dub weh

cry tuff Shot dead on home turf in Kingston, Jamaica in 1983 following a confrontation, seemingly, with an opportunistic armed intruder, Michael James Williams – aka Prince Far I – qualifies for an honorary season ticket on the Bleachers; no refund. The findings of any police enquiry in a city notorious for its ‘higher than

bl@ckhead

a curiosity only…by deed of absurdist dissension, and conspicuously excluded from the 1984 Polydor release of Ian Dury & the Music Students’ “4,000 Weeks Holiday“, the executive decision to derail the project as the result of craven faint-heartedness prompted two years of bitter sparring between Dury and his financiers. Fearing legal action from the estate

anchor snapper

ANC 1021.Lifted from their 1975 LP, “Elastique” – also released on the UK independent Anchor label – “Why Did You Do It ?” remains as taut and inviting a proposition as a 38″ peach in a g-string.Brassy white funk delivered without irony or criminal remorse. The last gasp of live circuit desperadoes drowning in Johnny

(i don’t wanna go down to) the basement

not a rerun of the basement tapes, but an ear full of soot in the ink well. brass necked plagiarism, above, by ib. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee this coming Sunday, December 13th, do not neglect to pay a visit to The Basement, 1604 8th Avenue South. Mixing up

cornerman

tick… tock… tick… Like my Polish grandfather, I findmyself preoccupied with watches.Wristwatches, to be precise;pocket watches, too. Silver oysters. Clocks, on the other hand… twicestrike me with deeper forebodings.The bronchial tick and tock, and dust,the pendulum swing. The chime. I have never been much of a one, allround, for keeping time. Punching in.Well-oiled or not.

a pinball in a machine, rusty james

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s “Rumblefish” – expanded in 1975 from her original short story first published in ‘Nimrod: 1968‘, the University of Tulsa’s literary journal – succeeded where its bigger budget sibling, “The Outsiders“, so obviously failed. Shot entirely in the monochrome of REM sleep, save for those few frames with

the lime in limerick

Back by popular demand. Well. In a manner of speaking.  The following Learism – in the loosest sense – was originally posted last Friday and subsequently withdrawn by the taste police:I could’a bin a sex pistol,but I wasn’t invited;I could’a bin a contender,but I wasn’t from Detroit;I could’a bin a banjo player,but someone clipped my

fry and ham

And the curious thing is, I wasn’t frying up ‘Braveheart’ beef slices over yesterday’s post. I wasn’t even particularly fond of that movie. Out to lunch, is as accurate an assessment as any. Or old ham. Chalk it down as an excuse to serve up some reconstituted Jamie Reid.

the lazy earl of wessex

Annotated as an “outtake”on the 2002 repackage, I can hear nothing here differing significantly from their definitive LP version. The most recent accession, of course, to the Dukedom of Wessex is none other than ‘our’ Prince Edward; a tiresome brat harboring melodramatic delusions of grandeur. A dribbling imbecile racing from one knockout to the next.

bleak house music

Last night’s attempt at poetry stank, quite frankly.I woke up this morning and pulled the chain.Not being one to flush the baby with the bath water,I was loathe to disengage for the want of crying. Spilt milk; gluey sex; oil pastels; empty bottles.Bleeding containers of takeaway food. Sour spoils.Ah well. I am inured enough to

blood oranges

in the court of the crimson orange. In December 1436, on the occasion of his infant son’s initiation into the Order of the Dragon – founded by the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, and modeled on the Order of Saint George – emissaries of Vlad II, Dracul, were discharged over the Western Carpathians from Wallachia on

oranges is not the lonely fruit

What is it with oranges ? Anthony Burgess and ‘A Clockwork Orange‘; Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit‘; Mark E. Smith’s ‘I Am Kurious Oranj‘. Save it for evengelists high on fuzzy felted sadism. Bursting segments of citrus heresy. Orange is Ludwig ripening in the sun. Jaundiced droogs and rapists. Pez dispensers and

silver tongues and crosses

Recorded in the studio and live at Filmore East and West – with el capitán, Dino Valente conspicuously in or out of the frame and serving a two year stretch for marijuana possession – “Happy Trails” is a saturnine tour de force of worming guitar and flowering intent. Kings of the Bay Area, “Maiden of

TA-DA!

Four minutes, give or take, of transcendental triumph or trash. Take your pick. This is where I pause and wish my wife many happy returns. Pounding on the keyboard while she sulks in the kitchen; not because I forgot her birthday – I didn’t – but because it is Sunday and I am pounding on

spilt milk in rubber city

A mere two years after Booji Boy stiffed in their native US, and an overseas deal with Stiff Records soured in the UK, Ohioans Devo signed on the line with major league hitters, Warner Bros. The rest – as some say – was almost history. Produced in Cologne, Germany, by Brian Eno on the recommendation

tits, clips, whips and chains

john cooper clarke strikes a ridiculously cool pose, 1977. inner sleeve, “suspended sentence” ep. TOSH 103.This, as the BBC was once quick to retort, is little more than a lachrymose repeat.John Cooper Clarke first released an EP on the Manchester based label Rabid Records in 1977, backed by a coterie of musicians named the Curious

degenerative valve disease

ATV’s fifth single release proper on Depftford Fun City – not including their “Love Lies Limp” flexi distributed free through issue #12 of fanzine, Sniffin’ Glue, the last – “The Force is Blind” parts company with all time-served apprentices with the notable exception of Dennis Burns, but continues in the experimental vein carried over from

C.S.I. [sic] van dyslexia, k.o.

Well. There is no ire like that of an angry mod. And maybe I am no angry mod.▼ THE WHO: SUBSTITUTE from “Substitute b/w Circles” 45 (Reaction / Track) 1966 (UK) ▼ THE WHO: THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT from “My Generation” LP (Brunswick) 1965 (UK)

why i refuse to twitter #2

“…ha-ha. Oh, Jesus, that’s so f@cking hysterical!”

why i refuse to twitter #1

” A ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….”