How Bad Were The Eighties Really?

I've just finished Danny Baker's series of shows on the seventies , eighties and nineties and the eighties usually come in for extremely harsh treatment due to New Romantics and A Flock of Seagulls hair styles. But Baker's show opened with The Clash playing Should I Stay or Should I Go at Shea Stadium , New York. The program was only half an hour long and while Prefab Sprout and The Pretenders are not exactly my cup of tea (although when both bands are good they are very very good and Prefab Sprout's last album is an absolute beauty) , the quality of the music never faltered , finding space for Ivor Cutler's Shoplifters before having the great man introduce The Smiths Boy With The Thorn In His Side. The show closed with New Order playing The Hacienda.


This post seemed to be getting fairly monoparagraphic so I thought I'd insert a break.

Incidentally a friend from Facebook had mentioned the Fall's I Am Curious Oranj in various  orange related posts last week, and then Danny Baker played Big New Prinz in situ with the dancers / ballet for which the music was commissioned.


When you add bands like The Cure , Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus  you have to admit there were a lot of great bands round in the eighties. As I've said before 95% is always rubbish , it's up to you to track down the good stuff. I've probably mentioned more bands in this post than any other previous post but there is a lot of great music round all the time, find and enjoy.

I Can Resist Anything But Temptation

Nothing much to speak of today. I'm just wondering how short a post I could get away with writing. I think possibly my first "Hello" post was the shortest one. Today has been one of those days planning stuff for next week , remembering things I need to put in my book and wrestling with various Microsoft products to try and get them to behave reasonably.

Eventually I always succeed , it's just that sometimes you need a different take on things, there are always positives and good things if you look in the right places. It's very easy to find fault , Ibut I find it just as easy to find the good in things. I don't do negatives, leave that to others.

I remember I worked for a while in Manchester and found that there were a lot of people who were only happy when they were miserable! There were still a lot of good people there but the weather wasn't too good but they never had to worry about a hosepipe ban. Anyway this post has now outstripped my first post so is a more that reasonable stopgap on this blog. I need to post a pictures and some music and maybe talking of Manchester it should be a band from there . We recently had John Cooper Clarke, so I think I'll go with my favourite New Order Song "Temptation".

"I can resist anything but Temptation"

Books Are Good

Oscar Wilde

2AM

Waking up at 2AM is not good when you have a 5AM start. Last night I had a bad (for me) 2.6 Hypo and felt awful but went to sleep listening to the Oysterband and Billy Bragg. Anyway today I will be going down down to London and for the June's tunes I'm choosing The Oysterband covering New Order's Love Vigilantes and favourite of mine by two of my favourite bands!:

There's Only One Tony Wilson

Well actually there's more than one , which we all knew. I grew up with Tony Wilson , So It Goes , Factory Records , Joy Division , Happy Mondays , The Hacienda. Sadly missed since he died a couple of years ago , but the guy revolutionised music ,and business , not financially successfully but his vision resulted in some amazing breakthroughs. The first peorgram to have the Sex Pistols performing live on TV and immortalised in the sureal but entertaining 24 Hour Party People.

Anyway a couple of years ago I bought several books pertaining to Factory Records and related groups and a few my the great man himself. One called The Universe on a Bicycle sounded like a Wilson title , but in fact is written by another Tony Wilson (an articled clerk turned artist who patented an origami table) about a bike ride round Ireland pondering the deep questions in life in a very entertaining manner. I only found this out today when I started reading the book and would recommend it to anyone. It's one of those pleasant mistakes in life that actually benfits all concerned . I have found a new author and he has a new fan so to speak.

While not in the same universe as the late Anthony Wilson my world has certainly been enriched by reading both authors.