "movement" is over, the Pistols have split, the fashion victims have moved on to the New Romantic scene, subgenres like Oi! and Goth have appeared, creating tribalism which only fractures the scene further. Probably the most significant development in Punk is the rise of the Anarchist bands, anti-capitalistic, anti-vivisection, pro-direct action, a nihilistic and confrontational underground scene boasting the likes of The Subhumans, Conflict, Dirt, The Mob, A Flux Of Pink Indians, The Poison Girls and ( as they say ) many more. But the prime movers, the inspiration, the most loved and reviled are the band / collective / record label known as Crass.....
It's September, 1981. I'm 14 years old and at probably only my second or third ever gig. And I'm bricking it! The venue is The Marshall Rooms in grotty, recession-hit Stroud. A dingy, fag-smoke blanketed hole, packed with Stroud punks on one side of the venue and Gloucester skin'eads on the other side, glaring at each other and waiting for the first signs of provocation. Crass member Annie Anxiety stands up to read some feminist, anarchist poetry, which doesn't go down too well with some of the neanderthals in the crowd, scuffles break out, I keep my head down.

Black curtains shroud the stage while TV monitors spew out white noise and images of car-crashes, abattoirs, 1950s commercials, nuclear explosions, and other fun stuff. The curtains part to reveal Crass the band, standing motionless, intense, ignoring the crowd. This carries on for some time as the crowd gets louder and angrier until, at some pre-arranged moment, the band suddenly scream into their first song, a wall of discordant noise smashes over the crowd, a mass fight instantly breaks out.....

To be honest, I wasn't a great fan of Crass. The only album of theirs I owned was Stations Of The Crass, a virtually unlistenable howl of anger against society, the government, the armed forces, Garry Bushell (!) and other obvious targets. I preferred bands like The Subhumans or Conflict who sounded a bit more like proper rock bands: you know, with actual tunes and things.

Crass as a live band was a different prospect. It may be because I was so young and inexperienced back in '81 ( a lifetime ago! ) but they seemed an almost physical force as I was pushed and pummelled in that audience. A black wave of energy, intensity and ferocity. They meant it, maaaan! It was a Hell of a gig: the charged atmosphere, the violence, the peacemakers in the crowd trying to calm the situation, the exhilaration of being part of something, the police waiting outside, the sheer noise assaulting your eardrums.

You don't get that at Travis gigs, I can tell you!

Steve Jones

Happy Birthday to old Punk Steve Jones, 54 today. That's Steve, looking young and (relatively) thin, to the right of John Lydon.
A bloke I used to work with went to school with Steve Jones and Pistols' drummer Paul Cook, back in Shepherd's Bush, or "The Bush" as it's apparently called. But, as he's a total blues-obsessive and doesn't listen to anything else, he never saw them play live. D'oh!!

Tom on T'internet

Famously barking-mad ex-Time Lord and National Treasure Tom Baker has a new website at http://www.tom-baker.co.uk

Well worth a look for photos of the great man, a history of the Fourth Doctor and loads more besides.

Thanks for the heads-up from Kasterborous.com, one of the best Who-sites on t'internet.