I Am Not The Beatles

 

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

The lead singer of Balaam & The Angel wants to show you something special.

I bet he does.

What’s more, it is a something that measures 7 inches…

Then I fear he is about to be sorely disappointed, as in my experience 7 inches is anything but special - it takes alot more than that to take the sadness from my smile I promise you.

I think you misunderstand, as the something he is referring to isn’t his Silver Sword… but his… SILVER RECORD!

He has a SILVER RECORD! ?

Yes!

It isn’t a real SILVER RECORD! obviously - as that would imply some sort of chart success on this song’s part - but still, it’s a nice and shiny distraction away from the musical musings which are contained upon it.

Are these musings something special ?

In as much as sounding not unlike a slightly tipsy ZZ Top can be described as such, yes.

Anything else special to note ?

Yes, two somethings :

Firstly, if you hang around long enough then you are soon rewarded with a gap for you to stop dancing in momentarily - which is always a bonus - and secondly, rarely for a rock record, the something special the lead singer refers to isn’t actually remotely penis based at all… but emotional : he wants to create a mutual feeling of trust and respect between you both in the hope this may grow and develop naturally into radiant happiness and love.

The big pansy.

What’s The Best Bit ?

The end.

But only because you know that they chose to finish the recorded version of the song in this way just so when they played it live they could wait for a bit… shout “ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!”… and then haul themselves back into it all over again.

What A Special Band Name!

It is isn’t it - and, interestingly, if we decide to take as a stone cold fact that the lead singer of Balaam & The Angel’s penis most definitely really is 7 inches long, then rather ironically

a) He could never be described as being hung like a donkey, despite the fact that
b) The band name is all about donkeys. Talking donkeys.

I Find That Hard To Braylieve…

Well, here is the story - although for more sensitive readers I should probably warn that the following narrative does contain the mental image of somebody opening “the mouth of the ass”.

In the Old Testament of The Bible, Balaam was considered a poet and prophet of such high regard that people thought he was directly connected to and spoke with God. As such, it was thus believed that when Balaam blessed items or people they truly were blessed - and conversely those he cursed were truly cursed.

At some point in Balaam’s life some chap turned up, for reasons unspecified, to ask him if he wouldn’t mind popping off somewhere to spend a bit of time cursing the entire country of Israel. Balaam said that he would but only if God approved the project first, so he asked God… and lo and behold He did say it was alright - as long as Balaam only cursed things when God said he could and only with the words that God told him to use at the time.

Accepting this caveat Balaam then got on his donkey and started travelling to wherever he was going to do his cursing. However at this point The Angel Of The Lord went a bit rogue and decided to try and stop the cursey Balaam, so he made himself invisible to humans - but crucially not donkeys - and floated about a bit.

This vision of The Angel Of The Lord - which after all is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ himself - jumping around in front of her face rather unsurprisingly made the donkey stop still in sheer fucking terror… which in turn made Balaam absentmindedly start cursing it with the sort of words that would probably shock even an all knowing God, and which therefore He would never have signed off in the first place.

What happened next, according to the King James Bible, was :

“… the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?”

A slightly pissed off Angel Of The Lord then made himself visible to Balaam and in no uncertain terms told him that the only reason he wasn’t dead at this present moment was because of his Amazing Talking Ass.

Balaam was thus allowed to get to wherever he was going and tried to start all that railing against Israel which he had been asked to do previously (a process which must surely be known as Israiling), only to then find that God had tricked him a bit and would actually only let him say nice things about the place - such as praising the cleanliness of the beaches and what a nice place it was to go on holiday.

The moral of this tale is apparently that we should always heed God’s word - although it could also admittedly be that if you want to write a moralistic story which people take remotely seriously, you should probably never have the words ‘mouth’ and ‘ass’ in anything approaching a close proximity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaam

http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue4.pdf

Wham! Balaam! I Am! A Man!

Unlike a young and lithe George Michael, Balaam & The Angel aren’t just one man but three - and what’s more they are all brothers : James, Mark and Des Morris originally from Motherwell in Scotland.

The band was formed in 1984, incredibly 25 years later they are still going, and they are the proud owners of one of the world’s most initially confusing websites :

http://www.balaamandtheangel.co.uk

Want to hear some more ? It’s all very pleasant - their myspace page is here :

http://www.myspace.com/balaamandtheangel

And lots of photos and other stuff is at an unofficial site, here :

http://www.balaamandtheangel.com

Interestingly it turns out the band are quite influential and very entrepreneurial in their own right, as in order to get their songs released they set up their own independent record company in Birmingham called Chapter 22 Records. They didn’t just keep it for themselves however, they also signed other bands too - which means that without them the world may never well have heard of Pop Will Eat Itself, The Mission and …errr… Scorpio Rising :

http://www.vinyltap.co.uk/shop/label/Chapter+22.aspx

And if - just like that lovely chap over at Because Midway Still Aren’t Coming Back - that is the kind of music which makes you go all wobbly with excitement, this fact alone must surely make Balaam & The Angel Something very Special indeed.

Money Update

Cost: 8 pence
Current Value: 1 special pound and 73 somethings
Current Profit: 339 pounds and 40 pence.

Supporting Cast Update : ZZ Top; Michael, George

I’ll show you Something Special :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQEm37DlsgA

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Bill Medley would like you to categorically state that you are not in love with him.

Well, that’s easily done - as I’m not.

Brilliant! You’re really good at this!

Good at what ?

Ending your relationship with Bill Medley.

But I’m not in a relationship with Bill Medley – never have been. Indeed, I don’t believe I’ve ever even met the man.

That’s probably just as well to be honest, as it turns out Bill is claiming that he couldn’t give two hoots about you either and – as such - he would now quite like you to run along…

Consider it done.

…and take it like a man.

I’m sorry ?

Bill isn’t entirely clear why you had to start running away for him then to chase you before he made the attempt but don’t worry, he promises to be strong and stand as tall as he can throughout the entire man taking process.

But what if I’m not currently of the persuasion to be Bill Meddled with in this manner ?

Drugs.

He makes it quite clear at 2 minutes and 9 seconds when he says that at that aforementioned moment “ When you say it’s the end… I’ll just hand you a line”.

And in my experience at least, that’s usually enough to turn just about anybody.

Somebody Enter This For Eurovision !

Absolutely.

Despite - or very possibly because of - the slightly disturbing air of sexual tension which hangs around this record, it certainly does have Eurovision potential doesn’t it ?

Greedily, it’s even got not just one but two separate choruses - the second of which makes its first appearance around the 2 minute mark - and seems to exist purely for Bill to coyly suggest that a jolly good fisting might well be in order.

I beg your pardon ?

And it is in the midst of this general fistyness where, just like Falco before him, desperate Bill finally breaks down and criiiiiiies - presumably as he comes to terms with what he has just rather selfishly forced upon you.

Unfortunately however, whereas Falco’s cryyyyyyying was pure raw emotion given context by the cyclic nature of both grief and the song itself, Bill’s criiiiiiies instead sound like he has suddenly and unexpectedly metamorphosed into that incredibly constipated and grunting individual who always seems to be in the neighbouring cubicle to you whenever you are forced by circumstances beyond your control to actually use a public convenience.

What a horrible thought.

It gets worse, as at 3 minutes and 27 seconds - mere moments after yet more constipated cryyyyyyying brings everything to its logical naked from the waist down conclusion - the most astounding thing occurs.

I am not going to ruin it for you with details of exactly what this is, but if you can listen to this bit without picturing Bill’s bowels finally exhaustedly giving up with the sound of a few initial heavy thuds against the stainless steel, and then immediately following this up with an ever quickening stream of other stuff behind it… then you are a stronger person than I.

Can You Stop Talking About Bill Medley’s Bowels Please ?

Apart from saying that I most definitely am not in love with Bill, the other thing I can categorically state is that I have never heard this song before.

Ever.

Oddly however I may well be the only one as, worryingly, it actually has its own Wikipedia page dedicated to it.

Good God. Really ?

Yes. Really.

This is, it turns out, because I’m Gonna Be Strong was originally written in 1963 for Frankie Laine by the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Although it failed to chart for poor old Frankie, when it was re-recorded one year later by Gene Pitney this song was massive. Indeed, in the UK only Gene’s much later duet with Marc Almond has sold more copies for him.

I can’t find Frankie’s version anywhere which is a shame for comparative purposes, so do you want to hear and watch Gene’s - filmed in those marvellous days when disinterested individuals were allowed to hang around in the background of music shows acting as if the music was an unwelcome distraction to their infinitely much more interesting conversations ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGfvSPLqYFs

Fascinatingly, it was also a minor hit a further 16 years later for a group called Blue Angel - which featured a young Cyndi Lauper as their vocalist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ7RdtDisKA

and she still performs it live to this day. Here they both are together, for example, in Argentina :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cxXAwKWukU

Oh, and here is the Wikipedia page which, although telling us all of the above with the rather exciting addition of pictures, oddly fails to note Bill’s rather spangly Euro cover version - which just doesn’t seem right :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I’m_Gonna_Be_Strong

Tell Me About Barry and Cynthia !

They also wrote You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ( a song which, when I was younger, was single handedly responsible for terrifying me into always closing my eyes whenever I kissed anybody – even my gran) Saturday Night At The Movies and… errr… Somewhere Out There for Linda Rondstadt and James Ingram :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFp10zmArgg

Barry and Cynthia were part of a core group of influential songwriters (alongside Leiber/Stoller, Pomis/Shuman, Goffin/King for example) who were famous for creating the “Brill Building Sound”. If you don’t know all about this, as I can’t say I truly did, why not start brushing up on the very interesting history here :

http://www.spectropop.com/hbrill.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brill_Building

Barry and Cynthia are still going and are still married incidentally - even if Cynthia looks like she has recently been welded to Barry’s back during which intense industrial process her face sadly melted :

http://www.mann-weil.com

Tell Me About Bill !

Despite those earlier protestations we have of course met Bill before, with his terrifyingly rumbly Sylvester Stallone inspired version of He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother - and it’s worth popping off there to find out all about him even if only to note that, for personal reasons I am obviously going to have to come to terms with sooner or later, that review was similarly obsessed with all things bottomlike :

http://www.iamnotthebeatles.com/?p=408

What Was All That About Fisting ?

The Eurovision Fist is a stage device which must be unashamedly conquered if you wish to stand any chance of ever winning Eurovision. Indeed, so persuasive is its power that at my Eurovision parties all acts get a bonus 10 points on their scorecard for the merest suggestion of it occurring.

For a masterclass in its usage why not take a look at Johnny Logan singing Hold Me Now in 1987. Bravely, he first caresses you with a floppy half fist at 1 minute and 17 seconds as a hint of the pummelling that is surely about to come – before then repeatedly almost ramming you to death with the bloody thing from around the 1 minute 50 mark onwards:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lJCpKDRVII

I Am Not The Beatles Warning : Johnny Logan is a highly trained Eurovision Fisting professional.

Please don’t try this at home.

Thank you.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : 1  I can see it pound and 1 slipping away from me pence.
Current Profit : 224 pounds and 17 pence.  Not a particularly strong showing, it must be said.

Supporting Cast Update : Laine, Frankie; Pitney, Gene; Lauper, Cyndi: Blue Angel; Rondstadt, Linda; Ingram, James; Logan, Johnny

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

“John Moore : musician. Searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have via the medium of popular music. Then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation from a particularly orange light bulb in the photographers studio alters his body chemistry. And now when John Moore grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs… “

Spoken word intro to The Incredible John (TV Series)

If the hot new date you’ve rather rashly just jumped into bed with decides to unexpectedly announce the onslaught of their impending orgasm by suddenly pausing mid-thrust to put their shades on and sneer ‘Welcome To The Resurrection’ over your shoulder, before then thrashing around wildly inside you not entirely unlike The Lord moving in a very mysterious way - you would perhaps be a tad concerned.

If, in those usually blissful post-coital moments, they then proceed to repeatedly prod you uncomfortably in the buttocks with their guitar, angrily demanding to know ‘Where Do You Think You’re From These Days?’ in a way that suggests they believe the question actually makes any form of sense - you would certainly have the right to end your ‘concern’ and move it up a level to ‘more than just a little uneasy’.

When your terrified muted responses finally enrage them enough so that, like some sort of Nu Rave influenced Incredible Hulk, their skin turns a luminous dayglo orange and they trash your room screaming ‘I’m Out Of My Mind Thinking Only Of You’ whilst vomiting each and every time they reach the end of the phrase - it seems certainly possible you could reach the conclusion that your date selection techniques need a rather radical overhaul.

Oddly however this is precisely the situation which occurs in what can quite literally be described as the climax of this song, as Out Of My Mind is very cleverly designed to mimic the ups and downs of the sex act John Moore so desperately wants to indulge in up your Expressway - at least I am presuming that is what he is referring to when he quietly asks in the second verse if it may possible for him to make love to you in an exotic location.

What’s The Oddest Line ?

In verse one he asks you for some love and affection before adding quite bizarrely that he don’t care where you got it from, as if to suggest that what would really turn him on would be for you to whip out a dildo from under the bed and present it to him with the words “It’s my mother’s…”

I’m Going Out Of My Mind! Tell Me About John!

John’s first success was when he joined Jesus and Mary Chain in 1985 and took over from Bobby Gillespie, soon to be of Primal Scream fame, as the drummer. He stayed with the band for two years, yet oddly only ever played the drums on one actual recorded track - Some Candy Talking. This appears to be because Jesus and Mary Chain preferred to use a drum machine both on recordings and when playing live which, apart from making you perhaps wonder why they actually bothered employing any drummers in the first place, meant that John often got to play rhythm guitar with them instead… despite, rather confusingly, still being referred to as the drummer.

Presumably figuring that if he was going to play the bloody guitar anyway then he may as well at least be in a different band that recognised such things, he thus left in 1987.

Tell Me Moore! Tell Me Moore! Did He Get Very Far ?

Yes he did, eventually.

He released two albums with John Moore and The Expressway over the course of a few years, then a band called Revolution 9 and finally - perhaps most famously - Black Box Recorder with Luke Haines.

Intriguingly he is also apparently well known these days for his rather marvellous talent of playing the saw - and has actually done so on two albums for a band called Art Brut - and also for making shedloads of money when he became the main importer of Absinthe after setting up a company with The Idler magazine to do so.

He seems tremendously nice by the way - and a bit posh these days too, as he currently writes for The Guardian

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/arts/author/john_moore/profile.html

has written a novel called Bad Light and once even appeared on University Challenge - where it seems he was obviously getting a bit wound up by Jeremy Paxman’s ever intimidating presence, as he started to turn a rather alarming shade of orange before the show even began :

http://www.john-moore.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/lineup.jpg

Want to know more about Moore ?

http://www.john-moore.net

If you want to hear yet even more Moore then, in one of those I Am Not The Beatles coincidences we haven’t had for a while, he released an album called Floral Tributes - a collection of unreleased songs from the past 16 years- just four weeks ago :

www.myspace.com/johnmoore23

You can tell he’s obviously lovely as he describes his genre as ‘Melodramatic Popular Song’, which is about right.

Oh, and want to read what he thought about Jesus and Mary Chain performing a gig with Scarlett Johansson last year?

http://tinyurl.com/29hew2

Does Everyone Agree That John Moore Seems Tremendously Nice?

No.

In 2005 he wrote this about Morrissey on his blog :

“…there is something amusing about seeing the once Charming Man, now with a face like a sack of marshmallows, at heart attack age, cavorting on a stage borrowed from the Elvis 68 Comeback Special and probably wearing some kind of girdle or corset”.

Now, this comment didn’t make lots of Unfeasibly Serious Morrissey Fans over at Morrissey Solo particularly happy so they planned to storm his forum with fury - only they never quite got around to it as the conversation very quickly disintegrated into a discussion over exactly what make and model of corset John could possibly be referring to.

Beyond this, the best response was from a person who took it all very very personally…

“I was introduced to John Moore once at a Libertines gig in London- I told him how much I loved JAMC, but the only thing he said in response was that he thought I looked like the token “indie” guy who was on Fame Academy a few years ago (hopefully someone will remember the guy, the really annoying idiot with stupid hair!)- pretty insulting, especially as he said it in a voice completely devoid of irony or humour. He actually meant it and I suspect meant it to annoy me as well! Needless to say I didn’t talk to the miserable fool after… “

So how does this chap, who we must sincerely hope isn’t actually an annoying token indie idiot with stupid hair, now feel about John after this devastating and unprovoked attack on his own personal style and lack thereof ?

“He really is a chump.”

And this blatantly obvious understatement of his true bruised and broken feelings is, in retrospect, probably just as well - after all, if there is one thing we have learnt today…. he doesn’t want to make John angry.

He really wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : One exceedingly optimistic French outlet is asking for 136 pounds for a copy of this record - they must be out of their minds. 2 pounds and 85 pence.

Current Profit : 193 pounds and 72 pence. Want to watch the video? He’s wearing quite nice lipstick if it helps :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFutLDVFRVE

Supporting Cast Update : Haines, Luke; Paxman, Jeremy; Gillespie, Bobby; Jesus and Mary Chain; Art Brut; Johansson, Scarlett

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

This record was a hit !

No it wasn’t.

This record ! It was a bloody hit I tell you !

No. It wasn’t.

This is the tantalisingly toe tappy, fascinatingly finger clicky, funny noises in the second versey Mary’s Prayer isn’t it ?

It certainly is.

This record was a hit !

No it wasn’t - I think you’re getting it confused with another record called Mary’s Prayer.

Absolutely not, I would recognise this record anywhere. This is Mary’s Prayer as performed by - the not quite one hit wonders but pretty much as close as you can darn well get as the accurate definition of a one hit wonder is of course someone who has a number one single then fucks off and is never heard of again but Mary’s Prayer actually reached number three and also now I come to think about it they later had a smaller hit a few years into the future with the equally toe tappy The Second Summer Of Love all about the emerging rave scene which they recorded like it was a folk song and this was quite a clever thing to do I realise now in retrospect but this doesn’t really matter anyway as this second chart appearance no matter how lowly makes the definition of them being even remotely approaching a one hit wonder entirely meaningless so I don’t know why I even bothered mentioning it in the first place - Danny Wilson.

Absolutely correct.

It was released on Virgin wasn’t it ?

Yep.

Catalogue number VS934 ?

You certainly know your stuff.

This record was a hit!

No it wasn’t.

Yes it was. It was a huge hit, and I therefore declare this whole I Am Not The Beatles malarkey to be a total sham because there is no way you could have bought this record for 8 pence - for the very good repeatable reason which I am now going to repeat again for the very good reason that it is so very stupidly repeatable : This. Record. Was. A. Hit.

No. It. Wasn’t.

WHY NOT ?

Well… although just about every other totally identical record called Mary’s Prayer with the same cover, the same catalogue number, the same mix, very possibly even from the same pressing all later joined together and made a jolly decent group effort to become the huge international hit you speak of - this very particular record was never invited to take part in all the festivities and, as such, feels a bit left out by it all.

This is because this is the first release of Mary’s Prayer which was - from memory - released a few months beforehand and… it completely failed to chart. Indeed, by the time all that hit stuff turned this song into the kind of track milkmen absentmindedly whistled as they drove their ever-clinking milkfloats around seemingly never ending - but actually very soon about to end for all eternity - milkrounds, I had already bought this record for the frankly bargainous sum of 8 pence about 12 weeks previously.

How exciting !

Unfortunately, however, there is a dark side to this story.

This is a record whose frankly extensive family of identical brothers and sisters all went on to become much more successful and posh than it could ever dream of. So when it does meet those identical versions of itself at surprisingly frequent family get togethers, it very often gets rather down about the whole thing and wonders if it’s own failure to chart is simply down to the fact that it just didn’t try hard enough.

To be fair, this isn’t really helped by the rather snobbish attitude of all those other Mary’s Prayer’s who also suspect deep down that this is very probably the case - despite the fact of, of course, that they are all exactly the same.

If it is identical in every single way as you claim, why doesn’t it just pretend that it was a hit too ? No-one would know, surely ?

Because I blew it’s cover ages ago.

So amazed was I to discover that a record I owned was, a few months later, actually becoming bizarrely popular I decided to display it prominently in my bedroom so when my friends came around to visit they would notice it and exclaim “Oh, you’ve got that quite good song Mary’s Prayer by Danny Wilson… I quite like that.”

I would then respond with a detached calm smugness, which I hoped was not entirely unlike the air of a louche Edwardian gentleman sitting in his smoking jacket and vaguely gesticulating towards some obviously ludicrously expensive jewels on the dressing table, absentmindedly stating… “What that old thing? Oh, I’ve had that for months…”

You Twat.

It wasn’t, it turned out, the best reaction to the situation this poor record found itself to be in and was actually an extremely selfish move on my part - as quite soon this record started to get just the teensiest bit depressed. I first noticed a problem when it’s personal grooming habits ceased and my bedroom stopped heaving with the usual acceptable smell of excessive teenage masturbation, and was instead replaced with the distinct whiff of failure.

Then, one day, this record got so upset about it’s slightly shitty social status it tried to commit suicide.

Bloody hell, really ? What happened ?

It threw itself onto a windowsill at the height of summer and tried to warp itself to death.

What a sad story.

It is.

Luckily I got to it in the nick of time and prevented a life threatening catastrophe by administering expert first aid in the form of piling lots of heavy books on top of it in a dark and cool cupboard under the stairs. Thankfully, the resulting fact is that it is still playable and this means we can at least ponder the one interesting question this record raises.

And that is ?

If I say ten Hail Mary’s do you think it might be remotely possible for someone to leave a light on in heaven for me ?

It seems unlikely.

God’s a bit of an environmentalist these days - which is fair enough when you think about it, as he did actually invent the environment in the first place - and up in heaven everything is currently wonderful, being there is - rather obviously - heavenly, and every single day everything is free.

With this in mind, I doubt he’s going to allow any eternal souls to put His perfection in jeopardy by replicating your frankly selfish behaviour which has totally fucked up His beloved earth just because you’re a bit scared of the dark.

The last thing anybody wants is global warming in the afterlife.

What’s This Song Like ?

Oddly, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a very famous and perfectly pleasant hit song called Mary’s Prayer by a band called Danny Wilson - and, if you give it a fair listen rather than just sit there thinking ‘Oh, it’s that’s perfectly pleasant song called Mary’s Prayer by Danny Wilson,‘ it might just be a little bit better than you do perhaps remember it.

Unless you fucking hate it of course, in which case you’re buggered.

Where Are Danny Wilson Now ?

The back cover very helpfully informs us Danny Wilson are Gary Clark, Kit Clark (his brother) and a chap called Ged Grimes, and they are all hopelessly easy to track down - even if, like this record, some are now much more successful than others.

Ged is very successful indeed, as he went on to initially produce music for people like Natalie Imbruglia before finally settling down to writing music for computer games. His music has appeared in famous computer games I have never played such as Earth Worm Jim 3D, Amplitude and Enter The Matrix - and has also been recently used in trailers for two films I have also never seen called The Bourne Supremacy and The Fast and The Furious. In fact he is so incredibly successful he is apparently “one of the most highly respected figures in today’s digital entertainment industry.”

Or, at least, he is according to himself.

On his own website :

http://www.myspace.com/gedgrimes

Gary, the vocalist and writer of this song, had a solo career before eventually becoming a very successful music producer. He has produced loads of people including Liz Phair, Lloyd Cole and Rachel Stevens :

http://www.myspace.com/garyclarkmusic

Kit meanwhile has been in a quite incredible number of bands - one, perhaps unwisely, even involving somebody else who used to be in Deacon Blue - and you can hear a selection of them all at his website. I highly recommend All Wrong Now by Silver Suits at the link below - as it takes samples which were in tracks by Pop Will Eat Itself and Daft Punk (although I have no idea where they were originally from) and makes something different and really rather lovingly pleasant :

http://www.myspace.com/kitclarkmusic

What Actually Is Mary’s Prayer ?

In the moments before she was rather unpleasantly executed by having her head chopped of with an axe Mary, Queen Of Scots chanted the repeated prayer ‘In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum,’ quietly under her breath.

This means ‘Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit’ - and was also presumably what this very record chanted in the moments before it’s death defying dive onto that aforementioned very hot windowsill.

Whereas Mary’s Prayer was saved by a quick thinking me, however, poor old Mary Stuart wasn’t - as the first blow missed the neck and cut instead into the back of her head. At this point she was apparently heard to whisper the words ‘Sweet Jesus’, which is certainly less than I would have probably screamed at the top of my fucking voice in such an axe in the back of my head scenario. It then took a two further amateurish swings of the axe before her head was finally severed.

Which must have hurt.

http://www.marie-stuart.co.uk/

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : This is tricky, as none of the records advertised state whether they were a full blown hit… or slightly depressed ever suicidal failure. I have therefore made the editorial decision to retain this records dignity and record a perfectly acceptable 8 pence. It is the same as it always was - and, sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Supporting Cast Update : Phair, Liz; Imbruglia, Natalie; Cole, Lloyd; Stevens, Rachel

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Patrick Kane would really rather prefer it if you didn’t call him a mother.

As in motherfucker ?

No… as in mum.

So it’s OK for me to call Patrick Kane a motherfucker ?

Well, he doesn’t specifically rule against it - but I warn you now, your desire to describe Patrick in such interfamilial shaggy terms is what an old female friend of mine describes as permission by omission and, as such, reminds me of both her and the copious amounts of anal sex she has indulged in.

I beg your pardon ?

Anal sex. It means ‘up the bum’.

Yes, I understand that - but what the hell are you talking about ?

My friend was, shall we say, put in a difficult position - as she

a) Was deeply religious, and
b) Desperately wanted to have sex.

Not believing these two seemingly completely opposing facts to be entirely irreconcilable, she carried out a thorough reading of all the relevant Bible passages. This research showed that penetrative vaginal sex was definitely, and rather obviously, frowned upon by God and was therefore immediately ruled out… and it was also noted by her that anal sex between two men was similarly outlawed.

It was at this point though that she spotted the loophole she wished to exploit, as absolutely no reference whatsoever is made in The Bible to the very specific subject of anal sex between a man and a woman. Indeed, the very possibility of such congress doesn’t even seem to enter into God’s otherwise omnipresent, and therefore at least partly filthy, mind.

Making the reasonably fair assumption that if God felt it not worth mentioning in his own book then he probably wasn’t really that bothered about the situation anyway, she immediately granted herself permission by omission… and spent her single days having her bible merrily bashed by all and sundry.

When she told me this a few years ago and I suggested that it certainly seemed possible to me that her interpretation of God’s words - or, indeed, the complete lack of them - wasn’t perhaps entirely as He had intended them to be understood, she cryptically replied

“God doesn’t ever come into it.“

Which certainly seemed, I suppose, at least physically true at the time even if I, unlike her, wasn’t entirely sure how to take it.

What a fucking warped story.

Well, this is one fucking warped record.

In what way ?

The record. It’s physically warped - it is, essentially, buggered.

If the record is warped as you claim, how am I managing to hear I Refuse at this very moment ?

Well, luckily for you, Hue and Cry obviously foresaw the precarious nature of long term vinyl warpage and therefore very helpfully provided a much more forward thinking format - a free cassette - to go with this record, so it is the version of I Refuse from the cassette which is featured here.

It’s a cassingle ! How exciting !

It certainly is… and it certainly is.

No matter how exciting this turn of events is, however, the downside of being forced to use the cassingle is that it only has the extended version of I Refuse upon it… and, as you are no doubt already discovering, this does rather unfortunately mean you have to sit through a ludicriously long intro before anyone utters a single bloody word - let alone starts to refuse to do anything.

So what exactly are Hue and Cry refusing to do ?

In their endlessly brave and perhaps ultimately foolhardy fight against The Power Of The Sexual Stereotype, Patrick and his brother Gregory (the keyboard player and co-songwriter) have decided not to have any children and never join the armed forces. This heroic stance means neither of them will ever be either a Sweet Madonna or a Pistol Packin’ Son right up until the moment they apparently die - although from that moment on, as Graham Parker discovered, everything will be pretty much up for grabs.

It is worth noting here that as a title I Refuse is a bit of a misnomer, as whenever Patrick sings those two seemingly simple words what he really means is : We Should All Refuse, Can’t You See ? It’s Bloody Obvious. This not exactly subtle Brechtian didacticism means he is actually telling all of us not to get our eggs fertilised and all of us never to enrol as a soldier.

Ultimately however, Patrick’s Egg and Soldier argument is rather overcomplicating matters as pure logic dictates that if we really do all stop having children then all war will undoubtedly end pretty darn quickly, because there would be absolutely no army to join for the very good reason our species has just ceased to exist - and this does perhaps seem like a short lived and rather trivial victory.

What’s the best bit ?

I quite like gaps and - after you sit through all the excitement of a camp and nonsensical middle eight - there is a particularly fine example of The Gapper’s craft.

Indeed, if you listen very closely you can actually hear the sound of a bra being burnt within it and absolutely nobody getting shot whatsoever.

It is a beautiful moment.

Do Hue And Cry Really Deny Inhibition ?

Gregory doesn’t seem to, as he doesn’t even has his own website - and this is surely about as inhibited as it is possible to be these days. Even his wikipedia entry is just one sentence long, so we will presume he is The Shy One of the two.

Patrick, however, most definitely does Deny Inhibition - for example he was Rector of The University of Glasgow for three years, only to be succeeded by… errr… Johnny Ball :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Kane

He is also very proud of his book, The Play Ethic - and has even referred to himself as a creative and organisational consultant with regards to it :

http://www.theplayethic.com

Don’t forget to go and say hello, he seems very nice :

http://www.patkane.com

What is The Play Ethic ?

http://www.theplayethic.com/images/Scotland_on_Sunday_piece_on_PE.doc

Can’t be bothered to read that but want a brief I Am Not The Beatles summation ? Ok, here’s an attempt :

75% of the workforce in industrialised nations do repetitive (not necessarily manual) tasks which will eventually be done by modern technology. Rather than frowning upon this by dwelling upon our imminent mass unemployment as a bad thing and pointlessly trying to find people other work to do (as there won’t actually be any other ‘work’ to do in the traditional sense of the word), we should accept this as a matter of fact of our evolution. As such, we should use this as an opportunity to be more creative and play more - not hedonistically and individually, but as communities. If we do not accept this realignment of both the human condition and the way communities will now be forced interract with each other… we may very well end up, frankly, dead.

Which, although ludicrously easy to take the piss out of, is actually quite an interesting point.

Gosh. Do Hue and Cry Really Escape Definition ?

Absolutely not.

Some like them, some hate them but everyone seems to have an opinion. My favourite review of them is over at Amazon and is written by a chap called Kenny, concerning their Greatest Hits CD :

“Buy it,” he states menacingly… “make yourself a better person“.

And I suppose if you did happen to buy it, and then played it - not hedonistically to yourself of course you selfish bastard, but with your whole community also able to participate in the hearing of it… becoming a better person may actually happen for everyone involved.

Either that, or your next door neighbours will be knocking seven shades of shit out of your adjoining wall demanding you turn that fucking racket down before they call the police.

There’s Been Something Bothering Me About Patrick Kane For Years… Did He Ever Actually Find Linda ? Sometimes I Lie Awake At Night Fraught With Worry About This. Can You Help ?

Yes I can.

When they played Looking For Linda live Hue and Cry apparently sometimes added in an extra verse towards the end which explained that, yes, Linda was eventually found after much of that aforementioned looking and that, yes, she was essentially fine all things considered.

They never released this version of the song as a single however, so you would have to be a pretty hardcore Hue and Cry fan to have discovered this vital piece of Linda related information - and if you weren’t, well…. you may well have been left on tenterhooks for the rest of your natural life.

Hang on… Patrick Kane knew ? And he never told me ?

Errr…. yes.

The Motherfucker.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : I never stopped looking… but I never found anything. I am not saying it’s worth absolutely nothing, but I can find absolutely nobody who is selling one. The rules then very sadly clearly state this is A Refusal and I must record…. a very disappointing minus 8 pence, which I am neither satisfied nor pseudo satisfied about. Incidentally, some of you may recall I Refuse reaching the lower echelons of the top 40 - but that was actually a re-recorded and utterly different version 2 years later. The one here was apparently Hue and Cry’s first major single and got pretty much nowhere. Want to watch the video ? If nothing else it lets me say ‘Look At Our Tints’ again :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyFURJFv6Bw

Current Profit : Easy ? I knew it was never gonna be easy… but not this hard : 186 pounds and 41 pence. Oh well, want to watch Labour Of Love in the company of lots of mysteriously floating blocks of wood ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxMvb9VrzY

And finally, are you interested in what Hue and Cry are up to now? They have done jazz, some notjazz and some err… drum and bass since you last probably looked. There are even wild(ish) rumours of a new album in 2008…

http://www.hueandcry.co.uk

Supporting Cast Update : Brecht, Bertolt ; Ball, Johnny