Half Man Half Biscuit are a comedy outfit (I think it’s insanely generous that their Wikipedia article describes them as satirical) and as such hold very little interest to me, I don’t mind laughing – and I don’t even mind laughing at song lyrics, but I prefer my humour to be a part of the song, not all there is of it. HMHB’s humour is front and centre and pretty much revolves around throwing out pop-culture references and… well that’s about it.

If they can get a laugh purely out of mentioning Una Stubbs or Stevie Nicks, Bob Todd or Dairylea triangles then that’s all they need to do – or perhaps make tiresome references to the TV of their born-in-the-60s audience and that’s pretty much HMHB. “Oh yes [snigger] we’ll sing about Camberwick Green and mention drugs… and swear a bit – that’ll be funny because all those people who watched it back then are probably smoking dope now… and swearing [giggle]“.

They are just the indie Barron Knights and I find it remarkable that they’ve managed to carve a 30+ year career out of it… but then The Barron Knights are still working so I perhaps shouldn’t really be surprised.

I listened to this with a fair amount of skipping because it really was unbearable, juvenile nonsense.

Piledriver by Status Quo

The only album of theirs I was willing to admit liking was Piledriver, it was a rock album from when they were a rock band. I haven’t listened to it for years before this morning but it gave me such bizarre pangs of nostalgia for Quo the rock band.. Paper Plane is an undoubted gem, possibly their finest hour. Roadhouse Blues is epic, and was always a live treat… sometimes the album chugs just a little too much but I’m not ashamed to say that I still kind of like this.

I went on to listen to the rather excellent 1977 live album, maybe its only excellent because of nostalgia… those live shows were fun, on the drive we’d have guesses as to how long Forty Five Hundred Times would last… I think I remember a time it lasted 26 minutes.

Back in the early 80s I started hanging with Ian because he was a friend of a friend. I didn’t really like him, he was a bit of a pillock (and an estate agent) but I have to acknowledge a debt to him. Ian was a blues afficianado, and I’m faily certain that some of the great (and memorable) gigs I went to in the early 80s where down to him. I saw John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Peter Green (during his mad long-fingernails obscurity), Alvin Lee and plenty more because Ian suggested them. He was also responsible for bits of my record collection from that period… and Blues Breakers was undoubtedly bought at his urging.

Ian was, above everything else, a HUGE Clapton fan, we used to go to crappy Surrey pubs in the hopes that Clapton would make an appearance… I’m fairly certain he never did. I have a problem with Clapton, always have even back then. Sure I liked Cream and The Yardbirds well enough (thanks to Ian) but pretty much all he’s done since has made these toes curl, he pretty close to ruined bits of All Things Must Pass and he is the proud owner of the song I hate more than any others). But I took a chance on this because it was the most highly regarded album of the British blues (played by white folk) boom.

I haven’t listened to this for over 25 years… possibly nearer to 30, however I did expect it to be familiar, and half-expected to actually quite like it. It wasn’t, and I didn’t. It was mostly awful, a couple of tolerable tracks but otherwise tedious. Midway through I resorted to using the skip button more than I’d have liked… but by then I just needed to get through it and get something I wanted to hear into my ears.

So Ian, if you do ever read this, thanks for a lot of what you gave me… but not for this.

Whenever I listen to metal these days it’s mostly Motorhead or Sabbath which disguises the fact that my real metal period was the 1979 to 1981 golden period of the NWOBHM. Last September I did a punk special on this blog where I spent a day playing classic punk albums and passing opinion on them. It was a treat, the six albums I chose were shiny gems, every single one of them. I pondered doing the same today with NWOBHM – sadly some preliminary research revealed that it would be a painful chore of immense proportions. Most of the bands were unbearable and indistinguishable from one another. However, as a nod to my past I’ve picked one of my fave albums of that time – Saxon‘s 1980 album Wheels of Steel to represent NWOBHM on Everything’s Swirling.

The album starts with an archetypal metal opener – it has chunky riffs, screaming solos, wailed vocals… is about bikers… and is, quite frankly, awesome… not sure it’ll get better than this.

I saw Saxon probably half-a-dozen times between ’79 and 82 – most memorably a show at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park which included a Hendrix-like guitar sacrifice, male nudity and is one of the few (non-Motorhead) shows from my HM days that sticks with me.

Track three is 747 (Strangers in the Night) … which is about planes (a later album had a track about steam trains… they liked transport). I think this was a hit. Next up the title track and we’re back to motorbikes… it may be all very macho but at least it’s sparing the boasts of sexual prowess that I was expecting… or at least disguising it in transport-based euphemism! “She’s cruising 140 she can do even more, I’m burning solid rubber, I don’t take no bull”

I’m genuinely surprised how familiar I am with the album, and how I mostly don’t mind it… but the weakness is Biff’s vocal, it’s a fairly classic metal delivery but doesn’t have anything to lift it beyond that… it is relentlessly metal, which is a shame as the songs are good and the music is suitably heavy and the production fits all that perfectly. Now pop a Paul Di’Anno or a Gillan or an Ozzy on this…

Here’s Saxon miming to Wheels of Steel on TOTP in 1980:

The copy of Tubular Bells that I dug out recently was actually Hazel's, and was a little worse for it's age. I popped on side one with the familiar Exorcist opening and settled back for what may be my first listen to this reknowned and much loved "classic"

The All Music Guide describes it as a "grand unison of eccentric sounds that wildly excites the ears"

I describe it as " a godawful cacophony that I never want to hear again"

And I won't and I certainly won't be listening to all those other Mike Oldfield albums.

Here's Mike's sister singing a song that my sister loved…

A first listen through of 'Til Tuesday's Everything's Different Now and my fears are pretty much affirmed – there's a little  too much production and arrangement, too much polish and too many instruments throw into the pot. I find myself listening to that more than the songs… which is a shame because the songs are mostly pretty good.

Only mostly mind. This was described as being "the first Aimee Mann solo album" and I do get that with some songs but "(Believed You Were) Lucky" and "Long Gone Buddy" sound just wrong. Hearing Aimee's voice singing on a couple of these tracks is actually a little distressing.

But there are some real gems here "Limits to Love" is great. The awful backing vocals on "The Other End (of The Telescope)" manage to not ruin it completely – probably because of the strength of the lyric (can't not love a miserable/bitter lyric)…

And in time, I could only believe in one thing
The sky was just phosphorous stars hung on strings
And you swore that they'd always be mine
When you can pull them down anytime

All in, I quite enjoyed this dip into Aimee's past but am likely to call on The Forgotten Arm or Bachelor No. 2 or Live at St. Ann's Warehouse when I need a fix…

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I was never a fan of Nirvana back then, I liked them enough to have bought their albums but not so much to bother going to see them live. I remember driving past the Astoria, when they were playing there with Mudhoney, on our way to some north London pub back room to see some unknown, and wondering if we maybe should be stopping there given the press they were getting… but no! I'm sure the proto-shoegazers we were undoubtedly off to see where just fine too!

After years of being bothered by Adam not being "into" music he suddenly is… and Nirvana are to him (at 13) what Motorhead where to me when I was 15. He currently can't get enough, constantly asking for new recordings. He got very excited when I dug out my vinyl copy of Nevermind and even wanted to know if I had any tracks by The Vaselines the other day.

Last week he came and asked for Live at Reading and it was only a fiver on AmazonMP3 so down it came (I love that – it took me years to build up my Motorhead collection, he pretty much has the full Nirvana catalogue sorted in a matter of weeks).

I'm not sure how Reading in 1992 fits into the grand scheme of things but the sound is impressive and the band's presence is astounding. Hearing the audience singing along to Lithium is chilling. It totally makes sense to me that this is exactly the sort of music a 13 year old should love – and I wonder what current acts have the power and presence to engender the passion that Nirvana did in the early 90s (and still do).

Listening to this album and it's clear that I probably should have stopped at The Astoria that night, having said that in 1989 I was 25 years old and had seen my first Galaxie 500 show. A month after the 1992 Reading performance Luna would play their second London show and Nirvana and I were already very far apart. The closest we got was probably as I drove up the Charing Cross Road in December 1989.

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I've seen Robyn Hitchcock quite a few times over the years – never as a headliner (last time with The Decemberists a couple of years back); I've listened to albums (and Soft Boys albums); I've listened to friends express their appreciation… but for all that I find it really hard to like him, and I'm not entirely sure why. I mean, it theoretically pushes all the right buttons for me but there's something that just doesn't seem right.

This is the first time I've listened to Moss Elixir and it started well enough I loved the violin/guitar intro of "Sinister but Happy", although I found the lyrics a little discomforting, and for a while I thought this might be the time I'd "get over it" (whatever "it" might be). I found "Devil's Radio" just annoying and by "Man with a Woman's Shadow", "I Am Not Me" and, particularly, "De Chirico Street" I was itching to get out.

I stuck it out though, I'm glad I did "You and Oblivion" was great (sort of reminded me of Grant McLennan) and while it hasn't made me a fan I can appreciate more why people might think I ought to be a fan.

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Posted via email from Supplemental