'Can someone please explain the reason for this strange behaviour'

Posted 31st May (3.57 am)

Excuse the waffle, just trying to stay awake. That banging Friday Playlist from 2007 has now finished - played it twice - and Spotify being Spotify has decided to kick into a new playlist determined by songs previously played. That explains why Duran Duran's 'Skin Trade' immediately popped up.

I've always loved 'Skin Trade'. This isn't me Monday Morning Quarterbacking. I always thought it was one of their best singles. In fact, I remember at the time being surprised by how good it was. By 1987 they'd been on the creative dip for a few years. I always thought their material from Seven and the Ragged Tiger onwards was decidedly sub-par. Laughable lyrics coupled with ponderous, plodding pop music so beloved from the mid-80s when 'New Pop' had bolted and all that was left was ever increasingly bloated music videos, big hair and post-Live Aid save the world messiah complexes. 

The weird thing is that I have another distinct memory of 'Skin Trade' from 1987 itself. Sitting in the back row of a General Studies lesson at Longdean School, wishing I was somewhere else, and I hear James Adkin (I think that's the spelling of his surname) from the other side of the classroom expressing the opinion that it's a great single. Why would I remember something so passing, and seemingly so inconsequential, from someone I hardly interacted with at the time forty years on? I can only attribute it to the fact that by 1987 Duran Duran were seen as passe, something from yesteryear. They'd had their moment in the sun, and now it was the turn of  . . . who, exactly? I can't actually remember. Had SAW taken over our musical world at that point or was it six months later? Those bastards were definitely on the horizon. In that moment, James Adkin was someone I recognised as a fellow pop kid, someone who could spot a brilliant tune . . . even when it came from the 'wrong place', He definitely went up in my opinion on that day, and that why I think I still remember his pronouncement after all these years.

I should be sleeping.

76/50

The Way It Is

Posted 31st May (3.23 am)

Where's that second wind? My eyes are drooping for christ sake. It's not looking good for early morning laundry  . . . it's not looking good if I don't do early morning laundry. Decisions, decisions  . . . just to avoid the deserved decibels.

Still on an Elvis Costello tip. Listening to this Friday Playlist from 2007 whilst typing this up. A bit obvious in places but enough left-field tracks (including a Costello album track) to suggest that I still had my music mojo in the 2000s. 

Nicole Atkins should be at the Las Vegas residency level this point, folks. What the hell happened . . . or, rather, didn't happen? And check out that Duran Duran track on the playlist. A banger that I've not listened to in years. They were always good for the deep cuts.

75/50

Round 188: Another False Dawn

Darts Thrown: March 29th 2019

Blog Written: March 29th 2019

Highest Score: 140

Lowest Score: 3

Sixties: 31
100+: 6
180s Missed: 1

Blogger's Note: Written in haste, so there will be spelling mistakes and slapdash grammar.

I thought I might as well dive straight back in. Round 188 was thrown in one session whilst listening to Radio 2's 'Sound of the Eighties'. I've sub-titled it 'Another False Dawn' but that's bollocks. In truth, the darts thrown weren't that different from the previous round. I guess I hit more 100 plus shots this time around. And I did actually throw for a 180 twice. (One isn't shown in the pic above 'cos one of the sixties bounced out when I threw my third dart.)

Thankfully I'm not superstitious when throwing darts, otherwise I'd be locked into listening to Bananarama MegaMixes when throwing darts (fuck you Gary Davies), and I know I'm tired 'cos I was even enjoying a Terence Trent Darby track when throwing. (Sleep deprivation does that to you.) Before I leave the Sound of the Eighties, it was nice to hear Jody Watley picking Duran Duran's 'Save a Prayer' as her favourite song of the 80s. My first 7 inch. (Insert pic of Les Dawson here.)

Too many darts bounce out. I'm not sure if it's the board or the darts themselves. It's probably neither. I think my throwing acton can be a bit lack lustred  when I'm tired.

The book in the picture? B.J. Ripley and J. McHugh's biography of John Maclean. It was part of the Lives of the Left series that Manchester University Press published in the late 80s and early 90s. Have I read it? No. Will I read it? Not in the foreseeable future. Why did I buy it? "cos I'm like that. I read a few books in the 'Lives of the Left' series (the biogs of Kautsky, De Leon, Haywood and Mann off the top of my head) and I had even more of the series that I picked up as remaindered copies from London bookshops on my bookshelf back in Britain (all now in a landfill in the Home Counties, most probably), so the anorak in me means that I will still pick up cheap copies when I see them. Anyway, my excuse is that read Nan Milton's biog of her Dad years ago and I also read Harry McShane's autobiography around about the same time (both published by Pluto Press). I never really bought into the adoration of Maclean but that just might be my ingrained SPGB'ism. I do think it should be pointed out that he joined the Social Democratic Federation at the height of the impossibilist revolt within its ranks - 1903/04- so it begs the question, 'what was he thinking?'. I guess I'll leave that question for another day. There's a Denzel Washington film with my name on it.

Round 12: Catching Up, Trev

Darts Thrown: January 17th 2019

Blog Written: May 3rd 2019

Highest Score: 132

Lowest Score: 1

Sixties: 19
100+: 4

Blogger's Note: Written in haste, so there will be spelling mistakes and slapdash grammar.

Look at the date it's posted. A backlog, people. Not specially selected book, as a backdrop with the piss-poor excuses for why I haven't read it. Just a the facts, mam. I have a lot of these to steam through. Maybe I'll provide the colour commentary once they are all on the blog. And you just know that I will have mislaid at least one sheet.

But I will use the this rush through as a cheap excuse to post music videos from YouTube. Why not? I need a soundtrack whilst I do this. Off the blocks, and on the decks, Duran Duran's 'Save A Prayer'. The first single I ever bought. Bought it in the local independent record shop in Hemel by the market. I still think this is a classic. What impeccable taste I once had. (As a side note, Kara's first single was 'New Moon On Monday' by Duran Duran. She's younger than me, and they'd gone to shit by that point but I don't judge her too harshly. At least, not out loud:

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield (Dutton 2010)

THE HUMAN LEAGUE

“Love Action”

1982

 Around ninth grade, my trusty clock radio began playing something weird. First, it went clink-clank. Then it went bloop-bloop. After the wrrrp-wrrrp kicked in, there came a blizzard of squisha-squisha-squisha noises. It sounded like a Morse code transmission from another planet, a world of lust and danger and nonstop erotic cabaret. What was this? It was the twitchy, spastic, brand-new beat of synth-pop. For those of us who were “Kids in America” at the time, it was a totally divisive sound. You either loved it or hated it. My friends and I argued for hours over whether it even counted as rock and roll. I remember hearing a DJ explain that the Human League didn’t have any instruments. No way—not even a drummer? ” “Not even a guitarist? I was shocked.

I rode my bike to the public library and checked out the Human League’s Dare. This album was a brave new world. The sleeve showed close-ups of their mascara eyes and lipstick mouths on a frigid white background. Nobody was smiling. All summer long, I worked mowing lawns, listening to that tape over and over, taking it on the subway ride to driver’s ed. I spent countless hours trying to fathom Phil Oakey’s philosophy of life.

I was moved by “The Sound of the Crowd,” where Phil urged me to “get around town,” to explore the forbidden places “where the people are good, where the music is loud.” I had never been to a place remotely like this. It sounded awesome. The lyrics were a bit obscure, what with all the arcane cosmetics references (“The lines on a compact guide / A hat with alignment worn inside”—huh?), yet I devoured them. If I cracked his code well, I too would grow up to be a Phil Oakey, getting around the world on an existential quest for love action.

Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran by Andy Taylor (Grand Central Publishing 2008)

There was worse to come. "New Moon on Monday" was our least favourite video of all. Everybody in the band hates it, particularly the dreadful scene at the end where we all dance together. Even today, I cringe and leave the room if anyone plays the video. We shot it just outside Paris on the third of January 1984, and we were all miserable because we hadn't had a long enough Christmas holiday. Our management had convinced us to theme it on the French Revolution, and it also had historic references to the French Resistance - but, to be honest, it was just a load of gibberish. The set was dark and cold, and we spent most of the day drinking alcohol. By the time we were dancing at the end I was half cut. It is one of the few times I've seen Nick dance (watch his shoulders moving up and down if you ever get another chance to see it!). We were very uncomfortable with the whole thing. After "New Moon on Monday," we all thought, Bollocks - let's do something that's fundamental and solid.

The answer was a spectacular live video in the form of "The Reflex."

In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran by John Taylor (with Tom Sykes) (Dutton 2012)

Steve Jones is open about the influence Thunders's playing style had on him. In the documentary The Filth and the Fury, there is a hilarious sequence where film of the two guitarists is intercut, showing quite clearly just how much of Thunders's attitude Steve knocked off.

Something similar could be done with me. I would learn to take Thunders's signature slurs and guitar runs and transpose them to bass, along with the accompanying sneers. The first time I saw the Thunders's magic was on-stage at Birmingham  University. The opening act was a band I had not heard  of before, The Police. At that time I would sneak a cassette recorder into every gig I went to, and I set the machine to record when they began to play, even though I had no idea who they were. It was quite possible a band you had never heard of yesterday could become your favourite band tomorrow.

The singer with The Police also played bass, which struck me as quite clever and quite "un-punk." After the second number, he struck up a rapport with the audience of mostly students. A little too familiar, I remember thinking at the time, not knowing then that Sting had been a teacher and spoke "student" way better than he would ever speak "punk."

Sting: We've got the Heartbreakers coming on next.
(Cheer from me and one or two others)
Sting: They can't play, you know.
Me: Fuck off!
Sting: Who said "Fuck off'?
Me: I did. (all of this going down onto the cassette tape)
Sting: It's true. They're great guys but they can't play.
Me: Fuck off, you wanker!
Sting: You'll see. This next song is called "Fall Out"! 1 2 3 4 . . .

He was wrong about the Heartbreakers. They were awesome that night. At the BBC in 1993, filming "Ordinary World" for Top of the Pops, I was standing next to Sting watching a playback of our performance on a monitor. I thought to myself, I've got to tell him about that night, but before I opened my mouth he half-turned to me and said, "I wish I'd written that song."

Let's leave it at that then, I thought.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 13

Day 13 - The worst cover version you've heard

Thank you, Duran Duran, for making this too easy for me.

I have a soft spot for Duranies - my first ever bought '45 and all that - but this is moider. Poor Grandmaster Flash:



I'm sure Kara would disagree. Especially as I accidently clicked on this *cough* reworked classic earlier today on Spotify:



If looks could kill. Apparently, All Saints never made it stateside.

Thank You Wiki (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)*

Never knew that. Procrastination sometimes has its own rewards.

Turns out that the bloke who produced the first two Duran Duran albums, Colin Thurston, also produced the following seminal records:

Human League's 'Reproduction'

Magazine's 'Secondhand Daylight'

Our Daughter's Wedding 'Digital Cowboy'

Talk Talk's 'The Party's Over'

KajaGooGoo's 'White Feathers'

Well, seminal records for me, I mean.

And people still insist on sneering at Duran Duran after all these years. Dismissing them as being nothing more than vacuous pretty boys. Pop culture harbingers of Thatcherism.

"Pretty boys"? Have you ever seen John Taylor in his natural light? Fulham's Jimmy Bullard scrubs up better. If it weren't for the tunes and Simon Le Bon's Sondheim-like lyrics, Nick Rhodes would still be second assistant at the bovril stand at the Holte End to this day.

*With regards to the title of the post; Yeah I know that Colin Thurston didn't produce that particular classic Magazine track, but the song was ringing through my ears whilst spewing out this post.

Want a real post? Not a prayer.

First single I ever bought. The song still holds up after all these years.

Further Linkage:

The 'Save A Prayer' wiki page.

The 5p blog gives the lowdown on 'Save A Prayer'. (Dates . . . deeds . . . discomania. That sort of stuff.)

Friday's Playlist #26

An ongoing series:

(59) Soft Cell, 'What?' (Non-stop Ecstatic Dancing)

(34) Duran Duran, 'Save A Prayer' (Rio)

(22) Depeche Mode, 'Leave In Silence' (A Broken Frame)

(21) Ultravox, 'Reap The Wild Wind' (Quartet)

(17) ABC, 'All Of My Heart' (Lexicon Of Love)

(16) Simple Minds, 'Glittering Prize' (New Gold Dream, 81,82,83,84)

(13) Carly Simon, 'Why'

(8) Mari Wilson, 'Just What I Always Wanted' (Show People)

(7) Evelyn Champagne King, ''Love Come Down' (Get Loose)

(6) Shalamar, 'There It Is' (Friends)

I wasn't going to do a playlist this week. Too much listening to Fad Gadget, Diesel Park West and Billy Childish adds up to a limited choice for a playlist, but what with Steve Coleman's 10/10/82 talk falling into my lap late last night, I thought I would conjure up a playlist from the charts from that particular week.

I can't say with any authority that SPGB members back in '82 were listening to the songs selected, but I know that I was.

If you fiddle about with the boombox at the top of the post, you can listen to them today. Cheers.

Spotify Playlist Link.

Friday's Playlist #24

An ongoing series:

Fontella Bass, 'Don't Jump' (Rescued)

Long Ryders, 'Looking For Lewis And Clark' (The State of the Union)

Duran Duran, 'Dirty Great Monster' (Red Carpet Massacre)

The Pretty Things, 'Photographer' (Emotions)

Duran Duran, 'Red Carpet Massacre (Red Carpet Massacre)

Graham Gouldman, 'Stop Stop Stop' (UK Freakbeat)

The Poets, 'Wooden Spoon' (UK Freakbeat)

Sid Presley Experience, 'Public Enemy Number One' (Are You Experienced)

The B-52's, 'Dance This Mess Around' (The B-52's)

Bright Eyes, 'Hot Knives' (Cassadaga)

Spotify Playlist Link. 

Friday's Playlist #23

An ongoing series:

Diesel Park West, 'Opportunity Crazy' (Shakespeare Alabama)

The Outnumbered, 'Accidental Color' (Why Are All The Good People Going Crazy)

Au Pairs, 'Inconvenience' (Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology)

The Bangles 'Getting Out of Hand'

Martha and the Muffins, 'Saigon' (Far Away In Time)

The Redskins, 'Go Get Organised' (Neither Washington nor Moscow)

Pony Pony Run Run, 'First Date Mullet'

Duran Duran, 'Anyone Out There' (Duran Duran)

The Nips, 'Gabrielle'

Nervus Rex, 'Don't Look' (Nervus Rex)

Spotify Playlist Link. 

Friday's Playlist #10

An ongoing series:

Elvis Costello and The Attractions, 'The Invisible Man' (Punch The Clock)

Duran Duran, 'Breath After Breath' (The Wedding Album)

Mark Ronson, featuring Amy Winehouse, 'Valerie' (Version)

Heaven 17, 'Key To The World' (The Luxury Gap)

Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, 'The Rattler' (Good Deeds and Dirty Rags)

George Michael, 'Amazing' (Patience)

The Others, 'How I Nearly Lost You' (The Others)

Big Star, 'Thirteen' (Number 1 Record)

Dead Kennedys, 'Holiday in Cambodia' (Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables)

Nicole Atkins and the Sea, 'War Torn'

Update 11/11/ 22

A full compliment on Spotify. That's a nice result. (Well, one live version but needs must.) I always thought Nicole Atkins was going to be massive. Not sure what happened. Saw her live around about this time (2007/8) at the Bowery Ballroom. Absolutely amazing voice.

Spotify Playlist Link.  

Friday's Playlist #4

An ongoing series:

The Rakes, 'Auslandmission' (Demos)

Robert Wyatt, 'At Last I Am Free' (Nothing Can Stop Us Now)

Morrissey, 'Come Back to Camden' (You Are The Quarry)

Duran Duran, '(Reach Up For The) Sunrise' (Astronaut)

Dexys Midnight Runners, 'Dance Stance' (Geno - Best of)

Dexys Midnight Runners, 'Geno' (Searching for the Young Soul Rebels)

XTC, 'One of the Millions' (Oranges & Lemons)

The Organ, 'Memorize The City' (Grab That Gun)

Diesel Park West, 'All The Myths On Sunday' (Shakespeare, Alabama)

The Boo Radleys, 'Lazarus' (Giant Steps)

Update 11/11/ 22

The Rakes track is missing from the Spotify playlist. Click on the links above to find track on YouTube. Of its time . . . which sounds a bit snotty. I don't mind to be.

Spotify Playlist Link.