John Cooper Clarke Snap Crackle & Pop

I had this as a vinyl album in 1980 and wore out the grooves. When I came to live in the US I found it
at the Virgin Megastore that used to be in Times Square.That store was one of the 7 wonders of the world for a music junkie like me. And yes as you can see it was an import CD so I spent about $25 for it.Oh I am so glad those gouging bastard record pimp music management days are history and  I am so glad the business got its rear end rebored by the Limewires and other download pirates.The music is Johnny at his best. Not a dud on it at all.Evidently Chickentown may be familiar to fans of The Sopranos. It was featured in the 6th season when Tony Soprano becomes godfather to Chris' daughter Caitlin.My favorite track is Beasley Street which to me is the bard of Salford's opus and stands alongside Dylan's Desolation Row in my top poetry meets music compilations.With the legendary Joy Division producer Martin Hannett playing bass and Steve Hopkins on keyboards and 10cc alumni Paul Burgess on drums the music is very indicative of the album title. Johnny Clarke has his rock on as he spits and chews his way through some real masterpieces.Another masterpiece of rhythm and rhyme to me is the track 36 hours. It's brilliant.

36 hours in the mystery chair
36 hours in the quizzical glar
Of the naked lights and the visible hardware

Another bloke is leaving in a wheelchair
No joke, here comes the punchline
Lights out... sack time

Steel shoes on the stone cold floor
I hear the screws screaming in the corridor
The bad news and the slammin' of the door
The "what did i do's" and the "what am I here for's"
Shades of doubt fall deeper than the slag mine
Lights out... sack time

Hard cheese and a chest complaint
One man sneezes, another two faint
Sufferin' jesus, this ain't my venue
The man through the mesh says it's time to crash
The creeping flesh of a nervous rash
The last man to make a dash
Is on the menu

Here's the boss with a mouthful of emeralds
A maltese cross and a pocket full of chemicals
Jack frost snappin' at the genitals
Wash my cosh it's a visit from the general
Rule out sub section nine
Lights out... sack time

The killer gorilla with the perspex hat
Says I say so... and that's that
Take out the dog bring back the cat
Scrape out the cafeteria rats
Stab the rabbit feed the swine lights out... sack time

Time flies ... slides down the wall
Part of me dies under my overalls
I close my eyes and a woman calls
From a nightmare
The chronic breath of the dead collides
With a rattle of the waste disposal slides
No flowers for the man who dies
In the bombscare
He's in the frigidaire

Freezing in these paper jeans
Standing stiff in a dead man's dream
Tobacco barons and the closet queen
Walk on the walls... wank in the beans
Shave... shit... a shower and a shoe shine
That's it... sack time
Everybody looks like ernest borgnine
That's it

36 hours on the battery farm
A blindfold and a broken arm
I got the cold shoulder sleepin' in the barn
Whose barn... what barn... their barn
The old soldier and his old-world charm
Lift that weight, drag that woodbine
Lights out mate sackarooni time
Lights out... sack time.

I love it. This is what Donovan should have been when Dylan first toured the UK.

A back-combed heroine-skinny phlegm-spitting  poetry god.

The Langley Schools music Project

I can't make up my mind if it's so bad its good or if its just genius good. I heard that David Bowie loved it.I read that  in a music magazine, MOJO I think and the reviewer gave it it A+. I don't remember deliberately going looking for the CD but it just sort of presented itself to me during a weekend music trawl. I have heard my share and more of school orchestras and choirs.I have felt the pain as the soloist doesn't quite keep the beat or hit the note.So listening to this should be like agony, like deliberately poking knitting needles in your ears  but in a weird way the very amateurism of it makes the Langley School Project  fresh.It's flawed brilliance.Like outsider art its the imperfections and the sub-perfect skill in evidence that makes it both charming and very listenable. The Langley here is in Vancouver and the teacher was Hans Fenger and the year of the recording was 1977.But it wasn't until the year 2000 that a copy of the record showed up in a thrift store and Langley fever took off.Author Neil Gaiman was quoted as saying `I wish every school taught music like this.' David Bowie said that their version of Space Oddity was `a piece of art that I couldn't have conceived of' and said the backing vocals were
`astounding.' Richard Carpenter found the version of `Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Space' in his words `Charming' which was rich coming from a guy who ripped that song off from the band Klaatu who composed it and who when it was released were widely rumored to be The Beatles performing anonymously.Me? I love love love the Langley kids version of `Good Vibrations.' When I listen to it that's exactly what I get.