THE MAKE UP - I WANT SOME

In an alternate universe we would all worship The Make-Up like Gods. Instead of the Sixties ending with Altamont, that stabbing of an unfortunate by idiot bikers and a truly average performance by the Stones would have signaled a beginning, the beginning of some glorious fucked up distorted beat pop orgy of awesome hair and tight black jeans.  Human sacrifices would be made outside of Ian Svenonius' D.C home and other band's maybe even more awesome than The Make-Up would have picked up the baton and run with it in the general direction of a truly better tomorrow.

THE WHO - WHO'S NEXT

So 'Who's Next' reminds me of a few things. Firstly there's the time I was in a strip club in Potland OR a couple of years back. The song came on and was being used as a 'get naked' soundtrack by a particularly young looking blonde lady. I was with a few friends and a guy I didn't know so well, anyway the song came on.

'Brilliant 'Teenage Wasteland!'

'It's called 'Baba O'Riely', stupid name I know but it's called Baba O'Riley'

'Nah! This is 'Teenage Wasteland' it's the soundtrack from that thing on the telly.'

He was right, it was the soundtrack from that thing on the telly, that thing where criminals leave hair or bits of skin at crime scenes and consequently get caught. I shook my head, ordered a PBR and left him to the stripper.

THE BYRDS - THE NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHERS

I just read a very brief history of the Byrds, I learnt that they had more line-up changes than is healthy and confirmed my suspicions that David Crosby was an utter twat.

This is not just down to the moustache he sported in his later years or because he always looked like a cross between the bad guys from Dirty Harry and the Warriors, it isn't because he was always the worst dressed of the band or that he looked entirely out of place with a smugness that just screamed 'kick me!' ....well, okay it is partly those things, maybe mostly those things, but reading about him being a giant dick just legitimised my sentiments.

ROY HARPER - STORMCOCK

I now have black bogies. I got home from a 'record shop' called 'Record Detective' on Palmers Green about twenty minutes ago, the nose blowing came after a fevered hand washing and it was there I discovered the dark grey snot.

As friendly as 'Mr Detective' is I will not be going back. This has nothing to do with the fact I walked for two hours to get there, or my return journey that ended up as a messy combination of bus and underground, it is because unless you are into the Beatles, Stones or Elvis or some very random rack filler there is absolutely nothing there, and it's all unpriced making it hard to spot a bargain. I am pretty sure this wasn't always the case but right now it looks and feels picked over like a week old cowboys corpse in the sand of the Mojave desert.

ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO - CERTAIN BLACKS

Getting a letter from the IRS saying I owe them $5257 is never the best way of starting the day. Needless to say I was still smarting from this entirely dick news when I got home from work.

If I had even and ounce of energy I might have gone for a run or a bike ride, something to clear my head, get my thoughts together, work out a way out of my new hole. Unfortunately I don't. I get as far as sitting dour faced looking through my t-shirt at my beer gut and then usually find something more important to do, something like say looking on the internet for pictures or plane crashes or trying to find a new book on Japanese war crimes.

THE KINKS - ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY

So it totally isn't July 8th anymore. It is I think the 21st, possibly the 22nd. I put the Kinks LP sleeve up as a reminder to re-appraise the above on returning from my holidays. I returned from my holidays... prematurely as a matter of fact. It seems that a European lake based vacation loses its appeal when the weather goes bad and when insects attack!

CLAUDINE LONGET - LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER

Amsterdam was sunny at the weekend, it was a 6 hour drive each way but it was well worth it to escape darkest and dullest Frankonia for a day or so. Even a stint of sleeping on somebody's floor couldn't take the sheen off a couple of days in a city that despite the tourists, the shrinking red light district and the Dutch still has it's charms and truly shines on a hot and sunny day.

PHAROAH SANDERS - KARMA

So I came back home last night from working late and realized I had left the iron on, not that morning but the previous one. I had wondered why it was hotter than usual in a kitchen that hadn't seen use since the weekend. It crossed my mind that my apartment could quite easily have burnt down and lives could have been lost. Okay, before the lives something else, something that should by now be obvious crossed my mind. Yes the flat round black things.