The Best Band-You've-Never-Heard In The World!

Sometime last year a guy in HMV gave me a recomendation. I was buying myself an XTC album and a Frank Zappa compilation for a friend. The bloke at the counter said, "Hey, if you like Zappa and XTC you might like Cardiacs". Fair enough, I made a mental note and promised myself that I'd check them out. The problem is, you can't actually buy Cardiacs records in HMV. Or, as it turns out, anywhere in Northampton. Luckily, and purely by coincidence, a media lecturer decided to play us a track as part of a popular music lecture. The track was called, There's Good Cud. I had no idea what it was about and months later I've still got no idea. What I did know was that it was the strangest and therefore most wonderful thing I had heard in months, maybe years.
I managed to track down a handle of tracks on t'internet. Weird and wonderful stuff; strange vocals, surreal lyrics and unusual sounds.Heavily arranged but bursting with energy. It was avant-garde punk rock filtered through Bohemian Rhapsody and Les Miserables.
Then, by another beautiful twist of fate, I found out that Cardiacs, the new carriers of all my musical hopes and dreams, were coming to town!

So of course I dragged a friend along and necked a bucketfull of snake-bite and black and the gig was fantastic. Cardiacs are real showmen, the two guitarists and the bass player stood stock still at the front of the stage, in suits and sashes. There they blast out their weird and wonderful songs through a mist of dry ice to a small but appreciative crowd. A longterm fan, following the band on the road, dragged me down to the front, keen to encourage newcomers. I did so much jumping about that I literally snapped my belt. I still have one end of it somewhere around here as a souvenir. I've seen a number of gigs and this one stands out as probably the best. I couldn't help but laugh and giggle my way through it, what with the sheer elation. Forget swimming with dolphins, you'll only be dissapointed. If there's one thing you should make sure you do before you die, seeing Cardiacs is it.

You're having a laugh aren't you?

Forget that whole Band Camp late-review catastrophe, here's some up to the minute commentary. I'm currently watching a programme on BBC 3 that celebrates the great change in British comedy since the Seventies. The show looks at the weak, bigoted mainstream comedy of the seventies and glories in how much better off we are now, since alternative comedy and Vic and Bob's two-man comedy revolution.
It's a neat little show, with some great old clips, despite a cringworthy clip of Ben Elton subbing for Wogan and smarming with Jeffery Archer. Yes, Alternative Comedy was great. Yes, a lot of those seventies dinosaurs needed culling but let's not be too complacent. I can't help worrying that there's been a bit of backsliding of late. Especially given the comedies held up as glowing examples of the current comedy zeitgeist. Yes, we have wonderful surreal, silly comedy like The Mighty Boosh but Leigh Francis(Avid Merrion) desperately needs a new idea after the car-crash that was A Bear's Tail, even if Channel 4 haven't noticed.
More to the point, one of the most successful comedies of recent years, Little Britain is a real cause for concern. Beloved of critics and public alike, is just as bad as british comedy's seventies nadir. Not only is it increasingly unfunny but more and more the show is relying on a cruel humour. It started out as a charming little show, with its whimsical narration and loveable characters like Lou and Andy but increasingly it relies on the grotesque and the offensive. Of course, the targets have changed since the seventies. They don't mock black people or the Irish. However, old incontinent women and the mentally handicapped are now fair game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the sort of miserable, humourless, Daily Mail reading little Englandler who starts frothing at the mouth because somebody says 'bloody' before the watershed. I admire the way comics like Ricky Gervais and Chris Morris deal with potentially risky subjects in their comedy. The trouble is that Little Britain is just being lazy and offensive. There are no doubt satirical points to be made about the treatment of the mentally handicapped for example. On Little Britain they just say, "oh look, isn't this woman funny, look, she's pulling up flowers, and pouring tea on the lunch tray and smearing shit on the walls, isn't that hilarious!" I've been reliably informed by people who have spent time in mental health establishments that it isn't funny, at all! So, yeah, Vic and Bob are great and they should be celebrated but to hold them up as the inspiration for Little Britain is really no praise at all.

Single Of The Week!

OK, you know and I know that I'm never gonna keep this up week by week but it's kinda endearing that I'm trying isn't it? Isn't it?
My First choice is Valentine by Delays. Actually, this came out in February but as I've been a bit inactive on here lately there's no harm in playing catch-up. Valentine is a soaring tune that showcases the fantastic voice of lead singer Greg Gilbert, one moment gruff and rasping then in the same line high pitched and operatic. The tune is wondeful, although it is haunted by the ghost of Limahl's Neverending Story theme. I don't mind, I'm a child of the eighties and a sentimental one at that.

Heroes of The Western World part 2

Matthew and Lorraine Kelly

British TV's pre-eminant television power couple, beardy Lorraine and creepy matthew bestride the ITV schedules like a light entertainment siamese collossus. However, a shadow has been cast over their achievements in recent years. Images were found on Matthew's computer depicting lewd and violent acts being performed on Richard and Judy.
Reports later suggested that these pictures had been placed on his hard drive by television android Cat Deeley in order to further her own career.