Thoughts from the Bus Stop

Coming past Kemp Town record shop Charlie's Orbit this morning on the bus, I noticed a sign on their door - 'Closing at 2pm on Wednesday 29th. Going to see Bjork.' Which reminds me, so am I!! In a month's time, at the ENO. Tickets were ridiculously expensive but I make excuses to myself - 'You don't have a coke habit, you don't gamble...you could do worse things with your dough...' I'm going to see Bjork!!!


0 comments | Post a Comment

On the beach this lunchtime. In a rare flash of credibility, the Palace Pier DJ is playing R.E.M.'s glorious At My Most Beautiful. What's got into you, man - lost your copy of Toto's Africa?!!


0 comments | Post a Comment

Yesterday I saw a lady in her seventies coming out of Asda wearing a Mel & Kim T-shirt. I love this town.
0 comments | Post a Comment

I'm back listening to Betty Boo again, after a chance conversation in the pub last week. My drinking companion (who in some parallel P!O!P! universe, I would have to marry merely for his Kylie rarities) nearly choked on his JD in delight when he discovered I was in possession of Ms Boo's Difficult Second Album, the grrrreat Grr, It's Betty Boo. Aah, you can't beat a bit of Love Hangover, dig that pedal steel... What a star she was. And she's not lost her pop magic either - she co-wrote Hear'Say's Pure & Simple. Granted, many of you will not thank her for this, but I love it, and I love her. The time is right for her to emerge from behind the scenes, rip the mic from the hands of Ronan the Barbarian, Sugary Spice and That One Whose Mum Was On Blue Peter, and claim her pop crown.

Alison Clarkson - where are you, baby?


0 comments | Post a Comment

Yesterday I went here and won a bottle of vodka in a Latvian raffle. True.
0 comments | Post a Comment

I've been after You Broke My Heart In 17 Places by Tracy Ullman for many moons now - you may well guffaw, but it's FULL of little pop gems. I remember stuff of hers from when I was little, notably her cover of Breakaway, and I even got hold of a 7" of this in Oxfam, but... I don't have a record player, so instead it hangs on my wall. (You are guffawing, aren't you?!) I also wanted to hear Tracy's versions of Kirsty MacColl's Motown-esque They Don't Know and Doris Day's Move Over Darling, both favourites of mine. Whenever I've found the album listed on a music site it's always been a 'this title is subject to 20-57 weeks delivery time' situation, and I did find it in HMV on Oxford St, but it was an import and they were after *£19.95* for it, the cheeky small persons. BUT: In a stunning charity shop incident this afternoon, I found a tape of it for 50p. Me. Gobsmacked. But dancin'.


0 comments | Post a Comment

Why don't you give it a try...you know you want to. Hmmmmm baby...
0 comments | Post a Comment

PLEASE, is there no escape from this woman?! Every shop I go in is playing one of her darn ditties, every time I switch on the radio there she is. STOP THE MADNESS!!!!! She is really very average and does NOT merit 24hr rotation on your shop / cafe / pub stereo...

Right, punkas, let's get back to something with a bit of kick - Come Out 2nite, by Sunderland's finest export, Kenickie. All hail! And nice one, Steve Packamac, for playing it just now. The magic starts with those handclaps at the beginning, and tumbles raucously through teenage drinkin', dancin' and flirtin', getting let off early for bad behaviour. Their wit and wisdom was just as fantastic as the music. 'It doesn't matter how much money we get, we'll always be attracted to things that are spangly and shiny, and I'll always look like I've just fallen over.' (Emmy-Kate Montrose) How I loved them - how I miss them.

Wear high heels, and get a record deal.


0 comments | Post a Comment