5..4..3..2..1..Ready..Steady..Go! Goodness – how time flies. Here is a little synopsis of various posts that have been whirling around my head over the last two weeks. It’s been a bit busy round here and I have been a bit distracted…..evidently…..by thinking about (in no particular order):
5. The prospect of being able to go to the cinema next year and watch Lemmy – The Movie. If the trailer is anything to go by I think it may be rather good despite Lemmy’s terrible joke as featured below at the end of the trailer – I don’t think Lemmy wears coats so cue the music, cue the tumbleweed….and be deaf forever 4. Enraged that The Daily Bloody Mirror decided to put “I lied about my gastric band op so what and now I’m all stressed out and have probably gorged on 100 packets of Ryvita because they don’t make you thin anyway which is why I had the gastric band in the first place” Fern Britton – instead of beyond inspirational Pat Regan on the front page. Leave Fern Britton alone. It is pathetic. What’s more newsworthy? Obviously not Pat Regan who made it to page 4. Pat Regan was an astounding person. A brilliant mother and victim of violence with the death of her eldest son that initiated her becoming active in the Mothers Against Violence campaign several years ago but ironically ended in her untimely and tragic death at the hands of her own grandson. I strongly feel that Pat Regan would have further changed law and made an even bigger and more positive difference to the current gun and knife related youth crime in this country had she lived. She already had. Truly devastating that she is no longer alive.
Pat Regan Activist Campaigner Mother 1955 – June 1 2008
Read more about Pat’s phenomenal work here
Read more about Mothers Against Violence here
3. Felt a bit sad and sick seeing a heavily pregnant teenage girl with a packet of fags and mobile phone at the bus stop yesterday. She looked really defiant and was dressed in an outfit some people might deem to be ‘inappropriate’ for a young pregnant woman but it wasn’t that that particularly bothered me – it was her attitude. She had a face of pure grump and her arm was cocked out over her bare tummy holding the fags and mobile aloft as if to say “yeah? what”?. It made me sad for the imminent baby and I wondered how many fags it had had already. Actually I wanted to cry.
2. Wondering why Peters and Lee were so funny?
And did Lenny get his glasses from the Innovations catalogue?
But why were Peters and Lee such a national joke – a bit like Mary Whitehouse or Fanny Craddock? Piley has done a nice little piece featuring Peters and Lee on Planet Mondo here.
1. Thinking about how funny a voice Annie Leibowitz has – New England clipped mixed with huge energy and excitement. A genius. See last night’s Imagine here. Lastly in the absence of a podcast which is also whirling around my head – here is a song for Friday – I dedicate it to all those either having a mid-life crisis or gorging on that popular chocolate bar Credit Crunch or both. And some great obscure Russian poster art for a shoe factory I found.
Doors to manual darlinks – Romo Airlines – prepare for take-off.
Night night everyone.
Oooh the wonder of the bloggermusiverse! I have been very honoured to be asked to produce a Rockmother podcast special to unleash the new album Love Tel Motel by Magic Ship to the world. Do go and have a listen – it won’t disappoint. It also gives you lots of brilliant information like where to buy or download the album from because you will want to hear more after you have listened to the podcast teaser. Magic Ship are a four-piece from the Twickenham area of London and have had the collective balls to get on with it and write, record, produce, mix, design and generally do everything you need to do to get an album out – they even have t-shirts and a distribution label!
And if you have a yearning to hear and see the album played live Magic Ship are actually doing just that next Friday 6th June at:Ye White Hart , The Terrace, Barnes, London SW13.
Bus: 209 or 419 from Hammersmith or Richmond
Train: Barnes Bridge or Mortlake (mainline)
20:30 onwards band on at 22:00’ish You can check out their main website here and here and browse their munterspace site here. The podcast can be listened to at the main Listen With Rockmother Podcast Site
or you can click play below if you prefer the medium of Divvyshare: Enjoy ladies and gentlemen and a special big thank you to Magic Ship for taking the brave leap into the void of Listen With Rockmother! One, two. Two. Two. Two. That’s roadiespeak by the way.
Now that is my kind of motel. Cheerybye for now pop pickers x
If you like good music yeah yeah and you like watching telly yeah yeah then tune in or set your Skybox this weekend to Sky Arts 267/268HD. Yes – beautifully simple and utterly engaging music series From The Basement is back! The ratings were so good that the lovely people at Sky have decided to run the first series again this weekend.
From The Basement is unique in the sense that it is purely artist led – no audience, no cheesy interviews, no annoying whizzy graphics – just bands doing their own thing in the studio. The icing on the cake is that the audio is recorded and mixed live by none other than uber-god Record Producer and From the Basement creator Nigel Godrich. Word on the street tells us that the next series out later this year will feature Radiohead, Mark E Smith and The Fall, Shortwave Set, Andrew Bird – and that is just for starters. From the Basement Weekend kicks off today Sat 24 May at:21:00 White Stripes/The Shins/Neil Hannon from Divine Comedy
21:50 Thom Yorke/Albert Hammond Jr/Envelopes
22:40 Beck/Jarvis Cocker/Jamie Liddell Sun 25 May line up is:
21:00 Sonic Youth/Jose Gonzalez/Laura Marling
21:50 Super Furry Animals/PJ Harvey/Freeblood
22:40 Damien Rice/E from Eels/Architecture In Helsinki/Autolux If you don’t have Sky then you can watch clips and see the new Radiohead preview here. And if that is still not enough then you can start saving up for the forthcoming Series One DVD with loads of extra’s out Autumn 2008.
If you have had a shit week like me then watch this – it will make you feel so much better. You may even want to get down yourself my little funkateers. Soul Train – my favourite childhood programme apart from The Good Life, Rising Damp and George and Mildred. But seriously – what great dancing? This clip is from Soul Train 1971 – there is even some early robotics in there – fantastic. So twitch your noses and click your ruby slippers and be transported back….back…….baaaaaack.
And just to finish off – a selection of tv ads from 1977 including Atora suet in a bag! Pam Ayres Eat Meat Campaign poem! Early McDonalds – see the beginning of obesity timebomb – back to the scene of the crime!and some ad for non VPL panties! How simple our lives used to be…….. Sayonara pop-pickers x
Yes – you heard it here first – author and journalist Jon Ronson really is Cynthia Nixon’s girlfriend!
Or are they just distantly related?!
Nice tie Jon…..I mean Christine.
Crikey.
Lawks a lordy.
A Hazy Day Today Is Officially 4 years old today.
1460 days
35040 hours
2102400 minutes
1.2614400 seconds Error! (I am doing this on a calculator)
397 posts
50363 hits (harrumph – is that all?!)
68264 page views
43 page views a day on average
17 podcasts
‘Eve Pollard tights’ most searched for item on my sitemeter….. I will let you into a few birthday secrets….
(a) my real name isn’t really Rockmother in case you were wondering but I can do a mean impression of Olive from On the Buses with my reading glasses on – when I can find them (b) this blog is only called a hazy day today because I didn’t know what on earth I was doing when I first set it up and if you can be bothered to trawl through the archives you will note that the very first post was called “A Hazy Day Today”. Yes. Exactly. I wanted it to be called Rockmother in gothic leather effect metallic script and everything but I don’t know what happened to that 4 hours of furrowed brow formatting – lost forever in the blogosphere somewhere hopefully bringing great joy to someone somewhere (c) since then I have self-taught myself the rudiments of code but not enough to make links within comments like clever people like Slaminsky
(d) I need to add at least another 18 people to my blogroll – you all know who you are – I apologise profusely – I am rather bloglazy but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you (e) here is one of my favourite songs for each and every one of my readers and lovely friends – I dedicate this to all of you – arse – I can’t embed it – you will have to download it HERE
(f) Cake anyone? Profuse licking on this occasion is most definitely allowed.
(g) Oo-er madam! (h) A kiss for each and every one of you mwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwah
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mwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwah
mwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwahmwah Is that enough? Don’t forget to blow out the candles when you go to bed.
I have had one of those days surrounded by newspapers and all the extraneous detritus that fall out of them. Firstly, a supplement that towards the back pages was advertising the most revolting cuckoo clock ever to be invented – this:
I would love to know how many they actually sell – I mean – they are hideous. A speedometer-style clock face complete with counter (although I am not sure what it counts) and instead of the humble cuckoo you get a motorcycle that revs out of it’s little house on the hour each and every hour. Who invents these things? More importantly – who buys these things? And they are £100 quid! Not cheap but apparently ‘collectible’. My attention then turned to easylife catalogue which really is a re-vamped Innovations Catalogue that used to be such a source of inspiration and shame when one’s parents actually bought something from it:
“Clever and space-saving concertina shoe-tidy” “Special-bending ladder for those awkward high jobs” “Pain-saving Electro-Magnetic Bunion Corrector” I saw this in it today –
a really horrible piece of furniture that claims to ‘save space’ but just makes your living room look more cluttered if you ask me by stuffing all your tv guides and Razzles in the side bits. The wide-fitting bunion corrector shoes made me really laugh for some reason. Lift up lid for easy access and roller glide wheels
Ugh! It’s horrible. But wait, look, it’s Puzzle Kaddy!
Sorry – I would love to come over and stop you from killing yourself but I’m afraid I am half way through my 1000 piece Changing Of the Guard Collectors Edition jigsaw. Well it’s taken me ages and I really want to finish it. Actually, hang on – I can use my marvellous Puzzle Kaddy – I’ll be there in a jiffy!
You even get a nice blonde lady to carry it for you – attractive, lightweight and fully portable!
I could go on but I won’t.And now for some proper culture – for those who missed The Bard Of Salford on Radio 4 last week – a nice little 30 minute ode to John Cooper Clarke – the man who should be poet laureate – you can listen again here. I can not believe he remains unpublished. Surely someone like Faber or Canongate would be interested in publishing his work? It’s a shame the show is presented by Paul Morley as I don’t think he comes across that well and a little smug perhaps…? Nevertheless, it is worth a listen if you have the time. And lastly – what did you dream last night? For weeks I have been plagued by terrifying and repetitive dreams of big spiders attacking me – real pain – always biting me on my arm and jumping at me. Really awful. Last night I had a welcome break but just as potty – I dreamed I was Tour Manager for The Damned’s European Tour. God it was hard work. I kept losing the band and then it was in and out of hotel after hotel and lots of lounging around in bedrooms getting stoned. Captain Sensible kept making me smoke dope and made everyone late all the time. I tried to tell him off – only to be offered another joint. Hilarious. Finally, I predict this track Harmonia by Shortwave Set off their debut Replica Sun Machine album (out tomorrow) could be a big summer hit: Nighty night pop pickers. Catch my Listen With Rockmother podcasts here.
Miss Brahms! I demand you to pay attention. I know it is a shock but you really must download THE ROMO FOR REAL NO 17 NOW.
Now come along – we mustn’t keep Captain Peacock waiting.And remember – play it loud kids.
I am currently on a big Mark E Smith and The Fall tip (exacerbated by working with him this week but that will be on a future post). Imperial Wax Solvent is the only good album to come out this year as far as I am concerned. I listened to bits and bobs of The Fall as a kid mainly through the transistor that was hidden under my pillow tinkling out scratchy John Peel programmes. I managed to tape Industrial Estate onto a cassette and played it one bored teenage weekend to my square best friend who only liked The Beatles and Neil Diamond at the time.
‘Isn’t it great’? I shouted‘No’ she replied wincing….’it’s unemployment music’. That made me like it even more. Here is a great track from the current album. The kids of today have a lot to learn – like playing instruments properly for a start! The current Fall line-up is probably one of the best for years. Onto….. Outrage of the Week:
A Domino’s Pizza flyer came through my front door yesterday advertising “Meatball Mayhem” The Official ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Pizza. Flaming Nora. It looks like a bunch of bollocks on a pizza to me. Evil American-style branding gone mad and encouraging more people to watch crap telly while munching their way through more fat and salt. Hideous.
Prior to that squeezing it’s way through my letterbox of discontent – on my way home yesterday I noticed a semi-local pub had stuck a BNP poster to it’s sandwich board just outside the front door. I un-pinned it, scrunched it into a ball and posted it through a Royal Mail letterbox. The owner of the pub came out and tried to have a go – plop! too late! I found it so offensive I thought that that was probably the best way of getting rid of it so no one else could read it – or be reminded to vote for them. I then finished the day off nicely by subjecting myself to Celebrity Rehab – brain bleach brain bleach. Nurse! nurse! Prick my boil! Bank Holiday podcast coming your way soon.
Check out my other podcasts here! Don’t forget to vote! Lastly – a ridiculous German in a ridiculous jacket interviews Mark E Smith in 1989.
Just like a deck of randomly falling cards – the ipod’s first three tracks this morning were……..
Interzone by Joy Division You Don’t Know What Love Is by Chet Baker Policecar by Larry Wallis
and then I ended up playing this on heavy rotation very loud….
Mark E Smith should be Mayor Of London – that would sort us all right out-ahh!
Rockmother 