Grace for the weekend

It sounds like all my clubbing nights rolled into one!

Here's Grace ......

Fascinating to see this clip again, from the BBC The Terry Wogan Show in 1985. We loved Grace then and this track ..... got the album too. Go, Grace ..... RIP Sir Terry. 

Weekend grooves

Grace! - like Blondie's Debbie Harry, Grace is too much and never gets old! I had not seen this video clip or heard this track of hers before .... love the Sly & Robbie bass groove, as on most of Grace's numbers. 

Also lets have some Talking Heads .. so much to choose from.

Weekend soundtrack ...

A delicious brace from the 1980s: I love this Fairground Attraction video and Eddi Reader, its of course "Perfect". and that blast from the Frankies: "Welcome to the Pleasure Dome" .... Holly rules! and a chillout classic from A Man Called Adam ....

Then some old classics we love: Randy Meisner with that great song he wrote with The Eagles, and Cream with the great Jack Bruce, "Sleepy Time Time" is one of their best. 

And a brace of new Adam Lambert videos, from America and UK, for his new track "Ghost Town" from his new album

Flamboyant or what? Adam of course steps out with whats left of Queen. Like Markus Feehily (below, music label)  he is another unapologetic out gay - part of that new wave of young actors (Andrew Scott, Russell Tovey, Ben Whishaw, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto) and singers, and Olympic poster boy Tom Daley who came out on their terms, and not forced out by the tabloid press. Now the focus can be on their work, not their private life.

Weekend gay things: the UK DVD of  LOVE IS STRANGE is finally unleashed. this did not fare too well here, It didn't even play anywhere near me, but I got the USA dvd and reviewed it here, months ago (11 March in the archive, or gay interest label). Its still a fascinating film with that very odd ending ..... London Pride week is just starting, kick-starting tomorrow with a concert in Hyde Park: Kylie, Grace Jones, Nile Rogers/Chic, Mika etc. I've seen Kylie a few times, and Grace knocked me out when I finally saw her live, a decade or more now, one of the most amazing live acts I have seen; And  Madonna? yes, her new single (from the rather flop album) has arrived: Bitch, she's Madonna

Donna: de luxe and re-issued

I am delighted to finally have a cd of Donna's 1982 album titled "Donna Summer", the one produced by Quincy Jones - and a de luxe, remastered edition too, in a book format, with copious notes and extra versions of "Love is in Conrol" and "State of Independence". This for me is Donna's best later album and has been unavailable on cd for a long time. The album with Quincy Jones is one of my favourite 80's albums that never sounds dated and Donna's voice sounds amazing.  

"Love is in Control" was the first song I heard on a friend's Sony Walkman, so I had to dash out and get my own one - it still sounds terrific now, and I love her version of the Billy Strayhorn classic "Lush Life".

Its part of a 6 cd boxset, but the albums are available singly at a good price. Looks like Donna is back in favour again ... It was also good to get Grace Jones' seminal album "Nightclubbing" also in that de luxe re-mastered format with lots of extra tracks, earlier this year - Grace Jones label - and Diana Ross's Chic album "Diana". 

Debbie & Dolly do Glastonbury; Grace & Sade from the archives ...

Among this year's acts wowing the Glastonbury Festival were those two 68 year old blondes - Debbie Harry with Blondie; and Dolly Parton who was a sensation here, ending up on all the front pages of even the quality papers, as her set - probably her usual act with all that patter in between numbers, got everybody going. Debbie on the other hand barely said a word to the crowd between numbers, but they were all there, even "Rapture" and "Atomic" - odd though knowing the videos for those numbers, and the now rather portly figure in the low-key black with that odd white harness .... 
I suppose once a punk ....

Dolly on the other hand radiated that old-fashioned country glamour and seemed slimmer than ever, and had some new songs too. Both gals are releasing new material this year.   
We are of course used to old rock stars still going (was anything more bizarre than Paul McCartney now in his Seventies and with that dyed hair still singing "I Saw Her Standing There" (about that girl of 17) at that recent Beatles in America tribute, or Jagger still trying to get some "Satisfaction" - at least the gals can give them a run for their money).
Top 5 Lists continued: The Top 5 Dolly songs as listed are: "Just Because I'm A Woman", "Down From Dover", "I Will Always Love You", "Light of a Clear Blue Morning" and "To Daddy".

Back to the archives: a new BBC series "Sounds of the Eighties" offers eight half hour specials of music clips from vintage '80s BBC shows.

It was bliss to see again that bizarre version of "Slave To The Rhythm" which Grace Jones did on the Terry Wogan show in 1985 - Grace is covered up for most of the number, I remember this from its first transmission, 
and we always like a Sade number - "Diamond Life" indeed ! 

Sunday with Seth and Zac, The Beatles and Here's Grace ... and Kathleen !

Frat-boy fun: I got some criticism recently for reviewing Seth Rogen’s THE GUILT TRIP when I have no interest or appreciation of what passes for modern comedy these days, but I was only interested in THE GUILT TRIP (a friend passed me on his dvd, I wouldn’t have bothered with it otherwise) as it was a Barbra Streisand film, and I had been obsessed with Barbra from a long time, since my teens in the early 60s to about the time of her A STAR IS BORN in 1976. It amuses me that people like Seth Rogen are movie stars now, part of our dumbed-down culture no doubt. At least Zac Efron, Seth’s co-star in BAD NEIGHBOURS, is easy on the eye (as Seth says "its like a gay man created him in a laboratory") – as he was in THE PAPERBOY, but if he persists in making movies like this his screen stardom may suddenly start to decline - Taylor Lautner anyone? (I was wrong here - the film is a huge hit!). Here in the UK though we do not get SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE so this new breed of comedians and writers are mainly unknown to us, until their movies arrive here – I hadn’t heard of Kristen Wiig or Melissa McCarthy for instance until BRIDESMAIDS, more gross-out comedy. 

 Our SUNDAY TIMES film critic, Camilla Long, does not mince her words – here’s some of what she says about BAD NEIGHBOURS!. Every so often a film comes along that feels more like an elaborate aversion experiment than an actual film. BAD NEIGHBOURS is such an appallingly moronic comedy that will make anyone with a working pair of ears and eyes never want to see a film again. Rogen plays exactly the same character he’s ever played: a stupid, lubricious, fat loser paired with a woman who wouldn’t look at him twice in real life (because of course all schlubby guys in these kind of movies deserve hot girls) … this is a horrifyingly dumb mess that makes ANIMAL HOUSE look like Antonioni.  Way to go, Camilla!. 

It was Nostalgia Time with that tv show celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles "conquering" America in 1964 when they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. This was THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED AMERICA, first broadcast in the States in February - it finally turned up here in the UK this May weekend! Cue a schmaltzfest of the great and good (thats you, Jeff Bridges) as, to our eyes here in Europe, a show of overkill re-worked those Beatles classics, with the two surviving Beatles, happily nodding along, along with Yoko and assorted Beatles wives and offspring. For me, Maroon 5 stole the show with a cracking "Ticket to Ride", and Ed Sheeran practically reduced one to tears with that simple and effective "In My Life" - what a lyric that is! particularly now after all these years. 
Steve Wonder did a neat "We Can Work It Out" while Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart over-egged the simple "Fool On The Hill", and Alicia Keys and John Legend tried to outsing each other on "Let It Be". It all finished with a predictable singalong to "Hey Jude". Good though to see Ringo celebrated along with Paul. Was it a good idea though for McCartney to finish with "I Saw Her Standing There"? Those opening lines "Well she was just seventeen, you know what I mean" could sound rather creepy sung by someone in his 70s with dyed hair!. Its a swaggering young man's song indelibly sung by John Lennon, the first track on their first album. Maroon 5 would have been perfect for it. 
 
And the paper's "must have reissue" in their music section. A welcome nod to Grace Jones' NIGHTCLUBBING, which I loved on vinyl and is now on the iPod. This though is a new double CD pack with booklet, which I have ordered and will arrive tomorrow, with lots of remixes of those classics like "Pull Up To The Bumper". My late disk jockey friend Rory would have loved it. As The Times says: "The biggest seller of Grace Jones' career is reissued in multiple formats, its chief surprise being her previously unheard take on Gary Numan's "Me! I Disconnect From You". It remains one of pop's most prophetic albums, the crack band assembled by Sly and Robbie creating mongrel music whose diversity was, in 1981, years ahead of its time, and Jones herself, on a sequence of covers and originals, taking vocal detachment and androgyny to a whole new level". 
I finally got to see Grace live over a decade ago in 2002 to be exact, at al all day festival in South London. She was topping the bill, after Yoko Ono, and finally came on as dusk fell, after keeping us happy clubbers waiting for over 40 minutes - and then blew us all away. The most astounding performer I had seen live apart from Nina Simone! 
Good to see the albums like ISLAND LIFE, SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM and those COMPASS POINT SESSIONS and her recent new album HURRICANE of a few years ago still out there. I like INSIDE STORY from 1986 with "I'm not perfect, but I'm perfect for you", and every track on LIVING MY LIFE is sublime, from "My Jamaican Guy" to "The Apple Stretching" to "Cry Now, Laugh Later" and "Unlimited Capacity for Love".Grace still rules in her sixties - as she did with her hula-hoop at The Queen's Jubilee Concert a couple of years ago! I am amazed that I can like Grace as much as I do Joni or Aretha or Dusty or any of the great divas. Perhaps Grace is the uber-Diva. 

Kathleen Turner gives great interview, either in print or on TV. She is in town again for another play here - one I do not know, THE BAKERSFIELD MIST as a trailer park woman who buys a painting cheap and it may turn out to be a Jackson Pollock. Kathleen was wonderful on the Paul O'Grady Show, and in some press interviews. Her voice is so amazingly deep now, and she has great attitude and humour, after coping with health problems. 
I was blown away a year or two ago when finally catching her stunning debut in BODY HEAT from 1981. What a stunner that is. I could watch it over and over, as per my review, at Turner label. 

Rainy day thoughts ...

Some musing after reading the weekend papers ...

Nobody I presume sets out to make a bad movie, but some certainly turn out bad - how do the actors feel then having to promote them?  I caught sight of Simon Pegg a couple of times last week on early morning tv shows sitting on sofas (what has he done to his hair ? - he seems to be wearing something new ....) talking up this new piece of drek A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING which according to the reviews here is possibly the worst film of the year or as one says "is unarguably one of the worst British films I've ever seen" - what, worse than SEX LIVES OF THE POTATO MEN or LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS which temporarily killed off James Corden's career here - once I saw that first review of it in "Time Out" followed by that "Sunday Times" page I knew it would take him a long time to recover, but of course he is now wowing them on Broadway. 

Pegg of course has form with bad movies - he may turn up in major franchises like that recent MISSION IMPOSSIBLE but there's also that awful BURKE & HARE and that take on Toby Young's HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE, RUN FATBOY RUN etc - but I dare say he's not too worried, as he has several others in the pipeline since ... perhaps he should read the rave reviews from everyone for rapper Plan B (Ben Drew) and his film ILL MANORS - that should be suitable punishment.

Then there is Will Ferrell: "A word for CASA DE MI PADRE: rotten. This would have been stretched as a 5 minute sketch on Saturday Night Live. I have rarely laughed so little at a comedy", what on earth were Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna thinking?

Here's Grace ...

By now everyone must have seen those photos and clips of Grace Jones wowing them at the Royal Jubilee Concert as she hula-hooped her way through "Slave to the Rhythm". Everyone is commenting on how amazing she looks at 64 as she showed youngsters like Cheryl how it's done - Grace is bigger than ever now and headlines the annual Lovebox festival next Sunday here in London. (Music label). I saw her 10 years ago exactly at a festival in 2002 - where she was also the headline act and kept us all waiting as it got darker for 45 minutes so just as we were getting annoyed there she was and blew us away - it was an amazing act, one of the best I have seen. Those albums like NIGHTCLUBBING and LIVING MY LIFE are still essential and I love that COMPASS POINT double album sessions .... Grace can be known to be difficult but it was great seeing her chatting to The Queen. Grace's was actually the first 12" vinyl record I bought, back in the '80s - that double sider of "I Need A Man" and "La Vie En Rose" - and all those stunning videos ... Have a great Lovebox - it may be wet as our bad weather is set to continue.
Now the latest Hot Chip cd has arrived .....

What became of the movie brats ?

An interesting piece too on those other '70s directors we liked ...(apart from Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, De Palma):

• Hal Ashby - , THE LANDORD, HAROLD AND MAUDE, SHAMPOO, COMING HOME, BEING THERE etc - died in 1988, aged 59. "His increasingly erratic drug-fuelled behaviour meant that by the end of the 80s he could only get work directing minor tv shows".
• Peter Bogdanovich - THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, PAPER MOON etc- but flops like DAISY MILLER and AT LONG LAST LOVE put paid to that interesting career that began with TARGETS. His books though like "Who the hell's in it?" are fascinating as he knew them all .... 
• William Friedkin - still working
• Dennis Hopper - died in 2010 aged 74.
• Rob Rafelson - last film in 2002
• Robert Altman - died in 2006, aged 81
• Paul Schrader - writer of TAXI DRIVER, director of AMERICAN GIGOLO, BLUE COLLAR, LIGHT SLEEPER etc - still working at 65, now in indie films - I liked THE WALKER ...
• Alan J Pakula - died in 1998 aged 70 in a freak automobile accident when a pole crashed through his windscreen while driving - I am seeing KLUTE again later this week ...