Duffed up: Music and the Seven Year-Old Tough Guy

My lockdown reading includes Graham Duff's Foreground Music: A Life in Fifteen Gigs.

There's an early bit that reminds me of me:
"From a very young age, I'd loved the theme tunes to TV spy and detective shows ... To me, this is such exciting music. It suggests mystery, tension and menace. Something I don't hear in any of the pop music that comes my way." (p.2)

I remember thinking like that for what seemed like a long time, which is probably why I am rubbish at the '10 influential albums' game on social media. But I remember a time later when I was about 13 and saw this attitude to pop as being a bit weird. If memory serves, this was prompted by Smash Hits asking Todd Carty (then of Tucker's Luck) for his top 10 songs, and they were nearly all excerpts from Ennio Morricone soundtracks. (Apologies Todd, but I'm not enough of a pack rat to have kept that particular clipping.)

Prompted by the death of Dave Greenfield, I was thinking about my own musical development recently. One missing link between spy themes and pop for my prepubescent self was quite different to that of Graham Duff, who says "To be honest, with their sleazy and aggressive attitude and lyrics about sewers and shagging nubiles, I think they sound like the kind of lads I try to avoid at school. Put simply, The Stranglers sound like bullies." (p.13)

Whatever it makes me as a kid sound like now, this side of The Stranglers drew me in at the time. To my TV-obsessed ears, it was tough guy pop music. Plus with a band member older than my mum, I hoped to get her to like them too (no chance!). And with Greenfield's keyboards, I thought I'd got the musical continuity with my beloved safari-suited TV secret agents.

It would take me a few years and experiences to untangle all these conflicting sentiments personally. Foreground Music does similar work in thoughtful and touching detail.

Happy halloween

So here I am in an internet cafe, blogging next to Amy Rigby who is doing a gig down the road with Wreckless Eric later tonight. Outside, the Local Council has issued a detailed warning about the dangers this Halloween:

We are working with the police to reduce the anxiety that is caused to members of our community at this time of year.
‘Sorry No Trick or Treat’ posters will be available in wfm 20 October issue, from the community safety van or you can download your ‘Sorry No Trick or Treat’ poster here (946KB PDF file)
The poster can be displayed in your window or door to discourage trick or treaters from calling. Remember that you do not have to open your door to them:
Do not let anyone in your house unless you are happy with their identity
Do not deal with doorstep sales people unless you are sure they are genuine
Always ask for identification from official callers
Halloween safety tips for parents and children
For safety reasons children should never trick or treat alone. Parents may want to consider having a fancy-dress themed Halloween party at home as an alternative to trick or treating.
Parents and children:
Do not go into strangers home
Restrict trick or treat visits to homes with outside lights on
Use costumes with light or bright coloured material and trim
Check to see that costumes do not interfere with walking
Set a time limit for your children to trick or treat and designate a specific route to take
Encourage children to use face paint and/or make-up rather than hoods, wigs or masks that can block vision
Check all treats before the children eat the sweets and other Halloween goodies
Stay in areas that are well lit with street lights but also take a torch just in case
Be visible and take care when crossing the road
Report any suspicious or criminal activity
Don't knock on doors where there is a sign saying 'sorry no trick or treat'
Police are urging trick or treaters to show consideration for vulnerable and elderly members of the community this Halloween and even though Halloween is supposed to be spooky, be careful not to frighten the elderly.
To report anti-social behaviour call Waltham Forest Direct 020 8496 3000

Probably safer indoors, but for the back-to-back gorno movies showing on Freeview. I noticed from the TV listings that Saw, Saw 2, Hostel, 2001 Maniacs and Reeker were all doing their bit to add to the festivities recently.

Enjoy your evening.

The (Cannibal) Holocaust: Not Again

27 January 2008 and I suddenly slipped back in time 25 years. 1983: a chance to put things right and, ignoring any Prime Directive, to make a difference. Looking slim, GB!

Except I was reading the Sunday Express, the self-styled world's greatest newspaper: Outrage at Sick Nazi DVDs for Sale. In the frame are SS Experiment Camp, Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit on Your Grave and Faces of Death. Missing from the line-up are The Evil Dead and Driller Killer, but otherwise this could be a library story on the front page. Recycling rules at the Express.

Only the availability of these films on DVD now instead of VHS differentiates this panic from its carbon copy in 1983-85. Even Keith Vaz, a prospective parliamentary candidate for Leicester East seeking to unseat rentaquote MP Peter Bruinvels at the time of the video nasties panic, is in on the act.

The facts are simple - only the first of these vids has a "Nazi" title to highlight the lurid content, spoofed recently by Rob Zombie: the rest have no (formally) fascistic leanings, unless pretend sadism counts as fascism these days, yet academic writers have repositioned Holocaust as a critique of media manipulation and Spit as a feminist rape-revenge flick. Faeces of Death remains a risible compilation of mondo, fake and news footage of its subjects' final moments.

We've been here before. Only a dimwit could have failed to notice the staged torture scenes that pepper the multiplexes, if the pirate DVD guys don't get there first. Even the posters on the Express web forum seem more upset about Islam than the availability of these movies.

The Sunday Express - weak at the weekend. An old prediction of mine went "don't expect an SS Experiment Camp revival any time soon", although maybe Express Investigations Editor James Murray can instigate one through his pointless outrage.

Panoramic views

Here we go again. Does anyone recall the happy slapping scare of 2005? Then as now, these "fight clubs" are at worst a handful of local assaults, situations that most conscientious adults could break up if they weren't scared of the kids. Yet again we see a nation-wide scare being constructed out of children behaving badly with new technology. Could the discovery of this new social problem be linked to a forthcoming Panorama broadcast? I couldn't possibly comment...

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On a not totally unrelated note, I am commenting on Paul Gormley's book in 7 Days this week.