Oh dear, another musical icon and svengali has checked out. Always been a fan of Malc, not so much for the Sex Pistols but for his experiments in music during the 80s which have often been overshadowed by his punk hey-dey. Apparently, he’d been diagnosed with cancer some time ago and he finally gave up the fight on Thursday after taking a turn for the worse. A truly colourful, intelligent character, who made the music industry a genuinely interesting place – though I doubt John Lydon will be sad to see him go!
Here’s Double Dutch, a song that infused African rhythms into a Western pop sensibility long before some bloke called Paul Simon did it:
And Buffulo Gals, a song from my schooldays which introduced the phenomenon of scratching to a UK public. How we stood in a buffulo stance:
And here’s Malc going all popera on us (that’s mixing opera with pop) with his take on Madame Butterfly:
And remember he recorded an album about vogueing a good two years before Madonna!
Latest Entries »
I don’t get much feedback for my musical noodlings, so when the odd email plops through the virtual letterbox and it is filled with words of praise, I like nothing more to bask in its warm, LED, glow…
Via YouTube comes this from Ton Venhuizen:
Hi Darren,
I subscribed to your channel because I think you’re music is very inspiring. Your influences are also musicians I value highly (Hackett, Fripp, Oldfield). Keep up the good work!
Best regards,
Ton
Well I guess at least someone out there is enjoying it all!
I’ve been a fan of Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Band for as long as I can remember – from being entranced by the Innes Book of Records on my TV set as a young sproglet back in the who knows when to discovering the family tree and back catalogue when I was a keen music consumer.
As there’s likely to be an election called in the next week or so, I thought it would be a timely response to post the following song, which must be about 20 years old now, called “No Matter Who You Vote For, The Government Always Gets In…”
Never has a truer word been said or sung. More of the same, but in a different suit. Apathy…? You betcha!
And here are the words so you can hold your lighter aloft and sing it like you mean it…
No Matter Who You Vote For,
The Government Always Gets In (Innes/Stanshall)
BONNGGGG
Preside!
Hear, hear, hear!
Might I remind you…
Say it…
Order!
Might I remind you…
(Heigh ho!)
No!
OOORDERRRR!!!
Noises on the radio
Megaphones on cars
Sermons from the Street of Shame
Know-it-alls in bars
Posters in suburbia
Experts on t.v.
Don’t let them disturb-i-ya
They’re just the powers that be
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Nobody can win
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in!
Heigh ho!
riiiiinnng!!! (yaaaawn)
Oh, great, great slumbering nation cock-a-doodle-doo!
Awake! Set yourself free!
Oh, smell the comforting bacon
Taste the bromide tea
sluuuuurrrrp aahhh!
An’ give a little chirrup as I ladle on the syrup
Promises are cheap
Let me bear your crosses
Make me Boss of Bosses
Then you go back to sleep! ha ha ha…
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in!
Heigh ho!
Heigh ho!
Heigh ho!
Heigh ho!
Men have dreams of a finer place
Incorruptible Shangri-la
Women too have their Shangri-Las
Shangri-La la la!
See them in the public eye
Oozing oily charm
Hear them all personify
Down on Animal Farm oink oink moooo!!
Dog eat dog, not cock and bull
Isms are the game
Ism this and ism that
Ism it a shame?
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Nobody can win
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in
gobble gobble gobble
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
Don’t worry
You know you can’t win
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
(Heigh ho!)
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
(Heigh ho!)
The Government always gets in
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
(Heigh ho!)
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
Sorting through a box of things, trying to figure out what to do next, I came across my old box of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards. I drew a card at random:
Make a sudden, destructive, unpredictable action; incorporate
This seems to echo with the instincts in my head.
After discussions with her management team and deals being inked, Verity has decided to have another crack at singing from her magical musical lullabye book. Her previous effort only garnered a three-star rating. I mean, what kind of meanie gives a two-and-a-half year-old cutie three stars? And so Verity is aiming high for a five-star rating this time. There’s only one mistake, when her musical book malfunctions during the final song, but we kept it in for this stunning live performance.
They might have been the biggest hyped rock band of 1999 (oh remember the glory days, Darren, when you had FUN), but this tune is pretty neat for namechecking Aerosmith and Kraftwerk. The album “Leisure Noise”, a title that sounds as if it might have been nicked from Brian Eno, wasn’t THAT bad. Quite spacey and accomplished for 1999.
But the upbeat, balls-in-your-face, euphoric drive of this song always gets me by the scruff of the neck and pulls me upwards towards the light. The dying coda, complete with some of the most sensible lyrics ever penned, have been helpful in these rough times and have been my mantra.
It’s so easy to complain
Take a look around
Everything’s OK
Make it easy
Take your time
Let it go
And drift away…
Very zen, very buddhist…and ain’t it daft to take solace from a song by a band that everyone hated? Thank goodness for YouTube and its loyal users for uploading these occasional and hard-to-find treats.
The Missus often says to me: “Oi fat git, you know we are still the same people we were when we met. We are happier with nothing, just keeping it simple, just walking the streets, record collecting…”
But then you get a big idea and suddenly make everything so complicated for yourself. Alex the Wonderdog keeps looking at me with an accusatory stare, he says to me: “Why did you have to go and ruin everything? We had a sweet thing, we had a nice life, you know.”
Currently, entering the third day of stomach cramps…probably the stress. Oh well, decisions are slowly being made. Endgame approaches soon…I hope.