Box Set: Book Reviews

 A collection of some of my recent book reviews...

It looks as though some of you aren't aware that I now have a new website (which you can find here), and are still hanging around here wondering where all the new 'content' is. Well it's over there, obviously. To give you all some idea of where to start, though, I'm adding some new posts here with themed collections of links, and this time it's some of my recent book reviews and a couple of other related bits and pieces...

Ashes To Ashes - The Songs Of David Bowie 1976-2016 by Chris O'Leary

How Does It Feel? - A Life Of Musical Misadventures by Mark Kermode

Psychedelia And Other Colours by Rob Chapman

I'm Not With The Band by Sylvia Patterson

1966 - The Year The Decade Exploded by Jon Savage

The Books I Couldn't Help Thinking About - a look at some of the writers that have had the most significant influence on me, including Richard Herring, Caitlin Moran, Andrew Collins, Nicholas Pegg, Stuart Maconie and more.

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You can find more not especially highbrow literary criticism in The Camberwick Green Procrastination Society, available in paperback here, from the Kindle Store here, or as a full-colour eBook here.

Twelve Radio Programmes That Need To Be Given A Proper Release

Amazingly, there are still some well-known - or at least well-regarded - radio programmes that are not available to buy either on CD or as downloads. Here are twelve that I think deserve a wider audience...

The Psychedelic Spy (BBC Radio 4, 1990)

Writer Andrew Rissik was responsible for this witty, action-packed pastiche of every last military-jacketed secret agent from lurid late sixties pulp paperbacks and equally lurid mind-hurting lava lamp-drenched late sixties post-Bond cinematic knock-offs, following reluctant globetrotting spy Billy Hindle as he wrestles with the end of the sixties - Rissik deliberately set it in 1968 as "by then the whole thing had turned sour" - and the constant demands of his superiors to take on 'just one last job'. The impressive cast includes such pop art-hued espionage drama veterans as James Aubrey, Joanna Lumley, Gerald Harper and Ed Bishop. The Psychedelic Spy occasionally shows up on Radio 4 Extra, but really is crying out for a proper release in suitable pastiche packaging.


Black Cinderella Two Goes East, Or Confessions Of A Glass Slipper Tryer-Onner (BBC Radio 2, 1978)

A decidedly non-family friendly pantomime as the comedy stars of the sixties - Peter Cook, John Cleese, David Hatch, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Jo Kendall - join forces with their late seventies counterparts Douglas Adams, John Lloyd, Clive Anderson and Rory McGrath for a half-satirical half-silly sendup of standard issue oh-no-he-isn't clichés with a side order of sarcastic comment about rampant strike-mania. Also making slightly more incongruous appearances are wartime radio laughtermaker Richard Murdoch, Ragtime presenter Maggie Henderson, and self-mocking real-life Lib Dem MP - for about another five minutes - John Pardoe. The overall effect is essentially an I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again sketch run nightmarishly beyond control, which is every bit as fantastic as that sounds. Black Cinderella Two Goes East is widely circulated amongst collectors, but otherwise is a noticeable omission from the available works of certain performers whose every last other recorded moment has been repackaged again and again and again.


The Chris Morris Music Show (BBC Radio 1, 1994)

Still seeing himself as very much a pop radio DJ rather than a television comedian, Chris Morris followed the success of The Day Today with a high-profile, much-coveted and long-promised slot on Radio 1. What followed can best be described as barely controlled mayhem, with a suspension partway through the run and the show pulled off air shortly before broadcast on more than one occasion; and yet every single second of it was achingly, genuinely side-splittingly funny. And of course you can find the full story of that in my book Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1. From caustic tearing apart of the mechanics of journalism and surreally humiliating celebrity interviews to simply making fun of records he actually liked, Chris Morris hit Radio 1 like nothing before and arguably nothing after it. Inevitably his reign of terror (or, as he preferred, 'playing records and shouting') didn't last very long - as much because of fresh television offers as any nervousness over the content - but it disappeared as quietly as it arrived loudly; a sole promised BBC Radio Collection compilation, Newshound From Hell, ran into clearance problems and was never released. Possibly the single most important and influential radio comedy show of the nineties, and you can't buy a single second of it.


Lee & Herring (BBC Radio 1, 1994-95)

While not quite as problematic as their old comedy cohort Chris Morris, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring also enjoyed a significantly longer stint as 'proper' Radio 1 DJs, their popularity underlined by their briefly joining the roster of Top Of The Pops presenters. In addition to playing weird and wonderful records that may well have never been heard on any other radio show ever, they also spent their time trying out new comic ideas and encouraging the audience to indulge in situationist pranks such as paying to advertise their show in newsagents' windows; indeed, many of their most famous characters and routines including the lists of ridiculous pun sitcom titles, Ian News, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Harris and The Fake Rod Hull made their first appearances here. Yet despite the rabidly obsessive nature of their still considerable fanbase, little of the Radio 1 shows has been heard from that day to this. A couple of sketches escaped as extras on the Fist Of Fun DVDs, but apart from that, nothing. There's a couple of good compilations in them at least. And I said good compilations, not those rubbish ones Radio 1 did after they left. Incidentally, those compilations are covered along with the actual proper shows in Fun At One...


Room 101 (BBC Radio 5, 1992-94)

Room 101 was much better in the early Nick Hancock-presented days, but even better still in its original Nick Hancock-presented radio incarnation. With no audience and on the whole a more interesting selection of guests, they had to rely more on actual reasons and often hilarious anecdotage to get their choices in - and Hancock in turn had to argue harder to keep them out - and it was a far more esoteric and cerebral show than you might understandably expect. A handful of editions were repeated on Radio 1 and later on Radio 4 Extra, but most remain unheard from that day to this; the impressive roster of guests included Paul Merton, Jo Brand, Danny Baker, David Baddiel, Steve Punt, John Walters, Frank Skinner, Trevor And Simon and Donna McPhail. Clip clearance and the sheer number of choices that would prove 'problematic' post-Yewtree probably mean that compilations are the best we'll get, but if you've never heard of O! Punchinello, 'This Train Has Failed' or Golfiana, or indeed heard Danny Baker explaining why he hates Pete Sinfield of King Crimson's solo album so much, you'll probably agree that we need some.


Orbiter X (BBC Light Programme, 1959)

You can read a lot more about this fantastic Cold War-allegorising tale of space station subterfuge here; what's surprising is that despite the enduring popularity of the long-running Journey Into Space, the BBC have never really done very much with the various serials that followed in its wake, such as Orbiter X, Orbit One Zero, The Lost Planet and Nicholas Quinn - Anonymous. They have all spent far too long gathering cosmic dust and it would be nice to see them given the exposure and recognition they deserve. Preferably with booklets featuring rare photos and archive material.


Patterson (BBC Radio 3, 1981)

Radio 3 went through a very odd phase of trying to score a hit highbrow sitcom in the eighties, including such angular and intellectual takes on the genre as Such Rotten Luck and Blood And Bruises; the closest they came to scoring an actual success with audiences and critics alike was with the genuinely brilliant Patterson. Written by Malcolm Bradbury and Christopher Bigsby - not exactly your average sitcom scriptwriter pairing - the series was a loose thematic follow-on from the former's celebrated novel The History Man, and followed hapless University lecturer Andrew Patterson through a chain of absurdist happenings on campus; as you are probably imagining, it does bear some strong - though apparently genuinely coincidental - similarities to A Very Peculiar Practice. Repeated once by Radio 2 in a new Radio 2-friendly re-edit, it still inspires a significant online following, which makes its failure to resurface all the more like Prof. Misty has been put in charge of remembering it.


The Mary Whitehouse Experience (BBC Radio 1, 1989-90)

Staggeringly, apart from The Mary Whitehouse Experience Encyclopedia and a couple of bits on individual live videos (oh, and Minutes Of The Parish Council Meeting, if you insist), nothing from any incarnation of The Mary Whitehouse Experience has ever been made commercially available. This is astonishing when you consider both how popular and influential it was; rumours have long flown around that this was in fact down to one of the team blocking it, but while I was researching Fun At One all four confirmed to me that this wasn't the case (as, for that matter, did Mark Thomas, Jo Brand and one of Skint Video) so we can discount that right now. A couple of people associated with the show indicated that the issue had been raised with BBC Worldwide who felt that it was 'too topical', which if true indicates that nobody working there had ever actually heard any of it. Newman, Baddiel, Punt and Dennis are all still hugely successful - more so than ever in some cases - and enough time has elapsed for the original long-sleeve-t-shirt-sporting listeners to become genuinely nostalgic for it, so why isn't any of it available to buy? Conclusion: Ken Dodd Is Innocent.


Collins And Maconie's Hit Parade (BBC Radio 1, 1994-97)

Andrew Collins and Stuart Maconie - and resident weekly 'guest' David Quantick - were Radio 1's in-house acerbic music critics with a proper music show during some very interesting times for pop music, which amongst many highlights saw them delivering arguably the definitive take on the Blur/Oasis chart battle, and reacting live to Jarvis Cocker's stage invasion at the Brit Awards. There were plenty of discussions worth revisiting, numerous 'guset critics' who have gone on to enjoy greater prominence, and the weekly 'Quantick's World' rants, which as good as deserve an entire release on their own; not that Morrissey or Paul Weller would be too happy about that, mind. There are tons of contributions to other shows worth considering too, including their 'Eyewitness Reports' for The Evening Session, and the absurd bit of 'walking across the BBC' business they did when guest-hosting the following show. All of which, incidentally, is covered in a certain book...


The Graveyard Shift (BBC Radio 1, 1993-97)

If one show exemplified Radio 1's superb and much-needed early nineties reinvention, it was the late-night shenanigans of Mark Radcliffe, Marc Riley and their various friends, wellwishers and hangers-on. Promising "poetry, comedy, live music and a boy called Lard", it delivered all of this and more, day in day out, with the playlist of promising indie singles - effectively an unofficial testing ground for what might work on daytime radio, and a few major mid-nineties hits got their first play here - interspersed with lengthy and freewheeling chats on any given subject from whether Lady Chatterley's Lover needed 'spicing up' to an argument over what prog rock track was used as the theme music for Weekend World, with interjections from comedians and critics, notably Andrew Collins' diary readings, Stuart Maconie's 'veritable smorgasbord', Mark Kermode's Cult Film Corner and John Shuttleworth's rambling updates on his promising musical career. Oh and not forgetting 'Slippers, Please!'. Just imagine if there was a book covering all of this. A CD compilation of some of the regular sketches was released at the time, but we really could do with something more representative of the shu-, which after all was always full of loads of quality items. And him, Boy Lard.


Kremmen Of The Star Corps (Capital Radio, 1976-80)

One of the few commercial radio shows that would ever warrant a commercial release, Kenny Everett recorded dozens upon dozens of episodes of tongue-in-cheek cliffhanging sci-fi serial adventures of Captain Elvis Brandenburg Kremmen for Capital Radio during the seventies, some of which were later adapted for the animated version in his ITV sketch show. In fact, Captain Kremmen was just one of several ideas Everett developed for a London-only audience that ended up attracting national attention, which just serves to underline what a true one-off genius he was. One full story was released as the The Greatest Adventure Yet From Captain Kremmen LP in 1979, and a couple of others escaped on Capital promo singles and prize giveaways, but surprisingly nobody seems to have thought of stringing the rest of them together in box set form yet. The Thargoids have probably drained the idea from our collective intelligence.


Rawlinson End (BBC Radio 1, 1971-91)

English as tuppence, changing and changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, Viv Stanshall's tales of life - or at least what passed for it - in and around Rawlinson End were one of the most popular features of John Peel's show, and used to provoke a flood of calls and letters asking if they were available to buy. And yet, one single album of rearranged and rerecorded early episodes aside, they never have been. The original unexpurgated exploits of Sir Henry, Aunt Florrie and unwilling company should be held up as a triumph of the language to rank with Dickens, Wodehouse and Adams, but instead they are just sort of sat on a shelf somewhere like disregarded souvenirs from military service in some far flung corner of the Empire. Perfectly in keeping with Rawlinson End itself, maybe, but an entirely ridiculous situation. Mrs. E, we do know what we want and we want it now! And if you want to know more? Now read on, dot dot dot dot dot...

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And while we're all waiting, you can read more about Rawlinson End, Kenny Everett, Lee And Herring, Chris Morris, The Graveyard Shift and Collins And Maconie in Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1, available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Fun At One At The Kindle Store

Fun At One, the story of comedy at BBC Radio 1, is now available on the Kindle Store. It's a complete history of all things amusing on the BBC's pop station, all the way from Kenny Everett messing about with tape loops in the late sixties, right up to Dan And Phil and their 'Internet Takeover'. And along the way there's plenty on Chris Morris, The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Lee & Herring, Viv Stanshall, Collins & Maconie, Armando Iannucci, Vic Reeves, Victor Lewis-Smith, John Shuttleworth, Mark & Lard and many, many more. Yes, even Smashie & Nicey.

What's more, it's been very very slightly updated, with a show I missed the first time around, and even more details of commercial releases of Radio 1 comedy. Yes, Hector Spankfield is at large again...

You can get Fun At One from the Kindle Store by clicking here. Or, if you'd rather get the paperback to sit alongside The Mary Whitehouse Experience Encyclopedia and Hmmm Baby, then you can find that here.

The Top Ten Radio 1 Comedy Rarities

If you've read my book Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1, you may have spotted a few interesting little-heard shows and wondered how you might get to hear them. Well, here are ten of the most interesting little-heard shows, featuring a couple of very familiar names...


The Chris Morris Christmas Show (1990)


Chris Morris' little-heard debut appearance on Radio 1 from Christmas Day 1990, proving a little too strong for nervous 'suits' who neglected to invite him back in the New Year.


Rob And Dave's Comedy Phone-In (1990)


Rob Newman and David Baddiel try their hand at being DJs. Some of the musical choices are amusingly at odds with the image that they tried to project only a year or two later.


Steve 'More Music' Nage (1988)


Victor Lewis-Smith poses as Radio 1's hot new signing fresh from in-store radio, but does he manage to fool anyone...?


John Peel With Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and Stuart Maconie (1996)


Standing in for Mark Radcliffe on The Graveyard Shift, John Peel and a fantastic line-up of guests discuss the 'Swedish Elvis', which of The Goodies is the best at fighting, when Noel Edmonds did and didn't have a beard, and the true horror of Radio's 'Spam Fritter Man'.


Sound Bites With David Baddiel (1991)


David Baddiel and Armando Iannucci sift through cassettes of music and comedy sent in by talented listeners, including the legendary demo tape from one Cameron Ingrams.


Skyman (1993)


Mark Radcliffe's little-remembered sci-fi sketch and music show, broadcast alongside Out On Blue Six and making up the most mind-melting ninety minutes ever heard on Radio 1.


Jools Holland (1993)


It's widely forgotten now but the post-The Tube Jools Holland fancied himself as a bit of a comic, and was pretty good at it too. Here's an episode of his Madcap Ealing-esque globetrotting sitcom, which sees him in search of the lyrics to an old blues record with a little help from Vic Reeves.


Newsbanger (1992)


The little-heard Radio 1 special of Radio 4's rockarama newsbanana, with a priceless introduction from Simon Bates, and a touching heartfelt message from Armando Iannucci at the end.


John Shuttleworth Presents Alan's Big 1FM (1994)


When Alan Davies goes on holiday for two weeks in the middle of a running storyline on his own show, it's up to John to try and make sense of things.


The Chris Morris Music Show - 'Heseltine' (1994)



And finally, yes, it's THAT one... and in full!

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Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1, which covers all of the above and more, is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1

Fun At One is a book about comedy on BBC Radio 1.

Launched in 1967, the BBC’s pop music station often provided an outlet for comics who struggled to get exposure elsewhere, from humorous disc jockeys of the late sixties and early seventies, through to edgy standup comedians in the late eighties, and more than one whose act defies description even today. Noel Edmonds, Kenny Everett, John Peel and Steve Wright all came to attention on Radio 1, while the station would also provide early exposure for Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Stephen Fry and Stewart Lee amongst many others.

Fun At One traces the story of comedy on Radio 1 from its launch – when a team of former Pirate Radio DJs tried their hardest to live up to the claim that ‘Radio One Is One-derful’ – to more recent experiments with podcasting and streaming video, and covers everything from guest spots and interviews to full-on speech comedy shows. Along the way it covers Kenny Everett, Viv Stanshall, Adrian Juste, Lenny Henry, Victor Lewis-Smith, The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Lee & Herring’s Fist Of Fun, The Chris Morris Music Show, Mark & Lard, Blue Jam and much more besides, not to mention such unexpected figures as Eric Idle, Ivor Cutler, Keith Moon, Roger McGough, Jonathan Ross, Vic Reeves, Danny Baker, Jools Holland, John Shuttleworth and – of course – Smashie & Nicey.

With a foreword by TV Cream founder Phil Norman, Fun At One includes transmission details for all of the shows covered, and new interviews with many of the major figures, from late sixties veterans to the station’s newest signings, as well as the first ever first-hand account of one of the most notorious incidents in Radio 1′s history. Fun At One is an essential addition to any library, but particularly one that’s had a large shotgun hole blasted in it by Sir Henry Rawlinson.

You can get Fun At One in paperback here, or from the Kindle Store here.

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If you've already got Fun At One, you can find more books by me here.

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Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1 is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

The Nation's Not-Quite-As-Favourite

Some time ago, I had an idea for a book about comedy on Radio 1.

Well, it wasn't really a book at first. Initially it was just a list of transmission dates for all those Radio 1 comedy shows I'd once listened to religiously - somewhat ironic, considering the religion-baiting themes that many of them had mined for their humour - such as The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Blue Jam, Victor Lewis-Smith, The Chris Morris Music Show, Lee & Herring's Fist Of Fun and, erm, Intimate Contact With Julian Clary, really more for my own amusement than anything else. Then I started to get curious about all of those shows that I hadn't liked. And then the ones that I'd never even heard of. And what about all of those magazine, documentary and even DJ shows that were essentially 'comedy' in all but name? Needless to say, that list would soon expand into something far more substantial, so come with me now into the swirling mists of human inadeq...

Anyway, eventually, after long hours spent scouring randomly through Radio Times listings and attempting to negotiate copies of off-air recordings of the little-heard likes of Songlines, Windbags and Z Magazine from surprisingly cautious collectors, the time came to try and pester a couple of erstwhile performers and producers into answering a couple of questions, clearing up a couple of obscure details, and generally reminiscing about their days spent trying to fit jokes around Bomb The Bass records. And, surprisingly, nearly all of them were prepared to have a bit of a chat with the self-publishing nobody with the bizarre open-ended research project. From Mark Radcliffe and David Baddiel to Dave Cash and Danisnotonfire and even zany old Chris Morris, they were all more than happy to spend half an hour or so nattering about mostly long-forgotten shows that they clearly all still held a great deal of affection for, and seemingly everyone that I spoke to had an almost inexhaustible supply of amusing behind-the-scenes anecdotes or recollections of sketches and routines that had given them a rarely-recaptured professional thrill. Needless to say, there were plenty of exciting moments in all this, from The Mary Whitehouse Experience's original producer Bill Dare breathlessly recounting virtually word for word his experiences both encouraging and bruising with BBC 'suits', to The Ginger Prince from Radio Tip Top suddenly breaking into character on the phone when I managed to track him down after months of effort, to Adrian Juste's extraordinary rant about how "it's very unhealthy to let politicians, and this preponderance of celebrity nonentities we have now, get away with the crap they spout uncontested... they are so up their own arse, and getting worse, if you don't stop them by pricking their little bubbles of pomposity... we all need a good laugh now and again - at their overpaid, mollycoddled expense". But, just occasionally, there were slightly more uncomfortable moments.

Sometimes, in the progression of the conversation, the names of some of the more comedy-averse (usually in both senses) 'old guard' of daytime DJs would come up, and that was the point at which many of the older contributors, from both in front and behind the microphone, would suddenly go a bit quieter. Often this went no further than moving rapidly on to the next question, but once or twice, one or two of them tried to subtly drop hints that there was some sort of potential minefield here that should be avoided at all costs. Without wishing to give too much away, one individual who was involved in an on-air prank at the expense of a now-discredited DJ darkly hinted that they weren't just sending him up as an affectionate in-joke, and virtually spat out every word when having to actually talk about him as a person. Meanwhile, one Radio 1 veteran went even further and, without even hinting at details, named names, warning against featuring them in any detail or even in any context because it wasn't likely to be long before "some stuff will come out about them and nobody will want anything to do with your book". What this 'stuff' might have been, I had no idea, and looking back now I'm glad that I didn't.

In the meantime, work on what would eventually become Fun At One continued apace and its scope increased dramatically, extending to cover not just such nominally non-comedy shows as In Concert, Collins And Maconie's Hit Parade and The Antiques Record Roadshow, but all kinds of other rarely acknowledged cornerstones of Radio 1's output like Newsbeat, live sessions and late night dance music shows; sorry, but you'll have to buy the book to find out exactly how and when they collided with the world of comedy. And, on top of all that, every time that I thought I'd finally managed to find the whole lot of them, the list of actual proper comedy shows kept on increasing too. The happily accidental upshot of all this was that, with a couple of notable (and thankfully all still respectable) exceptions, there was literally no room nor indeed need to mention any of the self-styled 'Welly Boot Mafia' as anything more than passing references. Which was handy as, frankly, none of them were ever that amusing, or even likeable, and in short there are few things less funny than someone who thinks that they are.

Eventually, after what seemed like endless amounts of research, writing and rewriting, not to mention a last minute change to the entire final chapter when Radio 1 decided to actually start making comedy shows again, Fun At One was finally ready to hit the virtual presses. Graham and Jack Kibble-White helped out with some amazing design work, Ben Baker came up with some great promotional ideas, and the few people who had read it in advance of publication all seemed to be confident that it would be a huge success. And then... well, you all know what happened next.

In fairness, quite a few people were very generous in their attempts to help plug Fun At One - I'm particularly grateful to Richard Herring - but, well, it really was just the wrong book at the wrong time. Regrettably, that cautious interviewee had been proved right; nobody was saying as much, but by then it really wasn't the done thing to be seen to be celebrating Radio 1 in any way, and, well, it seems that it still isn't the done thing. At the time of writing, Fun At One has been outsold three times over by my anthology of pieces on neglected TV Not On Your Telly, a good third of which had already seen print in one form or another. Even fan forums that I'd assumed would go wild for the book seemed to be giving it a wide berth. This isn't a whinge or a complaint by the way - it would be crass to intimate that a couple of pages about Sound Bites With David Baddiel was somehow more important than the vexing questions of how and why those scrawny old bastards got away with what they did for so long, let alone use it as an excuse for a sales pitch (though doubtless some prats on Twitter will accuse me of doing just that) - and sometimes it's just the way these things turn out. In fact, in moments of sharing the unease, I've actually considered withdrawing Fun At One from sale once or twice, though more sensible people have always talked me out of that.

What this is a plea for, though, is for an end to this tainting of the whole of Radio 1 by association. As Fun At One arguably demonstrates, there was - and is - so much more to the station and its staggeringly broad output than the off-air antics of a handful of presenters who were only there for a fraction of its existence anyway, and all of it deserves celebration and appreciation that now seems to be roundly denied. Which is understandable, but has to stop some time. So go out and listen to a BBC Sessions album by The Beatles, Belle & Sebastian, The Jimi Hendrix Experience or whoever takes your fancy. Catch the imminent repeats of series two of Blue Jam on Radio 4 Extra. In short, remember what you liked about Radio 1, and start liking it all over again. Because, let's be honest about it, nothing would have hurt those talentless egomaniacs more than being overshadowed by something that was actually good.

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Fun At One - The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1 is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

The Memorex Years - Maps 'You Don't Know Her Name'

Here's another guest post that came about as a result of The Memorex Years, and again it was for Sweeping The Nation, as part of their decade-to-date retrospective Noughties By Nature. By this time I wasn't really finding much in the way of 'new' bands that I liked, and Maps were one of the few that did catch my ear. As a consequence there's a bit of sniping at TV talent shows, which I wouldn't neccessarily agree with now, and a bit of sniping at tedious watered down production line 'indie' bands, which I very much would still agree with now. Radcliffe and Maconie were on Radio 2 in the evening at that point, by the way. Very strange to think that needs explaining now...

In this day and age of identikit asymmetrically-haircutted guitar bands who are barely distinguishable from each other (far more so than any X Factor contestant), it's not that easy to find yourself getting very excited about a genuinely 'new' artist. Which is why it's all the more exciting when a record by one such genuinely 'new' artist sneaks up and surprises you in the midst of washing-up-soundtracking Radcliffe & Maconie that you only really had on for This Just In anyway.

You Don't Know Her Name has a solid grasp of what made indie great in the past - it has the moody and malevolent ambience of the sort of record that they stopped making in about 1993 (or, to be more accurate, that Ride, Catherine Wheel and My Bloody Valentine stopped making in about 1993), so much so that you can almost hear Mark Goodier jabbering an endearingly ill-fitting endorsement over the conclusion, and the wobbly intro is uncannily reminiscent of a shaky mispressed 7" bought in Woolworths' bargain bin the week it had fallen twenty places in the chart - but an equally solid grasp of what's relevant now; namely huge anthemic choruses and analogue synths repurposed to sound 'modern'. You get the best of both worlds with this song and it really ought to have followed Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs into the charts and being slapped all over 'tonight... on BBC1!' rundowns.

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If you enjoyed this review, you might enjoy Higher Than The Sun - the story of Screamadelica, Foxbase Alpha, Bandwagonesque, Loveless and Creation Records' first attempt at taking on the world - which is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

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American Pie: Decoded

Don't you just hate American Pie?

No, not those sub-Porky's teen comedy film things (though they're pretty hateful too, now that you come to mention it), but the perpetually busker-endorsed song by Don McLean. Far from being the poignant portrait of post-adolescent disillusionment that it's so often portrayed as, it's actually more like intolerable whingeing from someone who never could quite get over the fact that he grew up and became too old to dance the 'jitterbug' at High School Hops while trying to look at cheerleaders' arses, and resented the fact that all those young upstarts had the temerity to like Bob Dylan and The Byrds instead of Bill Haley And The Comets, like some horrible twisted backwards version of The Wonder Years gone nightmarishly wrong.

The absolute worst thing about it is that, judging from the genuinely heartfelt Vincent, it was written by someone who should have known better (and anyway, if he hated all post-Buddy Holly music so much, why did he bother adding to it himself, especially with such a dreary effort?). Perhaps realising all this, McLean has always refused to discuss the all-too-obvious meanings behind the song's lyrics, recently commenting that "whatever it makes you think about, that's what it means to you". Well, since you put it like that...

A long, long time ago... I can still remember
This is of course just simple scene-setting, with the narrator explaining that though the events in this song took place a long time ago, he can still remember them, like some sort of superpowered Stuart Maconie listening to Back In Denim. Or, if you will, The Incredible String Band's hilariously unimpressive claim to be able to "remember quite well".

How that music used to make me smile
Lily Allen, it would seem, is a key figure in this unfolding story.

And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while
So the narrator was involved in some sort of joint artistic venture with Lily Allen, undertaken with the laudable intention to enrich the lives of the public through the medium of dance.

But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Unfortunately, something had gone wrong during the financial negotiations over this project, and the narrator was reduced to supplementing his income with a paper round during the coldest month of the year ("WHICH IS AUGUSTS, HA HA!!1" - Andy Parsons, yesterday).

Bad News on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
Then things suddenly changed when, while delivering a paper to one particular house, he chanced upon Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson dressed as spoof Heavy Metal stars, and was so struck by this that he vowed to never again further supplement his income by stealing doorsteps and selling them on the black market.

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Furthermore, the encounter robbed him of his suddenly-not-so-impressive powers of recollection.

But something touched me deep inside
The Day The Music Died
In his confused state, he wandered home and tuned in to Radio 2, where Andrew Collins' hilarious satires of the music industry struck a chord with his recent experiences.

So bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Suddenly freshly motivated by this experience, the narrator recalls Alyson Hannigan at the front door, bidding farewell her real-life husband and fellow star of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Alexis Denisof.

Drove my Chevy to the Levy
But the Levy was dry
Alexis heads off in his car and picks up Chevy Chase, with the intention of meeting 1980s fan rabble-rouser and editor of Doctor Who Bulletin, Gary Levy, for a night of booze-fuelled revelry. However, Levy has decided to go teetotal, thus threatening to scupper their plans.

And them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing "this’ll be the day that I die, this’ll be the day that I die"
The day is saved by The Dukes Of Hazzard, who are sitting in a corner drinking a strange concoction of malt liquor and bread, and who are already so inebriated that they are unable to correctly recall world-famous Buddy Holly lyrics.

Did you write The Book Of Love?
For reasons that are not yet clear, the song begins directly addressing William Kotzwinkle, screenwriter for the Michael McKean-starring 1990 romantic comedy The Book Of Love.

And do you have faith in God above
If the Bible tells you so?
And a similar direct address is made to Richard Dawkins, off of Doctor Who. The answer is, presumably, 'no'.

Do you believe in rock ’n roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
Time for an unexplained narrative lurch, as the action seems to have relocated to a Gospel Choir-heavy chuch.

And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Mid-sermon, this new narrator makes the mistake of expressing his yearning to be taught to dance by Bez.

Well, I know that you’re in love with him
Cause I saw you dancing in the gym
Or perhaps it's actually Ricky Hervaid, causing a mass outbreak of 'The Fance'-copying hysteria when his hilarious comedy routine appears on a load of those MTV-friendly monitors in lavishly-appointed gynmnasiums. Bless his chubby little homophobic disablist bastard face.

You both kicked off your shoes
The TV footage inexplicably changes to a clip of Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk's performance of Love Can't Turn Around on Top Of The Pops in 1987, when overexcitable vocalist Darryl Pandy kicked his shoes off into the audience. This causes an outbreak of gym-based shoe-kicking-off, which in turn causes the two jealously-observed lovers to bond further.

Man, I dig those rhythm and blues
Still, you have to admire that crazy young persons' music, what?

I Was A Lonely Teenage Broncin’ Buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
Dejected, the narrator heads off to see a drive-in movie, drowning his sorrows by paying visual tribute to that episode of Neighbours in which a Carnation-sporting Joe Mangel drove his 'Ute' to a blind date.

But I knew I was out of luck
The Day The Music Died
Oh dear - not even the comic stylings of Andrew Collins can lift his mood!

Now for ten years we’ve been on our own
Battered by life and love, the narrator falls in with a crowd of media-obsessed reactionaries getting angry about nothing, united by their manifesto "GRR GRR EIGHTIES COMPLEAT ROY OF THE ROVERS CD ROM OR SOMETHING".  

And Moss grows fat on a Rolling Stone
Here we explore some of the motivation for their anger; Richard Ayoade, TV's Moss From The IT Crowd, has taken to eating copies of Rolling Stone onstage as part of a routine. Apparently this makes him 'evil'.

But that’s not how it used to be
It is quite rightly pointed out that comedy hasn't always involved Richard Ayoade eating copies of top-selling music magazines. In the eighties, for example, it was more like Phil Cool drinking Citrus Spring.

When The Jester sang for the King and Queen
Or, to use another example, when Seal performed Ye Most Lambentable And Tragicce Ballad Of Hey Nonny No (Also To Be Known As Kiss From A Rose) at one of those Prince's Trust concert things they don't do any more.

In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
As the heating had broken in the venue and the stage area had become uncomfortably chilly, Seal approached The Manic Street Preachers (who were there to perform ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart) backstage and asked to borrow their lead singer's coat. As he was already sporting a ridiculous 'terrorist'-style balaclava, he was only too happy to oblige.

And a voice that came from You And Me
Tragically for Seal, the temperature is still sufficiently cold to reduce his singing voice to a croak akin to the loud child-scaring caw of Crow from You And Me. His career concludes shortly thereafter.

Oh, and while The King was looking down
The Jester stole his thorny crown
A complex allusion to the fickleness of fame, illustrated by the ironic tale of how Alias The Jester overtook King Greenfingers in the bid to become the most iconic fleetingly vogueish children's cartoon of the eighties that nobody now remembers.

The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
Though it's often difficult to interpret the cryptic allusions, American Pie is clearly not a song about the death of the innocence of the rock'n'roll era and the dark side of the myth of 'The Sixties', but rather about being bored in Britain in the eighties. This, for example, is a clear reference to top controversial judge, Judge Pickles. Bet that Mary Whitehouse Experience are sharpening their satirical claws right now! "...it's no wonder he reached that verdict when you consider how he got to the courtroom: 'Sorry I'm late everyone, I was travelling by British Rail...'".

And while Lennon read a book of Marx
Tim Lennon, the Just Seventeen photoshoot-favoured model who professed to like "rave music like Nirvana", thumbs through a biography of Hazard-hitmaker Richard Marx.

The quartet practiced in the park
While on his way to see forgotten early nineties indie no-hit wonders Candyland performing in Liverpool's non-famous Calderstones Park, as part of some Granada TV-sponsored 'mini-festival'.

And we sang Dirges In The Dark
The Day The Music Died
This week, Andrew Collins introduces an hilarious and timely Bruce Springsteen parody.

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter
A coded message to Charles Manson. About Charles Manson.

The Byrds flew off with a fallout shelter
Back to the eighties, and production work on top nuclear melodrama Threads is famously halted when a sixties pop group attempting a revival tour steal a key part of the scenery and smuggle it onto an aeroplane.

Eight Miles High and Falling fast
Finally we find out what the Lily Allen collaboration would have been - a speeded-up medley of minor hits by Cathy Dennis and The Byrds.

It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
Overwhelmed by eighties ennui, the narrator opts for a boredom-relieving game of Match Day on the ZX Spectrum, but falls foul of the bug that causes the ball to permanently disappear when it lands on a certain area of pixilated 'grass'.

With The Jester on the sidelines in a cast
Further Spectrum-related woe ensues when the computer crashes, and a graphic of Alias The Jester from his own game briefly appears mashed in with that black screen before it says '(C) 1982 Sinclair Research Limited'.

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the Sergeants played a marching tune
That'll be those 'drugs', wheeled out to accompany the unecessary overblown twentieth anniversary celebrations of the release of Captain Rutter's Only Darts Club Band. Skin up, 'Dinners'!

We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Graham Bright MP tables a motion to outlaw 'raves', while Tim Lennon sobs into his Richard Marx book. This is 'meaningful', this bit.

Do you recall what was revealed?
The Day The Music Died
Andrew Collins does some of those wacky spoof music news headlines.

Oh, and there we were all in one place
The narrator then recalls his days as part of 'Rubber Bucket', the large ad-hoc choir of squatters assembled to record the protest song We Are All Living In One Place at the behest of - yikes! - Gary Glitter. 'Uncle' says: "Commission x 8!".  

A generation Lost In Space
While his peers start camping around in front of painted backdrops yelping "In-deed! Spare me the barb, major!" and being unconvincingly spooked by unconvincing owl-esque aliens.

With no time left to start again
He realises the song sounds pretty bloody stupid thus far, but with this amount of lyrics set down already, not to mention a potentially angry blogger who's spent hours on it up to this point, starting all over again might not really be good for his health.

So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack flash sat on a candlestick
So he opts to start talking about currently popular topics instead. For example, the Top TV Bisexual antics of Top TV Bisexual John Barrowman.

Cause fire is the devil’s only friend
Or Facebook, and in particular the fact that Satan has his own personal page, but the only person who will accept his Friend Request is 'Fire'.

And as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
Oh, hang on - Barrowman's latest stage musical has been invaded by a dystopian rapper protesting about his lack of representation in the genre, and the audience are not happy about it...

No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
...while David Boreanaz also refuses to add The Horned One as a friend...

And as the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight The Day The Music Died
...still, it's time for Andrew Collins - required listening in Hell!

I met a girl who sang the blues
Just like TV's 'Oops On Mars, It Was All A Dream!(TM). The narrator comes to, and realises that while he's been hallucinating all of the above, Lily Allen and her 'crew' have packed up and left. Stumbling out of the studio in a daze, he chances upon Amy Winehouse/Katie Melua/Joss Stone/One Of Those.

And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
Recalling Martyn Lewis' bizarre lambasting of the BBC for concentrating on 'Bad' News, he asks for some more upbeat examples of current affairs as a way of cheering up. Amy/Katy/Joss/One Of is not impressed.

I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play
So, just like Sam Tyler, he seeks out the record shop he used to frequent, but none of their equipment will work while he's in there. Which is a spooky motif that can be conveniently forgotten about when the rubbish ending is bolted on.

And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
Dystopian Rap's own Graffiti Poet takes his unique brand of nude lyricism to the streets - the public respond as might be expected.

But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
In his last gasp of confusion before keeling over, the narrator wonders why the church bells are no longer 'talking' to him. Then they go all wobbly and warped sounding, like that church that was amusingly revealed to employ a hidden tape recorder rather than real bells when the tape wore out.

And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The Day The Music Died
And The Holy Trinity go on a weekend break to Devon for a spot of Andrew Collins-listening. THE END.