Later with Jools Holland hit its 200th episode on Friday, which mathematically means it has been running for 59 and a half years. Despite this, Jools is still stuck in the 43 year old body he’s inhabited since The Tube first transmitted on the somethingth of a month, nineteen eighty something - before Paula Yates killed herself and probably while she was still married to that do-gooder bloke from the Boomtown Rats. The point is, Jools Holland never changes. He is forever an awkward, no-necked misfit who can’t interview people for toffee - but we like him anyway, for he has always been there and always will be.
So, Jools and company decided to celebrate this anniversary with a stellar line up of super-duperstars. He had Feist (her from the Apple advert), Radiohead (from the Skins advert), Mary J Blige (who isn’t really very famous over here), Dionne Warwick (didn’t she do the dirty with David Frost back in the day? The lucky swine…), Robyn Hitchcock and finally Cat Power, whose The Greatest album I had heard before and thought quite pleasant in places, unremarkable in others.
Then I remembered Mrs Power had recently recorded a covers album. Cue disaster.
I’m not a big fan of Sinatra but like everyone else, I know the tunes inside out. New York, New York is a bona fide classic and, in the clip above, we can see Mrs Power ripping the very life out of its pomp and joyfulness, ordering her session musicians to play the most pointless blues bore-jam as she gurns a performance of pure pointlessness from the bottom of half a lung.
What’s going on with her face? It’s like she’s singing out of half of it while the other segment tries to remember the words. I thought a ‘breathy’ voice was meant to indicate a sort of laid-back passion and melancholy - here it seems to require the singer to avoid symmetry by all means necessary. And all that bouncing about is silly as well. So stop it.
Cover albums must be the least profitable thing an artist, supposedly at the top of their game, could put out - so why bother? You can’t top the greats. Is it an attempt to establish credibility via association? Probably. Is it borne out of laziness? I assume so. Does it sound absolutely terrible? In this example, yes. Yes it does.
94 Comments
Everyone was calling Dionne Warwick ‘Dionne Warwick’ for years, then suddenly they started pronouncing her name ‘Warwick’, as opposed to ‘Warwick’. The same thing happened with ‘Caribbean’, which suddenly became ‘Caribbean’, and with ‘Uranus’, which everyone started pronouncing ‘Uranus’. It’s a pain in the arse is all this change.*
*I realise this comment doesn’t work written down.
Where do you stand on ‘diplidocus’?
Not behind it - you’ll get covered in dinosaur dung!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*collapses*
Well I pronounce it ‘Diplodocus’, as opposed to ‘Diplodocus’.
That’s all well and good, but could you not pronounce it in that badly rendered indian accent? In this day and age that could be construed as racist.
I’d like to know whether or not Jools hand picks the acts. Cuz, let’s face it, some are utter shite, and I always fancied he’d have better taste.
P.S Regarding your collective ramblings from the other day about participants on WLIIA, how fat is Tony Slattery? Do you think Tony and the now thin Mike McShane did some kind of weird body swap?
I think you’ll find that was Welsh. Many people think I’m impersonating an Indian (racist) when I am, in fact, impersonating one of those Stone-Age bone eaters from across the border (not racist). There’s nothing wrong with impersonating a yellow-faced apeman with hair growing out of his eyes - I can’t help it if the two accents (Indian and Neanderthal) sound so bloody similar, can I?
Clarry (not to be confused with Clarys of Urban Woo fame) - I don’t think Jools chooses anything, he can barely throw a sentence together, so I suspect he’s probably seriously out of touch. As for Slattery, isn’t he dead yet?
Napoleon - I forgive you, but the people of Asia might need some convincing.
If you look at the beginnings of popular music as we know it, the cover was a standard for all artists and in fact a large proportion of the reportoire - the Beatles for example only started to edge the covers out around about Hard Days Night or so. On one hand, this ties pop music into the blues and folk it grew from. On the other, it’s a reminder of the groups’ beginnings as hired entertainment for drinking dens and weddings. With that in mind, I think many performers should do more songs that people are going to like, or remember that it’s supposed to be entertainment at the very least, and drop the wretched narcissistic idolatry of the ’serious artist’. Otherwise, like some struggling provincial party band, they should not get paid and be forced to eat Ginsters in service stations at 3am.
As for Cat Power - that squatting and jerking was a bit odd, but she’s a pretty lady. Can’t say I was ‘entertained’ though.
I once sat next to Mike McShane on an aeroplane, back in his ‘heavy’ days. Christ, he stunk. And he took up all of the armrest, and his arse spilled onto my seat, and he ate like a pig. I don’t want to stereotype fat people but, if he’s a typical example, they’re all grotesque, slobbering beasts.
Wally - nothing wrong with a couple of covers, here and there - live sets, B Sides, that kind of thing. But a whole album? Laziness.
Besides, we’ve moved on from the early 60s.
As for the ’serious artist’ tag, that wasn’t the angle I was barking up the tree of. Or something. I just think it’s lazy and unwise and in this instance sounds bloody awful.
Yeah, he’s alive alright (just). He’s in that prog Kingdom with Stephen Fry - which I just cannot get on with despite stellar cast (ok, many of whom annoy me and continue to do so with their previous output). He was almost unrecognisable.
“Besides, we’ve moved on from the early 60s.”
Tell that to Queensryche. They’ve recently released a covers album that’s even worse than their usual albums. Rush did a similar thing a few years ago … they’re all at it, even Queen. Queen have pulled off the magnificent feat of becoming their own covers band … with that smug fucker Paul Rodgers failing to fill Freddie’s boots. Music’s rubbish nowadays. If I had my way, I’d have the lot of ‘em burned at the stake.
I tried telling that to Queensryche but they wouldn’t answer the phone - they were probably practicing their pop music at the time. When I tried the next day I dialled the wrong number and got through to Pizza Hut, who had no idea what I was talking about.
And Clarry, Slattery had a breakdown - that’s probably why he’s fat. He had a line of coke and half a Pride and suddenly he was a dribbling, rotund mess.
Mmm yes, I know it’s non-pc, but fat people DO smell. There’s no mistaking that acrid stench of week old BO that emanates from the deep crevices and folds of flesh. There is no excuse. I remember watching a programme about a fat person and mid-conversation they found a remote control they’d lost between the flaps of skin. How could you not notice that?
I should have mentioned it when I saw ‘em live a couple of years ago. Sadly, I was too busy pelting shit at the stage and roaring for ‘em to get off.
There are plenty of skinny people what stink.
I’m sorry, i’d no idea about the breakdown…. but that’s no excuse to let yourself go.
Clarry - They do smell, don’t they? Fat people disgust me. They’ll continue to do so right up until the point that my chair-based job turns me into one of ‘em. Then I’ll start lying that I have a disease, demand to be called ‘heavy’, and go on television to weep that I can’t wipe my own arse thanks to my hormones making me eat nothing but Doritos.
I don’t think we’ve moved from the early 60s that much at all. Many innovations in the format of performance have been reduced to novelty and disregarded. At the heart it remains the same: performer (face) - noise (song) - response (joy).
I don’t really see a covers record as laziness, it’s just songs to entertain. Does it matter who wrote them, or if they’ve been sung before? Don’t you get a lot enjoyment, marching around your home, naked as the day you were born, bacon fat on the nipples, bellowing along to the songs in your collection? Don’t we all? Don’t we? Or are you saying that Cat Power shouldn’t be allowed to? I’m all for it.
Don’t apologise to me, seek out Slattery and give him your ’sorry’. Perhaps write it on a bit of cardboard and wait outside his house, holding it. Then follow it up with some Slattery flattery.
I know. There’s a family from a nearby village that go by the name of Speed. They are thin (malnourished would be closer to the mark) but by Christ do they STINK. Years ago my mate used to work as the controller at a local taxi rank and the Speeds would come in for their taxi on a saturday morning and we’d have to pretend to go out for a fag as their combined stench in a confined space was really quite overwhelming.
You only wrote that because ‘Slattery’ rhymes with ‘flattery’. You wouldn’t be such a smartarse if his name was ‘Tony Szienzielarz’.
Tony Slattery is Bi-Polar, isn’t he? Best thing about WLIIA by a mile.
I’m quite sure Tony won’t have read my comments. So if I went and apologised to him he’d wonder what I was on about, i’d explain and my barbed comments would finish him off in his weakened state. What good would that do, Swineshead?
I used to work in a sex shop. You want smelly folk? Fuck a duck. One bloke used to come in and regularly slash his pants right there in front of me. We used to have to keep a mop and bucket and two air fresheners behind the counter to deal with the stench. Disgusting. AND they were in there buying porno movies, the filthy bastards.
For Wally - as the others only appear to be interested in swapping anecdotes about smelly fat thin people:
Yes, I do bellow the odd cover version round my house, for shits and giggles, especially when all pissed up nice. I don’t, however, commit it to vinyl, convince idiot record company execs it’s good, then go and get myself taken seriously by the record-buying public and promote it on a respected musical showcase on the telly whilst making a fortune. And I’d be a fool to, obviously.
I see your point, I agree to an extent. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be allowed, I’m saying that if it sounds half as bad as the above example, we should all have a right good laugh at it, as it sounds like a load of shit.
Whose Line Isn’t It Where Are They Now - by Swineshead
Tony used to be bony,
Now there’s no room for Slatter flattery.
He’s all fat - and he
Seems to suffer
From Mike McShane’s blubber.
Toksvig is still an amusing short lesbian from the 80s.
Fin.
I’m prepared to bet Swineshead’s left bollock that someone will leave a comment along the lines of …
fcck u! u jzt jelluss ov Kat pwr, fck u u dun no wht ur tkkkin boute
… at some stage.
Nah - these are indie kids - they’ll probably do the same but with better grammar.
Besides - what are you doing gambling with my balls?
WLIIA was one of the worst comedy shows ever broadcast (and when you think that includes Birds of a Feather, On The Up, and Goodnight, Sweetheart, that’s pretty damned bad). It’s even worse than that Red Dwarf atrocity.
And Toksvig was, and is, a no-necked unfunnarian.
SO THERE.
I’m hardly likely to gamble with my own balls, am I?
You can’t gamble with peanuts.
Oh, ha ha. When all else fails, have a go at your enemy’s genitals. A Piqued tactic, not worthy of you. You should be ashamed of y’self.
It’s not as if Cat Power has based a career on covers albums though. She’s a respected artist in her right (whatever that means), and I think she’s taken seriously for other more compelling reasons.
However, my point only works if the material in question isn’t demented and strange, which it is (not in good way). If I could think of a decent covers record then I’d be right, but I can’t, so we’ll just agree to agree with me in theory, agreed?
NC - Do you include that job on your CV? Is the name of the shop a dead give away? Regarding your story: What must go through the mind of a man who would think nothing of knocking one out in public? Well, apart from sex, obviously. That’s the mark of a man at rock bottom.
I used to work as a dispenser in a pharmacy and it never failed to amaze me what people would reveal to me. The best one was where a man said he’d split his bum having a poo. If i’d not darted behind the counter to laugh uncontrollably I think he might have revealed the injured bumhole as he went for his trouser buckle. There were also many stinky people who used the shop as a temporary shelter by pretending to read the self help literature. My favourite character was a lady named Winnie who was about 70 and was a ‘lady of the night’ in her day. She actually had a tide mark halfway down her neck. The ‘clean’ area was actually her inch thick make-up.
I recently saw, then immediately blanked out, a re-run of a 90’s sitcom starring Mike McShane and Sandi Toksvig called The Big One. They were sharing a flat and spent most of their time squabbling. Of course, really they were deeply attracted to each other which culminated in the fattest man in the world moving in for a snog off a diminutive Danish lesbian.
Tony Slattery, didn’t he throw all his clothes into the Thames in a lovely bipolar rage? Or was that an episode of Just a Gigolo? Or maybe I dreamt it….
Bi Polar… I hate that term. ‘Mad’, we used to call them.
Yes, I agree with your theory I suppose, Wally.
I bet Mike McShane used to split his bum on a daily basis.
Clarry - I’m an illustrator, we don’t need CVs. You get jobs by either being friends with someone or by sending threatening blackmail letters. It’s who you know or what you know, you dig?
Swineshead’s right about this bipolar nonsense. They used to be called ‘mad’ and they were happy with the term. Well, I think they were happy. It’s hard to tell when you’re chained to a wall with a gag in your mouth being beaten with a stick. Mental health care used to be exciting - another thing those foreign buggers at the EEC have poked their noses into.
“WLIIA was one of the worst comedy shows ever broadcast (and when you think that includes Birds of a Feather, On The Up, and Goodnight, Sweetheart, that’s pretty damned bad). It’s even worse than that Red Dwarf atrocity.”
Nonsense, it was frequently excellent, at least in the earlier days. It has nothing in common with those other shows.
For a 200th anniversary it was a fucking shit line up. I didn’t bother.
NC, when have I ever suggested your penis is a little under par? You’re clearly worried about it… please don’t worry though. Shhhhhhh
WLIIA does have something in common with those other shows: shitness.
Birds of a Feather had Dorian, who was shit. WLIIA had Greg Proops, who was shit. On The Up featured Dennis Waterman as an unconvincing millionaire, which was shit. WLIIA featured John Sessions’ unconvincing impressions of Larry Olivier, which were shit. Goodnight, Sweetheart starred Dervla Kirwin, a woman of such shitness, it made my blood boil. WLIIA starred Josie Lawrence, a woman of such shitness (especially when she did her high-pitched child voice), it made my blood boil. Red Dwarf introduced the world to the word ’smeg’, which was unfunny shit. WLIIA introduced the world to Ryan Stiles, who was an unfunny, gangly shit. The similarities are endless.
Piqued - Woken up, have you? Laggardly swine.
Josie Lawrence is currently on Radio 4 with some simpering goon for a sidekick. It’s a really original idea though, the audience shouts out ideas like ‘penguin’ or ‘garden hose’ and they make up a totally off the cuff sketch about it - fucking hilarious.
WLIIA wouldn’t have been so awful if it wasn’t so contrived. I just never fully believed that it was as ad-libbed as they made out. And Josie Lawrence’s singing…. like fingernails down a blackboard.
Thanks Who for that mental image of McShane and Toksvig ‘doing it’. Though I find it hard to imagine what exactly they would be doing, being as they are so incompatible in the physical sense. My mum punishes me sometimes by telling me that Sandy Toksvig and Tony Robinson are my natural parents…. so do you mean to tell me that my mum is having an affair with a grossly fat and sweaty man?
The words that used to hammer the final nail into my crap Friday night:
“Let’s have a ho-down.”
OH DEAR GOD, NOOOOOOOOO!
I agree about Josie singing, and she looks like a badly painted clown.
Is it me or does anyone else feel like bursting into tears when they see Colin Mockery. He has sad mournful eyes.
Colin is the human equivalent of gallows.
I wanted to kill him. And Richard Vranchonthepiano. And everyone else associated with the show.
I have that feeling about Gail Porter.
I would have happily invited Porter Mk. I into my seedy bedroom of perverted delights. Not so much Porter MK. 2, unless she wore a wig secured with a good quality glue. I don’t think it’s sexist to say I can’t be doing with bald women at all.
There was nothing more pitiful than the sight of her ‘making light’ of the situation by dying her thinning tufts bright pink.
Do you want me write a full and frank apology to GP too, Swineshead?
To Porter?
I think you oughta.
See what he did there? Well done, Swineshead, you poetical swine.
“WLIIA does have something in common with those other shows: shitness.”
That is truly excellent.
This has all gone a bit controversial, hasn’t it? Hey everybody! Who remembers Roy Castle? Eh? Mm?
May I draw readers of this site’s attention to the first paragraph of Piqued’s new post …
http://piqued.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/ploperty/#comment-1256
Now, is whatever the hell that rubbish he’s describing a Sunday dinner, or isn’t it? Because, if my mother had served that crap up and told me it was Sunday dinner, I’d have thrown the bloody lot in her face. Swiss chard? KALE?
AND he uses the term ’sensational’ to describe his dinner, the airy-fairy PONCE.
There’s nothing controversial about calling WLIIA shit, Wally.
On the note of remembering people. I ACCIDENTALLY heard 5 minutes of Radio 1 this morning, ad they were asking people to text in if they remembered Rustie Lee. What? WHY? I mean have they totally run out of shit to go on about? Who in their right mind would waste 12p to text in that they did or didn’t remember a colourful, has-been TV chef? And when I say ‘colourful’ I am referring to her clothes and character not her ethnic origin.
I remember Roy fucking Castle, he was the cunt that went on and on about passive smoking after catching the lungs cancer.
What’s wrong with everyone today?
Is it a full moon?
Sorry Bagz…
I am feeling a bit vitriolic today. It’s wrong to take it out on others, even if they are fully deserving of it.
*hangs head in shame*
Every time I see Wally post I think of Wally Gator ‘the greatest alligator in the swamp’
Anyone remember that?
*Expects ageist jokes*
*Refutes on the grounds that none of you are young enough to not have come across it*
Who is this ‘Bagz’ you speak of?
I am Swineshead Zambezi.
It are you. My chum Dez B!
Great! Now - who remembers Fred Mercury??
WHAT ABOUT THAT BASTARD’S DINNER? EH?
(Roy Castle was a sanctimonious bastard who got his just-desserts … those desserts having nothing to do with smoking, o’ course)
Clarry - you are playing fast and loose with my facebook identity… there will be hell to pay if this all goes tits up.
Swineshead - I said nowt about FB, you did, and Dez B isn’t exactly revealing all, is it? Plus would anyone other than you have known what I was rambling on about unless you’d drawn attention to it m’laddo?
Soz anyway…
I was only joking, my rep is hardly on the line.
*Breathes sigh of relief*
Sorry thought i’d brought you down from the inside for a minute.
Everyone just CARM DOWN right. Remember what Roy the Castle used to say:
‘If you want to beat the best, you have to kill the rest.’ Or was that Lemmy?
NC, it was lunch. Dinner is served in the evening before a ballon of Port and a game of Bridge
Only prols and Notherns have ‘dinner’ at lunchtime you Northern prol.
I don’t know what a ‘Nothen’ is.
The only thing that’s brought me down from the inside recently was a prawn vindaloo and the suspicious meat substance in the accompanying naan.
I just noticed that you ’special ones’ are in blue and us normals are in black. That’s a bit discriminative dontcha think?
Piqued - Ponce. It was dinner, you ponce. Dinner. Ponce. Dinner. Fat ponce.
Swineshead - I wouldn’t trust anyone of any ethnic persuasion with seafood any more. You could have wallpapered a large dining room with what came out of me after a recent prawn madras. I’ve not seen shit like that since I bought a cup of cockles in Saaaaaarfend from some dirty-fingered Cockerney impersonator. And don’t get me started on the sweet ‘n’ sour king prawns that left my thunderbox looking like the aftermath of a shit explosion in a shit factory. Stick to chicken (even though that’ll leave you roaring like a wounded animal on the shitter come Sunday morning).
Clarry - We’re highlighted in blue because we have links to our own sites. Anyone who links in this ‘ere way has the same blue name aura. We’re not special at all. Well, I am, and Swineshead’s alright. Piqued, on the other hand, is a contemptible shitbag.
A ‘Nothen’ is a nobody resident of up oop t’north, let me think of an example, erm.
Oh yes, Cockparts. He who pays to eat food of such dreadful quality that it makes him physically ill, or at least, shit fire
Eeh ba gom
Kale is fucking great steamed with butter, lemon and salt. I could sit and eat it from a trough all day. But then I’m from an area mainly inhabited by cows so I have at least some excuse.
And also Cat Power sounds like she’s trying to be John Martyn but instead sounds like she has emphysema and no ears.
NC - Oh I geddit….
The general conversational topic of shit is one that we explored over dinner last night. Food poisoning aside, how pissed does one have to be to actually shit themselves? And if such a predicament were to occur, how would you deal with it? Ignore it, conceal soiled under garments, or stand naked in someone else’s bathroom whilst scrubbing your trousers and proudly sharing your drunken antics with another?
“Oh yes, Cockparts. He who pays to eat food of such dreadful quality that it makes him physically ill, or at least, shit fire”
Quoth the man who eats Pot Noodles and Doner Kebabs. Still, I suppose when you’re buying a cardboard box on a former London council estate for £500,000, you need to make economies.
And where do they say ‘oop t’north’ exactly? Do you mean, ‘Up North’ (as opposed to your own charming vernacular of ‘Ap Noorf’)? There’s no misplaced ‘the’ in the phrase, old son. If you are going to take the piss out of Northerners, at least try not to show your ignorance by getting the way we speak wrong.
I’m glad you’re directing this question at Cockparts, Clarry. Even I’ll admit that he’s an expert on this topic
I thought that the Sunday luncheon of which Mr Piqued spoke of so eloquently on his excellent site sounded most agreeable.
Is ‘dinner’ the same as ’snap’?
Thank you, Who.
NC, on occasion I enjoy a Pot Noodle, maybe one a month, and I eat about 6 kebabs (Shawarma’s, not Doner’s, I hasten to add) a year. I’d also like to point out that I’ve never
a. ‘wallpapered a large dining room with what came out [of me] after a recent prawn madras’
Nor have I experienced
b. ‘the sweet ‘n’ sour king prawns that left [my] thunderbox looking like the aftermath of a shit explosion in a shit factory’
Indeed, I’m ignorant of
c. ‘roaring like a wounded animal on the shitter come Sunday morning’
As for ‘oop t’North’, it’s called being facetious. I’m very aware of your dialect and customs. I’ve been to Yorkshire more times than you’ve upended up your awful takeaways.
…back to Wally Gator, I’ve just remembered Touche Turtle, and Dum Dum
“on occasion I enjoy a Pot Noodle” - Which means you have eaten food of such dreadful quality, thanks for admitting that.
‘wallpapered a large dining room with what came out [of me] after a recent prawn madras’ - Neither have I, read my comment.
‘the sweet ‘n’ sour king prawns that left [my] thunderbox looking like the aftermath of a shit explosion in a shit factory’ - Never had the shits? Weird, because you seem to have ‘em with alarming regularity according to your site.
‘roaring like a wounded animal on the shitter come Sunday morning’ - Then you ain’t doing drinking/boozed-up Chinese food eating properly, you nancy boy.
‘As for ‘oop t’North’, it’s called being facetious. I’m very aware of your dialect and customs. I’ve been to Yorkshire more times than you’ve upended up your awful takeaways.’ - Doesn’t answer my question. Where’s the strange ‘the’ in the sentence come from? Nobody says ‘Up the North’, as far as I’m aware. If I’m wrong, where do they say this? As a Yorkshireman living in Yorkshire almost continuously hockling up takeaway dinners to show how many more times I’ve been to Yorkshire (being in Yorkshire helps as well), I’d love to know.
And Who’s wrong about that dinner you had.
Go on, one of you must have a shit-related anecdote that you’re dying to share…
I’ve got loads, but I wouldn’t want to offend Piqued’s delicate, Guardian-reading constitution.
Don’t mind me Cocker, I used to be a geriatric nurse, I’ve seen and smelt stuff that would have you puking blood.
Worked in a nursing home, m’self. So don’t start thinking you can go trumping me in the unpleasant side of the human race stakes, m’boy. I’ve seen more shit than you’ve had hot dinners (suspicious, foreign-sounding dinners eaten by poncified traitors, I might add).
Bet you I’ve seen worse
I watched an old dear throw up a turd once due to colon cancer. Beat that.
Wow, with this much oneupmanship it’s amazing you get one up. on a ship.
Erm … I saw an old woman explode in a big pile of shit, the shit ended up landing on all the other old women, they blew up in a shower of shit, that shit landed on the nursing home staff and they, too, exploded in a big pile of shit. When the dust settled, there was just me and an enormous pile of steaming shit … er …
Alright, so throwing up a turd’s a bit of a Royal Flush. I concede, for once.
‘For once’
From the beginning until the end of time, you love to concede, admit it… You bloody perv
Lick my shoes (and undercarriage)