Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

I have only now realized that Marc Bolan, vocalist and guitarist of glam rock early 70's band T. Rex, did his last album in 1977, just as punk had barely dawned.
I find this fascinating.

Soon I will be able to make my own CD's. This will be an ultimate blessing, because I have to sort through a lot of bad or just uninteresting UK bands from 1978-1982 before I finally get to what I'm searching for. If I could just put it all back together in the compilations of my choosing, everything would be much better.

But Josef K trumps them all. They have 3 CD's available, but if I die on a desert island with only "Young And Stupid" the compilation of their singles and b-sides, I will not cry. I cannot see how someone who likes Belle & Sebastian & The Wedding Present shouldn't own Josef K's "Young and Stupid".

Anyway, here's a New Ordery announcement:

LTM (UK)
COMING 7/31/03
LTM are proud to present COOL AS ICE, a compilation of stone classic old school 80’s electro and dance cuts produced by Be Music, the tag used by all four members of New Order. The set will be available both on CD and as a limited DJ friendly double vinyl set. Largely produced between 1983 and 1984 for release on Factory Records and Factory Benelux, the full tracklist runs thus: 52nd STREET CAN’T AFFORD (TO LET YOU GO) 6.50 SECTION 25 LOOKING FROM A HILLTOP 8.07 * MARCEL KING REACH FOR LOVE 5.25 * QUANDO QUANGO LOVE TEMPO 6.58 52nd STREET COOL AS ICE 7.25 * PAUL HAIG THE ONLY TRUTH 7.02 * QUANDO QUANGO ATOM ROCK 6.42 * NYAM NYAM FATE/HATE 8.03 LIFE TELL ME 3.04 THICK PIGEON BABCOCK + WILCOX 3.43 SECTION 25 BEATING HEART 5.02 BE MUSIC THEME 3.04 Please note that those tracks marked with an asterisk* were co-produced by Be Music (Bernard Sumner) and DoJo (Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio). Nyam Nyam and the Be Music Theme were produced by Peter Hook, and Life and Thick Pigeon by Steve Morris and Gillian Gilbert. Several of these tracks, including Love Tempo, Looking From a Hilltop and Cool As Ice remain influential club classics, and have been extensively sampled and bootlegged. Several years before the great house explosion, with their own Hacienda club still empty every single night, yet way (too far?) ahead of their time, four guys and a girl from Manchester produced a whole bunch of pure sonic magic which made waves worldwide. Listen to these crucial cuts by 52nd Street, Quando Quango, Section 25, Paul Haig and the late Marcel King, and marvel that the civil list has not yet rewarded their endeavours. The album has been digitally remastered and runs for 74 minutes. The vinyl version will be limited to just 1000 copies.

To get LTM CD's and/or vinyl in the U.S. go to
www.darlashop.com

Mark, you know far more about music than should be legal. How do you remember so many facts about bands past and present? It never ceases to amaze me. You should make extra money by teaching a course at one of those Learning Annex community school things.

Mark,

please do not take this as a personal criticism. It is certinly not intended as such. I find it really strange that you would go to the trouble of telling us about the timing of Marc Bolan's death and that it has some fascinating significance for you, without ever mentioning what that significance is.

However on said subject I can relay this personal anecdote . In 1976/77 Marc Bolan hosted his own TV show imaginatively titled Marc. I had long been a fan of his. (My birthday treat in or about 1974 was to go and see his movie, "Born to Boogie." I was ten at the time - how fucking cool am I.) As you are well aware his career was in decline by 76 and punk had come along and more or less made him look foolish. In the same way that grunge made chumps out of hair metal bands. With the possible exception of, well, with the possible exception of none of them. They are all fucking shite. I digress, anyway, I'm sat there watching the Elfin one in his yellow satin flares do a piece to camera to introduce his next musical guest. I was all excited because it was an, "In the City" era appearance by the Jam. I don't know if you have seen footage of Bolan in conversation but he really was a pixie. If not, think of an white, English version of Prince. He says something like, "ladies and gentlemen, Jaaaaam." Like he has just got offf the bong. At the time Joe strummer had coined the phrase, "Like trousers, like mind." And here were the Jam all narrow pants and thin ties and short hair and anti american. I remember feeling at the time that it was over for Marc Bolan. To use the parlance of the period he was a dinosaur.

If he had lived I don't think he would have made it back. The weight of those very early hippy dippy albumns would have been too much.

To tie this in to an unrelated post imagine that you are walking down the street wearing the ever popular "Electric Warrior" T-shirt. You are forty years old and feeling pretty good about yourself ,when you pass a ten year old wearing the same garment. I promise you that you will never wear it again. No band T-shirts over forty. It's the law.

Last night Mark, Sloth, Linda, Mav and I went to see Amanda in a play. We were waiting in the lobby and I asked Mark if he read the reply Tommy Martyn posted to his Marc Bolan thread. Mark got a worried look on his face and said, "Uh, no. Did he rip me a new one?"

That must have been just a bit before we all went to the pub after the show, and Sloth got kicked out for having no id, the youthful looking fucker. It would have been a better story if he'd been thrown out for breaking his beer glass over McCutcheon's head during an argument about what is better, cocaine or e, or being so drunk that he threw up on the bartender or something, but no, it was because he didn't have his ID. Not even finished one pint yet, and the bartender got all hardass and tossed him out. So we all left(ok, Mark and I stayed to finish our pint, can't let good beer go to waste...) I said I was going to make up some ridiculous story about it and post it here so all of the non-seattle Paxacidians would be jealous of our rock-n-roll lifestyle here, but I just decided to tell the truth. If tat makes me dull as dishwater, go ahead and sic Tommy on me, I can take it.

By the way, Amanda is a good actress. She took a very odd and challenging part and kicked some thespian ass.

We would never argue about which is better... e or cocaine... only maybe over which to take first and which to take later.

However when there are that many drugs around we would probably not argue very much. I think we only argue when we are sober and not playing tennis (between the hours of 2pm and 5pm)

<sloth rant>

The guy was like...

"You know you can't be in here without ID!"

I didn't know how to respond to that one.

I can't believe a 32 year old cannot have a drink in this country without ID?

The people in charge of this country threw the baby out with the bath water a long time ago!

I defy anyone to name me one other country where this would happen.

In Russia they would be like... come on in and drink.
In China they would be like... come on in and drink.
In Vietnam they would be like... come on in and drink
On Pluto they would be like... erka erka erka come one in and drink.

Maybe in Saudi Arabia I would have a hard time getting a beer but not because of my age... but because it is against their religion.

I swear one day I will leave this country and never come back and never miss it. Fuck it. What a lie. What a waster of space. Or is it me? I am not a good American because beer availability is more important to me than low taxes and blowing up third world countries every ten years.

</sloth rant>

Yeah, I keep rolling it around in my mind trying to figure out some explanation to offer you guys about why we were all suddenly unceremoniously carded at our table, but I can't seem to come up with one. Now, what I want to know is this: McC went to the bar to get beer along with someone else, I believe - were you guys carded when you actually approached the bar?

Tommy, my main aim in mentioning Bolan's last
record was merely to provoke discussion. I believe that's why most of us post here, isn't it? I was pleased that you offered your own anecdote and so I feel my effort in mentioning it was richly rewarded. If you found it really strange that I didn't elaborate enough about why I found it fascinating, your expecations of me are perhaps a little too high. I can't guarantee I will be a mind-reader and always naturally elaborate to the extent you feel comfortable with, so I'm perhaps doomed to disappoint you. However nothing is to stop you from politely asking for greater clarification or elaboration on this or any other topic.

I'm only a casual fan of Bolan's, actually but for some reason I had been under the impression that he had died sooner than '77. There was a song from his last album I had liked years ago but only now found out which album it was from, and considering I spend a lot of my time researching UK music '78-'82, I found it fascinating that he was even around when punk was. I then read a review of that last T. Rex album and it had a lot to say about his supposed connection to punk and musical influence on those who were part of it. You offered a different perspective, and again, I was pleased that you commented.

Now that I have revealed the source of my fascination, you probably don't find it very interesting, which is why I chose to edit it out in the first place.

Also I agree with you about the late 60's T. Rex "hippy dippy" stuff, I never could get into that.