Reading Nick Kent's Apathy For The Devil and he makes 2 mentions of "Ronnie Wood's Richmond Guest House".
Maybe Stella Street was nearer the mark than we thought, anyway, it's nice to know he's got the hotel business to fall back on.

To expand on the following, there are times when Mrs Bryer might put on her choice of power ballad and I might announce Celine's big finish with comments like 'cabin doors to manual' or something about pre-flight checks being completed...Any road, sometimes it's like this...

The other night, Simon Mayo played 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down', Joan Baez version. Mrs Bryer had picked me up from the station and she sang along all the way through, word perfect, and asked me to download it for her. Love that song, she said.

So I fannied about with the iTunes 30-snippetty-second previews for quite a while until I found a likely one and I bunged it on the purple iPod. As soon as we played the thing back we both cringed in an instant at the sound of applause at the start, and when it came to our Joan calling for the assembly to 'clap your hands now', well it was all over. And off.

Mrs Bryer, Sandra, said, 'I never like "live" versions'.
"I'll play you The Band," I said.

Studio version. Brown album, I think, but it's not important, because she hated it. And to be fair, Levon did sound a little pinched. And then I realise that here's a case where the live version has a real sniff of a chance of blowing off someone's popsox.

So I cued up Sky+ for The Last Waltz (currently on MGM HD - or it was until recently) and she sat in silence and watched 'Dixie', and I watched it for the nth time, as I was watching her, but she gave nothing away, and then it finished and she said,

"Brilliant," she said, "THAT'S the one. Can you download it for me?"

I've been absent for a while, so not sure if this has made a previous appearance...

There's a big birthday coming up and the FPO and I are off to Venice for a few days.
Hints and tips from The Massive received with thanks...

http://new.uk.music.yahoo.com/blogs/snapcrackleandpop/44378/leona-lewis-...

Can anyone recommend a proper pub around London NW1/W2 which serves a decent ale and will be showing the Third Ashes Test on Sky?

I forget what it was called, but a year or two back there was something on the TV which I thought would be right up the FPO's street. So I was surprised when she curled a lip at my suggestion. However, I twigged soon enough that her problem was with a member of the cast.
"You mean you still haven't forgiven her for going out with Paul McCartney?"
For it was Jane Asher, you see.
"No I haven't," confirmed my lovely missus, about a near half-century-old crush.

So, here we go, who's your favourite Beatle wife, girlfriend, or alleged sexual partner?

Or has this already been done?

Firstly, a nod to the Editorial Director from whom I pinched the title.

I was talking to my 19-year-old nephew at a party on Saturday night and he asked me to 'convince' him about Bob Dylan. He explained that he'd heard both Dylan's and 'that group's' versions of Mr Tambourine Man, and preferred the one by the group. You're not daft, I said.

Anyway, he's asked me to compile a Bob Dylan CD which will somehow cause the scales (and sleep, no doubt) to fall from his eyes. He plays guitar, sings and writes. He's pretty good, I think, and he knows his way around a lyric and a scale. Recently he has supported Neville Staples of The Specials, and Jim Bob from Carter USM (informed reports from the latter gig suggest that the billing should perhaps have been reversed).

A dozen tracks should do it.

Any suggestions? Apart from buying him any volume of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, of course.

The exchange of bon mots and gentle ribbing on these very pages led directly to us palling up on My Space, and latterly on Facebook. Who? Me and the esteemed contributor Skirky, that's who.
The pace picked up and now I find myself with a guest spot on his weekly radio show, Why The Long Face? Tuesdays 10 'til midnight streaming at www.icrfm.co.uk, since you ask, and there's a Facebook group.
As none of this would have happened if Mark 'n' Dave hadn't had that I-know-it's-crazy-but-how-about-starting-a-magazine-for-people-just-like-us? vision, I'm curious to know whether anyone else has, erm, 'come together' after first rubbing noses at the Word Community. Is there anybody out there?

...a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/a136810/drummer-michael-lee-dies-aged-...

With the appropriate nod to Archie and his Fabulous Messy Desk.

Here's mine:

Mrs B bought me an ipod some time ago, it's not one of those giga-busting things that it seems are commonplace for members of the massive, but I don't mind rotating the content. I use it on the days I'm away from home, and it's generally on in the kitchen.
At Mrs B's request, I put some of, what she referred to as, 'her' music on there. Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Enrique Iglesias, Michael Buble etc. They crop up now and again, offering up a bit of light and shade, although I've also quarantined them within their own playlist.

Yesterday, Mrs B asked me to download Rolf Harris's new version of Two Little Boys. I offered to buy her the CD. No thanks. She wants it on the ipod.

The thing is, there are limits, aren't there?

Luckily, I put my back out yesterday. Lucky? I have been in receipt of gentle, no, firm reminders that multiple episodes of All You Need Is Love were clogging up the Sky+.

All You Need Is Love highlights from these three or four editions? Lester Bangs, Bill Graham and Derek Taylor. Not a musician amongst them, I realise.

I sat - on my icepack - watching the show's opener. Kiss. An interminable clip of the worst band in the world, ever. Worse than Uriah Heep, Dave, surely? Donny and Marie, on for artistic light and shade reasons no doubt, were faded in far too late and my first thought was, please don't fade them out too soon and go back to Kiss because all I want to do is get hold of that idiot's tongue and nail it to a plank. Put it away, why can't you?

The Baker Gurvitz Army were awarded an extended section that wasn't improved by it being uninterrupted. That's The Baker Gurvitz Army. If you're not aware of their work, can I offer you a word of advice? Don't change a thing about yourself.

But, to the meat. Almost literally, to the meat. The also rather rotten Black Oak Arkansas appeared at some length, and I do wonder if their, rather touching, communal living compound is still going. Probably not though, eh?

A music paper - must have been the NME - employed Big Jim Dandy (the lead singer of BOA, c'mon) to eat, compare, contrast, and review the burgers which London had to offer in the early seventies.

I still remember what I took from this article:

1. Isn't London expensive?
2. What's so wrong with the Wimpy Bar?

"Good God, what the hell is this?" asked Mrs B.
"I downloaded it."
"You paid for this?"
"It's good."
"No it isn't," she replied, Cleese-like.
"They've put their own stamp on it, you see..."
"It's terrible."
"Well, they were very visual. The guitarist, he was done up like a clown and the bass player, he dressed like, well, something else, in a shiny futuristic suit thing, maybe he was a robot, or something...(you'll have to picture the scornful look that was being tossed in my direction)...and when he sings 'and I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more', you can really believe it."
"No, you can't."
"He's menacing."
"He's just not though, is he?"
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band embarked on the chorus.
"They sound like some rotten pub band."
"They do a great version of 'Next', you know the Jacques Brel song?"

What was that noise? Ah, just all hell breaking loose, nothing to worry about. We still laugh about the visit we enjoyed to the Brel Museum in Brussels. Well, one of us laughs, and it was evident at the time that only one of us was drawing any enjoyment from it. Later, a friend put together a Brel sampler CD which I only play when I'm pissed, actually, I haven't played it at all since I gave up smoking because Brel without a fag ain't quite the same.

They did some great stuff, The SAHB, and I've aired others from their canon without being run out of town on a rail or pelted with soft fruit, but is Mrs B right about Delilah? It's a pretty insignificant question, I know, but while I defended it, my resolve flagged pretty smartly as I came to realise how ridiculous I sounded. Like I was the same age as I was when the record came out. Fifteen all over again. The music transported me back there, but not necessarily in a good way.