I owe a small debt of gratitude to Bo Diddley, who died yesterday. I saw him play the Clapham Grand in about 1995, and was so taken by his three-chord charisma, I sent off a fevered gig review to Mojo. They liked it, but didn't have room, but would I like to write about a compilation of Pet Shop Boys b-sides instead? Thus was I introduced to the bizarre mindset of music journalism. No Bo, probably no earnest tomes about Radiohead and all that malarkey. I thank you, Mr Diddley, even if nobody else does. In fact, if it's all the same by you, I might even relax that pesky self-imposed YouTube prohibition.
PS: Musical genius from the polar opposite end of the spectrum; Radio 4's Lost Albums strand goes all alt. hist. on us, and forces us to wonder how modern culture might have mapped out had Stephen Duffy never left Duran Duran. (Repeated on Saturday, or online here for the next week.)
PPS: "Polar opposite end of the spectrum"??? A scrambled metaphor with a side order of cliché. Apologies.
9 comments:
"Bo Deadly"
I can't figure out if that's amazingly clever or just in bad taste. I suppose my indecision would pretty much rule out the latter.
And yet another elder statesman of rock joins the greatest band in the universe.
"He got your Mojo Working..."
etc etc
I look like Bri Glover, but I'm a lover.
I love Bo. Though it took me half an hour to guess who was dead when Betty asked me "Guess who's dead?" last night.
No, it's the latter, Rimshot. Always the latter.
I remember when the first Mojo came out, Murph. I went into my local newsagent on Lavender Hill and asked the man if he had it. "Mo-jo?" he repeated, pronouncing each syllable with equal weight. "What is it, a porno?"
I dread to think of the list you dredged up in that half hour, Geoff. Actually, the breaking news feed on the BBC site stuck for a few seconds just now, on the word "Max" and I thought, bye bye, Bygraves. It was more about bloody Mosley. zzzz.
Stephen 'Raoul' Duffy remaining in Duran Duran was surely a logical impossibility, what with him being a sensitive folky troubadour with a penchant for MDMA that was way before its time, and the others being makeup-wearing, leg-shaving, model-shagging, be-mulleted New Romantic coke fiends...
Ah, but that only really kicked in with Rio, etc, P. The Duffy-era stuff, and the eponymous debut album, point to Japan, Kraftwerk and Roxy. Duffy only got folky once he left - as the docu reveals, with DD he plagiarised most of his lyrics from Scott Fitzgerald.
Duran Duran and Suede - two bands whose reputation might have been far higher had they imploded after the first album. Discuss.
Never mind that, I'm off to 'reassess' the Lilac Time's first album. Again. For about the millionth time. I like to think that album was made especially for me.
Also I've always had a soft spot for Raoul 'Tin Tin' Dufy's 1985 pop single 'Unkiss That Kiss'. I think I might 'reassess' it now too.
do you know Mark Paytress? (just wondered, it's probably a much bigger world in music journalism than my small brain can imagine)
No, ILTV, haven't met him. Although I namechecked his Radiohead book in mine.
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