tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203476512009-07-05T09:00:31.893-04:00londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.comBlogger285125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-12175147860479757752009-07-02T09:17:00.002-04:002009-07-03T13:41:04.333-04:00

I had hoped to post some more this week but I've had a miserable bloody week at work which left me too tired and stressed for that. As they say in the movies "I'm getting too old for this shit."This makes me feel a whole lot better though.*It's the 4th of July holiday here on Saturday so the weekend is starting on Thursday this week. Not a day too soon if you ask me.

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-7410416427095594522009-06-29T14:32:00.002-04:002009-06-29T14:34:26.506-04:00

Tom Robinson's song "The Winter of '79" isn't about The Winter of Discontent of that year because it was written and recorded before that actually happened. In the song Tom is reading his tea leaves and looking into the future, imagining events in England a year down the road (written from the point of view of someone looking back at 1979) and it's not a pretty picture: civil unrest, violence,

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-80261620504241418212009-06-26T11:59:00.001-04:002009-06-26T12:16:33.928-04:00

Holy shit.That's what I said last night when I heard the news about Michael Jackson. To say it was a bolt out of the blue would be a massive understatement and I found that, after the initial shock, I was more upset by his death than I expected given that I hadn't bought a record of his in over 20 years. But you never really know what a person means to you until they're gone and Michael and his

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-81370708907563048002009-06-23T17:19:00.000-04:002009-06-23T17:19:55.112-04:00

Download: Clark County Record Fair - Saint Etienne (mp3)I'll try and post some actual writing soon, I'm a bit low on energy at the moment. Maybe I need to buy more records.

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-42184096289812017222009-06-22T13:43:00.000-04:002009-06-22T13:44:18.338-04:00

Download: Pooh Trilogy - The Divine Comedy (mp3)We don't own much in the way of "kids music" — our daughter mostly listens to the same stuff we do — but the CD this comes from is pretty groovy. Perfect for all those Alternadads out there. Not that I'm one you understand (though I did spend part of Father's Day yesterday at a record shop).

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-85922156341109008882009-06-18T08:55:00.000-04:002009-06-18T08:55:27.213-04:00

Then there are those records which not only didn't make the charts but seemed to have made so little impression anywhere you get the feeling you were the only person on the planet who bought a copy. Like "Questionnaire" by ex-Blockhead Chaz Jankel which I'd even forgotten I owned myself until I dug it out the other day. I thought it would probably sound dated and make me wonder why the hell I did

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-23697193990916312912009-06-16T09:37:00.000-04:002009-06-16T09:38:05.894-04:00

English singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke was a one-hit wonder but "For You" wasn't it unfortunately. This was her 1978 debut single which, despite being prettier than a field of daisies on a hot summers day, barely had a sniff of the charts.I could devote an entire blog to great singles that flopped (there probably already is one) as "Why wasn't this a hit?" is something of a mantra for serious

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-78288752402626815212009-06-12T06:00:00.001-04:002009-06-12T06:00:04.154-04:00

Apologies for posting old TOTP clips two Fridays in a row but I've been swamped at work this week and don't have the energy to be more creative. Besides, this is a real goodie too, a perfect combo of stomping beat and sideburns.

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-35772297506619463572009-06-10T08:53:00.000-04:002009-06-10T08:53:23.123-04:00

Download: Rich Kids - Rich Kids (mp3)Remember all the hype about Rich Kids, the so-called "punk supergroup" formed by Glen Matlock and Midge Ure? They crashed and burned pretty quick after just the one album. Still, they did leave us with this corker of a debut single.

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-34203294300241835492009-06-08T09:16:00.001-04:002009-06-08T09:17:16.588-04:00

Reading this feature about the gorgeous but short-lived 1960s magazine London Life I came across this marvelous bit of pop trivia about a promotional idea cooked up by managing editor David Puttnam (yes, that David Puttnam):One of his more extravagant (though certainly forward-thinking) ideas was to ask Burt Bacharach to write a song for the magazine. “He was very big at the time and it struck me

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-10824143032963065052009-06-05T05:06:00.002-04:002009-06-05T05:06:00.359-04:00

Lots to enjoy in this TOTP clip. Not just the lovely face and voice of Polly Brown but some really unfortunate hair choices (you'll know who I mean) and dancing dollies shaking their thing. The drummer looks a bit bored though.

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-12360655089107038102009-06-02T13:04:00.000-04:002009-06-02T13:05:07.165-04:00

This isn't really part of the "brief" here either but this new single makes me so damn happy I could skip, and Lord knows I've needed things to make me smile lately. Poppy and The Jezebels aren't some manufactured pretty pop puppets but a proper band who sound like an indie Bananarama produced by Joe Meek. It's enough to restore your faith in pop music.Download: Rhubarb and Custard - Poppy and

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-72869533747170962262009-06-01T08:46:00.000-04:002009-06-01T08:47:00.196-04:00

I was at a concert with the wife last week and she asked me if I was going to write about it on my blog to which I replied "no, because it's not part of the brief" which I guess is a bit silly as it's my blog and I can write about whatever I damn well please. Besides, I'm not really in the mood for maudlin nostalgia at the moment.The gig in question was a performance by A Camp, a wonderful group

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-19975759832599656202009-05-28T10:32:00.000-04:002009-05-28T10:33:08.331-04:00

Tina Moore, wife of the great Bobby, seen here making Victoria Beckham look a bit Third Division.Do you think she wore that England shirt when they...you know..?Download: The English Dream - Generation X (mp3)

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-68194700881984999952009-05-26T14:38:00.000-04:002009-05-26T14:38:28.736-04:00

My daughter loves rockets and spaceships and when she saw the sleeve of ELO's "Out of The Blue" album she went "oooooooooooh!" like a 12-year-old boy who had just seen the mothership in Close Encounters for the first time. Now she refers to it as "the rocket record" which, as a huge ELO fan back in the olden days, makes me very happy indeed."The Whale" probably isn't her cup of apple juice as

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-64487355315356597942009-05-22T10:31:00.001-04:002009-05-22T10:33:34.838-04:00

I've written a lot here about my mother's record collection and had been working on one about Cat Stevens' 1971 album "Teaser and The Firecat" before I left for London to see her. It was one of those albums you'd always find sitting next to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Tapestry" in the homes of over-30s like my mother, offering a little taste of folky counter-culture bohemia in a nice,

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-85781208459365583792009-05-11T08:52:00.000-04:002009-05-11T08:52:36.091-04:00

I wish there was an easier or less painfully abrupt way of beginning this post but for the life of me I don't know what it is. My mother died last week.She'd been suffering from cancer for the past three years, it was detected early and for a while it looked as if the chemotherapy had "cured" it, but as is often the case it came back and eventually got to the point where there was nothing the

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-57746501397095561842009-04-30T14:19:00.000-04:002009-04-30T14:19:38.665-04:00

Apologies for my absence this week, I've had some important real life stuff to deal with. Hopefully I'll have all my ducks back in a row sometime next week. In the meantime, here's a long-lost post-punk classic from 1981.Download: Charm - Positive Noise (mp3)

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-1168608930402981432009-04-23T17:35:00.000-04:002009-04-23T17:35:00.728-04:00

Ever since I started this blog I've wanted to write something about the 1946 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film "A Matter of Life and Death", not just because it's one of the greatest British films ever made but it also had things to say about Englishness and the importance of our values and character in the modern, American-dominated world. I never could get it written though but with

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-26308144129185865512009-04-22T12:58:00.001-04:002009-04-22T13:00:49.621-04:00

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in, oh, 17 years: I bought a brand new album on vinyl, the terrific "It's Blitz" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I think it was the cover (above) that made me buy it in that format rather than a CD, something about that image and the lack of type gives it the feel of a classic 70s or 80s album — something New Wavey by some arty NY band on the Ze label maybe —

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-23151956101737868062009-04-21T11:34:00.002-04:002009-04-21T13:20:19.090-04:00

I lived in Florida for several years and though it could be a relatively cosmopolitan place because of the large number of Hispanics and northern Yankees living there, every now and you'd be reminded that you were, in fact, in the Deep South. It wasn't just the gun shops, the Confederate flag bumper stickers on pick-up trucks, the signs on shop doors saying "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service" or

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-49068862833942012152009-04-17T15:52:00.000-04:002009-04-17T15:53:04.546-04:00

Good old Titbits, a cheesy gossip mag full of curvy young ladies in bikinis but you didn't have to be embarrassed about looking at it because your mum bought it — the Littlewoods catalogue was similar in that respect, pages and pages of girls in their underwear but you could pretend you were looking at the toys.I would really love to know what "Nitro Man Blows The Gaff" was all about. Isn't that

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-68343245688822050212009-04-15T09:35:00.000-04:002009-04-15T09:35:54.562-04:00

Download: This House (12" version) - Big Sound Authority (mp3)I'm still amazed that this brilliant, brilliant record wasn't a monster hit but it only got to #21 in 1985. I always thought Big Sound Authority was a great name for a band too. Sadly they split up a year after this was released which doesn't surprise me, if I'd recorded something as fantastic as this only to see it fail to make the

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-36635626381576664842009-04-10T06:02:00.000-04:002009-04-10T06:02:01.035-04:00

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20347651.post-11270177061429423542009-04-07T22:53:00.000-04:002009-04-07T22:56:00.696-04:00

A lot of Post-punk music tended to be rather on the gloomy side, painted in shades of grey with maybe the occasional splash of blood red. It was the soundtrack to the dismal fag-end of the 1970s played by alienated boys from grim Northern council flats or Anarcho-Marxists in communal Notting Hill squats. They all wore drab colours and sounded as if their tea had gone cold, wailing unhappily over

londonleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431179744928331353noreply@blogger.com7