Celebrity Jukebox #140: Michael Madsen

Do you ever listen to K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70s?

Whenever I think of the actor Michael Madsen, who died yesterday aged just 67, one song immediately springs to mind...

Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty were a duo known as Stealer's Wheel when they recorded this Dylanesque, pop, bubble-gum favourite from April of 1974 that reached up to number five, as K-Billy's Super Sounds of the '70s continues...

Don't go anywhere - I'll be right back...

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #125: HOW MUCH!?!

Over the past few months, I've been getting increasingly excited about the prospect of a box set of new, previously unreleased Bruce Springsteen albums being made available for the first time. Tracks II is the long-awaited sequel to the Tracks boxset which was released back in 1998. That set contained 4 discs, and much of that unreleased material was as good as the stuff which made it onto the albums released between the early 70s and early 80s. I wasn't expecting the Tracks II material to be of an equivalent standard, covering the period between the mid-80s to the late 90s, something of a fallow period for the Boss once Tunnel Of Love was out of the way. Still, for a fan like me, I was sure there'd be lots to enjoy...

Until I saw the price.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure the original Tracks boxset retailed between £20 and 30 when it came out. A bargain for four discs of prime era Bruce out-takes. And OK, this new set is seven discs rather than four, add in 30 years of inflation (even though the average price of a regular CD has hardly changed in that time) and I figured the new collection might cost me about fifty quid. Which I would have been more than willing to fork out.

So how much is Tracks II?

£229.99.

Two hundred and thirty pounds.

TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY FLIPPING QUID!!!

Bruce Springsteen - Pay Me My Money Down

That's approximately £33 a disc. For albums that weren't deemed worthy of release at the time of recording.

The last proper Springsteen album, 2020's Letter To You*, cost £11.99 on release. Even if Sony wanted to charge me the equivalent of that, times seven, it'd still come in at well under a hundred quid.

(*I don't count that duff album of karaoke soul covers.)

I'm sorry, but £230 is a ridiculous amount of money. There's no justification for it beyond greed. I'm trying not to lay that at Bruce's door, since clearly he has a contract with Sony and they want to milk it for all its worth in this world of musical diminishing returns. And I guess they also want to rake back as much as they can after reportedly paying him $500 million to buy his entire catalogue, including master recordings and publishing rights, back in 2021. With that in mind, I doubt Bruce has any say in either the release of this material or its price point... but this does come in the same year his concert ticket prices crashed comfortably through the £100 barrier, and I reckon he's probably helping the rest of the E Street Band fill their pension pots at this point.

Bruce Springsteen - Easy Money

The long and the short of it then, is that I won't be buying Tracks II. Neither will I be buying the £12.99 single disc highlights CD. I'm not even sure I can be bothered to listen to it online at this point. The whole thing has just left me with a nasty taste in my mouth. I might get over that. Or I might win the lottery, and suddenly money will be no object. But like so much entertainment marketed at aging fans these days, it seems prohibitively priced for anyone but the overprivileged. Such is the world we live in...

You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take

You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks

Out on to an open road, you ride until the day

You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay

Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you pay

Now you can't walk away from the price you pay

Teacher Songs #10: Crush

Van Halen - Hot For Teacher

After last week's post about my old Chemistry teacher, Mr. Dowling, Brian commented...

I took the bare minimum of sciences in high school and college out of pure laziness. The only teacher I remember from those classes was Mrs. Fischer, for reasons that had nothing to do with class content.

All of which brings us to the thorny issue of fancying your teacher... something which I have more songs about that any other issue in school...

Now I may be misremembering here, but the only teacher I can recall who made me come over all Prince...

Prince - Teacher Teacher

...was Miss Crosby from the Art Department. The "Miss" was important, I'm sure.

There were three art teachers I remember from school. Miss Roche wore dungarees and also taught what would now be called CDT. The big thing I remember from her lessons was making a letter opener out of blue Perspex... an object which would have high demand as a shank in any prison in the country. I still have that letter opener today, though it gets far less use than it did in the 80s and 90s. I don't even shank people with it any more.

Billy J - Teacher Teach Me

And then there was Miss Crosby, the archetypal "fit" teacher. That word seems rather archaic now - do people still say "fit"? It was the 80s and we were teenage lads. Everyone fancied Miss Crosby. I think it's fair to say that she was a big factor in my choosing to continue doing Art at A Level, even though I only got a C in GCSE. 

Level 42 - Lessons In Love

I didn't do very well at A Level Art (I got an E). Partly because the Art department expected you to spend all your time doing Art when I was far more focussed on my primary subjects (English Language & Literature). Don't take A Level Art as a third option. Nobody will thank you for it. And that's where I saw another side of Miss Crosby too - she could be lovely to those kids who spent every lunchtime in the Art room working on their projects... but those of us with less commitment, she tended to shun.

Oh, my broken Art!

Bob Seger - School Teacher

Also, we tended to see far less of Miss Crosby once we started A Levels (it was almost like she'd laid a honey trap and now we were caught in it - and the numbers for A Level art were good! - then her work was done). Instead, most of our lessons seemed to be with the third member of the Art Department, Mrs. Birkenshaw, an older lady who dressed liked Crystal Carrington in Dynasty (shoulder pads were big at the time, and no bigger than on Mrs. Birkenshaw). You could always tell she was coming from a mile off because her appearance was heralded by a choking cloud of Calvin Klein's Obsession... though she was no Isabella Rossellini.  

We used to stand in the corridor as she passed, humming the theme tune to Dynasty as loud as we could get away with... I don't think she ever twigged. Or maybe she did, and liked the attention.

Diana Ross - Oh Teacher

There's a lesson to be had here about the futility of fancying your teacher... but I doubt any of you need to be taught it. And just imagine what it's like to be on the other side of that equation...

38 Special - Teacher Teacher

More on that next week.

Namesakes #144: The Human Beings

Strictly speaking, every band that's ever been featured on Namesakes has been made up of Human Beings. With the obvious exception of Oasis, who are Neanderthals. 

This week, we look at bands that chose to name themselves after everyday people... with a variety of spellings, to confuse and aggravate any Maths teachers who believe that everything should be precise and exact.

THE HUMAN BEINGS #1

We start with some Stonesy rock 'n' roll from Detroit in 1966, led by Ted Licavoli.

The Human Beings - You're Bad News

HUMAN BEINGS #2

Next we go to Norway, where Human Beings also emerged in 1966. They appear to have released one single (probably a cover of The Small Faces' Sha-La-La-La-Lee, though I can't find it on the tube of you), and then finally got around to putting out an album FIFTY years later in 2016. Not sure what they did in between. Here is a tribute to their hometown of Bergen...

Human Beings - Heia Bergen

THE HUMAN BEINZ #3

1966 was a big year for naming your band after homo sapiens, so much so that this Youngstown, Ohio band chose a different spelling (they were originally The Human Beingz, but who needs the g?).

Back when I worked in radio, one of the sales execs visited the US and came back with a cassette of a radio jingle for a used car company in the States that ripped off the biggest hit by The Human Beinz... Nobody But Me. He proceeded to rip off that jingle for one of his clients. I can still remember it, because the ad was on high rotation. "Nobody can do CREDIT like we do, nobody can do FINANCE like we do..." I'm pretty sure the Human Beinz received no money for either the UK rip off or the US original. Although to be fair, as their hit was written by The Isley Brothers (who also recorded the original version), it was those guys who probably needed both the CREDIT and the FINANCE. I hope Quentin Tarantino paid up when he used the track in Kill Bill. 

The Human Beinz - Nobody But Me

THE HUMAN BEANS #4

In 1967, The Human Beans were one of Dave Edmunds' early bands. They released one single, but presumably never set foot in front of a camera, so I had to settle for a picture of the band they evolved into: Love Sculpture.

The Human Beans - Morning Dew (Take Me For A Walk)

THE HUMAN BEINGS #5

From Farnham in Surrey, these Human Beings began life as a punk band in 1977 (what else would you do in 1977?) before "migrating into soft rock". They released one "double B-side" single on Bognor Regis based Airship Records and went on to support Alexei Sayle. The Big Time!

The Human Beings - New Song

HUMAN BEINGS #6

Dutch techno techno techno duo from 1992, when such things were prevalent. Like scurvy.

Human Beings - F.U.B.A.R.

THE HUMAN BEANS #7

More half-baked Beans, this time from San Francisco in the mid 90s. In their favour, they recorded very short songs.

Human Beans - Fight My Disease

HUMANBEINGS #8

US rockers from 2001 with a broken space bar. No idea what they sound like, but I appreciated their song title.

Humanbeings - It's Better To Have Loved And Lost Than It Is To Get Stabbed In The Eye With A Pencil

HUMAN BEINGS #9

Funky acoustic jazz/soul ensemble from France in 2004. Big fans of Wilf Gasmask Grimshaw.

Human Beings - Thema Bounga Thema

HUMAN BEINGS #10

A noisy Japanese lot from 2011...

Human Beings - 島嶼城市 咱 / 島嶼城市 咱 The Island, the City, and We

HUMAN BEANS #11

Spanish power poppers from 2021... could I have saved the best for last this week?

Human Beans - Out In The Field

THE HUMAN BEINGS #12

Oh no, wait - that wasn't the last one. This is the last one. From Pennsylvania in 2022. And it's even better!

The Human Beings - Runnin' (Learning)

Twelve lots of Human Beings for your listening pleasure... but which ones are homo superior?