Transistor Blast

Of all the bands to emerge during the punk years of 76-77, the one that for me produced the most consistently excellent albums would be, without question, XTC, who in the course of their career went from weird sci-fi themed punk bandwagon jumpers to the finest English pop band since the Beatles.

Helped by having two songwriter genius' in the form of guitarist Andy Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding, XTC spent most of the 70s in embryonic form alongside drummer Terry Chambers and assorted others. With the arrival of punk and keyboard whiz Barry Andrews, they made a name on the London circuit for their high-energy, frantic shows. Partridge would garble rapid-fire lyrics about aliens, the Statue of Liberty, and modern technology being all the rage while Andrews showed off his skills, Chambers pounded his kit and Moulding looked handsome.

Signed to Virgin, their John Leckie-produced debut album White Music reflected their gigs and started with the excellent Radios In Motion, the best track from XTC Mk I. Also gaining notices was their dub-tinged cover of All Along The Watchtower. The album crept into the lower reaches of the top 40, the singles went nowhere, including an excellent re-recording of This Is Pop? helmed by "Mutt" Lange, of all people. Released in no time afterwards, Go 2 offered more of the same, though without the novelty factor of White Music. Of more interest was a bonus EP of dub remixes by Partidge entitled Go+, showing a far more experimental slant.

Despite getting a couple of songs on the album, Barry Andrews felt he wasn't getting a fair deal and left the band - later going on to form Shriekback with Carl Marsh and Dave Allen (ex-Gang of Four). In his place stepped Dave Gregory, a friend from Swindon who had been playing in various local bands for the previous decade.

With him, XTC really hit their stride. Teaming up with Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham, the title of 1979s Drums and Wires reflected the new sound, the wires being the extra guitar strings. Their first consistently excellent album, it also saw Colin Moulding step up to the plate, writing their first minor hit (Life Begins At The Hop) and first major hit (Making Plans For Nigel) while his Ten Feet Tall was their first number to feature acoustic guitar prominently. Partridge put forward the manic Helicopter, Scissor Man and Outside World as the band began a hectic touring schedule that would later have serious consequences.

The following year saw the band improve further still with Black Sea, from which Blur seem to have based a huge part of their sound during the Modern Life Is Rubbish era. Dominated by Partridge songs, it's tight arrangements were a result of the band working their socks off on the gig circuit. The lyrical stance also began to take on a more sophisticated stance, with Respectable Street and Generals and Majors poking fun at sections of English life.

Taking a what would become characteristic change of direction, English Settlement brought in more acoustics and less frantic arrangements. Boosted by their biggest hit single, Senses Working Overtime, it would become their biggest hit album in the UK. Perhaps a little too long, it nevertheless features one of Partridge's more sublime moments, the closing Snowman. Growing lyrical storytelling abilities were shown on the amusing No Thugs In Our House, in which a thuggish National Front type is protected by his disbelieving well-to-do parents.

Yet at their peak in terms of commercial success and their skills as a performing band, Andy Partridge suffered a major breakdown brought on by exhaustion due to constant touring. Collapsing at the start of a gig in Paris, he was nevertheless flown to California to start a major US tour. On the second night, he once again fell ill and returned to Swindon. XTC would never perform live again.

Convalescing in his garden, Partridge continued in the vein of the last album by writing Ladybird and Love On A Farmboy's Wages. When rehearsing the new songs, drummer Terry Chambers - always the bandmember who enjoyed touring the most - decided the new studio-only XTC wasn't for him and packed off to Australia with his new bride and child. Glitter Band drummer Peter Phelps was brought in to finish what would become Mummer. The album, to put it shortly, sank without trace despite the release of Great Fire, one of their most brilliant songs, as a single.

The Big Express in 1984 didn't do much better. In total contrast to the previous two albums, it sounded metallic - the Linn drum machine being used liberally throughout - with the exception of Colin Moulding's wistful jazz-tinged I Remember The Sun. Lyrically, Partridge was back on top form, with his concerns ranging from bad management (I Bought Myself a Liarbird), marital infidelity (Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her) and his own doubts on his path in life - Train Running Low On Soul Coal featured the line "Hammer goes down, brakes all scream/Me a couple of empty carriages slide down hill", the carriages presumably being Moulding and Gregory, suffering from his illness preventing the band making a better living.

With spirits at their lowest, some respite came in the form of the 25 O' Clock EP by the Dukes of Stratosphear: six songs released as the "lost" recordings of a 60s English psychedelic band, actually XTC working with John Leckie again. It sounded authentic, the songs were great and it managed to sell more than The Big Express despite being recorded at a fraction of the cost.

Somewhat buoyed, Partridge, Moulding and Gregory travelled to Woodstock to work with Todd Rundgren. The sessions were fraught with conflict between the huge egos of bandleader and producer, yet managed to produce a career highlight in Skylarking. Expertly sequenced by Rundgen around the general theme of a summer day, it's an album full of magical songs, including one which didn't make the initial cut and was assigned to b-side duties of lead single Grass.

Dear God was a Partridge polemic that he considered unsuitable for the album. However, US radio flipped the single and Dear God began picking up airplay, as well as getting play on MTV - the video later earning several awards. Re-released with a new track order, Skylarking still went nowhere in the UK, but it reignited the career in the States.

After recording a full (and final) album as the Dukes, they decamped to Los Angeles with rookie producer Paul Fox. Oranges and Lemons sounded ready for America, and The Mayor of Simpleton gave them their only US Hot 100 hit and led to it's parent album being their best seller. Despite some of their best songs (Across This Antheap and Chalkhills and Children in particular), it's slighty dated production hasn't helped the songs age as well as on Skylarking or the albums with Steve Lillywhite.

Attempting to follow it up resulted in another painful recording session for Andy Partridge, this time at the hands of Gus Dudgeon, most famous for his work with Elton John. A strong set of songs, including their first UK 40 hit single in nearly ten years with The Disappointed were recorded, but a huge fall-out during the mixing stage led to some falling out. Remixed by Nick Davies, Nonsuch was a fine effort that contains at least two of my favourite XTC songs - the poppy Then She Appeared and the sweeping Wrapped In Grey.

The latter was slated to be a single, but when it was withdrawn it proved to be the last straw for Partridge regarding Virgin Records, not helped by the fact that despite selling millions of records, the band themselves hadn't seen much of the proceeds - both Moulding and Gregory had done stints van driving in the 80s to make ends meet. Downing tools, XTC refused to work until they were released from their contract.

A stand-off which lasted until 1999 when Apple Venus appeared on the Cooking Vinyl label. By this time, Dave Gregory had quit the band after a series of arguments with Partridge, going on to become an in-demand session player. Acoustic and orchestrated, the album was in part themed on Partridge's divorce in the mid 90s (Your Dictionary) and new love (I Can't Own Her). Moulding, more settled in domestic life, contributed the aptly titled Frivolous Tonight.

Apple Venus was quickly followed by the more electric Wasp Star, recorded at the same time and more electric in sound. Though not as successful as a set as it's sibling, it still contained some fine moments.

Since then, Colin Moulding has retreated from music and little new material has been released by Partridge, which seems a shame from two such talented songwriters. With the XTC name now (apparently and sadly) consigned to history, I can never urge people enough to check them out. Buy the Fossil Fuel 2CD compilation and work from there. Pop music has rarely sounded so better, so varied and so full of life.

Cover Up

I've found myself highly amused in recent weeks by an advert that claims to help men stop the onset of balding. We see a decent looking fella applying a squirt of some chemical foam shite to his bald spot and are supposed to believe that it will bring him back his precious hair and, subsequently, his confidence. Quite. Side effects may include an empty wallet.

If any of these cures worked, you'd think people with millions in the bank would never be bald. But no, Wayne Rooney is going to be sporting a pure cue ball look in no time, and even the chap third in line to the throne of England is forced to make himself look a complete div by using what hair he has left to cover the huge patches of chrome dome.

What is interesting is how we're suddenly being led to believe that having hair is all-important again. You'd think in the year 2011 we'd be over it, but there's money to be made from insecurity that even top sportsmen like Shane Warne suffer. Bobby Charlton may well have been endorsing one of those hair clinic places if they had been about in the 1960s, though I like to think the sight of him charging down the field with combover billowing all over the place was an iconic an image as the Beatles' mop-tops.

Let's face it, unless you're like my Uncle Dennis (80 years old and a thicker mop than I'll ever have) or can afford one of those bizarre hair transplant jobs, we're all one day going to have to go down the Yul Brynner route of hair styling. Then all that's waiting for us is to be chased around by Benny Hill while a saxophone plays in double time. The key is to know when to give it up and get the razor out.

We can once again look to the world of Science Fiction to set a precedent here. Patrick Stewart went bald young but when it came to portraying Captain Picard, he kept it natural. As a result, he looks sharp, in command and ready to kick arse personally if needed. William Shatner, however, has insisted on keeping some kind of wildlife on his head for the last 30 years or so.

Subsequently, Captain Kirk just looks silly in a wig and out of puff due to having to hold his stomach in between the words 'action' and 'cut'. From this compelling evidence, we can conclude that it's best to accept the ravages of aging and man up on the whole matter. After all, who is your mother most like to fancy: Stewart or Shatner?

Team Up

Growing up, I knew Marvel Comics were obviously great. Spider-Man and X-Men were my favourites and as far as I was concerned, they walked over most of what I saw from DC, which was mainly Superman.

As I've gotten older, I've conceded DC put out some great works (Frank Miller's Batman and Denis O'Neil's The Question being two notable examples) but also stood by my Marvel favouritism, especially as they had the Punisher and Deadpool. Therefore, Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the Playstation 3 was an essential purchase but in the end, I felt a bit let down by the repetitive game play despite the excellent range of characters to choose from.

Nevertheless, I decided to give the sequel a shot, mainly as it used the Civil War storyline as it's core. In short: events lead to a political decision that all superheroes must register with the Government, a decision supported by Iron Man and Mr Fantastic. Opposing them are Captain America and Luke Cage, who believe the act to be unconstitutional. Or something. Whose side you join is up to you - oh, the decisions!

In terms of the gaming experience, they've not moved on a whole lot. The big addition is the ability to team up with another of your team of four to execute some pretty nifty moves that can clear a whole room of baddies in a few seconds, or even go a long way to sorting out one of the many bosses you'll come across. Part of the fun of the game is switching these around to see the various combinations on offer.

The roster has been tweaked, with the most notable new addition being the Hulk. But once again, for me, Deadpool steals the show with his fourth wall breaking antics, criticising the programmers choice of limiting story arcs and even noting on making a decision on where he'll side in the Civil War that he'll pick the other side on the next play through.

Storyline-wise, it starts off well enough by using the Secret War series as a tutorial, Nick Fury being in particularly fine arse-kicking mood before going into the Civil War. Sadly, this part seems over far too quickly and we're into a slightly silly climax which seems to have been lifted from the worst aspects of sci-fi. It also all seems to be over a bit soon, giving me the impression that we're expected to consider the fact we can play through it again on the other "side" as a motivation to do a lot of other missions again So far, it's not been the case for me.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a lot of fun, most of which is gained from playing in some of the stable's most famous teams (X-Men, Fantastic Four, the Avengers), but probably only for fans of the characters. Even available at a cheap(ish) price as it is now, it's not going to appeal to casual gamers. Nice cameo by Stan Lee, though!

Back Behind the Wheel

Back in October, in a post entitled 'Nothing But The Hits', I went on about several compilation albums that I enjoyed by bands I had no real intention of investigating further. One of those was the Cars. Naturally, when I saw their first five albums going for just over a tenner for the lot over the Christmas period, I bought them. I should have picked Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for that article instead.

The reason I bring this false prediction of my own shopping habits up is that by chance I came across the Cars' new song yesterday - their first new music in over 20 years. The video doesn't seem to feature the band themselves at all, which may be a sensible move for a bunch of lads in their early 60s/late 50s and whose best-looking member - bassist/vocalist Benjamin Orr - died a decade ago.

Sad Song, for that is the song in question, is actually really good. It's clearly looking to emulate whatever made the Cars' self-titled debut such a huge, huge success in the US. The guitar tone and handclaps in the intro are straight from 1978 and singer/songwriter Ric Ocasek hasn't lost his knack for a pop hook, or somewhat banal lyrics. To a youngster, it may sound like a bunch of old tossers ripping off the Killers - to which we can happily beat them over the back of the head and point out the Cars had nailed that sound down decades prior, something which I'm sure Brandon Flowers has acknowledged several times.

While the band may mean little in the UK beyond their two hits (My Best Friend's Girl and Drive), The Cars went six times Platinum at home, unsurprising given just about every track sounds like a single and is doutbtless well at home on radio. One of the first American bands to really take off on the back of the 'New Wave', the band had been on the Boston Scene for the best part of a decade - drummer David Robinson was best known for being in the initial line up for the Modern Lovers, alongside future Talking Heads' member Jerry Harrison.

Almost inevitably, the debut set the bar at a height they struggled to match until working with Mutt Lange (a man I insist peaked when he worked with XTC on their This Is Pop? single) for 1984's Heartbeat City. Despite it selling millions, it's dated production hasn't been kind, with (to these ears) only You Might Think, Magic and the title track aging gracefully.

After becoming MTV stars on the back of that album and the Greatest Hits compilation, they knocked out a final album that I've never read a good word about and split. Ocasek most notably went on to produce some of Weezer's early albums and enjoyed being married to a supermodel while staying so thin, he's one of the few healthy people in the world who could call me 'Porky'.

Me vs The World

As I've said before, a big appeal of video games for me is the idea that you engage in interactive entertainment without the trouble of other people getting in the way, misanthropic get that I am.

Of course, I'm occasionally partial to a blast on FIFA with a friend, or even whopping some arse on the Buzz quiz games with family and significant others, but I've never bothered with online gaming in any big way. This was due to some bad experiences with Internet Scrabble (poxy abbreviations!) and the belief that playing any Playstation game online would just see me destroyed at every corner by a bunch of spotty Herberts who had even less to do with their time than me so as to spend 20 hours a day perfecting their skills.

Top of the pile in this whole field of multi-player online shenanigans is World of Warcraft, which has never really held any appeal for me. I have friends who invest a fair whack of time in it... but I've never seen the appeal, perhaps not helped by those wretched adverts with washed-up 80s icons like Ozzy Osborne and Mr T. I've also never got into the more 'traditional' RPG settings either, preferring my games in that genre to have a more modern/sci-fi angle, Final Fantasy VII being the best example.

Despite that, I'd enjoyed playing Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit a lot and when visiting Ma and Pa Harrison (and their wireless broadband), I decided to give the online version a shot, thinking it would be interesting if nothing else. Well, blow me down if I wasn't actually quite good at it, if I may say so myself. Credit to the game's developers, it's quick to get right into the action against faceless bods from around the world and be chased by (or chase them). While the single player mode was fun, it adds a whole new dimension in knowing that when you overtake or bust another car, someone somewhere else is doubtless cursing your name. It's satisfying to imagine poor SpeedMaster69 (or whoever) throwing his joypad down in disgust as he's rammed into oncoming traffic.

In conclusion: I may have to invest in wireless Internet when my contract with 3 mobile runs out. Incidentally, if anyone ever considers signing up for one of those Internet dongle things with that provider, don't. My thoughts of them can be summed up in combinations of any two swear words of your choice.

Dumb Waiters Part Three

Dee has done work in this building before and within seconds of us entering the bedsit he gives me the inside line.

"Wait till you see the lass who works in that shop across the road."

He raises his eyebrows and makes a face to show that this girl does indeed make Dee’s motor run. I step over to the window and sit down on its low sill. The window of the shop across the road features many shoes, boots and trainers, but no girl. I point this out. Dee looks at this watch.

"It’s half one, probably on her lunch hour."
I accept this as likely.

Given I never go to parties and do my utmost to avoid meeting new people, I’m never asked "what is it you do then?" But if I ever was asked so, the answer would be: "I drive a guy around while he fits carpets. If needed, I help him carry stuff and go to the shops to buy sweets and cigarettes."

I've been doing it for a few months now, only a couple of days a week while Dee’s regular partner is doing his community service. For a few hours of my time, I get £40 a week and occasional cups of tea and biscuits if we’re doing a job round some house where the lonely housewife appreciates a break from the Hallmark channel and the chance for interaction with someone other then the cat.

Dee (abbreviated from his surname ‘Kennedy’ due to his Ramones fixation) is a good man to work with. In other words, he never expects me to turn up before noon and agrees to let me choose the music while we drive. Occasionally I let him indulge in a blast of Blitzkrieg Bop or I Wanna Sniff Some Glue but the sight of an overweight man in his mid 30s bouncing around in a Transit, singing in a broad Geordie accent loses it’s appeal faster then you’d think.

The bedsit Dee is currently preparing to carpet is totally bare bar the basic stuff in the kitchen, though I'm being told this wasn't always the case. Dee has been told tales of horror from the landlord.

"He was telling me that when the previous occupants moved out, couple of smack heads apparently, they was all sorts’a needles and used condoms on the floor. Plus it was full o’ dog shite. Scruffy cunts. Had to get the place fumigated. The full works."

Lovely.

"How, check the kitchen out, make sure nothing needs shifting."

The tiny kitchen area has all the basics: fridge, oven, microwave and a few cupboards. I’m surprised the junkies didn't clean the place out. There’s a small bin in the corner. And then I spot...

"Aww... fucking hell."

A dead mouse lies right in front of me. Dee comes over to see what’s caused the repulsion in my voice.

"What?"
"What d'you mean ‘what’? There’s a dead fucking mouse there."
"Oh aye? Well, chuck it away then."
"Eh? Fuck right off. You pay me to drive and shift, not throw away dead pieces of wildlife."

Dee examines the situation. He’s hoping my sense of machismo will overpower me to prove myself the bigger man by throwing the late Mickey there away.

"Howay man, it's only a mouse. You can't call that wildlife."

He’s no chance; I don’t have a sense of machismo. I look down at it, no blood or signs of being mauled to death by the dog.

"No fucking way, Dee man. It could have 'owt. It could have..." Mind is racing trying to think of some clever disease. Can’t think of one. "... could have plague or something."

Basic but effective. Dee tries to think of a comeback, fails. He goes over to his toolbox and gets out his pliers. Carefully, his uses them to grab hold of the tail after which he marches out the room, coming back in with the look of a man satisfied after a job well done.

I ask what he did with it.
"Lobbed it out the landing window onto that field. Now he has returned to the earth which bore him."

Dee has an almost saintly look to him as he says this. Rather then get involved in some lengthy discussion about the nature of life, death and God that this would bring on if I had five pints of Guinness inside me, I instead go back to sitting on the window sill gazing at the window of the shoe shop opposite, hoping this girl will appear to add a bit of light to the day.

By the time the job is finished, she hasn't appeared and instead I’m relegated to hearing Dee give me a detailed explanation of what made her so appealing in the first place. It’s not quite the same.

Working Day (And The Rest...)

As I've said before, and will say again, Social Workers never get the credit they deserve. Chances are that if you read about them, it's due to a mistake, which are (sadly) inevitable, as they are in any caring profession. Following on from an earlier post, The Tedious World's own Social Work correspondent offers an insight in the kind of challenges they face.

I thought that for my next insight into the life of your average Social Worker, I would look at what we actually do day to day. Unlike Doctors or Police Officers, there are no TV shows about Social Workers and the nature of their work, so I imagine most people don’t really know what we do on an average day. The following example is not typical of every day, and I intend to write about what a typical day is like when we are on Duty and get new referrals at a later date.

So today, I get up at 7am, though I was actually awake long before that as usually I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about work. I have to admit that I don’t often worry about the children on my caseload, more about the paperwork I need to do that day, the assessments I need to complete and the many phone calls and emails I haven’t had time to return.

After only having had three or four hours sleep, I drive to work. It was recommended to me that if you work in Child Protection, it’s best not to live where you work. I stupidly took this advice so I now face a 40 mile round trip every day through heavy traffic to get to and from the office. Frankly, if I could get a job nearer home now I’d take it and not care about whether I would be bumping into Service Users whilst doing my weekly supermarket shop, but hey, you live and learn.

After battling through the traffic, I arrive at a Primary School for a Core Group meeting. These meetings are for children who are on a Child Protection Plan and happen every four weeks. Whilst parking, I over estimate the distance and bang into some metal railings. Having no time to inspect the damage, I rush into the meeting to find several people haven’t turned up. Our manager has insisted lately that at these meetings we should ‘encourage’ other professionals to take the minutes instead of it always being the Social Worker. Unfortunately, the attitude is generally ‘that’s your responsibility’, therefore I end up minute taking as usual.

The meeting doesn't go well; the teacher of the youngest child is concerned about their behaviour. School claim they have tried everything to control the child’s behaviour at home and are now looking at me to find the magic solution. It is suggested that I should make a referral to Educational Psychology, which I reluctantly agree to despite the fact this child is five years old and the psychology team will recommend parenting classes for the parents despite the fact they have already completed these.

After the meeting I inspect the damage to my car. I've managed to dislodge the rubber trimming around the bottom of the bumper. As it is hanging off I decide that the best option is to pull it off. However, this results in me cutting my hand. I then drive back to the office where luckily there are actually plasters in the First Aid box for a change. My hands are shaking, so I quickly have two cups of tea before turning on the computer.

This is always the part of the day I dread, I always check the incoming contacts on open cases first to get the worst part over with. This is where you see if anything has happened overnight to one of your families. Today’s a good day, nothing on any of my cases.


On an average week, we would have five social workers, an Advanced Practitioner, who has lots of valuable experience, and a manager for each team. On our team, however, we have the manager and another member of staff on holiday all week with another Social Worker on holiday from Wednesday. We have one Social Worker off sick and another who left several months ago and is yet to be replaced. This leaves me, one other Social Worker and the Advanced Practitioner.

We check the long email sent to remind us of all the work we need to pick up on other people’s cases this week. This list doesn't include the work we have to do on our own cases, as it’s expected that we know what we’re doing and have planned our time accordingly. We do usually manage our diaries effectively, however it doesn't help when you have to go out and visit other Social Worker’s families or attend meetings on their behalf. We manage to divvy up the work without too much complaining.

Today my challenge is to complete five Initial Assessments on new cases which came in recently. We get seven working days to complete these but still we end up feeling rushed and today I try to track down people from the children’s schools and their school nurses. I leave messages several times with not much hope of getting called back.

Due to being on essential training two days last week, I’m now behind with these assessments, meaning that of the five assessments I completed, they will all have to go on to Core Assessments where more information can be gathered, partly as I've not had as much time as usual to complete them and partly by other professionals not returning my calls.

The afternoon is interrupted by a false fire alarm which leaves us stranded outside for a good ten minutes. I then field a stream of phone calls (several not for me but they couldn't get hold of anyone else). Most of the calls are to remind me of things I haven’t had time to do yet, however one I feel is symptomatic of how the supposed ‘multi-agency working’ that is supposed to be the basis of what we do does not work. The call is from a Nurse on a Disability Team. She’s working with a teenager with learning difficulties who is at risk of being sexually exploited due to her lack of understanding about danger and risk.

The Nurse wants to talk to her and explain to her what sex actually is, but is worried that if this girl then goes off of her own accord and has sex, then she will be held responsible. The Nurse wants me to speak to my manager about the implications for her. Technically, this should be discussed between her and her manager, but she points out that I am the ‘lead professional’. I’m annoyed when I hang up the phone as to me it feels like another incidence of ‘back-covering’ (again something I intend to go into in another post).

The day ends with me cancelling an appointment which would be a 20 mile round trip as I honestly tell the Service User that I cannot afford the petrol to come and see them until I get paid later in the week. Luckily, they are very understanding and the appointment is rearranged.
I finish the day with a home visit. They’re not in. I breathe a sigh of relief and head for the motorway to begin the long commute home.

On The Rack

Despite my frequent enthusing for the wonders of downloading music, at times it's also great to go to a proper record store. Not a dump like HMV: a proper record store.

At the suggestion of a friend, I took the train up to Bolton - a short trip highlighted by the thoughts of a guy who was clearly still drunk from an all-night bender on his way to Wigan to visit his son, whose mother was apparently a "bag head". Once there, we trooped down to X-Records.

Taking a look through their website (http://www.xrecords.co.uk/), once I got past the initial distaste of a bit too much Kiss for my liking, I reckoned there was plenty to interest me, and so it seemed. The only downside was that the copy of the Bodines' album that I'd honed in on online seemed to have gone. Curses. Still, there was more than enough there to entertain a further visit.

Because, of course, one of the many joys of the independent record store is browsing and the laughs you get when you find they don't have one but about ten Transvision Vamp LPs/12"s going. Who knew Wendy James and the lads had been so prolific? Plus the punk section of X Records had some real comedy gems and who'd have thought you could still find copies of Gary Kemp's solo album that hadn't been left in a skip?

Back when I was a skint student, the local record store there was vital as the only way to pick up music for cheap. Why spend £10 on a CD when you could get the same (slightly scratched) album in a weathered sleeve for £1? Add to that the benefit that if you asked nicely, the guy behind the counter would play a song or two off it before you handed over your precious coin.

Around the time I moved to Manchester, there was a great little shop about 30 seconds walk down the road from my bedsit, run by this fella with a Billy Idol fixation, which had the added bonus of a book store in the back. Cue a large chunk of what little wages I had being spent there on a Saturday. It was later taken over by somebody else and I picked up most of my Felt vinyl there, but it was then converted into just another cafe bar, which saddened me no end but seems to be atypical of the fate of many indie stores these days. Appreciate them while we can, would seem to be the message of the day.

Dragging The Past For Pearls (III)

The House of Love - Audience With The Mind (1993)

I'm sure I've never read of anyone being overly positive about this album. Even the sleevenotes in their Best Of compilation put the boot in. I think I'm right in saying it was deleted soon after release: I only picked up a copy by sheer chance when browsing in a second hand record store in a small town near Guildford in 1999.

By the time it was made, the House of Love's ship had long since sailed. The massive hype surrounding their second album (following the debut on Creation Records) had ensured it was a success commercially and got the band on Top of the Pops when Shine On went top 20. But it was a false dawn, as first the Manchester scene and then grunge came and took away their thunder. Mercurial guitarist Terry Bickers was long gone when follow-up album Babe Rainbow stalled big time and by 1993, even Bickers' replacement Simon Walker had elected to follow other options.

With career dead and media profile lower than a crawlin' kingsnake, it seemed a good a time as any to make a somewhat brilliant album, which Audience With The Mind is - for my money, it's the best since their debut. It's also, in a way, singer/songwriter Guy Chadwick's 'guitar' album: playing all the parts himself (except on Shining On) he shows he's got a fair amount of his own chops. He also gives his best, in my opinion, vocal performance on the touching acoustic number All Night Long.

It also, for the main part, sounds fantastic: the House of Love made their name when Bickers was on board for being able to create some great guitar sounds and they're right on form here, straight from the opening Sweet Anatomy. Matters only really stumble when bassist Chris Groothuizen takes lead vocal duties on Erosion: a fine song, but the New Zealander doesn't have the presence of Chadwick in fronting a song. There's also a wonderful sense of the epic in songs like Portrait In Atlanta and the closing You've Got To Feel, which would have been a great way to finish a career.

Which was not to be the case. 2005 saw Bickers and Chadwick kiss and make up to reunite with drummer Pete Evans (shame Groothuizen wasn't involved) to produce Days Run Away, a fine album. I saw them on the subsequent tour and was struck by a) what a handsome devil Bickers looked and b) how many brilliant songs they had in their set. There wasn't any from Audience With The Mind (indeed, I don't recall many, if any, songs that Bickers hadn't been involved in first time round), which was a shame. It's an unjustly maligned part of the band's career and a quick check shows second hand copies around for a decent price if any fans need to complete their HoL collection.

Taking Giant Steps Then Going Blank Again

Completing a trilogy of sorts (after getting through similar books on Rough Trade and Factory), I recently finished reading David Cavanagh's excellent biography of Creation Records, My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize. Thankfully, the tale doesn't centre too much around a certain pub-rock band until strictly necessary and instead focuses around the man who founded and provided the public face, Alan McGee.

While Factory had the aesthetics and my all-time favourite band and Rough Trade had the (apparently) right-on politics, Creation had the roster. A large number of my favourite bands recorded for them: Jesus and Mary Chain, Felt, My Bloody Valentine, the House of Love, Ride, Slowdive and Teenage Fanclub.

McGee was unlike his fellow indie honchos Tony Wilson and Geoff Travis in several crucial respects. For one, he was solidly working class and hadn't gone to university. Secondly, he played in several bands prior to founding a label and even used that to release music by Biff Bang Pow!, playing alongside his business partner Dick Green. Thirdly, and perhaps most telling, unlike the other two he made a very large amount of money from the music industry.

Through the initial chapters, Cavanagh provides context for McGee's ambitions by offering backstory on the indie scene of the early 80s in both Glasgow (Postcard Records) and London (Rough Trade, Cherry Red). Coming from an angle of fanzines and organising club nights, the big break is when McGee sees the potential in a bunch of young lads from East Kilbride who make a racket based on lack of guitar skill and excessive feedback helped (apparently) by a crap PA. Releasing the Jesus and Mary Chain's debut single Upside Down puts Creation, and McGee, on the map as it sells tens of thousands.

Cavanagh gives plenty of time to the the period between the label's first success and last. Also-rans such as the Loft are given their time to tell their stories of how McGee stumbled along till 1990, when he snapped up Ride (giving him his first top 75 single and top 20 album) and Primal Scream stopped being a crap rock band and embraced the present. Of interest to me was the explanation of the House of Love's guitarist Terry Bickers' psychological problems that saw him kicked out of the band, at the same time scuppering the band's vast potential.

Matters begin to get a bit ugly in when McGee embraces the lifestyle associated around house music, gobbling ecstasy like sweets, later moving onto a copious cocaine habit that results in a complete breakdown by the mid 90s, of which the man himself talks of with brutal honesty. When Oasis do enter the picture, thanks to an (in)famous gig in Glasgow, McGee is already beginning the retreat from the day-to-day running of the label, which became much more business-like after Sony bought up 49% of the shares to save it from going bust.

It's here that the story, to me, wanes. Oasis sell shitloads of albums despite or because of a chronic lack of intelligence, McGee earns millions and gets involved in the New Labour bandwagon, despite having always been something of a budding capitalist whose main interest seemed to be becoming a millionaire. Strange at the time, less so in retrospect. Indeed, it may be said that the "prize" of the title was the vast wealth he came into. Meanwhile, his label struggles to sell albums by anyone not monobrowed and from Burnage. Only the Boo Radleys, with their #1 album Wake Up Boo! seem to be able to come close to competing, and even then only briefly.

By 1999, he clicks along with everyone else he's been duped by Blair, though not before apparently influencing policy on struggling musicians and unemployment benefits, and backs away from politics. He also folds Creation and starts again with Poptones, whose main plus point was bringing the Hives to wider attention.

My Magpie Eyes... is about as comprehensive a history of a label as you're going to get. Petty arguments are examined while all the major players from all parts of the business (bar members of Oasis and Primal Scream's successful line ups) are interviewed through the 700+ pages, making this worthy reading for anybody interested in the British indie scene of the 80s and 90s.

Single Shot

One of the great things about the download age is that you can buy individual tracks, a real boon if you don't really care for the rest of a band's repertoire. As a result, I have a fair few songs on this here laptop by bands of which I own nothing else. Here's my favourite five, all worth tracking down if you've not heard them.

Jasmine Minks - Cut Me Deep
Released on Creation before McGee got into drugs and dance music. Along with Primal Scream's Velocity Girl and the Bodines, this was as good as the whole sound that would be labelled C86 would get. I know nothing of the band except I think they were from Aberdeen and this one song. Luckily, it's brilliant.

Despite what I said up the top, I haven't downloaded this but instead found it on an early compilation of Creation artists called Doing It For The Kids, on which you can also hear luminaries such as Nikki Sudden, Momus and, err, Biff Bang Pow!. Despite being alongside personal favourites of mine like Felt and the House of Love, Cut Me Deep holds its own, helped by being a damn good pop song.

Adorable - Sunshine Smile
Another Creation act, and perhaps a bridging point between the Ride of 1990 and Oasis of 1994, which isn't a bad thing despite my disdain for the latter. It's more a case of very loud guitars washing over your head, but with lyrics you can sing along to despite the vocals not being all that strong.

What happened to Adorable, I can't say, but they certainly weren't helped by Suede stealing a load of the thunder for a loud guitar pop band in those pre-Britpop years. Without a sniff of a hit, they fell out with the label and disbanded. Still, thanks for this one, lads.

The Incredible Bongo Band - Apache
Some years ago, I saw some music show that had a segment about the Shadows, making a claim that they helped inspire hip-hop. A quick vox-pop of some dude involved with the start of that scene had him say something to the effect of "the crowd went wild when you played Apache".

Well, I'm willing to bet my house (if I had one) that he was referring to this version, featuring as it does an extended bongo break, which in return was more than likely chosen not because of ol' Hank and the boys, but some Danish chap who had the original hit with the tune in the States.

The Bongo Band version is fantastic, though, all stabbing horns and organ driving the distinctive melody. The Sugarhill Gang would use this as the basis of their own fine version. But who were those mysterious bongo players?

Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't Do It)
More that I only own the one song by a whole genre on this one, though that I haven't got The Message in my collection is an error I should rectify soon.

Here, the music is a direct lift of Cavern by New York band Liquid Liquid, with the vague lyrics of the original changed to the anti-drug message here. Not that it entirely matters, as the whole thing is driven by the bassline. Mel's lines are pretty good, though, and he sounds like he means what he says. Certainly over here in the UK, the song itself proved to be (ahem) something of a phenomenon. Baby.

Killing Joke - Love Like Blood
Essentially, I always found Jaz Coleman's mob a bit silly. Sure, they could make a nice enough racket but it all seemed so, so serious. You couldn't imagine them having a laugh in the way Joy Division did. And they certainly made themselves look like a right bunch of arses when they took off to Iceland in the early 80s, certain that the apocalypse was imminent and they were in the one safe place.

By 1985, they'd decided to cash in a wee bit by roping in producer Chris Kimsey, who'd worked with the Stones. On Love Like Blood, it all works: icicle guitars, huge drums, chugging bass and lyrics that aren't about mental breakdowns or sex with nuns, somewhat mercifully. A great song, for sure, and surprising it didn't cross over well into the States around the same time the Cure were chasing the black-clad Goth dollar.

From The Front Line

Recently, I was contacted by a Social Worker who asked if they could write about the struggles facing people in their profession in the face of cuts. Below is their first report, I hope with more to come.

I've worked as a Social Worker in a large city since January 2010. The questions I mostly get asked by friends are ‘Do you enjoy your job?’ and ‘That must be a difficult job to do?’

To answer, yes I do enjoy my job most of the time, I do feel that I’m able to make a difference, even on a small level. Secondly, yes it is a difficult job to do and it’s about to get worse due to the sweeping cuts being implemented by the current government.

Take, for example, Sure Start Centres, there are hundreds all over the country and are one of the things the previous Labour government got right. They’re quite simply an essential tool in our jobs. They provide a point of contact between Social Workers and children who are too young for formal education and are therefore not being seen daily by professionals. They’re able to report concerns to us that we can then act on and are also an enormous source of support for children and families.

Another example is a three year old child whose parent has a history of depression. Due to the fact that I currently over 40 different children on my caseload, I’m unable to see this child every day, or even every week. The fact that I have managed to get this child a place at a Sure Start Nursery means that they are seen five days a week by staff who are then able to monitor and support both child and parent and communicate any concerns to myself. If Sure Start goes, so does the safety net for that child. The child won’t be able to attend a private nursery five days a week because Children’s Services won’t fund it, so you’re looking at a 12 month period between now and the child starting school where professionals are not seeing this child on a regular basis - this is when important information gets missed.

My anger at what this current government is doing to some of the poorest and most deprived families knows no bounds and the fact that I have always voted Liberal Democrat and been a party member since the age of 18 and also been personally involved with the party makes me feel even worse. Suffice to say I have cut up my membership card and will never vote for them again.

We haven’t even begin to see how badly affected we will be by these cuts; however it is clear that my caseload is growing. Lord Laming’s most recent report into the social work profession recommended caseloads of 15 children which even I recognise will never happen. I personally feel I could manage 25 just about, so long as these were a mix of low and high risk cases. 42 children, however, is totally unmanageable and I worry how long it will be until something happens because I haven’t had the time to adequately assess the risk. This is why it is imperative that organisations such as Sure Start are there to help me assess risks and make responsible decisions for a child’s safety. Without these organisations, mistakes will be made.

I intend to write more often about the cuts, and also about other issues affecting social work, in order to try and paint a realistic picture of what challenges Social Workers face on a daily basis, as often the portrayal I read in the press about our profession makes me incredibly hurt and angry about the misinformation that is allowed to be printed about our role.

So yes, I do enjoy my job and yes, it is difficult but we shouldn't support a government that is about to make it 100% more difficult to adequately protect children from harm.

Take It To The Man

In "no shit, Sherlock" news, some Daily Star hack has apparently resigned in protest of the publication's "anti-Muslim agenda". An open letter he sent to big cheese Richard Desmond has being published on the Guardian's website here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/04/daily-star-reporter-letter-full

Cue some mild cheering from the sidelines, perhaps. Yet something doesn't quite sit right me with on this. Let's get to the point here: you take a job on the Star, you know what it involves. You're going to be writing a load of sensationalist bollocks to fill in the gaps between the grainy pictures of half-naked celebrities on the beach and almost naked airbrushed pictures of glamour models. Unless you've been living in a nuclear bunker most of your life, you must surely recognise that when you accept the position, you're going to be selling a part of your soul and just about all of any journalistic integrity you have.

Something doesn't add up on this whole story. For shame, I can almost believe the Star's statement that the journo, who was just a freelance, was just unhappy about being passed over for a permanent position. They also claim that he approached them about Kelly Brook story he made up. I don't know who to believe on that one. The cynic in me reckons Richard Peppiatt (for he is the hack) may well be angling for a job on the Guardian and this is his "I didn't really believe what I was writing! I was forced to write it! I was only following orders!".

And for once, I am allowed to take the moral high ground on this, as I once turned down a job working for a Richard Desmond publication. I was desperate beyond words for a job at the time, but even as a naive, inexperienced early 20something, I could see that a job there was against any principals I had. Plus, as I knew even then, deal with the Devil, don't be surprised when he shoves a red hot poker up your jacksie.

The Keeper of the Cheese and the Lemon Merchant

We've all heard the phrase "I don't how they got away with it back then!" when talking about some childhood TV show with a little bit of risque content. A lot of the time, you can reply that, no, Captain Pugwash never did feature characters called Master Bates and Seaman Stains. Yet in the case of The Ren and Stimpy Show, you do have to wonder.

As I remember, from the long distant fog of my youth, it was shown on BBC2 around 6pm in the evening and even back then, I recognised this was the kind of thing usually shown for kids at that time. For one thing, the canine half of this cat/dog duo was clearly a bit off his rocker, given his frequent bursts of physical and verbal abuse to his partner, along with the occasional desire to kill him with "one quick snap" of the neck.

On top of that, it never held back from the gross-out humour. Extreme close up shots would show some well-detailed shots of, say, Ren's gums rotting away due to his lax dental hygiene. One entire episode was devoted to Stimpy's first fart, which had a personality of it's own and left to try life in the big city.

Such berserk humour had me won over from the start. Frequent 'adverts' plugged Log, a children's toy that was simply a block of wood which was "better than bad, it's good". The world's superhero was Powdered Toast Man and frequent interjections would be provided by Mr Horse, who would shake his head and assert that "No Sir, I don't like it".

The key episodes, for me, were those where Ren's sanity was pushed far, far beyond the point of breaking. Space Madness was a particularly brilliant example of this, were the strain of a decades-long voyage with Stimpy was enough to make him believe a bar of a soap was his "beloved ice-cream bar", the joy of eating which made him utter the fantastic line "we're not hitch-hiking anymore - we're riding!". Eventually, his joy gave way to paranoia that Stimpy desired to take his dear dairy product away from him, eventually resulting in the duo being deleted from history. Most famously, Stimpy's Invention saw Ren saddled with a 'Happy Helmet' that forced him to be happy all day, every day, which is a pretty sick idea in anybodies mind.

Of course, such oddness couldn't last and eventually Nickeloden got rid of the creator/mastermind (and voice of Ren) John Kricfalusi to make a heavily sanitised version before cancelling it altogether. The voice of Stimpy, Billy West, would go on to bigger fame as the voice of Fry (and the Professor, and Zapp Branigan) on Futurama. A slighty dubious run as Ren and Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" (made without West) appeared in 2003. All the same, it's easy to see the shows influence on, say, Spongebob Squarepants - which will always get my seal of approval as long as Squidward appears in it.

Happily, however, those wonderful early cartoons are out there on DVD. I picked up a copy of the first two series a while ago and was very happy to find out that they'd stood up brilliantly. In fact, being a bit older, the humour seemed to work even better. Plus now I know who Frank Zappa is when he turns up to provide the voice of the Pope!