nick manho

last year this guy bought out manchester united football club:





last week this guy bought out west ham united:





this guy is in the process of buying out tottenham hotspur:






it seems pretty obvious that the english football premiership is being subverted by an organised gang of cartoon characters.

by Trish from Brighton.

so the 24 hour relaxed licensing is going very well.you can really start to
appreciate the British drinking Bull Dog Spirit. Cheers winstone..



not Ray
but soon everyone will think that ray winstone is winstone churchill..pretty
close after a few drinks, and he did pay a rather interesting cockney Henry
The Eight.




Now I understand why they want us to learn self checkout..scan and get rid
of all the checkout ladies, no more sweet mumsy women around with a hint on
how to cook something... no more enthusiastic just finished school desperate
for a regular job for life telling you that they will soon be getting
engaged giving you their life while you pack up your goods.
What do we have ALMOST behind the counter now if you find a checkout person
is an underpaid E.U worker, so skinny and starved you feel guilty for buying
anything...

Lately I have had some strange shopping experiences. When I went to dixons
for some C.D.R. I just had to say to the assistant Jammie (badged up so he
does not forget who he is) You look ill mate (you have to do the lingo now
to get any response) the response was he bloody ran out of the shop and
chucked up in the street massive rubbish bin.The manager and I looked at
each other and he said 'self inflicted' We all know what that means.

The other time I found myself comiserating with a really miserable lad
Declan who had been in the police cell all night because he had been drink
driving without a licence.

See this is what the big stores are up against. All the sober workers in
this generation are all pised.

So we now have to struggle with these fucking electronic machines who are
stone cold sobber..




'PLACE YOUR ITEM ON THE BELT' 'THIS ITEM IS INCORRECT WEIGHT' UNDERAGE ITEM
ETC ETC.

In a massive supermarket you will have 3 stackers one cashier and one
strict supervisor.

The best bit is the steriod bouncy castle bouncers 6 of them all hanging
around the exit doors huddled together sobbering up,waiting for the air raid
alarm bellto send them into action.



Harry Champion: I'm Henery The Eighth

Harry Champion: A Little Bit Of Cucumber

you'd have to go back to before the second world war to hear the last english music that wasn't just a pale copy of american stuff. music hall. here's a guy who was one of the most famous men in england and now you can only find these two crap photos of him online:






harry champion. check out how good he was here (probably recorded in 1911):

Harry Champion: Any Old Iron





in 1957 it was covered by this guy:





peter sellers. he came from a music hall family and recorded a few old classics during his career. he sort of kept the spirit of english music alive along with comedians like spike milligan and bernard cribbens. when the beatles arrived in 62 they revived the english style. re-created it, if you like. and following them came other acts who took the english rather than the american path. in particular, pete townshend and ray davies.

i guess we have to thank sellers (and his producer george martin at parlophone) for keeping english music wobbly but breathing.

here's the version by sellers:






Peter Sellers Presents Mate's Spoffle Group Featuring Fred Spoons, E.P.N.S: Any Old Iron

i was looking through early 60s melody maker charts for more examples of crap english covers of american music but i got a bit nauseous and changed tack.

luckily, during trash city uk the charts were 80% american originals. most of them are well enough known but this guy stood out as someone who should be talked about a lot more:






clarence "frogman" henry. he's still big in new orleans. check out his hit from 1961:

Clarence "Frogman" Henry: But I Do



clarence opened for the beatles on their american tour in 1964, and you can see from the photo how much they liked him.



next time you're in new orleans, ask a cop if clarence is playing anywhere that night.

the photo you see above is of a holy place. the brill buiding in new york city.

out of those hallowed rooms came the greatest white pop music ever cut in wax. late 50s, early 60s.


but what did we get in trash city uk? cheapjack copies by ginger goons like this guy:




here's jimmy's version of the 1962 gerry goffin and carole king classic:

Jimmy Justice: When My Little Girl Is Smiling




on hot manhattan summer roofs they were twisting to the cool original by the drifters.




there are 6,000,000 stories in trash city uk. this has been one of them.

and if you think those euro dullards were bad then you have to remember that the void had its own home grown english artists who were a hundred times worse.

trad jazz was big: kenny ball, acker bilk. like, recycled new orleans jazz in england?

but the most popular genre of all was country music. ok, i guess country music originated in the hills of scotland and ireland but the stuff they made you listen to in the early 60s was pure horror. look at this act:




miki and griff. they were big. hit after hit. covering american country originals that were unlistenable in the first place: remember "little bitty tear"? i won't bother posting a song by them. you can't find their stuff, anyway. even the geek collectors don't want to remember them. miki and fucking griff. that's how bad it was in trash city uk.



then, on october 27, 1962, it all changed. love me do entered the melody maker top 50 at number 48.

and this song was a new entry, at number 45, in the same chart:

Craig Douglas: Oh, Lonesome Me



here's craig with eddie cochran in 1960:





yep, craig douglas and miki and griff. that's what the 60s would have been like if john lennon had decided to become a painter instead of a musician.



it was that close.

when the beatles came along in october 1962, part of the joy people felt was because a terrible period of english cultural history had just had its quietus made.

the three years from 1960 to love me do day was like some cultural void for english pop music. the 50s had given us coolish english rock and roll and skiffle but it had curdled by the time the 60s started. vince taylor had fucked off to the south of france, johnny kidd had lost his eyepatch, cliff had found god (or maybe god had found cliff), lonnie donegan's chewing gum had got stuck to the bedpost.

the brook brothers were about as cool as you got. this terrible three year period deserves its own epithet: the void? the sewer? trash party uk?

tv themes were big. check out this guy:

The Laurie Johnson Orchestra: Sucu Sucu

laurie wrote the theme music for a lot of tv programmes 50s thru 70s. his big moment came when he got the phone call from stanley for doctor strangelove. i guess stanley was looking for irony, or something.

laurie was ok, though. what i really wanted to talk about was nina and frederik:






this was the type of act you got during trash party uk. a dutch baron and a danish bint who specialised in calypso music. they were everywhere you looked on tv. here's their version of sucu sucu:

Nina & Frederik: Sucu Sucu

can you dig it? euro dullards were cleaning up in england. ok, i hear you saying, but that nina was a pretty cool chick:






and it was all in the way she said sucu sucu, and everything, and i agree, she was hot. but the dutch baron with the ginger beard? dutch fucking calypso?


in october 62 many english guys were on their knees. they were praying for someone bigger than jesus to come along.

sometimes god hears your prayers.

barry mann is one of the greatest songwriters in the history of popular music. check out his list: on broadway, i love how you love me, blame it on the bossa nova, i'm gonna be strong, home of the brave, we gotta get out of this place, you've lost that loving feeling... and he's worked with all the big names from phil spector to phil spector.

so what the fuck was he doing in 1961 giving these guys:




the exclusive rights to one of his songs?

the brook brothers, a couple of english losers who were ripping off the everley brothers were suddenly given a barry mann original to record.

probably had something to do with this guy:




tony hatch. he was producing them for pye records at the time and, i guess, got the barry mann song for them. tony looks like a dork in the photo but he was a pretty cool guy, really.


The Brook Brothers: Warpaint



ok, it's crap, i know, but imagine if it had been produced by phil? with the paris sisters or litle eva and earl-jean on vocals? and king curtis honking the sax solo?

i wanted to post a halloween song but the only one i had that had anything to do with it was, "let's jump the broomstick", by brenda lee. and it was only the broomstick part that was relevant because the phrase refers to getting married rather than getting your face wet ducking for apples.

here's the brenda lee thing, anyway:

Brenda Lee, 1959: Let's Jump The Broomstick


then i decided to do a bit of research on jumping the broomstick and i discovered that it was an african tradition imported into america by the slaves:




and that the broomstick represented the brushing away of evil spirits, so it was relevant to halloween after all.


then i decided to do a bit of research to see who wrote the song and when it was released and stuff, and i discovered that it was copied from an old sophie tucker song, and i thought, well, if sophie did it then the broom certainly wasn't symbolising evil spirits, and that's for sure.


i haven't got the original version by sophie but here's another song by her:

Sophie Tucker: Making Wicky Wacky Down In Waikiki



and here's sophie with the guys:






just goes to show. you think you have nothing to say, and then you discover you have, and then you discover you still have but it wasn't what you thought you'd discovered to say that took the place of having nothing to say.

trick or treat?