Author Archives: Paul

They didn’t consider themselves “honed”, “ripped”, or “buff”. They wouldn’t have known where their “abs” were and a “six-pack” to them was half a dozen cans of light ale. These men built their physiques simply to appear on Opportunity Knocks and make their muscles dance so people could laugh at them. This was usually their […]

That’ll teach me to hang out in Soho and Shoreditch but that’s where I do most of my work. And everywhere I look, I see hirsute young hipsters, facial hair neatly groomed. I find myself suffering from beard envy because I can’t grow one. Never could and now, let’s face it, I never will. The […]

…….but I bet you would if this dude was up on the pulpit. Of course there’s nothing worse than a “trendy vicar” but the Rev. Dexter C Wise is much better than that. He hit exactly the right note when he got all hip-hop on yo’ ass back in 1987. I love this track – […]

Why, whenever The Gap Band’s “Oops Upside Your Head” was played in a club or at a party, did everyone sit on the floor and start pretending to row a boat?  Well……because it became mixed up with another track. Backstrokin’ by The Fatback Band came out around the same time and sounded very similar. Because […]

….meant that before about 1992, you couldn’t get a drink in London during the afternoon. Well, you could if you knew where to go. There were secret little “clubs” dotted around the West End, which often required a special knock or password to get in and my friend Brian Jones had discovered a brilliant one. […]

We’ve being going there so long I think they now believe that we really are students from India. The conversation got round to Indian music and why, given the large and vibrant nature of Indian communities in this country, there isn’t a bigger UK Indian music scene. Well, there very nearly was. Cornershop topped the […]

The traffic is now heavier, the cloud is too so this long-forgotten tack comes to mind. Long-forgotten because we refuse to accept Mick Jagger as a solo artist. We didn’t mind Rod Stewart, Bryan Ferry or Phil Collins all enjoying concurrent careers on their own and with their bands, but we’ll only accept Mick as […]

…..because I hope that’s not all Slade are remembered for. They were no one-hit novelty act, they were the biggest band in the country. Three chords of raw, guitar-based power. This was music from the streets, music for the masses. All the things that a few years later, punk would falsely claim to be. I […]

Thousands of people pouring in as I cycled past. Top of the bill was Smokey Robinson. You don’t need me to tell you about his magnificent 50 year career and all the Motown classics he’s written and for himself and for other people. But over the years he’s done some wonderful covers of songs written […]

It should because it was. Maybe not musically but culturally. When it came out, nobody knew what a Pina Colada was but through this song, they found out. And it really was largely responsible for the ensuing popularity of cocktails. Pubs were seen as rather drab and cocktail bars started springing up all over the […]