This is a review of a chirpy little single I once got sent in the post. It’s from the debut solo album by Conor Oberst, the Nebraskan multi-instrumentalist who’s the brains behind Bright Eyes and various other musical projects.
Conor Oberst- ‘I Don’t Wanna Die (In The Hospital)’
This new single, with its boogie-woogie piano, twangy gee-tar and rolling drums, was the stand-out track from Conor Oborst’s last album and is a good-time country-rock hoedown about the last desperate anxieties torturing the mind of a dying man. Woo! Alright!
Ably displaying his florid yet crooked creative bent, Oborst is on superb lyrical form, imparting his pleas to be pulled from his sick bed with an unerring paranoid catharsis.
It is ludicrously catchy, too. A song it’ll be difficult to forget after just one hearing, especially as the song’s title is also the opening 3 lines. Its irresistible campfire ‘clap-along’ feel would only fail to rouse the dead.
Speaking of which, help him get his boots on… take him back outside. Because, well… ‘They won’t let you smoke and you can’t get drunk…I’m looking like a girl in my sleeping gown. Can you get this tube out of my arm…?’
Set the man free, for God’s sake.
This is a great single that deserves to be a huge hit and, consequently, get used over the closing credits of some revealing new BBC documentary on the sickly state of the NHS.
It’s sure to be a hit on Nashville hospital radio anyway.
A review I did for the second album by an obscure, now-defunct ‘math rock’ trio from Denmark:
Marvin’s Revolt- ‘Killec’
Marvin’s Revolt are a dynamic Danish trio capable of displaying some real invention.
Jerky time signatures rub up nicely against melodic chord structures. Their skewed, ever-twisting riffs jostle for space in between busy polyrhythms without the end result sounding awkward and cluttered.
They generate a lively energy and generally forgo any calmer, drowsier moments that may cause your attention to waver.
It’s challenging music but only in the way the band challenge themselves to produce something original, not in terms of it being a challenge to sit through and enjoy.
They have a crunchy, clanging sound but there are pleasingly diverse elements at work; ‘Add. Edit. Kill.’ demonstrates a gentler acoustic side that still maintains a fidgety charm while ‘Times Will Change’ boasts a nice kind of post-rock male voice choir portion.
In line with other Scandinavian bands, Marvin’s Revolt sing their English lyrics with an American twang but this suits them perfectly as they seem more than capable of matching up to the best prog-pop math-rockers the US has to offer.
This is a fairly impressive batch of songs that deserve greater exposure.
This is a jolly favourable review I did for a website a few years back.
I think she’s ace, Alice Russell. A real talent with a tasteful ear for musical co-conspirators, she’s particularly charming live, partly because she appears like she’s really enjoying herself .
She’s more recently provided vocals on ‘Men Will Do Anything’, a tune from the unlikely-sounding occurrence that is David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s musical about Filipino shoe fetishist, Imelda Marcos, ‘Here Lies Love’.
Alice Russell – ‘Pot Of Gold’
Suffolk soul siren Alice Russell certainly keeps herself busy. ‘Pot Of Gold’ is her 4th and most accomplished album and aside from her work with Brighton’s funk revivalists, Quantic Soul Orchestra, she has also supplied demand for soulful vocals required by Massive Attack, Bah Samba, The Roots and on Mr. Scruff’s ‘Ninja Tuna’ album.
She possesses a powerful, expressive voice that, rather than aping vintage soul divas of the past, has its own distinct resonance. The production, courtesy of T.M. Juke, captures everything with digital clarity but still achieves that dusty valve amp earthiness.
The quality of the songs on here is consistently high and they vary in the approach used. Some are stomping funk-a-thons, others infused with lighter, jazzy afro-beat touches and there’s a fine, spookily iridescent cover of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’.
Her assembled band back her up ably, belting out tunes rich in scratchy funk guitar, coloured with twinkling electric piano flourishes and honking horns.
By charming audiences across the Atlantic with her live performances, her voice coming across as strongly as her infectious personality, she has already shown the qualities that should elevate her above the so-so sham-soul of Duffy, Adele and their like.
In 2014, it seemed like everybody signed up to be conscripted for The War On Drugs.
Emerging from the tastefully edgy indie stable, Secretly Canadian, their third album, ‘Lost In The Dream’ exuded a self-assured krautrocky coolness the hipsters were hip to, while also boasting the stadium-ready vastness of classic American mainstream rock.
It shows tonight, with the greying heads of cogitating codgers a more prevalent sight than frenzied clusters of skinny-jeaned youths.
The NME had them down as ‘a Balearic Bruce Springsteen’ or ‘Don Henley on horseback’, so can I add to this alliterative metaphor-fest with (deep breath):
Dylan dolefully daydreaming of Dire Straits doing drugs in Dallas.
War On Drugs is basically the Adam Granduciel show; he’s the frontman, lead guitarist, songwriter and producer who’s surrounded himself with session dudes sympathetic to his quest for slackerdom supremacy.
They lock in for some heavy hypersonic grooving which, rather than heads-down, lank-haired shoegazing, would be more conducive to clear-skied, midwestern stargazing. While no doubt sprawled on the hood your ’69 Dodge Charger, hand in hand with your sweetheart.
Live, they deliver the same kind of languid thrills but with a sonorous surge that’s ever so subtly sonic.
A third of ‘Under The Pressure’s nine-minute length is given over to an open-ended ambient noise-scape but, neither live nor on record, does it ever seem to overstay its welcome. ‘Suffering’ boasts a beautifully soft, docile melody with a pin-sharp guitar solo and ‘Eyes To The Wind’, with its tumbling chord progression and potent axe-solo finale made for a rousing final song.
Several of their songs, such as the set-opening ’Burning’, ‘Red Eyes’ (a single with no real chorus) and the wonderfully pure ’An Ocean In Between The Waves’ have a pacy, attention-pricking tempo, yet they’re made doubly compulsive as they resonate in a vast, orotund swirl of sound that’s almost mantra-like.
In the same way that a distant air raid siren or a factory klaxon might cease being annoying after a while and adopt a more soothing, melodious quality, you get drawn in by the hugeness of their sound, succumbing until you’re woozy from the thrill.
The delicately-played melodies fuse beautifully with their collective merging of composite sounds; the metronomic bass lines, the plaintive wails of feedback and sheets of effect-heavy guitar sending waves of rhythmic noise rippling out to fill every corner of the room while the addition of a parping baritone saxophone on tracks like ‘Arms Like Boulders’ adds an extra layer of bowel-deep, burring bass underneath.
It seems likely that, Mark Kozelek aside, the only people not charmed by the simple joys ‘Lost In The Dream’ yields are those who are yet to hear it. Witnessing their beguiling live show simply confirms how special Granduciel and his gang are. Catch them touring the UK again in February 2015, as they’ll soon be playing venues as grand and colossal as they sound.
Whilst over in Madrid, I managed to find a decent record shop and got hold of a few obscure gems. The best and most intriguing of which was an LP I’d never before come across by the wonderfully-named DICK HECKSTALL-SMITH
The album also has a wonderful name, taken from a line in the poem ‘Four Quartets’ by TS ELIOT. It’s called:
“Dust In The Air Suspended Marks The Place Where A Story Ended”
Released in 1972, it was came out on Warner Brothers in most territories but, pleasingly, this is a rare Spanish copy on Island Records.
Dick (Richard Malden) Heckstall-Smith was one of many musicians brought up on classical and schooled in jazz whose mind and musical oeuvre were expanded by the loose, free-spirited thinking of the ’60s; a time when musical distinctions became evermore blurred and multifarious creative experimentation became the norm. Heckstall-Smith studied agriculture at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and led the college’s jazz band.
Always something of a risk-taking maverick, he was a conscientious objector who eschewed national service and instead worked as a St. Bart’s hospital porter. In 1957 he became a jobbing musician, playing a Butlins’ summer season with clarinetist Sandy Brown (who’d awarded him a jazz prize while at Cambridge). He moved in trad-jazz circles for a while but he loved raw, bluesy roots music and the wild, wayward expressionism of be-bop, being greatly influenced by people like Rahsaan Roland Kirk (adopting his trademark party piece of playing two different saxophones at once) and as he’d developed his style playing with much louder, amplified rock and blues bands, his playing employed a more direct, fiercely blasted-out approach.
He played sax on an album by New Orleans trumpeter Bob Wallis and on that very same session was, according to Dick himself; “a flame-haired gangly young git with blue eyes who played drums like a wild animal” whose name was Peter Baker (‘Ginger’ to his friends). In 1961, he and Baker were regularly playing the Café des Artistes and Club Flamingo in Soho and soon hooked-up with Alexis Korner, the patriarchal British blues pioneer who pieced together Blues Incorporated, a raw, Chicago-style blues band that embraced elements of r&b and jazz.
Various hip young beatniks (Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger included) served time as members of Korner’s ever-changing crew until Heckstall-Smith, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and organist Graham Bond broke away to form the Graham Bond Organization, a prototype jazz-rock outfit of considerable clout. The Organization enjoyed transatlantic success until Baker and Bruce formed Cream with Eric Clapton, a former guitarist with the Bluesbreakers, led by John Mayall, who’d hired Heckstall-Smith to play on his seminal 1968 album ‘Bare Wires’. Also playing on that ‘Bare Wires’ album (along with future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor) was Jon Hiseman, the dextrous, powerhouse drummer who briefly took the place of Ginger Baker in the Graham Bond Organization before forming Colosseum, the progressive jazz-rock band of whom Heckstall-Smith was a also founder member.
In the album’s scant sleeve notes, our Dick reveals; ‘When we all met in a pub and decided to end Colosseum, I said I wanted to make a solo album. Well, here it is’.
Helping him out were four fellow Colossi; vocalist Chris Farlowe, Mark Clarke on bass, keyboardist Dave Greenslade, who would later form his own eponymous prog-rock band, and Jon Hiseman (who also produced the album).
Also featuring amongst the myriad personnel were:
Chris ‘Motorbiking’ Spedding, the go-to session guitarist of choice (who at the time was cutting his jazz-rock chops with Ian Carr’s Nucleus), Graham Bond, the ORGANiser of Dick’s old band, Paul Williams; NOT the singer/songwriter responsible for the songs in Bugsy Malone. This dude was vocalist in Juicy Lucy and Tempest, the next jazz-rock band Jon Hiseman and Mark Clarke formed after Colosseum’s dissemination.
Also featuring is Caleb Quaye, the older half-brother of Finley Quaye and a valued alumnus of Elton John’s ’70s band who played on Elt’s ‘Rock Of The Westies’ & ‘Blue Moves’ albums. Tying things in nicely, in an almost incestuous display of chummy camaraderie, the lyrics on the album were written by Pete Brown, lead singer of not one but two hippy art terrorists signed to Harvest Records; Piblokto! & The Battered Ornaments (featuring Chris Spedding on guitar). Brown was a talented, delightfully dippy lyricist who wrote the words to a handful of classic Cream songs including ’Sunshine Of Your Love’, ‘White Room’ and ‘Badge’.
Enough of the personnel, what about the music…?
‘Future Song’ kicks things off with a ‘Voodoo Chile’-like chaka-waka intro and a driving funk-infused riff over which our Dick bleats out some hot-as-hell honkin’ and offbeat jazzy chord sequences until the song fades out, annoyingly enough, just as a smoking guitar solo breaks out.
‘Crabs’ is a passionately-wrought mid-paced burner that soon jolts into life, picking up a double-time tempo, sliding subtly back into the slower pace and back again with clattering percussion and plonking piano.
‘Same Old Thing’ then staggers into view with heavy eyelids hiding dilated pupils and bloodshot eyes, sporting a nicotine-stained beard, it’s a smoky, worse-for-wear English blues with a Hendrixian vibe, the recurring motif recalling ‘Wind Cries Mary’.
‘Was The Morning After’ is more wistful, like something faux-meaningful from ‘Hair’ or ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ which gets faster and more fidgety during the middle section.
‘Pirate’s Dream’ is the killer track though. Boasting busy, supple drumming throughout, it has a classic, descending rock riff and a remarkable vocal performance from Chris Farlowe who spouts out a volley of verbose mouthfuls from the impenetrable, poetically pithy pen of Pete Brown. There’s a frenzied drum-led acceleration of delivery which soon settles down into a more tempered, jazzier section in which Hiseman shows he’s not all about crash ’n’ clatter and can play with subdued restraint.
Some smart dual interplay mimicry from Dick & Chris Spedding on guitar, as Hiseman and bassist Mark Clarke slowly ensure the song gradually ups both the pace and the level of intricacy before locking down into an irresistibly fluid blues-jam groove.
You hear some soaring vocal histrionics (by an uncredited female) and Graham Bond mewing and squelching forth some otherworldly squawks and squelches from what would then have been a strange, newly-acquired keyboard gizmo bearing the legend ‘Moog’.
Here, treat yourself to a good listen:
Finally, there’s ‘Moses In The Bullrushes’, a swingin’ jazz-pop finger-clicker with a gobful of garbled lyrics that concludes proceedings on a suitably energetic note.
This album must’ve seriously blown some music-loving minds in ’72. Such a great ensemble piece, very typical of the time; jazz-trained musicians gleefully showing off their collective chops by playing each individual instrument to the limit of its capability.
Breathtaking in parts. Popular music made within a rock framework yet with some very jazz-minded chord structures and shape-shifting polyrhythms. Every participant playing for the thrill of it, pulling off dazzling performances just because they know they’re good enough to be able to with epic ease.
The inner gatefold sleeve of ‘Dust In The Air Suspended…’
As mentioned in another post on this blog, I recently reviewed a restaurant for the first time, which was posted elsewhere online. Sod SEO… Here it is in full… Matty Hebditch ventures into the unexplored, formidable world of food blogging with his first ever restaurant review. His eaterie of choice? Volta, a newly opened and unsuspecting establishment of the West Didsbury, Manchester
Walking into this newest addition to West Didsbury’s eat-&-drink scene, first impressions were good. Although bijou, the simple layout and subtle lighting made it an inviting place. A huge arched mirror on the back wall helps create a more spacious feel, and the chunky mahogany bar and accompanying stools make you feel welcome to literally hang out in this hang-out, as well as to eat in this eaterie.
Perched at the end of that chunky bar was chunky proprietor Luke Cowdrey, who welcomed us in and gave us the lowdown on what’s available and how we should order it. In any way and any order we fancied really, pick ’n’ mix-style.
It’s not quite a tapas bar but, seeing as it’s a reet down-to-earth Mancunian venture, I’m gonna call it a ‘Real Tapas & Shunters Social Club’.
There are several real good boozes (13 Guns IPA, Brooklyn, Wainwrights’s, and Brewdog’s Punk IPA if you like your ale), but my companion was denied an Aperol spritz aperitif as they’d run out of Prosecco. I imagine the opening night party, a week before Christmas, must’ve merged in with the other seasonal festivities.
The food on offer is a pleasingly diverse mix of fusion fodder, inspired by the grub Luke and co-conspirator Justin Crawford have sampled on their global Unabombing DJ adventures and perhaps the ‘small plates’ selection is inspired by a party person’s propensity for not being able to stomach too much grub at once.
We gladly bought into the concept of building your own piecemeal meal, with as many components as you like, and we even partook in playing some chip Jenga to further enhance the culinary construction theme (nicely mushy sweet potato chips they were too).
Careful thought has gone into minor details; we were oddly chuffed to receive a transparent glass plate (what happened to them?), while the cutlery and napkins arrived tidily in a tin can. There was an eclectic mix of downbeat music to enhance the mood too. We discerned John Martyn, some cerebral jazz, indo-Irish folk and a Bond theme (can’t remember which, Carly Simon I think).
Though smartly decked-out with dark wood vintage lampshades and mahooosive shin-high skirting boards, it’s also replete with some of those ‘can’t be arsed to finish that bit off’ touches to the decor; exposed brick here, unpainted plasterwork there, and we were charmed by an informal sign in the loos kindly urging folk ‘not to flush anything other than the obvious’. Also, Yorkshire roses decorate each table and the walls are half-painted City sky blue, making it a place Man United fans probably wouldn’t sit too comfortably in.
Now the important bit: the food. We sampled three small plates first, one of which was four mini pecorino toasts with some unedifying Jerusalem artichokes, presumably marinated in truffle oil, as it was bereft of actual ‘posh mushroom’ truffle. This dish was rather bland; the crispy toasts could’ve been thinly cut scrag-ends of stale baguette, and with the artichoke lacking any real flavour it could quite easily have been grated hard skin from the chef’s achilles (mmmm… my fave!).
The sea bass with black olive paste was delicious, however, and jazzed-up the toasty bites considerably once we’d mixed, matched and married the two.
We queried the helpful, clued-up staff as to the whereabouts of our third small plate and were told they’d forgot to explain that the slapdash ‘order whatever whenever’ nature of the menu means that some dishes arrive irregularly as everything’s made quick-sharp, upon request. That didn’t quite explain why the (hot) sea bass & green beans arrived ten minutes before the (cold) beetroot, feta, dill and hazelnut dish. The latter brought to mind an old Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut ad (“Nuts, oh hazelnuts, Volta they take them and they smother them in beetroot”) and tasted lovely scooped-up with some herby flatbread (whoever he is), but the beetroot slop resembled tomato puree in the dim light. A quick shine of a handy keyring torch confirmed it was indeed purple but it may well have been tastier had it actually been tomato puree.
Main course was a hanger steak, neatly cut into medallions with accompanying chips, which turned out to be the rarest steak I’ve ever had, and as I don’t usually go for rare steak, this made me wonder why we weren’t offered the customary choice. Turns out it’s meant to be sampled rare and, had I asked for ‘medium’, I’d have simply been talked out of it.
It was indeed flavoursome and succulent, if a little bit slippery and oyster-like on the tongue – squeamish hemophobics may have been disturbed by the unheralded sight of blood on the chopping board. The steak came with chimichurri, an oily Argentinian-inspired salsa and herb sauce, which was fragrant and unusual, but a lot less potent and not as tasty as we’d expected.
We concluded with a winning dessert; a chocolate pot with a slightly torched surface, and a milky top which tasted much like the gorgeous gloopy goo you get in the middle of a Lindt bauble, almost leading us to stick our fingers into the pot to scrounge the very last smears.
In all, it was an enjoyably distinctive dining experience, ordering dishes we’d never tried before, and although not everything was spot-on, we’d be keen to come back, and see how they’re progressing and sample the other treats on the menu. Especially as there’s still a ’50% off food’ offer throughout January.
Since writing this review, the great and the good have been keen to visit Volta. You might have to zoom in a bit but…
Here’s ACTUAL photographic proof of PRINCE popping in last May…!!!
Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, me (and my manbag), Madrid
When booking trips abroad well in advance, I’ve often tended to forget about them until the week before, only then building up some kind of cursory level of anticipation in the last days leading up to it. More so if I’ve left the booking to someone else and just been a transferer of funds. As such, I’d learnt only a day prior to flying that we weren’t getting picked up at 6:30am and flying from Leeds-Bradford, as I’d quite wrongly assumed, but instead were flying at 6:30, from Liverpool and, as such, had to be ready to be picked-up at 4am.
Despite knowing this, I still fannied around until after midnight, making a fastidious meal of packing the paltry amount of hand luggage I’d opted to take and deciding to have a nice, hot, soothing bath just before I went to bed. Instead of, well, just going to bed…
Once at the airport, I couldn’t resist a quick customary pint of departure lounge Guinness and talked the others into it too. This turned out to be a wholly unwise undertaking that led to our names being called out over the airport tannoy (fame at last!) and an unwelcome, ungainly jog up to the gate. The zealously-guzzled Guinness (and the serene, twinkly strains of Steve Hillage’s ‘Rainbow Dome Musick’ in the headhones) helped me to grab some sleep on the plane for 30 minutes or so, meaning the flight… err… flew by.
There were the first signs of sleep-deprived boys beginning to bicker as we deliberated between getting a taxi to the hotel or the catching the Metro to our stop, right in the heart of the city centre. I’d suggested the Metro. Not because it’s cheaper and I’m a bit of a skinflint but because you can catch a voyeuristic glimpse of genuine Madridistas going about their daily lives, an early chance for people watching. Or ‘observar a la gente’, as Google Translate is no doubt wrongly suggesting the Spanish call it. Everyone seemed fine with the suggestion until impatient Haggis boisterously insisted on catching a cab once we’d walked the entire length of the terminal, instantly put off by the sight of a tiny queue at the ticket machine.
Being just a short waddle from Madrid’s main artery, Gran Via, or ‘big street’, as it sensibly translates as, we found our hotel easily enough. Although I almost made a touristy fool of myself by half-attempting to ask a waiter on a cig break for directions to it, turning round mid-query to see the side of a tall building decorated with a huge, rainbow mural spelling out the hotel’s name (below).
We dumped our bags, brushed our teeth, sprayed our armpits and headed out for a walk around town. We chanced upon the main square, Puerta del Sol, gawped at the touristy goings-on for a biand soon found an appealing-looking bar with grey furry rugs draped over each chair in their sizeable al fresco area, henceforth known as ‘furry bar’. The irresistible charms of Cafe society (or ‘sociedad del café’? I’ll stop soon, honest) temporarily took ahold of me as I resisted being ribbed by the others and ordered coffee and a savoury crepe, before getting on the cerveza trail for the second round.
We quaffed our beer, scoffed and sneered at the posh, preening passers-by and tutted at the tragically trendy tourist toffs trotting past our table. Then, a bloke in 501’s and Adidas Sambas caught our attention; it was Danny, the affable scouser and ‘young John Parrott’-alike who was sat in front of us on our flight. It was nice to bump into a friendly face and, seeing as he was travelling alone and also attending the game, I reckon he was pleased to see us. That was until we told him we were just about to go and watch the Sheffield Wednesday v Leeds noon kick-off game in an Irish pub he’d only that minute vacated. He still came along though (“jus’ for the crack, like, la”).
Once inside ‘Dubliners’ bar, we surveyed the half-empty room, quickly rearranged the furniture, harangued the barman into beaming it on the big screen and ordered the first of umpteen buckets of ‘6 for €5’ Coronas and were given the first of many complimentary bowls of completely flavourless crisps.
We gave some good-natured grief to an English guy and his two teenage sons, all Chelsea fans, who came in and had to gather round on stools to watch their game with Hull on the poxy portable in the corner while we lorded it up in big screen opulence. We were very soon in receipt of a return serve of retributed ribbing as our beloved Leeds capitulated before our wearied eyes. An absolutely abysmal showing, particularly considering it was a local derby. This 6-0 tonking saw our two newly-signed ‘wingers’ make wholly inauspicious debuts and the whole worryingly spineless display had us genuinely fretting for the club’s future.
What followed ‘our’ abominable excuse for a game, along with more bland crisps and another bucket of beer, was an excellent bit of blanket football coverage: all the English 3pm kick-offs were being shown with a slight time delay, meaning the footage flitted from one game to the next as goals, misses or incidents occurred in any given match. A bit like watching ‘Soccer Saturday’, only we get to see all the action, rather than seeing Paul Merson and Phil Thompson make a tounge-tied, over-excited mess of telling us what’s happening. It’s never quite made sense why the coverage of English Premier League games is much better and much more thorough in pretty much everywhere but England. The day must surely be upon us when we can hark back to these simpler, more deprived times and chortle in disbelief at the hours we’ve wasted on saturday afternoons, watching live footage of ex-pros watching and clumsily trying to describe what’s occurring in a game we’re not allowed to see until later.
Soon it was time to cease watching televised football and hotfoot our way to watch proper football, in a proper stadium and everything. To be fair, it was more a tiresome trainer trudge than a ‘hotfoot’, although Carl’s feet were temporarily hotter when he pissed all over his own shoes. We had another round in Furry Bar then popped over to Ice Bar; an aptly-named emporium that offered extremely welcome, even cheaper icy buckets of ‘5 beers for €3’.
Being a scouser, our new friend Danny asked us if we ‘did any gear’. After getting a spluttered, noncommittal ‘Ahem, well, y’know… have done… in the past, on occasion, sort of…’ in response, he went outside for a crafty gasper, spoke to some young hombre, busy begging and scrounging tab ends, who then summoned over a toothless, cross-eyed old crone, off with whom Danny wandered.
He returned a couple of minutes later, winking and wearing a ‘we’re in luck!’ expression. Having needed no procurement encouragement from us, Danny excitedly untwisted the unsexy scrag of plaggy bag he’d just spent €50 on, revealing a tiny pouch of pastel-coloured powdery pieces that appeared to be some ‘Love Heart’ sweeties someone had just trodden on. As Danny threw them angrily to the ground, seethingly scouring the square for a secondary glimpse of the sleazy supplier, I pondered to myself whether this drug-deal rip-off had been painstakingly planned to such a headfucking degree that they’d specifically picked out Love Hearts emblazoned with these particular faux-romantic sentiments:
HAppy MADly In Love
LoveFOOL
I Love YOU
TailorMADE
InTO You LOOK Of Love LIKE Me? NOBody Else HEADrush BOYfriend.
So that the crumbled chunks of debris spelt out:
“HA MAD FOOL YOU MADE TO LOOK LIKE NOB HEAD BOY”
After Danny’s aborted narco-hunt, there was further evidence of his judgement being a little skewed when, to our collective amusement, he threw a Euro down at the base of a bronze statue of a streeet-sweeper, thinking it was one of those stupid stand-still street performer sods…
Eventually, after much drunken faffing around, it was time to sup up and pile onto the Metro to el estadio. Boarding this tube was the closest I’ve come to experiencing what it must be like to be forcibly and dangerously shoehorned onto a tube train the way they do in China. Unable to move, squashed up against several other humans, some soft and squishy, some jagged and bony. It was a fairly horrible experience that we were all glad didn’t last longer than 20 minutes. Danny, still no doubt angered by that rip-off drug deal, had a go at somebody he claimed was deliberately elbowing him in the back.
Once off the tube and able to breathe out again, we went to try and find the office from where we picked up our tickets, wading through the muddled crowds, people seemingly heading in every possible direction.
Suddenly, during a lapse in concentration whilst in conversation with Danny, I realised I’d lost the other three. I was obliviously walking alongside Danny towards the ticket office he was told to go to whereas the ticket office I required was… erm… well, I didn’t know… as I didn’t book them.
FUCK…!!! A massively claustrophobic crowd, a phone that doesn’t work abroad, an €80 ticket for a match I’ve travelled 1000 miles to watch and now won’t be able to see.
AARRRRGH…!!!! All because (to use a hackneyed football cliché) I took my eye off the ball. Or rather I took my eye off the direction in which my chums were heading.
Slowly, I began to resign myself to an evening of standing outside the ground, listening to the crowd chant and roar, I looked around aimlessly for even the slightest glimpse of mate and as Danny queued patiently for his ticket, blithely shrugging his shoulders at my foolishness, his phone rang. It was John, asking whether he knew where the fuck I’d gotten to. Thankfully, John had accepted Danny’s Facebook friend request earlier in the day his number was on his profile. Quick thinking!
YUSSSS!!!! I found out at which entrance turnstile we needed (21, if you’re interested), scurried through the still-thick throng of people and saw John, who said nothing but scowled, shook his head, gave me my ticket and clipped me round the side of the head.
We finally took our seats just as the teams were walking out, being greeted with the inevitable groans of “‘Ey up, he’s here… silly cunt… where did you wander off to? You jammy get! We couldn’t be arsed waiting around for ya, we just thought; ‘fuck him!’”
Fair do’s I s’pose.
The match itself was an engaging enough way to pass a couple of hours. No goals and not exactly jam-packed full of missed chances at either end but the atmosphere was tense, the pace of the game was frantically exciting while the standard of football and the effortless aura every player exudes was very impressive. This was a game you sensed Barcelona could easily end up losing, as the Madridistas looked stronger, were well organised and created the better chances. Barça remain top on goal difference but, when it comes to securing that La Liga title, it might well be Atletico’s year.
Gabi, Raúl García and Koke are a trio of Spanish players who’ve come closest to matching the magicians in Barça’s midfield. Arda Turan, the Turkish dervish, showed some amazing bits of quick-fire skill, Diego Costa looked a real threat the entire game, nothing appears to get past the Uruguayan centre-half, Diego Godin but it was Atletico’s long-haired Brazilian left-back, Felipe Luis who really stood out for me; quick, strong in the tackle and such a force when bombing forward down the wing.
I’m not sure Barcelona’s new Brazilian superstar, Neymar is going to be the untouchable world-beater everyone assumes though. He looks like he’s trying too hard to not only impress but to fit in with the rest of Barça’s elite. This was football played at the highest level. Something I’d not personally witnessed first-hand since Leeds United were last regularly winning games in Europe.
Here are the highlights, if you’re the kind of person who’s interested in nil-nil draws:
I was in Manchester not so long back and me and my dining partner, a Mancunian native, fancied trying out newly-opened Volta, on Burton Road in desirable West Didsbury. It’s a small but splendid restaurant/bar and hugely hip hang-out or ‘eaterie’, as they call it. Which is of course French for ‘eatery’, which is pretty much a made-up English word… Or is it Franglais?
Anyway, Volta is the new social enterprise of Luke Cowdrey and Justin Crawford who have made their name collectively as the über-tasteful disco/funk/nu-soul/house DJs, Unabombers (while Crawford was once a member of the brilliantly barmy Madchester band, New Fast Automatic Daffodils).
Their fabled club night, The Electric Chair, was a sorely-missed and highly-regarded jewel in Manchester’s already coruscating clubnight crown and since its closure, they have been running the Elektrik bar in Chorlton and have now ventured into more grown-up foodie territory; all Michelin-star chefs, fusion food fun and terrific top-tier tipples.
At the moment, I’m not rocking a smart phone, since I had my iPhone nicked in a horrible nightclub and have instead been using my sister’s old Blackberry that my doopid GiffGaff tariff won’t allow any web access on. Due to my current ‘no instant internet’ status, I’ve enjoyed going back to the trusted old method of carrying a pen and a little pad around with me so I could jot things down to Google later.
Having these famously compatible items on my person was the only reason I thought to review my Voltic experience, by scribblinging any thoughts down with said pen in said pad. Not any old pad, mind… a mini lilac-bound pad (made by Moleskin & available from Paperchase, in a pack o’two) that boasts classic functionality in the shape of perforated pages you can easily rip out. Even though I don’t really want to rip out any perforated pages from my petite little purply pad.
Anyway, the review was published up on Culture Vulture, a lovely Leeds-based ‘what’s on’ site of some repute. I’d post the review in full here but, as I’ve learned this week, it affects and hinders SEO if the same content is published elsewhere. I also had to put ‘SEO’ into a search engine in order to discover it stood for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. I’m such a CJD (Computer Jargon Dunce) sometimes. Well, pretty much all the time, really…
Images of the attendant Eusebio dominated the beginning of the Portugal v. North Korea coverage as this fixture had everyone harking back to his incredible performance in Portugal’s comeback after going 3-0 when they played North Korea in 1966. It’s always worth another look, if only for those crazy curved cut-outs behind the goals at Goodison, installed to stop fans chucking sharpened coins and other missiles at the away team’s keeper, I’ll have you know:
It was doubly apt to see Eusebio I thought, as he was the first African footballing superstar really as despite making a name for himself with Portugal, he was actually from the former Portugese colony of Mozambique that borders South Africa.
Ronaldo may have been cattle-prodded after the first game as to his duties as captain because instead of bowing his head in apparent discomfiture at how lame and unfashionable national anthems are, he was seen reluctantly mouthing a few lines this time. Meanwhile, next to him, the goalkeeper Eduardo finished belting it out passionately and let out a motivational roar which suggested he may have just snorted a couple of lines.
There was no blubbing this time from the previously overwhelmed Jong Tae-Se who instead shut his eyes tight and thought of their long-deceased ‘eternal president’ Kim Il-Sung. I’ve done a bit of research into Jong Tae-Se’s background and remarkably, despite being moved to tears when standing for the national anthem against Brazil, he’s never actually lived in North Korea. Born in Nagoya and playing his football in Japan, he attended a private ‘Chongryon’ school in Japan that’s funded by the Korean Residents’ Association so that people can be brought up the ‘North Korean way’. Hmm…You too can have that human rights-bereft Totalitarian Stalinist Dictatorship experience in the comfort of the free world. Sounds like fun! That residents’ association also doubles up as the de facto North Korean Embassy in Japan who sorted out a passport for him in compliance with FIFA eligibility criteria. It all seems extremely sinister to me but, like the inaccurately-named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea itself, is oddly fascinating.
Also of interest are that six of the squad play for the snappily-named April 25th FC (military foundation day apparently) and that the team are nicknamed The Chollima, after a mythical flying horse, as pictured below here:
Although I’m certain they ultimately wished they’d never bothered, I’m not entirely sure when the North Korean people would’ve got to see this game. Their previous game against Brazil was shown on TV a full 17 hours after it had finished because the game kicked off in the middle of the night over there and, as there’s no television transmissions allowed at that time, they instead showed delayed coverage at prime time the following evening.
England’s day of judgement seemed to take ages to come around and, despite John Terry’s best efforts to convince the English public all problems will be ironed out in some fictional, brutally honest ‘big meeting’, the usual apprehensions and unanswered questions hung over the game like freezing mist atop the Wrekin.
What formation will he play? Should Gerrard play off Rooney? Can he and Lampard play alongside each other? Should he play Crouch with Rooney? Or even play Defoe and Crouch, who combine so well at Spurs and, after his last few performances, drop Rooney? (never really an option) Who should play in nets? Is he gonna drop a clanger? Is Upson ready for the biggest stage? Should Joe Cole start? Or Lennon, or Milner?
Oh, the suspense…!
In the end it was Defoe in to partner Rooney and Guy Mowbray was quick to let us know that Rooney and Defoe have started up front together seven times, neither has scored and Defoe’s been substituted every time. Way to piss on those hastily-built bonfires of hope, Guy! In commentary, Mark Lawrenson was sure there’d be a midfield diamond formation with Gerrard allowed the freedom to get up and support the strikers but it soon became clear we were going for the traditional 4-4-2, Milner wide right and Gerrard again playing out of position on the left.
Lawro was also quite keen to put a few early dampeners on proceedings (‘We’re just too quick to force the pass and get it forward … Defoe’s not had a touch yet…and he can’t hold the ball up…’) and there were one or two early moments of concern. Terry and Lampard both gave the ball away, having risky passes intercepted not far outside of their own box, while Barry and Johnson were lucky to escape what would’ve been perfectly justifiable yellow cards, German ref Wolfgang Stark keen to carry on his record of never before having booked an England player.
After 10 minutes or so however, we began to settle, kept possession well and were positive and single-minded in our quest to get forward and create chances: Johnson found Rooney with a superb long pass which led to corner, Lampard troubled the keeper with a long-range free kick then almost got on the end of Rooney’s threaded nutmeg pass, Rooney worked space for himself around the ‘D’ and won a corner (although feeding Milner might’ve been a better option), Terry went close from another corner… and David James made light work of Slovenia’s only attempt. All good stuff so far.
Then it got better. Lampard and Barry worked the ball to Milner who curled in an unbelievable cross from right on the touchline and Defoe timed his run into the 6-yard box perfectly, throwing a sort of mid-air Spiderman pose, allowing the ball to hit his shin and bulge the net. He did his best to miss it, mind- aiming it right at the keeper who got both hands to it but couldn’t tip it away, the pace on Milner’s cross making all the difference.
Pleasingly, we kept going for it. Another fine Milner ball into Defoe ricocheted into Lampard’s path who blasted over an unguarded goal with his left, unlucky for England that it didn’t fall to Gareth Barry’s left foot instead. Gerrard was heavily involved and tended to keep his position on the left (coming inside to cross with his right foot as usual) but he ventured infield to fashion England’s next best chance; he and Defoe forcing a fine double save from the impressive Handanovic, with a nice bit of coolness from Rooney in between.
The good work continued as the 2nd half commenced. Defoe should maybe have scored with a deft flicked effort that went past both the keeper and the post and shortly after, some intricate build-up play around the box led to a narrowly-offside Rooney setting Defoe up for a disallowed tap-in. Terry then had a fierce header from a corner beaten away by the keeper, Lawro getting his real-time and replays muddled by saying; ‘That’s a super header, this.’
Fucking Lawrenson… he did his best to ruin my enjoyment of the game with his crappy deadpan attempts at humour. Watching a replay of a Slovenian clipping an English ankle, he said; ‘He just got a little tap… could’ve been a plumber.’(Groan! Boo! Hiss!)
Then, seeing two England fans in the crowd dressed as medieval knights, the cringeworthy prick couldn’t resist but pipe; ‘They’re having a nice knight’, during a sunny mid-afternoon, I might add. Guy Mowbray didn’t help either, being only too willing to play his comedy sidekick. Lawro reckoned ‘Watching England play is like a cure for constipation’, which prompted Mowbray to reply; ‘I wondered what that was!’
I mean, really… “Dear Points Of View, why oh why must the BBC insist on helping conjure up images of Mark Lawrenson’s stodgy turds around teatime on a Wednesday?”
Then this goofy, guffawing, gantry-dwelling double act retorted, after the ref had awarded a soft free kick; ‘That one was deemed overly-aggressive.’ ‘It’s called ‘tackling’, Guy.’ ‘No, I’m with you, Mark.’ ‘Yeah, I had noticed.’
B’dum, tish! Priceless comedy gold!
Even Lineker had to end the coverage with; ‘Defoe is ‘da friend’ of every Englishman!’
Give it a rest, fellas…
This is more Lawro’s forté, back in his ridiculous muzzie days:
Meanwhile, back on the pitch, Rooney looked very bright, a dozen times better than last Friday but still a little way off his unplayable world-beating best. It was good to see him put the hard yards in when he chased a long goal kick down the left flank, cleverly cutting the ball inside around the covering defender before it went for a throw-in, but nobody had managed to get up and support him. The crowd fully appreciated his efforts though and chanted his name en masse. He then had a great chance to seal the game, finding himself with the ball at his feet 12 yards out, only to scuff his shot and allow the keeper to flick it onto the post, Rooney perhaps expecting to be flagged offside.
Late on, it appeared England might begin to rue all these missed chances when Slovenia went too bleedin’ well close for comfort. We gave away a few niggly free kicks that might’ve seen a less lenient ref handing out yellow cards like Quality Streets then, after a Dedic knock-down, Novakovic had a shot brilliantly blocked by John Terry then Johnson kicked away Dedic’s effort as Terry bravely dived to try and get his head in the way of the shot, showing the kind of ‘body on the line’ determination and commitment we English love to see. Finally, right near the end, Upson came up with another superb block tackle to deny Matavz an unlikely last-gasp leveller.
Then, the pace-quickening potential for pants being papped finally ceased as the ref put everyone out of their misery and that lovely warm glow of group-stage qualification began to properly kick in. All in all, a fantastic performance and one that proves we can play well under intense pressure when required to. Capello said afterwards, in his own fragmented, pidgin way; “I want to see this team, this spirit, play together, fight together… The mind now is free, without fear, we play with freedom.” Let’s hope so, Fabs (as I’m sure he’d hate being called).
Everyone played their part and dug in for a famous win but Capello’s decision to recall James Milner was especially vindicated. He continued to put in some cracking Beckham-style crosses, worked hard to wrestle back possession when we didn’t have the ball and used it wisely when we did. I’ll try not to overplay the ‘local Leeds lad’ influence but I’ve always admired James Milner. He was impressive enough as a scrawny teenager at Leeds and I was saddened to see him leave (along with all our other best players), but since joining Villa, the way he’s worked on his game, looked to continually improve and built himself up into a strong, sinewy ‘play-anywhere’ powerhouse has been a credit to professionalism. He’s never drunk alcohol either which, for a handsomely-paid high-profile professional sportsman, shouldn’t come as a shock but for an English footballer, is something to respect and marvel at.
As well as the players, the England supporters played a blinder too, by the sounds of it. The massed ranks cheered and were encouraged by every small passage of positive play and of course displayed their customised St. George’s flags as usual. Yorkshire was well represented with one flag saying both ‘Wakefield’ and ‘Sheffield United’ (must have something against Leeds), another from Rotherham and one that read ‘Ponte Carlo’ (the local nickname for Pontefract, in the same way that Castleford is ‘Cas Vegas’) and, just to be precise about where they’re from, two postcodes: LS25 and WF8. The most intriguing one I saw had S.P.F.C. on it and I can’t for the life of me think which club this is. S.P.?? Sao Paulo is the best I can come up with. Answers on a postcard please.
Aside from the multitude of banners, it was palpable just how good- and presumably inspiring- the support was by the way the England Supporters’ Band honked their trumpets and trombones above the cacophony of those vuvuzelas and, inappropriate though I think it is as an exclusively English anthem, to hear the strains of ‘God Save the Queen’ sung so loudly and as fervently really did instil a sense of pride.
At how many other games in this World Cup have you being able to hear the crowd singing in unison so stridently? I recall the Mexican fans having a good old singsong during the France match but from my goggled-eyed settee perspective, we’ve topped the supporters’ league. Even those famous Brazilian samba rhythms have been conspicuous by their absence. Our brave knobheads done us proud!
Or perhaps the usual England match knobheads have stayed at home, kept away by an anti-hooligan initiative that actually worked, as the police and locals in Port Elizabeth had nothing but nice things to say about us (although it might well be a different story in Bloemfontein against the Germans).
Oh yeah… Shit… It’s the Germans next. We always assumed Germany would win their group and that we’d need to do the same to avoid them in the 2nd round, and so it proved. You could argue that we were unlucky, what with the USA’s winning goal coming so late on to stir things up but ultimately, everyone expected the Americans to beat Algeria (imagine the reaction back home to being beaten by fuckin’ Muslims, maaan!) and it was the failings in the other games that counted against us; Green’s oafish error and the whole Algerian debacle. I’m unsure as to whether we’ll beat Germany but don’t think we’ve got anything to fear, especially with all the added spice and extra incentives that come with this particular match-up. It’s more the other countries we’ll face further down the line should we beat Germany that worries me: Argentina, Spain then Holland or Brazil in all probability. Gulp!
Despite the fact it was only a narrow 1-0 win against a low-ranked, sparsely populated country, I’ve been ultra-positive about the Slovenia result but I really don’t think we have a chance of winning the trophy and that will be our own fault. Had we topped the group, we’d only have to overcome any two from Ghana, South Korea and Uruguay to earn a semi-final place but now… well, if we do win it, nobody will be able to say we didn’t deserve it. Let’s just see what happens against the Germans, eh?
Das ist ein krucial crunchenmatcher, ja?
Randomia Hebditica 