They may well be the tortured songwriter/producers, but who really cares? YouTube is stacked with stuff that no-one goes to visit except for the pure lyrical performances of such stella lead singing artistes as The Divinyls, Transvision Vamp, Roxettte, Eurythmics or The Buffalo Springfield. Alright, apart from Noel Gallagher, Pete Townsend, Alison Moyet, that bloke out of The Pet Shop Boy, Sonny, Ike Turner and Mark Ellen out of Ugly Rumours, who are the real powers behind the throne? You get a bonus point taken away for mentioning Mark Ronson.

Been down the town today to pick up some books for the holidays and popped into a charity shop to see what was about, and so this afternoon I will mostly be listening to Sinatra & Count Basie at The Sands (lordy that monologue takes up a lot of side two), Bryan Ferry's In Your Mind (Chris Thomas to Chris Spedding "Whike you're here, there's a band called The Sex Pistols who need a bit of guitar doubling up"), The Hothouse Flowers (soundtrack to a particularly splendid Lake District summer holiday back in the days when a cassette tape went in the car and didn't come out again for two weeks at a stretch), Lonnie Donegan Putting On The Style (manager Adam Faith rounds up Ronnie Wood, Rory Gallagher, Mick Taylor, Brian May, Ringo, Elton and Leo Sayer for a bit of a hoedown) and The Go Betweens 1978-1980 (is there a better summer song that Streets of Our Town?). I can also confirm that the new rack-congester in Oxfam shops (previous title holders include Leo Sayer's Endless Flight and ELO's out of the Blue) is Art Garfunkel's Fate For Breakfast. There's a good half a dozen kicking about in case anyone's missing a copy. What's wafting through your back garden while the washing dries? Leo's on the Lonnie album as well, incidentally.

I'd love to hang around but my wife has to put some Bach on the iPod.

...the Marillion Burger. It used to have fish in it and although most people think it's past it's sell-by date it is still terribly popular on the quiet. Most people order it for delivery online. Any other themed fast food treats ahoy? Little Feat's Dixie Chicken to take away? Thanks, I'll eat it here.

I think it was Cornell Hurd who said that you should never sing anything you didn’t like, because “…if it becomes a hit, you’re going to have to sing it every night”. Similarly, if you call yourself ‘Topless Barmaids’ (as in “Here tonight….”), ‘Free Drinks’ or ‘Barenaked Ladies’ and you have a modicum of success, you’re kind of going to be stuck with it and people are going to see the joke first, and the music a long way second. Well, I say ‘a modicum’ – as detailed in Word recently, this is a band who can fill a cruise liner with fans for a week and so I’m pretty sure they’re not still smarting over disgraced former Blue Peter presenter ™ Jamie Theakston going for the cheap intro option on BBC Yoof TV (“They’re not bare, they’re not naked, and….” ). If you know them at all, it’s probably because of that “Chickedy china, the Chinese chicken…” rappy bit from “One Week” that Chris Moyles got obsessed by a couple of years ago and played incessantly. Didn’t bother getting the album though, did you? Well you should have done – it’s chock full of priceless pop gems, witty asides and acerbic observations, all delivered with semi-acoustic brio and lightly dusted with CS&N harmonies which help mask the darkness behind the ostensibly throwaway sunshiney lyrics. If I had to name a “What’s it like?” reference it would probably be The Beautiful South, only very much less deliberately smartarse and with much better scratching. “Who Needs Sleep” is actually, once you burrow beneath the quirky pop chorus (“There’s guys been awake since the second world war…”), a dark description of what it’s like to be in the middle of an episode of insomnia (and much better than David Baddiel’s description of it as “…thinking about are death, cancer and the possibility of a third wank”). “In The Car” cleverly (and for once successfully) spins the ‘writing a song about writing a song’ gag around with a witty pay-off. Throughout, you get the idea that these are people who had trouble with relationships and were probably bullied at school but are now, if not celebrating their triumph over personal adversity, are at least prepared to put it behind them for a while and sing upbeat bouncy songs with whistle test grade-A pass choruses about what’s currently on their minds, like death, disease, sleepless nights – y’know, generally all the big staples of daytime Radio One. It would be churlish to not end with a Theakston-esque, “They’re big in Canada – but to be honest, they’re pretty big everywhere…” ho, and indeed, ho. Now here’s a live video….

Admit it, your first thought was *that* video, wasn't it? I put it to the forum that this is one of the great underrated singers of our time. He was incredibly cool, well dressed, a great singer, made albums with Little Feat and the cream of the N'Orleans glitterati, and that "Sneaking Sally Through The Alley" is the best driving album ever. Admittedly there was that Power Station period, but nontheless the late, great RP deserves kudos, admiration and investigation based on his astonishing body of work. Now here's a video with some swimsuits...

look at this

Nash, god love 'im, is facial hair free. Think back, thirty seconds later, and you'd swear he had a big ol' Crosby walrus going on. I'd swear Graham Nash had a moustache throuhout the seventies - even during that terrible 5317704 period.
Is it possibly true that Sweet never had double bass drums on TotP? What have you always thought to be incrontivertible but have subsequently been corrected on?

Sunday afternoon testing the 'music sounds better on record' theory. It's not a scientific process, but initial research says "yes". Or they might just be better albums than whatever I've been listening to recently;
Boo Hewerdine and Darden Smith - Love Is A Strange Hotel / Dave Edmunds - Get It / Billy Bragg - Don't Try This At Home / J.J. Cale - Shades / Ian Hunter - Shades of / Green On Red - Here Come The Snakes.
Full story here - http://www.myspace.com/doyoudoanywings
What's on your turntable?

Thank you and apologies Ian at Talkawhile, the web's premier folk and roots discussion forum. www.talkawhile.co.uk

Shamelessly stolen from another forum, where it had already been shamelessly stolen from another forum...

Create an album cover as follows:

Band name: Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. Take the title of the first article you get.

Album title: Go to the Random Quotations page.
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 Take the last four words of the last quote.

Cover picture: Go to Flickr's Interesting photo page.
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Third picture, no matter what it is.

Put it all together to make your album. Either crop it to CD cover shape (i.e. square), add a border to make it square, or just use the raw image itself and pretend it's a funny-shaped cassette or something. The only rule is you're only allowed to add the album title and artist title.

If you're unhappy with either the name, title or picture, by all means refresh all three pages and try again. No picking and choosing though.

For bonus points*, describe the act.

...and the second thing I played was this song. Imagine, if his Dad had been the secret lemonade drinker instead? A nation's doumentaries would have been irrevocably altered. He used to share an office with Ian Curtis, you know, and I'm probably one of about, ooh, two people in the world that revere him above Springsteen. He doesn't, you know. He loves The Boss. Oh Yes.

I wasn't there, but at this week's homecoming gig by The Adicts in sunny downtown Ipswich apparently the hot topic of conversation out in the smoking area was "what would Colonel Sanders' singing voice sound like?". The hot money's on either Howard Keel or Michael McDonald. I say one of The Statler Brothers.

You know how it is....it's late, you're YouTubeing, you're filling in the minuteae of rock and pop ephemera for the lady in your life ("look! - it's Clive Gregson on The Whistle Test, and there's Richard Thompson on guitar!"), and suddenly, epiphaniastically, she says "My god! Look at that lovely beautiful boy!". Sadly, we hadn't even got past the introduction. I bow to no man in my appreciation of The Word's resident guffawmeister, but this revelation had me rocking on my heels in shock. Concentrate now, he's not on for long...and then there's some Robyn Hitchcock.

I'm not making this up...

In the old days, if you wanted to play along with a song, you had to have both an acoustic guitar (it meant that you were a protest singer) and a steady hand - Raymond Baxter in his latter days of presenting Tomorrow's World would never have been able to drop the stylus right on the salient bit of the solo to Hotel California again and again over time, for instance. Strikes me that Laughing Len is inordinately helpful in Halleluah. Here's what he says -

I heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you
well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah.

Not since "How strange the change, from major to minor" has there been more helpful songwriterly advice as to what's coming next. The Buzzcock's "Tricky guitar solo!" doesn't count.

Has anyone else left clues in a "how to do it" fashion within their songs? Apart from The Damned and their "this is a 'G'" insert sleeve on that elbun that had New Rose on it.

Yes, it is a bit of a quiet evening, why do you ask....?

Bob Harris ahoy - don't look for it on iTunes, it isn't there....

Celina Burks – Ring a ching ching, your telephone
Avery, Deidre – Make Her Grin Chang
Dejesus – New to your town
Gay, Kenton – keep her on it all night
Berg, Dee – Why settle for what you have?
Marion Esparza – give your partner the loving she deserves
Isabelle Allen – Be confident and stand tall
Thelma Harris – she is alone tonight too!

Today's Guardian review of Ian Brown singing live - "...like a despondent goose wearing a balaclava". Any other perfect one liners out there?

This week it was McCartney in The Observer, last week Eagle-tastic songwriter J.D.Souther live in Norwich, on holiday it was Pink Floyd's Nick Mason in his book. Are there any 70's rock dinosaurs left who weren't apparently really, honestly into punk at the time all along? Apart from Rick Wakeman.

The perfect quiet night in – and a warm fuzzy charitable feeling inside! How do you feel about having a book to read, an album to listen to, and a pint of ale to quaff while you do it? All delivered to your doorstep courtesy of your charitable donation. Send me a private mail telling me how much you’re willing to stump up for such a sumptuous feast of the senses and if you’re willing to pay more than anyone else for the privilege I’ll write back to you demanding your home address so I can box up the goodies, and I’ll tell you where to send your donation. Before you bid, you may want to look at these websites.

http://www.drewpotenti.com/
http://www.songsfromthebluehouse.com/reviews.htm
http://myspace.com/doyoudoanywings
http://www.crouch-vale.co.uk/

Bidding closes on Halloween.

I, like Philip Bryer, also maintain an internet presence outside the Wordosphere and, similarly, although I'd like to be read, I don't see why I should clog up the works here unnecessarily. Mine is all about the joys and travails of being in a pub band. I've read Philip's book actually, it's very good and He's read mine in return, which apparently didn't take as long. I'm not saying he knows more actual words, but he certainly knows how to put more of them in consecutive sentences for a longer period of time. Do drop by when you've finished here. http://skirky.blogspot.com/
Incidentally, does this mean that Mr Hepworth's blog will thin out a bit? I mean, how does he (do you?) decide which bits go where. Truly, nothing goes to waste.
Cheers
Shane