Musical 'F*** my Hat, I didn't know that!'

[Sebastian Cobb]

The PFX was a good bit of kit. Basic but sounded good. Much better than the later PRP series.

[Geoffs~Cape]

I know this because my Jamaican-descent colleague's grandmother is a massive Jim Reeves fan.

Also, am I misremembering it, but isn't the old lady in Mars Attacks West Indian? It's her Slim Whitman record that proves to be the Martians' undoing.

West Indian's love of Jim Reeves also gets a mention in this BBC Four doc from a few years ago, around the 1min45sec mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dosT5fkQay8

And I can confirm my West Indian father in law does indeed have a Best Of Jim Reeves LP nestled amongst his Yabby You and Burning Spear 12"s.

[George White]

No, the old woman in MA is Sylvia Sidney, who's very WASP.

Jim Reeves and Slim Whitman and Charley Pride- also huge in Ireland, country and western being huge amongst the Ireland's Own demographic. The latter IIRC still tours around rural Ireland, to large audiences of old biddies and JR wannabes.

There are far more similarities in WEST INDIAN and IRISH CULTURE than people admire. I think that's one of the reasons why that Anthony Lennon fella thinks he's culturally African. I think he just thought because he's Irish and felt at home with Caribbean people, but you know, both come from mainly rural backgrounds, faced prejudice, both like the same kind of things...

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

I've heard that before but I refuse to believe it until shown proof. And by that I mean a video of them shagging. Although I doubt if I'd be able to watch more than a second of it.

Sorry bit of a tangent here but I read that post while listening to The Beltway Bandits by Frank Zappa so had the rather alarming mental image of sped up footage of them going at it...

[gilbertharding]

All the talk about 2 way radios reminds me of when I was in the air cadets in the 80s, and somehow our squadron had got hold of some equipment we called Storno - which I guess is the brand name - for when we were out doing adventure training, mainly in the woods around Thetford. Anyway, this stuff was absolutely useless, and mainly ended up just being another thing we had to carry around/keep dry. God knows where it came from, but there were a number of regular RAF people who used to volunteer their time to us, and one of them was 'in Supply', so this stuff was probably liberated from there.
We had a three or four walkie talkies, like this:

and a couple of rigs which could be used at base, or in the Leyland Sherpa minibus  our 'supply' person had provided. The effective range for these radios Thetford forest was approximately 100yds.

Buzby: over to you.

[thraxx]

The effective range for these radios Thetford forest was approximately 100yds.

STANTA?

[buzby]

All the talk about 2 way radios reminds me of when I was in the air cadets in the 80s, and somehow our squadron had got hold of some equipment we called Storno - which I guess is the brand name - for when we were out doing adventure training, mainly in the woods around Thetford. Anyway, this stuff was absolutely useless, and mainly ended up just being another thing we had to carry around/keep dry. God knows where it came from, but there were a number of regular RAF people who used to volunteer their time to us, and one of them was 'in Supply', so this stuff was probably liberated from there.
We had a three or four walkie talkies, like this:

and a couple of rigs which could be used at base, or in the Leyland Sherpa minibus  our 'supply' person had provided. The effective range for these radios Thetford forest was approximately 100yds.

Buzby: over to you.

Looks like a Storno 'Stornophone' CQP813 handheld. They were first manufactured in 1973 for the PMR market, but were also aquired for use by many Government agencies including the RAF and SAS (theirs were fitted with digital scramber modules). The RAF got rid of theirs in the early 90s.

https://www.qsl.net/gm8aob/pages_2/cqp612.htm
Storno also manufactured the RadioPhones made for the GPO/BT System 4 FM radio network (the early 80s predecessor to cellular mobile).


Storno were originally a Danish company that moved into the UK market by purchasing a test equipment manufacturer called Southern Instruments. The were sold by their parent company to GE in the mid-70s and were subsequently sold to Motorola in 1986.

[a duncandisorderly]

we had stornos at brooky; they replaced an actual motorola-branded system of handsets, headsets & a base-station/antenna when the group of frequencies was reclassified from what we were using it for (tv production) & given to a local cab firm.
the interference was intolerable during the overlap period, & repurposing the hardware with new crystals &c was either too costly or impractical. the storno handsets were like the ones in that pic up there, twice the size of the old motorolas, but the battery life was better, so up with them we put.

[studpuppet]

Lawrence Dallaglio once sang backing vocals for Tina Turner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Dallaglio#Early_life

[Colin Sanction]

Shakin Stevens is 70 years old!

[McChesney Duntz]

And probably actually shaking!

[DrGreggles]

Shakin Stevens is 70 years old!

And I'm going to see him next week!

[thecuriousorange]

The line often attributed to John Lennon - "Ringo isn't the best drummer in the world. He isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles" - was actually uttered by British comedian Jasper Carrott in 1983.

[SteveDave]

Shakin Stevens is 70 years old!

He's my friend Andrew's second cousin!

[Jockice]

Rick Witter from Shed Seven had a granny called Alice Cooper.

[Norton Canes]

71, keep up

[thecuriousorange]

That Jasper Carrott one is serious by the way. At least according to the BBC news website.

[daf]

Goes even further back according to Beatle Book Bloke Mark Lewisohn :

"Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles." Never said by John Lennon. Jasper Carrott's office claimed it as 1983 gag; proof now it was said earlier, in BBC comedy Radio Active in Oct 1981. File here. Voice by Philip Pope. Written by Geoffrey Perkins. Not by John Lennon.

https://mobile.twitter.com/marklewisohn/status/1039429309797158912?lang=en

A bit like the ITV Morcambe & Wise conductor sketch that was later re-done on the BBC to much greater effect with Andre Previn, you feel the gag is a bit thrown away here - with it's full potential unexploited for maximum woofs . . .

That said . . . has anyone actually found a recording of Jasper Carrott saying this line?

Maybe it was Radio Active all along - someone picked up on it, and the line has just ripened to perfection in the constant retelling - with the Lennon attribution being the 'Previn' cherry on the top.

[Norton Canes]

It's a shame none of the quotes from their Bee Gees/Heebeegeebies show never made it into common parlance.

[DrGreggles]

The line often attributed to John Lennon - "Ooh, funky moped" - was actually uttered by British comedian Jasper Carrott in 1975.

True dat

[daf]

jasper carrott's 'funky moped'.... that's ELO playing on it.

The Goodies' 'Funky Gibbon' : They haven't stopped dancing yet . . .

It was arranged by Tom Parker ("with interference from Bill Oddie") with the musical backing provided by members of the R&B band Gonzalez

[poodlefaker]

Also Dave Macrae of Matching Mole.

Bill Oddie:
You won't believe the musical pretensions that went on in my head. I listened to a lot of jazz and a lot of funk, and that period of the '70s for me was fantastic - it was really the era when fusion started. The people I liked were Sly Stone and early Parliament, and I listened to what was happening in jazz at the time, when Miles Davis was coming up with some very interesting hybrid music. With 'Funky Gibbon', I started off - it's almost unbelievable considering how stupid the song is - trying to get the feel of a Miles Davis track, I can't remember which, probably just after Bitches Brew and that sort of era: some really choppy Miles Davis-type rhythm, again with a Sly Stone influence.

[studpuppet]

It was arranged by Tom Parker ("with interference from Bill Oddie") with the musical backing provided by members of the R&B band Gonzalez

I thought The Colonel couldn't leave the States because he had 'nationality' issues, and that's why Elvis never toured abroad?

[Crabwalk]

Christ, I'm currently reading Stuart Cosgrove's Detroit '67 and have just learned something about James Brown that will prevent me from ever getting the same joy from his music again. I mean, I knew he was a bastard but... I'll put it in spoilers as it's just so horrible.

While on tour in '64 he had an abusive sexual relationship with 17-year-old Tammi Terrell,  once 'rupturing her vagina' with an umbrella. Her family only found out when they called her back from the tour and found a blood-soaked kimono in her luggage.

I've not yet looked into whether her brain haemorrhage and death a few years later were ever linked to Brown's abuse but...fucking hell.

Edit: it was a brain tumour, so nothing to link Brown's beatings (or those by her subsequent boyfriend David Ruffin) to her premature death.

[SteveDave]

That's put me right off my ham bap.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Storno were originally a Danish company that moved into the UK market by purchasing a test equipment manufacturer called Southern Instruments. The were sold by their parent company to GE in the mid-70s and were subsequently sold to Motorola in 1986.

My old man had one of them. I don't recall seeing the actual radio but I'm pretty sure he still has the briefcase.

I actually still use the bag from a philips car/bagphone (see here) for my slr and lenses.


Paired with an Cambridge Z88 or an Amstrad PPC and one could work from anywhere.

[Pseudopath]

Billy Idol is English? When the fuck did that happen?

[The Culture Bunker]

Not a recent one from me, but was reminded of it when I heard the song in question today:

The Jesus and Mary Chain once provided backing vocals for an Erasure song.

In fact, I think I learned this on here, but thought it was worth repeating. 

[daf]

Billy Idol is English?

One of the Siouxsie Punk set wasn't he? 'Suburban Cockney' Geezer.

~ (reaches for box-file of voluminous NME clippings from top shelf, dislodging a sparkling skein of dust in the process) ~

. . . ah yes, here we go - part of the "Bromley Contingent" :

The Bromley Contingent were a group of followers of the Sex Pistols: The name was coined by Melody Maker journalist Caroline Coon, after the town of Bromley where some of them lived. They helped popularise the fashion of the early UK punk movement. Most of them were fans of Dave Bowie and The Davie Bowie Band (feat. Dave Bowie).

The group included Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Billy Idol, Jordan, Soo Catwoman, Simon 'Boy' Barker, Debbie Juvenile (née Wilson), Linda Ashby, Philip Sallon, Simone Thomas, Bertie 'Berlin' Marshall, Tracie O'Keefe and Sharon Hayman. There were other members who, although very important to the group, did not become more recognised within the later punk scene; names such as Angel and Ruth were remembered, especially by Siouxsie.

[Jockice]

Not a recent one from me, but was reminded of it when I heard the song in question today:

The Jesus and Mary Chain once provided backing vocals for an Erasure song.

In fact, I think I learned this on here, but thought it was worth repeating.

It's one psychological drama after another.