I know music posts on this blog don’t go down well with everyone, but I need to pop a post up today and this Hamish Hawk cover of The Smiths is just so beautiful.
Short and oh so sweet.
You should remember Hamish from the Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973 song, which remains a real highlight from last year.
And if you’re wondering about what’s below, then you need to go here.
Lots of thoughts to jot down today, but all of them instantly wiped from my memory having heard this on 6 Music’s Loud and Proud LGBTQ+ All Day Rave (phew!), this morning.
When that piano synth riff kicks in at 1:16… What a moment of release!
The original (this is the 2009 remaster) was an anthem to all that is grey, sick and problematic about urban living, and was released way back in 1986, but even now, 36 years later, they’re still using it to open their concerts.
Amazing.
“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”
Yeah, I get it, Mark Twain, but wow, I’d be so much happier if my left calf muscle didn’t shred like a wet tissue at the first sign of any vaguely rapid movement.
That never used to happen when I was younger.
And yet… guess what?
So it’s back to walking and weights, avoiding any strain on the calf, because obviously, a week (which would have been fine to have fixed it a few years back) clearly wasn’t enough to fix it this time around. Nothing major, just grumpy and a bit painful. (The calf muscle, not me.) (Although…)
And I know I’m getting on a bit now because 6Music put out an ad for a series of shows they’re doing on Friday to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of OK Computer.
“Twenty-fifth”, indeed! I think you’ll find that OK Computer was actually released in 1997, and that was only… oh… oh my dear god…
A quarter of a century. Wow.
Living in Oxford at the time, and Radiohead coming from Oxford (pre-OKC, you’d regularly see Thom Yorke wandering down St Aldates, but I guess things went a bit mainstream celebrity after that), we stayed up ever so late on that Tuesday (I think?) evening and went into town for the special midnight release at the HMV on Cornmarket Street. Free poster, free sticker, a whole pound off the CD.
And it’s fair to say that, despite all the hype – even the local hype – the album was (and still is) something very special. I wonder how you deal with anything and everything you produce after something like that being measured against it and always falling short.
I’m sure the massive royalties help with the continual disappointment.
We spotted Stanley Sibande busking in Nobel Square at the Waterfront on Sunday. Amazing voice.
And then, out of nowhere, he did this: (sadly, I only caught a bit of it on video, but you get the idea.)
Looking him up, he has previous form:
Look we’ve covered Seafret a lot on this blog. And they’re great. But how fantastic to hear a bit of Bridlington in the middle of Cape Town.
And so beautifully sung. Great cover.
I downloaded a playlist on Spotify.
Look, it was great back in the day (T&Cs apply), and I had the weird idea that it might still be great for some high energy stuff in the gym. And there are some elements of it which do fit that bill, but then there are others that simply… don’t.
Tarzan & Jane by Denmark’s Toy-Box was one that didn’t.
Surfing on the back of other Danish success stories like Aqua and Whigfield, and very much copying the vibe of the former’s Dr Jones (pretty, squeaky voiced, pig-tailed girl in peril in the jungle, hunky bloke with deep voice turns up to save her; they fall in love; numerous double entendres in the lyrics etc.) here are Toy-Box.
Eish.
As you can see above, despite some very dodgy musical tastes at the time, the UK steered well clear of Toy-Box. And we should be praised for that.
Still, I bet you’re really glad that you found this on your internet timeline today, aren’t you?