Now that we've all claimed our own artist (hurry hurry http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/claim-your-artist Red Guitars still unclaimed), how abouts we have a show-and-tell.

Rules are:
1. Show us a video clip (one per customer please)
2. Tell us something. Why you love them or maybe an interesting fact.

17,000 tracks available for streaming by end of Feb apparently (although it isn't clear whether we'd get em in the UK).

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/arts/music/the-alan-lomax-collection-f...

According to a BBC headline, Little Feet Support Heavy Rhino.

Now I don't know who Heavy Rhino are - I'm guessing Mark Ellen would be the man to ask - but they must be a big name if Little Feat are supporting.
The BBC need to check their spelling, though.

Quote:

"Ah! It's Captain Underpants"

(You Don't Fool Me Tom Hollander)

Back in the late eighties, Mrs Doggo used to frequent a rock club in Birmingham. As a recent extra birthday present, I made up a CD of the songs I thought she'd heard in those days.
Whilst she was very nice about it at the time, she now tells me I've got it wrong. Those weren't the songs at all. No, she doesn't remember the names of any of the songs they played. But they weren't 'that bloody spandex rubbish'.
Well, I don't bloody know, then. I was an indie kid. This is like a foreign country to me. Can anyone give me any clues? This is what I know so far:

Good: Metallica, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, all the classic 70s rock
Rubbish: Van Halen, Bon Jovi etc
Just passable: Guns n Roses
Never heard before: Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jnr

Here's a fun thing. It's a map of metal. It does exactly what it says on the wrought iron sarcophagus.

http://www.mapofmetal.com/#/home

I need a new T-shirt. Something witty and unusual.
I remember hearing of a website whereby people could submit their own designs and buy shirts designed by others. If anyone knows where that site is or can suggest somewhere else that appeals to a Word-ish sensibility then I'd be very grateful.

If you like we can expand this to a discussion of best and worst t-shirt types:

Best
obscure bands & album covers (that you actually like);
Incomprehensible images (Is that a panda or a carburetor?).
Personally appropriate messages (When I smoked I had one that said 'Lighter Thief')

Worst
"Look at me, I'm drunk";
"drugs are cool" (eg. the pope smokes dope; Adihash);
overexposed t-shirt bands (Motorhead, Ramones etc)
Anything related to Star Wars

Here's a quick quiz question for bank holiday Monday:

Complete this numerical sequence
100
600
1000
1000
2000
??

(No need to show your working)

It's a bit late in the day, but I've just set up a Fantasy Football team on Facebook (I like the way the fb one works and have long since abandoned hope of winning any prizes from Telegraph et al).

Anyway, I've set up a mini-league called the Word Massive Trophy if anyone wants to take me on.

http://apps.facebook.com/fantasy_footy/POOL_INVITEURL?p=165482&fb=739118...

Reading Andrew Harrison's column on Amy Winehouse in the new Word- a moment of revelation on the future for magazines. I found myself prodding the bottom of the page in search of an up-arrow.

Just getting round to watching the recently shown Pulp performance at Glastonbury 1995. One thing that strikes me is how Jarvis Cocker sings pretty much all the way through most songs - with very few instrumental breaks. Not only that, but there is absolutely no backing singing going on. None of the other four members even has a microphone on stage.

That's quite unusual really, isn't it? In most bands, others get to join in, even if they're mixed right down to nothing.

(Now there's a subject: famously turned-off microphones)

I'm making up a mixtape themed on Northern Ireland to celebrate my Dad's 70th. So far I've got some artists (Undertones, Divine Comedy, Ash, Cashier No9, Two Door Cinema Club, SLF etc) a few songs about NI (Belfast by Boney M & by Orbital, Shankill Butchers by the Decemberists) and a couple of cryptics ('Down Down', Tyrone Taylor, maybe something from the album 'George Best').

But what about Van Morrison? I hardly know any Van beyond Moondance or Into the Mystic. I always hear mention of these wonderful sentimental songs about Belfast but I've never actually heard one and wouldn't know where to find one amongst the otherwise annoying burbleage. Can anyone recommend something? (of course you can - you're the Massive)

Any other suggestions would obviously be welcome. My Dad'll never actually hear this mix, favouring as he does Jimmy Nail. My brother and sister will hopefully a)enjoy the tunes and b)struggle to name the theme until about track #4.

In Harrogate yesterday. A busker plays a passable version of Man on the Moon on an acoustic guitar through an amp. Which is fine. Then he finishes the song and says this:

Thank you very much, Harrogate. Now this next song means a lot to me and I hope it's going to mean as much to you. It goes something like this...

All while the shopping masses streamed past, paying him no mind at all. I made a point of returning a few times. He kept up his on-stage badinage all afternoon. It's as if no-one had told him he was an uninvited busker. Perhaps he thought this was some kind of open-air festival.

A challenge to the Massive

Listening to The Waterboys song A Bang on the Ear with its six little vignets of love lost, kept and unrequited, it made me wonder what the verses would be to describe my life.
So here’s the challenge: Everyone add their own verse and lets see if we can get to 100.

Here’s the orignal for inspiration:

Lindsay was my first love, she was in my class
I would have loved to take her out , but I was too shy to ask
The fullness of my feeling, was never made clear
but I send her my love and a bang on the ear

Nora was my girl, when I first was in a group
I can still see her to this day, stirring chicken soup
Now she's living in Australia, working as an auctioneer
I send her my love and a bang on the ear

Deborah broke my heart and I the willing fool
I fell for her one summer on the road to Liverpool
I thought it was forever but it was over within the year
I send her my love and a bang on the ear

The home I made with Bella became a house of pain
We weathered it together bound by a ball and chain
It started up in Fife It ended up in tears
I send her my love and a bang on the ear

Krista was a rover from Canada she hailed
We crossed swords in San Francisco We both lived to tell the tale
I don't know now where she is Oh, but if I had her here !
I'd give her my love and a bang on the ear

So my woman of the hearth fire harbour of my soul
I watch you lightly sleeping I sense the dream that does unfold
You to me are treasure You to me are dear
I'll give you my love and a bang on the ear

I've been listening back to my fave songs of the year in order to add my vote to the festive fifty. I realise now that my favourite song of the year is actually a cut'n'shut. Two abandoned songs, probably unserviceable and beyond repair in their own right, have been hastily welded together and sent onto the forecourt.
And waddaya know, it runs like a dream.

In this case the song in question is Bloodbuzz Ohio by The National. Put that song up on a ramp and inspect the underside. You've got a song called Ohio that has some nice ideas but doesn't really go anywhere. Just about at the point when it should tail off, they launch into a completely different song called Bloodbuzz that only really has a chorus. And somehow the whole thing works beautifully.

I suppose the old cut'n'shut has been around for years. A Day In The Life being the obvious one that springs to mind (along with plenty of other HJH songs (maybe even HJ?)). All I'm saying is hurrah for them. More tig-welding please in the practice garages of rock.