I think she’s extremely good at what she does, but what she does isn’t something I particularly like. Even so, I like some of her songs. I’m still missing North Dakota, but the 47 states were the result of accident rather than planning. That and that I like driving. Talk radio?
Lee Westwood runner up again - meaning that he has 9 top three finishes in Majors without ever winning one!
Kevin Friend will be in charge of our game at Stoke next Monday. The referee appointments list has been issued up to and including Thursday 21 April and there is no sign of Mark Clattenberg. Has he been "grounded" does anyone know ?
There's a UEFA course for the Euros coming up next week that starts on the 18th. Clattenburg and Atkinson are on it and I think that their assistants are, too.
Some refs get dropped, some get lower league games and some get to go on UEFA courses. After his balls-up in February when he signed for an agency that also dealt with players, I'm surprised that he's still untouchable.
Sutton United top of their league and odds on for a place in the Conference next season. Where's Tots these days ?
Did I say North Dakota? Actually it’s South Dakota I’ve never seen. But both are thrilling compared to some. Route 80, which I’ve crossed the country on a number of times, is one long cornfield, beginning just outside of Philadelphia and ending with the Rockies in Wyoming. They do nothing but get bigger and flatter, with Nebraska the climax of perfect boredom--for 430 miles. Tbf, 80 in much of Pennsylvania is very pretty, with lots of rolling forest breaking up the cornfields. Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma is fantastic on America’s bizarre cut of corn and stupid eating habits. "A nation of unhealthy people obsessed with eating well." We inherited the belief in corn from Indians, and have always grown far too much of it, accounting not just for biofuels (a crap idea) but also the coffee break. The coffee break was originally the whiskey break, when bourbon rather than biofuel was the way farmers could keep their corn crop from rotting. Got to say some Jim Beam at 10:30 am would liven things up. Briefly.
Prince, and for that matter Michael Jackson, were fantastic early in their careers. Jackson became a parody of himself and Prince gradually eased into mediocrity. U2 and Madonna were always crap. Oasis were cut out to be an interesting cult band, but the amount of hype they got I never understood. IMO.
Prince's early career was genius. Sign O' The Times is one of the best pop songs ever written. I've seen him live a few times with mixed results but early on he was dynamite. U2 on their best night are a 3rd rate Clash tribute act and I saw them in '80 before they became full of ****. As a punk since '76 my tastes can be a bit rockist but to my mind Oasis never served up anything original or exciting and I was never attracted to go and see them. Best live act I've seen were The Clash. I've reckoned up I saw them 17 times and I wish I'd been to more. The only other band that got close were The Smiths.
I saw The Clash 4 times and they were brilliant, but I still think that The Jam were the best 'live' band I ever saw, they played with a passion and an intensity that I have never seen anyone else achieve. Still a Weller fan now (my name here may have been a clue!) and seeing him and The Who in Hyde Park last summer was one of the highlights of the year.
The best live band I've seen is Slade. Saw the Jam very early on (they had one album of material to play) and they were brilliant, never really liked Weller solo but I won't go into that as you clearly have a different opinion and I respect that.
Tthe best live band for me is The Who. From the early days at Goldhawk Social Club right through to the massive stadium appearances no other band has, for me anyway, given so much pleasure at their gigs. Pete Townsend's autobiography is an excellent read.
I saw The Jam a few times, maybe 5. I never kept ticket stubs .The passing years dull the memory and I went to a lot of gigs. They were good but like you with The Clash, somehow one band tops the other. I'm off to see The Damned's 40th anniversary at The Royal Albert Hall next month. I've lost count (again!) of how many times I've seen them but it must be around 100 over that time. The first line-up was stunning live and I recommend 'Damned Damned Damned' to any lover of hard rock. Both of my daughters are named after songs of theirs. Would dearly have loved to have seen The Who, Stones, Kinks as my step-mum did and Eddie Cochrane, Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly like my dad did. Vimhawk, I lived in Solihull when Dave Hill lived in that big mansion he had. Daft as a brush but immensely kind to a group of 11 year old star-struck kids on the occasions we met him over the park at the back of his house. When did you see them as they had a really wide-ranging career?
I totally agree about 'Damned Damned Damned' one of those great albums that never grows old. I have seen The Who 4 times and they have never disappointed, but I wish had seen them in their pomp with Keith Moon, because as good as they were without him I can only imagine how good they were with him.
A couple of years ago (or was it 5?) I went to see Brian James and Rat Scabies play 'Damned Damned Damned' in a pub in Kingston. They had an American female singer (she was by far the toughest looking woman I've ever seen and I've known some very tough ones) and it was in a tiny space but Oh my God! It was a searing performance from the 2 of them. It was soooo loud. Far, far too loud for the space. I spoke to the sound engineer after. He said he had told Brian James it was way too loud. James told him that if he touched the output then they wouldn't play and that it was obvious he meant it. Apparently, there are no plans for the original 4 members to play together at the RAH. A great shame. Yesterday my daughter played 'Sheena is a Punk Rocker' to me on our drum kit (it's part of the Grade 1 Rock Drums syllabus). Very proud Dad obviously.
My folks were Mods, and said The Who were terrible noise when they saw them at pub gigs (my mum said basically it seemed to be Townsend and Moon trying to drown each other out ) .
I saw them at Loughborough University in 1980 or 81. The brilliance of it was that this could have been just another tour date in just another student union for which minimum effort could be applied (I'm thinking of you Rockpile!) but instead they were utterly brilliant and I doubt could have tried harder. A very underrated band. I'm always annoyed when Gallagher says "Far Far Away" is one of the best songs ever written, as if Slade are OK because Oasis say so. I would think that Noddy Holder's opinion of Oasis is much more valid. Slade make Oasis look "very limited". NB I went out with a girl from Penn, Wolverhampton just before that time and she was always saying that they lived close to where Noddy grew up but I've never had that independently verified.
