EPL Fantasy Football 2012/13

Hello all. Just to let you know, I've renewed the Group Of Death fantasy football league for the umpteenth season running over here. So whether you're a regular player or a complete fantasy football novice - join us!

The code to sign up to the Group of Death is: 103345-32472

See you there!

Get Set For Summer

When folk talk about music television shows from the 1980s nowadays it's generally the same old programmes that get a mention: Top of the Pops, The Tube, Whistle Test. But when did you last hear someone extolling the virtues of early 80s BBC Manchester Saturday morning kids' magazine programme Get Set For Summer? Not recently I'll wager. But then that's what makes this blog different: we're not afraid to talk up stuff that no one gives a toss about may have slipped out of fashion or the public's consciousness down the years.

And Get Set For Summer most definitely falls into this category. Presented by the unlikely yet quintessentially eighties pairing of Peter Powell and Mark Curry, this show went out on BBC1 during those quiet summer months while Swap Shop was resting and Noel Edmunds was recharging his batteries in his coffin in Transylvania.

I remember it from my own childhood but hadn't appreciated until now, revisiting clips of it on YouTube, just what a marvellously representative snapshot of the UK chart music scene of 1981-83 it provides. When a show gets Yazoo to provide its theme tune you really know it means business. And the number of bands it caught either in their pomp or just as they were about to go huge was impressive: U2, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and - to use a typical K-Tel compilation album tagline from the time - many more...

Firstly, here's a diffident and giggly Simple Minds chatting to Peter Powell before performing a completely live version of King Is White & In The Crowd - on kids' morning TV! (They actually played out this show with a version of Sweat In Bullet - also on YouTube - if you please.) Watching these clips it's hard to believe that the band were only a couple of years away from becoming stadium rock monsters.

Next, Mark Curry chats to Clare Grogan about her role in Gregory's Girl - I can't believe I'd never realised that she'd been working as a waitress (but not in a cocktail bar) when Bill Forsyth spotted her and asked her if she wanted to be in the film he was about to make. This interview is immediately followed by Clare joining her Altered Images chums onstage for a jaunt through Pinky Blue. Lovely stuff.

And finally here are The Jam with a rousing and thoroughly live version of Funeral Pyre. I didn't really appreciate the greatness of this band until a few years later - I only had eyes for Madness in junior school - but goodness me could they wig out.

Sadly that seems to be about as much of Get Set For Summer that's available online at the moment. But who knows, one of these days maybe the BBC might finally get around to going through with its pledge of fully opening up its archive for public consumption. For now we can only imagine the treasures such a move would unearth.

Summer here, kids! (Spotify playlist #13)

Hey Rose, Hey Madder

Couldn't find any of the Madder Rose tracks I would've like to have included in my Nineties Alternative playlist on the Spotify database the other day, so cop a load of this beauty. It doesn't get any better than this!

Absolute 80s unveil their extensive music archive...

The Would Be's - My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark mp3

The Nineties Alternative (Spotify playlist #12)

Here we go again then. These playlists usually comprise of 32 songs but I couldn't get this one down to under 50 for the life of me. Too much fun!

Who is Poly Styrene?

I've just been watching the 1979 Arena profile of X Ray Spex singer-songwriter Poly Sytrene, which was recently repeated on BBC Four. If you missed it, I'd highly recommend setting aside forty minutes for it over the weekend; it makes for great viewing, with its live performances and footage of the band travelling from place to place in a no-frills minibus interspersed with Poly's thoughts on the world and the nature of fame, and is a real snapshot of the era. She was such a fascinating character, and watching this it's impossible to escape the conclusion that modern-day pop stars are, well, rubbish by comparison.

Sub Pop dream pop!

I love The Kids Were Wrong by Memoryhouse - indubitably my favourite Canadian dream pop duo! - although eighteen people have taken the trouble of disliking the promo video on YouTube. Much as I hate to generalise, those people are idiots. No, I'm very much one of the 1,062 in the 'like' camp. This is great!

Memoryhouse's debut full-length album, The Slideshow Effect, is out now on Sub Pop

Swedish Indie / Pop 4 (Spotify playlist #11)

Hello again, hepcats. How are we all today? Well, I hope. I'm fine too - well, apart from the obvious, but you know me, I don't like to go on about it. Although I'm a martyr to it, I really am. Anyway, never mind all that, let's get down to business, shall we?

Not only has it been aeons since I last posted here regularly, it's also been absolutely ages since I last put together a Spotify playlist - and even longer since my last Swedish one, but I'm glad to say I finally pulled my finger out in this regard and compiled the one spelt out below. Please do give it a listen if you have the time or the inclination, and if you like what you hear it would be great if you could subscribe. Actually, even if you hate it, subscribe anyway! I need the numbers!

Sing Up For The Boys In Green

With the Republic of Ireland having just crashed ingloriously out of Euro 2012, this might not be the best time for me to be plugging a tribute compilation album to just that team. But we've always been one to support the underdog here - even if the underdog in question has just been packed off with its tail between its legs - so please do show your support for the Indiecater Records compilation Sing Up For The Boys In Green, which is packed with smashing tunes just like this, the title track, by Idaho's The Very Most.

You can download all 11 tracks from the album for a measly 5 EUROS here

Not Every Song from the Sixties is a Classic

The new single by The Dreaming Spires is officially rather good!



It's out as a download-only from Monday, with an album scheduled for the summer. Nice.

What lies beneath

A post-Housemartins, pre-Fatboy Slim Norman Cook released this gem of a single featuring Lester Noel from North Of Cornwallis on lead vocals. For Spacious Lies missed out on the pop 40 but by crikey it deserved better!

Montreux Pop!

You can barely move in the summer months nowadays for the sheer volume of music festival coverage on TV - some good, some bad, but most indifferent. But the televisual festival landscape was a very different place back in the mid-80s, oh yes. Unless there was a special one-off event such as Live Aid in 1985 or, umm, that Free Nelson Mandela thingy a few years later, you'd be left with the BBC's annual (highlights-only) coverage of the Montreux Pop Festival from Switzerland in May.The line-ups were generally frighteningly mainstream but as I was going through my prime mainstream pop years at the time, that was perfectly fine with me.

As you're wont to do when you get to a certain stage in life, I suddenly became nostalgic for these programmes this morning so thus scuttled over to YouTube to relive them. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins and Bananarama miming along to their biggest hits has lost a lot of its lustre down the years but there were some real gems in there amongst the QVC diamonique bracelets. Have a gander at this lot!

Agnetha Faltskog - One Way Love (1985). Although this track from her second solo album conspicuously failed to bother the chart scorers over here, it sounds rather good to me, and certainly deserved better. She may well be singing over the top of a backing track here but who cares? It's Agnetha off of ABBA!



Talk Talk - Life's What You Make It (1986). OK, so this one is actually from the Montreux Jazz (Mmm, grrreat) Festival but it's a rare performance of the band just as they were on the brink of going all noodly and experimental - and this one is definitely being played completely live.



 Colonel Abrams - Over & Over (1986). There's a nice bit at the start of the following clip where the interviewer asks Colonel Abrams what his real name is, to which he replies "Colonel Abrams is my real name". Hmm, right, if you say so Colonel. While Over & Over failed to emulate the success of his monster hit from the previous year, Trapped (which peaked at #3 while spending 23 weeks in the UK singles chart), it's still a game effort from the militarily-monickered moustachioed man. He left his epaulets at home for this one but still cuts a dashing figure in that tweed sports jacket. Try getting [insert name of modern-day equivalent here. Titchy Streisand?] to pitch up in one of those!





So there we have it. They don't make them like that any more (the sports jackets, the pop festivals or the pop stars), more's the pity. The Montreux Jazz Festival is still going strong though, which is kind of comforting in a way, even if it does involve jazz.

Running out of ideas

Saw what may well be the most poorly-conceived compilation album I've ever laid eyes on the other day, Now That's What I Call Running - ironically, a really lazy title. There are no songs about running on it. Even if there were it would still be a nonsensical name - unless it were chock full of audio clips of people running, which come to think of it would be an even dafter concept (although it would at least involve some logic).

So anyway, no 'running' songs whatsoever, however tenuous. No Keep On Running, No Run To You, I Ran or Road To Nowhere (which, come to think of it, would have just the right rhythm and tempo for jogging); hell, no Tears For Fears or their largely-forgotten 1986 charity single Everybody Wants To Run The World, adapted from the then ubiquitous Everybody Wants To Rule The World in about five minutes as part of that year's big Sport Relief campaign. There wasn't even an attempt to introduce a touch of levity into proceedings by including Jarvis Cocker's Cunts Are Still Running The World (although in fairness that may have risked alienating the target audience). As for the absence of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill (or, if the rights were a problem, a cover version of said track), words fail me!

Instead the compilers have plumped for a hodge-podge of largely baffling and presumably cheap contemporary filler such as Sexy & I Know It by lmfao (Deluded & You Don't Know It, more like), Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (about renowned keep-fit freak Mick Jogger Jagger) and, erm, Maneater by Nelly Furtado, with just the odd concession to anyone with an age or IQ over 15. Honestly, though, 1 out of 10 for imagination. To borrow an expression from the type of person who'd presumably be in Now That's What I Call Running's intended demographic, whoever cobbled this old guff together can jog on.

While we're on the subject, the following video features much jogging and is very funny, so you should have a look!

The Whispers - My Girl

Saw this and thought of you.

Random Swedish Song of the Day

The first in an exciting* new series! I have a memory stick full of Swedish music which I shall shuffle whenever the mood takes me and then post the first track that comes up each time. The memory stick doesn't contain any Europe, Sylvia, Herreys or Ace of Base (yet) however, so no need to panic!



Frida Hyvönen - London mp3

*Excitement levels can go down as well as up. Consult your GP if symptoms persist. Too Much Apple Pie is not an equal opportunities employer.