Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 30

The last lost song from the 70s for January is Scott Fitzgerald with "Never Too Young To Rock" which was the theme tune to a curious film which featured a lot of glam rock songs. Scott would go on to have a hit later on with "If I Have Words" and then represent the UK in Eurovision in 1988.

Art - Martin Creed

I went to look at an exhibition at Spike Island which mainly had a series by Welsh artist Sean Edwards. But what caught my eye and my ire was this piece by Turner prize winner, Martin Creed.

This is entitled and is a piece of A4 paper crumpled into a ball. Creed says that he makes art works not as part of an academic exploration of 'conceptual' art, but rather from a wish to connect with people, 'wanting to communicate and wanting to say hello'. Well hello piece of paper. If you were mine, you would be heading to the bin, not being displayed in a glass case. Apparently, it came in its own box, surrounded by bubblewrap, in a case surrounded by packing paper in a crate. Ho hum! I don't react well to some modern art - and this is just ridiculous!

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 29

With the announcement that Blue will represent the UK in Eurovision 2011, here is a little look back at the original Blue and their only hit of any nature "Gonna Capture Your Heart"

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 28

Today the rave comes from the collaboration between former Animals lead singer, Eric Burdon, and funk group War. They came up with a couple of albums before War went on to have hits like "Low Rider". I love the swampy sound that they get here and Eric's spoken delivery may be an early example of rap.

Review - King's Speech

Somewhat belatedly I went to see the film of the moment, The King's Speech, which is hotly oscar-tipped. Colin Firth is clearly a favourite with his Dustin Hoffman-esque Rainman turn as the stammering Duke of York to King George VI. Geoffrey Rush has the showy part as the speech therapist, but it is Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen, who turns what is a two-parter into such an engrossing film. A good story, but this is engrossingly told and holds to all the Hollywood rules of the sports film with the underdog triumphing in the end. This is good solid film-making with a great cast acting its socks off. Definitely a great evening - 4 Stars.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 27

Today's 70s song comes from Detective, an unsuccessful band led by Michael Des Barres and signed to Led Zeppelin's label. Des Barres had a fearsome reputation for matching the Zeppelin crew for partying.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 26

From the end of the decade comes the eponymous small hit from Rich Kids, the band put together by former Sex Pistol, Glen Matlock, and former Slik singer Midge Ure. The band lasted but a blink in the eye, missing out on the powerpop movement.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 25

Today's rave is the follow-up to "Dancing In The City", Marshall Hain and "Coming Home" from the album Free Ride. This single did nothing - and Marshall went on to form the Flying Lizards.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 24

Today's rave sees country singer Mac Davis, writer of "In The Ghetto", appear on the Muppets and sing his hit "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me". It reached 29 in the charts

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 23

Today's rave comes from prog rockers Barclay James Harvest, the self proclaimed poor man's Moody Blues, with their non-hit "Titles" which is made up of Beatles' songs titles and the music is eerily similar too.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 22

From one of my all-time favourite bands, Birmingham-based City Boy, this is their first single and from their first album.It would take until "5-7-0-5" from their fourth album "Book Early" for this wonderful band to taste chart success. This is not the best version as all Top of the Pops songs had to be specially re-recorded by the band before performance.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 21

Today's 70's lost 45 is a 1972 hit from Australian Robin Jolley. The song was written by Brian Cadd and played on by members of Axiom, all famous Aussie pop-rockers. This was Jolley's biggest Aussie hit.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 20

Not so much a non-hit, but one that has been forgotten by radio as the Mud canon has been reduced to just "Tiger Feet" and "Lonely This Christmas". Watch as Les Gray gives it his all as the boys model the Status Quo dance. It is "Dynamite".

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 19

Todd Rundgren is a genius - both self-proclaimed and acknowledged. In the UK, he only had a minor hit with "I Saw The Light" and his reputation is based more on his guitar work and production work on "Bat Out Of Hell". This is "Hello It's Me", originally recorded when Todd was in The Nazz.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 18

The rave from the grave today hit number 1 in the USA in 1972 but did nothing in the UK. This is Mouth and MacNeal with "How Do You Do" a clap-along song. The Dutch duo would have a 1974 hit in the UK with their Eurovision song "I See A Star".

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 17

Today's rave from the grave follows the sad news that Harvey James, guitarist with Sherbet - and formerly Mississippi and Ariel, died this week. Here is their follow-up to "Howzat". This is "If I Had My Way" from the Paul Hogan Show. Great vocals from Daryl Braithwaite.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 16

Teen band Flintlock never quite made it despite a series of good singles. They fielded as drummer Mike Holoway from the Tomorrow People and had been featured on Pauline Quirke's show every week. This is "Dawn".

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 15

Today's 70s rave is from the Antipodes with New Zealand's Dragon and their song "Get That Jive". I don't think this was ever released in the UK. Bit of a different vibe to the disco of the Tee Cee's (yesterday's rave)

Gig Review - The Fuel and We Start Partys

Friday 14th January; Bristol O2 Academy; View : leaning against a railing

Friday night saw 4 unsigned local bands, three from Bristol and one from Cardiff bestride the Academy stage. First up were Beyond Recall, a noisy thrashy party guitar band based on the one song I saw - but the boys stayed on to cheerlead through the sets of the other three bands.

Go-X from Cardiff looked like they had just wandered in off a train and are blessed with a lead singer with a nice set of rock pipes and a hyperactive style leaping over the mike stand frequently. His between song patter needs work and the songs all had a buzzsaw attack to them.

There was a significant increase in quality when we Start Partys hit the stage with a keyboard/guitar interaction to a set of catchy songs. With three singers there was variety and the show with the group silhouetted in front of white searchlights showed an intriguing intellect behind the group. "Lose It", "Meet Me On The Dance Floor" and "Make Tonight" all rocked. All the group need now is to get some songs to go with the image and they can be huge.

Top of the bill were The Fuel, who were debuting their new bass and drum section and performed some new songs including tender ballad "Out of Sight". "Knocked Down" was its usual excellent self and Danny and Tom's harmonies were spot on. Unlike the other bands on the bill, the Fuel weren't afraid to allow light and shade into the songs. I think the set could have been paced better, but once more quality shone through. Mind you, a few new songs are needed to move the band up to the next level.

All in all a fun evening - 3/5

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 14

Today's rave is a disco track from 1978 back when everyone was getting into this disco fad! The Tee Cee's hide the fact this is Trevor Rabin, rock and AOR guru, who would go on to join prog rock group Yes and be credited with reviving their career. Enjoy "Disco Love Bite"

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 13

Ronnie Milsap with a country tearjerker. Need one say more?

rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 12

Sweet Sensation bring us today's rave from the grave with their second single which followed up "Sad Sweet Dreamer". Sweet Sensation came to the fore on New Faces, but lost their way and since then lead singer Marcel King sadly died early.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 11

Again not much of a video, but a great tune from the much underrated R Dean Taylor of "Gotta See Jane" fame. This is "Window Shopping".

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 10

Today's rave from the grave comes again from the 1970s and brings Jobriath to the table with "Rock of Ages". Jobriath was sadly all hype and no sales and his reputation only grew following his death. Now he is seen as a critical cog in the glam wagon.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 9

This is punk/ art-punk band Wire's first single off their debut Pink Flag album. They are still going strong with a new album and tour in Feb 2011.

Book - Silver Eagle - Ben Kane

Just finished "Silver Eagle", book 2 in Ben Kane's series about the Forgotten Legion featuring twin slaves Romulus and Fabiola who live and intertwine themselves at the time of the fall of the triumvirate and ends with the defeat of Pompey by Caesar. Juggling Fabiola in Rome and Romulus stuck in Asia as part of a captured Legion in the Parthian army means that the book is very disjointed and episodic with each chapter ending on a climax which then you have to wait a further chapter, with the lives being alternated.

Further, Kane interrupts the narrative flow with a lot of description about the historical detail. Now that is fine and great to add verisimilitude, but all too often it feels a little like a lecture by a historian - and the period is fascinating. Much of the description goes into the Mithraic religion imported by the Roman army from the Parthians.

Still it is all action with plenty of good battle scenes skilfully handled. Whether I shall stick the course for Book 3 "Road To Rome" remains to be determined.

Three Stars

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 8

Today's rave comes from 1972/3 and from Climax Chicago Blues Band, shortly to rename themselves Climax Blues Band with the non-hit "Mole On The Dole", possibly the only song ever about a mole.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 7

Canadian band The Guess Who with their tribute to famous DJ Wolfman Jack

Comedy gig - John Robins

Had a cracking evening at the Comedy Box watching stand-up headlined by Bristol comedian John Robins. His very self-effacing style and his narrative delivery, focussing mainly on the embarrassments of growing up had the audience in stitches. A great and lengthy story about romancing a girl via the online mode of meeting, followed stories of being bullied at school, inability to be less camp and confronting a noisy neighbour drum and bass party were all told with pleasing delivery and engaging personality. Two thumbs up - and well worth catching again.

The underbill saw David Ward doing a scattergun delivery of punchlines which tried to come on the back of interacting with the front row of tables. All went rather wrong when he picked on a girl called Lucy who was single and asked what happened in her last relationship. The answer was that he had died of a heart attack. Unfortunately, Ward tried to joke on that and a car crash ensued. Shame because otherwise he was amusing.

All in all a good evening - and go see John Robins!

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 6

Today's rave comes from the German electro band Can with an atypical single. I think they only did this because Kraftwerk had a hit with "Autobahn".

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 5

Today's rave comes from 1972 and sees Aussie band New World singing "Sister Jane"

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 4

From Canadian band Garfield, this is "All Alone Again Tonight". Not much of a video, and none of garfield's albums are available on cd - a crying shame. They were on the Capricorn label.

Bye bye Gerry Rafferty and Mick Karn

Two more great musicians passed away today. Gerry Rafferty was of course famous for "Baker Street" (on which Raf Ravenscroft played the sax solo contrary to the urban myth) but had started out singing with Billy Connolly in the Humblebums and then going into Steelers Wheel. Mick Karn of course was most famous for being in the seminal band Japan before releasing as many solo albums as David Sylvian. A couple of reminders:-

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 3

The third in this series of lost 45s sees Brooklyn Dream's "Street Man" (in its 12" version) swagger up to the mark. This was featured in a TV film called "Police Story" starring David Cassidy!

New band alert - We Start Partys

Local Bristol band, We Start Partys (excuse the grammar) and their spiffing video for "Tonight". Will they be the ones to break out in 2011?

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s - Number 2

Sugarloaf and "Don't Call Us"

Best Sitcoms of all-time - Part 3

Sitcoms set in the workplace are quite common, from the Rag Trade and On The Buses onwards, and whilst some of them are located solely in the workplace, mostly the characters leave the workplace to go home afterwards, and sometimes home life will bleed into the workplace. But there are a number of sitcoms which put a disparate bunch of people into a dislocation - most of these are armed forces related situations.

Today's sitcom is strange in that it puts a disparate group of people in a non-workplace situation - shipwrecked on a deserted island. Starring Bob Denver, "Gilligan's Island" saw the passengers of the SS Minnow trying to get on and to get off the island. One of the joys of the concept was seeing how they could get guest stars onto a supposedly deserted island. On one occasion a surfer managed to surf a tsunami in and the back out of the island!!

Gilligan's Island - if Allo Allo was inspired by Secret Army, then Gilligan's Island must have inspired Lost.

Rave from the Grave - Lost 45s

The first Rave from the Grave comes from Irish band Horslips:-

Best Sitcoms of all-time - Part 2

The sitcom has always revolved around the family unit, albeit with a set of grotesques often and with added dysfunctionality. The sitcom has been that - the comedy set in the sitting room - of which the Royle Family is the ne plus ultra of the genre - essentially a single set sitcom. It was ever thus from the days of the Ozzie & Harriet Show, All In The Family, Til Death Us Do Part; so it is only fitting to highlight sitcoms set away from the family and in the workplace - in this case the political arena which combines sitcom and satire.

The best political sitcoms were clearly Citizen Smith, in which Robert Lindsay played the anarchic leader of the Tooting Popular Front - a somewhat cuddly bunch; Yes Minister, which saw savage satire on a Conservative administration; and The Thick Of It, which updated the spin of the Yes Minister to a new labour setting with the foul-mouthed grotesque of Malcolm Tucker.

The workplace sitcom substitutes the relationships at work for the family and never better than the lack of control over the family shown by Paul Eddington as the minister.

A clip from each:-

Citizen Smith:-

Yes Minister:-

The Thick Of It:-

Best Sitcoms of all-time

Good moaning!

What is better on New Year's Day than the annual concert of Strauss waltzes from the Vienna Philharmonic? I'll tell you what - a few episodes on DVD of one's favourite sitcom! A sitcom should be like a pair of comfortable slippers, capable of welcoming you at anytime with chicken soup for the soul.

So what are the best sitcoms of all-time? I am sure there are plenty of worthy lists of them - but who cares. A good sitcom has to make you laugh and love the characters. So too must there be plenty of plot. That's why sitcom 1 must be "Allo Allo" a french farce in franglais - apeing the show "Secret Army" - with every (and I shall say this only once) cliche about the French, the English, the Germans and the Italians present and correct. Here is a little clip:-

More sitcom musing later - but just thank the lord that Cafe Rene still exists.