has this site turned into Mojo/Uncut?

[Dayna]

My parents bought a couple of those K-Tell records. They usually don't sound very good & me & my brother enjoyed make fun of when we saw them advertised on TV. One of the records my parents owned had Disco on it.

[kas]

I still have a K-Tel reggae compilation, which I kept as a novelty item.
Reggae can sound really naff without any of the bass...

[Dominic]

Well, she might be an Arsenal girl, but that's not Highbury!

Those hooped socks are 10 years out of date as well!

I'm trying to think who wore the number 7 shirt for Arsenal in those days - Peter Marinello?

Thanks to http://www.historicalkits.co.uk I've discovered that the only other league team with this kit was Rotherham.

(Has this site turned into Shoot? Or Titbits?)

[Hugh Weldon]

Dominic:

I'm trying to think who wore the number 7 shirt for Arsenal in those days - Peter Marinello?

Nah it was George Armstrong - at least he did in the 71 cup final when Charlie George's goal beat us in extra time, which was about the same era as Hot Hits/Top of the Pops.

Marinello was one of the short-lived 'new George Bests' who probably wore No 9. He arrived at Highbury in a blaze of publicity and disappeared back into Scottish obscurity not long afterwards.

Has this site turned into Shoot?

Probably. Sorry!

[Dominic]

Marinello was one of the short-lived 'new George Bests' who probably wore No 9. He arrived at Highbury in a blaze of publicity and disappeared back into Scottish obscurity not long afterwards.

I gave my older brother a copy of Marinello's book a couple of years ago:



As a Wolves fan I don't really know that much about football.

[Nigel w]

Well my favourite of the new George Bests was not Marinello but Alan Hudson, who also played for Arsenal, but was originally a long-haired Chelsea boy.

I think he was actually born in the King's Road and he had a barnet to match so he was the perfect 70s footballer before he'd even kicked a ball. And even after his career ended he followed the Best template with determined attention to detail - became an alcoholic, went bankrupt, got run over by a car and spent months in hospital in a coma ...

As for Wolves , Dominic (you and Robert Plant) - aren't they running away with the Championship at the moment? Nailed down certs for promotion to the premiership and a return to the glory days of Dougan et al?

[MurkeyChris]

'We had the Beatles and Dylan', goes the mantra, 'and all they've got is Coldpay and Dido' - forgetting that we also have Radiohead, the White Stripes, Basement Jaxx, Timbaland, Rufus Wainwright, Outkast, the Prodigy, Four Tet[...]

most of the music we loved and grew up with, is essentially the same as the music of the 20-Somethings. So, for me anyway, it's very easy to dismiss bands who seem to have nothing new to say, or even a new way of saying it.

There was world of difference between Glenn Miller (my father's favourite) and T.Rex (my favourite) yet they were separated by only 30 years. But it's only production values that separate T.Rex from any number of modern, kit-drum and guitar-based bands, another 30 years on. So how can we oldies be expected to respect these silly boys who seem fixated on the past, rather than finding new avenues, both instrumentally and stylistically, to take their music up?

Actually, as a 30something, I'm most often struck by how conservative most of the music made by young people is. Thousands of wannabe James Blunts, Damien Rices, Didos etc etc For me, the fact that the NME write about bands such as Razorlight with anything other than ridicule is baffling, when it was the NME (and John Peel) that turned me onto things like Public Enemy, My Bloody Valentine and Extreme Noise Terror when I was growing up.

With apologies for moving away from Hot Hits and football, through smartarse juxtapositions I hope I've made my point above. Why, Howard, compare Glen Miller with T-Rex with 'modern, kit-drum and guitar-based bands' (I'll insert those dullards the Stereophonics here for convenience!). Why not Frank Sinatra compared with some-dreadful-contrived-band-from-the-seventies-who-have-now-been-consigned-to-the-dustbin-of-time compared with Radiohead. I've listed a handful of acts 'finding new avenues, both instrumentally and stylistically' above, and could come up with many more, so why is our generation's music being defined as Stereophonics and Razorlight?

And another thing to bear in mind - a lot of the people buying Stereophonics and Razorlight, much more so than those buying hip-hop and electronica, aren't the current generation at all but older folks trying to keep in with modern music. And another another thing - was everyone in the hallowed times on classic rock really being that unique and innovative anyway? I'd say that Radiohead circa Kid A and Amnesiac and Missy Elliot as two examples of artists who have been a lot more groundbreaking musically than T-Rex ever were (admittedly, from what little I've heard of the Rex).

The NME by-the-way gets a raw deal. I never read it in it's glory days admittedly, but what it does do is champion new music, not all of it to my tastes and/or innovative, but it champions it nonetheless. It actually nails it's colours to the mast, gets excited about music and supports bands it likes, which is more than can be said about Dad-rock publications like Q.

Why the obsession with novelty and "innovation"?

Well there's the flip-side of the argument. I'm talking about innovation because I'm always hearing about how unprogressive my generation's music is. But of course, there are plenty of acts who are making great new music without pushing any boundaries just as there always have been. To take Matt M's examples, neither Damien Rice nor Dido are sonic innovators but they can both write some great songs:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKVylIzmOE

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NMB4xtnFlvo

James Blunt mind you, is just shit.

Chris

P.S. Sorry to come out guns blazing, bit of a pet peeve of mine! Thanks for the earlier responses!

[Con Murphy]

As for Wolves , Dominic (you and Robert Plant) - aren't they running away with the Championship at the moment? Nailed down certs for promotion to the premiership and a return to the glory days of Dougan et al?

If they can keep their wide men fit and tighten the defence a bit. If not, Birmingham, Reading and maybe even Burnley will be ensuring that play-off heart-break returns to Molineux yet again.

Reading had one of the greatest of all George Bests, a guy called Robin ‘the greatest footballer you never saw’ Friday who (bringing things briefly back to music) was immortalised by this album cover:-



That was when he was at Cardiff towards the end of his career, and whilst there he entered the annals of sporting greatness by defecating in Mark Lawrenson’s kitbag after being sent off for kicking the moustachioed miserablist in the face. Ah, the golden days of 70s football! Unfortunately he was an acid-head and died of a heart-attack before he reached 40.

[Nick Boyes]

You lot don't know how lucky you are , try being a Watford season ticket holder. No manager , no money, one side of the ground shut due to safety reasons and facing the very rich QPR this weekend. Even Elton has abandoned us.
Watford did have the not so famous Jamie Moralee who used to bring a succession of page 3 girls along to games.

Now how about a thread on the extremely bad choice of music played in footy grounds before games ?

[uiwangmike]

As a Wolves fan I don't really know that much about football.

Are you old enough to remember Peter Knowles? Not quite in the Best class, but enormously talented and great fun to watch. He quit football after becoming a Jehovah's Witness, though as far as I know, there's nothing in the religion that precludes an adherent from having a sporting career - I believe Venus Williams is one.
Before him, there was Peter Broadbent, and Jimmy Murray, who I see passed away a few weeks ago. I used to enjoy the derided long ball game Wolves played under Stan Cullis, as I did many years later when Graham Taylor used the same kind of tactic at Watford.

[howard male]

Looks like they'd prefer to carry on talking about football, Chris.

But my point still holds even if you want to substitute Sinatra for Glen Miller - the difference stylistically is still vast compared to the difference between 70's rock/pop and the popular music of today. That's why I primarily listen to world music. The respect would be there if (and is there) whenever I actually hear anything that seems to have moved things on a bit, such as Missy Elliot.

[Dominic]

As a Wolves fan I don't really know that much about football.

Are you old enough to remember Peter Knowles?

Yes and no. The first thing I remember hearing about him was that he was retiring. Billy Bragg's song "God's Footballer" was about him. And "Nice One Cyril" was about his brother, who played for Spurs. (Should have saved that for a quiz question!)

Supporting Wolves recently has been like supporting England - plenty of hope, plenty of disappointment. If they get promoted, I can no longer ignore the office/pub converstionas about the big clubs, the Champions' League, and the rest of the stuff I've been happily ignoring for ages.

.........

Meanwhile, with a nod to Howard, I can't say how innovative T-Rex were, but their hit singles are fabulous. There are lots of quirky details - I suspect Visconti's - which make them stand head & shoulders above anything else I can think of from that era. Only a couple of Mott tunes came close.

Theres a bit in Howard's novel that sums this up, in a way:

"I love songs that fade. There's always that sense that they could have gone on forever..." [...]
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I love the end of 'Get It On' when the sax starts soloing. You're not even aware there's a sax on the track until that moment..."

[Chris P]

this was briefly the Henry Cow thread, right ?

here's the first review of the new Cow box set along with a still from the - as yet seen by hardly anyone - DVD, at the bottom of the (long) page.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31544

maybe of interest to Adam and Nigel and a few others hopefully

For the sake of the uninterested here is the only WM reference (from Tim Hodgkinson's notes):

A slow melody from somewhere might be heard at the same time as a percussive line that sounds like African folk music, but there's also a piano from a contemporary chamber ensemble and some surrealist groaning filtered through a lot of distortion and reverb.

hardly likely to spike the uncurious's interest though!

[Dominic]

So who did Henry Cow play for? Hereford?

[Adam Blake]

this was briefly the Henry Cow thread, right ?

here's the first review of the new Cow box set along with a still from the - as yet seen by hardly anyone - DVD, at the bottom of the (long) page.

Thanks Chris. A fine looking item in the modern tradition of "too much is never enough".