China 5 – "Lonely!"

Hey, what's up kids. Here's a new music video I made, and spent more time than is healthy in editing it. It's for for the song "Lonely!" 

It was filmed (mostly) on November 27, 2019 and was directed and edited by me. Special thanks must go to David Piper for the mask dance performance and assistance with the shoot. He went right ahead with my weird ideas without hesitation. Thanks Dave, you're a dude.

"Lonely!" appears on the 9th China 5 album, Confusion. Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title.

 

Ads From The Old Days — Part 3: TV Times

After a nearly seven year hiatus, it's time to take another look at old print advertisements! For those of you who missed my first two posts on the subject back in 2013, and I suspect each and every one of you, catch up on Part 1 and Part 2. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Read 'em both? Good. The ads I'll be looking at today are from this issue of TV Times from the UK, issue dated August 8, 1981.

Hey, that's Joanna Lumley on the cover. How fascinating. If you're not familiar with TV Times, it was (and is) Britain's television guide (I think it had radio listings as well). In 1981 it cost twenty pence, as you can see.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana had just got married, so you can bet there was a lot of coverage of that in there. Let's not make any comment about how that all ended up and move on.

If you've read my previous post about old ads, you'll recall me saying that 1980s print ads, in the UK at least, were unnecessarily wordy. That's not a bad thing as such, it was just an advertising trend I suppose. The ads would frequently have several paragraphs of text "setting the scene" about why the product should be procured by YOU. In this case: a tin of cat food. The copy states that cats are "only human". Better go back and study some biology, 9-Lives copywriters. You too can get a whopping five pence off with this coupon. Hey, that was a lot of money in 1981. Really? Nah.

Hmm, Philadelphia. The spreadable cream cheese was big in England in the '80s, and adorned many a snack table at a dinner party where the women wore shoulder pads and whatnot. Well, I assume so. There's a lot to catch your eye in this 'spread', haw haw!

This Clarks Commandos shoe ad makes elongated mention of the special way the soles were designed, because it is indeed germane to the product under discussion. If you'd rather not read about this then clearly you have no sole.

And here's the last one: a full-page ad for a six-pound handbag that has a novella's worth of text on it. If you don't know every single detail about this bag after reading it, such as the designer's dentist's name or the name of the factory where the metal studs were manufactured then I don't know what I can do for you.

Welcome To The Twenties

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties, folks. Here's a watercolour I just did of Juliet Prime as a flapper and her best pal Dave as a city slicker! These two will finally make their graphic novel debut next year, 21 years after they came into being. And the last 2 digits of next year's date is...? Oh, the symbolism!

I'll be writing the Juliet comic concurrently with another one due to be completed this year. And in April, my blog will be ten years old! Gawd, where does the time go.

Christmas Carols – how old are they?

They're probably older than you think, old boy!

I made this little infographic to show just how old some of them are. Perennial favourite "White Christmas" – the original version by Bing Crosby – clocks in at a sprightly 77 years, and I'll bet you didn't know that "Jingle Bells" is now a 162 year old song.

But it's happy 300th birthday to "Joy To The World" (its lyrics, at least)! Surely that says something about their songwriting that ensures these songs and hymns have continued to be enjoyed for so long. Merry Christmas!

Compilation Album Review: "100% Hits Volume 17"

Compilation: 100% Hits Volume 17
Released: 1995 – EMI
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: 2 – "Kiss From A Rose" by Seal, "Insensitive" by J**n A***n
Other top ten singles: 3
Best track: "Common People" by Pulp
Hidden gem: "Devil's Diary" by The Caulfields

The seventeenth installment of the indefatigable 100% Hits series contains tracks from mid-1995, and there's some stuff here chart fans might not know, given that 13 of the 18 tracks here didn't reach the top ten – most of them didn't trouble the top 40. That don't necessarily mean bad, though. For instance the track I've chosen as my 'hidden gem' is one whose artist I'd never even heard of! I had never heard of The Caulfields before and yet their picture is one of four who graces the cover, as you can see above – along with Seal, Chris Isaak and complete tone-deaf muzak nobody J**n A***n! (As you may have guessed, I can't stand that stupid song "Insensitive" or the idiot who "sings" it. Have a look at my post recapping the Top 10 of August 19, 1995 if you really wanna know why.)

Let's get the nondescript pap out of the way first – "Water Runs Dry" by Boyz II Men, "Everytime You Go Away" ("every time" should be two words there) by Kulcha and "Shoot Me With Your Love" by D:Ream are all entirely forgettable and just taking up space here, and I'd never heard any of 'em before. However, some other tracks I'd never heard before turned out to be pretty good! The band with the stupidest name in the world (despite some stiff competition), Chocolate Starfish, appear here with "Accidentally Cool" which ain't half bad, and I fully expected to hate Sheryl Crow's "Can't Cry Anymore" because, well, it's Sheryl Crow. But that was another tune I enjoyed as well.

The other song I'd never heard before – at least this band's version of it – was "Alice, Who The X Is Alice" by Gompie. The above mentioned previous post linked above mentions it; it's a more straight ahead cover of "Living Next Door To Alice", but still features the shouted response with the "eff-word". The version here bleeps it out, as in The Steppers' version.

I don't think I'd listened to "I Believe" by Blessid Union Of Souls since it was in the charts 24 years ago (where it reached number 18). It notably features the word "nigger" in the lyrics, which was rather confronting for its time, but the term is used in context as being one which the song's narrator finds applied to himself by someone else, so it got through unscathed.

Max Sharam is here too; I liked her a lot. I had her album for a while – until I sold it, that is. "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" was the third single, and it's pretty good, but I can't stand the horrible lyrics. In Max's defence, it's a cover.

When I checked the excellent chart resource australian-charts.com I was surprised that Paula Abdul's "My Love Is For Real" got to number 7! I wouldn't think it was a top 10 hit upon listening to it, but then again I hadn't heard it in decades. And I was surprised to see Seal's lyrics are "I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey" – for years I thought it was "on the grave". Listen more closely, 17 year old me!

Rating: 5/10