I Am Not The Beatles

 

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

Band names are notoriously tricky things to get right.

If, for example, four people from Liverpool didn’t happen to chance upon a way to write what some people believe to be the best songs of all creation - thus making the name of their band an integral part of our cultural landscape - we wouldn’t be spending every 5 years sitting around yetafuckingain disecting the somewhat overstated merits of Sergeant Bloody Pepper, I can tell you.

Nope, instead the elephant in the room would become suddenly apparent as it became blindingly obvious what a dreadful band name The Beatles actually is. ie Merely the genre of the music the group chose to play - what was referred to at the time as beat music - with the letters l, e and s rather lazily crammed in after it.

So used are we to encountering the name The Beatles, and in an attempt to appreciate how awful it would have sounded in its historical context, let us take a look at what would happen if a few hitherto not yet formed bands of the modern era followed the same idea :

The Krunkles -  more breakfast cereal than street

The Raples - socially unacceptable

The Emoles -  a fey indie band that should have both formed and split in 1997.

Using the agreed standardised format for band names - the usage of the word The followed by whatever Something you like the sound of which hasn’t yet previously been taken - is also incredibly arrogant.

“I am not any old something,” it says to anyone who cares to listen, “I am The Something. The Definitive Something.”

Whilst The Smiths tried to vaguely subvert this by making their Something after the The something incredibly commonplace, if they were half as clever as they thought they were then they would have taken a leaf out of A House’s book… and called themselves A Smith instead.

For the usage of the prefix A is one which immediately bristles excitedly with the idea of equal community. “Come on! Why not form your own band and call it, oh I don’t know, Another House,” this bandname suggests in comparison to the The ones, “You could then move in next door, we could all strum our jangly guitars together in the communal garden in a vaguely angry way and then pop down the pub every now and again for a pint. It would make us all truly… Heart Happy.”

What Do They Mean By Heart Happy ?

Heart Happy is that incredible fluttery feeling which seems to emerge from your heart and uncontrollably spread around the rest of your body, your very world view and overall demeanor during those first moments where you sense the possibility of falling stupidly in love. It is your brain and body expressed as feeling - a recognition that an interaction with another individual of which you currently know very little, seems to offer the chance of taking the currently sad and broken you and transforming it into some sort of cohesive happy whole.

If you are coincidentally lucky/unlucky (delete according to personal preference) enough to currently be experiencing such a sensation as you are reading this then beware, as this song comes with a warning : when a person you don’t know very well speaks their language and the words they choose to impart to you are ones which drool endlessly on about what a truly incredible person / kisser / shag you are, it is all too easy to start believing their overdressed mouth and end up tripping on vanity’s floor.

I Didn’t Even Know Vanity Had A Floor.

Well it does, and I’ve been there - and if you ever find yourself lying prostrate in this position having just made a total tit of yourself and cocked pretty much everything up, then I would recommend doing what the lead singer of A House does in the outro and endlessly repeat

“I’m happy. I’m happy. I’m happy. I’m happy…”

in an attempt to try and convince yourself of this fact.

After all, he doesn’t sound like he remotely believes it - sounding for all the world like he is recording his vocal whilst simultaneously being forced by the record producer to walk bearfoot across the hot tin roof of the house next door - and nor will you but, hey, a sad heart wears many faces… so it certainly seems like a good place to start.

Are A House Still Standing ?

They have sadly been demolished.

Before the wrecker’s ball struck into the heart of the household however, the core residents appear to have been Dave Couse on shrieky vocals, Martin Healy on bouncy bass, and the - not remotely do I sound like a children’s TV character - Fergal Bunbury on scratchy guitar. Despite being called A House in the singular they actually had many houses, as they rather greedily got through an astounding four record labels during the twelve years of their construction before finally not really trusting their foundations anymore and classing themselves as uninhabitable.

http://www.zop.ca/discog.cfm

Alot of people really rate this band incidentally - and although Light A Big Fire may well feel that they have a decent claim also - many think they are The Great Lost Irish Band Of All Time.

They are arguably most famous for releasing a song called Endless Art which lists the names of lots of dead people. It caused a minor controversy in as much as some journalist or other noted that every single person on the list was male and, for reasons that I can’t currently fathom, this fact was apparently Very Important At The Time.

To counteract this A House then recorded another version called More Endless Art where the list of names were entirely female. This affirmative action didn’t appease the pedants however who argued that all women wanted was equal access to the original song in the first place, and not to be fobbed off with a completely different song which frankly didn’t scan quite so well. Oh well, you can’t please everyone - want to know which one you prefer ?

Male :

Female :

Want to see Dave perform an updated version with Neil Hannon ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmEvTa7Npk0

Oh, and here is someone with far too much time on their hands :

http://www.mrpayne.com/2005/08/19/endless-art/

Where Are They Now ?

The good news is that they are all still going and that they all seem tremendously nice. Dave and Fergal are currently playing in a band called The Impossible whose most recent album The World Should Know was released in 2006 :

http://www.davecouse.com/

http://www.myspace.com/davecouse

Whilst Martin is currently in a band called Pony Club, and - in an apparent fit of rage that it wasn’t him who was given the wonderful name of Fergal Bunbury - seems instead to have decided to dress like a children’s TV character in an attempt to regain the initiative :

http://www.ponyclub.tv/

http://www.myspace.com/ponyclub

I Feel Love…

If you do then it seems likely you are currently overdosing on Dopamine and Norepinephren - as these are the chemicals that apparently give us that initial Heart Happyish feeling. After they make an appearance, and you have discovered that you really rather like snogging them, Oxytocin raises its head to help create the idea that we have a connection with the individual concerned before Vassopressin finally kicks in to try and make us stay together :

http://www.essortment.com/lifestyle/relationshipadv_tukr.htm

Interestingly, some scientists claim that Dopamine is as addictive as cocaine (which some claim is completely non-addictive of course - although these people always seem to be particularly heavy users of the stuff in my experience so their judgement should not necessarily be trusted). Dodgy drug comparisons aside however, the effects of Dopamine can physiologically last up to seven years before disappearing - hence, presumably, the itch.

http://www.dimaggio.org/Eye-Openers/what_is_love.htm

So, the next time you find yourself tripping on vanity’s floor just remember: blame the Dopamine. Well, unless it is this Vanity’s floor :

http://www.clubvanity.co.uk/

In which case I would blame the cocktails.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : 2 pounds and 90 pence. I’m happy.
Current Profit : 226 pounds and 99 pence.  Want to watch The Impossible performing a lovely old A House song called I Am Afraid in 2006 ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EsHWTW0qx8

Whilst we are on the subject of feeling love, why not take a listen to A House’s quite astounding version of I Feel Love ?

Supporting Cast Update : Beatles, The;  Smiths, The

 

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…

 

” Silence is golden, but you’re extra quiet…
Why don’t you shout or scream or… anything ?”

The Quiet Look - Thomas Wayne

The problem with total silence in love and relationships is that it doesn’t really say very much.

If you are the one instigating the silence then it is very easy to get all mixed up in the perceived profound enigmatic meaningfulness of it all, making you feel like you are starring in a black and white 50’s melodrama - forever staring into the middle distance through the steam of a nearby locomotive.

This perception however is a misperception – as if you ever got around to opening your big fat mouth and actually decided to ask the person on the receiving end of this nothingness precisely what they were getting out of the entire experience, then their answer would be ‘Pretty much fuck all to be honest’.

For silence, by its very nature, is impossible to interact with. Indeed, some would argue that by facing complete and utter silence it only makes for an increased likelihood that the person inflicted by it will go ahead and repeat the actions that possibly made you go all silent in the first place. This is however just a supposition of course, as the silence isn’t telling anybody anything, not even something remotely helpful such as ‘Will you please stop doing that, it’s really bloody annoying.’

The best way to deal with silence is to treat it as that most wonderful invention of popular music, the gap – after all we all love a good gap don’t we? And the reason we love them is that a gap isn’t silence per se, but merely a quiet bit that occurs between two other reasonably closely placed noisier bits, giving the pause context and thus turning it into a contemplative mouth watering moment to savour – but, importantly, only because you are safe in the knowledge that it isn’t going to go on forever.

If viewed in this way the silence can, like many mornings before it, finally be broken and in its place will stand the admittedly terrifying but ultimately wondrous joy of flawed human interaction. In short, in the same way that all the best musical gaps are bridged by our expectations of the music to come, we must bridge our own gaps with the hope of conversation to come - and we can only do this with an open heart of love, fear and trust so that our emotions can move on, be resolved or sadly ended.

With all of this in mind, Falco’s decision to start the very first line of his very first verse with the slightly defeatist words ‘What else is there to say? We’ve seen it all before…’ may seem initially foolhardy. It is however, a masterstroke – as this song is fucking superb.

Errr… Are You Sure ?

This fact may seem hard to grasp as the intro kicks in with Falco stutteringly informing you that he is indeed ’so emo mo mo mo mo mo mo mo motional’ in the manner of a man with Tourettes forever on the brink of screaming motherfucking into your ever shocked face, and then immediately following this with a backing singer overemoting a ‘yeah yeah yeah‘ to such a degree that you may fear for both

a) your sanity, and

b) the apparent imminent onslaught of a late career George Michael schmaltzfest.

However, if you can make it beyond this point you soon realise that with Emotional Falco has realised that just by writing this song the silence which he is experiencing will be broken, and the gap that is now his past be created. The verses then don’t really say very much at all in their strange broken English - after all, what else is there truly to say? We’ve seen it all before. It is a story, as Morrissey once said, that goes on -  but in actuality they are cleverly created to replicate those moments when you too in similar circumstances mutter drunkenly to yourself during those long dark lonely nights. When you too say things all too disturbingly similar and equally nonsensical to yourself - if only you were ever stupid enough to record them and play them back in the cold light of day like Falco did.

At least I say that he is speaking in broken English, but this a hope more than anything from certain knowledge – as if his wording is 100% accurate then when he says ‘I know there isn’t a woman being born who can take me as I am…’ he is setting the age limit for any possible future lovers at a shockingly low level.

What Happens Next ?

After quietly talking to himself for a few moments, and still receiving no response from the cold empty house that surrounds him, Falco senses that if there really is nothing more to say… then all he can do is feel and thus flies into the alcoholic self obsessed rage of the chorus - before finally reaching his crescendo where, tired and emotional he breaks down and criiiiiiiiiiies. This is the relief, the plateau of both the song and his emotions… the moment where you cry so much you fear may vomit – but God do you need to express it.

‘ Been That ! Been That ! Done That! ‘

Haven’t we all - and interestingly, this incredibly accurate portrayal of the feelings of lost love all then happens again. And again. And again – so Emotional is thus in essence a musical expression of the cyclic nature of post relationship grief itself.

Indeed, if you have just coincidentally lost that incredibly beautiful and astounding person who you fell worryingly in love with recently, then your heart may well jump when you hear Falco announce that he had ‘my the woman right here, I had her in the palm of my hand’ with ever increasing shriekiness and increasingly poignant nonsensical words shoved after it, then it may be sadly broken when at four minutes he screams ‘HE’S GOT TEARS IN HIS EYES’ whilst worryingly referring to himself in the third person, and it may finally stop entirely when - noticing that this song is in fact only him breaking his own internal silence, and that he is still totally and utterly and profoundly alone – he does Thomas Wayne proud and shouts and screams and… everythings ‘CMON! CMON! CMON!’ relentlessly during the outro at his stupid stupid self in the mirror, surveying a man who has lost everything but is still confoundingly in love with a person who really couldn’t give a fuck about him either way.

Astoundingly brilliant.

Where Is Falco Now ?

He died young.

He died alone.

Killed. In a car accident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falco_(musician)

http://www.falco.at/

Errr… That News Has Made Me Quite Emotional…

Quite right too, as if you forget about all that Rock Me Amadeus nonsense – a song which, if we’re being honest rather than ironic, frankly hasn’t aged well – you will very quickly note that Falco was, without a doubt, a bit of a pop genius.

Don’t believe me? Try this – it is one of the songs on the other record in this double pack, is called Ganz Wein and not only does it overuse one of those fantastic drums that goes Booo! to within an inch of it’s Booo!ey life, it also contains some Da Na Na Na’s even Sudden Sway would find hard to replicate so succinctly, and soon erupts into a collision of utter chaos and silly over the top shouting.

Fabulous or what?

If you enjoyed that then I would recommend you go away and track down The Final Curtain – his Best Of – like I just have, as incredibly that isn’t even the best song on there… but it’s not cheap, I warn you now:

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1246924/a/Final+Curtain-Ultimate.htm

What’s That Quote From Thomas Wayne All About ?

It is from a song culled from a brilliant 3 CD set of 50’s Teen Angst Classics called Midnight Cryin’ Time - all of course precursors for Emotional itself - and it is definitely worth your money too:

http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Cryin-Time/dp/B000089HCN

Want to hear the song ?

Tell Me About Thomas…

All I can say is that up until 5 minutes ago I knew absolutely nothing about him at all - but he has just very successfully spooked the living hell out of me. Why?

He also died young.

He also died alone.

Killed. In a car accident.

So… both Falco’s and Thomas’s stories of searching for a personal peace during the disturbingly brief spell we have on this planet are, it turns out, terrifically sadly interlinked and shockingly cut short - a Tragedy you could say :

http://tinyurl.com/cr7bs7

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : 3 pounds and fifty pence.  A nice price, but not enough to take my mind off that not particularly cheerful resolution. Why not go and listen to the best gap we have on here to make you smile again - the sensational Breakin’ Up Breakin’ Down.
Current Profit : 223 pounds and 24 pence. It’s been… emotional.

  

 

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

Sorry I haven’t written in a while - but I do have a good reason. I promise.

Have You, By Any Chance, Been Out Of Town ?

Initially I went Out Of Town, yes, but it soon became obvious this simply wasn’t drastic action enough. So I thus made the decision to Get Outta Town instead - and, let’s face it, you can’t get much more out than that.

Why Did You Get Outta Town ?

Somebody wanted to buy something at the exact same moment that somebody else wanted to sell but, rather than celebrate this success of capitalism during such fickle financial times, there was a major sticking point as nobody wanted to find out if what was being sold - or, indeed, was being bought - was a work of either fact or fiction.

The word was then rather unfairly put out by persons unknown that it was me who was causing all of this factfictionfriction - a charge which I vehemently deny incidentally - and this in turn caused lots of heat to come down presumably transforming the aforementioned attempted transaction into a Fahrenheit 451-esque fireball.

Having then consulted with my good friend Dan about this disturbing chain of events, he suggested that getting the hell Outta Town was very possibly the only viable option open to me.

Bloody Hell. Where Did You Go ?

Dan was quite helpful here too, as he first said that perhaps going North to Alaska would suffice, or possibly South to Rio and - after a bit of musical pragmatism - he even pointed out that I could try travelling east to Atlantic City or, rather obliquely, ‘west as far as you can go’.

Unfortunately, seeing as about as far west as I can actually logically go around the earth without ending up precisely where I started from is just a small percentile of a degree to the actual east of where I currently am, I didn’t really feel this final suggestion fitted the whole Get Outta Town criteria at all - indeed, some friends thought it may even be some sort of trap… so I chose Rio instead.

Would You Recommend It ?

Moving on the floor now babe with a bird of paradise who wore a cherry ice cream smile I suppose was very nice, yes… it was a bit like a birthday or a pretty view - but then I’m sure that you that it’s know it’s just for you.

Right. This Is, Presumably, An Example Of That Famous Deadly Sense Of Humour I’ve Heard So Much About…

Who told you about that ?

I Heard A Rumour.

Heard a rumour ?

They Said You Had A Broken Heart ?

I did, indeed after 8 weeks or so of endlessly dancing on the sand not unlike some river or other, I was downright depressed. At that moment though at the end of the drive some lawmen arrived - which certainly made me feel alive alive alive for a few moments I can tell you. Still, I took my chance, and it turned out that luck was on my side - and I tell you something…

I Know What You’re Thinking…

I tell you something…

I Know What You’re Thinking…

Alright then… what am I thinking ?

You’re Wishing You’d Never Started Quoting Duran Duran or Bloody Bananarama.

Errr… yes. That is precisely what I am thinking actually.

And ?

I’m just going to head into a hasty denouement and hope nobody notices.

Good Plan.

So, it turned out that the police had taken a rather close look at this whole Get Outta Town case and done something I had completely failed to do ie look at the actual record itself and not just rely upon the song and the record cover for clues.

And it was here where they pointed out to me that the song title had unexpectedly metamorphosised from Get Outta Town into a rather more specific Fletch, Get Outta Town - which was odd. Taking the view that if Dan couldn’t even decide upon the correct bloody song title then he probably had no idea who he wanted Outta Town in the first place, the whole thing was declared a massive misunderstanding and I was allowed back.

What’s more, as Gary Glitter once said - although I cannot 100% guarantee that he agrees with the sentiment at this exact moment in time - It’s Good To Be Back.

What’s The Best Bit ?

If you happen to know the words to the spoken intro of Thriller you may wish to recite them over the instrumental which starts at 3 minutes and 4 seconds, as they are totally identical. Dan even manages to squeeze in a Jacksonesque Hee Hee! to try and ease you into it if you feel a tad uncomfortable.

What’s The Worst Bit ?

The rest of the song I am afraid as, rather ironically, if you do choose to do the above then that is about as thrilling as this record ever actually gets.

Tell Me About Dan !

Laughably, Wikipedia claims that our Dan is best known for the songs ‘Instant Replay’ and ‘I Can Dream About You’.

This is a total nonsense of course, as he is quite obviously best known for writing and performing the utterly brilliant ‘Relight My Fire’ in 1979. Indeed, so good is his original version, some fools even claim it to be better than the majestic masterpiece recorded by Take That many years later. They are though, as already noted, fools. Don’t believe me?

Our Dan Fabulousness ( which incidentally includes a ‘legendary 6-minute intro called Vertigo, used often in nightclubs as a floorfiller before the real song’- ahem - ‘breaks loose’ ) :

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

Take That Brilliance :

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

Which do you prefer ?

Can I Relight Dan’s Fire ?

No.

Indeed, if you do happen to find yourself dreaming about him then I wouldn’t really recommend holding him tonight - as he sadly died in 1994.

http://www.danhartman.com/

He first joined a band - called The Legends - when he was 13 and was then asked by a chap called Edgar Winter to join his not particularly imaginatively named Edgar Winter Group. They then had a number one hit in the US with a musical monstrosity called Frankenstein :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1mV_5-bRPo

After that Dan then wrote and performed on their next hit, Free Ride in 1972 :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQB83__ONuo

Before he then left to make all that lovely disco and MOR rock stuff, very successfully producing James Brown’s Living In America:

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

Slightly less successfully, doing the same with Tina Turner’s Steamy Windarse :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9rptVFplpg

Wrote some new age stuff,

http://www.amazon.com/New-Green-Clear-Blue-Hartman/dp/B000008GF2

and… well…. died.

Was Dan All Hart ? Errr… Man ?

This certainly seems to be the case, as nobody has a bad word to say about him at all - particularly the musicians who have since been helped by his posthumous foundation :

http://danhartmanfoundation.org/gratitude.html

Which is nice isn’t it ?

Tell Me About Getting Fact From Fiction

The first recognised historical novel (ie a fictitious story plastered onto a historically factual setting) was apparently written in the 14th century by Luo Guanzhong and is called The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms. It is acclaimed as one of four of the most influential novels in the history of Chinese literature, and is based upon events in the tumultuous years at the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China. Want to read it ? I have just tried and I warn you now, fascinating though it undoubtedly is, it is long - and contains about five and half thousand characters :

http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/ThreeKingdoms/

Can’t be arsed, but want to read about it ?

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

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

Can’t even be bothered to even do that and just want to read my favourite bit ?

” I saw the fragments of a shattered stone one spring time on the hillside, when, alone, I walked to greet the sun. The pines distilled big drops of dew unceasing; sadness filled my heart. I knew this was the Stone of Tears, the stone of memory of long-past years.”

And it is this wonderfully lilting melancholic phraseology which proves that Historical Fiction - as a genre - had nowhere really to go but down… pretty much mere milliseconds after it was first invented. After all, that one paragraph probably reads better than Philippa Gregory’s entire career doesn’t it ?

http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : 1 pound and 20 pennies. The B-side by the way is the rather chocolatey M&M Remix of I Can Dream About You. Not since Owen Paul sang the words You’re My Favourite Waste Of Time, has a record so relied upon a stonking chorus for it’s existence :

Current Profit : 219 pounds and 82 pence. Want to know all about that film I’ve never seen, called Fletch ?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089155/quotes

Supporting Cast Update : Chase, Chevy; Guanzhong, Luo; Gregory, Philippa; Take That; Winter, Edgar; Duran Duran; Glitter, Gary; Bradbury, Ray (He wrote Fahrenheit 451); Jackson, Michael

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

Obviously bored with the modern style of government - based rather tediously as it is on a theory of ever evolving democracy being consistently informed by thousands of years of learnings - J M Silk would like to make a suggestion.

Why don’t we, he posits, Let The Music Take Control ?

What A Bold Idea!

Alarm bells should immediately start ringing when you consider the medium he has chosen to convey his manifesto with ie via the wondrous possibilities of song. This is not a new idea of course as in the 1500’s when - if you can imagine such a terrifying thought - not just the internet but mass printing itself didn’t exist, political theories and news were highly illegally sold in pamphlets called broadsides (a word which would, eventually, morph itself into the much more acceptable broadsheet).

These broadside papers, made by manually stamping them with ink laden woodcuts, would be sung aloud by the pedlars who sold them on the street. No musical notation was included upon them as the people purchasing them couldn’t read music so, if you bought one – as you could have done in 1513 after the battle of Flodden – you would have not just been expected to return home with the information that James IV the king of Scotland had recently died, but you would also have been given marks out ten by your family on the choice of tune you used to convey the news.

Interestingly, it is here where historians suspect that children’s embarrassment with their culturally out of touch parents first came into being - as the parent would undoubtedly have chosen a classic form of folk tune to sing… whilst the kids were all busily broadsiding each other in their respective playgrounds with a nu-folk-rap-crunk hybrid.

Things have obviously moved on alot since then but also, in many ways, they have regressed as music has become more self referential. When Sister Sledge, for example, inform us that they are Lost In Music the fact that cannot be ignored is that they are currently lost in their own music and – in that moment on the dancefloor when we realise that really isn’t such a bad place to be – so are we.

The same goes for J M Silk, as he doesn’t just want any old music to take control of the world of course… he wants his own to do so.

What Would His Radical Melody Based Society Look Like ?

It would certainly be progressive, with accountability for people’s lives rigorously decentralised away from the corridors of power and placed firmly upon the shoulders of the individuals concerned. Indeed, so decentralised would this form of governance be, it can be hard to find J M Silk suggesting his music take responsibility for pretty much any part of your life whatsoever.

The welfare state would need to be substantially reduced for a start, putting it very much in line with the American model, with your own mental and physical health being left very much up to you. Sure, the music would forever be rumbling away like traffic noise in the background being in control of The Big Stuff, but you would need to put your own problems aside, you would need to find your own solutions to any problems you may face and you would need to find a way to get your own body moving across any floor which required navigating - no matter what your personal physical circumstances may actually be.

Although this may seem harsh for people previously reliant upon state provided wheelchairs for their propulsion, there would however be a plus side - as if you could walk then doing so would suddenly be alot more fun with you letting the music take control of moving your feet, presumably meaning we would all be suddenly strutting around our city centres in the style of John Travolta dancing in Saturday Night Fever.

This one definite improvement to our lifestyle though is actually just an illusion of extra freedom, as the important word here is ‘let’. So in reality you would be nothing more than a hollow and passive conduit who lets the music do this kind of thing to you – as well as loads of other of stuff… some of which you may not necessarily be that keen on.

Such As ?

You, as a member of the new society, would be expected to make the DJ give you more.

Remembering that when he says ‘music’ J M Silk is actually referring to himself (and he is, from memory, also of course a DJ), we can only thus presume that is his rhythm he wants to have seducing your body and who expects this to lead onto him giving you a really bloody good grooving – before he then finally jacks himself all over your body.

That Doesn’t Sound Very Pleasant.

J M Silk claims that such an experience will actually leave your body crying out for more but I, like you, have some serious doubts.

More worryingly, he also says that in order for you to be best placed to mentally accept being grooved and jacked upon in a such a manner, his music would - at some point - have to move your very soul.

Errr… Where ?

He doesn’t say - but let’s face it, if creating an entire new society which turns you into an unthinking soulless automaton is the only way J M Silk can ever see himself getting laid, then he can’t really be very much of a looker.

Is J M Silk Very Much Of A Looker ?

You can make up your own mind by looking at pictures of him attending DiscoNautica 2008, here :

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3v6c9BfMRtokb3xSCowxnA

No matter what your opinion of him is however, let us all be clear on one point - he is certainly more of a catch than poor old DJ Shark who attended the same event :

http://tinyurl.com/5jofh5

 

Tell Me More About J M Silk…

Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley - as he also calls himself - is very famous and one of the founding members of the Chicago House Scene.

Want to remind yourself of how brilliant his classic Jack Your Body is ? It is, I warn you now, not just fabulous in an oh so retro way - but totally fucking brilliant full stop :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQcg-dRg5h4

Want to hear a 1992 ambient remix ? It is rather like luxuriating in a bath full of bubbles made purely out of Steve’s jack :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5SL-Lrk-Y

Want to hear the kind of music our Steve was influentially playing on his radio show on Chicago’s WBMX in 1985 ? It’s all rather fun :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26K89VK2KAw&feature=related

Anyway, he is still grooving along quite merrily - winning a Grammy here and performing a set there -  so why not find out loads more stuff about the lovely Steve both at Wikipedia and his own website :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_%22Silk%22_Hurley

http://www.silkmix.com/

So If The Music Isn’t In Control ? What Actually Is ?

Michel Foucault’s analysis of modern society concludes that we live in a Society Of Control, via a series of what he terms ‘enclosures’. He argues that to ensure we are never given true freedom - and to prevent anarchy - these enclosures always fence us in to an obligation within a closed environment.

“The individual never ceases passing from one closed environment to another, each having its own laws: first the family; then the school (”you are no longer in your family”); then the barracks (”you are no longer at school”); then the factory; from time to time the hospital; possibly the prison, the pre-eminent instance of the enclosed environment. It’s the prison that serves as the analogical model: at the sight of some laborers, the heroine of Rossellini’s Europa ‘51 could exclaim, “I thought I was seeing convicts.”

http://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/netzkritik/societyofcontrol.html

So no one person is in charge - but corporations are and, in an instance of mass collusion which is in it’s own way a remix of JM Silk’s suggestion (ie Let The Corporations Take Control), we consciously allow this to continue despite the fact that they endlessly treat us like convicts (or soulless automatons).

After all, putting corporations in place to manage and police the fabric of our society is a very sensible thing to do - as a corporation sees no reason to emote, always follows the rules and outlives actual people, thus ensuring a longer term security for our species as a whole.

Well, unless some sort of credit crunch occurred due to a lack of regulation which then destabilised the banking system leading to the destruction of corporations to such an incredibly large degree that the very foundations of our fragile society - which likes to give the illusion of being immovable and eternal - started to shake, before falling down around our ears.

But then, that doesn’t seem very likely does it ?

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence. Want to hear the 12” ?  It goes on a bit :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vlNE3exwtQ 
Current Value : 93 pence.
Current Profit : 218 pounds and 70 pence. I let the music take total control… and the music let me down.

Supporting Cast Update : James IV; Sister Sledge; Foucault, Michel; Travolta, John