The older guys really got it all worked out

I watched 'Gimme Shelter' last night, terrific film, and one of the few chances to see footage of Gram Parsons.

Here's another, of the Flying Burrito Brothers titting around on a boat, singing 'Older Guys', with Gram wearing a foul check jacket and a very ill-advised hat.

And while we're at it, 'Sticky Fingers' is a blinding album...and the intro to 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking' is bleedin' marvellous! after the first dirty, ragged guitar line, a cry of 'yeah!' is heard in the background, Jagger presumably...

'Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y'all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive'

Jagger just about gets away with that 'Y'all'...

Charlie's good tonight, inee?

Blind Man, Have Mercy On Me

Farewell to this land's cheerless marshes

Iggy, Bowie and Lou at play, sometime in the 70's, after a few shandies. This picture has graced the wall of Clive's front room for a few years now - and a mighty fine addition to the decor it was too.

Sadly, Clive's tenure in at Norman Towers has come to an end - this weekend he moves out for good, and he bequeathes this charming print to whoever wants to claim it, most likely Shuggie or Sherwood Dave...there comes a time in a young man's life when wall-sized prints of decadent rock stars in their cups just don't cut it with the ladies, and sadly we have reached such a time...

Coles Corner - Richard Hawley

This is a terrific record, a real slow burner which just gets better and better with each listen.

I had it on the ipod on the train home from Newark last night - I was full of wine, it was raining, it was late, it really suited the mood.

I was listening to it again on the way home from work tonight, and the final track segued brilliantly into Robert Johnson's Come On In My Kitchen..

Living After Midnight

Hey Girls!

Apparently, according to someone I used to work with and who now 'works' at Q Magazine, women are buying more music these days than men.

50 Quid Bloke has been superceded by the kind of switched on modern gal who is downloading music on mp3, or mp-she, if you will...and quelle horreur :

'For the first time, more women are reading are reading metal magazine Kerrang! than men'

Now, this I find particularly surprising...in a previous life I was an avid Kerrang reader; in fact I bought the first issue (and the following 70 or so) which featured Angus Young on the front cover, and the likes of Rose Tattoo, ZZ Top (who barely anyone in the UK had heard of then) and Rainbow within it's glossy pages. That's Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - not Bungle, George and Zippy...

In the olden days, Kerrang would regularly feature metal bands in photo spreads with nude ladies, in a distinctly un-PC context. One memorable issue had a centrepread with Rob Halford of Judas Priest with the current Penthouse Pet of the Year - (whose name was Cheryl, if I remember correctly...)
Rob Halford is gay - very gay. Looking back now at all the leather straps and caps and so on, it seems odd that we never suspected this at the time, but I guess photo shoots with Penthouse Pets served to perpetuate the 'Metal's Not Gay' myth...

I guess Kerrang has left such diversions behind, and there are no more pictures of Motorhead desporting with top heavy groupies on a garage forecourt in Wrexham (which I remember well from one woeful issue).

The Years Roll By Like Sweet Little Days

Everyone's favourite raddled ex-junkie grandad, Sir Keith Richards is out of hospital following brain surgery. The report quotes his publicist using the word 'cockamamie', which is just lovely. This word should be used more often, in my admittedly rather stupid opinion.

Went to see Black Mountain last week at the Rescue Rooms, not many folks there, and most of those were hairy blokes. Good gig though, sludgey riffs abounding.

The NME has published a reader's list of their favourite 'rock heroes'...the list is so depressingly crap that I don't know where to begin... Suffice to say that being either dead or addicted to heroin seems to make the grade with kids these days.

Having said that, many of my 'rock heroes', have been known to ride the white horse to Smackfordshire on occasion...there's Keith of course, Dylan, Gram Parsons, Pete Townsend, the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Tim Buckley, Alabama 3, Dee Dee Ramone, and not forgetting everyone's favourite sociopath - 'whoops where's my trousers' GG Allin.

Who's Matt Bellamy anyway?


Top 20 Rock Heroes
1 Kurt Cobain
2 Pete Doherty
3 Morrissey
4 Liam Gallagher
5 Carl Barat
6 Thom Yorke
7 Noel Gallagher
8 David Bowie
9 Ian Brown
10 Ian Curtis
11 Richey Edwards
12 Jack White
13 Joe Strummer
14 Matt Bellamy
15 Axl Rose
16 Bob Dylan
17 Julian Casablancas
18 John Lennon
19 Elliott Smith
20 Alex Kapranos