do you wanna be in my gang ?

pal chum campadre comrade buddy mucker mate amigo...

madeline bell - that's what friends are for

this is joe public speaking

i was thinking about a screw you motherflippers ooh aren't those big record companies rotters down with this sort of thing poor misguided fools rant but then i had a cup of tea and played this instead.

the clash - complete control

shopping

now you know i'm not really much of a one for the new and the now and the call that bloody music it's just a bleedin' row but when dear old andy wake of medium cool fame has a new label going it's got to be time to pin back the aunt nells and make a goddam effort for once.
you can join in too. listen then buy. it's easy.



daybreaks - here i am

buy it or just find out more at v-sign

just in case you need reminding of how utterly smashing a label medium cool was lets thrill to the sounds of the first single proper the dashing young wake unleashed to brighten our lives. how i did love those raw herbs..



the raw herbs - she's a nurse but she's alright


and if that's got you going head straight over to
the medium cool jukebox
for more. you know you want to
x

here comes the sun

for tony's voice almost kinda breaking as he croons 'hold my hand' and i melt


tony bennett - fly me to the moon

back to the world

okay so the first men on the moon are all splashed down now and heroic and quarantined and heading for lives of assorted craziness and i can't think of a better way to welcome them home than with some mass moonstomping. let's start getting happy now...

symarrip - skinhead moonstomp

hell let's go crazy and get the keyboard king of studio one down too

jackie mittoo - voodoo moon

i only have eyes for you

still all moony as hell especially after sunday nights first clear sky with a whopping great beauty popping out specially for the first time since i don't know when and still blasting super lunar tunes that just seen to fall out of the record pile as if by magic and none more stunning and bonkers and blooming fabulous than labelle's nine and half minute version of moonshadow.
the first half is kind of straight ahead blissful groove but then everything starts to get beautifully twisted and barking and ad libs go all over the goddam place like...

if you ever lost your mouth or anything in that small area
your lips your teeth your tongue your tonsils your throat
everything around there
you'd be in deeeeep stew
yeah
and
...won't have to brush my teeth if i don't want to
cos i won't have none to brush anyway
no no no

but it's geniusly pulled back and round and the guitar scratching is the most divine thing you'll hear for weeks hell the whole band solos are just outrageous...

you'll die my darlings really you will

labelle - moonshadow

space is the place

gripped by moon madness on the 39th anniversary of giant steps and 'for all mankind' and there's only nine of them left you know just nine men in the whole wide world who've stood on another planet... blimey.


i blame mayfair library and bltp and moondust by andrew smith for getting me all bonkers and obsessed and wishing i had a big telescope or at least a rocket or something and that my head wasn't so fuzzy and gin soaked that i could make at least a tiny bit of sense


so tonight i'll be waving extra hard at the sky and marveling some more that for a very little while when i was small there were people wandering about up there and waving back


cosmic sounds to take you there too...


stereolab - international colouring contest

asha puthli - spacewalk

x

let's get lavender!

sweet omis darling palones welcome welcome to the ever fantabulosa bona school of polari!

it's been a time and a half i know duckies but we're back we're back we're back...

for the poor dears who've been as shoddy as we have and haven't the foggiest what's going on fret not cos none of us know neither but the gist of it something like...

'fed up with not having the slightest what your modern top deckers are rattling on about ?'
'want to make catty comments about your fellow boozers without getting a punch on the nose ?'
'want to impress the ladies and wow the gents ?'
well here at the bona school we're reviving the lost art of polari - the native tongue of the louche the limp the theatrical the terrible deviant - and bringing it to you free and easy as nature probably didn't intend it one bit in alphabetical order and with a top tune as reward for all your hard graft. now doesn't that sound lovely ?
we'd just about crawled up to j last time but before we dive back in let's have a quick review of the words we've learned already and then maybe you can all have a bit of go at at showing off your skills...so...

A
ajax - nearby or next to
aunt nells - ears
aunt nell -listen
auntie - old chap
B
bold - daring, outrageous, brazen
bona - good
bungery - public house
bugle - nose
C
cabouche - car
charper - to seek or look for
charpering omi - policeman
cod - vile
chavvies - children
and one for the more daring - clean the kitchen - rim
D
diddle - gin
diddle cove - off license
dolly - lovely, attractive
duckie - our favourite term of endearment
E
eek - face
ends - hair
eine - london
F
fantabulosa - wonderful
foofs - bosoms
fortuni - gorgeous
G
gildy - fancy
gamp - umbrella
goolie ogle fakes - sunglasses
H
handbag - money
heartface - dear
I
it - a sexual partner
J
joobs - bosoms
jarry - food, to eat
jogger - to play, sing, entertain
joggering omi - entertainer

which brings us right slap bang up to date and zooming off into the unknown with...k

which typically is another slighly lean one but we have got

kaffies - trousers
and for the seriously stylish - kapello - a cloak (we like a cloak round here as it goes)

hell let's go mad and do l too cos there's loads of good ones for l


is for

lally - it's your lovely legs isn't it
lappers - hands
lattie - house or flat
letty - bed
lau - to place or to put
and
lav - which with bona gives you bona lavs - best wishes

i hope that's not all going to be too much for you my dolly little dears and that you forgive our shoddy shambles of a keeping up effort. have some tunes to keep you going...

k can only be for kenny and you know it

kenny rogers - lucille

and an extra folk funk (one of my favourite genre combinations as it goes) classic

kenny rankin - in the name of love

and i've been waiting for ever for l to come round so we can have the super special extra delicious mr little anthony and the imperials. only precious beauty could ever come from from a record adorned with such a name. for you - a dancer and a weeper...

little anthony and the imperials - better use your head


little anthony and the imperials - hurt so bad

and finally to help you along with you new and fabulosa skills - a demonstration by the experts. listen and learn children... and show off in the box provided.

julian and sandy - keep britain bona

xx

if you build it he will come

if you ask me we can always use another stupid brilliant what's all that about then sticking up thing round here and if it's a back to the future festival of britain why in heaven's name did they get rid of it in the first bleedin' place sticking up thing then we're screaming we want a skylon and we want it now and back on the southbank please where it belongs not in any of those other bizarre places like gateshead for gawds sake like some madman has suggested if you don't mind thankyou very much from every available rooftop. well alright in my living room. and quietly so as not to bother anybody. apart from the mrs who's looking increasingly like she's just about to tell me to shush.


you can help too my dears. you can vote to rebuild the skylon. just remember to pick the southbank or there'll be trouble. big trouble.


rebuild the skylon - vote!(voting closed- it was one day only)


thankyou ever so duckies.

horace andy - skylarking

ps
there's an exhibition thingy at the southbank too and on friday a screeening of this is tomorrow and some st. etiennes playing records in the bfi bar after. see you there.
x

shelter from the storm

elvis - early mornin' rain

you're sweet enough already

nancy sinatra - sugartown

refreshments

the impressions - this is my country

sorry to moan but it's what i do best

it's my own fault really. i should've known better. don't do it i should've said. it'll end in tears you know it will. and it did obviously. i mean what did i expect to see just nipping round the corner for the tiniest peak at the banging whistling screeching terrors. oh yeah. boris johnson. at the head of a big parade. i vaguely remember a bit of swearing then the rest is a sea of gin and and lager and despair. apart from the bit with a song i've been playing for twenty seven years. my head still hurts.

orange juice - poor old soul part two

orange juice - poor old soul (live at sterling university 10/04/81)

x

oh the shame of it all

pride..? heavens no. i'll be somewhere suitably dingy and awful with the windows blacked out toying with a silk handkerchief and watering down a gin with cold and bitter tears

james carr - the dark end of the street
x

did you realize

pathetically not with it right now and i forgot to do this at the time and i know it's bleedin' obvious and it's probably been done everywhere but it made me laugh all the way through italy not being very good. although not as much as toni's brilliant tache. he really did deserve to score lots with that really he did

flaming lips - do you realize