The World Cup should be on now, in normal circumstances. Covid massively affected international sports tournaments of recent years- the 2020 Euros were played in 2021 for example. But the 2022 World Cup not being played now, in June and July, is not a Covid decision or a sporting one, it's a financial/ corruption one. FIFA in their wisdom decided that Qatar should host the 2022 World Cup. It's much too hot to play in Qatar in the summer so it's not being held until November and December. Qatar has no footballing history or heritage to speak of and while taking the game to corners of the world where football is a noble idea, there's little doubt that the money pouring into FIFA from the oil rich Middle Eastern theocracy made the move easier for the FIFA committee to make. Then there's the number of deaths from slave labour used to build the stadia to think about (Qatar claims thirty seven migrant workers died constructing the stadia. The Guardian puts the figure closer to 6, 500). Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. Human rights abuses are widely documented. There are stories of state sponsored terrorism. It's probably best avoided by all concerned- but it won't be.
In 1986 Colourbox released their Official World Cup Theme, to time with the tournament in Mexico. Colourbox are one of the 80s unsung heroes, signed to 4AD and sounding nothing like their labelmates combing reggae and soul influences, beat boxes, sampling, synths, pop and dub- and on their World Cup Theme making something that could be described as jaunty.
Well, there you go, a game too far maybe for a young and inexperienced side but there is no shame at all in being beaten 2-1 in the semi-final of the World Cup by Croatia. Well done to Gareth Southgate and the whole squad. I'm sorry to all my Scottish friends who've probably got fed up with it but you're just going to have to live with it this little piece of English football pride we've enjoyed over the last few weeks and you'd have done the same if it had been you.
As this publishes I shall be on a plane to Italy, on a school trip taking in a couple of days in Rome and then a bus ride south to the Bay of Naples for a couple of days, to Sorento visitng Pompeii, Herculaneum and Vesuvius. There won't be any blogging going on while I'm away. The weather forecast looks even hotter and sunnier there than it has been here for the last month. I've never been before and am massively looking forward to seeing the historical sites and sights of ancient Rome and Italia in all its glory. See you all next week.
To make Thursday start off with a beautifully relaxed start here is some blissed out, sunkissed Italian house from Q-Base in 1991. If you hear anything more chilled out than this today, please let me know.
Whatever happens tonight in Moscow- England are playing Croatia in the World Cup semi-final in case you've been asleep for the last two weeks- the team have done themselves proud and exceeded any expectations many of us had of them. Since the late 1990s England have failed so often and so abjectly it became difficult to believe that any major tournament could be a success. Having shed themselves of the so-called 'Golden Generation', some really poor managerial appointments and the millstone of the superstars that hung around without really ever doing anything, Gareth Southgate has done something extraordinary- he's built a squad of young men that play for each other and for the team, egos and factions apparently a thing of the past, with the confidence that being young and talented brings and also actually preparing for things like penalty shoot outs. The idea that England could be contesting a place in a World Cup final still seems a bit unreal to me. Last time around, in Brazil, they were the first team home, defeated twice in a matter of days, left playing a third and final group game that meant nothing.
The last time England were in a World Cup semi-final was 1990, a night in Turin against West Germany that ended with penalties and defeat. 1990 was a different world- Germany was not even re-united in summer 1990. Nelson Mandela had only been released in February 1990. John Major was not yet Prime Minister, Thatcher still in power and with no reason to think she wouldn't be by the end of year (Major ended up leading a Tory cabinet and party massively split over Europe, so plus ca change maybe).
In July 1990 I was twenty years old and a group of us had been to Glastonbury at the end of June, arriving home to our shared student house part way through the England- Cameroon quarter final match to see England win 3-2. Glastonbury had been headlined by Happy Mondays and The Cure (both still playing big shows all these years later). We'd seen Sinead O'Connor, De La Soul, James, Jesus Jones and then Archaos closing the Pyramid Stage by tightrope walking across the top of it. There's a review here which describes it as all mud, flares and the Mekong Delta. New Order had hit number one with World In Motion. Adamski had been number one with Seal and Killer before that. Spike Island was only 6 weeks previously, a promise of something that never happened. With the university term and year over I watched the semi-final back at my parent's house and as Chris Waddle put his penalty over the bar someone at our house, an older person who had dropped in, said 'never mind, they'll be in another one soon'. Not that soon it turns out. Whatever happens tonight, it's been a long time coming. Good luck England.
You've got to hold or give but do it at the right time//You can be slow or fast but you must get to the line// They'll always hate you and hurt you, defend and attack// There's only one to beat them, get round the back.
June 2018 is a gift that keeps on giving in terms of images. In the picture at the top Diego Maradona celebrates Argentina finding some form of redemption against Nigeria (who didn't deserve to lose to be honest). Diego danced with a Nigerian fan, celebrated Messi's goal in ecstatic style, flipped double birds at fans below on the 86th minute winner and then had a health scare in the concourse. He is disappearing in a blizzard of coke. I love Diego in many ways but I fear for his health. In the picture below a resident of Mossley, in the Pennines east of Manchester, returns from the Co-op in a gas mask to protect from the moorland fires which have been out of control most of the week. The smell of burning peat hangs over the city.
Recently I have been a little bit obsessed with this song from Talking Heads in 1979. Byrne's lyrics were adapted from a poem by the Dadaist writer Hugo Ball. The groundbreaking Afro-funk is the product of the band.
There are two significant events today, June 14th 2018, one personal and one international. The first one, close to home, is the 15th birthday of number two child/number one daughter Eliza. Once, as the picture shows, she was young and cute and happily wore a Clash t-shirt. Now she is 15, growing up into a young woman and probably wouldn't wear a Clash t-shirt.
Every summer in recent years we've driven to France with a stack of music. I get accused of hogging the car stereo. Not true obviously. Finding songs we can all agree on is a bit of an artform. Last summer we got there on this one- I've got to say, I think this is a tune. So you can have this one as your birthday song Eliza. Happy birthday.
One of Eliza's presents is Dolly Parton's 9 To 5 on 7" (which she should have opened by the time this is posted). So here's your birthday bonus song...
We survived our first 'proper' teenage house party at the weekend, a mixed group of 15 of them in our garden, with music, dancing, shrieking and 'controlled' drinking (you can control what they drink in your house- more difficult to control what some of them have drunk before they arrive). Apart from some minor damage to our already patchy lawn there was no harm done and much fun had. The party playlist was dominated by 80s pop, some disgraceful 80s soft-rock and some more contemporary stuff. Back in 1985, when I turned 15 this was the UK's number one single...
19 is groundbreaking in its own way and genuinely memorable, and kept at the number one slot by regular releases of remixed versions. Vietnam was big in the mid-80s. A decade on from the end of the war people were getting to grips with it, what had happened and what it meant. I read somewhere recently that the average age of the combat soldier in Vietnam wasn't actually 19 but 22. But that doesn't really change the message of the song or the fact that if you were poor, uneducated or black you were far more likely to end up in Vietnam than if you were wealthier, educated and white. Does it Mr. Trump? Coincidentally I played it to my Year 11 class recently as part of their depth study on The Vietnam War. They weren't very impressed if truth be told, the sounds were too dated and quaint, the stuttering vocal too cliched and the female backing vox too cheesy. But they took the message and the visuals in.
The other event today is the start of the World Cup, Russia 2018. This is my 11th World Cup. I have some vague memories of Argentina '78 aged 8, memories of the final at least, which I was allowed to stay up and watch some of. Spain '82 is the first one I really remember- in the picture above Bryan Robson celebrates after scoring against France in England's opening game. Mexico '86 was a blast, taking place during my O Levels, the magnificence of Diego Maradona in his prime, England out in controversial manner and an epic France v Brazil game. Italia 90 was ace, mixed up as it was with New Order's World In Motion, No Alla Violenza, Toto Schillaci, Roger Milla and an England run to the semi-finals.
Twenty-eight years on, this is still the only world cup record that really matters.
'Love's got the world in motion and we can't believe it's true'.
I unfolded myself off the bus, after thirty six hours from Krakow to north west England yesterday. Sleeping sitting up is a skill I've not quite got the hang of and my back has suffered. But our school trip to Krakow and Berlin was fantastic, all the moreso because we were in Berlin last Sunday night when Germany won the world cup. The streets of Berlin were flooded with thousands of Germans, most draped in the colours. We'd passed the Brandenberg Gate early on Saturday and had a look at the fan park but decided that keeping sixty-four teenagers safe while watching the final might be tricky. Eventually we all watched it on a big screen in the square outside our hotel and Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station. This ensured a constant flow of fans before and after the match. It was crackers and probably a once in a lifetime experience- watching a country win the world cup in that country's capital city. It certainly won't happen as a England fan.
Berlin is an amazing city, one which I want to return to. There's so much to see and do- in two days we squeezed in sections of wall, Checkpoint Charlie, a trip up the TV tower, Alexanderplatz with its 60s concrete architecture, Sachsenhausen and the Olympic Stadium. Seeing some of the wall was a highlight for me- something that was such a key part of world history and from my lifetime. After Berlin we went to Krakow, which has a beautiful square and buildings, and drank tea (black tea with cold milk, the English way) in Noworolski Cafe, frequented by Lenin in the mid 1910s. And had a couple of Polish beers.
I've downloaded a few of the pics off my phone here...
Holger Czukay of Can, was born in Gdansk, Poland and raised in Germany. He has recently remixed some solo tracks from his 1977 album Der Osten Is Rot and issued them on 10" vinyl through a Berlin based record label, Gronland Records. Click on the link for loads of grooviness. The remixed Sudetenland, with Jah Wobble, Jaki Leibezeit and Conny Plank, is out right now and you can listen to it here.
I'm off on a school trip today so you'll find nothing new here for the next week. We leave north-west England at ten and head for Dover, crossing to Calais and then (hopefully) arrive in Berlin tomorrow morning. I've never been to Berlin so I'm pretty excited about it- plus, by stroke of good fortune and German efficiency, we'll be in Berlin when Germany play in the World Cup Final and are hoping to find somewhere outdoors to watch it, safely, with sixty-four teenagers. Whatever the result, it should be an experience. We've got a load of sights to see- the Olympic stadium, Sachsenhausen, the Berlin Wall, the TV tower, some museums, the Reichstag, Tiergarten Park. We've got two days in Berlin and then we make for Krakow, visiting Auschwitz and Krakow's Medieval market, before returning home next Thursday by an extremely long bus ride from Krakow to Calais.
There are so many Berlin/Germany musical references I could put here- any number of West German krautrock bands, Kraftwerk, Cabaret (the only musical I can really live with), German techno, Johnny Rotten's screaming line in Holidays In the Sun 'I was looking over the wall and they were looking at meeeee!!!', Nena and her ninety nine red balloons, Iggy and Bowie recording several of their best albums and lovers meeting by the wall, Trio's novelty hit from the 80s, various things Dirk and Walter have posted...
How about Michael Rother, ex-Neu!, and something from his 1977 beaut of an album Flammende Herzen (with Jaki Leibzeit on drums)?
There's all this top sport all over the place at the moment and then the mp3 player shuffled up this on the way home from work on Friday, just as I was at the traffic lights near home. The World Cup and the Tour de France will be poorer for those injuries to poor old Neymar (definitely out) and poor old Mark Cavendish (probably out).
Public Enemy's Harder Than You Think was a single from their 20th anniversary album How Do You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Lost Their Soul? and proved that Chuck D and co had not lost their edge. It is lit up by a Shirley Bassey horn sample and is probably best known over here as the song that soundtracked the paralympic games two summers ago. This Futurecast remix adds a massive, punishing breakbeat.
You've got to hold or give
But do it at the right time
You can be slow or fast
But you must get to the line
They'll always hate you and hurt you
Defend and attack
There's only one way to beat them
Get round the back
Catch me if you can
Cos I'm the England man
And what you're looking at
Is the master plan
We ain't no hooligans
This ain't no football song
Three lions on my chest
I know we can't go wrong
Mark from Cooking Up A Quiet Storm has compiled a Brazilian themed mix to celebrate the big kick off, taking suggestions from contributors and bloggers. My contribution was this morning's Os Mutantes song. There are nineteen more in the mix which you can find here with the tracklist or you can listen below. All the artists are Brazilian, including Gilberto Gil, Sergio Mendes, Astrud Gilberto, Jorge Ben and Pele. Goooaaaalllll!
Yay! The World Cup kicks off today, all the way from Brazil. Nothing the current art department produce gets anywhere near the poster that advertised the 1950 tournament (also in Brazil) but never mind. We may also have to ignore a) FIFA's absolute corruption b) protests from the locals about the cost c) the poverty in the favelas just a stone's throw from the stadia d) the likelihood that England will be knocked out by the end of the group stage; then we may be able to enjoy a festival of football. Tonight, Brazil versus Croatia.
From 1968, Brazil's own psychedelic protest group and the mind blowingly good Os Mutantes. Just listen to that fuzz guitar and that tropicalia backing.
Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay. Apart from being a lovely word to say, Montevideo was the home of the first football World Cup back in 1930. In the picture the French national team relax on deck on their way to the finals which were eventually won by Italy. Host nation Uruguay would go on to win the following tournament four years later.
Montevideo are also a Belgian indie pop outfit who produce music for fans of 'funereal beauty'. They've made this song Castles (remixed by spindly legged, black clad Horror Tom Furse) available for free download from Soundcloud. Starts out all murky then lurches into sunny psychedelia. Just the thing for Saturday morning at the start of half term.
Some wonderful indie-rock nonsense from Oklahoma's Flaming Lips for your Sunday enjoyment, concerning a girl who spreads vaseline on toast, a guy who sneezes into magazines and a woman who washes her hair using tangerines. The band's own website says 'It's a happy little ditty about strange people and their individual idiosynchrasies... with crunching but still harmonious noise', and I can't describe it any better than that.
Tonights World Cup final? I'm not sure I care that much. The Netherlands are effective and not in the habit of losing. Van Bommel seems to be setting some kind of record for committing fouls and getting away with it, while the undoubtedly talented Robben draws as many fouls as possible and rolls over a lot. Espagna play lots of very nice little passing triangles, have the most talented strikers in Europe, and struggle to win every game One-Nil. Neither are exactly setting my heart racing with anticipation. Who knows, maybe we'll get a Four-Three classic.
So, with my tongue firmly in my cheek and Mr. Wild Billy Childish doing whatever he fancies doing, in celebration of today's game here is the Dad's Army theme done garage rock style by the bard of Chatham.
'We are the boys who will stop your little game We are the boys who will make you think again'.
England play Germany tomorrow. This opens several can of worms, from Twentieth Century history to always losing at penalties. Two World Wars and One World Cup. Don't mention the war. Achtung, surrender. Dambusters. Stuart Pearce. And so on. Most of it seems to be in fairly good humour now, especially since England's travelling support go to watch football and have a good time, rather than take part in racist/anti-Irish songs and seeing who can fling plastic chairs furthest across foreign plazas at riot police while being sprayed with the water cannon, and half murdering anyone foreign. The German media seem to have accepted our obsession with them, the war and football, and can smile benignly, especially as they usually hold the upper hand on the pitch when it counts.
This is La Dusseldorf's Rheinita, one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I've heard. Formed by one half of Neu! Klaus Dinger and released in 1978, David Bowie called them 'the sound of the Eighties'. If only more of the music of the 80s had turned out like this. Attention krautrock sceptics- this does not sound like your idea of krautrock. This is perfection spread over seven minutes thirty eight seconds. This has more in common with the production of disco, the attitude of punk and the feel and anything goes spirit of acid house and dance music. I can't recommend it enough. Typical Germans eh?
Can made many wonderful records in the 1970s, but none of them other than this one got them on Top Of The Pops, in 1976, when it reached number 26. Strange days. The guitar riff is also one of the inspirations for The Smiths How Soon Is Now, as Johnny Marr revealed on a documentary last year, which I guess shows how wide his tastes were, not neccessarily obvious at the time. There was an excellent krautrock documentary on BBC4 last year as well, where the West German music scene came across as the most fertile and exciting place to be . It had the two blokes out of Faust taping themselves playing bits of metal with wide eyed joy, surely the most bohemian pair still living out their 60s/70s idealism.
In a World Cup related link, one of the best (unintentional?) bits of commentary on a football match occured at a tournament in the 90s/early 2000s, I forget which, featuring the German midfielder Stefan Kuntz. The Germans pick the ball up and come out of defence- 'Here come the Germans...Kuntz'. Not an opinion I share, but very funny nonetheless.
It's the World Cup again. They seem to come around fairly quickly now, must be a sign of getting older. I'm not here to beat a drum for England, I have fairly low expectations, and think they'll do well to reach the quarter finals. Not enough quality in the first eleven, aged defence and no Rio, too much rests on Rooney. We'll see.
But we should celebrate the football fiesta of the World Cup. So, today's post takes in two Bagging Area favourites (New Order and Andrew Weatherall) and takes us back to the only good World Cup song (comment all you like, the rest are awful, and I speak as a man who was born when Back Home was number 1), from the moment when English football changed, Italia 90. All the amateur footballologists can explain why it all started on the fields of Italy. Within three years of Gazza's tears and the penalty shoot out with the Germans we had the Premiership, player's wages going through the stratosphere, football shirts worn by people that had never been to game, shiny new (but soulless) stadia and the end of terracing (although obviously Hillsborough played a part here), foreign stars and coaches showing us how to play, the magic of Sky TV, and much more besides. Oh yeah, and men able to show their feelings in public.
It was also the only time football and pop culture and club culture collided in a way that was not just acceptable but cool. The opening keyboard stabs of World In Motion and that 1966 commentary sum up the summer of 1990 as much as Adamski, Happy Mondays and Spike Island. There was Bernard Sumner in the pale blue away shirt in the video, even John Barnes' so-called 'rap'. And in the spirit of the times let's not forget New Order lobbied the F.A. for the song's original title to be used- E For England- rather than World In Motion. E For England was spelt right for huge numbers of people that summer, in more ways than one.
We should also pause to appreciate the sample of beautiful official World Cup posters displayed here (from the top Uruguay 1930, Switzerland 1954, Spain 1982), works of art rather than the focus group, computer generated, corporate bilge we've been fed since USA '94. Would FIFA today risk art deco or Jean Miro to advertise their product?
'Love's got the world in motion and we know what we can do'
