» Listings for 2023

1. 2023 Albums Thing #006 - Alice Cooper “Billion Dollar Babies”

   Posted on 5:10pm Thursday 12th Jan 2023

   As a kid first getting into music that I liked, rather than stuff I heard from my folks, Glam Rock was the first thing that caught my ear. Slade, T.Rex, Sweet…they were the bands that this 10/11 year old latched on to. Glam was simply the pop music of the time, hairy blokes with guitars and a knack with a chorus who’d all been paying their dues on the club circuit since the mid 60’s in most cases.

   And slightly off to one side, not quite Glam, but definitely hairy blokes with guitars, and a snake, was Alice Cooper. We just thought it was the singers name, not quite realising at that time Alice Cooper was a band. The song that stuck out to all us schoolkids was, of course, “School’s Out” but there were others that hit the charts, “Hello Hooray” and “Elected” which some years later I discovered were from an album called “Billion Dollar Babies”.

   It would have been the early 80’s when I heard the entire album and it’s been a favourite ever since. The aforementioned singles are both on side 1 with the title track and the closing, unsettling “Unfinished Sweet” wherein at a dental visit our hero is told “your teeth are OK but your gums gotta go” ! Side 2 opens with AC’s great anthem “Mo More Mr Nice Guy” and some more of the schlock-horror on which their stage show was based, the eerie “Sick Things” and the jaunty sing-a-long “I Love The Dead”.

   It was Glam but not as we knew it. It has proved influential, we’d argue that without the huge “influence” of Alice Cooper and Slade then Kiss would never have had a career. And we didn’t even get to the sleeve, in the days when artwork mattered…

   No More Mr Nice Guy - https://youtu.be/_yo1S50Aqoo

2. 2023 Albums Thing #005 - The Adverts “Crossing The Red Sea With…”

   Posted on 7:15pm Wednesday 11th Jan 2023

   In the early 2000’s me, my wife Deb and our great friend Dawse found ourselves in the Moseley Arms in Birmingham thinking “this can’t be where TV Smith is playing”. The pub was full of “old” guys in their 40’s with beer bellies seemingly all dressed in distressed brown leather jackets. “Where are the Punk Rockers” we were thinking. Then it dawned on us, these WERE the Punk Rockers !

   That night TV Smith, one man and his acoustic guitar, tore through a set of his songs running from his current album and stretching back to songs from this album, one of the great underrated albums, and songwriters, of the first wave of Punk. In the upstairs room of a pub in the backstreets of Brum a guy who should be lauded as a songwriter gave one of the most energetic performances I’ve ever seen.

   You can feel Howard Pickup’s guitar slashing at you, bassist Gaye Advert’s parts may have been simple but hearing them played live by someone else (TV Smith & The Bored Teenagers at the 100 Club some 30 years later) proves they were integral to driving these songs along…and then there are TV’s lyrics. We’d argue this album has more quotable opening lines than many others, “Life’s short don’t make a mess of it”, “But I don't believe you have to be an idiot to get somewhere these days“, “We're talking into corners finding ways to fill the vacuum”, “The great British mistake was looking for a way out, Was getting complacent”…they just keep coming. There are 3 hit singles on here too.

   TV Smith is still toting his acoustic around Europe playing with as much energy and conviction as a teenager. We were lucky enough to get to know him and when we still lived in Birmingham he would stay with us after gigs to save on hotel bills. He and The Adverts deserve to be hailed along with the best that the first wave of Punk delivered.

   The Great British Mistake - https://youtu.be/klQH7k-5dEw

3. 2023 Albums Thing #004 - ABC “The Lexicon Of Love”

   Posted on 9:20am Tuesday 10th Jan 2023

   Any conversation revolving around the subject of Greatest Debut Albums, in our opinion, has to include a consideration of this pop behemoth, it is quite simply stunning…yeah snigger if you like but we’re serious and it’s you that’s missing out.

   It all starts with the songs and the songs here are sublime. Martin Fry’s lyrics hark back to another age, to the great songwriters of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s (think Cole Porter, Rodger’s and Hart) and are heartfelt and a little bit sarcy/clever, clever at the same time. Trevor Horn’s production is superb, mostly aimed straight at the dancefloor but also grandiose in the extreme on a ballad like “All Of My Heart”. Most of this production team would go on to ZTT Records and the production on Frankie’s “Welcome To The Pleasure Dome”.

   We have four top 20 singles ("Tears Are Not Enough" (#19), "All of My Heart" (#5), "Poison Arrow" (#6) and "The Look of Love (Part One)" (#4)), the album went to number 1 in the UK and still sounds bloody fantastic 41 years after it’s original release.

   Pure pop music in the extreme…if you never have, go on, give it a try

   All Of My Heart - https://youtu.be/Lfph3043yZU