7pm Argyle Bar (Cellar). Jackpot £30. Cheat: the music round includes Bobby McFerrin – see vid below
9pm Newsroom. Jackpot £50. Cheat: The picture round includes the answer Caravaggio
I’m pretty sure this Bobby McFerrin song is in the top twenty of songs that I absolutely hate. It’s about being happy but somehow it’s really really depressing.
Who achieves that kind of reverse? Some kind of intergalactic arsehole, Bobby*.
*I’m sure he’s a nice bloke, but I cannae go this tune.
Brian Cant is dead. The guy was a genius and that’s all I have to say on that. RIP.
Meanwhile, here’s some of the music recommendations you’ve been bugging me with recently as I tour the pubs in my stately fashion.
1. I Fought The Law (Original)
I always though it was a The Clash song but true to Clash form, it’s just nicked.
Here’s the original hit, although the song itself was written by one of the Crickets, as in Buddy Holly.
Thanks to James the Baker for pointing out this one.
2. Kansas by GWAR
We were talking about Boston and Chicago and Kansas all those kinds of bands and Starr from the Joker marked my card with this GWAR cover of Kansas’s best known song. Powerful stuff.
3. Love City Groove
I can’t remember who I was talking to, but we got on to the subject of Eurovision and before you know it we were talking Love City Groove, a notorious UK entry from the 1990s. Was it really that bad?
Watch the video and see what you think.
4. The Genetic Opera
I think it was in some list round, a wee while ago and someone tried to convince me there was a show title ‘The Generic Opera‘.
Sounded dodge, but I took a note and have only just got round to looking it up. It looks like they meant Repo! The Genetic Opera. I’ve just watched a bit.
Hmmm. Not sure. It looks like the kind of thing that’s trying achingly hard to be as cool as Rock Horror and something I would have liked in 1988, but this was released in 2008 so I guess I missed that bus.
Have fun, if you’re still young enough for this:
5. Big B
Another bonus-round discovery. People write it down. I question it. They insist it’s famous. I’ve never heard of it. No one else in the pub has heard of it. One look on youtube and whaddya know: 1.7 million views on one song.
Big B is fat (Big – geddit) and is a rapper. This song is called “White Trash” and it seems to me to a cheap and cheerful Butlins piss-knock-off version of Kid Rock.
Kinda fun, sort of stoopid.
One of the great things about doing the quiz is hearing about all these new treats that my busy life and active lifestyle denies me the time to find out about by myself.
Keep informing! Comment below or tell me at the quiz.
6pm – The Persevere. Jackpot: £90. Cheat: The music round includes Racey (see vid below).
8pm – Tolbooth Tavern. Jackpot £60. Cheat: One of the picture round answers is The Bean.
Even in 1979, Racey were old-fashioned. There just wasn’t the demand for that kind of thing anymore. Except that they had four hits shifting this muck before everyone worked out that they didn’t like them and they were just a shit version of Showaddywaddy.
Then, moments later, all of the members of Racey were killed in a car crusher ‘accident’ in Wolverhampton which was perhaps hastily set-up by then-Education secretary Norman “Fist You” Tebbitt.
Today we remember Racey and their contribution to pop. RIP.
9pm – Newsroom. Jackpot: £150. Cheat: There is a band called Kongos in the music round. They’re South African apparently. Here’s the song that’s in the music round:
Why were Joy Division named this way? Especially when they are so miserable that their music sounds like the kind of thing they hsould play in the waiting rooms of funeral directors.
As ever, Wiki has the (rather droll) answer:
the band renamed themselves Joy Division in early 1978, borrowing their new name from the sex slavery wing of a Nazi concentration camp mentioned in the 1955 novel House of Dolls.
9pm – The Brass Monkey (Drummond Street). Jackpot: £30. Cheat: one of the music round answers is Tight Fit. When I was a kid, stuff like Tight Fit appearing on the TV would get you hot. It’s all we had. Watch below:
Pedants will notice that the title of this post says ‘Leith Walk’ when the Joker is actually on Elm Row and also ‘The Bridges’ when the Brass Monkey is actually on Drummond Street.
Benny says: “We are Swedes. Our culture tends to foster a certain personal air of rational grimness which is often devoid of frippery and flamboyance.”
Bjorn says: “Yes. Who can know the cause of this? Perhaps our generally atheistic national outlook combined with long Nordic winter nights leads us to focus on the essential emptiness and eternal solitude of the human condition.
Anna-Frid says: “And we used to be married to these pricks.”
Agnetha adds “You’d have a long face too.”
Then ABBA turn in synchronicity to a camera, and wink.
