‘Anarcho-Punk: Music in London 1977-1988’ – updated and expanded edition
Regent Street Will Close To Traffic This December, Becoming A ‘Festive Mile’
Good. Now take away the Christmas tat and make it permanent.
#OneLessCar etc.
It’s relentless shutting down all this disinformation.
Design competition showcases four proposals to reinvent Clapham’s railway bridge
Wot No Wankerville?
Neil Young’s On The Beach.
Nice.
I wasn’t aware of this 1972 release until it was flagged up earlier this month on the 1,001 Albums list.
My broad rule of thumb with Neil Young is that you can’t go wrong, whatever the period.
Sure,, you’re going to get a change in styles over the decades, but at the base of it all, you’ll still find old Shakey, still looking for answers, and still giving shit to The Man.
On the Beach is part of Young’s ‘ditch’ period, apparently. The modern interweb tells me that he deliberately headed for the ditch, following the huge success of Heart of Gold.
Talk about a career car crash, etc.
The metaphor is even extended on the album front cover itself: Young is on the beach, on vacation and his Mustang is crashed into the sand.
DO YOU GET THIS?
But like I said - you can’t go wrong with Neil Young. He may have been trying go under the radar with On The Beach, but it’s more or less impossible for him to write a duff song.
Gosh, he’s very, very good, and over a considerable period of time as well.
There’s more to Slade than the singles suggest. Much of this album is good old boogie bar room riffs, with an English sense of humour. It’s bloody great fun.
But it’s not all one great big knees up. There’s a darkness to Slade, something that is rarely explored outside of the mainstream narrative.
The guitars get a little too heavy for my liking in areas. It almost strays deep into Led Zep territory. But what do you expect? It’s Slade, innit.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Zarah Sultana says Your Party must be ‘explicitly socialist’ and ‘embrace class war’
No arguments here. Just get your shit together first.
To the Essex Sport Arena!
…on Sunday evening.
Volleyball one evening, basketball the next.
Whaddya mean we’s hopeless Sport Billies, left with little other sporting entertainment during the stupid international break?
The Rebels men had a home court game against Worthing Thunder.
This was very much the evening after the evening before, when Rebels stormed to a stunning away win at Birmingham in the final few seconds of the game on Saturday evening.
They were paying the price as well. The signs weren’t good when Skipper Tom Childs limped through the warm up with a dead leg, ahead of bench warming for the evening.
Worthing had a BIG DAWG of a baller bully. The fella was almost as wide as he was tall.
They also had a shocker of a purple patterned kit. It looked more like the clothing for a nursery rhyme character than a serious athlete.
But make no mistake: Worthing were bloody serious ballers.
Rebels seemed to understand this from the start. Playing with a short bench, the plan seemed to be sink the three pointers, and failing that, make no mistake with the rebounds.
But what happens if both of these fail to come off?
Oh.
Rebels had a decent first quarter, but then the game got away from them early in the second. The scoreboard was only going one way.
A HT score of 36-66 led to heads dropping as the Rebels headed back to the locker room.
Coach Hart cut a lone figure, staying on the bench, and choosing not to address what he had just seen.
The second half was all about damage limitation for the Rebs. But Worthing didn’t hold back.
Oh dear.
The final scoreline of 85-132 tells you all need to know. The only surprise is that the Rebs managed to reach 85.
Worthing were superb.
To the Table of Dreams!
The Estuary Wilds sun and dry weather was for once too good to resist. It was our first outdoor game in a couple of weeks.
Wellies were worn. Which is something that you are unlikely to see at an Olympic wiff waff gold medal game.
They were needed as well.
Worms casting were at each end of the table. This wasn’t a firm foundation for a serious game.
We opted for the uniform ball, rather than the extra heavy wind design. This allowed me to arse around with spin.
It also allowed me to come close to taking each game, only to showboat with silly spin, and not quite take the glory.
Still, the spin looked cool as fuck YEAH?
The bloody Church bells kicked in. This seriously put me off.
STFU etc.
A 3-2 defeat.
It’s like I’ve never been away.
We had two crews for WivGigs Super Sunday.
Well, that was the plan, anyway.
I made my way down to the Sailing Club hard, shortly before the arranged 8am meet up.
Oh, it looks a little sparse.
Varuna’s crew was ship shape and all set to launch. VERY organised.
Meanwhile, my crew in Audacity was struggling on the numbers front.
We need a minimum of four rowers and one cox, right? How about three rowers and a cox? Or even four rowers and no cox?
Gosh.
Life shit gets in the way for everyone. We were two down from the planned crew. We were also rather experienced, and so decided to press on with the launch.
Who needs a cox, anyway? Overrated.
We were pretty much rowing blind down towards the edges of Brightlingsea. Our cox was able to navigate us out into the estuary, and then he added his muscle power so the boat was pulling equally on both sides.
This is fun, isn’t it?
It actually was rather liberating. Having no one tugging away on the rudder could be physically felt. Audacity was rowing in a pure style with no external interference.
Just how the chuff do we steer this thing?
We developed a technique largely centred around communication, and then reacting.
“OI! There’s a buoy coming up on my bow side!”
Time for stroke to ease off a little as bow puts the blades down with some extra pace in the water.
Thankfully the estuary was calm and empty of other river traffic for so early on Sunday morning.
There was little time for the usual observations. If it ain’t a buoy or another boat, then it’s not worth focussing on.
I did think at one stage that I saw a seal by White House Beach. But it was a dog, natch.
We cocked up the turnaround at buoy 20. You try turning a HULK of a boat with no one steering it.
The incoming rain we could see over Brightlingsea got the better of us. Now was no time to be all at sea.
Back to base!
It was quite an effort heading towards Weird Wiv, even with the help of the incoming tide.
But we made it.
That was quite a Sunday morning adventure. For someone who is most deff not a team player, I thought I played a blinder.
There was a most unexpected and welcome surprise for the four-fer with Robert Elms on Saturday: Flowered Up’s It’s On.
CHOON!
The subject for the four-fer was youth club anthems. This is going to be ACE, I thought. Memories of early 80’s, with a wide palette of pent up teenage frustration to choose from.
Wrong.
It turns out that I am about a decade or so older than the average demographic of Elms listeners.
Instead we have early 70’s ska and bubblegum soul. It was all fine, but it wasn’t the racket of a youth club four-fer that I was expecting.
And then some fella called in and suggested Flowered Up.
OH MY DAYS.
Disclaimer: the 1991 release date was WAY BEYOND my own youth club experiences. I should have been selecting The Specials' Nite Club, or something similar.
Flowered Up were more of an undergrad sound for me. Weekender was a constant favourite at the SU Friday night discos.
Gosh, they were heady times. And a little fucked up as well.
And then around ten years later, I think I saw them in London around the turn of the Century.
This was when all things Madchester still had something of a bad name.The guns and drugs had taken over a few years earlier. The Stone Roses imploded spectacularly,
But around 2000 - 2001, there was a feeling in some of the circles that I moved in around the time that Madchester wasn’t dead; or it at least deserved a reappraisal.
The trouble was that all the original bands had long since cleared off.
I remember going to a club at Embankment one Friday night for a Madchester revival. I’ve no idea what the club was called.
In the back of my mind, Flowered Up were booked in to play a reunion gig - their first together in years.
This was a very messy scene. I can’t remember the exact details, but I don’t think Flowered Up actually played.
It might have been that some of the band turned up, but not the full outfit. It may even have been a cringe PA mime set that followed.
I was pretty fucked up tbh…
The fella on the four-fer described the Herberts perfectly: Youth Club Rave. I like that genre, but can’t pin anyone else down to it.
So yeah / no, I did / didn’t see Flowered Up.
I most deffo didn’t see Paris Angels whilst an undergrad. They split up en route to a gig at Colchester Arts Centre.
Musicians: messy.
To the Essex Sports Arena!
…on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday afternoons are BALL GAME afternoons, right?
Erm yep, if that ball happens to be volleyball.
Gosh.
Time and tide - and fixture dates - kept me away from the Rebels volleyball teams for most of last season.
But here we had a rare Saturday double header as both women and men teams took on strong opposition from Durham.
The Rebs were not only in it to win it, but there was ambitious talk of SMASHING the UK crowd record for an indoor volleyball game.
The Rebels already hold the current record. Once everyone was inside the Arena, a final crowd tally of 653 confirmed that a new benchmark had been set.
It may not compete with Premier League crowds, but getting over 600 people into an Arena in Colchester on a Saturday afternoon is no mean feat.
It’s not just about record breaking, either. The Rebs are keen to push volleyball, leading the way domestically. They also offer a genuine pathway for some very talented young athletes to compete and study.
I arrived slightly fashionably late. The women were one set down in a first to three race.
This was a top of the table clash. The Rebs have won both their games so far. Durham are serious championship contenders.
The third set went to the Rebs, but Durham then pulled away with a 3-1 road victory.
Entertainment in-between matches included the ever enthusiastic (and rather good) University Dance Team, as well as an on court volleyball competition that involved wearing granny pants.
The Rebs know how to put on a game day.
The men followed, with most of the bumper crowd remaining. They lost the first set.
Steady the buffers, etc.
Some killer serves from the home team turned it around. Rebels walked away with a 3-1 home court win.
The organisation continues to grow - basketball, volleyball, and also women’s cricket at an elite level, all now added to the roster.
Up the Rebs, etc.
