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January 07 - issue 3

Dearly Bewildered

Our quest to name the rock and roll sons and daughters associated with our major towns and cities has unleashed a torrent of civic pride with parishioners from the North West rushing to correct the impression that Blackpool cannot claim a significant rock name, pointing out that Jethro Tull were formed within the sniff of its ozone. On the other hand we're compiling a list of towns with little or no claim to rock fame. It begins like this:

Reading

Plymouth

Doncaster

Harrogate

Peterborough

Send us your suggestions for additions.

FAVOURITE SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Parishioner Sarah: Eternal could be Croydon's Finest.

Parishioner Tom Hodges: A friend from Blackpool once considered, late one night, to put together a 'Best of Blackpool' gig featuring Jethro Tull, The Membranes and err...Skrewdriver. Needless to say, once sober etc. etc. etc.

Parishioner Jim: NWOBHM would-be Beelzebub-botherers Venom: Whitley Bay's finest. Or, possibly, only

Parishioner Alan: I believe that The Honeycombs were in the vanguard of the 'Solihull Sound' in their 'Have I The Right' chart-topping days. Similarly, when the Dave Clark Five made the top of the pile with 'Glad All Over' in January, 1964, knocking the Fabs 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' off the coveted number one slot, there was talk of the 'Tottenham Sound' replacing Merseybeat. I can also remember Skids lead vocalist Richard Jobson being on a David 'Kid' Jensen 'Round Table' show in the late 70s, and being asked by the Kidster whether there was a 'Dunfermline Scene'. Also, in the sleeve notes of the American version of the Kinks 'Live At The Kelvin Hall' album, named 'The Live Kinks' in the USA, the writer bangs on about their leafy Muswell Hill streets as being home to a violent street gang known as 'The Mussies', making the somewhat genteel North London suburb sound like a division of

the South Bronx.

Parishioner Nick: I think some of the "finest in the town" correspondents are guilty of (I'm sure inadvertant) '80s NME-style obscurantism. It can't just be me who in word association would say "Coventry - The Specials" (not The Flys) and "Swindon - XTC" (not Meat Beat Manifesto or even the now-sainted Billie)

Having thus set myself up for a fall, may I suggest: Canvey Island - Dr Feelgood, Basildon - Depeche Mode, Hull - The Housemartins (fourth best band in...), Derry -The Undertones, Yeovil - PJ Harvey, Devizes - The Troggs, Billericay - Ian Dury (even though he wasn't from there). And Reading as the largest town with no major band to call its own. Growing up there the best we could manage was that the drummer from Ultravox lived just outside, and to my knowledge the best the place has managed since is The Cooper Temple Clause. I mean bless 'em but I'm not sure they cut it in word association.

Parishioner David: How about the Kursaal Flyers (Southend's Finest) and, getting into suburban territorialism, the Kinks (Muswell Hill's). As regards the Darkness being Lowestoft's finest, does no one else remember the immortal Dressed Like An Egg, previously known as One Million Screaming Gherkins?

Parishioner John: Finding a Paul Weller article that doesn't mention Woking is almost as hard as finding something on Billy Bragg that doesn't mention "the Bard of Barking"...

Parishioner Alan from Down Under: Never mind Billie "smash hits" Piper, XTC are the only rightful owners of the title "Swindon's finest". Following on from the thread about Racey and Weston Super Mare, Bonnie Tyler is the Mumbles' finest. Shakin Stevens is from Barry Island. Doubt if anyone has ever called him Barry Island's finest though. As for famous towns without a famous band, I give you our old faithful, Peterborough, birthplace of Ernie Wise, Andy "Erasure" Bell and Tracy Thorn but otherwise still unable on the group front to better the efforts of "The Now" whose debut and only single "Development Corporation" (as the Peterborough City Council was known in 1978) is also in my mum's attic.

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'WILL THIS DO?' LYRICS

Parishioner Paul: Am I being mean for nominating The (rather fine) Magic Numbers for the "will this do" award, on the strength of "this is a song, and these are the words..."?

Parishioner David: How about the Manic Street Preachers' song about Hillsborough, 'SYMM'? It's pretty half-arsed throughout, but in particular includes the deathless couplet: "The ending for this song/Well I haven't really thought of one". Don't want to be too unreasonable, but how's about thinking of one and *then* recording the song? Wouldn't have happened if Richey had still been there. As for the story about Michael Nesmith and 'Good Clean Fun', was this about the time that the Monkees were asked to come up with an alternate title for 'Randy Scouse Git' and settled, inevitably, on 'Alternate Title'? Are there any other songs with two titles, neither of which feature in the lyrics? Parishioner Paul: Half Man Half Biscuit undoubtedly have form on this score. "Venus in Flares" from their debut album features the never-a-truer-word-spoken "la la la la la la la la la la la (etc.)/just

like everyone else does when they can't think of anymore words".

Parishioner Graham: I must take exception to Rhodri Marsden's criticism of Natasha Bedingfield's 'These Words', a song of, for the most part, post-modern lyrical genius. As regards Rhodri's doubts over the progenitor of the lyric, it's a fair bet it was all Natasha's work, as any trained wordsmith involved would have pointed out that the key word in the line, 'No hyperbole to hide behind' isn't pronounced 'hyper-bowl'.

Parishioner Jeremy: Re: Parishioner Jim Hunter's reference to Procul Harum's "Piano Grand", Billy Joel can be found doing exactly the same thing in "Pianoman" viz: "It's nine o'clock on a Saturday/The regular crowd shuffles in/There's an old man sitting next to me/Making love to his tonic and gin." Actually quite a decent song apart from that.

DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY

Parishioner Roger: It occured to me the other day that two of my all-time favourite bands - the Undertones and Belle and Sebastian - have had a perfect (downhill) trajectory of albums; each one inferior to the one previous. Naturally this is a personal view, but I wondered if any parisioners had similar examples or indeed of artists whose releases get better each time? (Four albums released should be the minimum allowable IMHO).

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