What with the traditional music press being made increasingly redundant by the speed and relative freedoms of the internet, many music fans rely on a thin portfolio of advisors for their news. Zane Lowe perhaps. MySpace perchance. Toilet doors inscribed with the words ‘Holocaust Breakfast R the Future of rock’ possibly.
Herein lies a problem, as with the explosion of new music content comes a reduction in reliability, and accountability. Previously, any print journalist extolling the virtues of a band could be humiliated by the non-performance of their Next Big Thing. Bets were not hedged, colours to the mast were not pinned unless an act was so startling good and so cruelly forgotten that to not shout their praises from the rooftops would make the infant Jesus cry with horror. Now, print journalists are few, and web journalists are many. Web journalists are largely unaccountable. As Kirsty Walker I can proclaim that a band I quite like are the most amazing musical happening since Og the caveman banged on a stretched animal skin. Tomorrow, as Lulu DeBournville-Smythley I can proclaim that they are, in fact, shit and everyone has jumped the gun. Whoah, whoah, everyone back in their own beds, they are not the Messiahs, they are The Ordinary Boys.
I may have jumped the gun with Cherry Ghost. But so did Zane Lowe. So ner.
Close to six months ago I was telling everyone I knew that Cherry Ghost, AKA Simon Aldred of Salford, was the Next Big Thing. I had found him through MySpace, where the four songs on their meagre profile were enough to send me reeling into ecstasies. The multi-layered, wonderfully over-produced ballads swelled with fat xylophone notes and swirling prickling strings. Aldred’s voice was raw and brilliant, like a tramp in a doorway singing Handel’s Messiah with full accompaniment. It’s a whiskey voice, a smoke filled battle cry of a voice, which lends every lyric a kind of drunken truth. It’s gorgeous, and it’s a pleasure to listen to.
What was on offer at Liverpool Academy was so diluted, so understated that it smacked of embarrassment. The Big Sound of the produced tracks offered up on the Cherry Ghost MySpace profile was gone. It was replaced by a bloodless strumming and dreary bass lines performed by a band who looked like they were kicked out of Towers Of London for being too scruffy. Aldred himself looked grateful for the attention, and his voice was as moving as ever, but the songs which made people sit up and pay attention to Cherry Ghost in the first place were abandoned for a setlist which was prosaic and well, average. In an hour’s set, only the new single ‘Mathematics’ and a strutting mid-tempo number called ‘Here Come The Romans’ stood out. The problem was they stuck out too much, like two Monets in a gallery full of wallpaper samples.
A quick glance at the front row of the audience spoke volumes. Polo shirts and Timberland as far as the eye could see, all checking their watches to see if they could still make last orders in the Dog and Duck. It was your typical Supporters Club. The story was a little different a few rows back where interested parties had assembled to hear more of what they had been treated to from free downloads and the first single from the album, played to death on Zane Lowe. It didn’t happen, and some wandered off before time.
Cherry Ghost’s music has been compared to Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. I pray that Simon Aldred sees the distinction between their live performances, and his. He may feel more comfortable returning to the working men’s clubs after his performance at the Academy, but if it takes glitter, a light show and forty piece orchestra to translate his recorded material to the stage, he should do it, and Heavenly should pay for it. Buy the album, it will be wonderful, but give Simon Aldred a few more coins and a few more months before his live performances live up to the hype.
Thursday, 5 April 2007
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
Whiny Dancer
Elt goes political all too late for Sun City....
Mention the words ‘Sun City’ to any adult over the age of 30 and watch them shrink away in revulsion as they remember the injustice, the pain and the stigma attached to owning that record, written by Silvio Dante from The Sopranos. But Sun City was also a resort, built in ‘Bophuthatswana’, a made up country which was named as an independent state in order to strip black tribespeople of their South African citizenship, and force them to work in the lucrative platinum mines, and the new Sun City casino.
Sun City was a nauseating example of white cultural and economical supremacy in South Africa. Apartheid was at its most healthy and the ban on gambling under the National Party drew thousands upon thousands of rich, white South Africans from Jo’burg and Pretoria to Sun City, where gambling was legal and blacks were banned. In a country where virtually every business and institution stank of corruption and apartheid, Sun City excelled itself. And what better way to draw the rich, racist and ignorant than to stage huge concerts, with some of the world’s headline acts. Acts like Queen, Rod Stewart and Elton John. Ah yes….Elton John.
Elton’s been back in the news lately. He’s turned 60, he’s caused controversy in Tobago as local church leaders have warned he may ‘unduly influence’ the youngsters (presumably they mean dressing like Benny Hill after a date with Trinny and Susannah), and he’s taken on a new role as a crusader for equal rights.
Oozing sanctimony like a giant lefty slug, Elton tells the New Statesman that he is very concerned over bigotry and tells is “We should all stand up for basic human rights.” Right on Elton, except you’ve changed your tune since 1983 when the basic human rights of black people to be treated better than dogs in South Africa were the subject of much consternation to many. Elton crossed the picket line of all cultural picket lines when he agreed to take the Sun City dollar and stick two fingers up to the UN boycott. Of course, when questioned about this sanction break he simply replied that he did not see Sun City as being the real South Africa. Roberta Flack turned down $2 million to perform at Sun City. You can bet she thought it was the real South Africa.
Mind you, it would be easy for Elton to forget he ever visited Sun City, the world wide web holds little information about the show or the surrounding controversy : it’s like the event never happened. In the 1908s he UK Musician’s Union refused to support visas for many artists, including noted anti-apartheid singer Johnny Clegg who had ‘broken’ the UN boycott by playing with Zulu tribespeople, but had nothing to say about Elton’s transgressions. The Union had initiated the boycott itself in 1961, years before the UN, but strangely failed to take action or make comment on any British or American artists, concentrating instead on those from other countries looking for approval to tour Britain.
John’s constant whining about gay rights in the UK is sickening when you contrast this cause with that of the black South Africans he so quickly pissed on to be able to thrust his fat spangled arse into the foulest of all money troughs. Gay people in the UK may have it tough, but they can vote, they can employ straight people, they can ride on the same buses with straight people, they can have passports. Elton’s personal political battle – for the right to have a wedding as tacky as Jordan’s and to have bigger tits – is a transparent act of selfishness. In fact, all of his political leanings show a distinct lack of empathy with anyone dissimilar to Elton John. ‘It Could Have Been Me’ is the title of his New Statesman whine. God, just imagine….
Mention the words ‘Sun City’ to any adult over the age of 30 and watch them shrink away in revulsion as they remember the injustice, the pain and the stigma attached to owning that record, written by Silvio Dante from The Sopranos. But Sun City was also a resort, built in ‘Bophuthatswana’, a made up country which was named as an independent state in order to strip black tribespeople of their South African citizenship, and force them to work in the lucrative platinum mines, and the new Sun City casino.
Sun City was a nauseating example of white cultural and economical supremacy in South Africa. Apartheid was at its most healthy and the ban on gambling under the National Party drew thousands upon thousands of rich, white South Africans from Jo’burg and Pretoria to Sun City, where gambling was legal and blacks were banned. In a country where virtually every business and institution stank of corruption and apartheid, Sun City excelled itself. And what better way to draw the rich, racist and ignorant than to stage huge concerts, with some of the world’s headline acts. Acts like Queen, Rod Stewart and Elton John. Ah yes….Elton John.
Elton’s been back in the news lately. He’s turned 60, he’s caused controversy in Tobago as local church leaders have warned he may ‘unduly influence’ the youngsters (presumably they mean dressing like Benny Hill after a date with Trinny and Susannah), and he’s taken on a new role as a crusader for equal rights.
Oozing sanctimony like a giant lefty slug, Elton tells the New Statesman that he is very concerned over bigotry and tells is “We should all stand up for basic human rights.” Right on Elton, except you’ve changed your tune since 1983 when the basic human rights of black people to be treated better than dogs in South Africa were the subject of much consternation to many. Elton crossed the picket line of all cultural picket lines when he agreed to take the Sun City dollar and stick two fingers up to the UN boycott. Of course, when questioned about this sanction break he simply replied that he did not see Sun City as being the real South Africa. Roberta Flack turned down $2 million to perform at Sun City. You can bet she thought it was the real South Africa.
Mind you, it would be easy for Elton to forget he ever visited Sun City, the world wide web holds little information about the show or the surrounding controversy : it’s like the event never happened. In the 1908s he UK Musician’s Union refused to support visas for many artists, including noted anti-apartheid singer Johnny Clegg who had ‘broken’ the UN boycott by playing with Zulu tribespeople, but had nothing to say about Elton’s transgressions. The Union had initiated the boycott itself in 1961, years before the UN, but strangely failed to take action or make comment on any British or American artists, concentrating instead on those from other countries looking for approval to tour Britain.
John’s constant whining about gay rights in the UK is sickening when you contrast this cause with that of the black South Africans he so quickly pissed on to be able to thrust his fat spangled arse into the foulest of all money troughs. Gay people in the UK may have it tough, but they can vote, they can employ straight people, they can ride on the same buses with straight people, they can have passports. Elton’s personal political battle – for the right to have a wedding as tacky as Jordan’s and to have bigger tits – is a transparent act of selfishness. In fact, all of his political leanings show a distinct lack of empathy with anyone dissimilar to Elton John. ‘It Could Have Been Me’ is the title of his New Statesman whine. God, just imagine….
Monday, 26 March 2007
Wage To The Slave
This idea of white folks paying reparations to the ancestors of black slaves got me rather worried. I’ll be honest, I have never checked whether the ancient Walkers were slave owners, it’s not something that tends to come up at Family History coffee mornings. In an effort to investigate possible atrocities in my distant past I talked to my eldest relatives who couldn’t ever recall family pictures with Africans in chains, but did show a liking for a former Black Panther turned comedian by the name of Charlie Williams. Undeterred, I typed ‘Walker slaves’ into Google, whereupon I found the story of Quock Walker, who was bought as an infant by a Massachusetts landowner and sued him when he wasn’t set free at 25 as promised. Quock was given his freedom and fifty pounds, which to be truthful is all I’ve ever wanted out of life.
It got me to thinking about what reparations I might be due, and so, in the absence of any claim on my estate by previously owned people, I am launching my own reparations suit.
Stephen Volk (£500,000 in hurt feelings and a new Trev and Simon DVD)
You may not recognise the name, but this vicious bastard wrote the one-off BBC drama Ghostwatch, which starred lovable Going Live! presenter Sarah Greene. In this drama, staged as a spoof live feed from a supposedly haunted house in London, Sarah Greene played herself, reporting on the ground from the spook house, and eventually being shown crawling into an understairs cupboard where an evil, murdering ghost called Mr Pipes was waiting to kill her and allow her corpse to be slowly eaten by starving cats. Being an aficionado of Going Live! I was horrified and had nightmares for nearly five years. I now own possibly the only signed photo of Sarah Greene which includes the dedication ‘To Kirsty, See, I’m alive!’.
Also in this category :
Kerry Stevenson’s mum, who allowed me to watch Nightmare on Elm Street 3 at her 8th birthday party.
My Dad (A signed confession and 80% in the will)
For the following atrocities:
Telling me as a child that when the ice cream van played its chimes it meant it had run out of ice cream.
Not buying me a Poochie for Christmas 1990, believing instead that I would prefer a full size snooker table.
Insisting on us catching a local Spanish bus to visit ‘El Parc Dinosaurio’, which resulted in us riding right past said park and spending four hours in a backwater town trying to find the bus back to Palma Nova whilst being accosted by gypsies selling lucky herbs.
Telling me that the Easter Bunny turned evil if you were still awake when he came.
Massimo Taibi (£250,000 and a free shot at his groin with a medicine ball)
In May 1999 United finished off a glorious treble, so why, when I recall that footballing year can I only focus on the farcical efforts of Italy’s answer to Mr Bean. When Alex Ferguson assured us that Taibi would have no trouble filling Schmeichel’s shoes, we had no idea it was because he was used to wearing oversized clown clogs at the weekends. A snake would have done better against the marshmallow shots of Chelsea on that miserable Saturday in October, when they trounced us 5-0 and all of it down to the lunacy of Taibi. He let in 11 goals in four games before he was finally laid low by way of a tranquiliser dart and put in a crate stamped ‘Reggina’.
And in brief:
Suede – £12.99 back for ‘A New Morning’, that piece of shit masquerading as their fifth album.
My Mum - £1,000 for telling me that when she thought the Russians were going to drop the bomb in 1982 she planned to crush up on overdose of paracetamol into my Horlicks to spare me the horrors of fallout.
(By the way, I have done some further checks into the possibility of my family owning slaves, and in looking through my Dad’s record collection I found one by Kool and the Gang. Case closed, free of guilt!)
It got me to thinking about what reparations I might be due, and so, in the absence of any claim on my estate by previously owned people, I am launching my own reparations suit.
Stephen Volk (£500,000 in hurt feelings and a new Trev and Simon DVD)
You may not recognise the name, but this vicious bastard wrote the one-off BBC drama Ghostwatch, which starred lovable Going Live! presenter Sarah Greene. In this drama, staged as a spoof live feed from a supposedly haunted house in London, Sarah Greene played herself, reporting on the ground from the spook house, and eventually being shown crawling into an understairs cupboard where an evil, murdering ghost called Mr Pipes was waiting to kill her and allow her corpse to be slowly eaten by starving cats. Being an aficionado of Going Live! I was horrified and had nightmares for nearly five years. I now own possibly the only signed photo of Sarah Greene which includes the dedication ‘To Kirsty, See, I’m alive!’.
Also in this category :
Kerry Stevenson’s mum, who allowed me to watch Nightmare on Elm Street 3 at her 8th birthday party.
My Dad (A signed confession and 80% in the will)
For the following atrocities:
Telling me as a child that when the ice cream van played its chimes it meant it had run out of ice cream.
Not buying me a Poochie for Christmas 1990, believing instead that I would prefer a full size snooker table.
Insisting on us catching a local Spanish bus to visit ‘El Parc Dinosaurio’, which resulted in us riding right past said park and spending four hours in a backwater town trying to find the bus back to Palma Nova whilst being accosted by gypsies selling lucky herbs.
Telling me that the Easter Bunny turned evil if you were still awake when he came.
Massimo Taibi (£250,000 and a free shot at his groin with a medicine ball)
In May 1999 United finished off a glorious treble, so why, when I recall that footballing year can I only focus on the farcical efforts of Italy’s answer to Mr Bean. When Alex Ferguson assured us that Taibi would have no trouble filling Schmeichel’s shoes, we had no idea it was because he was used to wearing oversized clown clogs at the weekends. A snake would have done better against the marshmallow shots of Chelsea on that miserable Saturday in October, when they trounced us 5-0 and all of it down to the lunacy of Taibi. He let in 11 goals in four games before he was finally laid low by way of a tranquiliser dart and put in a crate stamped ‘Reggina’.
And in brief:
Suede – £12.99 back for ‘A New Morning’, that piece of shit masquerading as their fifth album.
My Mum - £1,000 for telling me that when she thought the Russians were going to drop the bomb in 1982 she planned to crush up on overdose of paracetamol into my Horlicks to spare me the horrors of fallout.
(By the way, I have done some further checks into the possibility of my family owning slaves, and in looking through my Dad’s record collection I found one by Kool and the Gang. Case closed, free of guilt!)
Monday, 15 January 2007
Champion Tossers Put Tosser Champions To Shame
In last month’s Swine Magazine Shaun Smith pronounced the British Darts Oranisation Championship coverage as one of the few things that would cheer you up as you saw all the shite you’d paid hundreds for less than a month ago now reduced to 8p and slung in a wire bucket as a warning to others. True enough, sport has been risible in the last few weeks : deserved humiliation at the Gabba for Sir Andrew Flintoff and his knock-kneed troupe of titled tossers who were too busy turning their logos to the cameras to catch a fucking ball; the BBC asks website visitors to ‘pick your England Rugby Union XV’ and we wonder if Judy Dench is available; we’re so accustomed to a two-horse race in the so-called ‘Best League in the World’ that the prospect of Chelsea dropping two points counts as a footballing coup.
So left with snooker – sport’s own screensaver – and darts to choose from, five million people tuned in to watch two fifty year olds toss the arrows in the BDO final, half of them hoping to see a match rivaling the excitement of the PDC’s final where Raymond van Barneveld beat Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor in a tense sudden death round, and half just amused to see fat blokes and mulleted birds taking a pub sport seriously.
And so to the Lakeside where the thousand most annoying people and their kids from everyone’s local are sat at pub tables swilling beer that you suspect is at bargain prices to stimulate the atmosphere and stop ‘Tiny’ McGee from Doncaster from chinning the barman when he expects eight quid for two plastic pints. They wave ready made signs saying things like ‘SHEILA + WILF AT THE DOG, PUTNEY’, the obligatory ‘180’ pre-printed cards having been handed out and customized with ‘TEZ YOUR A NOB’ and ‘SHIRLEY – MARRY ME?’.
Entrance music, costumes and nicknames are of course de rigeur in darts these days. Like puffed up American wrestlers they wait at the arena entrance, dry ice billowing and some poorly chosen entrance music playing in the background. Anastasia Dobromyslova of Russia inexplicably chose Evenescence’s ‘Bring Me To Life’ which as far as I know has little or nothing to with darts. Andre Brantjes chooses the rather somber ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ by Tears For Fears, and Tony West says ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’ with the help of Baby D.
The players in the BDO look pleasingly uncomfortable with the foofarah of their entrances to the hall. In the semi-final between Martin ‘Wolfie’ Adams and Ted ‘The Count’ Hankey, the organizers had a field day, scattering plastic bats and toy wolves everywhere and turning the smoke machines up to full. “It’s the Wolfman versus The Count” announced commentator Tony Green, in case some of us didn’t get it. And there’s Martin Adams, entering to the strains of ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ and giving the obligatory howl. Hankey wore a full length black cape and tossed more plastic bats into the crowd. Both men had big smiles and winked at the crowd constantly, like they were desperate to make out that this was just a bit of fun.
Both semi-finals were superb, England captain Martin Adams beat arrogant bastard Mervyn King who has in the past blamed air-conditioning and the length of the oche for lack of form. King had earlier threatened to walk out of the competition if rumours of him joining the Professional Darts Association persisted. In a brilliant TV interview he looked set to knock Ray Stubbs spark out for pressing the issue but unfortunately anger management seemed to triumph.
Phil Nixon had entered the tournament for the first time, and as a rank outsider at 150-1. He played eleventh seed, Dutchman Niels de Ruiter and went 5 sets up only to see de Ruieter come back to make it 5-4. On finally winning 6-4, the oldest player in the tournament entered the final as outsider again, looking slightly less glamorous than ‘Wolfie’ Adams, with the half-hearted nickname ‘Nixy’, and looking like a greying Roy Cropper.
For all the sound and fury of the build up, it looked as if this would be the quickest final in recent years. Adams powered ahead, accurate, confident and focused, annihilating Nixon who looked like he was throwing chocolate logs into concrete. Going out for the break in the first to seven sets match, Adams was 6-0 up. In the players’ lounge, Bobby George, whose bling would make King Midas shield his eyes, wears what looks like a mayoral chain as Ray Stubbs begs him to confirm that the Beeb have got a real routing on their hands. “Nixy must be gatted.” Says Bobby.
Back on the oche and Tony Green is all but packing up his butties when out of nowhere Nixon pulled eight consecutive winning legs out of the bag – tossing in 180s like he was at a practice session and leaving ‘Wolfie’ Adams to howl in disbelief. On and on he went, Adams starting to miss the doubles that he’d landed without a problem only minutes before, and Nixon banging them in with pinpoint accuracy. From 6-0 and the prospect of an early night, came 6-6 and the players tied at 2 legs each. Martin Adams had been one dart away from victory eight times in the first half of the final, now his arm looked like lead, and Phil Nixon, the 150-1 shot had him by the balls.
Through all this, the crowd are going mental for every underdog dart that leaves Nixon’s hand. The cameras meanwhile, are bouncing between the action and the two players’ wives, sitting in the balcony. Sharon Adams wears ‘Bet Lynch’ by Matalan, a beautiful silver leopard print blouse with added ruffles. Much was made of the fact that a BBC make-up girl gave her a good going over before curtain up. She looks heartwarmingly attractive – even Tony remarks on how ‘well’ she looks. Suzanne Nixon has been given no such attention but sits with half a lager in her hand, clearly seen as intoning ‘Shitting hell!’ when Nixy misses an important double.
Tony Green refers constantly to the two women; “Sharon Adams has left the hall, she can’t take it any more!” he said as Nixon finally leveled to 6-6. “Suzanne Nixon’s standing up – she’s not going anywhere!”. This was about as far from the misguided idolatry of the World Cup WAGS of last year as you could get. It was justified recognition for women who haven’t been in receipt of BMWs or lucrative advertising contracts, but have lost their houses, like Sharon Adams did when Wolfie’s first foray into professionalism went awry, or acted as the main breadwinner like Suzanne Nixon whilst Phil tried for twenty years to get to the BDO finals. The financial rewards now that those dreams have come true are paltry by today’s sporting standards. In the same week as David Beckham gets $1million a week for his semi-retirement, two darts players get 70 and 30 grand respectively for being World Champion, and Championship runner up. The same day as the final a woman opened some random boxes on Deal Or No Deal and beat the championship earnings of Phil Nixon by two thousand quid.
“They’re playing for the world’s greatest title” says Tony Green. In a world where Mourinho blames lack of money for Chelsea’s misfortune, and not even the landed gentry can keep the colonists down at cricket, it’s difficult to disagree.
So left with snooker – sport’s own screensaver – and darts to choose from, five million people tuned in to watch two fifty year olds toss the arrows in the BDO final, half of them hoping to see a match rivaling the excitement of the PDC’s final where Raymond van Barneveld beat Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor in a tense sudden death round, and half just amused to see fat blokes and mulleted birds taking a pub sport seriously.
And so to the Lakeside where the thousand most annoying people and their kids from everyone’s local are sat at pub tables swilling beer that you suspect is at bargain prices to stimulate the atmosphere and stop ‘Tiny’ McGee from Doncaster from chinning the barman when he expects eight quid for two plastic pints. They wave ready made signs saying things like ‘SHEILA + WILF AT THE DOG, PUTNEY’, the obligatory ‘180’ pre-printed cards having been handed out and customized with ‘TEZ YOUR A NOB’ and ‘SHIRLEY – MARRY ME?’.
Entrance music, costumes and nicknames are of course de rigeur in darts these days. Like puffed up American wrestlers they wait at the arena entrance, dry ice billowing and some poorly chosen entrance music playing in the background. Anastasia Dobromyslova of Russia inexplicably chose Evenescence’s ‘Bring Me To Life’ which as far as I know has little or nothing to with darts. Andre Brantjes chooses the rather somber ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ by Tears For Fears, and Tony West says ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’ with the help of Baby D.
The players in the BDO look pleasingly uncomfortable with the foofarah of their entrances to the hall. In the semi-final between Martin ‘Wolfie’ Adams and Ted ‘The Count’ Hankey, the organizers had a field day, scattering plastic bats and toy wolves everywhere and turning the smoke machines up to full. “It’s the Wolfman versus The Count” announced commentator Tony Green, in case some of us didn’t get it. And there’s Martin Adams, entering to the strains of ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ and giving the obligatory howl. Hankey wore a full length black cape and tossed more plastic bats into the crowd. Both men had big smiles and winked at the crowd constantly, like they were desperate to make out that this was just a bit of fun.
Both semi-finals were superb, England captain Martin Adams beat arrogant bastard Mervyn King who has in the past blamed air-conditioning and the length of the oche for lack of form. King had earlier threatened to walk out of the competition if rumours of him joining the Professional Darts Association persisted. In a brilliant TV interview he looked set to knock Ray Stubbs spark out for pressing the issue but unfortunately anger management seemed to triumph.
Phil Nixon had entered the tournament for the first time, and as a rank outsider at 150-1. He played eleventh seed, Dutchman Niels de Ruiter and went 5 sets up only to see de Ruieter come back to make it 5-4. On finally winning 6-4, the oldest player in the tournament entered the final as outsider again, looking slightly less glamorous than ‘Wolfie’ Adams, with the half-hearted nickname ‘Nixy’, and looking like a greying Roy Cropper.
For all the sound and fury of the build up, it looked as if this would be the quickest final in recent years. Adams powered ahead, accurate, confident and focused, annihilating Nixon who looked like he was throwing chocolate logs into concrete. Going out for the break in the first to seven sets match, Adams was 6-0 up. In the players’ lounge, Bobby George, whose bling would make King Midas shield his eyes, wears what looks like a mayoral chain as Ray Stubbs begs him to confirm that the Beeb have got a real routing on their hands. “Nixy must be gatted.” Says Bobby.
Back on the oche and Tony Green is all but packing up his butties when out of nowhere Nixon pulled eight consecutive winning legs out of the bag – tossing in 180s like he was at a practice session and leaving ‘Wolfie’ Adams to howl in disbelief. On and on he went, Adams starting to miss the doubles that he’d landed without a problem only minutes before, and Nixon banging them in with pinpoint accuracy. From 6-0 and the prospect of an early night, came 6-6 and the players tied at 2 legs each. Martin Adams had been one dart away from victory eight times in the first half of the final, now his arm looked like lead, and Phil Nixon, the 150-1 shot had him by the balls.
Through all this, the crowd are going mental for every underdog dart that leaves Nixon’s hand. The cameras meanwhile, are bouncing between the action and the two players’ wives, sitting in the balcony. Sharon Adams wears ‘Bet Lynch’ by Matalan, a beautiful silver leopard print blouse with added ruffles. Much was made of the fact that a BBC make-up girl gave her a good going over before curtain up. She looks heartwarmingly attractive – even Tony remarks on how ‘well’ she looks. Suzanne Nixon has been given no such attention but sits with half a lager in her hand, clearly seen as intoning ‘Shitting hell!’ when Nixy misses an important double.
Tony Green refers constantly to the two women; “Sharon Adams has left the hall, she can’t take it any more!” he said as Nixon finally leveled to 6-6. “Suzanne Nixon’s standing up – she’s not going anywhere!”. This was about as far from the misguided idolatry of the World Cup WAGS of last year as you could get. It was justified recognition for women who haven’t been in receipt of BMWs or lucrative advertising contracts, but have lost their houses, like Sharon Adams did when Wolfie’s first foray into professionalism went awry, or acted as the main breadwinner like Suzanne Nixon whilst Phil tried for twenty years to get to the BDO finals. The financial rewards now that those dreams have come true are paltry by today’s sporting standards. In the same week as David Beckham gets $1million a week for his semi-retirement, two darts players get 70 and 30 grand respectively for being World Champion, and Championship runner up. The same day as the final a woman opened some random boxes on Deal Or No Deal and beat the championship earnings of Phil Nixon by two thousand quid.
“They’re playing for the world’s greatest title” says Tony Green. In a world where Mourinho blames lack of money for Chelsea’s misfortune, and not even the landed gentry can keep the colonists down at cricket, it’s difficult to disagree.
Sunday, 12 March 2006
Film Review - Red Eye dir. Wes Craven
Being a fan of Wes Craven's Nonsense Horror as I like to rename the sub genre, and also a fan of Cillian Murphy's face, I thought a film which could combine the two would be a great evenings entertainment. I saw it LA, where radio DJs are apparently more candid than they are in Blighty. As we were driving back from the cinema, a local radio presenter remarked that Red Eye 'sucked turtle butt' and that director Wes Craven was 'King of the 'Tards'. I was inclined to agree. Red Eye seems to be Craven's attempt at a suspenseful thriller, maybe he'd seen Collateral and thought he'd chance his arm. What you get is barely more suspenseful than your regular wait at the concessions counter to see if any hot dogs are ready.
Cillian Murphy plays Jackson Rippner (yes, an attempt on Jack The Ripper, and it only gets worse) alongside Rachel McAdams as Veronica Victim (just kidding, it's Lisa Reisert). The two meet at an airport and after some bedroom eyes and barely disguised foreplay they part onto their respective flights. But wait! They end up on the same flight! And sat next to each other! Which is great because I was worried that the first twenty minutes of the film would actually come to nothing, and that Cillian Murphy wasn't the star at all, merely a bit part, 'stranger at airport'.
So on the plane they get, and Jackson starts to go a bit mental. He admits that he's an international assassin, and that his hitman buddy has Lisa's father firmly within his gun sight. If Lisa (who works at some hotel or such) doesn't move the deputy secretary of homeland security into a room where another assassin can get a clear shot on him, her father will die. The next five hours are a battle of wills between Lisa and Jackson, until, in the daftest moment of the entire film, she stabs him in the thorax with a pen. Poor Cillian then has to spend the rest of the movie talking like...well, like he's got a pen in his thorax. Throw in a crazy chase across an airport, some useless bit characters who give nothing to the plot whatsoever, a fragment of back story about Lisa being raped, a ditsy hotel receptionist and a frantic battle in Lisa's bedroom, which still, luckily, holds an arsenal of sports related weaponry.
And in the end, who do you think emerges the victor? Do you think that the murderous assasin manages to have the politician killed? Do you think that Jack the Ripper kills Lisa and her Dad and walks off into the sunset to write novels with his own throat? No. There is barely any suspense once they're off the plane, and even whilst on it the action resembles more of a comedy of errors than a masterpiece in terror. Cillian Murphy really deserves more than this, and just ends up looking and sounding ridiculous by the end. Avoid this nonsense, and pay homage to the LA DJ who summed it up better. Red Eye sucks turtle butt and Wes Craven is King of the 'Tards.
Cillian Murphy plays Jackson Rippner (yes, an attempt on Jack The Ripper, and it only gets worse) alongside Rachel McAdams as Veronica Victim (just kidding, it's Lisa Reisert). The two meet at an airport and after some bedroom eyes and barely disguised foreplay they part onto their respective flights. But wait! They end up on the same flight! And sat next to each other! Which is great because I was worried that the first twenty minutes of the film would actually come to nothing, and that Cillian Murphy wasn't the star at all, merely a bit part, 'stranger at airport'.
So on the plane they get, and Jackson starts to go a bit mental. He admits that he's an international assassin, and that his hitman buddy has Lisa's father firmly within his gun sight. If Lisa (who works at some hotel or such) doesn't move the deputy secretary of homeland security into a room where another assassin can get a clear shot on him, her father will die. The next five hours are a battle of wills between Lisa and Jackson, until, in the daftest moment of the entire film, she stabs him in the thorax with a pen. Poor Cillian then has to spend the rest of the movie talking like...well, like he's got a pen in his thorax. Throw in a crazy chase across an airport, some useless bit characters who give nothing to the plot whatsoever, a fragment of back story about Lisa being raped, a ditsy hotel receptionist and a frantic battle in Lisa's bedroom, which still, luckily, holds an arsenal of sports related weaponry.
And in the end, who do you think emerges the victor? Do you think that the murderous assasin manages to have the politician killed? Do you think that Jack the Ripper kills Lisa and her Dad and walks off into the sunset to write novels with his own throat? No. There is barely any suspense once they're off the plane, and even whilst on it the action resembles more of a comedy of errors than a masterpiece in terror. Cillian Murphy really deserves more than this, and just ends up looking and sounding ridiculous by the end. Avoid this nonsense, and pay homage to the LA DJ who summed it up better. Red Eye sucks turtle butt and Wes Craven is King of the 'Tards.
Wednesday, 28 September 2005
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Amid the recent Wayne Rooney debacle (this is the one where he sarcastically applauded a referee rather than the other 17 which will no doubt immediately follow), Sir Alex Ferguson was heard to remark that ‘He has a chip on his shoulder, like everyone from that City’. Cue an onslaught of po-faced indignation from Liverpool’s chief whingers at the very suggestion that any Scouser could be criticised openly in the press. In a passing comment. At a private function.
Liverpool ‘Business Representative’ (read stall holder) Frank McKenna immediately chimed in with that well-worn chorus, ‘People in Liverpool have a sense of humour and can take a few jokes made at our expense’. Could have fooled me Frank! Let’s look at the evidence…
October 2004 – Boris Johnson accuses Liverpool of ‘wallowing in misery’ following a three hour silence and commemorative dinner plate to mourn the loss of Ken Bigley, who once got on the X5 bus. Liverpool’s outrage is incandescent, and copies of Johnson’s Spectator article are burned in the street. April 1989 – The Sun publishes a characteristically incorrect story about Liverpool fans urinating on corpses and picking their pockets during the Hillsborough Disaster. The resulting bile on Merseyside lasted for over 15 years. Now I’m all for Sun-bashing, even when there isn’t a good reason, but 15 years? Not exactly characteristic of the easy-going live and let live Scouser we’ve been assured is the norm, is it now?
Where did this idea of the Funny Scouser come from? Was it simply an exercise in spin? An attempt to overhaul the old image of the thieving druggie Scouser with a bubble perm and someone else’s benefit book? The evidence for this Funny Scouser myth seems to be scant at best. Any lexicon of Scouse comedians tends to turn up the same half dozen names- Les Dennis, Ken Dodd, Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Robb Wilton, Arthur Askey. So that’s one who has started his career within the last 30 years, and four who are dead. Hardly a Who’s Who of side splitting.
In 2002 there was a Liverpool City Council motion to open a Comedy Hall Of Fame in the Empire theatre. The plan only stalled when the list of probable inductees was read out and included, er, Les Dennis, Ken Dodd, Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Robb Wilton and Arthur Askey.
Seeing as these are the Comedy Greats to whom Liverpool owes it’s genetic funny bone, let’s examine them a little more closely. Dodd made his name by making up words such as ‘tattyfilarious’ and brandishing a duster. I can almost hear you pissing yourselves at the memory. Les Dennis, the cuckolded Mavis impersonator whose shelf life ran out about the same time as Dustin Gee’s left ventricle. Thank God that woman said ‘my cardigan’ when asked to name something blue on Family Fortunes, otherwise we might never have heard from him again. Ted Ray was actually from Wigan and died nearly thirty years ago, and the last time Tommy Handley was cracking gags we were still mourning Queen Victoria. Robb Wilton was dead by the advent of television, which leaves Arthur Askey as the man chosen to shoulder the Comedy Greatness of Liverpool. I don’t know why all Scousers don’t visit his grave more often to pay their respects to the Godfather of that irrepressible Scouse wit. Maybe because he was buried in London where he escaped to almost immediately after leaving the womb.
Far from being the UK’s chuckle machines, there are few more humourless peoples than Scousers who have been slighted, or disagreed with, or looked at. Heaven forfend you don’t find their unique brand of loudmouthed ‘comedic’ water torture amusing – they’ll continue regardless. I had the deep misfortune of sitting behind a table full of Scouse holidaymakers on their way to bargain flights out of Gatwick a few months back. They had descended on a student who was getting off the train at Crewe (actually, I have my suspicions she had a ticket to London Euston but feared she might kill), and mocked her incessantly for the twenty minutes she was on the train. In any other town in the world, this would have been considered rude and worthy of a sharp slap about the ears, but the Famous Scouse Sense Of Humour dictated that the poor girl sat there and endured the constant howling of “What do you study den? Psychology!??!! Psychology??! You reckon we’re all fuckin nuts den do ye? Where you from? Crewe?!?! Crew?!!? I wouldn’t admit dat love! Crewe!?!’. And so on ad nauseum, which may as well be Liverpool’s new Latin motto.
The minute the put upon woman left the train, the lead ape began to assess their performance. “Aw, she enjoyed that bit of banter didn’t she eh? I bet we made her day.’ He seemed blissfully unaware that she would tell everyone she met that day of the morning she spent on the train with the Scousers. And that everyone would nod and groan in sympathy as they remembered their own Morning With The Scousers, from which they are still recovering. If you ever want someone to roll their eyes and groan for any reason, ‘Some Scousers were talking to me on the train’ will illicit that response immediately. The international code for ‘I was bored shitless by some wannabe Ken Dodds’.
This year, a poll was conducted which seemed to bear out the Scouse humour myth, as Liverpudlians were reported to be the funniest people in Britain. What escaped the headline writers was that the respondents were asked to name the people who made them laugh the most, which is not really the same thing. I’d wager that, rather than giggling away at their Best Of Les Dennis DVD, the people in question were actually swapping Scouse Train anecdotes in the pub, and laughing at how one city can breed a people who substitute timing and clever word play for ‘Hitler bombed our chippy’.
Face it Scousers, you’re no funnier than anyone else in Britain, and have no right to the role of Britain’s court jesters. Strange how any other Liverpudlian stereotype brings about much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but that some Scousers are happy to wear a permanent daft grin when outside the City limits, as if they are wandering 17th century clowns looking for a tavern to entertain in return for lodgings and meat. Scousers who are trying to be funny are as exhausting as any attention seeking toddler, without half the comedic skill. Just look at Stan Boardman. Could you spend more than eight minutes in a room with him without trying to claw your own ears off?
It will take a national effort akin to that of the Industrial Revolution to change people’s perceptions now, but wouldn’t it be nice to hear people say ‘You know what, Scousers just don’t make me laugh’. More than that, wouldn’t it be fucking funny?
Liverpool ‘Business Representative’ (read stall holder) Frank McKenna immediately chimed in with that well-worn chorus, ‘People in Liverpool have a sense of humour and can take a few jokes made at our expense’. Could have fooled me Frank! Let’s look at the evidence…
October 2004 – Boris Johnson accuses Liverpool of ‘wallowing in misery’ following a three hour silence and commemorative dinner plate to mourn the loss of Ken Bigley, who once got on the X5 bus. Liverpool’s outrage is incandescent, and copies of Johnson’s Spectator article are burned in the street. April 1989 – The Sun publishes a characteristically incorrect story about Liverpool fans urinating on corpses and picking their pockets during the Hillsborough Disaster. The resulting bile on Merseyside lasted for over 15 years. Now I’m all for Sun-bashing, even when there isn’t a good reason, but 15 years? Not exactly characteristic of the easy-going live and let live Scouser we’ve been assured is the norm, is it now?
Where did this idea of the Funny Scouser come from? Was it simply an exercise in spin? An attempt to overhaul the old image of the thieving druggie Scouser with a bubble perm and someone else’s benefit book? The evidence for this Funny Scouser myth seems to be scant at best. Any lexicon of Scouse comedians tends to turn up the same half dozen names- Les Dennis, Ken Dodd, Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Robb Wilton, Arthur Askey. So that’s one who has started his career within the last 30 years, and four who are dead. Hardly a Who’s Who of side splitting.
In 2002 there was a Liverpool City Council motion to open a Comedy Hall Of Fame in the Empire theatre. The plan only stalled when the list of probable inductees was read out and included, er, Les Dennis, Ken Dodd, Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Robb Wilton and Arthur Askey.
Seeing as these are the Comedy Greats to whom Liverpool owes it’s genetic funny bone, let’s examine them a little more closely. Dodd made his name by making up words such as ‘tattyfilarious’ and brandishing a duster. I can almost hear you pissing yourselves at the memory. Les Dennis, the cuckolded Mavis impersonator whose shelf life ran out about the same time as Dustin Gee’s left ventricle. Thank God that woman said ‘my cardigan’ when asked to name something blue on Family Fortunes, otherwise we might never have heard from him again. Ted Ray was actually from Wigan and died nearly thirty years ago, and the last time Tommy Handley was cracking gags we were still mourning Queen Victoria. Robb Wilton was dead by the advent of television, which leaves Arthur Askey as the man chosen to shoulder the Comedy Greatness of Liverpool. I don’t know why all Scousers don’t visit his grave more often to pay their respects to the Godfather of that irrepressible Scouse wit. Maybe because he was buried in London where he escaped to almost immediately after leaving the womb.
Far from being the UK’s chuckle machines, there are few more humourless peoples than Scousers who have been slighted, or disagreed with, or looked at. Heaven forfend you don’t find their unique brand of loudmouthed ‘comedic’ water torture amusing – they’ll continue regardless. I had the deep misfortune of sitting behind a table full of Scouse holidaymakers on their way to bargain flights out of Gatwick a few months back. They had descended on a student who was getting off the train at Crewe (actually, I have my suspicions she had a ticket to London Euston but feared she might kill), and mocked her incessantly for the twenty minutes she was on the train. In any other town in the world, this would have been considered rude and worthy of a sharp slap about the ears, but the Famous Scouse Sense Of Humour dictated that the poor girl sat there and endured the constant howling of “What do you study den? Psychology!??!! Psychology??! You reckon we’re all fuckin nuts den do ye? Where you from? Crewe?!?! Crew?!!? I wouldn’t admit dat love! Crewe!?!’. And so on ad nauseum, which may as well be Liverpool’s new Latin motto.
The minute the put upon woman left the train, the lead ape began to assess their performance. “Aw, she enjoyed that bit of banter didn’t she eh? I bet we made her day.’ He seemed blissfully unaware that she would tell everyone she met that day of the morning she spent on the train with the Scousers. And that everyone would nod and groan in sympathy as they remembered their own Morning With The Scousers, from which they are still recovering. If you ever want someone to roll their eyes and groan for any reason, ‘Some Scousers were talking to me on the train’ will illicit that response immediately. The international code for ‘I was bored shitless by some wannabe Ken Dodds’.
This year, a poll was conducted which seemed to bear out the Scouse humour myth, as Liverpudlians were reported to be the funniest people in Britain. What escaped the headline writers was that the respondents were asked to name the people who made them laugh the most, which is not really the same thing. I’d wager that, rather than giggling away at their Best Of Les Dennis DVD, the people in question were actually swapping Scouse Train anecdotes in the pub, and laughing at how one city can breed a people who substitute timing and clever word play for ‘Hitler bombed our chippy’.
Face it Scousers, you’re no funnier than anyone else in Britain, and have no right to the role of Britain’s court jesters. Strange how any other Liverpudlian stereotype brings about much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but that some Scousers are happy to wear a permanent daft grin when outside the City limits, as if they are wandering 17th century clowns looking for a tavern to entertain in return for lodgings and meat. Scousers who are trying to be funny are as exhausting as any attention seeking toddler, without half the comedic skill. Just look at Stan Boardman. Could you spend more than eight minutes in a room with him without trying to claw your own ears off?
It will take a national effort akin to that of the Industrial Revolution to change people’s perceptions now, but wouldn’t it be nice to hear people say ‘You know what, Scousers just don’t make me laugh’. More than that, wouldn’t it be fucking funny?
Thursday, 28 July 2005
Sacred Cows - Bob Geldof
When I see pictures on the news of tiny African babies with flies in their eyes and trails of snot hanging from their noses, with distended bellies which seem to have been directly transplanted from darts playing dwarves, and a look of painful resignation to the uncomfortable and pointless death from starvation which inevitably awaits them, I weep. I weep not just because of the overwhelming tragedy of a baby starving to death whilst I whine about McDonalds leaving the cheese off my burger (seriously though, plain cheeseburger still means I want cheese on it), but because I know that within seconds of this ghastly news being broadcast, an even more abhorrent sight will fill my screen. That of Bob Fucking Geldof.
Bob Fucking Geldof (his official full name, at least in my house) sees the plight of Africans as a giant Bat signal, searching the skies of London for any no-talent, long forgotten nonentity who will heed it’s glow. Except there’s no bat sign lighting up the dreary skies of Ladbroke Grove, just a huge pound sign. “Magazine deals!” it throbs. “TV Shows!” it intones. And who should come running but Bob Fucking Geldof, Africa’s last resort.
BFG’s biography is a slim volume to say the least. Or it would have been if every child in Africa went to bed on a full stomach. Having left the prestigious Blackrock College in Dublin in the mid seventies, he went to work for The Georgia Straight, a left wing free paper based in Vancouver. The firey rhetoric of this hippie pamphlet was the breeding ground of Bob’s fervour, and who better than the Canadians to rabble rouse and feed the flames of revolution. It was this Baptism of fire which gave BFG the temerity to pen one of his two hits, I Don’t Like Mondays, about mass murderer Brenda Ann Spencer. Her record of “killed two, injured nine” puts her just ahead of Beth Jordache in the female killer ratings. The single hit number one in 1979 and that should have been that. Four years of Bob Fucking Geldof was four years too many, but at least it was all over, he could go back to Vancouver and take part in a protest against cuts in arable farming subsidies, or whatever the fuck Canadians care about.
But no! Wait! What is that on the horizon? Yes, it’s a tumult of human suffering, and just like the motion picture of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, BFG’s involved again. After seeing the death and starvation which was destroying African lives, Bob thought it would be a spiffing idea to do a charity record to raise money for the poor mites. And it was a brilliant idea. But why did this tone deaf, gutter mouthed wannabe pikey have to get involved past the inception? Maybe because he felt that Trevor Horn didn’t have the necessary production experience to handle a single release? Trev may have produced Welcome To The Pleasuredome which had just sold over 4 million copies, but Bob had been working on Deep In The Heart Of Nowhere, which went on to sell, er, bugger all! No? Maybe then, Bob felt that the assembled rock stars did not have the media skills to front a campaign such as this. How could shrinking violets like Boy George and Marilyn have coped with the spotlight?
Okay, maybe it was that he felt the artists needed a helping hand, with their relative lack of savvy where the music industry was concerned. True, BFG was on the slippery slope to anonymity, but surely he had some sage advice to offer greenhorns like Paul McCartney, David Bowie, James Taylor and Sting. I mean what could they have known about releasing a record? No? Wait, I’ve cracked it. I know exactly what Bob had to offer the Band Aid single. Desperation.
The starving people in Africa were desperate, but even though they had gone without food for so long that their digestive systems were breaking down their internal organs for sustenance, even though they were literally being eaten alive from the inside out, none of them could match the compounded anguish of a man who would sooner punch his own mother in the face on national television than be anonymous. Pundits marveled at the way he ignored the promotional opportunities for his own album release, preferring instead to use his time in the dimming spotlight to underline the plight of tiny starving babies. Well, duh!
Given the choice between being well know for helping the helpless to eke out their pathetic lives, or for being totally and utterly ridiculed for subjecting the British public to one of the shittest albums ever to make someone chew his own ears off, he went for the kudos?! Well, fuck me backwards if he isn’t a modern day saint. The choice he made was one that anyone else in the entire fucking universe would have. Talk about right place at the right time, he clawed his way up from the pit of eternal musical hellfire to plaster his crater face all over the newspapers and to staple his wretched anatomy to the sidecar of fame. Right place? Yeah, after a good few months frenzied assault on the public psyche.
He traveled further to get the ‘right place’ than any other no mark. He made sure he flew out First Class to the US to appear on the recording of We Are The World. One of the hopeless organizers, currently residing in the Where Are They Now files was one ‘Michael Jackson’, how he managed to get it off the ground without Bob’s help I’ll never know. But still the Shining White Hope wasn’t satisfied. He disagreed with Margaret Thatcher! Can you imagine! It was so much of a national sport at the time that we considered it as a Commonwealth Games event, but good show Bob! You tarnished that halo of hers didn’t you?
Nearly a year ago Bob slipped to his lowest point yet. He hadn’t released an album since 2001, and despite over a million letters of thanks he hadn’t finished foisting his tramp-like visage on us just yet. People were beginning to forget about Bob Geldof, so out came the Band Aid 20 single, just in time to make some money, feed some Africans and put Sir Bob back on the agenda. Fair enough it was actually Midge Ure who had the idea of releasing the record again, obviously thinking that anything Bob could flog like a dead mare, he could flog better. That one backfired didn’t it Midge? He needed you to write the frigging thing in the first place, but try and grab some of that limelight for yourself and he’d chop your arm off. The record was horrible and populated by no-mark flashes in a shit stained pan. Turin Breaks and Danny Goffey? Wow! There truly are stars in my eyes! Maybe more money would have been raised by asking each of the desperate, wannabe saviours to pay fifty grand to appear on the record. That would have seen off Lemar for a start.
Then, just as we thought it was safe to enjoy life again, Live 8 was announced. Live 8 , the most pointless, ego massaging irrelevance since, well, Band Aid 20 was an insult to anyone who ever went without to send money abroad. “We don’t want your money, we want you” intoned the fetid pile of bone that is BFG (now Sir Bob Geldof. Obviously, even though it’s an honorary title, making ‘Sir’ Bob as clueless as ‘Professor’ Phil Redmond). And so a cavalcade of pop mediocrity and reanimated corpses (what, you didn’t seriously think Roger Waters was still alive did you?) were treated to the best publicity that African suffering could buy. On average, those who performed were treated to a 120% rise in album sales. 120%!!!!! And lucky us, even Sir Bob was on hand to perform I Don’t Like Mondays, even though any African artists were sent straight back to Matabeleland for even daring to suggest they should be involved. They weren’t commercially viable enough to take up space on the stage, whereas Bob and the Boomtown Rats are on every teenager’s wall. You can’t walk past a youth club in Britain without hearing 15 year olds discussing the relative merits of Mondo Bongo versus V Deep.
The general consensus on BFG is that wishy washy nonsense of “Whatever you think of the bloke, you have to admire what he’s done.” No, actually we don’t. We know all too well what’s going on in Africa. We knew it in 1984 because it was on the frigging nine o’clock news! We saw the exact same report as Geldof, but we weren’t arrogant enough to think that was our ticket to a lifetime of fame, a knighthood and a noble peace prize nomination. If every child went to bed in Africa having eaten three squares, Bob Geldof would end up in a pauper’s grave. If that isn’t an incentive to help Africa, I don’t know what is.
Bob Fucking Geldof (his official full name, at least in my house) sees the plight of Africans as a giant Bat signal, searching the skies of London for any no-talent, long forgotten nonentity who will heed it’s glow. Except there’s no bat sign lighting up the dreary skies of Ladbroke Grove, just a huge pound sign. “Magazine deals!” it throbs. “TV Shows!” it intones. And who should come running but Bob Fucking Geldof, Africa’s last resort.
BFG’s biography is a slim volume to say the least. Or it would have been if every child in Africa went to bed on a full stomach. Having left the prestigious Blackrock College in Dublin in the mid seventies, he went to work for The Georgia Straight, a left wing free paper based in Vancouver. The firey rhetoric of this hippie pamphlet was the breeding ground of Bob’s fervour, and who better than the Canadians to rabble rouse and feed the flames of revolution. It was this Baptism of fire which gave BFG the temerity to pen one of his two hits, I Don’t Like Mondays, about mass murderer Brenda Ann Spencer. Her record of “killed two, injured nine” puts her just ahead of Beth Jordache in the female killer ratings. The single hit number one in 1979 and that should have been that. Four years of Bob Fucking Geldof was four years too many, but at least it was all over, he could go back to Vancouver and take part in a protest against cuts in arable farming subsidies, or whatever the fuck Canadians care about.
But no! Wait! What is that on the horizon? Yes, it’s a tumult of human suffering, and just like the motion picture of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, BFG’s involved again. After seeing the death and starvation which was destroying African lives, Bob thought it would be a spiffing idea to do a charity record to raise money for the poor mites. And it was a brilliant idea. But why did this tone deaf, gutter mouthed wannabe pikey have to get involved past the inception? Maybe because he felt that Trevor Horn didn’t have the necessary production experience to handle a single release? Trev may have produced Welcome To The Pleasuredome which had just sold over 4 million copies, but Bob had been working on Deep In The Heart Of Nowhere, which went on to sell, er, bugger all! No? Maybe then, Bob felt that the assembled rock stars did not have the media skills to front a campaign such as this. How could shrinking violets like Boy George and Marilyn have coped with the spotlight?
Okay, maybe it was that he felt the artists needed a helping hand, with their relative lack of savvy where the music industry was concerned. True, BFG was on the slippery slope to anonymity, but surely he had some sage advice to offer greenhorns like Paul McCartney, David Bowie, James Taylor and Sting. I mean what could they have known about releasing a record? No? Wait, I’ve cracked it. I know exactly what Bob had to offer the Band Aid single. Desperation.
The starving people in Africa were desperate, but even though they had gone without food for so long that their digestive systems were breaking down their internal organs for sustenance, even though they were literally being eaten alive from the inside out, none of them could match the compounded anguish of a man who would sooner punch his own mother in the face on national television than be anonymous. Pundits marveled at the way he ignored the promotional opportunities for his own album release, preferring instead to use his time in the dimming spotlight to underline the plight of tiny starving babies. Well, duh!
Given the choice between being well know for helping the helpless to eke out their pathetic lives, or for being totally and utterly ridiculed for subjecting the British public to one of the shittest albums ever to make someone chew his own ears off, he went for the kudos?! Well, fuck me backwards if he isn’t a modern day saint. The choice he made was one that anyone else in the entire fucking universe would have. Talk about right place at the right time, he clawed his way up from the pit of eternal musical hellfire to plaster his crater face all over the newspapers and to staple his wretched anatomy to the sidecar of fame. Right place? Yeah, after a good few months frenzied assault on the public psyche.
He traveled further to get the ‘right place’ than any other no mark. He made sure he flew out First Class to the US to appear on the recording of We Are The World. One of the hopeless organizers, currently residing in the Where Are They Now files was one ‘Michael Jackson’, how he managed to get it off the ground without Bob’s help I’ll never know. But still the Shining White Hope wasn’t satisfied. He disagreed with Margaret Thatcher! Can you imagine! It was so much of a national sport at the time that we considered it as a Commonwealth Games event, but good show Bob! You tarnished that halo of hers didn’t you?
Nearly a year ago Bob slipped to his lowest point yet. He hadn’t released an album since 2001, and despite over a million letters of thanks he hadn’t finished foisting his tramp-like visage on us just yet. People were beginning to forget about Bob Geldof, so out came the Band Aid 20 single, just in time to make some money, feed some Africans and put Sir Bob back on the agenda. Fair enough it was actually Midge Ure who had the idea of releasing the record again, obviously thinking that anything Bob could flog like a dead mare, he could flog better. That one backfired didn’t it Midge? He needed you to write the frigging thing in the first place, but try and grab some of that limelight for yourself and he’d chop your arm off. The record was horrible and populated by no-mark flashes in a shit stained pan. Turin Breaks and Danny Goffey? Wow! There truly are stars in my eyes! Maybe more money would have been raised by asking each of the desperate, wannabe saviours to pay fifty grand to appear on the record. That would have seen off Lemar for a start.
Then, just as we thought it was safe to enjoy life again, Live 8 was announced. Live 8 , the most pointless, ego massaging irrelevance since, well, Band Aid 20 was an insult to anyone who ever went without to send money abroad. “We don’t want your money, we want you” intoned the fetid pile of bone that is BFG (now Sir Bob Geldof. Obviously, even though it’s an honorary title, making ‘Sir’ Bob as clueless as ‘Professor’ Phil Redmond). And so a cavalcade of pop mediocrity and reanimated corpses (what, you didn’t seriously think Roger Waters was still alive did you?) were treated to the best publicity that African suffering could buy. On average, those who performed were treated to a 120% rise in album sales. 120%!!!!! And lucky us, even Sir Bob was on hand to perform I Don’t Like Mondays, even though any African artists were sent straight back to Matabeleland for even daring to suggest they should be involved. They weren’t commercially viable enough to take up space on the stage, whereas Bob and the Boomtown Rats are on every teenager’s wall. You can’t walk past a youth club in Britain without hearing 15 year olds discussing the relative merits of Mondo Bongo versus V Deep.
The general consensus on BFG is that wishy washy nonsense of “Whatever you think of the bloke, you have to admire what he’s done.” No, actually we don’t. We know all too well what’s going on in Africa. We knew it in 1984 because it was on the frigging nine o’clock news! We saw the exact same report as Geldof, but we weren’t arrogant enough to think that was our ticket to a lifetime of fame, a knighthood and a noble peace prize nomination. If every child went to bed in Africa having eaten three squares, Bob Geldof would end up in a pauper’s grave. If that isn’t an incentive to help Africa, I don’t know what is.
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