Confusement Has Occured

What's a'popping within this medley of madness? If the idea of a bespoke title theme for an Italian airing of George & Mildred (which surely should have been titled Giorgio & Moroder) isn't brain scrambling enough - consider these points...

Was the Italian G & M a straight export version just refitted with dandy new theme?

Or more jarringly perhaps, reworked as a continental adaptation?

And are those two pictured (Abba meets Borat) the actors or singers?

How did the 'composers' get away reformatting 10CC's Dreadlock Holiday into this number without getting walloped?

Where does 'Gin and Tonic' come into it?

*Goes purple and faints from the giddy overload*

What are you still doing here? A fistful of bits that really have no place in the 21st Century

Picture found at http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/

Milk Floats
Lovely, quaint ol' cosymobiles from the days when anything was deliverable by a specialist van or lorry ? Corona drinks, coal, eggs and potatoes - not only are they still with us - but space age style iFloats are doing the rounds. Literally..

Launderettes
Radio Rentals, Granada and other goods-for-hire outfits all folded with the availabilty of affordable electrical items So why are these rent-a-rinses still with us, and still doing brisk business? My local Launderettes are perma-populated with lonely looking basket holders - shouldn't these sud-u-like's have gone out with char ladies in floral print pinnies, tea trolleys, milk carton machines and wall mounted can-openers?

Iceland Selling Fridge Freezers
Has anyone ever shopping at Iceland really, stopped, snapped their fingers and shouted, "Yes. I will have me one of those fancy freezers". At £400 a shout white goods are rarely an impulse purchase, and on my last visit to the Kingdom of Katona (for Yorkshire Pudd's) it was all young credit-crunch couples scraping by on own brand econo-burgers, so who in the name of prawn rings buys these things?

Rag and Bone Men
Still a'clanging and a'crawling Steptoe style around the suburbs. Like 'taking it to the tip' and recycling never happened

Ceefax
A bottomless barrel of available browsing to be had, although only ever useful for cheapo holidays, TV and weather. But amazingly, like the Queen and Christmas Cards remains unchanged or untroubled by the internet or digital age - who are the mysterious anono-boffins still working this ZX Spectrum style aggregator

Stress Down Friday - The Slider

I've only ever belonged to one fan club - Marc Bolan/ T Rex (circa 1987). I lasted about a year, but bailed when an ugly ‘Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea’ style civil war exploded between several militant Marc splinter groups - but at least I’d had a few free photos and a Merry Rexmas card from the Bramleys who ran it.

It's almost impossible (and a disservice to the others ) to put all your Rex in one basket by qualifying a single favourite album - I love the on the cusp, crispness and crackle of Electric Warrior, the chuga-bug boogaloo of The Slider, and the unrelenting Glam anthems of Tanx.

But, today I'm in the mood for the title track from The Slider.

The Slider



And how about few words from Marc ‘ a pervy little twerp’ as he refers to himself in an interview recorded just a few weeks before that fatal car crash.Marc Bolan Interview



US TV Ad' for The Slider album..



Meanwhile on the other side, you can find who connects Marc Bolan and Paul Weller.

Incidentally 20th Century Boy is a great riff to roll with if you're a guitar beginner.

Polite Riot

I had a very similar zip up to matey's on the right, but in cream with black and red stripes - made by Lord Anthony, also a blue 'velvet look' one with a red "27" on the front, from M & S...

If disco or dayglo weren't your thing - and a quick scan of the chart rundown for week ending 6th August '77 shows for most record buyers they weren't - a diet of light bites and polite pop was the alternative, so how about a handful of songs from the softer side of '77, including a couple of nuggets from the mighty 'Disco fever' ...

Meri Wilson 'Telephone Man'



Meri updated 'Telephone Man' to 'Internet Man' in 1999.



Mike Nesmith 'Rio'



There's a video for 'Rio' too.


Joy Sarney - 'Naughty Naughty Naughty'

Stick with this this clip as The Jacksons make a TOTP appearance once Joy wraps up - she's a sunny Southender you know, one of my mates was a neighbour of Joy's. (And her intonation on "Oh no you don't" still gives me little ripples.)


If you fancy filling your vintage boots with more sounds of the seventies this is a retro belter

Back in Black

I'm really not tempted or taken by the Dark Knight trailers. I should be. I'm a lifelong (since the age of three anyway) Batmaniac - more than a fan, but not quite a geek - a fanorak I suppose.

But I've been put off by sequential superhero cinematic letdowns, the all black outfit which makes the Dark Knight Detective look like Robobat, and the Joker seemingly styled on Wurzel Gummidge meets Leigh Bowery and not the clipped, edgy deadly dandy he actually is.

What I hope to see at some point is an adaptation of Batman's equivalent of Elvis's 68 Special. A period when after spending most of the sixties lost in the wilderness of wackery and camp, the Caped Crusdaer became regenerated and revived by the dynamic duo of Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams.

Adams almost draughtsman like artwork, expressive cape and the make over of Batman's build (Adams felt that Batman and Superman shouldn't share the same body type - Batman should be athletic rather than powerful) and O'Neil's Gotham goes Hammer Horror stories - 'The Demon Of Gothos Mansion', 'The Secret of the waiting Graves' 'Night Of The Reaper' 'Daughter Of The Demon' - all late night tales of haunted mansions, ghostly lovers and freak show runaways, that created a magical arc of dark art and returned Batman to the spooky moonlight roots of his earliest appearances.

Now that would be something to tempt me out of the shadows and into the cinema.

Recommended Reading

www.nealadams.com/
Neal Adams Batman Cover Gallery
Dennis O'Neil - Wiki entry

Retromanic Pt 5 - Kooks

The final part of my retromanic week and a few crackers

Unlikely celebs in some great ad's

Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Lee Cooper


Lulu - Happies Shoes


Spike Milligan - Mini


Captain Scarlet/Thunderbirds - Lyons Maid

Retromaniac Pt 2 - Champagne Supernova

After yesterdays sip's and smoke's what were the la de da cosmpolitan crowd and champagne set indulging in? High society Cig's and choco's of course....

Does anyone use the phrase 'Tobaconnist' anymore?

John Player Special



Milk Tray

Retromaniac Pt 1 - Cigarettes and Alcohol

Following on from Fridays funky theme - Robins Nest, and the TV related threads over on two tip top blogs Davy H - here and Sky Clearbrook - here, I'm on a bit of retro TV buzz, not in a "wasn't it all a bit wacky let's snear and snide behind our hands " - clip show way, but just fancy digging around in the dusty loft of film and TV treats that is Youtube.



Asteroids


Rizla


Double Diamond

Trilogy Of Terror - Part 3

Trilogy of Terror – 1975

Karen Blacks three part anthology film 'Trilogy of Terror' is only memorable because of the third and final episode - with THAT possessed tribal fetish! It’s a once seen never forgotten scene. As a ten year old I’d arrived back home late at night from somewhere cosy with the parents and we ended up catching the complete last chapter on the telly. It was nightmares and lights on for a week after that.

'Trilogy' doesn't get repeated that often, and when I finally tracked it down on DVD (thanks to an unofficial copy via Ebay), it was just as ferocious as I remembered and probably more effective for being a TV movie with the sleepy beige ambience of almost every TV show made during the seventies - until that raggy raging doll gets reanimated and starts snapping and stabbing.




The Cramps - The Way I Walk live at Napa Mental Hospital

The Cramps continue the theme of early 80s rocking wraiths. This clip dates from the Bryan Gregory period - the skeletal 'skunk striped' guitarist who collected soil from various cemetery's. This is the Lords of Psychobilly doing their voodoo on video live at the Napa State Mental Hospital. I've seen the whole of this gig and it's thirty minutes of non stop neck tightening tension.




Returning us to the scene of the crime and the first clip it's;

David Bowie - Beauty and the Beast

Trilogy of Terror - Part 2

Children of the Stones - 1977

Well, I had been planning to use the trailer for Tales From The Crypt which has just been released as a double DVD with Vault Of Terror. TFTC is an Amicus Productions compendium of the macabre, featuring Joan Collins and the psycho in a Santa suit, the Monkeys Paw rework and motorcycle skeletons but some ol' youtube spoilsport’s pulled it.

So in a last minute bit of stealthy switchcraft it’s Childen of the Stones.
I wasn't much of a childrens ITV watcher growing up in the 70s, but two shows from the dark side seriously spooked me for years, and are still whispered about by anyone who stumbled across them. Escape Into Night - two children in a desolate ‘dream’ house surrounded by moving stones.
And Childen of the Stones - father and son archaeology in the worst of west country villages. As well as being a genuinely great piece of tea time drama, back then I thought the intro music was the most was terrifying scream theme ever composed and would see how long I could last with lights out (even the HTV ident music has an uncomfortable lumpy bubble bounce about it). I recently hired COTS and thought the theme tune couldn't really have been that creepy could it? Turn down the lights, turn up the sound and try it for 'sighs'.




The Damned - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

The Damned seemed to be eternally doomed to be tarred with the Goth brush or as jokers in the Punk pack, both of which are a total disservice to the legacy of The damned. This clip may not disprove either of these theories but is still worth firing up. Dr Jekyll is ‘Punk’ in paisley shirts and pre dates the 80’s psychedelic revival by at least three years. The studio version even has a trumpet an’ everything on it. Taken from the 1980 Black Album, a double disc set with a seventeen minute masterpiece where Punk goes Prog called ‘Curtain Call’



Another top tune from the Black Album and a BBC session stormer( this is possibly even better than the album version).

The Damned - Wait For The Blackout (BBC Session)

Trilogy of Terror - Part 1

Nosferatu - Werner Herzog - 1979

I only saw Nosferatu for the first time a few months ago and was completely blown away by it. Klaus Kinksi gives a bone chilling performance as the shadowy hands folded Count. You can almost feel the temperature drop when he slithers into shot. It’s packed with character, colour and texture but Herzog leaves enough room for the icy tension and dark dynamics to breathe. As close as you'll get to Bram Stokers genuinely creepy Dracula novel (although criminally - the terrifying Bloofer Lady has been left out of the film )



Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

The sound track to almost every night out in the early 80's as Positive Punk slowly evolved into Goth. Bauhaus built a frankenstein song using spare parts from Bowie, Cult Films, and dark dub reggae on this anthem for the undead.



And another tune big on the scene at the same time.
Red Lipstique - Drac's Back