Thursday, 15 April 2010

'A Heart Full Of Napalm'

I'm so happy that the Bowie mix of Iggy and the Stooges 'Raw Power' is due to be unleashed onto the public again.

I originally bought this album when I was the tender age of 14. I heard that Siouxsie and Steven Severin had listened to it when they were growing up in Chislehurst and Bromley respectively.

So what effect did this purchase have on my life? It changed it forever. A trite statement perhaps but very true nonetheless.

I had never heard guitars sound so brutal, corrosive or downright damaging before. But before you think that this album is some noisy atonal heavy rock fest, it isn't. Its a perfect pop album. How the blazes didn't a song like 'Shake Appeal' become a number one single? It has loud guitars, handclaps and Iggy Pop on it!

Even the cover artwork lured me in. The cover is a Mick Rock photograph of Iggy bathed in red light, barechested, lips pursed. He looks like the coolest pop star ever to have landed from another planet. The back cover features more pictures of Iggy and even the band- an sensory mindfuck of silver trousers, demented clown make-up and savagery.

Then it was announced in the late 90s that Iggy had remixed and remastered Raw Power and that this version was even better than the CD pressing I had. I couldn't wait to get my dirty little mitts on it. This was the first ever 'remaster' I'd ever bought. And it was awful. Iggy had turned up the volume so much that the album was distorted on any stereo it was played on. He also inserted burps and other sound effects before and during songs. 'This album can now compete with the latest Smashing Pumpkins album' he proudly announced in an interview from around that time. D'oh. 70's Iggy raped by 90's Iggy. Vile.

What was worse was that I had given away the original Bowie mix of the album to a friend. Hence I was without 'Raw Power' for a long time.

Until now! Lets hope the remaster of the Bowie mix due to be released (with an extra disc containing a concert from that time and a couple of studio outtakes) is in keeping with the CD I bought when I was 14.
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Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Jo Brand- 'Look Back In Hunger'


I've just read and thoroughly enjoyed Jo Brand's autobiography 'Look Back In Hunger'. I first properly took notice of Jo Brand when she started appearing on Friday Night Live in the late eighties. It was still unusual for a woman to have ventured into stand up comedy, even in the alternative comedy world. She had her own highly distinctive style- unkempt, scruffy, unrepentant. This wasn't how a woman who was appearing on TV should look- or rather thats what the advertisers in 1986 would have you believe.

Her routine tackled issues that were taboo or personal to herself. She spoke about her weight and clearly didn't give a fuck what people thought. She didn't want to diet and was very happy as she was. The opening credits to her show years later satirised the popular Sainsbury's ads (you hear a famous voice and a pair of hands preparing a meal using nutritious and fresh ingredients. The camera pans up to reveal a celebrity such as Felicity Kendal or Denis Healey smiling sweetly into the camera). The ingredients in Brand's version are extremely fattening and in the quantites used in her recipe, very bad for you (the end result is a multi-layed sponge cake full of cream and topped with various Cardury's Flakes and a family size pork pie!). The camera pans up to reveal Brand sneering at the audience with a fag in her hand. The name of the show was 'Jo Brand- Through The Cakehole'.

Her autobiography is highly recommended and deals with events in her life up until her first appearance on TV. It covers in depth her first career as a psychiatric nurse after witnessing her father's manic depression first-hand. She also revels that, shock horror, she isn't a lesbian. In fact she has received numerous petitions from lesbians over the years asking her to give up her career in comedy. They thinks shes giving them a bad name.

She also discusses when she suddenly piled on so much weight. It was when she went on the Pill and concludes that this made it 'a very effective contraceptive indeed'.

Brand's style of writing is very conversational which makes for a very quick read indeed. Its almost like Brand is in the room telling you a concise story of her very interesting life- the mark of a great autobiography. Highly recommended.


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