http://ultimateclassicrock.com/the-beatles-let-it-be-dvd/

Giles Smith (From The Times, yesterday. One of his best columns in ages)

Say what you like about the tribute to Michael Jackson at Craven Cottage (and people are, indeed, saying what they like), it has at least been carefully positioned to balance the statue of Johnny Haynes.

So, in one corner of the ground, hands on hips, thickly muscled of leg, bronzed and eternally handsome, stands Haynes, who scored 158 goals in 658 appearances for Fulham between 1952 and 1970. In the other, between the Hammersmith End and the Riverside Stand, microphone in hand, mildly unreadable expression on his face, solitary sequined glove in place, crouches Jackson, who didn’t score any goals for anyone, but did unquestionably have a huge hit with Off The Wall in 1979.

Also, consider this: if the club had put up a statue of Wacko before one of Haynes, the historical purists who have questioned the appropriateness of giving house room to a 7ft 6in model of a reclusive entertainer and enthusiastic slumber-party thrower would have had a clearer-cut case.

It helps to set these things in context, in other words, and to try to see the bigger picture.

Otherwise you end up regarding the stationing in a football ground of a big, plastic recreation of an American pop singer as though it were just . . . I don’t know, random or something.

Similarly, when music fans argue that Mohamed Al Fayed has slightly undersold the memory of Jackson by failing to track down the 40ft-high statue of the singer that was towed up the Thames by barges to publicise the release of his 1995 album HIStory, one can point out that, in this particular setting, it wouldn’t have matched. It’s all about proportion.

Still, look at the upset a well-meaning gesture can cause. When Al Fayed announced his intention to erect the statue (a piece originally commissioned for a spot in Harrods before the Egyptian businessman sold the store in May last year), it was with excited talk of a natural synergy between “the finest performer in the world” and “the finest football fans in the world”. One was tempted to revisit the catchphrase of Tommy Trinder (Fulham chairman, 1959-76): “You lucky people.”

But when some of those finest fans in the world then had the temerity to question the wisdom of the idea, Al Fayed was less than indulgent. “If some stupid fans don’t understand and appreciate such a gift, they can go to hell,” he remarked, adding: “I don’t want them to be fans. Ifthey don’t understand and don’t believe in things I believe in, they can go to Chelsea.”

Where, incidentally, the sole commemorative statue on the concourse is of Peter Osgood (150 goals in 380 appearances, but absolutely no multiplatinum-selling albums, nor much hope of any since his death in 2006).

It’s a cynical world, though, as Al Fayed undoubtedly would agree, with a slow shake of his thoughtful head. Within hours of the Jackson statue being unveiled, bookmakers, as ever, were hijacking the news agenda by issuing odds on the various acts of desecration most likely to befall it — from someone dressing it in a Chelsea shirt (quite tempting at 14-1), via a rogue assassin chopping off its head (16-1, but neither clever nor funny) to Wayne Rooney grabbing its microphone and swearing viciously into it (remote, at 500-1, but not entirely implausible).

Because one has no business feeling anything about this piece of iconography until one has seen it in situ, I made my own pilgrimage to the Jackson statue one afternoon this week. Unsurprisingly, given the incitements to criminal damage provided by bookmakers, it stands within the safely closed perimeters of the stadium.

Nevertheless, on non-match days, Jackson can be admired through a convenient gap in the black gates at that corner of the ground and, just as clearly, from a grassy knoll beside the river at that point. From there one can readily appreciate that, in statue form, Jacko is afforded a magnificent view across the Thames to the boathouse at Barn Elms and, indeed, once a year, of the Boat Race. (Arguably he does better in this respect than Haynes, whose vista is a brick wall on Stevenage Road.) It’s possible that the statue could have done more to blend in with its surroundings, perhaps by underlining Jackson’s Fulham-supporting credentials and making some reference to the one match that he attended at the Cottage — in April 1999, when Kevin Keegan’s up-and-coming second-tier side beat Wigan Athletic 2-0 with goals from Philippe Albert and Kit Symons, a game that (it can hardly have escaped the singer) moved Fulham to within a single victory of promotion to the Premier League.

We are led to believe that this is when the bug bit deep. Indeed, it is said that, from that day on, in phone conversations with Al Fayed, pretty much the first thing Jackson would ask was: “Is Geoff Horsfield still finding the net on a regular basis?”

Moreover, of the many sadnesses occasioned by Jackson’s death in 2009, one all too infrequently mentioned is that his private thoughts about the Jean Tigana era necessarily went to the grave with him.

Even allowing for Jackson’s significant emotional investment in Fulham, however, some will say that Jimmy Hill should have squeezed ahead of him in the queue for Cottage-based three-dimensional honorifics. And let’s be entirely clear about it: a good case can be made. Hill gave the team almost a decade of service as a player and returned as chairman in 1987, when he steered the club through near-bankruptcy and fought off a proposed merger with Queens Park Rangers.

But, at the same time, he never worked with Quincy Jones, did he? Not even on one seminal dance-pop crossover album, let alone on three consecutively.

The wording on the piano-black plinth quotes the opening lines (along with the melody on a stave) from Man In The Mirror — “I’m going to make a change, for once in my life.” There is an essay to be written elsewhere about how this gospel-inflected ballad belatedly seems to have become the signature Jackson tune, ahead of other, far snappier, good-time contenders. (It speaks, perhaps, to the narcissism of our age, or maybe it simply lends itself uncomplicatedly to just-add-water X Factor renditions.) But now is not the time. (Although, you can see how the inscription “Don’t stop til you get enough” might not have struck quite the right tone, statue-wise.) Neither do we intend to get into chimerical and snobbery-tempting debates about the statue’s “quality”, beyond observing that this most lithe and physically expressive of dancers does seem to have been caught at a moment of surprisingly middle-aged stiffness, as if rising after a long time in an extremely spongy armchair.

To the speculation that it might be the work of the artist who does the coin-operated Bob the Builders outside certain larger branches of Tesco, we have nothing to add. Nor to the casual insinuations that the figure would make most sense if you could wind it up and watch it rotate — and, beyond those insinuations, the suggestion (uttered in quiet, consoling tones of voice) that it’s “what Bubbles would have wanted”.

We prefer to dwell on the positive — namely, that it doesn’t look anything like Dennis Waterman. And it’s well known that 80 per cent of statues at football grounds look like Dennis Waterman.

Furthermore, note this: in the 15 minutes or so in which I stood by the Thames in quiet contemplation, three other visitors walked up to poke their phones through the gap and take photographs. But that’s Jackson for you. The man always was a draw. Not necessarily in the football sense. But a draw, nevertheless.

Long may Fulham honour him.

This is breathtaking

I've waited years to see this man perform. This is his only UK show for ages before or after. I have a spare ticket if anyone's interested.

Full story at The Onion...

Sara Mohr-Pietsch explores digital re-mastering: is it the art of restoring music to its original glory; or just another way of selling us music we already own?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s3h40

First shows since 1985 - 7 Oct in London, 8 Oct in Manchester. VERY excited.

This may fall fall on its face, but I'm sat here in my sunny garden, Peroni in a glass, shaving pieces off a fantastic wedge of veined cheddar I bought from a man with a basket at the Square and Compass last week, flipping through some of my favourite Summery songs on YouTube.

There's one rule, though: no mention of 'Summer', or indeed any season, or 'sunshine', weather conditions etc in the title of the piece.

I'll start:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/audio/2010/apr/01/nicky-...

Just heard 'our' Andrew on BBC R4's Feedback, on the blower, masquerading as a member of The Great Unwashed. We know different...

I keep catching his picture out of the corner of my eye and thinking it's a demented-looking Mia Farrow.

Me and D. Green of this parish are off to hear Ennio Morricone mash it up f'real at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday. Any others?

Ah, 'formats'. Remember when some singles were released on more formats than you could count on two hands? I worked in a record shop in the mid-80s and remember the label reps arriving laden down with multiple version of what was essentially the same thing. I later swapped sides and got to drive around in a Ford Sierra estate (and later an Astra, then several Mondeos) filled to the gunwales with 'formats'.

Freebies were nipped in the bud a couple of years before, however. A few stick in my mind:

01. Thomas Dolby - Europa and the PIrate Twins 12" single, shrinkwrapped with a free copy of his album The Golden Age of Wireless. No, it wasn't the other way around - I spent a whole £0.99 on that from Larry's Record Bar.

02. Kissing the Pink - The Last Film 12" single, wrapped in a free T-shirt of the lowest-possible quality.

03. Annabel Lamb - Riders on the Storm 7" single, replete with free VHS of the video for the song. It was this release, I seem to recall, that nailed the coffin of free gifts with singles.

Any more for any more?