Wednesday, April 30, 2008

i feel sorry for the elephants

Being 10 years old at the time, The Young Ones TV show came about at completely the right time for me and my mates at school. So when they rose from the dead to record the first Comic Relief charity single, I couldn't have been happier.

Little did we know that this would eventually lead to The Stonk by Hale & Pace.

As Vyv says, "Completely ready when you are, Shaky!"

Cliff Richard and The Young Ones - Living Doll



The Young Ones - (All The Little Flowers Are) Happy



This is the B-side to the single, the kind of fly-on-the-wall-in-the-studio scrapping that Messrs Mayall, Planer and Edmondson would perfect with Bad News. But that, my friends will have to wait until a later time...

Visit - Comic Relief
Visit - The Young Ones
Visit - The Young Ones at the BBC
Visit - Cliff Richard

Sunday, April 27, 2008

memory lane

A quickie featuring some recently requested re-posts. If there's owt you want to hear again, drop us a line and we'll try to oblige. Thanks to Bokura no Poppopo~!, Katman and our old friend Anonymous for stopping by!

The Muppets - Halfway Down The Stairs
read the Original Post

Van Dyke Parks - The Eagle And Me
read the Original Post

The Ink Spots - I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

read the Original Post

Rabbinical School Dropouts - Cosmic Tree

read the Original Post

On a similar tip, I've put together a quick MuxTape of some of my favourite DominoRally moments - have a listen!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

old tige

I've recently been trawling for humorous songs from the darkest corners of my collection. Obviously, if you're going to do anything at all about comedy in music, you have to feature Half Man Half Biscuit. They're kind of the blueprint for how you can do this kind of thing well and for a long time - you just need to have a bit of intelligence.

I remember an article in an old copy of Smash Hits that looked at the finances of contemporary (mid 80s) musicians and the only act to make any kind of profit was HMHB. Wish I could remember who else was featured, but I do know they all had massive major label advances up the wazoo.

Half Man Half Biscuit - Old Tige

This was from their first Peel Session and was always one of my favourite recordings of theirs. Musically it's a pretty faithful talky-song until 1.29 when Nigel obviously gets bored and drops the cheesy American accent. At the end it all dissolves into some quite chilling Muttley-esque laughs.

Jim Reeves - Old Tige



The other week I was going through some of my late Grandad's old records when I found this, the original version of Old Tige. I still like the Half Man Half Biscuit version, but I really like the Jim Reeves version now as it shamelessly tugs at my heart strings.

The Biscuits didn't change any of the words in their version but even though I've heard them mercilessly ripping this song to shreds for years, I'm not ashamed to say that this is one of the saddest things I've ever heard - especially when the ghostly chorus cranks up in the dying seconds of the track.

If this doesn't get you, you either have a heart of stone or have never owned a dog.

Or you never had a Grandad who had a dog and who loved soppy country music.


Visit - Half Man Half Biscuit
Visit - Jim Reeves
Buy - Gentleman Jim - Definitive Collection (*doesn't have "Old Tige" but I can't find it anywhere. any ideas?)