Movember – Farewell dear tash!

Well its been a month and where i have enjoyed my dear tash I’m not sorry to say goodbye! I must say the moment I shaved it of f I went to stroke it in the way I have come accustomed to I was throughly disappointed with the lack of hair! But that said I’m glad I’ve got me face back! My shaving misadventure is below!

    

Soooo at 30 days I have a luxuriant tash!

Yep and its time to reclaim my face

and todays tash is sponsored by Movember ale Spitfire!

Half time shave break!

I’m me again!!

Withnail and Me

For those of you who don’t know the film depicts the lives and misadventures of two “resting” (well there struggling to  pay the heating bill and unemployed) young actor friends in 1969 London. They are the flamboyant alcoholic Withnail and “I” (named “Marwood” ) as his more level-headed, anxiety-prone friend and the movie’s narrator. Withnail sets the tone for the friendship, with Marwood going along with whatever Withnail wants to do. They live in a filthy Georgian flat in Camden Town. While they wait for a part, daily life revolves around getting coins to use in the meters that provide gas or electricity, going to collect Social Security payments, and waiting for the pubs to open so they can sit somewhere warm alongside being able to drink.

We’ve all been there, well i have been! In a near tantum for fine wine in a shite rural pub, I  know it’s a tea room in the film, but you know! My fixation in the film is Richard E Grants portrayal of Withnail. The character is filled with indignation over life’s injustices, despite his privileged background. He “rages against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” all the more because he blames others for the adverse consequences of his exuberant arrogance and habitual lying. Throw in delusions of grandeur and drunken flights of fancy and you have the darker side of my boozy mind! Withnail is a great beromiter because you know you’ll never be that bad! 

I’ll close with the interesting fact is that Withnail is shown drinking roughly nine and a half glasses of red wine, half a pint of cider, one shot of lighter fluid (vinegar or overproof rum are common substitutes if your playing the drinking game that is), two and a half shots of gin, six glasses of sherry, thirteen glasses of whisky and half a pint of ale. It may be presumed that this quantity of alcohol, if consumed during the course of the film, would prove fatal

 

Album Club – Cardiacs – Little Man and a House & On Land and in the Sea

The Cardiacs are a peculiar band to say the least! The band formed in 1977 and led by Tim Smith Noted for their complex, varied and intense and eccentric compositional style, for instance ”Little Man and a House & On Land and in the Sea ” is ment to their most commercial record and the sound lurches from  ska to  mediaeval music to folk music to heavy metal to  corporate  pop anthems.Vocally, Cardiacs employ a distinctive singing style centred on Tim Smith’s lead vocals (reedy and high-pitched, with a strong punk-styled Estuary English accent) and choral sections (varying from yelled to falsetto) involving most or all of the band.

    

Its not easy listening but its alot of fun and no wonder they have been hailed as an influence by bands as diverse as Blur, Faith No More and The  Wildhearts!The album was released in 1988 and is there their fourth studio album.  The single from the album, “Is This The Life?”, saw brief chart success due to exposure on mainstream radio, and garnered the attention of a wider audience when it entered the Independent Top 10 in the UK.The band followed up this burst of success with another single, a surreal cover of The Kinks’ “Susannah’s Still Alive”

To sum up…..

Fave track: In a City Lining

Fave Lyric:  Always calling itself on its own phone, Though it’s never quite at home. From: Is This The Life

Movember – 20 days and a bit update

Well its the home stretch now and despite the worrying amount grey hairs in my tash I’ve grown quite attached to the darn thing! Today I thought I’d give a shout out to my fellow team mates in what has been christened “Ain’t no mo high enough”. While I have gone for the dapper look of a fighter pilot, Greg has gone for a handle bar tash not unlike Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap and matt with his hulk like frame looks like Jesse Ventura. In a weird way the Mo’s suit them both!

 

Me: http://mobro.co/punkmicky

 

Dear Gregory: http://mobro.co/Grooha

 

The Mighty Matt: http://mobro.co/Tonkatron

New band round up!

As the year is coming to a close and my love of lists i thought I’d do a quick round up of my new bands I’ve discovered!

The Moons

One of the best power pop bands of recent years, Northampton’s The On Offs, are currently on hold. But in the meantime bassist Andy Crofts from the band has started a new project: The Moons.

Moving from bass to guitar, Croft’s new outfit have much more eclectic influences than The On Offs. From listening to their four track demo the basic sound seems to be a mix of chirpy Britpop-type tunes polished off with Beatles/Kinks melodies. But there is much more to The Moons than this. On Nightmare Day the band mix ska rhythms with twangy, echo-y guitars to great effect. And Intermission Rag continues with the Joe Meek-style twang, alongside studio effects (theremin, tape delays etc.) and finishes with a spooky snippet of Crofts singing ‘Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside’. It makes for an intriguing song; one that perhaps the old maverick Meek himself would have been proud to produce. More importantly, it hints at some potentially fascinating future Moons material to accompany their sharp guitar pop.

The band are launching a charm offensive in London with several gigs coming up in the next few months. They are sure to add more UK dates soon: why not ask them to come to your town? For as long as The On Offs are, er, off we should perhaps count ourselves lucky to be hearing The Moons producing such interstellar tunes. With a little luck and some hard work hopefully the lad will be heading for star-dom before too long. Remember, you heard them hear first.

Listen to The Moons yourself at their Myspace page here.

 

 Thee  Vicars

If noisy 60s-style garage is your thing, I’m guessing Thee Vicars will almost certainly float your boat.

Fresh from releasing their Psychotic Beat album on Dirty Water records, this Bury St Edmunds band are touring it – although that tour doesn’t leave London much (and doesn’t get anywhere near the northern part of the UK).

Still, if you fancy catching the band this month, tour dates are over the page. Check the MySpace page for plenty of tunes to hear in advance. Well worth your time. Oh yes, check out a review of the album over at Electric Roulette.

Thee Vicars on MySpace

 

The Method

Not an easy band to categorise, but loving the sound of The Method.

Indeed, the description I’ve just seen reads: ‘Angry young mods inspired by The Specials reared on their older brother’s punk 45s, dope smoking Uncle Robin’ American psych albums, perhaps old pa’s ska, soul and R&B discs’

I think that sums it up pretty well. You can hear the recent We Don’t Know // Take Your Shot single here, with an album, Dissidents & Dancers, heading our way on See Monkey Do Monkey Recordings in May. Should be worth a listen. Check out a video over the page too.

The Method website

 

 The Shoestrung

A new band with some obviously vintage influences – The Shoestrung.

According to the band’s MySpace page, influences include the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Small Faces and Terry Reid, which is always a good start. And after a listen to the tunes on MySpace, you can see why – a mix of old school British R&B (Stones and Yardbirds for example) with a touch of new school indie. Not a bad place to be 2010.

The Shoestrung at MySpace

Movember – An update

So its been 11 days of tash cultivation and I must say i’m impresed with my progress and have picked up a habbit of stroking it in a knowing way when people are talking to me! The only down side is  I look odd at work, sports clothes dont lend themselfs to sports clothes it does on the other hand its does go with my varous blazers and silk scarfs. Another plus is one of my fave ales, Spitfire is the official ale of Movember, needless to say I’ve been consuming my fair share!

      

Album Club – The Smiths – Strangeways Here We Come

The Smiths – Strangeways Here We Come

I think this album is over looked by most Smiths fans for a number of reasons… A) It was there break up album, which is odd as all four ex-members of the band have named Strangeways, Here We Come as their favourite Smiths album. B) The Queen is Dead, the album that superseeded SHWC is a really singles heavy album and even Rank is more or less The Queen is Dead Live and C) It was never played live, Mozza has done a number of tracks live tho!

The album finds the band experimenting with overtly synthesised saxophone and string arrangements and drum machine additions. It is also the only Smiths album to feature Morrissey playing a musical instrument. The piano in the song “Death of a Disco Dancer” came about as described by Johnny Marr when Morrissey”just fell on to a piano and began to bash away.”

Musically, Marr was determined to get away from the group’s previous “jingle jangle” sound, saying “…I was adamant that we weren’t going to just repeat any kind of formula.” He started to look for different influences, finding a primary interest in The Beatles’ The Beatles (album). “I knew there was an atmospheric aspect of The White Album that we could relate to musically… I wanted us to shed that skin and find a different direction… that’s possibly why you don’t hear a lot of it on Strangeways.” Also relenting, “but it still sounds like us.”

To Sum Up

Fave track: A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours

Fave Lyric: “I doused our friendly venture. With a hard-faced, three-word gesture” From I started something i couldnt finish

Album Club – Mansun – Attack of the Grey Lantern

A month or two back there was a great artical about “Album Clubs” that were sprining up all over London!  The Jist of the artical was that a growing number of music-lovers are unhappy about the way album tracks are enjoyed in a pick-and-mix fashion and albums now feel like a collection of sons rather than a theamed piece of work. To quote Jarvis Cocker of Pulp fame, albums should be a snapshot of that point of you life.

The point is you can tell a great band by a great album, consequentley I’m going bto redescover the joy’s of albums again, because I must admit to some selective downloading! So the rules are strict. No talking. No texting. You must listen to every song on the album. I’ll be doing this every other week and have created a page especially for it!

Read the original artical @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12209143

Mansun – Attack of the Grey Lantern One of my fave 90′s bands, never quite fashionable and a ace albums band. Even there third album “Little Kix” has is charm! But 1997′s “Attack of the Grey Lantern” a album I obsessed with in my teens and that I named no less than two of my bands after songs or charicters within this album that is the subject of todays album club!

The majority of the record is centred around the concept of a superhero, known as “The Grey Lantern”, in the guise of Draper himself. Throughout the album, the hero encounters a number of immoral inhabitants in a fictional English village. Much like a readers wifes version of the Kinks “Village Green Preservation Society”.  Chareters Albert Taxloss, Egg Shapped Fred, Chad, Dark Mavis. At the end of the album it all gets resolved and you find Mavis is actually the Stripper Vicar.

The Sound of the album is way ahead of its time and completly out of step with the Blur/ Oasis clone bands that were prevalent in 1997 and 98 (the less said about Shed fucking 7 the better). The album is a mix of simphonic sounds such as the intro to “The Chad Who Loved Me” to the dance beats of “Mansun’s Only Love Song” to the punkish “Stripper Vicer”. 

To sum up….

Fave track: Taxloss

Movember Time

Every year I say I’m gonna do Movember but never do, but never fear this year I am!!

For those of you who don’t know what Movember is and wonder why on earth November see’s a rise in facial hair growth.  On Movember 1st, guys register at Movember.com with a clean-shaven face and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health. 

So in a nut shell I will be growing a tash and bloging about my progress on hear! I’m fresh faced and ready to grow!

To sponser me go to http://mobro.co/punkmicky

My Mo-Idle….. Mr Lesley Phillips!

Quadrophenia and Me

In brief there are a few films im am obsessed with. To the point where I have let them seep into my mind and for better or worse let influence my style and personality! This usually manifests itself as empathy with the often misguided protagonist  and then constant quotation of said protagonist!

Any hows over the weekend I rewatched Quadrophenia… Most people know that I’m a Mod at heart, Merc and Ben Sherman at my wedding working for One True Saxon a few months back, that quiff and my love of the Modern Life is rubbish era Blur and The Kinks… Its not just the style I saw so much of my younger self  in the film it it was kinda cringey!

Quotes like…..

Steph: Going to be one of the faces?
Jimmy: What do you mean going to be? I AM one of the faces!

….kinda sounded familer from my more formative years or….

Jimmy: Look, I don’t wanna be the same as everybody else. That’s why I’m a Mod, see? I mean, you gotta be somebody, ain’t ya, or you might as well jump in the sea and drown.

This quote more than any made me wince, I’d always wanted to be a part of something or was trying to stand out rather than being myself which I’m told is much more likable and interesting than any of the alter egos and fans my long suffering friends have had to put up with, a fact dear Jimmy can’t see!

 The clinch of the film is when Jimmys beloved Lambretta scooter is accidentally destroyed, Jimmy takes a train back to Brighton. In an attempt to relive the recent excitement he expereanced there, he revisits the scenes of the riots but then, to his horror, discovers that his idol, Ace Face (AKA Sting, who looks more like a Nazi from Allo Allo than a Mod)  , is in reality a lowly bellboy at a Brighton hotel. Jimmy steals Ace’s scooter and heads out to the cliffs at Beachy Head….. This last bit also rings true, I used to have trouble not know when the party had stoped our thinking it was a great idea to go to supermarket tarted up to the hilt only to have a the massive shock that a) I;m not one of the faces and b) people have to work…. thank god I’ve grown up!

Any ways next week Withnail and I and the lovable booze hound I tried to be!