bobbiflekman's Last.fm Journal

Putting the “h” into “sitcom”

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:51:23 +0000

Following my endorsement of DJ Format in my last journal, syknyk very kindly recommended that I listen to DJ Yoda. As it happens, I do own DJ Yoda's How to Cut and Paste: 80's Edition but I don’t listen to it very often: while parts of it are indeed excellent, there are other bits which are slightly too cheesy, even for someone of my fromage-fetishising tendencies. Nevertheless, I scuttled over to my CD shelves and dug it out.

I had forgotten, and was delighted to be reminded, that the sleeve notes contain an unexpected bonus, in the form of a series of Top 5 lists of various 80s things. Want to know what Dan Greenpeace’s Top 5 Crap 80s Raps are? Or Mike Lewis of Lewis Recording’s Top 5 80s BMX Parts? It’s all here.

While most of the choices are right on the money, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take issue with Spread Love’s James Lebens’ Top 5 Lukewarm 80s Sitcoms. Here are his picks:

Just Good Friends

Me And My Girl

Fresh Fields

Home To Roost

Never The Twain

It’s not that these choices are bad or wrong, exactly; in fact, they all fulfil the essential criteria for a lukewarm sitcom, namely:

a) While you would never actually laugh out loud while watching any of them, they might prompt you to pull a strange half smile/half grimace once or twice per episode.

b) You would never, ever buy the DVD boxset, or even intentionally watch them on the telly, but if you were sitting in front of UK Gold on a Tuesday afternoon and an episode came on, and you didn’t have any washing up or hoovering to be getting on with, and the remote control was just slightly out of your reach, you would probably continue to watch the episode to the end. And then feel slightly disappointed with yourself afterwards.

However, Lebens’ list neglects several other sitcoms that were equally tepid and almost-but-not-quite mirthsome. I plan to detail these below, and will be doing so based solely on what I can dredge from the dim recesses of my memory, without recourse to Wikipedia, YouTube and suchlike. (I might add some YouTube videos after I’ve written it though, as there are few things on this earth better than a TV theme tune performed by one or more members of the cast instead of a professional singer.) Partly this is in homage to Nicholson Baker’s superb U & I, in which Baker writes an extended critical appraisal of John Updike’s work without actually going back and re-reading any of it, and partly, well, it's because I’m a lazy sow who can’t be arsed to do even the most basic research.

Wish me luck...

The Two Of Us
Nicholas Lyndhurst and Janet Dibley are Ashley and Elaine, a young professional couple (she’s a teacher, he does something that involves wearing a suit and going to an office or a bank, I forget what). They have a VW Beetle and live together in a tiny basement flat even though – gasp! – they’re not married. Ashley’s granddad, to whom he frequently turns for fatherly advice, is a rakish old goat called Perce. There’s an upstairs neighbour or a landlord or someone who pops around often and at inconvenient moments. Er, that’s it.

Watching
Malcolm is a geeky bloke who enjoys birdwatching and still lives with his mum (my brain wants me to say that she is played by Nursey from Blackadder, but I’m not 100% sure this is correct). Brenda is a small, screechy Scouse woman. They meet in no doubt humorous circumstances and then “go out” with each other for six series. Malcolm’s mum is disapproving, because Brenda is an ITV sitcom writer’s idea of a female punk – i.e. she has slightly backcombed hair and orders halves of snakebite down the pub. Liza Tarbuck is Brenda’s frumpy older sister (this is before her chrysalis-like transformation from overweight, unfunny daughter of Jimmy Tarbuck to radiant national treasure with a filthy laugh and a cracking pair of bangers). Er, that’s it.

(NB: notable mainly for the theme tune, which is sung in quavering Liverpudlian tones by Brenda, and almost achieves “so crap, it’s brilliant” status, were it not for the fact that it flies straight past “brilliant” before, propelled by its own momentum, teetering over the precipice and hurtling back towards “crap” again.)

Girls On Top
Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ruby Wax and Tracey Ullman (see? You’re laughing already) are four women who share a flat on the top floor of their building (ergo they are “girls” and they’re “on top”, do you see?). Dawn French is a left-wing, CND-supporting radical feminist; Ruby Wax is American; and Jennifer Saunders and Tracey Ullman... evince some other personality traits which are inherently hilarious. Also starring Joan Greenwood as a mad old bat who wears a turban and smokes Sobranies. Er, that’s it.

Duty Free
Keith Barron and Gwen Taylor are a husband and wife who are on a package holiday in Spain, seemingly permanently. They meet another, slightly posher, couple who are also holidaying there and Keith and the saucy posh bird have a surreptitious romance. There is a Spanish waiter who behaves exactly as you would expect a Spanish waiter to behave. Everyone drinks industrial quantities of Pina Colada, and Keith spends a lot of time hiding in wardrobes or falling into swimming pools. Er, that’s it.

Don't Wait Up
Fern Britton’s dad stars with upper-class smoothy and founder member of The Nigel Havers Allliance Nigel Havers as a father and son who are both doctors. They live in the same house, although I can’t remember why. Fern Britton’s dad is a private consultant, while Nige is more idealistic and is all like, “No way, man, I’m going to give something back to society and, like, work for the NHS!” Being as they are both doctors and are mighty fine specimens of manhood to boot, they have no shortage of attention from the ladies (I think Nigel ends up getting married in one of the later series). Hilariously, Nigel, the son, is more mature and responsible than Fern Britton’s dad, the dad! Er, that’s it.

I note that, with the exception of Don’t Wait Up, all of these are ITV sitcoms. I’m not sure whether this is indicative of the quality of the BBC’s comedy programming in the 80s, or whether it is a reflection on the critical faculties of the pre-teenage me.

Anyway, what’s your favourite slightly rubbish 80s sitcom that you can barely remember, please?

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 4

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:43:54 +0000

(1) Recent conversations with idiotsdream led me to the shaming realisation that I had no Bananarama songs at all in my digital music library. Calm down, I’ve rectified this now, obviously, and my life is immeasurably better for it. Sometimes you want to listen to music that touches your soul, where a vocalist of uncommon and precious ability sings lyrics of love and loss and it makes you want to cry, because they’re singing to you, about your life, and you never imagined that there would be anyone else in the world who understood how you felt. And sometimes – well, most of the time, if I’m being honest – you want to listen to three pissed-up birds with pineapple hair-dos screeching, in wobbly and nasal harmony, about snogging blokes, while the syndrums and sequencers explode around them.

(2) I am always in the market for witty and inventive hip-hop that demonstrates a certain sonic and lyrical flair, so my recent discovery of DJ Format and his collaborations with Abdominal has made me very happy indeed. Top tracks include Ill Culinary Behaviour, a sort of b-boy Come Dine With Me, and The Hit Song, which crams so many metaphors, similes, rhymes and bad jokes into its four-and-a-half minutes that you are left alternately gasping and guffawing (“More hits than Germans surfing fetish websites” indeed...)

(3) I have long wondered what sort of noises would result if Delia Derbyshire had ever got squiffy on Campari and done the rudes with most of The Glitter Band (probably not Gary, though). And now, thanks to Uprising by Muse, I have the answer: pretty good noises, actually. (Not so keen on the po-faced, GSCE sociology essay they’ve larded over the top and called lyrics, mind.)

Plus

Equals

Amirite??

(4) Played back to back, the seven Chaz Jankel songs on my iPod last for the exact duration of my walk into work (40 minutes from door to door). Strutting along to white boy disco-funk is the only way to travel, bay-bee!

Bobbiflekman: friend of the stars

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:51:03 +0000

The other day I was walking through Newcastle and became involved in a modest contretemps. My adversary was a young man, mid-20s or so, with a mop of dark brown hair, wearing a tweed jacket and black-framed NHS-style specs. The man was talking in a huddle with two friends, but had inadvertently positioned himself in front of the entrance to the Metro station, so that anyone going in or out of the station had to step around him and into the road and, potentially, the path of an oncoming bus.

Being English, we did not actually speak to each other but instead acted out a little pantomime of reproach and apology. I glared at him while tutting inwardly and he, realising his thoughtlessness, shuffled aside with a little half-smile and eyebrow-raise of contrition. At which point I realised that I had been shooting daggers at...

...him from out of The Futureheads!!!! (I think he’s called Barry or Ross or something.) I hadn’t recognised him at first because:

a)In real life he’s taller than you would expect; and
b)He wasn’t yelping a North-Eastern inflected version of Hounds Of Love, and it’s always so difficult to place people when they’re out of their usual context, isn’t it?

Sadly, this is the most significant brush I have had with celebrity for many a year. It probably has something to with my choice of hang-outs nowadays: you just don’t see that many famous people down the Gateshead branch of Costcutters (and why ever not, famous people? Two packs of Warburtons crumpets for £1.50 is a deal not to be sniffed at in these credit crunch-blighted times). Never mind, at least I have the memories of a lifetime of sparkling encounters with pop stars to entertain me in my dotage. For example, there was:

The time I stalked Thom Yorke!

My friend and I were walking down Cornmarket Street in Oxford. I was, for reasons which are now vague, carrying a large helium balloon shaped like Ernie from Sesame Street’s head. Suddenly, my friend emitted an excited little squeak and pointed a quivering finger at a short, ginger man on the other side of the road. It was Thom Yorke and he was going into Dillons the bookstore!

OK Computer had just been released, so Thom must have been at least as well-known as he is now, but oddly nobody else seemed remotely bothered that the tiny, squinty-eyed nouveau Roger Waters was in their midst. Perhaps they were affecting nonchalant cool. Not so my friend and I, who ducked into Dillons in pursuit of him.

Inside Thom was in the current affairs section, frowning ostentatiously over a large, recently-published sociological tome. He was radiating a vibe that very clearly said: Look at me, Radiohead fans! I am dead clever and politically aware and that! But don’t bother coming up to speak to me because I will just scowl at you! My friend and I couldn’t quite work up the courage to penetrate this carapace of hostility, so we settled for a brief, giggling circuit of the 3 for 2 tables before exiting the shop, the Ernie balloon trailing behind us.

The time I met Kenickie!

Our friend Dave the Mod hosted the weekly indie show on our local student radio station, and Kenickie were booked to make an appearance to promote their debut album At The Club. Utilising the full force of our feminine wiles (or did we just threaten to rub bogies into his new Paul Weller-esque feathered hairdo? I forget which) my housemates and I managed to persuade Dave to let us hang around the studios and look after them for the evening.

Johnny X was absent for some reason*, but the three Kenickie girls more than made up for it by being tiny, sparkly and almost unfathomably lovely. They were funny, friendly, chatty and brimming with tips on make-up application. When they left, they gave us all a hug and some little packets of jelly sweets.

The time I met (well, overtook in a Ford Sierra) the Happy Mondays!

1989, and the Fleckman family was making one of its triannual trips to see my grandparents in Great Yarmouth. We were bombing down the A1 and I was gazing out of my window with slack-jawed, unfocussed attention (it was a five hour journey) when:

“Bloody hell, is that Bez?!!”

Nobody else in the car knew what I was going on about or why I was suddenly so excited, but the rickety blue transit van in the lane next us appeared to be populated by Shaun Ryder, Bez and assorted Happy Mondays. As we sped past them, I was convinced I glimpsed the leonine mane of Gaz Whelan through the back window. And then the moment was gone. We continued on our way to the Acle Straight; the Mondays carried on to I know not where (but probably to do drugs in the toilets of the next Granada service station).

*Fret not, because I completed my Kenickie full-house a couple of years later (albeit after the band had imploded) when I served Johnny in the Newcastle branch of WH Smith. He bought a paper and a bottle of Diet Coke and our conversation ran thusly:

Me: Ooh, are you Johnny X from Kenickie?!
Johnny X [with much miffed sighing and eye-rolling]: Yeeee-eeeesss.
Me: Oh, erm, sorry. [Brightly] Do you have a Clubcard?
Johnny X [softening slightly]: No, sorry.
Me: OK, that’s £1.12 please. Thank you. Bye! [sotto voce] Johnny X from Kenickiiiiiiie....

Rave-Nu World

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:38:14 +0000

I’ve come a little late to the Late of the Pier party but, by golly, now I’m here I’m making up for lost time, eating all the twiglets, drinking all the White Lightning and getting off with the second drunkest person at the party (after me) before vomming out of an upstairs bedroom window. Er, I mean that I’m very much enjoying listening to their debut album from last year, Fantasy Black Channel.

Highlights include:

The Bears Are Coming - On which a belching robot and Sweep the Dog duet over some Burundi drumming while an Atari 2600 malfunctions in the next room.

Bathroom Gurgle - Which re-invents The Time Warp for the noughties (“Put your hands on your waistline / and move your body to the bassline / and get your hands on some cheap wine!!”).

The Enemy Are The Future- Lead singer Sam Eastgate enters Stars in Their Eyes as David Bowie, before deciding halfway through his performance that his Bryan Ferry is much better. The resulting existential crisis prompts him to question the very nature of being (“Hard life, well it’s a hard a life, no it’s an easy life”), as a punk-funk-electro maelstrom whirls around him.

It is, in short, the diametric opposite of landfill indie. The best pop music is made by people who aren’t afraid of looking ridiculous and Late of the Pier have exactly this sort of fearlessness. It is not, to be fair, an album that you would turn to if you were looking for graceful elegance or consistency of mood. The record apparently had a long gestation period, with the band kicking around ideas over a period of two or three years, and it seems that, in the end, they and producer Erol Alkan just decided to chuck everything together to see what would stick. On occasion it comes apart at the seams slightly: several tracks end somewhat haphazardly, with the band running out of steam and, once, Eastgate exclaiming “Oh shit!” as everything comes to a stop. But every track is fun, furiously fast, and brilliantly inventive.

I don’t know how old the band members are, but this sounds very much like an album made by young men. It’s in the mopey, distinctly teenage whine of many of the lyrics (“suicide’s in my blood, it always was”, “lately I’ve been thinking this whole world seems too hard”) and also in the sense you get that they are breaking the rules of musical composition mainly because they haven’t yet learnt what those rules are. I almost hope that they never make a follow-up, because it’s going to be hard to top the perfect adolescent insanity of this record and it would be a shame if they matured only to struggle with “that difficult second album” syndrome. But we’ll see...

The only regrettable moment I have had with this album was when I was listening to it on the top deck of a bus and a group of skinny-jeaned, ridiculously-hairstyled teens sat down behind me and began shrieking about the minutiae of their lives at a decibel level great enough to pierce through the highest volume of my iPod. The combination of nu-rave soundtrack and annoying yoofs was a little like trying to go about my business with an episode of Skins being broadcast in widescreen directly over my shoulder. It says a lot about Fantasy Black Channel that even that heinous experience was not enough to detract from its brilliance.

All the Good Ones

Wed, 6 May 2009 18:56:05 +0000

Sometimes the most treasurable pieces of pop can leap out at you from the most unexpected places.

CSS’s second album Donkey was released last year to muted critical response and lacklustre sales. I finally got around to listening to it the other week (thanks Spotify!) and sure enough it was underwhelming and strangely subdued compared to the day-glo electro bounce of their earlier stuff. But tucked away down at number 8 on the tracklisting is Move. It was released as a single last autumn when, as far as I can ascertain, it made no impact on the charts at all.

Move sounds like the band have broken into a pop laboratory and genetically spliced Talking Heads’ This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) with the “getupgetupgetupgetup” bits from Sexual Healing. The music hustles the listener forwards, half encouraging and half mocking you with its addictive propulsion.

The lyrics are mostly unintelligible guff about copping off with someone at a disco, but there’s a hookline in the chorus that’s a real kicker. “You’d better get your move on,” sings Lovefoxxx, “Or all the good ones will have gone.” “Move on...” is crooned, softly taunting you; “...will have gone” is sung with an inflection that rises upward, anticipation tempered with the anxiety that after all that effort, you might end up missing out anyway. Just two lines, and they don’t even make grammatical or idiomatic sense, but they are sung sweetly and contain a world of excitement and longing.

I repeat: track 8, off an album that is nobody’s idea of a classic and is currently at number 17,293 in Amazon’s sales rankings. I wonder how many other good ones are similarly lurking underneath the radar.

Lorraine Bowen - super, smashing, lovely, great

Sun, 1 Mar 2009 15:46:15 +0000

Lorraine Bowen used to be in indie outfits See You In Vegas and The Dinner Ladies, and has also worked with Billy Bragg (that’s her warbling along on Sexuality). However, in the 1990s Lorraine began performing as a solo artist and she now delights audiences the world over with the glamorous cabaret campery of The Lorraine Bowen Experience.

Her website refers to her tongue-in-cheekily as “Joyce Grenfell meets Madonna”, but I prefer to think of her as the Lidl Laura Nyro: she has the same soaring, clear voice; it’s just that her lyrical concerns are rather more quotidian and, instead of a Steinway, are backed by a Bontempi set to a bossa nova beat. (Lorraine has tried the other settings on her keyboard, but has concluded that Nothing Beats the Sound of the Bossa Nova.)

Lorraine sings about simple, everyday experiences that we can all relate to: the sheer bliss of getting into a bed with clean sheets (clean sheets), the nosiness aroused by watching somebody open and read their post on a boring bus journey (Interesting Mail), the excitement of the ice cream van arriving down your road (Ice Cream Lady). However, it’s not all jollity and frivolity in Lorraine’s world; songs like Lemon Disinfectant, Railway Song and Richard provide quieter, more meditative responses to the disappointments and upsets of life. Meanwhile, on Insect Song she frets about the gastrological implications of a fly landing in her pint (“Now I’ll have to buy myself another beer / To stop me catching diarrhoea”).

Throughout all of Lorraine’s songs there’s a warmth and an inclusivity that makes her genuinely cheering to listen to. As she sings on one of her most popular numbers, The Crumble Song:

Everybody’s good at cooking something
And I’m good at cooking crumble
In fact, I’ve got one in the oven – would you like some?
Why yes, thank you Lorraine, I’d love some.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the naked wunderkind

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 18:48:56 +0000

This is the picture on the inner sleeve of Morrissey's new single I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris:

Good Lord.

Boz Boorer looks positively thrilled to be there, doesn't he?

Sebastien, you're in a mess...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:09:19 +0000

Apparently, some French people are a bit miffed that their entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest is not sufficiently, well, French. Divine by Sebastien Tellier features predominantly English lyrics and French MP Jacques Myard, for one, is not happy:

The French language is the tool of a huge industry in terms of cultural influence and if we French give up our language, what do you think the others will say?
"Bof", probably.

Personally, I'm more alarmed that the French have chosen an artist with a modicum of musical credibility to represent them this year. Last year's entry from France, by Les Fatals Picards, was a fuschia-tinged laugh riot of weedy pop, featuring Alan Carr on guitar and Duncan Goodhew running around like a spaz, which was perfectly in keeping with the general tenor of Eurovision. But to put forward an electro-pop genius like Tellier, who is capable of writing the spirit-soaring likes of La ritournelle? What kind of folie is this? And if that's the way the French want to play it, can les rosbifs have Hot Chip representing us next year, please?

School of Pop

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:47:38 +0000

Here are a few fascinating facts and valuable life lessons I have gleaned from the world of popular music this month:

1. If you visit France and experience difficulty making yourself understood to native speakers, funky music is an acceptable alternative means of communication.

Can't Speak French - Girls Aloud

2. However, it's sexier if you do try to speak French, no matter how rubbish your accent is.

I'm Not Scared - Eighth Wonder

3. If you are a straight woman beginning a new relationship, it will take you approximately three-and-a-bit months to grasp fully the emotional and psychological workings of your boyfriend. He, however, may exhibit a lower level of emotional intelligence and it will take him a bit longer to understand his own mind (this particularly applies if there's a major football tournament on.)

100 Days, 100 Nights - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

4. After your fledgling relationship goes tits-up as a consequence of your inability to recognise and communicate your emotional needs, you might be feeling a bit miserable. Taking up a new and absorbing hobby - such as, oh, I don't know, perhaps breeding fancy mice? - can help you to cope with low-grade depression. Feel free to contact the National Mouse Club: they will be only too pleased to offer advice and support as you take your first tentative steps in the world of fancy mouse rearing.

Fancy Mice - Jilted John

5. The worst thing in 1954 was the Bikini. Presumably, this refers to the testing site for nuclear weapons located in the Micronesian Islands, rather than the skimpy bathing costume. Incidentally, the Bikini beat off stiff competition for the coveted prize of "worst thing in 1954" from civil war in Guatemala, the publication of The Lord of the Rings, and the invention of the self-basting turkey. Congratulations the Bikini!

I Found That Essence Rare - Gang of Four

Too much perspective

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:27:41 +0000

On Saturday I spent a delightful afternoon and evening in the company of two of my oldest and dearest friends. Many cremes de menthe were supped as we debated the burning issues of the day: subprime lending and its impact on the international credit market; Web 2.0 and the rise of social networking (ie, who is and isn't currently on Facebook, basically); is Lennie Bennett (of Lucky Ladders fame) dead or not? Then talk turned to which songs we would "do" at a karaoke night.

I have a voice that could charitably be described as "unbelievably dreadful". Not that this prevents me attempting karaoke on a semi-frequent basis. In the past I have gone for songs like Girls and Boys or We Will Rock You - that is, songs where the lead vocalist can eschew actual singing in favour of incoherent bellowing - but even this tactic has yielded mixed results. Friend No.1 favours duets such as You're the One That I Want or I Got You Babe, presumably on the basis that somebody else has to carry at least 50 per cent of the vocal. Friend No.2, I believe, has yet to have her karaoke hymen ruptured by the shame of drunken public performance.

At that moment, Leave a Light On by Belinda Carlisle started playing on the jukebox. This seemed as good an opportunity as any to get some practice in...

Perhaps its reputation as a cheesy slice of FM rock lulls you into a false sense of security, but, fuck me, it is a difficult song to tackle. The high bits are all unexpectedly high, the low bits are unexpectedly low, and the tune veers from one extreme to the other within the space of a few notes. Repeatedly. Just about the only bit we could sing with anything approaching competence was the middle eight, which we spontaneously decided to do "in the round":

All: Just like a spotlight in the daaa-ark...
Me: Baby that's your heart...
Friend No.1: ...Baby that's your heart...
Friend No.2: ...Baby that's your heart!!
All: *furious air guitar*
Everything else was entirely out of our collective vocal range (admittedly, none of us is exactly Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, but still...)

The whole experience just confirms my long-held belief that La Carlisle, in addition to being one hot piece of ass, is also in possession of a mighty fine set of pipes.