Mortlake N.

YouTube video by atomkraftteddy Gang of Four - Lord Make Me A Cowboy - 7"

As cowboys, you say?

Caesar's still around, Clare ought to get him back in on guitar...

Bloody good album that.

Not my fave Bowie but the best bits are tremendous.

It's such a shame they crapped out on their follow-up LP, caving in to cutesy-ness when their darker side (Beckoning Strings, Leave Me Alone, Legionnaire) was so much more interesting. Their first couple of Peel sessions still sound fantastic, of course...

I managed a decade too back in the '80s/90s but it was a piece of cake back then. I wouldn't fancy my chances nowadays.

A. Armstrong is funnier than I remember in this clip.

I should've made it clear that I was specifically thinking of comedy but, yes, often drama too. It's a symptom of broadcasters needing to appeal to as wide as audience as possible, I suppose - ideas inevitably get diluted along the way and the results please nobody?

Never Mind The B... nonoNO, I won't say it.

I haven't seen it so I can't comment specifically, but this is why I don't watch TV anymore. Too many shows start out with a half-decent idea & promising opening episode, then peter out half way through the series & end in disappointment. Good pitchers don't necessarily make skilled writers?

I bought it because Smash Hits told me to... and they were right!

Tremendous record. I bought it cheap as it was slipping down the charts (it made the Top 40 at the time) and, even now, I still get a thrill when I hear it.

Can't wait to see that. I bought the EP at the time but I still know next to nothing about the band itself.

"I'm an observer. I go everywhere and I sit at the back. I'm the guy at the back of the classroom. Always have been."
- from Select magazine, June 1991
(photographer: Chris Clunn)
#FallFriday

Woolworths, spring 1981 - the sleeve's a bit tatty nowadays but I still own it.

£20 went a long way when I was a dole-scum '80s waster though!

I don't want to kick-start an "All this used to be fields"-type conversation here but I regularly went to 5-band bills of NME touted bands in the mid '80s that cost £3 on the door - did that even cover people's petrol money?

I didn't realise the Robey was P2P too, I really liked that cruddy old dump - saw some excellent bands there, usually playing to 50 people!

Lovely pic - I didn't realise it was one of yours.

There are a couple of comp tracks plus 2 or 3 more songs that I've forgotten the origins of - demos maybe? Just enough for a short (but brilliant) LP...

Maybe @davidlancecallahan.bsky.social can shed some light?

(Also, the Turncoats is a terrific name and I wish I'd thought of it.)

Seeing bands as great as this in tiny venues back then is something we'll always have to look back on.

Emergency!
Emergency!
Buy a Tommy Steele record!

Terrific EP. They recorded just enough songs to fill a decent comp, I wish somebody'd release it.

YouTube video by The House of Love - Topic Love in a Car (2018 Remaster)

22, hearing this for the first time, enraptured. Listening again now &, yes, I want to be back there, just for a few hours, but I know I can't & there's a yearning inside. A phantom universe in 4 minutes. Terry's guitar break. That outro. Eyes wet, every time.

I feel just like yesterday's boy.

"She was back in that little country church in Arkansas with her mother, singing in a primitive style I had never heard from her."

( g r o a n )

One wall of my flat is prone to damp during the winter, though probably not as badly as yours from the look of this. In my experience, it's a problem that never really goes away - it'll abate for a while but will start creeping back eventually - unless you throw a LOT of money at it, as you say.

5 figures is a bit of a killer. Has it lost its roof or something?

Not just the 1 In 12, but that place in particular was a thriving hive of music, art, and politics back then. I know it's still open, but it appears to be a shadow of a shadow of its former self? Something weird happened around the turn of the century that seemed to kill off many provincial scenes.

(Sorry, I'm getting melancholy again... it's been a shit week.)

I went to tons of gigs in Bradford in the late '80s, it seemed like a proper anarchist haven back then. But I guess most of the people involved are older than me & some of them'll be long since departed, in one way or another. It's very sad how the UK's DIY gig circuit collapsed, it used to be vast!