Old Man Riva

Ah, okay. Speaking of Department S, there was a song out a few years ago (The Hives?) that I couldn’t hear without thinking of Is Vic There - it was the vocal that did it...

The guitar part sounds similar on the Oyster Band version..?

I like that...

I'd forgotten he did that. I like some of his other covers (Love of the Common People and I was In Chains I really like) but he's a bit hit and miss for me. Anyway, it all pales into into insignificance when assessed against Simple Minds version of Prince's Sign o' the Times. What on earth were they thinking?!

I can see where you're coming from, but... I still can't quite get there! With that particular song I think the original is as near as damn it as close to any definitive version of a song you'll get (only in my opinion of course!). I'd also add a song like Bowie's Life on Mars to that list also - I just can't imagine anyone being able to offer a version that adds in any way to the original. Funnily enough (and I don't know why it should be any different) if a band was down the pub doing a version of Waiting in Vain I'd probably dig it, if it was half decent, whereas Annie Lennox version made me want to reach for sharp objects!

I feel confident that your alt country approach is infinitely more sympathetic to the song and its sentiment than the early-80s over-produced, leaden, sanitised version from our Paul - and I say that as a fan of the early-80s over-produced No Parlez album and Paul Young in general! That said, I’m sure he’ll not be losing any sleep over what some fella on a bass guitar forum thinks about it nearly forty years later!!

In my younger days this used to be a ‘three-pint problem’ - the point at which the discussion would descend into chaos and acrimony! That said, general consensus was that Bob Marley was the only artist we could agree on whose songs should never be covered. It should be pointed out that the topic would normally have been inspired by collective thoughts on Paul Young’s cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart...

Get out of my head, sir... Get out now, with your erudite poppy/jazzy stream of consciousness!!

Again, Sparks were great! That’s why Top of the Pops was such a fun but important programme growing up - seeing them for the first time doing ‘This Town...’ was something else. The look of Ron, and the sound of Russell. The guitar riff/playing. The gunshots!! Great pop music...

Blimey, yeah, the Top of the Pops albums. My dad would occasionally buy one (they were fairly cheap, in relative terms, as I recall) and I’d then be telling my mates I’d got the singles, albeit as part of an album! Until the day a mate’s all-knowing older brother informed us that they weren’t actually the actual bands performing - which is why Marc Bolan didn’t sound like, erm, Marc Bolan! Probably the same older brother who gladly informed us all that George Best didn’t actually take the time to sign the bottom of every column he did for Shoot!. “Apologies, Miss World, I cant make it tonight, I’ve got to sign every copy of a kids footie magazine” - yep, sounds feasible enough. On the subject of those Music for Pleasure type albums, my dad (again) entered and won a crossword competition in the local paper (Coventry Evening Telegraph) and the prize on that occasion was a selection of MFP LPs - ‘Greatest War Themes’, ‘Classic Western Themes’ etc. There were a couple of pieces in there that I really clicked with, even as a kid. The Lonely Bull by Herb Alpert’s Sounds of Tijuana Brass was something I played over and over - “it sounds like a lonely bull!?!”, and Beck’s Bolero (contained as part of a compilation I don’t recall the name of) sounded like it came from another planet. In truth there was probably something on all of the LPs that I found appealing, just because it was recorded music, and at that age there wasn’t that much I could get my hands on...

This is a good read... https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/18/andrew-weatherall-10-greatest-tracks?CMP=share_btn_link

I have, I was having a reminisce about how the whole Screamadelica album and how much it changed my view of music at that time and thought of the track. I think the album was released on the same day as Nevermind, which never had an impact on me at all - just didn't 'get it'! Screamadelica, on the other hand, was something else. Still is, in fact. In a previous life I worked with someone who had been produced by Weatherall and they absolutely raved ('scuse the choice of word) about him. Properly creative and 'out there'!

Bit of a game-changer this, when I were a younger man... Never heard anything like it at the time.

Slade - where it all began for me. Bowie - Starman on TotP started it, and he's been a constant ever since. Prince - from 1999 through to Lovesexy he was the "Bowie of his time". As an aside, one of the most influential/ albums I've ever heard (and that was a bit of a game-changer for me and my mates at the time) was Screamadelica. I'll give it a spin tonight and have a think about Mr A Weatherall who departed us today...

Off to see ‘Tubby Hayes - A Celebration of his Music‘ by the Simon Spillett Quartet in about half-an-hour just round the corner at Loughton Methodist Church. Bought tickets on Thursday to see Jeff Beck at Albert Hall in May.

It’s an age thing!! Also to add... an honourable mention would have to go to Bohemian Rhapsody. I remember to this day how I felt the first time I ever heard that via Radio 1.

Apologies, misread the title of the topic. If it’s ‘teens’ then Golden Years by David Bowie...

Starman - Bowie Virginia Plain - Roxy Music Gudbuy T’Jane - Slade 1972 was a very good year for Top of the Pops..!

From 1974, Alphonso Johnson has a bit of a wah noodle on this (excellent) track from around 2:20... If you can listen to this without tapping a foot and/or nodding along then there really is something amiss!

I’d forgotten Comsat Angels were support on that tour. You’re right, they were excellent. Saw U2 on that tour at Warwick University and, again, you’re right, they did seem a little unsure of themselves - they did a track off October, I Fall Down, which had The Edge alternating between guitar and piano and it sounded really odd/off. The tracks off Boy were really good, as I recall - The Electric Co and An Cat Dubh were something else.

That will have been the gig! As a young teenager it wasn’t really my cup of tea but got taken along and as a live gig it was great. I hadn’t realised what a voice she had. I remember the local buzz around the Elton John gig - I think it was one of those gigs where the venue limited the amount of tickets a person could buy (same with Genesis gig in the same year, as I recall). Another Cov Theatre gig from that year was Be Bop Deluxe. Blew me away!

Cov Theatre 1978 Headliner: Black Sabbath (10th anniversary tour) Support: Van Halen (first UK gigs) Never seen anything like it before or since.

Yeah, I think that era was a good time for live music. There always seemed to be a band touring that would be appealing. Quite a lot of bands seemed to miss out Coventry on the circuit and play up the road in Birmingham (the Odeon was popular at the time, along with the Hippodrome and Town Hall) so tickets for gigs in Cov tended to be cheaper. I was lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on one’s musical tastes!) to see the likes of Nazareth, AC/DC, Tom Petty, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Thin Lizzy, Sad Cafe, Elkie Brooks, UFO, Rush, Magazine/Simple Minds, the Specials all at Cov Theatre or a Cov venue in the space of a year or so. And then it was off to Birmingham or farther afield for some of the other/bigger gigs.

Love that, the first track in particular - wasn’t aware of him so thanks for that!

First concert - Hawkwind - Coventry Theatre 1976 Last concert - Snarky Puppy - Albert Hall 2019 Best concert - David Bowie at Stafford Bingley Hall 1978 Worst concert - The Who - Birmingham NEC 1981 Loudest concert - AC/DC - Coventry Theatre 1978 Seen the most - UFO (oddly enough?!) Most surprising - Elkie Brooks - Coventry Theatre 1978 Next concert - Not known. Wish I would have seen - Prince and the Revolution 1985 Parade Tour