Tell The Internet

If you’ve read my other blog (Because Midway Still Aren’t Coming Back…) you’ll know I bloody love flexi disks; those weird promo records that were popular until they were killed off by CDs and mp3s, so you can imagine how excited I was to discover a flexi disk called “Noel Edmonds asks the questions about Barclays Bank” amongst a load of old 7″s I inherited recently.

Well, I say excited. I was certainly interested to find out what seering and insightful questions the tidy-bearded one could ask of a major bank in, well, I don’t even know what year. According to Discogs, the Lyntone label produced flexi disks from before 1964 to possibly after 1982; and this recording LYN2931 seems to drop in somewhere between David Bowie (sometime in the early 70s possibly) and The Karibs (1974).

So, what does household name Noel have to say? I’ve no idea unfortunately. My magic machine that copies these things just can’t get a decent copy. You can hear Noel in his smuggest voice talking about something and there’s mention of a restaurant, but that’s it. I was hoping for some sort of awful rant that I could use to blackmail him, but no, it’s just a bit of plastic.

I might just stick it in the post to him for his collection. Does he still live at Crinkley Bottom?

While rummaging through the cupboard I came across some old tapes, one of them was this - Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, recorded by Radio 1 (or 1FM as Mark Goodier seems to be contractually obliged to call it) and broadcast at some point in April that year.

As this link will tell you, Sound City was a music industry thing that aimed to highlight new bands:

“From arriving at Norwich station to be greeted by the sound of bands playing in the concourse, music was omnipresent. In the centre of town, busker-populated streets led to the market place where an open-air stage saw over45 daytime performances by mainly local bands throughout the week.

Seemingly countless night-time performances at pubs and clubs in the town were capped by the live broadcasts from the Waterfront encompassing all styles of music oft he moment. From name bands such as Carter USM and Brand New Heavies to the new contenders such as Jacob’s Mouse and Catherine Wheel.”

Enough of that, the tracklisting is:

Only Living Boy in New Cross

24 Hours from Tulse Hill

Rubbish

Do Re Me

Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

Prince in a Pauper’s Grave

While You Were Out

After the Watershed

Sheriff Fatman

Bloodsport for All

I’m sure this is all illegal to put up on the internet but there you go, I’ll take it down if anyone complains.

Carter USM, Live at Norwich Sound City, 1992 (Right click and download to save, sorry I can’t stream it, it’s all in one and about 65 meg!).

So, it’s ‘odd punk tape find of the day’ time again with this: “The Frogs of War - The Gunpowder Plot Noodle”

While I was rummaging about for more Because Midway Still… stuff I came across this old tape (brilliantly it’s a C30) of a band from Huddersfield that I saw play live on numerous occasions as a lad and presumably bought this tape at one of their gigs. It’s from 1990, the quality is ropey and having listened to it I now know why my hearing is so shot to pieces; if this is what I listened to live at The Wharf and Top Spot on a Monday night in my youth, it’s no wonder I’m going deaf!

As you’ll be unlikely to have a copy of this here you go, tracks in order are (The live second half was recorded at The Wharf pub in Huddersfield on 29 January 1990. Blimey, that makes me feel old):

1. Eyes of the Free

2. Colder

3. That Perfect Day

4. Home Away from Home

5. Washing Your Car (Live)

6. Eyes of the Free Blues (Live)

7. Up Someones Ass (Live)

8. Short Cut (Live)

9. Citizen (Live)

10. Transmit the Message (Live)

And the whole lot as a massive zip file “The Frogs of War - The Gunpowder Plot Noodle” (which is 43 meg, so go easy!) and the cassette insert is here Side 1 and here side 2.

I realise that this is probably breaking all kinds of copyright laws so will take it down if needs be.

There’s a bit in the Guardian today about a missing link in evolution which, I’ve just had pointed out to me, looks like:

So i’m making it my mission to say “Pippy Longstocking’s Monkey” as often as possible today.

Also, he’s called Mr Nilsson, which is a great name for a monkey.

In this 21^st century ‘Web2.0 social networking’ twattery world in which we live, the next big thing is only ever just around the corner. For a while it looked like Myspace would rule the roost; then everyone over 13 realised it was just a migraine-inducing way for young boys pretending to be girls to talk dirty with other young boys pretending to be girls and moved onto Facebook.

Facebook was site du jour for a while and claims to have over 200 million active users. But, and it’s a big BUT; many people soon got sick of the enforced changes that made the site a pain to use, the constant barrage of advertising and the general “fuck you” attitude of the people who run it and lo! they leaveth for Twitter.

Facebook hate this. Not least because they have to have constant flow of people through the site so that they can sell page view advertising. So they hit upon a great idea to get people logging in. Somewhere, deep in the code is a tricky little algorithm that randomly disconnects a small percentage of people from the site. Just a tiny amount remember, just 0.0001%.

But, as they happily point out, the average user has 120 friends on the site. And most of these are within a text, tweet, shout across the office, messageboard post or phone call away from being asked “is Facebook down for you as well?”. The friend innocently pops over to check, they log in happily, spend 5 minutes checking their Scrabble game and being advertised at.

Thus Facebook keep their page impressions up…

For this, you need to know two things:

1. Talent vacuums Peter Andre and Katie “Jordan” Price have separated after four years of marriage; and
2. Several years ago, for reasons I can’t fully remember now, I followed a year’s worth of predictions by newspaper “psychic” Mystic Meg.

Suffice to say, that Meg made a number of predictions for the coming (as was) year of 2006 in popular “newspaper” the News of the World. Over the following year I made it my tedium-filled internet business to see if any of these predictions came true. The results were pretty damning. Of the estimated 30 definitive predictions Meg made, five (5) came “true”, that’s 1/6^th of her predictions; let’s face it, you’d be able to make that amount of shit up for the next 12 months just as accurately. But Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t pay you for them.

Anyway, when the terrible news of the Andre/Price split broke on the world, I couldn’t help but recall that one of the five correct predictions Meg made was: “Jordan and Peter Andre will be lovers in 2006 and for ever…”

Oh dear. I’m not going to take any pleasure in Andre’s misfortune - he’s a close** personal friend; I am however going to take pleasure in knowing that “Mystic” Meg is even worse a psychic than I’d thought before. As a post-script, since I did all this crap, Meg has never made another series of predictions like this. Of course, she’d have known that I was going to check up on her…

* That’s what she said! etc.
** Well, I know his cousin

But this chap seems to be enjoying it…

Click for bigger

So, a second monthly win at Fantasy Football Agent and probaly 50/50 for second place overall? A good season, hopefully I can get better next year. This time next year Rodders, this time next year…

An odd side effect of writing my blog about old indie music - Because Midway Still Aren’t Coming Back - is that record promoters and pimpers email me and send me music to listen to in the vain hope of getting it featured on the blog. This is probably unlikely to happen for two reasons: one, none of it is a vinyl copy of a song from 1991 in the indie/C86/twee/Sarah Records genre and two, most of it is shit.

However, in an attempt to get the feel of writing about someone’s music that’s not a classic bit of twee, I thought I’d stick down a few notes about a CD I went out (well, emailed and paypalled) and bought with my own hard-earned cash. And it’s the one pictured above. It’s called “Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez” and it’s from MJ Hibbett and the Validators, a band I’m a huge fan of.

MJ Hibbett is the man who brought us (in conjunction with Rob Manuel from B3ta) Hey Hey 16k, a lovely tribute to the old fashioned computers we had as kids, he’s also the only other person that’s featured on ‘Because Midway Still…’ thanks to Do the Indie Kid, a marvellous tale that we can all relate to.

Anyway, “Regardez…” is a proper album that that feature Indie Kid and 12 other lovely tracks. From the story of a chap who used to be in a famous indie band and is suddenly thrust back on stage in Japan (another of the side effects of ‘Because Midway Still…’ is having a long list of bands that never made it in the UK, but were big in Japan; which, along with having a lady singer, is pretty much the indiest thing you can do) and the lovely loves songs like “It only works because you’re here” - which will speak to anyone who’s ever been silently in love with a work colleague. Each of the songs is a snippet of life in the Half Man Half Biscuit mould, and each one is as good as the last.

I’m no NME reviewer, I’ll leave that to the professionals, but if you’ve got a tenner to spend on a cracking CD from a cracking band who know their way about pop, you can, and should, buy it from the band’s website, and avail yourself of the other offerings. I have, they’re great. The album is full of singalong numbers, helped by the fantastic innovation of it coming with a little booklet with all the words and chords in! Bloody ‘Girls Aloud’ wouldn’t be that kind to us.

So, hang on, if pig-death flu is going to kill us all, we all have to get flu shots just in case. But! We know that the flu vaccine causes autism which is also caused by MMR vaccine, does this mean the the NEW WORLD ORDER will be populated by mental kids doing drawings of Westminster Abbey and counting cards in Las Vegas? WAKE UP SHEEPLE!