Lynsey de Paul

I had an urge this evening and I gave into it. I listened to my one and only album by Lynsey de Paul that includes all her hits and most of her first album ('Surprise' which I bought back in the day).

I made a 'Glam +' playlist on my iPod and listened to it on the way home tonight - there's over 1000 songs in the playlist so I only just dented it, opening with Gary Glitter, Mott The Hoople and Sweet, I was in retro glam heaven. And then Lynsey popped up with 'Sugar Me'. So here I am now, listening to the full album and enjoying it immensely.

Lynsey's first hit was with 'Storm In A Teacup' by the Fortunes in 1972, but she wrote it and I prefer her version. Then she had her own hit with 'Sugar Me' in the summer of 1972. There were a few songs I played endlessly that summer, on holiday in Scarborough or Bridlington on the north Yorkshire coast (one or the other), listening to 'Take Me Bak 'Ome', 'School's Out', 'Starman' and 'Sugar Me'. It hasn't had the longevity of the other songs but I don't care. Lynsey's second single was 'Getting A Drag' about glamrock and I love that one too.

But all this reminiscing does make me yearn for 'Central Park Arrest' Do you remember that song? Lynsey wrote it and it was a minor hit for Thunderthighs (what a name!) who were the backing singers on a couple of singles by Mott The Hoople ('Roll Away The Stone' and 'All The Way To Memphis' I think). Lynsey recorded it as the 'B' side to 'No, Honestly'. I know that because I had that single in my hand two weeks ago and wanted to save it from going to a jumble sale as my brother empties my Dad's house, but then again I wanted to save so many records that it would be daft, really. I'd listen to them once and then they'd collect dust. But, I'd love to hear it again. Just once. If anyone has an mp3 of it I'd love to hear from you.

There seems to be a few 'best of' and 'hits' CDs by Lynsey but some seem to be re-recorded or remixed so I'm pleased I got the CD that includes versions that sound like the originals. We must be about due for a re-appraisal of Lynsey - she even did Eurovision one year but that's my least favourite of her songs. She's done a lot of stuff over the years and, as far as I know, is still active in media areas. Mmmmm a nice box-set would go down well, I think...

Miss Palmer

I'm sorry. I really must apologise. There hasn't been anything like enough about Miss Amanda Palmer in this blog recently. You must be suffering withdrawal symptoms at this rate - I know I am!

Amanda is filming the video for her first single from the new album ('Who Killed Amanda Palmer?') in London at the end of August and I think I know where... so there's a stalking opportunity in the making. The first single is called, 'Leeds United' and she sang it when I saw her at Bush Hall last August. I remember liking it.

Amanda's blogging has been intermittent recently as well but she's posted a couple of fab photos in the last week which I am shamelessly nicking and re-posting here:

Amanda is on the far right in this photo. I'm not posting it because you see her tits (you can see a lot more than that in the 'Dresden Dolls Companion' book she published a couple of years ago) but because of what the photo represents - art, her own form of art, and she's not afraid of it.

I blogged last year sometime about how I liked Yoko Ono, always have done, and even bought a couple of her records back in the '70s. Yoko is art, so, even though I may not like or appreciate something she does, that doesn't diminish her or her work - she retains her power. Same for Amanda, but in a different way and with a different cultural background and end product. Amanda is art.


I love this photo - a bit of drama, a bit of mystery, a bit of colour and, of course, Amanda in suspenders and stripey stockings - no pretence of art on my part here! Both photos were taken on her last tour of Australia earlier this year.

Long live the punk cabaret!

Mamma Mia! The Movie

I saw 'Mamma Mia!', the stage show, in Toronto a few years ago as a post-Birthday treat after seeing Buffy Sainte-Marie in concert, and loved it. In part it's those great ABBA songs, but the story actually works with the songs and it's a very 'up' type of show. So, naturally, I had to see the film.

The story is, of course, the same, but it's the non-singing, non-dancing star cast that make this a bit more interesting than the norm. Can Meryl Streep dance? Can Pierce Brosnan sing? How gay is Colin Firth? Is Julie Walters a classically trained dancer? Does Christine Baranski play another sloshed vamp? The answer to all the above is ...

It was great fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It's clearly targeted at a girlie audience (made obvious by the selection of trailers before the film started) but I think most people who can suspend their disbelief for a couple of hours and like ABBA would probably enjoy it.

Meryl Streep was, of course, excellent, has a good voice and threw herself into the part as you'd expect. Pierce's singing voice made me wince a couple of times but he wasn't bad. And it was nice to see Colin Firth fight off his Mr Darcy image at last by getting his shirt off and dance with his boyfriend. Christine was excellent in her big number on the beach playing the worldly wise older woman singing 'Does Your Mother Know?' to her would-be lover who is half her age and she floors all the young lads on the beach. There's a nice generational thing going on in the show, with the old 'uns having fun as well as the youngsters.

Every now and then the inconsistencies came to the fore. Like, in the flashbacks to Donna as a young woman with three boyfriends, one is flower power and one is a punk and I can't help thinking there's 10 years between those eras, yet there's talk of the internet at one point and Donna's daughter is 20... the timeline doesn't work but does it matter? Not really, but it stands out more in the film than in the stage show. There are other bits that niggled or didn't quite work, but, actually, I don't care - it's no-nonsense fun and doesn't try to be anything else.

It was nice seeing all the sunshine and natural tans in contrast to this rubbish summer we've had so far, the great outdoors and splashing in the surf looks so temping. The cypress groves, the seascapes, the minimal clothing, the sun sparkling on the sea, all of it makes me want a holiday.

Just like in the stage show, the end is an encore of the three leading ladies dressed in full 'glam rock' regalia singing 'Dancing Queen' and finishing with 'Waterloo' with ... ah, but that would be telling! If you've seen the stage show you'll know what to expect, but I'd totally forgotten the ending so it was a nice surprise. The audience clapped at the end!

I enjoyed it! The subject matter was sometimes a bit close to the knuckle for me at the moment, the story of a girl with three potential dads, but it was fun nonetheless. Go and see it for a fun time with great tunes and some good laughs.


It looked like Benny and Bjorn has small cameo roles, but where were Agnetha and Frida? Now, the lads might've written the songs, but it was the lasses that brought them to life and who I hear and see in my mind whenever I hear an ABBA song.

'City Of Angels' at The Guildhall

Friday evening saw a trip to the Guidlhall School of Music and Drama to see the students end of year graduation show, 'City Of Angels', a musical I've never heard of let alone seen. Angela had fond memories of it in the West End 15 years ago so Chris enticed me along to see it and good fun it was too.

It's set in 1950s Hollywood and is the story of the script-writer and scenes of the film he's writing based on his best-selling book, so one moment we see the private dick and his shady life being acted out and then flash forward to the writer talking about the scene or - more often - why he doesn't want to change the scene to suit the producer's whim. But then, at the end of the first act, the private detective the writer has invented comes to life and interacts with the writer in a great end-of-act number to ensure we all go back for the second act. That was a nice, unexpected twist.

It's a complicated show, with all the characters playing two roles, both in 'real life' and a similar character in the 'the book'. In that respect it's a great choice for an end of year show for the students since it allows them to show off their talents, but that also has its drawbacks. The student who played the writer's New York wife and Bobbi, the LA torch singer in 'the book', was much better as the wife, with songs more suited to her register and more like the word-filled banter of their conversations. It was the same for a couple of the other players.

Since it was the graduation production, then the lighting people, musicians, set designers, costumers, etc, all had their day as well, which was nice, but sometimes less is more. The musicians were excellent in big band swing mode. It was also nice to have photos of the players on display and their CVs available for potential casting agents (and me) to browse, making it a showcase event.

The thing that niggled a bit throughout was that the players were all of an age, noticeably so to me, and that lack of age in the show bothered me. The producer character clearly needed to be older than the bloke playing him - he didn't have the life experience to really bring the character to life - and the exaggerated hand gestures sometimes made me think of a child playing an adult. That's one of the subtle things you don't normally even think about in plays since there's almost invariably a mix of ages on the stage,

The star of the show for me was the young lady who played both Miss Oolie/Donna, a secretary in both 'the book' and 'real life' - played by Robin Steegman. She had a nice presence on stage and a great, versatile voice, her accent never wavered and was believable throughout. Well done that graduate!

All in all, it was great fun and a good night out.

Quayside

I went back to Newcastle last week to say goodbye to my Dad and part of that involved exploring the bits of the town I haven't seen in ages. I went down to the Quayside and over the Millennium Bridge to the Baltic, visited the Norman-built Black Gate, went into St Nicholas's to light candles, went shopping around Grey's Monument and Northumberland Street and got a taxi along Scotswood Road to Blaydon and beyond to the village where me Dad lived.

Here are some photos:






And can you see the young me in the old me? Even I was 21 once...

Rebel Yell!

OK, at my age I suppose I've got nothing to lose by coming out. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Regular readers will have been exposed to my oddities over the past few years and I think I'm ready to add to that list. >Deep breath<

I like Billy Idol.

Phew! That wasn't too bad. I ought to clarify that what I really mean is that I like *some* of Billy's earlier singles, not necessarily his entire cannon.

Billy started out as part of the so-called Bromley Contingent that followed the Sex Pistols, along with Siouxsie and Severin, and then joined Chelsea (I got their single 'Right to Work' back in the day). He then started and left Generation X before moving to New York to find his true self as the sneering, peroxide-blonde spikey-haired post-punkster we all know. He released a trio of great singles in the early-mid '80s - 'Dancing With Myself', 'White Wedding' and 'Rebel Yell' - and became one of MTV's first stars. He went global for a few years but never really earned any credibility in this country.

If you want a sneering, leather-clad punk to idolise, then look no further than Billy - he's trademarked the image.

I bought his 'greatest hits' in the HMV sale the other day and am enjoying it immensely.

'There'll Always Be An England' by the Sex Pistols

After my mammoth self-indulgence last November of seeing the Sex Pistols on three nights at their residency at Brixton Academy, what better way to re-live and remember the experience than the new live DVD from the Pistols, 'There'll Always Be An England'.

The footage faithfully recreates the gigs and the power and majesty of those snarling, rabid monsters of yesteryear and I can't help but feel they've never been bettered in the teenage rebellion stakes. Their one album and handful of singles have stood the test of time and you get the best and loudest versions on this DVD, opening with 'Pretty Vacant' and closing with 'Anarchy In The UK'. What more could you want? If you go to the setlist section of the menu you also get a killer version of 'Roadrunner' which, on the last night of their residency, was dedicated to Denton the Bear.

There's also a great documentary as an extra that follows the Pistols around London as they visit their favourite haunts and talk about the old days. This is a great addition to 'The Filth & The Fury' documentary.

My only criticism of the DVD is that there's too much footage of the crowd at Brixton and, of course, it's always the wierdos that get camera time, those with old punk hair or snarling or making V signs at the camera. Why? It doesn't really add to the experience.

It's great to have this footage of the Pistols live and still dangerous after all these years. And I was there for some of it!

Yoshitomo Nara at The Baltic

I went to see an exhibition by Yoshitomo Nara + graf at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art while I was in Newcastle last week.

For the first time in well over a decade I walked down to the Quayside in Newcastle, the area running alongside the River Tyne which used to be a bustling port that became very run-down and was regenerated for the Millennium. It's all brand-spanking-new now and looking good. I walked over the Millennium Bridge (the 'blinking' bridge) to the Gateshead side of the river and the Baltic, the former flour warehouse that was converted into a 'modern art' gallery to add to the cultural life of the North-East. The Baltic isn't very big, but has one good sized exhibition space on each of the five floors available to the public, with scary glass-walled lifts and a great view from the top floor along the Tyne (including a new bridge that was being built from bamboo while I was there - I've got no idea why bamboo is being used).

I'd never heard of Yoshitomo Nara before but was quite taken with his images and presentation. In the one large exhibition space he built a small 'village' of five or six houses and you can look through windows and doors into the rooms. The rooms are full of drawings and scraps of paper on tables and chairs, pinned to walls and, in a few, finished paintings of his child-like characters. One room is full of fluffy toys strewn across the floor and in another, fluffy toys rammed into a peace/ban the bomb symbol. I liked the eyes of some of his children, a mesmerising, speckling rainbow of colours that brought them to hypnotic life.

The main rooms were built around a small raised walkway made of scraps of wood from which you could look into the rooms, almost like a peeping-tom peering into someone else's life. Another raised walkway led to a dark area with a large white plastic (?) head of one of his children. There were also some paintings and drawings hung on one wall near the entrance to the exhibition.

It was most strange and disconcerting, but interesting nonetheless. I'd like to see more of his work.

Buffy Sainte-Marie - The Mid-1970s Recordings

Buffy's 'new' record, 'Buffy - Changing Woman - Sweet America: The Mid-1970s Recordings' was released on Monday but I couldn't get it in Newcastle. Today, to celebrate the 4th July, I went up to my HMV of choice on Oxford Street, downstairs to the folk section and picked up a copy of the CD.

This is the first time that Buffy's three albums after she left Vanguard have been released on CD - 'Buffy' (1974), 'Changing Woman' (1975) and 'Sweet America' (1976). I bought 'Sweet America' back in 1976 or 1977 and it was my first or second Buffy album (I think my first was 'Native North American Child (An Oddysey)') but I only got 'Buffy' and 'Changing Woman' in the last few years on vinyl. I've had vinyl-to-digital recordings for a few years so I'm familiar with all the songs. There are no bonus tracks.

The sound quality is excellent, it's crisp and clean and I'm hearing some instruments for the first time, such as the electric piano doing twiddly bits in the background to 'Generation', the electronic effects on 'Eagle Man/Changing Woman' and 'Mongrel Pup' and the pow wow singing on 'Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan' and the magnificent 'Star Walker' (which is noted, on the vinyl album sleeve, as being dedicated to the American Indian Movement, but the dedication isn't noted on the CD). It's marvellous to hear these songs in proper digital format at long last, with Buffy's voice clear and strong.

The packaging is nice too. The cover is a version of the photo of Buffy on the back of 'Sweet America' and inside is a short essay about Buffy. There are only a couple of photos though - I was hoping for some new photos but I can't have everything. It includes all the credits for the individual records so somebody has done a lot of work checking studio records since the credits aren't on the original records in this detail. That's a nice touch. Well done to everyone involved in saving these three Buffy records and giving them to us to enjoy again. Thank you!

Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

C'mon. Own up. Who did it?

The first album from the delightful Amanda Palmer is due for release on 15 September in the UK and the album cover has now been posted.


There's a new website for the album and you can hear the tracks in streaming audio on Miss Palmers MySpace page as one track is added each week. The tension mounts...