Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

Back in late '90 and into '91, there were two bands from Liverpool, The La's and The Real People, that really meant a lot to me. It was nice that in a time when the rest of the U.K. was going nuts over the relatively new sounds of shoegazers and the "baggy" Manchester thing, there were these two Liverpudlian bands that were content to simply borrow from the Beatles and do it most brilliantly, certainly better than Oasis ever did (i.e. they didn't outright rip them off). I only talk of these bands now because out of the blue an old Real People song came back into my mind at work this week. Do you have any particular recollection of these bands? Perhaps you were in the U.S. by that time.

I know you mentioned Pete Wylie...I would of course have loved to have heard the early single you mentioned. I've given Wah! Heat (for those who don't know, his band) a try before, even have a compilation with one track on it by them but it never left much of an impression on me, I'm afraid.

As far as the Bunnymen, in my opinion, "Ocean Rain" is one of the top 10 classics of all time. Sad that they really couldn't beat it in a million years if they tried...

Was also going to ask if a band called Teenage & The Wildlife ring any bells...this would have been a 7" from '82 on TEW records called "Colours" that really sounds much more like it should have come out '78 or so.

Other Liverpool bands off the top of my head...Top, Pale Fountains...and Shack? Aren't Shack from there too? Not to mention most recently Clinic, a superb band that, much like B&S, risk getting themselves in a stylistic rut they might not be able to get out of, but nevertheless, brilliant anyway.

Mark,

you make me feel like I have under appreciated the life that I lived in England. I am very familiar with the LA's. Which, if you didn't know it, is a scouse expression. La is short for lad. So you end enquiries thus, "Scuse me la." " Thanks la." etc. (For the benefit of anyone else reading this, Scouser is the term for Liverpool natives, which is derived from a form of Irish stew that the immigrants ate. I will make some for the bus sometime. It is peasant food so you can make a ton of it for next to nothing.) The LA's came from Huyton, a suburb of east Liverpool next to my turf. It would commonly be referred to as a complete shithole. Although in the 1920's, before the city expanded and dreary suburbs were added, it was the birthplace of Rex Harrison. That's right, Dr Dofuckall is from Liverpool! Even more shockingly, for anybody concerned with diction, so was Professor Henry Higgins.

The reason I favour Pete Wylie from the not so crucial three is that he was a great guy. I met McCullogh he was OK. My friend Peter knows his wife. They share an interest in ceramics. Julian Cope (as mad and endearing as he is) is actually not even from the north of England - never mind Liverpool.

I saw Wah when they opened for Magazine (on the tour to promote, "The Correct Use Of Soap.") Bauhaus were the middle band on the line up. As luck would have it, they played two gigs in Liverpool in four days, one at the Mountford hall and the other on the Royal Iris, which is a ferry. (As in the song, "Ferry across the mersey.") This was, to say the least, an exclusive gig) The stage for a band on a boat that only has to travel from one side of a river to the other is small, as is the audience. The band were not raised up. The crowd just stood in front of them. Howard Devoto is tiny. I was at the front as the younger audience members - who didn't have the money to drink and look cool tend to focus on. The boat rocks and rolls with the tide and Devoto leaned on the audience, including me, to keep balance through the show.

The great thing about the boat was that before and after the show there was no backstage, so we got to meet Pete Wylie. Being young we asked him for an autograph and like the star that he was he said no. He sat down and told us he was no one special, that he had followed the Clash early on and that Mick Jones had told him not to follow but use others as your starting point and to go out and do your own thing. Mick Jones had given him the Gibson he was playing that night. He told us he would recognise us next time we met and to come over and say hello. To cut a long story short it was a promise he delivered on. What a trooper.

I wish you had not mentioned Shack. A girl that I would call my old girlfriend and my wife would call someone I used to live with (No matter for how short a time) was the sister of one of the band. I wonder what happened to all of them.

I hope you like Frankie Goes To Hollywood,they played at my friends birthday party back in the day.

As an aside. When I saw 24 hour party people you can't believe how fucking freaked out I ws by the state of Howard Devoto. Leading me to wonder have I changed as much for the worse as well.

how bad is he now? devoto was one of my heroes, i'd like to know.

AND WHERE WERE THE STONE ROSES IN ALL OF THIS?

AND WHAT ABOUT SUEDE

OBVIOUSLY ROSIE HAS STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT THIS. PLEASE RESPOND IMMEDIATELY.

BUT IN MY CASE, WHEN I WRITE THIS WAY IT JUST MEANS I AM SLIGHTLY HARD OF HEARING.

Stone Roses were from Manchester. Suede from London.

Damnit I logged in, then got disconnected, then had to log in again and I don't think the damn thing you check to log you in automatically is working anyway, because I got the same impression last time I was here. ARGGH! A person who has had a few beers should not have to deal with this logging in crap. Anyway...

Let not the Roses or Suede interfere...

This is a tale of LIVERPOOL we are weaving. Great stuff, Tommy. Thanks for posting it. I'm somewhat embarassed not to have remembered Frankie as being from there, but then, they were unique...I do recall them covering "Ferry Across The Mersey", first time I had ever heard that song. No matter how Frankie might be judged (i.e. trivialized) today in retrospect, they sure as hell were important to me when I was 14. This was pre-Band Aid, pre-high school for me. WAY back. And yes, Frankie's "The Power Of Love" might be criticized as cheesy sentimentality, but to me it eclipsed "Relax" and "Two Tribes" combined. I still have the picture disc of it, in fact, at home with me mum. Well, like McLaren, they had their gimmick with those T-Shirts didn't they? Cheers to them. No one wears shirts like that anymore. Makes me wish I had one now. Just to fuck with people's heads. It's not as if I recall many people wearing them over here in the U.S. at the time anyway.

If you'd given me sufficient time, I may have possibly remembered Frankie was from there because as I was sitting next to my chaotic piles of CD's the other day I realized I had neglected to mention a Liverpool related CD I have of a compilation of bands on the Zoo Records label, circa '78-'82. My favorite was always the Wild Swans (yes they got worse later, but their first 12" was great, or at least it sounded as such in 1985, sounds a bit dated now, "Revolutionary Spirit" was the A-Side). But the other bands on this compilation include Big In Japan (the collectible indie 'super group' that included Holly Johnson later of Frankie fame, Budgie later of Siouxsie & The Banshees, Bill Drummond later of KLF, David Balfe founder of the Food label Blur was first signed to and even some Pink Industry connection or other) as well as of course Teardrop Explodes, Bunnymen, Expelaires, Lori & The Chameleons, and Those Naughty Lumps.

Any stories to tell about these, Tommy?
And do tell, just where the fuck was Julian Cope from anyway??!

Thanks.

As far as Howard Devoto goes, I have mixed feelings. I appreciate him sometimes, not at other times. To me the best thing he ever did was the heartfelt cover of "Holocaust" on the first This Mortal Coil album "It'll End In Tears". Lots of spare piano and a song about your mother dying. Very sad, but it's come back into my head with a strange regularity over the years. I also think the first Luxuria album was great. Magazine did some pretty good stuff, I'm not a *huge* fan, but still.

When you say you were upset by his appearance in 24 Hour Party People...the only thing I recall is him being in the bathroom at the sink when Tony's wife and some guy were having sex in a stall...was there more? Why did you have that unsettling feeling, because he looked older? I have yet to buy the video of 24 Hour Party People, though I've meant to several times. I don't yet have a DVD player and this is causing me a lot of problems. I should just get one for my computer for crying out loud.

Fucking EMP showed a preview of the new CAN documentary/live DVD coming out Dec. 2nd and I missed it because I didn't check the listings carefully enough!!!!!!
DAMNIT!!!!!!! Would have only cost me $8 last weekend!!!
I was so pissed! I'm going to wait and see if Scarecrow video gets it in, then rent it. You have to pay fucking $43 to buy it. Martino please don't think ill of me. I was busy I didn't check the listings. And then it was over. I was so mad. Angry. Steaming. Smoke coming out of my ears.

Whoops sorry, the topic is supposed to be Liverpool. Onwards...yes I had heard "La" was meant to be "lad" but I had forgotten that. I used to have a whole NME/MM collection of articles on The La's that told me about this before my mother unceremoniously threw all that away without my knowledge. No, I haven't forgiven her. Probably never will. I had buttloads of old British music press, baby, buttloads. And she tossed it all. Even the fucking Cocteau Twins. Anybody remember the magazines The Catalogue or Underground? When INDIE WAS REALLY AN AMAZINGLY VITAL FORCE IN UK MUSIC? Wow, that was about 7 billion years ago.

Alright, I'm sure you've all had enough of my musical talk by now. I can't help it if the second track on the 1999 Blondie reunion album "No Exit" (same title as the Sartre play, btw) is called "Forgive And Forget" and it sounds like 90's style New Order backing Debbie Harry! I can't stop playing it long enough to concentrate on the rest of the album properly. Although "Maria" deservedly entered the UK chart at #1. This is interesting in that it was always supposed to be the U.S. to remember acts favorably that had once been popular, not the fashion conscious U.K....

I'll try to check out that book you mentioned Tommy, when Xmas break happens (I'm still into Nietsche, though). Speaking of dirty phone calls...reminds me of the last ever Gang Of Four album "Shrinkwrapped". There were two instrumentals on that album that they opened with a dirty phone call, really put an interesting artistic spin on it.

There is just too much to talk about here for my typing skills. We'll have to take this down the pub. I almost fell of the chair when I saw "Big in Japan" in the same sentence as supergroup. The actual star of that group was Jane whats-her-face, the co-singer with Holly Johnson. The Liverpool band that pre dated the post punk stuff in Liverpool was Deaf School. Do you know anything about them? Next year my chum Peter Richmond is coming over to visit, he can be seen in a photograph on one of their albumns inner sleeves. Taken in Erics.

Message to all Pax Acidus: you can buy Peter Richmond's book on amazon.co.uk It is called Marketing Modernisms and it is published by Liverpool University Press. It is fab. It has words and pictures

Well, okay, I concede I wrote a lot...when would be a good time for you to take it down to a pub? I prefer Friday or Saturday nights.

Deaf School...sounds familiar...I'm a bit handicapped at the moment because I allowed Stuart to borrow my somewhat extensive book on UK punk/new wave I bought last summer and he hasn't given it back because I haven't got up off my arse to call him in awhile. But if they're not in that book, no, I wouldn't know anything about them.

Speaking of Liverpool related things, of course the Beatles have a "new" release out, the album "Let It Be: Naked" the cleaned up version of the album...removed a lot of the muddy Phil Spector production and thankfully thankfully included "Don't Let Me Down" my favorite Beatles song ever but which had been previously relegated to b-side, only-available-on-one-compilation status. I haven't heard any of this new release yet, so can't comment, but I will soon. Weird thing to me is the fact they recorded this stuff PRIOR to "Abbey Road"...who'd have thought? Anyway, some say it is a Paul McCartney vanity project, but yet George Harrison was supposed to have signed off on the project before he died. We'll see. Other than "Don't Let Me Down", "I've Got a Feeling" is my fave...Lennon's harmonization on that is to die for.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The album John Lennon autographed for his assassin just five hours before the former Beatle was killed went up for sale on Friday for $525,000.

The copy of Lennon and wife Yoko Ono (news)'s "Double Fantasy," which sold for $460,000 four years ago, is being sold in part due to the recent frenzy of interest in Beatles memorabilia, according to the owner of the Web site selling the album.

And Mark, what, no comment on the Farm? I know Tommy doesn't like them, and Irvine Welsh said they sound okay on pills, but if you are on pills than you want to listen to something better. Like Primal Scream. Today I got the CD Ltd Edition of Dirty Hits in the mail. The week before I got the triple vinyl. But hell, their manager wrote Powder. All about a Liverpool band. Plus, Sloth and I love Space. And fuck anyone who doesn't.

WHAT A SHOCK IT HAS BEEN FOE ME TO LEARN THAT ROSIE IS REALLY PARIS HILTON.

HEY YA!!!!