A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSEMARTINS:
“For too long the ruling class have enjoyed an extended New Years Eve Party,
whilst we can only watch, faces pressed up against the glass.”
THE HOUSEMARTINS SAY:
“Don’t try gate crashing a party full of bankers. Burn the house down!”
TAKE JESUS - TAKE MARX - TAKE HOPE
—
A quote taken from the lyrics booklet of The Housemartins’ London 0 Hull 4 album.
What I wouldn’t do for a ‘TAKE JESUS - TAKE MARX - TAKE HOPE’ T-shirt.
Paul Heaton’s contribution to British music, both with the Housemartins and The Beautiful South, is totally undervalued
The Housemartins - The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death
They smiled so much and waved their flags As she saluted to the military band Most of the people failed to see She had a broken bottle in the other hand And she took them by surprise When she took them by the throat And said “My friend you’re not allowed to vote” But they shook it all off With a nervous laugh and cough “Next time,” she said “I’ll let those people choke”
The people who grinned themselves to death Smiled so much they failed to take a breath And even when their kids were starving They all thought the queen was charming
She polished all upon the wall And ran her hands right through her hair So if the lady took the time to call All the houses on the street would not compare
And she thought it really funny That she hadn’t any money But those she looked up to, they had But they shook it all off With a nervous laugh and cough And when they took her riches it was sad
The people who grinned themselves to death Smiled so much they failed to take a breath And even when their kids were starving They all thought the queen was charming
Ladies, imagine being a Vice writer. Just walking around everywhere with your entitlement and ennui and midlength penis all gently bouncing in step; wearing a male tank top or a waxed mustache or some shit. Imagine having an ironic, retro-sexist dudebro-voice and getting together with a couple of other white guys and some cocaine and making your not-at-all-different voices all sync up as tautly as your nihilistic senses of humor, then snuggling all up together (no homo!) in a big Bushwick loft of partially employed trust-fund kids while something noninformative is happening on the Internet. What a life. I guess there’s the whole “everyone in the world thinks I’m an asshole” thing to deal with, too, but let’s not split hairs here: Vice writers got it pretty fucking made.
An excellent rebuttal to the worst album review I’ve had the displeasure of reading.
After releasing one fairly good* and three excellent** albums, Los Campesinos! remain one of the most undervalued British bands of their generation. Most people view them as caught somewhere between twee and melancholia, but their musical ability and lyrics lift them above most of their contemporaries.
Tiptoe Through The True Bits was released today, available as a free download from here, a cast-off from their most recent album. It was left off largely because the band didn’t think it would fit with the rest of the album, but if they are able to throw away songs of this calibre, it’s difficult to argue they aren’t something special.
Also, here is Too Many Flesh Suppers, a reject from Romance Is Boring. Given away for much the same reasons as Tiptoe… it’s still a phenomenal song.
*Hold On Now, Youngster
**We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed; Romance Is Boring; Hello Sadness
This week struggling retailer and dog/gramophone fancier HMV released a list of films, as voted by the public, which it claimed were the best sixty of the last sixty years.
I like lists of cultural items, and films probably have a right to still be made, so I immediately criticised it and began construction of my own mental list.
It soon dawned on me that this list was not just a celebration of the art of film-making and the joy of cinema.
There is, in case you were lucky enough not to notice, a rather large and sycophantic party going on across Britain soon, because an unelected head of state hasn’t died of old age after a life of waving in the direction of some plebs.
So I decided that if I were to create my own list it should comprise of films which the Queen and the royal family would probably hate, or attacked everything that they stood for. Therefore, there is no Zulu, no The King’s Speech, and certainly no The Queen.
In no particular order:
1: Blow-Up (1966)
While ostentatiously the story of a photographer’s desent into probable madness, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up is also a great portrait of London during the 1960s.
2: Meantime (1984)
An attack on Thatcherism and a look at it’s gruesome effects on the working classes. Technically a TV movie, but was shown on the BBC, and you don’t get more British than that.
3: Trainspotting (1996)
One of the few cultural artefacts from the 90s actually worth preserving. One of the most exciting British films ever made, if maybe not the best.
4: Hunger (2008)
First directorial work from British artist Steve McQueen, capturing the hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Ireland by IRA prisoners. An unbelievably stark portrait of the Troubles.
5: If… (1968)
Malcolm McDowell wages the class war in a public school. Director Lindsey Anderson mixes surrealism and social realism to startling effect.
6: Four Lions (2010)
Chris Morris is nothing if not brave (and a comic genius). Here he takes in the subject of the war on terror, from the point of view of a Three Stooges-like gang of Muslim fundamentalists.
7: Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
Shot by Shane Meadows before he found widespread acclaim with This Is England. A brutal, dark revenge tale with an astonishing performence by Paddy Constantine.
8: The Wickerman (1973)
The original, not the Nicolas Cage led remake, which is both not British, and dreadful.
9: Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Manages to perfectly walk the line between parody and homage to the zombie movie genre (similar to The Cabin In The Woods, although with more emphasis on comedy), while also becoming a fine example of a zombie film.
10: The Damned United (2009)
A film which captures the British love of football, through the microcosm of the obsessive career of Brian Clough (played brilliantly, as usual, by Michael Sheen).
Although notables: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; In The Loop; The Inbetweener’s Movie; 28 Days Later; An Education; Kill List; Made In Britain; This Is England; Submarine; The History Boys; The Ladykillers; Goldfinger; countless others.
Please feel free to reblog with your suggestions. After all, what is the internet without debate?
