skankdelvar

... who departed this life aged 100 just three months ago today.

The Beatles may never have worn wigs but tens of thousands of people wore Beatles wigs including Brian Epstein (who probably signed the merchandising rights away for $50 bucks). Some wigs were licensed... ...while others were just straight knock-offs (below): Not all Beatle wigs were made of a hair-like substance. Some were made of moulded plastic and designed to be popped on the head like a Beatlesy helmet. Nice. Indeed, the wigs were so popular they even spawned their own spin-off board game: The Beatles' Wigs story kind of puts matters in context. There are worse things in this life than bands going out with only one surviving member.

Mrs Whitehouse may have been the ultimate vexatious complainer and many if not most of her objections were petty in nature. But at a time when it was deeply fashionable to embrace unbridled cultural libertarianism she held certain opinions which would probably enjoy widespread support today. Whitehouse was rabidly against violence on TV and in the theatre, believing it to be a negative influence. Pressure from Whitehouse and other campaigners consequently led to the 1984 Video Recordings Act which required the BBFC to certificate every feature film released on video. Prior to the act pre-recorded videos were not subject to certification, leading to the importation of a host of uncensored exploitation movies such as SS Experiment Camp, Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit on Your Grave and Snuff. Whitehouse believed that porn was bad for a number of reasons one of which was that it contributes to the objectification of women. Who'd disagree with that? Formerly a teacher, Whitehouse deplored the early sexualisation of children and fervently opposed the activities of the Paedeophile Information Exchange. Her anti-child porn petition helped to bring about the 1978 Protection of Children Act which for the first time prohibited the possession and distribution of pornographic images of children. On one occasion Whitehouse opined in a more general sense: "Television may teach self-interest rather than philanthropy, violence rather than gentleness, a disregard for human dignity rather than a respect for it. It may not always teach the truth but teach it does, and it is more than time that responsible people both within and outside the broadcasting professions said boldly what is so obvious in commonsense terms — we cannot understand what is happening in international, cultural, economic, political and social affairs without coming to grips with the way in which television influences virtually all our behavioural and thought processes". Substitute 'The Media' or 'Twitter' for 'Television' and those words could have been written yesterday. In the 40-odd years since Roger Waters wrote Pigs (Three different ones) and bloke-ily suggested that Whitehouse's stance was due to sexual frigidity popular opinion has shifted away from the 'Let it all hang out' approach characteristic of the free-wheeling sixties and seventies. Nowadays Mary Whitehouse casts a long shadow on contemporary phenomena such as Mumsnet, paedophilia, issues of civility and language, sexual exploitation in the media and the depiction of violence. Yes, Whitehouse was an ocean-going pain in the ar5e and obsessed to a microscopic level about sex on TV. But time has a funny way of rehabilitating our bêtes noires of yesteryear.

Stooging around at a local leisure centre the other day I found myself scrutinising posters for a range of upcoming musical attractions which ran the full gamut of 'authenticity' from some to none. * Gordon Haskell - alive and actually himself performing in a solo capacity; will prob not be playing any King Crimson covers * The Dreamers - one guy from a slightly later 1960s incarnation of the Freddie and The Dreamers band which toured the USA * An Everly Brothers tribute - one's dead and the other one's alive but he's not in the act * Elvis - obviously dead and therefore not the original artist * A Buddy Holly act - exceptionally dead and not currently touring Two things struck me: * Haskell apart, the absence of anything after the 1960's. Who goes to see these bands (not that people shouldn't)? * The extraordinary number and variety of wigs, apart from The Dreamers who clearly eschew such fripperies whether on the grounds of economy or of good taste

IIRC that was You're Sixteen, you're Beautiful and you're Mine ...as opposed to Only 16 by Sam Cooke.

Over the years I have observed striking similarities between the recorded output of The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones, and various songs that I have written. These sort of coincidences never fail to amaze me.

Welcome to the forum SirMoxie

3. That is all.

Thanks for that pic. I love the idea of a penguin with a knighthood

Exactly so; context is everything. If the late Mr James Brown had asked me to play something a certain way I'd be 'Yessir, Mr Brown, Sir'. In other circumstances, not so much, though on one occasion a drummer politely pointed out a flaw in my rendition of a certain line. He was correct and I amended my performance accordingly. A gentleman does not tell another gentleman which position the second gentleman's wife prefers. The Duke of Edinburgh told me that.

If someone told me which frets to use I'd get in my car, go round to his house and park across the entrance to his driveway. Then I'd shag his missus and when he came home I'd tell him what I'd done and ask him which annoyed him more, the driveway thing or the missus thing. Whichever thing upset him the most, I'd do it again then I'd resign from the band on the proviso that I'd fulfil any future commitments until they'd found a replacement for me. It's only fair.

My gracious patron Although I am resigned to being described as - variously - a bass player, bassist or bass guitarist please be aware that my official title is Throbmonger by Royal Appointment to HM Queen Silvia of Sweden. She was a canny lass in her day, too, I can tell you.

I intend no disrespect to my good friend the learned Professor @ahpook when I tentatively venture to point out that the correct spelling is 'berk'. Berk is a contraction of Berkshire (pronounced as in 'work' rather than 'bark') the county name being here a component of the word formation Berkshire Hunt, a passing reference to a long-established aggregation of fox hunting types but in this instance employed more specifically as an example of Cockernee rhyming slang. Berk = Berkshire Hunt = a pejorative term or insult which rhymes with '-unt'.

Hey Stef and welcome to the forum.

"If one looks at an audio amplifier one will usually observe a rotary potentiometer marked 'bass'. This potentiometer is designed to increase or decrease the amount of bass. If bass has an amount and this amount can be adjusted then it follows that bass is a thing and therefore etymologically a noun". Sir Roy Strong told me this when we met fleetingly at a drinks reception at the National Portrait Gallery in 1971. Nothing since has given me cause to differ from his opinion.

Thanks for putting that up. TBPH, neither version does it for me. Digging into this, it seems the Townshend version appeared as a sort of 'bonus new track' on a solo Greatest Hits comp about four years ago alongside such earlier career highlights as - er - Rough Boys and Let My Love Open The Door. To be fair, the sour-faced old prune has always demo'd his songs, thereafter laying them before the rest of the band. Indeed, I prefer his solo version of Pure And Easy off Who Came First over that which derived from the band sessions. One nevertheless suspects that the genesis of the song Guantanamo / Ball and Chain pre-dates its 2019 release by up to a decade. I mean, Guantanamo (the institution) fell off most people's radars around the late 2000's.

Available now: George Formby Sings Lou Reed's Greatest Hits When I put a spike into my vein And I tell you Ee! It's turned out nice again

Put them together and you (almost) get: Standin' on a corner, Suitcase in my hand. Jack's in his car, says to Jane, who's in her vest, Me, babe, I'm in a rock n' roll band. But you have to say the second line very, very quickly.

Is it the one that goes: I'm leaning on a lamp-post at the corner of the street, In case a certain little lady comes by. Oh me, oh my, I hope the little lady comes by Funnily enough, the lyrics which precede the hook in Mr Formby's chef d'doeuvre would not sound out of place in a modern day rap number: I'm leaning on a lamp, maybe you think, I look a tramp, Or you may think I'm hanging 'round to steal a motor-car. But no I'm not a crook, And if you think, that's what I look, I'll tell you why I'm here, And what my motives are.

IIRC, Kenny was a long-time friend of the band from the old days. Moon died in September 1978 and they hired Mr Jones in November, his tenure lasting (notionally) 10 years. In truth one suspects they acted in haste and repented at leisure, or at least Daltrey did, allegedly deprecating Jones' style as 'too straight'. Realistically, no one could have 'replaced' Moon without sounding like a copyist which wasn't the done thing back then. Simon Philips occupied the role for a while though no one seems to have noticed. Zak Starkey did a good job, though.

I'd not seen that before. Thanks!

I'm tempted to agree with you. The 80's and 90's were not kind to The Who. Townshend's brief though disastrous embrace of New Romantic fashion (and eyeliner) will likely never be forgotten. Likewise his stint at a publishing house where he self-importantly edited collections of poetry or something. Nevertheless, at some point in the 2000's the band seemed to reconcile themselves to being a Greatest Hits act and their live performances became audibly and visibly more punchy, their set at The Olympics being a good example. Clear-eyed fans viewed the occasional release of new Who albums as theoretically desirable but unlikely to deliver uniform satisfaction. Anyway, all the good stuff is still out there to be enjoyed and - who knows - there may be a corker of a track lurking somewhere on the new album. I'm glad they're still going even if Pete is even more of a miserable bastard than ever. His autobio was such a narcissistic downer I read it and - against normal procedure - threw it in the bin. PS: FWIW, when Moon died in 1978 Townshend was only 33 and already publicly agonising about the relevance of 'old men' playing rock music. When the news broke that Moon was dead I was in a bar in Athens. The whole place went silent for a minute then everyone got blind drunk and fell over.

Shortly before Mr Entwistle popped his clogs I dragged a much younger and slightly sceptical work colleague along to see The Who. He was literally a changed man afterwards, asking for a list of the best albums and generally carrying on. I left the company not long after but ran into him a few years later. 'You know what I did after that gig?' he said. 'I went out and bought a guitar and learned to play it'.

... or the contrabanjo.