What Music Shit Are You Watching? (videos, interviews, docu's etc)

[Len Cnut]

I watched The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle also - I'd never seen it before actually, outside clips. Jesus, that is two hours of my life I'm never going to get back; terrible; a disordered mess of a movie. In my defense, it was difficult to recover from the sight of McLaren in a bathtub with his bollocks on show. What was the idea behind that punk dwarf and that wanker in the cinema who starts singing like he is spasticated? The only good bits were Vicious's ''so moronic they're funny'' moments - Sid you could argue steals the film - and the cartoons.

I love the film myself but only as a document of a band i really like, a quaint disordered messy fuckin' thing...i think it really puts the 'McLaren was the genius who created The Sex Pistols' squarely into perspective, anybody who thinks that man was capable of creating anything but a mess is on a piss take quite frankly. Still love him though, love him to bits, old Malcolm but he was basically just a North London Jewish spiv, that great tradition of the London jewish crook, wonderful in that way, almost Dickensian (though that tradition continued way past Dickenses time), just this great bluffer who had these vague artsy ideas but non of the commitment to follow them through.

The dwarf is Helen Wellington Lloyd, she used to work in Malcolm McLarens shop and was drafted in for the film, i guess it just made it look all the more wacky and weird. The spasticated person singing Who Killed Bambi is Edward Tudorpole, basically at the time Rotten had left the band and they were attempting to devalue his contribution to The Sex Pistols, hence that beginning scene, the Anyone Can Be A Sex Pistol scene, where they are auditioning people with Johnny Rotten masks on, all doing a bit of that song, basically to denote anyone can do what Rotten did, he was interchangeable...one of those auditioners is Bobby Lydon by the way, Johnnys real life little brother, Johnny wanted nothing to do with the film y'see. Anyway Edward Tudorpole was the guy who won the actual auditions that were held to replace Johnny but nothing came of it. He made a little career for himself off of this though, he's in a few Alex Cox films plus the Clint Eastwood biopic of John Huston called White Hunter Black Heart, plus The Life and Death of Peter Sellars.

What did you think of Steve Jones in it, i think he was hilairious It's basically taking the piss out of the band, calling them retards and morons, Steve Jones The Cat Burglar, Sid Vicious The Gimmick, Johnny Rotten the Collaborator (further evidence of them trying to run down Rotten in the film, that scene in the aircraft hangar when Malcolms being interviewed by the french guy, the whole 'and what do you call someone like that in your country monsieur? A collaborator!' bit) and perhaps most insulting of all, Paul Cook the Tea-maker While Malcolm is 'The Embezzler'

What did you think of the Ronnie Biggs bits? 'God save Myra Hindley and god save Ian Brady!' ugh How about Martin Boorman? That was another major reason why Johnny wanted nothing to do with it, the association with Biggsy, who he thought was in no way admirable or a hero or someone he'd like to be associated with, bringing up the point that the train he robbed was carrying the wages of working class people, a mooted title for those awful Biggs numbers was 'Cosh the Driver' which also didn't sit well with John.

The Sid bits were fantastic i thought, for exactly the reasons you've cited, they're goofy and silly...how anyone could look at that gangly streak of piss and not see anything other than just a dozy little kid fake acting hard is beyond me. All those insulting like attempts at a dig at Rotten are a bit tiresome but generally i think it's a pretty crazy silly kind of film, holds a lot of sentimental value for me. Malcolm McLaren doing a fuckin' Max Bygraves number with a dwarf or Sid Vicious strolling through the Jewish quarter of Paris with a fucking Nazi T shirt and a flick knife making a nuisance of himself, I mean where else you gonna find such silliness?

I think the bit that pisses John off the most is the fact that the film pre-supposes that the whole thing was just a giant scam and a way to rob the industry and nothing else, it just completely devalues what they were but in the same time it's a great defence mechanism because you can't ever accuse em of selling out cuz hey, selling out what, it was always a Swindle right? The reunion being called Filthy Lucre kind of latches onto that ideological tradition too, despite the bands across the board rejection of the film.

Did you see the bit of it in Filth & the Fury that was edited out of the final Swindle movie, the bit where Sting and some cronies try to bum Paul Cook in a convertible?

[DieselDaisy]

It is odd because the premise of the film is that Malcolm was swindling the Pistols (Jones tracking him) and guess what, Malcolm was swindling the Pistols or at least sinking them into debt with this mess of a movie. I think that is when Cook and Jones switched allegiences to Lydon when John was suing him, when they found out Malcolm and plunged all their money into the film.

Jones image in the band is of an ultra cockney serial shagger. Jones is actually my favourite Pistol because of those Chuck Berry licks.

The Sid sequence in Paris is the single best bit of the film - well, that and My Way. Because Paris when you walk around it is very, cultured - bon homie, lardy dardy, artsy fartys, cafe culture - and the sight of a demonic Sid walking through the place and doing the finger is the ultimate insult to all of that.

It is very anti-Rotten, without going too overboard because they have to sell the thing to Pistols' fans. There is that bit in the cartoon where they chuck him off the ship.

[Len Cnut]

Funnily enough it took well into the 80s, mid to late even for Jonesey and Cookie to switch to Rottens side, that court case was settled in the very early 90s. Jones was illiterate whilst in the Pistols, if you look at the original A&M contract he could barely sign his name.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

The Biggs sequence, yes. ''I blew all the money in the boozer'' (quoting from memory) haha. It is a classic example of cockney banter, getting Biggs and Jones/Cook together. Total publicity stunt of course.

[Len Cnut]

Where did you get your start? Woolworths robbing pens and pencils Let me tell you, crime is not the way, you wanna make a few quid, get into the pop business! I really didn't need to see Steve Joneses todger on that beach in Rio either! He shagged Britt Ekland y'know, Jonesy. Then again, he'd shag anything.

There's that wonderful bit at the end of titular song where they're like 'ian dury cockney fraud, mick jagger, white n!gger, bob dylans got a parking ticket stuck to his arsehole, Elton John, hair transplant!'

Edited November 16, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

Is that Nazi supposed to be Bormann? I took it as a generic Nazi exile in S. America (it could have been Bormann but it could have just as easily been Eichmann or Mengele). Because Bormann's corpse was identified in the 1990s, i.e. it was confirmed he was killed fleeing Berlin in 1945.

[Len Cnut]

No, it's meant to be Martin Boorman, they even refer to him as such. It's also in the song lyrics of No One is Innocent, that awful number that Biggsy sings 'God save Martin Boorman, and Nazi's on the run, they wasn't being wicked God, that was their idea of fun!'. Biggsy explained the meaning of the song in that it is good christian morals to forgive evil people, hence the references to God save hindley brady boorman, Idi Amin etc etc, you're supposed to forgive these people, according to good christian morals, also probably a sideways way of saying that he should be forgiven too, i think Ronald was getting a little homesick at that point!

Wanna hear the funny bit? Malcolm didn't pay him for his work The Swindle continues!

Edited November 16, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

The film went into receivership so I'd imagine few people got paid.

[Len Cnut]

Malcolm robbed The Great Train Robber Was originally going to be directed by Russ Meyer and written by a pre-fame Roger Ebert, it was to be called Who Killed Bambi.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

I've always seen punk, British punk, as very much a cockney thing. The punk accent is the cockney accent, ''you fackin rotter. You dirty fackin cant'' - all that sort of stuff. Most of the bands were a product of Greater London shitholes like Shepard's Bush.

[Len Cnut]

I've always seen punk, British punk, as very much a cockney thing. The punk accent is the cockney accent, ''you fackin rotter. You dirty fackin cant'' - all that sort of stuff. Most of the bands were a product of Greater London shitholes like Shepard's Bush.

Yeah, though it was all over the UK The Pistols crowd was very much a Chelsea mob really. Some of the more earthy working class sorts like Sham 69 made a point of this. Thought The Pistols were a very working class bunch their crowd wasnt always, their core crowd anyway.

The Northern core scene, the Manchester bunch like The Buzzcocks etc i think really cottoned on to just what a modernist thing punk was, for a lot of the suburban lot it became a very regressive restrictive thing but the London and Manc' core were quite similar in that regard.

[DieselDaisy]

If you compare it to other movements in popular music however, it is a lot more cockney-centric. The first wave of 1960's bands for instance emanated from disparate cities. Every city could boast their own contender, Merseyside, the Beatles (et al. lesser contenders like Billy J Kramer and Gerry Marsden); London the Stones/Who/Kinks (and I'm sure you can lecture me on them coming from different regions of London); Newcastle Animals; Belfast Them; Manchester Hollies, etc. Was their a Newcastle equivalent of the Pistols, Clash, Damned? Does not seem to have been. As I said, the accent of punk is cockney as are the culture tropes - a contributing factor to why the Punks saw The Who as a kindred spirit and effectively white-listed them from their 'old farts' hate list one wonders?

You could argue that the milieu of punk is not so much, 1970's England but 1970's London.

But I will argue that there has never been a cultural movement more distinctly English than English punk. Lydon was discussing their American tour in the - quite excellent Filth and the Fury - and he said something along the lines of, ''we were an English band; we couldn't relate to America and did not see how they could relate to us''.

Edited November 16, 2015 by DieselDaisy

[Len Cnut]

I suppose you have a point though as mentioned, Manchester was quite booming, not just the well known bands but lesser known like Slaughter & The Dogs etc Was there a Newcastle punk band? The most clearly apparent one is The Toy Dolls who were pretty fuckin' dire admittedly But yeah, this is something often stated, that punk really happened for 3 years across a 25 mile radius in the London area, a lot of Americans will jump down your throat at that suggestion though, not because of the New York thing but because of their work throughout the late 70s early to mid 80s and beyond with like Hardcore and that.

I don't know what it is with The Who but whatever they did, they always remained or kind of kept a foothold in the earthy working class sort of...I'm not explaining myself well but like, OK, for instance they made A Quick One, a mini opera...but like, there's still a touch of the working class English thing to it, the very phrase itself, the concept, a bird having it away while her husbands away, Ivor the Engine driver is sort of the stereotype of the milkman or whatever, it's just so English and working class. And also it's force of how it's played, Tommy is totally up its own arse conceptually, all that Meher Baba stuff and high fallutin thing about how it's like, Tommy is meant to be an archetype of the post war child and that whole experience...but if you actually listen to it your working class kid is gonna love that cuz they really do fuckin' pound that shit, even with like The Who by Numbers, which is sort of where The Who/Townshend were at at the time of punk (there's a famous meeting that took place in the roundhouse where Pete Townshend, extremely inebriated, met Cook and Jones and was quite forward and physically aggressive with them, Steves recollection of it is Pete stumbling around goin' 'oo are ya, oo are ya eh?!?' and Petes is 'i was saying to them look, if you wanna take over then fuckin' take over, good luck to ya, you can fuckin' have it, whatever it is)....but even on that album they are playing with some fuckin' bollocks.

Also its worth noting that if Pete Townshend was an arty farty Meher Baba accolyte with a fuckin' Gustav Metzgher complex, the other three were just fuckin' yobbos basically...and remained that way. For all the phoney airs and graces Moonie put on he was quite clearly a fucking working class nutbag, Daltrey was just a plain thug, quite literally, in the early days his way of putting his point across during musical differences with other members of the band was to give em a smack in the eye...and Entwhistle, well look at him I remember this funny anecdote of Townshend wearing this badge of Meher Baba and Moonie comes up to him and goes 'oos that?' and Pete goes 'thats Meher Baba' and Moonie looks at him quizzically for a moment and then goes 'Oh yeah? Well thats all well and good Pete but you don't see me goin' round with a badge of Vidal Sassoon on, do ya?' Just sort of brilliantly encapsulates exactly how spiritual and arty farty Moonie was

I even remember that like, when the mod thing kicked off and Pete Meaden was looking to get em in all mod gear and that it was a kind of a sticking point because Pete was up for it, Moonie was up for anything but Daltrey and Entwhistle, in terms of their taste, were into Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly...but just went along with it anyway, so it was all a bit of a con really, The Who being mods, Daltrey makes a point of this, that up until Pete Meaden became their manager and changed their name to The High Numbers 'we put on these clothes, suddenly we're a mod group'. Even what Moonie liked, musical taste-wise, was not REALLY mod stuff, I mean he was into it but Surf music and such was more his thing.

You're right though, The Who are big fixtures down here, I mean where i live they're legendary, they used to play down the trade union hall which is a 5 minute walk from where i'm sitting now, in the music shop 2 streets across they used to come in for instruments, there's tons of local who can tell you stories about Moonie, my Dads old mate used to go see em live, before they were famous, when they were The High Numbers, even has one of their original High Numbers records, the Red Lion pub where Moonie accidentally killed his mate Neil Bolam is in Hatfield which is a short drive from here, the boxer Billie Joe Saunders is from there.

How did i suddenly make this about The Who? But yeah, you do have a point there.

And you're spot on about the distinctly English thing, that was part of their massive appeal to me. I mean cuz look back right, to when we were growing up, i dunno if this was like this for you but like, everything cool seemed to be American, everything in pop music seemed to be American, everything seemed to be about America, it just didn't seem to me that you could be English and be cool...as a little kid i mean, movies, music, everything was America America America....I'd never heard someone sing like Johnny Rotten before, it just came across so powerfully to me simply because i could relate to it so much and it was on and around streets i recognised, a world i recognised, places that were accessible to me. Before that i always felt that like, this undercurrent of we should be slightly embarassed about being English, like there's something gawky and uncool about it, everybody were these Americans with perfect complexions and long flowing hair with what looked to me as a kid as incredible musical ability. I mean i loved Guns n Roses, i thought they were the dogs bollocks but then when you look at Axl and him singing...and then Slash on guitar it was like, how could i ever be able to do that? It's impossible, its like the preserve of these Herculean supermen that booze and drugs didn't effect, that had incomparable stamina and...they were just Godlike when you're a kid, I'm talkin' about pre 1995 here...then you have The Pistols, all snot and marmite, loose and rambling and arrogant and givin' snidey answers and sounding English and clueless but not giving a toss and then somehow being able to write these songs with a fair bit of meaning that really struck a chord and stirred things up, it was just irresistable to me as a kid, so valueable i can't tell ya.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

With the Who - the 'Oo' - the other three put the humour back into it, balanced out Townsends masturbation. Think Cousin Kevin, Uncle Ernie and Bell Boy.

[Len Cnut]

With the Who - the 'Oo' - the other three put the humour back into it, balanced out Townsends masturbation. Think Cousin Kevin, Uncle Ernie and Bell Boy.

Did you watch that documentary that came out about Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp? If not you really must, i think you'll love it if you're at all interested in The Who.

[DieselDaisy]

That might get watched tonight!

They signed Jimi Hendrix no less to their label Track. It was Track which released the infamous Electric Ladyland nude woman sleeve,

[classicrawker]

Deep Purple Live in concert 72/73..........the 1972 Denmark black and white video is the only complete video in circulation of the MK II band in concert I know of and was recorded for Danish TV.

The 73 color footage is only 3 songs and was recorded after Gillan gave his notice. It is an interesting contrast between the two shows

[Len Cnut]

That might get watched tonight!

They signed Jimi Hendrix no less to their label Track. It was Track which released the infamous Electric Ladyland nude woman sleeve,

They also signed Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers and released the album i was telling you about...apparently it was the last they ever signed, they went bankrupt soon after, Johnny and them had to climb a drainpipe to break in to snatch their masters back.

On topic:

Edited November 16, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

[DieselDaisy]

Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child. Great documentary. It is probably the best I've seen concerning Jimi. It accompanies a compilation called West Coast Seattle Boy.

[Len Cnut]

[Len Cnut]

[DieselDaisy]

I just stayed up and watched Hendrix at the Royal Albert Hall. It is that concert that is at the heart of a furious legal battle between Hendrix's estate and the custodians. Basically you have this amazing show with spellbinding versions of Little Wing and Voodoo Chile, and you can only watch a dodgy bootleg video of it with iffy tracking at the bottom of the screen. All they need to do is reach an agreement and you have a pristine spanking new dvd of Hendrix at his peak, 1969, a gig which trounces Isle of Wight and Woodstock, in your collection.

The legal battle has been going on 45 years and we are still no further forward haha!

The concert itself is wonderful. They have the lights up and the audience is very 'English', very reserved, There is this stoned black guy however doing freaky hippy dancing and I'm sure it is the same chap who is present at The Stones' Hyde Park concert of the same year - running the risk of ''they (black people) all look alike'' there. Jimi trashes his strat and the crowd invade the stage (by this stage, the music had beaten the English reserve) and there is a prophetic shot of a shocked Hendrix later. Unfortunately there is a lot of rubbish with Hendrix in an airport which the filmmakers put in, and some photos where the film conks out (the audio recording is thankfully complete and brilliant for it).

Truly a sublime concert.

When are the two remaining Beatles going to release Let it Be by the way? I have my same bootleg VHS (since transferred to a DVD) which I picked up in a record fair in the 1990s!

PS

Looking at Youtube, there does not seem to be a complete clip (the owners seem like complete wankers so it does not surprise me, the thing being removed). Here however is 'Foxy Lady',

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4XFBQrLcFY

That is the quality.

If they solvethe jurisprudence, we would have a wonderful looking version of that.

Edited November 22, 2015 by DieselDaisy

[DieselDaisy]

Not bad for a bunch of old geezers. I preferred it to Zeppelin's reunion. Bit slicker and less a jam band than the old Cream - this is Cream with spectacles, a Stratocaster and a floppy haircut. Crossroads sounded a bit tepid to these ears - a Clapton solo rendition most obviously. It was also disappointing to see that Clapton had forgotten his wah-wah pedal for 'White Room'; you except those grungy psychedelic lines to arrive and instead find it has been replaced with mechanical bluesmanship. Nonetheless, you cannot really forgive the band for tightening up the ship in their old age, and their voices and instrumentation are just as good as ever. When you watch these guys it shames Axl really. Bruce and Clapton are if anything, better vocally than in their heyday!

They seem more like old Cream when Bruce takes lead and Ginger is a powerhouse as always.

I know Bruce and Baker ended up quarreling again and the whole thing ended with a feud (again!) haha. Somethings never change.

[Len Cnut]

Cream always did piss all over Zep. Did what they did first and better. Kinda The Pistols were to The Clash.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Len B'stard