Beatles to reform with Ken Dodd and Sonia

To celebrate its selection as european city of culture 2008 (an honour not too dissimilar to Time Out's top 10 Up and Coming Areas, which corresponds almost identically to it's top 10 murder "hot spots") Liverpool, bless it, is holding a concert in which they threaten, sorry promise, to invite all those Liverpudlians who have had a number one single in the UK (and presumably still alive, though it could add a novel element to the show if the deceased were invited too) to perform at a special one off gala concert.
Christ on a bike.
I bet Ken Dodd, the well known (acquitted) fiddler, will be the first to agree. A pioneer of child slavery (is there anyone from the city under 50 left who hasnt played Dickie Mint for two bob and a hold of the ticklestick?) and so old he's living proof we've just had a really mild winter, i think he should top the bill frankly. (For those trying not to remember, Dickie was one of the Diddy Men. A troupe of oompa loompa like vertically challenged men with debatable names (Nigel Smallpiece, Weany Wally...) that performed with Dodd. Allegedly.
And not far behind him, i bet (as long as the social doesn't get to hear about it):

Sonia
the three builders in Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Cilla Black
Pete Burns
Atomic Kitten

and thats about it.
I imagine the finale would have to be one song that symbolises everything the event stands for, y'know, a song close to every Liverpudlians heart. Ohh the pride, the passion, the history. The chance that a few extra column inches might get 'em on I'm A Nobody Get Me In There...each taking a turn at the mic...and if you hear the voices in your head, trust me, its a hoot:

Atomic Kitten (all 3 in different keys but twirling in unison): "Weeeellllll Nowwowwowww"
drummer builder and bass builder: dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk.....
Everyone: "Relax! Don't do it!"
Cilla: "When you want to suck it, do it!"
Diddy Men: "Relax! Don't do it!"
Dickie Mint (winking): "When you want to come..."
Ken Dodd (winking back at him): "When you want to come!" (or should that be a ?)
Everyone: "Heuuh!"
(Sonia, not expecting this, falls, screaming, off the stage into the orchestra pit...)
Cilla: "But live those dreams....surpriiiiise!"
Ken Dodd: "Scheme those schemes..!"
Cilla: "Gotta hit me!" (Pete Burns takes it literally and punches her)
Cilla: "Hit me!" (He hits her again, only harder)
Cilla: "Hit me with those laser beeeeeee...." the sound fading as she too falls, bleeding heavily, into the orchestra pit...
at which point they have to stop and pull both Cilla and Sonia back up onto the stage. However Freddie Starr who's compering (and thats not a lie..) mistakes Sonia for a hamster and eats her.

I mean, we just have to be there. Unfortunately tickets went on sale 2 months ago, and ive called the venue this morning just in case, but ive been told the best seats we can now get are back in Row B. Centre of the house.

I Swear To Christ, Its An Osmond

I know what youre thinking. Its the cowardly lion, from The Wizard of Oz. But its not. Its an Osmond. Merrill Osmond to be precise. Merrill? I remember Donny, Jimmy, Marie, Mungo, Midge, Sooty, Sweep, Bingo, Snorky, Drooper and Fleegle.
But not friggin Merrill.

Go girl! No, seriously, just friggin' go...

Enough already. So Rihanna is numbero uno for the 10th week running now. Big bloody deal. Hanging around at the top of the charts like some stale cat's piss of a bad smell that we'll never get rid of now. But did anyone tell you that she's done it while selling, in total, a miserly 300k copies of the wretched thing? (UK darlings, UK, i know we've gone global but lets focus here...). Let me put that into perspective. Gnarls Barkley had done nearly 700k copies when they reached the same landmark last year.
Remember "Crazy"? Y'know, a milestone in music history? The coming of the digital age? A sign that we're all flocking en masse to loony itoons to gorge ourselves on a smorgasbord of undiscovered musical delicacies? Codswallop. It was just a bone fide classic "record". This, on the other hand, is most certainly not.
But 300k copies in 10 weeks at number one? The digital age, i hate to tell you, has obviously come, had a look around, thought sod that and f***ed off again. Either that or the only reason this tosh has stayed at number one is cos to get to a bloody record shop at the moment to buy anything else you need a canoe, or a pedalboat, and funny enough none of us have one handy.
Strange tho, that every 12 year old from here to Botswana has the song piping out their mobile, out their iPod, out the back of their bloody heelies, and by the sounds of it OUT OF THEIR FRIGGIN ARSES...all cos one brat in Hemel Hempstead has bluetoothed it free to the entire global population of under 16s with the push of one button and a smiley emoticon...not, obviously, cos anyones actually, heaven forbid, bought the bloody thing...Wet. Wet. And friggin Wet.
Speaking of which, 1.8million by the time THAT hit 10 wks at number one. "I feel it in my fingers". "I feel it in my tooooes". You'll feel a blunt brass instrument in your friggin face if you sing one more line from that christ awful record.

Annie? Get Your Gun! part 3!

Dido’s on it!!! Never. In the history of mankind. Has one woman sold, so many records, with so few decent songs on them. Actually, hang on a second, didn’t we just mention Celine Dion? Well Dido had one actually (“White Flag”), Celine bloody Dion, on the other hand, has had none. Unless of course you count any that have been turned into thunderous high energy knickers-in-the-air-where’s-the-podium-sod-it-where’s-the-f***ing-poppers-darling! kind of numbers. In which case. She’s had loads!
Fergie's on it!! How does that song go? "How come evry time you come around, my London, London Bridge wanna go down..."!! I've just had breakfast love! Christ, itd be like pokin a botoxed cabbage patch doll.
Gladys Knight is on it, bless her. "Baby Don't Change Your Mind", "Midnight Train To Georgia", now THEY'RE tunes. And she doesn't need to turn my stomach in the process of listening to them. But. let's face it, she hasn't had a hit since that James Bond theme so i bet she's penniless, rifling through the broken biscuit dumpbin in Aldi like a woman possessed, shuffling 2 inches behind the reduced pricing gun in Spar as we speak, and therefore glad of the exposure.
Melissa Etheridge, well she's got balls, but no tunes.
Pink's on it. And anyone covered by La Bassey has to have one decent song at least ("Get The Party Started") but everything else? Well, as i tell dear friends when asked what handy tips i have for their xmas dinner leftovers....throw it all in the f***ing BIN".
Bonnie Raitt? see Melissa Etheridge.
And KT Toadstool.
She's going all glam for that difficult second album apparently. I'm reminded of Suzi Quatro. Which im not sure is a good thing. For her. Or us.
Oh and Joss Stone is on it ("Y'gettin down, y'all?!). But this isnt a blog about Joss Stone, though don't get me started on that oul trout.
My own line up would probably consist of:

Kate Bush (all hail!)
Aretha Franklin
Agnetha
Frida
Siouxsie
Debbie Harry
La Bassey
Stevie Nicks
Bjork (what the f*** is that album sleeve about?)
Messy Elliot (bloody hilarious)
Sinead O Connor
Martha Wainwright
Tracy Thorn
all three ladies from Boney M
plus if i may, from beyond the grave
Nina Simone
Dusty Springboard
Karen Carpenter
Divine
and purely for the drinks afterwards
Jay Aston from Bucks Fizz
and err
Baccarra

Ladies and gentlemen, i now throw it open to the floor.....

Annie? Get Your Gun! part 2

Celine Dion’s on it. That’s a face you’d never tire of slapping. If it wasn’t for the fact that she won the Eurovision Song Contest once, and will one day need to be mummified or stuffed and put on show in a glass box, in a museum, in Brighton, i would have to have her assassinated.
Shakira’s on it. Shakira?! Let’s get this straight here and now. Latin countries are still holding lighters aloft to the same old laboured pub rock arena tat that we gave up on sometime around Phil Collins and Marillion (what do you mean, they’re both still going?!). She’s only filling stadiums around the globe because the globe is full of homesick south americans. But let’s face it, its the only reason our very own Paul Weller can play to more than just his roadies in New York. And the basis, surely, for ANY Gerry & The Pacemakers world tour.

Annie? Get Your Gun!

i read with great interest (jesus christ, do i really have to say that?), that Annie Lennox is to release a song “backed by 23 of the world’s most talented female singers”. Now, i have a lot of time for Annie. 4 minutes 25 seconds to be precise. That’s how long “Shame” from the “Savage” album lasts (number 41 in ’87 if my memory serves me well..a big old flop, and thats the mark of a true classic boys and girls..). And we have to thank her at least for covering “No More I Love You’s” as some belated financial reward for those poor sods in The Lover Speaks (if you haven’t hunted their album down you have a void in your life that needs filling).
Ok, ok, i’ll give you Eurythmics “Never Gonna Cry Again” and that video for “There Must Be An Angel..” but only for the fat bloke with the ginger curls, panstick and big f***-off wings twittering like some demented budgie in a blouse the size of Lichenstein. But other than that, bloody what?
So, this new track, “Sing”. Well, Madonna is on it. Fair enough. She hasn’t half come out with some toss in her time, but anyone who gets the thumbs up from the greatest group in the history of the world EVER, PERIOD, END OF, er Abba that is you fools, is alright in my books. And let’s face it, apart from the Foo Fighters she was the only thing worth watching on Live Earth. I mean, i could do without the sob sob kiddy choir song (“I Have A Dream” was 28 years ago love! Though granted that was shite too...), that awful rawk geetar version of “Ray Of Light” where she plays the same one chord and still has to look down to check her bloody fingers every 3 seconds (or was it her nails?), and “La Isla Bonita” which was an abomination first time around and barely better with the gypsies, but my God you have to hand it to a woman of her age, in ‘er knickers, running her parking meter up and down the handle of a ghetto blaster in front of 70,000 people (the elderly and afflicted et al) and calling it entertainment! And to the sound of Abba! Genius!

O Come All Ye Hateful!

this is not a blog about Joss Stone, though don’t get me started on that oul trout (“Y’gettin down, y’all?!”). this is a blog about anything and everything, tho i imagine it’ll mostly become a second home for music industry moaners (“goooood morning jobseekers!”), bitter failed popstars (oh pretty pretty pleeeeease!), snobs, rubbish drag queens, the unemployed and anyone fond of mouthin’ off (and who isn’t after half a bottle of vodka?)...but hey, this is my world and these are my people.