The Green Green Hedge of Home
Posted by David Hepworth on 9 April 2008 - 11:15am.
Ringo Starr - or at least the topiary shape that is supposed to represent him - has been beheaded in Liverpool, allegedly because when Jonathan Ross asked Ringo if he missed Liverpool he said he didn't. They spent five minutes on the radio this morning debating this. Only in Liverpool would they consider this a terrible slight rather than the sane reaction of any bloke given the choice of living in Monte Carlo or Dingle.
Using local intelligence where possible tell us who are the rock stars who still live or spend time near the old homestead and who are the ones who just pretend to?
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Barclay James Harvest
(Down, progophiles, down!)
The three surviving members still live in their home town, Oldham, and must be the only a-bit-famous Oldhamers not to have run away screaming as soon as they could scrabble together the bus fare.
(Actually, I think they live in rather nice moorland farmhouses surrounded by sheep out on the fringes of the borough, rather than in two-up/two-downs in the mean streets of Glodwick, but, hey, Oldham's still Oldham.)
Gerry Marsden
Has lived on the Wirral his whole life and still does - but then I imagine he doesn't have as much cash as his old mate Ringo.
Gerry Marsden is also the nicest man in the world.
whereas Ringo......
isn't
He's a good singer too
"Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" is lovely. But didn't Gerry grow up in The Dingle? Think he only moved to the Wirral when he got a bit of money.
Liverpool gets a lot of stick, some of it justified, some not, but I think its sticks in the craw a bit when someone like Ringo Starr perpetuates the myth that it's an ugly, backward hellhole in order to get a cheap laugh on the Jonathon Ross show.
A lot of people move on from the places they grew up in, for whatever reasons, but I'd sooner live in Liverpool than some tacky resort for the idle jet set like Monte Carlo.
Monte Carlo may be tacky in places,
but somehow I think Blingo likes it that way, as long as it has sun, warm pools, good cocktails, fine wine, great food, fantastic scenery and no hassle to go with the tack.
Can't say I blame him.
The 'Pool
A lot of Liverpool is an ugly backward hellhole, but it has charm and swagger so it can get away with it. I lived there for three years and I love the place. Somewhere like Peterborough for instance also has its ugly backward hellish side to it but it has no charm to counter balance it so it's just 'orrible.
Steve Gibbons
Tho' whether the star is still bright enough in his fundament to qualify as star is debateable, but only debateable outside of greater Brum, where he is still world famous, resident and gigging regularly.
Moz
still lives in the same two-bedroomed terraced home he was raised in, and keeps both of his pairs of shoes in the bottom of the very same wardrobe he had as a lad. There are gladdies in the front garden.
Ooo-errr arrghh I'm hallucinating!
You will be......
.....when he sees you in court.
(Any reference to he, see or court is entirely arbitrary and results from a misunderstanding as to who was being and is being referenced.By accident. Without malice. Or aforethought.)
How much fun
is the new game of lawyer baiting on the Word blog?
Barnsley
The drummer from Saxon used to deliver our Milk!!
You often see Jools Holland in around Deptford/ Greenwich and he lives up the hill in Black Heath some of the time.
The Ringo things is quite strange, it's hardly news he doesn't live in D'pool anymore. As a debating point I have often put forward that t'Beatles are really a London band in the same way Hitchcock is a Hollywood director.
..."some of the time"...
...not quite what David Dave Hepworth had in mind.
Bonie Tyler
Bonnie Tyler still lives in The Mumbles, Swansea.
Many years ago my wife in her teenage years knocked on Bonnie's door with the plan to ask for an autograph. The door was answered by Bonnie who was on the housephone talking, without my wife opening her mouth Bonnie thrust an already signed photo into her hands without a comment and closed the door. Class.
Manchester
The rest of the Smiths still live in Manchester, I think. Most of the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and New Order didn't move too far out; maybe the ones with the bigger PRS accounts drifted out to the Cheshire countryside.
Manchester: local perspective
The thing is with Manchester, the people from the suburbs move in for a bit of excitement (Doves are from Wilmslow and leafy Altrincham and wanted to "get out of the Black & White town"-well, it's only twenty minutes on the tram, lads) and the people actually from Manchester (eg Bez and Shaun living, very sweet this, in neighbouring cottages on the hilly eastern fringes in the Pennines)move out.
Apart from Mark E Smith who has never done such a thing.
And Johnny Marr parks his car (Half Man Half Biscuit song title?) in front of my mate's house-or is that another thread?
And does anyone else think that Mozza's stint in Rome would have a whiff of Frankie Howerd in Up Pompeii?
Andy Partridge
Doesn't he still live in Swindon ?
Partridge still in Swindon
Yes, fairly "normal" terrace or semi from what I can remember reading. Mind you, wasn't their deal with Virgin awful re:royalties etc?
And in any case
why would anyone want to move away from Swindon? I work there, and it's OK, honest. I wouldn't swap it for Hoxton or wherever is supposedly fashionable this week.
I guess that the
'drummer from Saxon' will be delivering your milk again pretty darn soon Mr 'Other' G.
Swindon
It seems a pleasant enough place on my one exposure, the Mike Heron Band, supported by Moon (Noel McKalla, sometime jobbing session vocalist of that day)
It was in 1974, so I bet it hasn't changed an iota. Me and my chums hung around trying to look like hippies, so I wonder whether we were spotted by a Partridge or Moulding, offending them sufficiently into inflammatory action? Of a musical bent. I like to hope so.
You do realise
that one of the founding members of Supertramp came from Swindon, don't you?
The police's main suspect is...
Billy Shears!
I thank you... I'm here all week.
U2 are still in town
Larry Mullen is 15 mins from where he grew up. And still drinks in a local.
The rest are in the leafy suburbs. But still close by.