After Grog Blog

THE FAUST SHOW

Since you mentioned Paul Williams:

BRASSED OFF?

Get the Tijuana.

MAYDAY ON MY MIND

After reading Best of the Best, Australia's 50 Greatest Albums in today's Age EG, I have only one comment to make: Help!

Are Usual Suspects all we have?

Best of the best

FROM Johnny O’Keefe to AC/DC, the Divinyls, Midnight Oil, Jet and the Drones, Australian music has come a long way since “the Wild One” first strutted his stuff 50 years ago.

While some claim that recent technology has rendered the album obsolete, we at EG believe the best bands are still judged by great albums.

Australian rock’n’roll turns 50 on July 5, the anniversary of the release of Johnny O’Keefe’s The Wild One, and to celebrate we assembled a panel of experts — ranging from EG critics and music journalists to musicians, broadcasters, record shop owners and band managers — who undertook the painstaking task of narrowing down an entire history of music to a micro list.

More than one comment, actually.

There are albums I've liked: Living In The 70s (2), Radios Appear (3), Stoneage Romeos (5), Born Sandy Devotional (9), Back In Black (10), Highway To Hell (15), Sunnyboys (16), 16 Lovers Lane (17), High Voltage (24), Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express (44).

A lot of it sh1ts me: Midnight Oil, You Am I, INXS - I would have picked Shabooh Shoobah, Crowded House, Nick Cave - although I liked Lyre of Orpheus, Died Pretty, Regurgitator, Silverchair, Jet, the overrated Saints, the fvcken Whitlams.

Then there's the stuff that cruised right by me without me taking much notice: Chisel, Richard Clapton, Stephen Cummings, Chris Wilson, Paul Kelly, The Black Sorrows, Flowers, Hunters & Collectors, the Reels, Aussie Crawl, the Mentals - one brilliant song, notwithstanding, the Divinyls. The Easybeats and Masters Apprentices were before my time; not that I ever thought they were that great.

Your best bet is to pan through the selections of the individual reviewers for nuggets like The Band's Alright but the Singer is Gulliver Smith, which was a Billy Pinnell selection, and Joel Silbersher's Tendrils. Pity The Sand Pebbles don't crack a mention. And just what is Registered Nurse - Strippers?

Ironically, while Chris Johnston features The Church's Of Skin & Heart in today's "The Crate" article, he hasn't included it in his top ten. I wouldn't include it, either; but if the whole album was as good as Unguarded Moment, it would just about be my No.1.

A NOD'S AS GOOD AS A LINK

Sensational music blog: The Rising Storm. Feast your eyes on this pot o' gold.

(Thanks, RT.)

EXCITABLE ME

Big news! Saturday I bought a CD:

One of the most heinous crimes in rock 'n' roll was the suppression, intended or otherwise, of Warren Zevon's mind-blowing Stand In The Fire, recorded live at the Roxy in Los Angeles. It tragically disappeared many years ago from the bins of music stores and could be found only by the intrepidly obsessed, and then strictly on the inferior format of the cassette. Now, at long last, this vanquished treasure is available to decent, law-abiding citizens on the compact disc.
Much has been said and written about Warren's remarkable songwriting, but he also happened to be a sensational live performer. I was a fan long before we became friends, and I'd seen him in concert many times. It was always raw and wild and unforgettable (except to Warren, of course, who late told me that there were entire tours he couldn't recall).
In his slightly more sedate years, he favoured solo acoustic shows, which were impressive - but I can tell you that there was nothing quite like Zevon in his anti-acoustic mode, unchained and rampaging with a band. For those of us lucky enough to have experienced that seismic jolt, Stand In The Fire is a joyous and raucous ignition of memory. For those who never got to see Warren take the stage, this is a grand taste of a mad rock wizard in his prime. Hang on to your Thompson guns.

~~ Carl Hiaasen.

I first bought Stand In The Fire in 1981 at the Wickham Sound Lounge in Wickham WA, the mining town in the Pilbara where I lived from 1973 to 1985. As you might imagine, the Sound Lounge wasn't exactly Tower Records or the record shop in High Fidelity. It wasn't even a record shop proper, just a general appliance retailer, video library, gift shop and chemist with a record counter in the corner. I never found out how they came to have Stand In The Fire, given the sort of stuff they stocked: An Englishman in New York (Strange Apparatus), Zenyatta Mondatta, Jon & Vangelis, Jules and The Polar Bears, Judy Tzuke, Sky I, Sky II, Sky III, Styx, Rocky Burnette's Greatest Hit, you get the drift. But there it was, propped in one of those flimsy rotating record racks that were the stamp of your lamer music outlets. Nor was I even a massive Zevon fan. I only grabbed the album because I thought it would be interesting to hear what Werewolves Of London sounded like live. What's more, Werewolves was the only Zevon song I knew. Although it was my favourite song of 1978 and came with a great film clip. (Not the one with a dress-up werewolf stalking the streets, but a studio version with the band rocking out, which is the best sort of clip. Balls to your wanky, filmy, tricked up nonsense! Just get out there and play, ya bastards!)

For some reason I was under the impression live albums were the peak of an artist's career. Don't ask me why. During the seventies all my favourite albums were live albums: The Stones' Get Yer Ya Yas Out and Love You Live, Bob Dylan's Before The Flood, The Who Live At Leeds, Otis Redding Live in Europe, The Doors Absolutely Live, Status Quo Live, Neil Young's Live Rust, Lynyrd Skynyrd's One More For The Road, Jethro Tull's Bursting Out, Full House by the J.Geils Band, Cheap Trick at the Budokan, Deep Purple's Made in Japan, Bob Marley Live, Frampton Comes Alive - well, I was only 14 in 1976, it's not as if I knew any better - and the second side of Mondo Rock's Primal Park (if you haven't heard that last one, check it out).

So it was with some relish that I raced home - what record fan didn't relish racing home with their latest purchase? - and plonked it on the turntable. Werewolves Of London was indeed a fine version, but at least three other tracks immediately revealed themselves to be better: Excitable Boy, which I realised I already knew; Poor Poor Pitiful Me, which I'd thought was a cover of a Linda Ronstadt song; and especially The Sin. Here was a great live rock n roll album!

But you know what sets it apart from all the other live albums above? I've actually listened to it in the last twenty years. In fact, I've listened to it regularly since 1981, which is much more than I can say for all those others. The exception would be the occasional lash at Powderfinger from Live Rust. Other songs that I've recently played, mainly because some passing reference peaked my curiosity, are Soul Kitchen from Absolutely Live, Forty Five Hundred Times from Status Quo Live and Space Truckin' from Made In Japan. You'll notice I haven't mentioned The Kids Are Alright by the Who. That's because it's not really a live album, but a collection of film clips and TV takes. I HAVE listened to and watched it a lot over the journey and count Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again, both recorded at Shepperton Studios in 1978, as timeless live cuts, and A Quick One from the Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus in 1968 is my all-time favourite live track.

Much of the power on Stand In The Fire comes from the band. In the studio, Zevon had L.A.'s best session musicians at his elbows. But at the Roxy, except for his friend and lead guitarist David Landau, Zevon came armed with an actual group, Boulder, that he picked up whole from the Colorado club circuit. Their specialty: rough-house covers of Zevon tunes.

~~ David Fricke

A couple of points. One) Stand In The Fire is so good it stopped me from ever going to see Zevon play live. As Hiaasen says, he switched to mainly solo acoustic, but I only ever wanted - Dead Or Alive, ho ho, ha ha, it is to laugh - Roxy Zevon. And two) the bonus tracks aren't really necessary. Sure, they are fine, but I'm sure if they passed muster in 1980, they would have been included back then. Nice, but no thanks.

Stand In The Fire will not be everyone's cup of tea. Boynton: "Very seventies." But if you, like me, are a bloke of a certain age, you simply must buy this album. The third time you listen to it, at the part where Warren introduces "David Laannndaaaauuu!!!", shivers will shoot up your spine. They will.

KINDA KINKS

Tonight. Ray Davies and band at The Palais.

The wish list:

Victoria, Australia, Brainwashed, Mr Churchill Says, Autumn Almanac, Shangri La, Driving, All Of My Friends Were There, Picture Book, Johnny Thunder, Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, Do You Remember Walter, 20th Century Man, Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues, Dead End Street, Alcohol, Lazy Old Sun, Sunny Afternoon, Days.

You Really Got Me? No. Waterloo Sunset? Heard it a million times. Lola? Bogan anthem.

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ST KILDA TRIANGLE PRESERVATION SOCIETY #

Here's a stat for youse: On the Wednesday before Easter in 1973 my mum, my brother and me went to see Jesus Christ Superstar at the Palais in St Kilda. On the Wednesday before Easter 2008, my brother and me (and Nabakov) went to see Ray Davies at the Palais in St Kilda. If that amazing coincidence is not a good enough reason to preserve the Palais and Luna Park from the developer's wrecking ball, then my name's Grollo.

(Compounding the co-incidence, and for completion, I should also add that on the Wednesday before Easter in 1999 me and my mate Will saw the dreadful John Spencer Blues Explosion at The Palais, but no one, least of all me, likes to admit to mistakes. No idea what insane fit of caprice made me go see that tuneless fake funk hack.)

As always with going to see old favourites, I harboured doubts about whether Davies would be a let down. The Stones (2003) were dreary while the Who (2004) were a lot better but still not great; not Warren Zevon Stand In The Fire great, anyway.

Also, as Nick Lowe says: "people change, that's the long and short of it". Seeing a band 20, 30 or 40 years after they were great and maybe trying lo leverage some superannuation, as well as 20 years after you liked them most, after they gave you that original gut reaction, is a dicey proposition.

(Update! Sorry, forgot to mention that I was also slightly worried Davies would do something similar to his 1982 tour downunder when the Kinks were going through their dreadful heavy rock phase. As it happened, Nabakov's friend Glen saw them on that tour at the Entertainment Center in Perth and agreed they were shocking. However, my brother saw Davies in Ipswich England in 1999 and described a show somewhat similar to last night's.)

The Palais was a better option than either Rod Laver Arena or Vodaphone Arena; both crappy sports venues. The format was different, too. Davies' show was broken up into two one hour halves with a twenty minute intermission in the guts.

Early doors the signs weren't propitious. The sound for the first few songs was dreadful. Interestingly, out of the (roughly) ten tracks played in the first half, the best three were all off his 2006 solo album Other People's Lives. After The Fall, Next Door Neighbour and the Tourist were all terrific. From the other seven, Celluloid heroes went alright, and 20th Century Man, which I was looking forward to, was promising, but Davies and the band fvcked around with it, playing it too fast, and messy. A pity. The great strength of the song is the tight tempo and slow build up.

After the break there was a small acoustic set; just Ray and his guitar offsider Milton doing three songs. Given that I can't remember what they were - I think Sunny Afternoon or Dead End Street was one - they can't have been magnificent, or anything, but they weren't too shabby as far as I remember, which I don't.

After that trio the show hit top gear. Five beefed up songs starting with Set Me Free and ending with All Day And All Of The Night closed the second half. Milton should have used the blue guitar all night. Although I've never been a huge fan of All Day, it was the best song of the night; a gutsy, tight, balls and all ripper.

Days, and smacking suspiciously of a personal taunt, Lola and Waterloo Sunset were the encore. Days was the second best song of the night. Broken into three parts which consisted of an acoustic opening, a more-or-less standard middle and a rocked up third. It was ambitious - maybe too ambitious given the acoustics of the Palais - but it was a winner. Lola dragged on a bit, but despite my previous remark, it was fine. And Waterloo Sunset was also ambitious given its intricate structure, but Ray made it work just fine without the studio bells and whistles.

Disappointingly, there was nothing from Arthur or Village Green and only Waterloo Sunset from Something Else and only 20th Century Man from Muswell Hillbillies. They are my four favourite Kinks albums.

Aaaaaand: "You Really Got Me? NO" Doesn't even give a reason why don't want to hear it, except perhaps to suggest that you are too cool to listen to anything that made the Aus top 10." Spoken like a true non-Kinks fan, Yobbo you tin-eared fvcker. Not that I have to give a reason, but I didn't want to hear it because I have heard it a too many times and there are oodles of better Kinks songs. Nor did I even know what a Top 10 was when these songs were released. All my Kinks music appreciation started at least ten years after their zenith.

LET'S RICK!

Courtesy of a Leapster review, I've been reading Rick Johnson's Tin Cans, Squeems & Thudpies. You should be, too.

Why?

This is why.

ELO: Discovery
Jeff Lynne, chief cook and viola tamer with the Ethiopian Lapdog Orchestra, is one of those people who complicates things. He scrambles his eggs with an undersea drilling platform.

Peter Frampton: I'm In You
Peter Frampton is such a nice guy. He never strikes infants with baseball bats. He always sends his mum a card on Mother's Day even though she's dead. He'd probably stoop over to rescue a worm drying out in the sun. That's not so bad. Ted Nugent would eat it. It's hard to find something bad to say about such a nice person, but I'll try.

Bernie Taupin: He Who Rides The Tiger
A lot of thinking goes into picking the best album of the year, but how about the worst? It's easy to go down the line, throw your favourite LPs into a pile and the forcibly align them with reference to some imaginary standard. But how do you measure STINKERS?

Talking Heads: Remain In The Light
The main thing that people and Talking Heads fans alike want to know about the new, improved line-up is: What does it sound like? Well, either that or, can it get those stubborn plutonium stains out of Junior's bib?

The Who: Who Are You
This new pan of Who Helper isn't nearly as useless as their last couple of records, but it's still nothing to fall down the stairs over.

The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang
A Bigger Bang is a truly disgusting dish, something that even a dog would rather roll in than eat.

Wings: Back To The Egg
Paul McCartney is well on his way to becoming Rod Stewart. Not his image - it's a little hard to imagine Paulie running around in see-thru Danskins, wagging his weenie at the front row and whispering "D'ya think I'm sexless?" But it's not too difficult at least to imagine an infinite string of formulized Wings albums stretching into that dreaded future time where people have forgotten to say, "Who cares?"

About now you are probably wondering whether it's the done thing to pinch Rick's gear. You might even think what Bill Sherman at Blog Critics thinks: "It's tempting to pad this review with even more of his great lines -- this is a guy who packed a Budgie review with nuthin' but parakeet jokes -- but why spoil the yuks?" But let's not beat around the thick foliage, I'm no book reviewer. I just decided, in my definite wisdom, to give you a Reek sneak peek at what Thudpies has up its sleeve, figuring you would rush down to the nearest internet to buy it. What's more, there's LOTS more. If you're a music fan of a certain age, you will find hundreds of reviews of bands ranging from Jo Jo Gunne and The Raspberries to the artists that used to be known as N.Y.Dolls and B.O.Cult to Split Enz - "Nobody knows what Split Enz is: some weird group from some two-bit country, frequently confused with Skyhooks" - to TV, food, sport, video games and stuff. As Molly Melodrama used to say: "Do yourself an immeasurable service."

FLOP TOPS

Last night to celebrate Forty Years Ago Today, Derek Guille had two hours of Beatles competitions, quizzes, memorabilia and music.

As per the Guille style, it was a genial if tepid affair with one glaring exception - instead of playing authentic Beatles tracks, Derek had a local act live in the studio, the Rubber Soul Beatles Show.

RSBS aren't, as their initials might suggest, a rat shit bull shit cover band - "The arrangements have been painstakingly reproduced. Every note and harmony is faithful to the original. This is not a cover band playing Beatles songs. It is the music of The Beatles sung and played like The Beatles played them, 100 per cent and full of energy."  - they just played like one. In fact, they were absolutely bloody dreadful.

Run for your life.

NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU, YOU, YOU AND YOU

A two page spread? Twenty years of tediousness and still Sinead O'Connor isn't a footnote. What gives?

Irreverent mother

She's had four children to four men, recorded 10 albums in two decades, and changed religion several times. Sinead O'Connor tells Paula McGinley that turning 40 has finally brought her peace of mind.

I'M OLD! NO, I'M OLD!

Had fun reading this article, drinking Milo and watching a documentary on Spartacus.

Those were the days, let's not bring them up

I ALWAYS thought boomers were boring. The way they went on about peace and love and flowers in your hair. And I always thought the Anzacs were boring, the way they went on about some war that was finished well before I was born, although war is making a comeback. But now I know there's one thing more boring, perhaps the most boring thing of all: punk.

As a former punk, there's nothing more boring that talking about those days: you know, the day I first saw Johnny Rotten on Countdown singing Pretty Vacant; or Razar at the Brisbane Hotel, and the Flowers were there too: they went on to become Icehouse, the band that sang Great Southern Land, which still hasn't grown on me; or the Ramones at Festival Hall; and the night Chris Bailey of the Saints paid for my pissed mates and me to get home from a near-empty gig they did at Zillmere in Brisbane.

See what I mean? I could go on, but I won't. The thing is, the Saints reunion gig, along with the Riptides, the band with the singer who went on to sing that really boring song about lightning over cane fields, has brought all the old punks out of the woodwork.

Yep, bugger the old days. Being 45 is far more fun than being 25, despite the aches. I especially agreed with the bits about going to England and the Wests Tigers exorcising demons - or rather, Demons.

FAB FIVE

Help. Norm wants you to name your five favourite Beatles songs. Stroll over there and pop something in his inbox, if you've nothing better to do.

There are posts I remember.

In My Life
A Day In The Life
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
I've Got A Feeling
What Goes On
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
I'm Only Sleeping
Taxman
Hey Bulldog
Paperback Writer

Five? Ten? They're only numbers.

THIN WHITE UKE

Raising the ... ahem ... tone; meet Tony Penultimate, the 6'8'' Peter Brooke Turner of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Superb.

Via an easy listening Boynton and General Eclectic himself, Dante Fontana.

LEARNING CURVES

Bit of a shock this arvo. I sat down to do a post when it occurred to me I'd rather be developing class work. Things are right up the gonga when you prefer calculus, critical clearance angles and generator stability to blogging.

Nevermind, I'll get over it. In the meanwhile time how about a list of songs that I'm currently listening to that would be on mypod if I had one, which I don't and probably never will.

Rock Show - Wings

Magneto & Titanium Man - Wings

Ramble Tamble - Creedence

New Age - Velvet Underground

Can I have your autograph
he said
to the
fat blonde actress.

Essence - Gang of Four

The French Inhaler - Warren Zevon

White City Fighting - Pete Townshend

Street In The City - Pete Townshend

Life On Mars/Kooks - David Bowie

Georgia George - Mickey Jupp

Sentimental Fool - Roxy Music

Funky 4+1 - That's The Joint

However Much I Booze - The Who

Rock Medley - Roy Wood

Power In The Darkness - Tom Robinson Band

The Yayhoos - I Can Give You Everything

Swallowed By The Cracks - David & David

Violent Times - The Barracudas

Country Road - Toots & The Maytals

That crack yesterday about "music being shit" - A BIG STATEMENT, right, and a rare exaggeration that won't happen again until the next one.

MEMO FROM LEAPSTER

Via Currency Lad at Troppo comes this site dedicated to reviewing Rolling Stones albums. Can't agree "they’re quite brilliant", but some are alright.

Rather than review the site myself I sought the opinion of Sunburnt Country's foremost sensible Stones fan, Leaping Larry L, who writes:

Well I thought Dr Bong did a pretty good job with the 80s stuff, could not buy a clue on the post-Golden Era 70s stuff, and my feeling on the 68-72 golden era was that I've not got enough years left on the planet to waste any of them sitting down with a white-board, a CD player and people like this explaining why great music is great to them.

He's right about "Beggars Banquet", basically. No-one else rates "Ya-Yas" as highly as Germany's #1 funny-cigarette consumer does. It's the only official live album from their best period, has a few really good tracks, but is very stiff next to any other live stuff from the good period. "Let It Bleed" is over-rated as good as it is. He doesn't get "Exile". Just doesn't get it at all.

Can't understand the enthusiasm for the weak-kneed half-hearted 60s pop-tune stuff. Hardcore Stones fans go nuts for it, but I thought it was mostly written from hunger and recorded worse. I don't put this anywhere near their best music.

A lot of this rams right into perspective when you have a look at what other albums by other bands he rates highly. He considers "Animals" by Pink Floyd and a couple of albums by the hilarious German heavy metal band Accept to be among the greatest of all time.

At that point you know any opinion he did get right had to be a happy accident of the drug-cocktail the stinky old hippie happened to be on on the day in question. The punishment for that sort of alternative to having taste should be to listen to "Animals" the rest of his life.

Last week on the radio I heard a Rocks Off sting, which gave me a zing up the spine, but really, I haven't listened to a Stones album for the sake of it, in about 15 years.

For the record my first favourite Stones album was Ya-Yas in 1977, followed by Some Girls in 1978, Let It Bleed in 1979, Aftermath in 1980 and Exile from 1981 onwards. At various times I've played heaps of Sticky, Beggars, The Rolling Stones, Love You Live and It's Only Rock & Roll. But like I wrote above, I haven't listened to them out of choice for ages now. What's more, they were shit when I saw them in concert at the Lavertory.

That's not to say they weren't, at various stages, my favourite band. They were. I own every album up to Tattoo You including bootlegs and Decca 'get even' reissues and read all the books, bios and magazine articles. Somewhere around the mid eighties, though, their status as my enduring favourite band was overtaken by The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who.

If you think I've suddenly lost my grip or gone all fuddy in the duddy, don't blame me, blame the booze. Or rather, lack of it. Rock & roll music is shit when you don't drink.

CARRSLEMAINE

Going up the country today, so I won't be watching the cricket. Instead I'll be listening on the wahhless.

Forget James Brown, too, the noisy, drug addled hack. Better musicians died this year.

BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF NO ONE IN PARTICULAR

How do you qualify to be a music critic? Do you need a certificate? Do you need to know a treble clef from an ampersand? How about plenty of other people's opinions? Or does a desperate editor merely fix his eye on the the youngest person in the office and say "you're it"?

Craig Mathieson. (Age EG)

Faking It: Despite the fact that it is routinely described as the greatest album of all time, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles is not on the list. That's because it's naff and overrated. A concept album that represents everything bad about the Beatles (in the same way that Revolver and The White Album are a perfect precis of their enduring brilliance), it has one great song A Day in the Life - that's tacked on at the end, refuting the chicanery and hollow melodrama preceding it.

Ken Nguyen (Age Green Guide: My Favourite Album.)

My Favourite Album: will justify its existence tomorrow in watercooler conversations across the country: my guess is that most will inevitably lead off with something along the lines of "Sergeant bloody Pepper's? What a predictable load of cobblers! It's only got one great song on it!" (Which is true. Take out A Day In the Life and all you've got are overrated, "conceptual" bollocks far inferior to Abbey Road.)

Nguyen is excused; he's a television reviewer, afterall, not a music critic. But Mathieson's "definitive guide to being a rock 'n' roll hipster" contains bucketloads of "naff and overrated chicanery and hollow melodrama", not to say outright rubbish. Sgt Pepper's is nowhere near my favourite album, but only a pinhead would shitcan it while at the same time suggesting Interpol's dreary Turn on the Bright Lights will be "tomorrow's classic"?

WAVES OF NAUSTALGIA

Music quizzes are becoming increasingly popular. Why? They are shit. Trivia-night music is shit. Spicks & Specks is shit. Rock Quiz is shit. This quiz in last Saturday's Australian is shit. That thing on Channel Seven was worse than shit; it's hard to think about that corpse and not reflexively hold your nose. Rock quizzes? Schlock quizzes, more like.

Not exactly sure what I don't like about them. Perhaps it's the notion you are labelled some kind of cretin if you don't know Neneh Cherry's stepfather or the Perth band that spawned The Blackeyed Susans or who fronts The Doors of the 21st Century. Perhaps it's something to do with the sickening nostalgia that expects us to get on board rubbish like The Countdown Revival. Perhaps it's merely something as simple as me not liking fads and trendoids. Certainly it's something to do with them featuring bands or artists I care little to fuck all about, whether the artists be cool, kitch or outright horrendous.

In The Strayan's quiz I got 20-30 which meant it was "Time to move beyond your big brother's collection." Apart from anything else I am my big brother, so my collection's my own and it runs to thousands of records and hundreds of CDs. My younger brother's collection is just as extensive, and between us we have fuck all records from artists regularly mentioned on the TV quiz shows or in the print versions. We're just not interested. The likes of the Black Eyed Susans, the Jackson Code, Billy Bragg, Yes, Pulp, UB40, INXS, Billy Idol's previous band, Prince, The Arctic Monkeys, Powderfinger, Blink 182, Lisa Miller, Youssou N'dour, the Cult or Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By, which I assume is about Jeff Buckley, are just so much mediocre noise.

Despite a flurry a couple of years ago where I tried in vain to reinvigorate my interest in rock music, me and the genre went our separate ways about 10 years ago. Now I just resent the implication I'm a goose because I'm not interested in either a) what has been released since and is patently nonsense or b) what was released before and was probably nonsense only I was too stupid or too sucked in to work it out.

POP QUIZ

James Blunt is awful. Doubtless that's news only to me, as everyone seems to be potting him, but I wanted to stick the boots in, too.

I heard about Blunt before I heard him. "The English singer-songwriter is a new star in our musical firmamant." You know the thing - spin, polish, bollocks. Going by the blurb it shouldn't have surprised me when I saw on Parkinson how truly hideous he was, and yet it did. I know Parky's lowered his standards, but surely, SURELY, he's above plugging such rancid rubbish. Then I heard Blunt on the rayjo and realised I'd undersold the fucker, he was even worse than truly hideous. Shit. House. Maybe my bullshit detector needed a tune-up, but here was a singer with a voice to make bats crash into buildings.

Serious question: Has there been a lower point in modern music? Don't think about it too hard, mind, he's not worth the effort. In one word, or less, describe James Blunt.

KISS MY BRASS

(Yes, it is rude, and almost possibly not safe for work. Almost. Get on the front foot and invite your boss over for a laugh.)

TEXT OF KIN

Recently received a text from my brother:

Play Ray Davies' Better Things at my funeral.

Thanks.

No, he wasn't about to go bungee jumping, he was up the Hunter Valley getting on the fuel. Nevertheless, I took the request seriously and made a note. Somewhere.

You know, I'm not sure about the rest of you, but while BT is a cracking track, I'd prefer they play The Kinks' All of My Friends Were There at my funeral. Not only is it one of my all-time favourite songs, but the sentiment fits - more so if I wasn't there.

"A friend in need is a friend you don't need." ~~ Arthur Daley