Ich bin drei Jahre alt

"Hootie ya ya, kootchie ma ma
kali for nyer, hoover palace

Alice, alice
goober fudda ellis?"

Thank you.
No, thank you.
That was an example of "babbling medley", as the critics have termed it, a fresh poetical genre which aims to drag the bardic tradition into the 22nd century.
The verse above was inspired by the experience of hearing the Delgados version of California Uber Alles whilst reading Close Your Eyes on the topic of "Growing Up".

Footnote: Do you remember when Alvin Stardust did a cover of Growing Up as a single, which wasn't a hit, before you had even heard of Bruce Springsteen (who wrote it)? I do. Because it was me!
Do you remember Me and the Elephant by Gene Cotton, later reinvented by Terry Wogan? I suspect you don't, so let me say what it was about. It was maudlin trash about some gimp who got all teary-eyed at the zoo because his girl wasn't with him no more, and he was all choked up remembering her going to the zoo with him once before, and of course so did the fucking elephant (renowned for its prodigious memory). There was an elephant in Taiwan who just died this week aged 86. He was in the war and everything, but his female companion died recently after they had been together for 50 years or something and he stopped eating and went all depressed and conked out. I read about it on the tube today, and felt quite trembly.

We discuss boxing, metalwork, Disneyworld.

I got stars in my beard and I feel real weird.

Pleased to meet you
Hey now, let me introduce myself. My name is Rudy Valentino and this is my place. There used to be some other guy here, but I've dealt with him we've come to an agreement. He won't be bothering you no more.
He was a miserable fucker who never told you anything, not his real name or where he worked - nothing! Screw him. Like I said, he's gone.

I'll tell you all about myself, I'm not ashamed and I'm not afraid, I don't care who the hell you are or what the fuck you think of me. Not like that other bitch who we don't talk about no more.
You'll have to excuse my fucking language.
So, I'm Rudy, and I live in a beautiful house with my radiant wife Julia. We have an unconventional set-up - she's a cop and I'm a criminal. We try not to analyse our career choices, all we know is that it works for both of us and we've come to an arrangement whereby our working worlds shall never meet.
And he, between those two careers paths, we pull in some pretty decent cash. We need to, because we have this beautiful house to maintain.Here -



Now, I'm aware that the previous tenant used this forum to talk about music. And while I was explaining the new situation to him, I promised to honour his last request. Let me make this clear- I am nothing if not a man of honour. Nothing! My word is quite literally my bond.
And some of you may say, what's with the UK-spelling of honour Rudy? And I reply, that's another promise I made him, that miserable fuck who used to write this weblog.
I mean, we listen to a lot of music in our house. Somtimes it keeps us up all night. My wife (Julia) she said to me, Rudy, she said, Rudy you miserable cocksucker (she's picked up a lot of bad habits down at the station), we're rich baby! We're rich, let's install a jukebox and liven up the stiffs who come visit. we get all these visitors, I dunno, I've never got time to talk to them, cause my bladder's about to burst or I haven't slept for 48 hours.
I know some people consider a domestic jukebox to be the height of vulgarity but really, fuck them. Before I was a career criminal, I was a half-baked writer and once I visited this lavish house in Notting Hill, London, like in that film. I went to interview this American writer who told me some nutso story about past lives and aliens, but I half fell in love with her anyway, even though she was about 40. And at the end of the interview she looked deep into my eyes and said, Rudy, she said, I can tell you're a really good person. And she said it with such intense conviction that I was blown away, no pun intended. She'd been shot by some maniac and had been through an out-of-body-experience thing. Which makes me wonder... as a career crim, you'd think I'd have a weapon about the house, or at least have the option to buy one? But no.
The point is, in the exotic Notting Hill house where I spoke to her, there was a huge old bubbling Wurlitzer jukebox, discreetly occupying a nook (it was a huge place). If I had a jukebox, which I do, I'd fill it with old 45s and visitors - like our neighbours Bella Goth and Ulysses T. Fuckface - could simply press a button and bam! Bam-blam-a-lam! A crackling vinyl explosion! What's downmarket about that? I could buy and sell the neighbourhood trash anyhow.
I shouldn't say that. They come round to visit, whether I invite them or not, and they seem pretty friendly. Then again, my house is the best one for miles around and they can play great old 45s (not CDs) for free when they visit. And we've got a Pepsi machine, and a coffee machine, and a widescreen TV and everything! We've even got a toilet in the living room!
I don't seem to have a car though. Or a gun.

I haven't even got that many 45s - maybe about 500. Obviously that's plenty to fill up a jukebox. The last vinyl singles I bought were months ago, and I only played them last week. They were Andrea True Connection's More More More and Brendan Benson's Folk Singer.
Have you visited that new FOPP store yet, the one on Shaftesbury Avenue? I stopped off there earlier this week, I came over all delirious. There's a ton of stuff at £5 or £7, new CDs at £10 (still too much if you ask me). Anything really good or interesting is either not there or £15 of course, but that's standard procedure.
I got some reggae compilations and Johnny Cash cause they're just right for God-fearing villains like me who can't help themselves from being naughty now and then.
(But can you buy Sonny Sharrock or La Dusseldorf CDs anywhere?!)

You'd think that I, with my underworld connections, could acquire pretty much anything! I don't even get offered drugs anymore, I must look too straight.
Even though I'm running scams at the track and shaking down various scumbags, I still find time to visit second-hand record shops and leaf through cheap singles. Those were the last two I got. The B-side of More More More is exactly the same as the A-side. I heard Pete Burns from Dead or Alive on the radio talking about his favourite songs and that was one of them. He wasn't half as mad as we've been led to believe.
I suppose my favourite singles, that I own as singles, that I can play as vinyl 45 objects, are Marquee Moon and This Perfect Day. They've seen over 20 years of action and I adore every crackly bouncy flimsy green paper covered thing about them. Since I moved in to this magnificent colonial style mansion with my adorable wife Laura, I have had little occasion to bring my 'record player' (how quaint) into action. Thousands of vinyl records have remained unplayed, untouched, ignored, abandoned, for years, for years!! If I wasn't such a heartless moneygrabbing career criminal I'd get all tearful and nostalgic about that.
I'll be back soon, the car's come to pick me up.

It's not like I need to do this job, I just happened to look in the paper one day and there was an intriguing vacancy for a dodgy geezer. Cash in hand, no questions asked, don't tell the wife.
Course I had to tell her - I'm in love with her! She's my wife, and I made a sacred vow...
Still, she's a good old gal and being a copper, she gave me a crafty wink and promised to look out for me.
In fact, no word of a lie, big fish little fish, straight up geezer, the last time I was offered drugs was at Christmas, and it was by a policeman! A pillar of the local community, his (completely oblivious) wife attends church with my mother! Naturally I made my excuses and left.
Every day I wonder, why am I doing this job, being bossed around by people half my age? Do they know I've written 15 books? Yes they do, because I told them. It slipped out. Does it matter? No, not at all. It's perhaps helpful that I have an underdeveloped ego (mythical 'mind' state). What would wound you barely registers with me, like the high pain threshold they discovered a gene for today.
Later, Rudy.

ANNOUNCING A REGIME CHANGE......

AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.........

n the real m of magic
What a week it sbeen. I have been very busy a twork. I went to work every day thi sweek. Most days I listened to musiucal CDs on my CD walkman, as opposed to my mp3 player. I don't know why - that's just how it was! The batteries, situation really flip me up.

Today I listen to Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I really liked the songs he sing I could concentrate on while I was walking, but once I was crammed up among that bunch of stinking c---s called the public on a "train" I found Bonnie "Prince" Billy considerably less engaging. He demands your full attention, the whining actor cum maggot, as he rarely offers anything in the way of melody or musical engagement.
On the way home, I listened to the Moldy Peaches CD for the first time in ages, and it was jolly good fun and probably in the real m of magic. Although it became apparent that they only have two types of song, and that's being charitable. So what.

Like saying - urrrr, xxxxx sounds like xxxxxx. By saying that, you are merely being an exploding tart. It adds nothing, explains nothing, it shows you only know two groups in the world ever, because you always choose the same two "sounds like" groups. You dick. So xxxxxx sounds like xxxxxx does it. Well, you're clever cause you heard of xxxxxxx! Now please shove it, this is the most redundant trope of the altogether bitch and furthermore full of piss.

Not available in the shops
You know them Rough Trade compilations which I've never quite got around to buying but they're reasonably priced and have interesting tracklistings. Well here is my 2xCD version of that what I made to accompany my romantic Valentine's weekend in Clacton (Paris is such a cliché) with the fifth Mrs Goof, who I've never even met. We showered in liquid champagne and won 40p on the slot machines before losing our room keys and sleeping on the beach, during which the fifth Mr G was kidnapped by mermaids. All these tracks can be found online, from record label websites and places like Epitonic and Insound, except for 1 or 2 that were briefly available elsewhere and perhaps not entirely legit, but let us not dwell on that.

CD1
01 Tahiti 80 - Get Yourself Together
02 Willard Grant Conspiracy - The Beautiful Song
03 Golden - Party
04 Golden Boy feat Miss Kittin - Rippin Kittin
05 dsico - Love Will Freak Us
06 Adam Green - Dance With Me
07 Cat Power - He War
08 Walkmen - We Have Been Had
09 Dismemberment Plan - Superpowers
10 Erase Errata - Tongue Tied
11 Franklin Bruno - Thin, Weak Smile
12 Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone
13 Zero Zero - True Zero
14 Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
15 BellRays - Minds Eye
16 The Raveonettes - Attack Of The Ghost Riders
17 Kimya Dawson - Everything's Alright
18 Lee Ranaldo - The End Of Life In America
19 Soft Boys - Mr Kennedy
20 The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band - Roundabout

CD 2
01 Saint Etienne - The Way We Live
02 Dntel - Anywhere Anyone
03 Neptunes - Provider
04 Emperor Penguin - Burnt Sienna
05 Hem - Lazy Eye
06 Nina Nastasia - This Is What It Is
07 I Am Robot And Proud - Saturday Afternoon Plans
08 For Stars - Cowboys Lost At Sea
09 Rosie Thomas - Two Dollar Shoes
10 Brokeback - Name's Winston, Friends Call Me James
11 Microphones - Universe
12 Francoiz Breut - Everyone Kisses a Stranger
13 Alpha And Omega - Chanting
14 The Black Heart Procession - Waterfront (The Sinking Road)
15 Blonde Redhead - Blonde Redhead-Four Damaged Lemons (Third Eye Foundation Remix)
16 Flossie & the Unicorns - Celebrity Biography
17 Out Hud - Kibbeb
18 Aix Em Klemm - Sparkwood And Twentyone

It's some good 'stuff' but if I saw it in a shop, and had no Internet access/out of control downloading habit I'd prob go wuh? and carry on browsing.
Can I stop now. I'm so cold my fingers won't work.

They don't write 'em like that anymore
"What's the matter with you?"
"The doctors call it jumping stomach!"
"What on earth is that?"

From some manner of opera on BBC Four.

Please kill me
Everyone is playing Turin Brakes or Lemon Jelly, like they're doing you a favour by sharing it with the whole office.
This girl is going on and on and on about xxxxxxxx [name of fabulously trendy band] who she saw last night and how she once snogged the singer or the guitarist. He declared his undying love for her and suggested they run away together. She turned him down on the basis that two weeks later she'd be living in a squat addicted to heroin. Or something. Ha ha. Like you do. And she's going on and on about how she felt really out of place seeing this band because like, everyone there was 18 - and she's 24! She felt so old.
I happen to have xxxxxxxx [name of fabulously trendy band]'s CD with me. I occasionally become swept along with the popular mood, it's not all marching bands covering prog rock round my house. But I can't bear to listen to it today. I can understand the singer or the guitarist declaring his undying love for her. I could understand her having that effect.
Meanwhile, everyone is playing Turin Brakes or Lemon Jelly, like they're doing you a favour.

No reason (not much rhyme)

"I remember Britpop
Like it was only yesterday,
Mr Cocker swinging on my shoulder,
In his very special way.

Yes, I remember Britpop,
And I recall all those melodies,
By The Blur, Oasis, Dodgy, Sleeper,
Not to mention Echobelly."

After Vic Reeves' I Remember Punk Rock

It's insane and it rocks!
I don't intend to be willfully perverse but The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band's two-minute marching band version of Roundabout from Otisfodder's 365 Days project is just about as thrilling as (my) life gets.

The funniest thing I read today
"He thinks long and hard before speaking, sometimes politely rejecting questions on topics he says he has covered elsewhere, or are too personal - like, say, the sequins Tori Amos sews into her pubic hair, of which he has claimed first hand knowledge... "
From an article on Nick Cave in the first edition of Word magazine.

The funniest thing I read yesterday
"This book is dreadfully written and pretty much unreadable - save yourself."
In a copy of Wide Open by Nicola Barker that I took out the library. It was written in pencil before the very first paragraph of the book. On the back cover, however, Time Out claims that it's "outrageously well-written", while The Spectator pays tribute to "the brilliance of Barker's style." We shall see.

Now playing
"Then, on 25 August 1975, Yahowa went hang gliding for the first time in his life. His maiden flight was short. He landed badly and broke his back. He refused medication, relying instead on massages and salt packs, which kept him alive for all of nine hours. Following his instructions, the family gave his body an anema, lit insence and chanted three days before they called the authorities to remove the heat bloated corpse. A rumour persists that Yahowa was stuffed and mounted in a corner of the family's Hawaiian homestead. More likely he was cremated.
After his death The Source splintered, but the musicians of Yahowa 13 renamed themselves Fire, Water, Air (possibly what Yahowa means in astrological terms). In 1977 they released an eight track cartridge "Golden Sunrise" continuing Yod's legacy. It's hard to tell whether its weird effects are intentional, or whether the tape recorder was just out of phase. But when Sky Sunlight Saxon, an acolyte since 1969 makes his first appearance midway through, the session takes off. The extended psych jams are a perfect match for Sky's boiling word gush, and the results are transportational in the extreme." Byron Coley.

The template for the Polyphonic Spree

It is indeed a boiling word gush, but I don't know about transportational in the extreme. It does make me want to wear free flowing robes and have sex in a barn, though.

Why I Hate Personal Weblogs
"... weblogs are fucking retarded as a general rule. Most weblog authors either think they have something important to say (self-centered and egotistical authors), or believe that they have an audience that cares what they think (delusional and irrational authors.) What can be plainly seen is that most weblog authors need something to push them back into the real world from the self-centered and delusional world they have created for themselves."

About 4 a.m.
I had a new phone - one of the functions enabled you to download some free tracks which you could then listen to through the earphone. The first track I chose was called Thunder Road by Headless Corpse. I thought it might be a thrash cover of the Bruce Springsteen song, but it wasn't. And I just checked, there doesn't appear to be a band called Headless Corpse.
RND #1 Whenever my friend, a Placebo fan, mentions the song Bruise
Pristine, I think he is saying something about Bruce Springsteen.
RND #2 I would like there to be a band called Wig Mistress. I expect they'd be of the electroclash variety, but all the same.
RND #3 There was some crap on VH-1, which I thunder against but it lives next door to Sky News so sometimes I flick it up, and it was all about One Hit Wonders. Eddy Grant was on it and I was shouting at the TV that he had loads of hits. Then I saw it was US One Hit Wonders Day. Then I went outside in the sunshine and said hello to the pretty flowers.
RND #4 Trust nothing that passes through your poor excuse for a brain at 5:30 a.m. Do not act on any promises, decisions made at this time.

What we do is secret
"The joy of Audiogalaxy was that it spread like a whisper. I told all my friends in hushed tones what I was up to, wink nod "don't tell a soul", as if I was slipping them a fiver. I told my best mate Sacha Dieu in this manner (quite ridiculous because he's a complete luddite), he just laughed at me gently for being a sad freak, but must have stowed it away in that bit of his brain marked "of possible interest to people who own computers". Anyway Sach was in town, and who did he bump into at the Bus-stop but the Aphex Twin. Sach (and me, and me!) and The Twin have a particularly nerdy friend in common, so they got chatting. It turns out the Twin has been caning Audiogalaxy, he's got gigabites of downloads. Sach tells the Twin that he has a mate who's at it too, and that his mate (that's me, are you following this?) is wondering how long they're going to get away with it? And the Twin says something like "No Comment" (twinkle in his eye). You've got to admire the lad's political suss." - from That was a naughty bit of crap.

What brought you here...
listen to showaddywaddy free  
Graeme Le Saux wedding
What “American Idol” star was accused of being a pro before she went on the show

Use>flush>clean
OK, that's it, I'm lost to humanity for good this time, I've been playing the Sims for 48 hours non-stop three years after the rest of the lost world and my eyeballs are on fire and I need a wee.



My Sims, naturally, never turn up to their jobs, drop plates all over the kitchen, flood the toilet, have the radio on day and night, and never call anyone on the phone, leading to a life of misery, filth and poverty.

You sound like such a fascinating person
Attention all [ahem] 'Moz' voyeurs and stalkers... a collection of Morrissey's letters to a pen pal in 1980-81...
"Don't tell me you take acid! I might have known you're so typically 1980. As for the "lrn-Bru", well, such things are beneath discussion. I supposed you like "Not the Nine 'O Clock News" too, and masturbate to pictures of Anha Ford SO typical."

This was via ToT, who also has the decency to gather a list of all the online articles featured in the Da Capo Best American Music Writing 2002 book.

Why can't the kids today
Be more like Bob Vido, (via Otis Fodder)
"On August 4th, 1995, an 80-year old man died in his tiny, old-style Hollywood bungalow. The same place he'd been living for nearly 50 years. He had no children and he was not married. .... But! While all the evidence suggested that this was just the passing of another nobody in the heart of Lipstick City, this peculiar old man in the bungalow left a buried legacy..." That's what we want! A buried legacy!!

-- The Official Coyle & Sharpe Website - "... two young men who've rejected a conventional way of life in order to tape absurd, impromptu conversations with the innocent passer-by on a hidden tape recorder." Yeah, you heard that all before, but this was 1963.
-- Calexico mp3s.
-- Cult Heroes of some Dutch guy - he got the links I don't quite know what going on. You have look. Libertines stuff, plus a lot about Elliott Murphy who I am not acquainted with.
-- Junkmedia - interviews the people behind a film about Jandek.
-- Church of Me on 'forgotten' 1970-ish songwriter Bill Fay who I never heard of, but I'd like to.

Some think it's noise I think it's pretty
The routine then every morning for the last six months was to leave for work after the karaoke version of Danny La Rue's version of I Am What I Am came on the radio, it provided the necessary lift. It seems that model Karen Mulder (troubled, super) had a hit with it in France recently. And it seems that her sister is Saskia Mulder who plays Fist (it's ok, it's Dutch) in The Book Group, the best thing on TV at the moment. Her and the show.
There is no point to this post.
Go on then...

Me and Camper van Beethoven
Because: - Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine film uses the CVBs keynote signature tune Take the Skinheads Bowling, perhaps over the main credits I dunno, I haven't seen it. And also because: - they played a gig in London this week or next week. I didn't go, of course.

Many years ago when Camper van Beethoven were new, I read some music press guy on how he walked home with his music press guy mates all singing Take the Skinheads Bowling in a heady moment of drunken wacky mates bonding. All my life I have sought communal drunken wacky mates bonding moments, as if it may make me complete instead of a shattered porcelain doll lying askew with its glass eyes bulging and staring sinisterly in a neglected fireplace.
So on a whim I bought the Skinheads 12" and we played it and played it, always knowing there was an important percentage of us holding back and resentful but too polite English to go all serial killer in the bath about it. About not having it.
Every day I get up and pray to Jah. Plus, since it's in the Lou Reed register, I can do a passable impression-imitation.
We loved the Colonel Adolfo Bermudez a real bastard song. Over and over it played on the Austrian's turntable above the chipper. If catchy is anything, Skinheads and Bermudez were the bubonic plague. Oh we played it and played it all over that New Year too when Sandy (4th July, not her real name) came to stay.
By that time I had Camper van Beethoven's second album (I thought it was the second because it was called II, like that, but it was in fact the third album and it wasn't called anything, I get a little confused). She needed a good old sleep with her brown head on my pillow after her flight and I went up to the supermarket with CVB II on the Walkman, in that Christmas, The History of Utah and We Love You assisting the selection of goods. That was one occasion when I tackled Budgen's with glee instead of dismay, the sound of Peace and Love accompanying me as I purchased exotic delicacies.

They did some more albums and had one previous - the one with the Black Flag cover and where where the hell is Bill - and I enjoyed them all, mainly, but I don't listen to them now. The one I call CVB II would still feature in a top 100 construction of personal tissues merely out of knee jerk although to listen to it would cause a lengthy shiver of unresolved creepiness outside of my remit.
We went to see them once but I suspect it was disappointing because barely the vaguest memory remains and I possess an elephantine trunk of MEMORY, which you can shove a bun up and a banana too. I have shoved a banana up an elephant's trunk actually, it was magic. My friend enjoyed the support band more who were according to me and I don't plan to check, Til Tuesday with Aimee Mann. Like SO WHAT.
We saw Jerry's we saw Jerry's children, and the song that sounded like Pavement years before Pavement were accused of ripping off the Fall.
One splendid record shop day later I collared an armful of bargain bin 12"s and made a C90 of them. We played it as we set off fireworks on the roof one November 5th. Among the tunes was a Camper 12". Maybe it was Photograph, the crummy Ringo Starr cover, plus their version of Wade in the Water. I never bought their last album where they did Status Quo. You had to be careful to retreat after lighting the fireworks, which were buried in a flowerpot, because the roof was tiny and you could never be sure in which direction the fireworks might decide to whizz off.
One November 5th the fire brigade came and knocked on our door but it wasn't us, we never set fire to nothing or misused fireworks, it was all a misunderstanding!

Once I had a long and vivid dream where I proved that the title of one of their records, Vampire Can Mating Oven was an anagram for Camper van Beethoven. But when I woke up and examined my remarkable discovery, I realised I was wrong.
Being a twerp, I loved the name Camper van Beethoven, and invented the band name Falling James Masonry, which as far as I know is still available.
Then they became Cracker who had one good song but by then it was too late.
ZZ Top in Egypt. Club Med sucks - I wanna play lacrosse. The day that Lassie went to the moon!
I never was remotely interested in hearing their cover of the whole of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album, which I've never heard anyway.
For a few months I told people they were my favourite band (along with Shockabilly)! Perhaps they were!

Give them a quote or something that gets you out of doing the history/ genre thing: "CVB formed in Redlands, Calif., in 1983, then relocated that same year to Santa Cruz, a seaside community/college town 70 miles south of San Francisco. Lowery points out that it was CVB's isolation in "cigarettes and carrot juice" that aided Camper in creating their own sound and not feel pressured in to imitate the music trends of their day. This pitted the band against the post-punk scene in San Francisco. "SF bands were a lot trendier," recalled Lowery. "They changed more with every current of style. The Santa Cruz bands were anti-trendy. We pretended to be hippies, to be uncool. We identified with a subset of SST bands, like the Minutemen or the Meat Puppets - bands that were anti-fashion." ... CVB gained notoriety for its ability to switch gears from rock to ska to country to polka to even Eastern European folk, a mix the band called "surrealist absurdist folk."

Something official: Camper van Beethoven - or Camper van Beethoven.