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RC 237: Pop is Dead 2 – Arseholes & Repetoire

Finally after over a year (!) the second part of the Pop Is Dead series. I promise to be more, well, quicker with the other parts…

This one is about two of our favourite people, the eternally dodgy A&R man and the usually shady manager.

Arista say they “love you but the kids can’t dance to it” (1:35, 90Mb)

  • The Alchemist – Industry Rule 4080 (Interlude)
  • Dale Wright – That’s Show Biz
  • XTC – Funk Pop A Roll
  • Bill Hicks – Satan Starmaker
  • Crumb – Record Company
  • Kitkat Band – Alien invasion
  • The Fall – Clasp Hands
  • Nick Lowe – I Love My Label
  • Stan Freberg – The Old Payola Roll Blues
  • The Kinks – Denmark Street
  • My Drug Hell – It’s good, but…
  • Gruppo Sportivo – I shot my manager
  • Stark Effect – The Beating Goes On
  • Sound of Sha’Bass – Take It Or Leave It
  • E40 – Record Company (Skit)
  • Sage Francis – Underground For Dummies
  • Jesus And Mary Chain – Write Record Release Blues
  • The Brakes – Heard About Your Band
  • Bruce Haack – Play Me Your Album
  • The Clash – Midnight To Stevens
  • The Sex Pistols – EMI (Orch.)
  • The Bonzo Dog Band – The Bride Stripped Bare by “Bachelors”
Podcasts, Radio Clash Shortlink
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Children’s TV – damaging youth since the 1950s

Heard this at the end of Shaun Keaveny’s show and remembered it (I was thinking Magic Box…Music Box…not Picture Box!). It’s ”Manège” performed by the Lasry & Baschet Brothers as ‘Lasry-Baschet Structures Sonores’, who like Mr Partch built their own instruments, sound sculptures (hence Structures Sonores).  This was played on their own invention the Cristal Baschet - their version of the glass harmonica.

Like Children of the Stones this scared the crap out of me…it was supposed to be a TV for Schools programme but at some point they changed the jaunty fairground organ music for a haunting, carousel of the dead theme.

It’s funny but I was thinking today about how children’s TV was the in-road for a lot of very radical/experimental artists…unlike today where it’s demographically analysed and money squeezed out within an inch of it’s life.  Like most creative spheres kids TV is now is design by committee so the result is pretty boring, predictable (apart from Sesame Street and the rare likes of Yo Gabba Gabba and Adventure Time!) and usually very corporate.

But in earlier times like the hands-off approach of the Radiophonic Workshop, no-one higher up really cared that much what the kiddies watched or heard, as long as it was cheap and filled the time. And enough people lower down had quite a deep appreciation of the avant garde to let these people rip.

So the likes of Bonzo Dog Band – their first break was on kids TV, Delia Derbyshire, Oliver Postgate, and artists involved with Vision On (kind of the closest thing here to Sesame Street whose lunatics were similarly taking over the asylum over in the States) took to the the air. Along with some very avant garde musical choices like this one.

Music blogs/labels, Music releases, Tim's Growls, Video blog Shortlink
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so true – David Cameron ‘sings’ Common People

I am and I totally sanction the above message. And the use of Pulp = WIN.

And it bears repeating from my January post – this is the best election song, ever from the Bonzos – here in original form:

Tim's Growls Shortlink
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Oh! How it hurts In the wardrobe of my soul in the section labelled “shirts”

I’ve been on a Viv Stanshall kick (again) recently because a kind listener (reader? what is the collection noun for podcast and blog listeners? poggers? pistener? err..anyway thank you Julian it made it through the snow!) sent me some Viv rarities as a result of the ‘Viv and Neil’ podcast I did last year inc the excellent 2002 radio documentary ‘Canyons of His Mind‘ which of course is referring to the above track, recorded for ‘Colour Me Pop’ in 1968. Apparently they did the whole show, which I really want to see.

Also read a great piece about Viv by his second wife, Ki Longfellow about how they met…I mean I fell in love with him reading it, so in person the effect must’ve been greater :-D . She as mentioned in the text SHOULD write a book about him. If she or anyone relating to her is reading this, please give her a prod, because reading that I would buy a copy, and I have a feeling a lot of people would feel the same way…and also because of his mysterious/insane/wonderful/maddening/glorious lifestyle there are a lot of wrong rumours out there – one of which is that he set himself alight with cigarettes when he died (no, coroner said it was electrical wiring, apparently). Would be great to have a book that comes closer to the real Viv (well dunno if that’s possible actually, but closer than the people writing ones who never met him!) and fills in that gap post Bonzos in the mid-late 70s.

Also did they ever record Stinkfoot? I’ve always wanted to have a copy, either on DVD or audio – and missed hearing about the short revival on Thekla last July…bah!

Oh a few of you might not know who Viv Stanshall was, you poor petals. So here’s a good intro, a show produced by the BBC and introduced by John Peel with Viv on himself and his history in his own words and music (the original piece in 1991 was called ‘Crank’, it seems to have gained the name ‘Diamond Geezer’ somewhere?).

It explains how Viv was just Viv ‘Well I don’t do it, I’m merely being myself, as near as dammit without frightening the housing estates…and her question was absurd rather than fatuous, as if I’d decided one day to wake up and decide I’m going to be a giant squid for the weekend or that’s it I’m going to be a wardrobe for the rest of my…err..word. Well strap me to a tree and call me Brenda! I’m whatever you like just don’t expect me to join in….You see I’m not different for the sake of being different, only for the desperate sake of being myself” Great words, indeed :-D

…although I have no idea why an obit from 1995 has the roman numeral date of 1993 (I suspect it’s been edited together from Crank?) – EDIT: it is from 1993, someone added the ‘Diamond Geezer’ in 1995, seems like many layers of ‘Late’ show, I’ve got a headache.

Bonus: One Man’s Week, a 1975 film about Viv seems to have escaped from the BBC’s Gormenghast Colditz Vaults by means of 1975 quality video…such a shame Viv wasn’t let loose more often on the public with a camera, that would’ve been a great TV programme. Also in part 3 you can see him working on ‘Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead’ which was heavily African influenced and years before it’s time.

Music blogs/labels, Tim's Growls, Video blog Shortlink
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