THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Don't think they've done a TV one of Malcolm From yet

Yes the 1.15 hours is with adverts on itv too.....think Ken himself suggested he would love to do one much longer I've sat 3 hours

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Turn Stadium MK WHITE In The Playoffs

Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn by Brett Anderson

I was immensely disappointed with this. After the truly wonderful first volume, this follow up just didn't reach the stellar heights I was expecting.

As I've already posted in this thread, his previous memoir detailed his childhood and the formation of Suede. This second volume took us to Britpop, them losing a member in Bernard Butler, replacing him with a 17yr old from Dorset, and subsequent global stardom.

It was interesting enough if, like me, you're obsessed with the minutiae of the music industry, but he could've gone into the massinations of exactly what it's like being in a band. He's been friends with bass player Mat Osman since they were at school together. They're in their mid-fifties these days. Think back to someone you went to school with, and imagine you were still working with them. I want to know what that's like. Being in a relationship with someone for that long.

Likewise his addictions. We get the ‘I took a load of drugs and it was shit, but through sheer self-will I pulled through’. There's a little bit of just how shit it is being a heroin addict. But we skate past that in pretty short order. Getting back to Butler, I was really hoping that he'd at least tear him to bits after the appalling way he left the band, leaving them in a massive pile of shit just before the release of their second album, but no. Excuses were made all ‘round. If it were me I'd have torn him to pieces. In fact you know if he disapproves if someone because he won't mention them by name. He, understandably, reserves special ire for Blur. Talking about the bloated nonsense that Britpop eventually became, he describes the Essex Parklife hitmakers as a parody of a Carry On film. Whereas he views his own band more in the lineage of Mike Leigh.

If he ever gets around to a third volume detailing Suede’s reformation I'll most probably give it a miss.

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When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

The Sunshine Cruise Company by John Niven

Right up to date now with old Niv’s cannon, and as usual this one was pretty good.

He’s somewhat dialed down on the gross out nonsense that’s made his name, albeit it opened with someone having a heart attack after having a two foot dildo inserted up his arse, and written his version of a buddy movie. In fact I know that it’s been in development hell for years in various studios struggling to bring a version to the screen.

Lifelong friends Susan and Julie find themselves at the age of sixty living very different lives indeed. Susan luxuriates in middle class domesticity, shopping, am-dram, golf, while Julie works in a care home, mopping up piss, living in a one bedroom council flat, and is virtually penniless. When Susan's husband, who’s been living a double life as a sex addict, expires after the aforementioned dildo incident, Susan finds herself both homeless and even more penniless than Julie. When the bank take her home she decides the best course of action is to rob the bank, which she does with the help of Julie and a friend who’s grandson needs a lifesaving operation which her family can’t afford, and wheelchair bound resident of the care home.

As usual it trots along at a fair old pace, with everyone winning in the end. He’s a funny writer Niv’, not funny as in weird , funny as in laugh out loud while you’re sitting in your van at lunchtime. I’ll miss reading him, but I’m already halfway through someone’s autobiography from someone who used to be in The Fall, so I guess I’ll recover.

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When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide by Simon Wolstencroft

Funky Si was the original drummer in The Smiths, before leaving after their initial recording sessions because he didn’t trust Morrissey. Along with childhood friends Ian Brown and John Squire he was also the original drummer in The Stone Roses, before jumping ship to spend an amazing ten years in The Fall. He’s their longest serving drummer, and indeed also one of the longest serving members.

Somewhat of a Zelig figure in the Manchester music scene. His is a tail of what could’ve been. Noel Gallagher asks him to join his band. Wolstencroft doesn't take him seriously. Not long after Oasis sack their original drummer. As he says, yet another opportunity for global stardom missed.

After he inevitably leaves The Fall (who didn’t!) he ends up as a taxi driver before joining old mate Ian Brown’s solo band and touring the world.A lifelong dabbler in heroin, which Brown is violently against, he eventually loses his gig, and it’s back to the taxis, before they reconcile when The Roses play Wembley, and Brown swings it for Si’s band to open the gig.

He’s almost the same age as me. I used to be a drummer in various bands, and I Love The Fall. I really enjoyed this.

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When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

As a bit of trivia....Topper Headon worked as a taxi driver too for a while after getting sacked from The Clash.
Imagine a junkie driving you around in the days long long before Satnav.....

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Shadowplayers: The Rise And Fall Of Factory Records by James Nice

Re-reading of Nice’s 2010 massive tome chronicling the world’s greatest record label for me. Originally published in 2010. It’s incredibly well researched, and Nice certainly doesn't hold back when the situationist business as an art ideal begins to crumble. Factory went bust owing millions, with the most telling utter stupidity being that right up until the day they went under, they were still having fresh flowers delivered to their HQ everyday. Obviously they didn’t pay the florist, but as chairman Anthony H Wilson says, that wasn’t the point.

I loved Wilson. I adored him, and by extension I utterly adore Factory. It was far more than just a record label. The giving absolutely everything a catalog number being my favorite. One of the directors went on holiday, they gave the holiday it’s own number. Even The Haçienda cat had it’s own number. It’s a way of life. Make an effort. Don’t accept mediocrity.

Obviously the music they released is sublime, but that wasn’t everything. The aforementioned Haçienda superclub, the re-generation of Manchester with Dry bar, and there’s little argument that Wilson single handedly was the force behind the northern hub that now strides the north of England, and a multitude of other mad ideas.

Wilson was somewhat of an enigma. A presenter on Granada TV. If you lived in that area, you’d see him every dinnertime presenting the evening news. Then if you went out in Manchester of an evening, you’d see him out and about living large. When things were going well at Factory, his espousing of the Situationist Manifesto as a way of living sounded like a right old laugh. Not quite so funny when New Order were single handedly bankrolling the whole Factory operation. Peter Hook tells a story of his band being told that if they didn’t put £70,000 into The Haçienda by the next day it’d go bust. Then being paid a tenner to work as a roadie at the club on that very same weekend because he was broke due to the fact that Factory weren’t paying royalties. It’s full of stories like that.

But however many tales of financial woe, there’s the music, some of which is the most sublime you’ll ever hear. Joy Division, New Order, The Mondays, Section 25, James, The Durutti Column, the list goes on and on. There are some records that they released that I’m still listening to well over 40 years later. I’ll bet that I listen to a Factory release at least once or twice a week to this very here day. When I lived in Scotland and played in bands, me and a couple of friends started our own label, which we called Primary Recordings. I say record label, but the only things we released were home recorded cassettes. But we gave everything its own catalog number, PR1 etc’. Safe to say that I’m obsessed with Factory, and especially Wilson.

I bought this when it came out in hardback and have just discovered that if I wanted to buy it today it’d cost me £100 on Ebay. Which just goes to show that the financial madness that surrounded Factory continues to this day.

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When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.