Charity Shop Fruit Machine

Originally Broadcast 29 January 2016

 Our Price.

Virgin Megastore.

Zavvi.

Along with all your favourite local record shops, they’re gone. With the obvious and Biblically huge exception of Adele, sales of recorded music are dwindling. And it’s not only CDs, downloads are plummeting too. It’s now all about the streaming. It’s in the cloud. It’s freemium, man!

But wait! Vinyl’s back. The kids want something they can hold. OK, so it’s not exactly keeping the music business afloat (that’s Adele’s job) but it is at least giving Taylor Swift fans a reason to get excited about artwork and inner sleeves and the magical tactile experience of music on shiny 12” discs.

But while it’s nice to be able to find pristine new copies of Pet Sounds and Nevermind, some of us still like going into dusty shops and experiencing the serendipitous thrill of finding an unexpected treat.

So where can I find these new record shops, I hear you cry? Relax they’re everywhere and they’re called charity shops.

No wait! Come back! It’s true. The charity shop is the new record shop for many reasons good – and bad. The good? Well, any real music fan will tell you that the well practiced thumb and finger rack-flick is a finely-honed skill up there with the deft pancake flip from Side 1 to Side 2. And charity shops, never short of well-thumbed copies of Mantovani, Mrs Mills, and Max Bygraves provide ample stock to practice our technique.

I challenge myself to find multiple copies of these unloved gems with a game I call Charity Shop Fruit Machine. The goal is of course a 3 cherry row. Top scores include a hat-trick of Sound of Musics, a brace of Carpenters and a clean row Green Doors. Once the sleeves are in position, I take a picture and put it online. Perhaps I should get out more.

Unlike every other product, albums never change their packaging so these sleeves are landmarks that record shops of old used to have; there’s a reassurance in seeing them there even if you’d never dream of taking them home. And the king of these unloved albums? No competition: Paul Young’s No Parlez. Phil Collins’ work comes a close second. Top score: No Parlez, No Parlez, No Jacket Required.

But here’s the key: only in a charity shop you can experience the sudden heart leap you get from discovering a Tom Waits nestling between a pair of Leo Sayers, a Public Enemy peaking out behind Hooked On Classics.

This feeling is the same one Nick Hornby was searching for when he confessed that despite having every single release by The Clash, he would still always check the C rack, just in case…

Of course, those of you already aware of the joys of these new record stores will hate me for publicizing our secret on national radio. But the rot has already set in.

The vinyl boom is encouraging record companies to repress their old catalogue like it’s going out of style. And while he pleasures of hearing The Queen is Dead or Dusty in Memphis on vinyl are undeniable, who gave the go-ahead to re-press charity shop staples like Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights or Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells A Story on 180 gram vinyl?

It seems that record companies are in agreement that charity shops are the new record shops and are now busy manufacturing fresh stock accordingly.

Rock Nutters Sell Butter

Originally Broadcast 22 January 2016

With the recent announcement of Motörhead hard rock legend Lemmy’s demise, came some additional news: shortly before he died he’d appeared in an advert. Incidentally, this is the man whose favourite drink, Jack Daniels and Coke, has just been officially recognised by Food and Beverage Magazine as The Lemmy. So what, you ask, was his advert for? Perhaps a powerful new brand of sipping whiskey? Maybe a high voltage migrane pill? Possibly some kind of leather apparel? No, the advert is for pure, white, wholesome milk.

Of course, celebrities make adverts all the time, indeed it’s hard not to think of a well known star with the exception of David Bowie and The Queen who hasn't been involved in some kind of promotional activity. Oh hang on, just checked, Bowie's done Vittel and Louis Vuitton. Still nothing for Her Majesty, mind.

But for all the Sylvester Stallone Warburtons campaigns or Mr T getting aggressive over Snickers, it appears that the golden goose for ad execs is bagging Wild Men of Rock. Lemmy is just the tip of a powerchord iceberg.

Perhaps the sadly missed Motörhead hero thought he had the all clear on dairy products from John Lydon. Nobody listening to this will ever forget seeing our favourite ex-Sex Pistol prancing around fields of grazing cattle listing reasons why he liked eating Country Life butter. He later said he did it to raise the cash to record another album but the figure he cuts in the adverts suggests he was actually a genuine fan of the product.

Considerably slimmer, albeit slightly desiccated, was Iggy Pop, the man who crooned such numbers as Search And Destroy and Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell. Pop, a performer famous for regularly cutting himself open and bleeding all over the stage, was trying to convince us to take out life insurance. I think you’re now beginning to see a pattern emerging. The product has to be the opposite of what you’d expect these guys – and they are all guys – to recommend: Counter-intuitive. These ad execs are so clever!

The list goes on and the pattern continues: Alice Cooper, whose wild man image didn’t suffer by tossing a chicken into an excited moshpit is now a one man promo machine. He’s done the Back To School campaign for stationary megastore Staples' (“No, I never said school was out forever, just for summer...), he’s marketed Sky Plus with Ronnie Corbett (“What’ve you got there little fella?’) he’s flogged Sony TVs (“the last one I threw out of a window had a Betamax attached to it”) and… well you get the picture.

Making adverts must be in the hard rock contract. Former Black Sabbath singer and the man who once snorted a line of ants, Ozzy Osbourne, can sell anything. His slurred brummy buffoonery can be seen shifting units for Samsung (“That’s black magic, man, I’ve seen that before!”) I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter (“Fairy cakes? I’m the Prince of Darkness I wanna make rock cakes!”) and World of Warcraft (Even more references to being the Prince of ruddy Darkness).

Never shy of making a few dollars, American glamrockers Kiss are queuing up to sell us things too, best of which is their series of Dr Pepper commercials with guitarist Gene Simmons aka Dr Love, in full make-up, telling us to trust him because he’s a doctor.

Some of these adverts you may have missed but some you will never see because, oh the insurrection! – they were banned! Step forward Slash from Guns N Roses who was too dangerous to sell us Mastercard and Marilyn Manson who was too demonic for Apple. Mind you, I bet if he put his mind to it Manson could do dairy …

I shouldn’t be surprised at all this – after all everyone’s got to put food on the table but doesn’t all this selling detract from the core brand of these artists. Hard rockers should remain aloof, mean and a bit scary. Shouldn’t they? At least Lemmy only made the one advert before he went to rock heaven. Oh hang on, news just in, Jack Daniels have produced a limited edition Motörhead Special Selected Single Barrel Whiskey. Whatever next? Iron Maiden beer?

IF YOU MISSED ...

any of the columns I've been writing - and indeed reading - on the BBC's Front Row programme (Weekdays 7.15pm just after The Archers, right kids?) you've come to the right place.

No idea what I'm talking about? OK, here's a brief explanation. Roughly every month to six weeks for the last year and a bit I've been writing and broadcasting ideas about pop music. I have an idea, or perhaps three, then I send them to a producer at the BBC. He (it is a He) usually gets back quite quickly and tells me there's no space, time or need for these terrible ideas and I go back to the drawing board or, more specifically, preparing lectures or podcasts.

Then once in a while he'll say yes so I'll get on a train to London or go to BBC Gloucester and record the piece using my best BBC voice. You have to speak in an excited way so I can't channel Jack Dee or be downbeat much as though I'd like to.

The studio in BH where the 'magic' happens. 

If you scroll through the pieces you'll see the general idea. They're supposed to be lighthearted and funny but hopefully there's a germ of an idea in each of them that will get you thinking about pop music and its business in a different way.

The reasons I decided to archive them all here are various. Firstly, with radio there's a momentary unbiquity -  then nothing. It's over. You don't end up being passed around or forwarded as you would be if you were a newspaper article. So if you didn't hear the columns when they went live the chances are you would never think to look at the iPlayer links where they get archived on the BBC website.  Secondly, I wrote the pieces for radio but I think they work on the page too. You may disagree and in some cases you will have a point but on the whole (with a few tweaks) I think they're OK. And thirdly... is there a thirdly? Yes! Aside from it being an act of ego, it is, for me, a simple mnemonic. These pieces are finally all living together under one roof and will remind me in years to come what the heck I've been doing.

Hope you like them. Oh yes, I am assured by the folks at the BBC that I'm allowed to publish them here.