Mediocrity killed the reality star

The Quinq is still absorbing the signifance of this. Today sees the 30th anniversary of the seminal track, Video Killed The Radio Star, by the unfortunately named Buggles, then the vehicle for the talented Trevor Horn. Today, as yesterday and the day before, we’re seeing the first publicity for the release of the album Robbie Williams is describing as a turning point in his career, Reality Killed The Video Star, produced by Trevor Horn. Now, back in 1979, few of us saw the relevance or the prescience of the Buggles track. If we liked it, we did so against our will. Many of us have never liked Robbie Williams, who has never had his own style, while borrowing a bit of everyone else’s (mind you, much the same can be said of Madonna, but nobody does). So, some of us will see this new album title as being about Robbie Williams and some will see it as being about Trevor Horn. The Quinq knows where he stands. But the thing is, The Quinq remembers exactly what he was doing 30 years ago the first time he heard Video Killed The Radio Star playing on the radio. Driving up the M1 motorway in a blue Austin Allegro to a rented back-to-back terraced house off Otley Road in Bradford, where he was due to start co-habiting with his then partner for the first time. After months of waiting and preparing, he had finally torn her away from her parents’ smothering clutches and was happily moving up the motorway with her and their seven month-old daughter towards what he thought was going to be the first day of the rest of his life. How optimistic. How wrong. Robbie Williams wouldn’t have known anything about it. He was five years old at the time, fifteen years younger than The Quinq. And his nemesis. In my mind and in my car/We can't rewind, we've gone too far.

markgriffiths@idealconsulting.co.uk

Day 18357 (the Revrrbaliser edit)

Everybody’s prodding me for the latest musical sampler. Hang on a while, can’t you! Your electrendster is discovering and listening as fast as he can. Put aside your 13,000 tracks from the past and all of your guitar memory. As ever, The Quinq has something new for you…

Dorian Concept Clap Beep Boom from When Planets Explode
King Midas Sound One Ting (Dabrye Remix) from Cool Out
J Todd Aaaa from Ryzzynynce
Flying Lotus Bad Actors from 1983
Hudson Mohawke Everybody Else Is Wrong from 7 x 7 Beat

Dorian Concept sounds like R2D2 having a breakdown inside an Osaka pachinko parlour. King Midas Sound is a stable-mate of Burial and, therefore, untouchable for that unmistakably skeletal Dubstep sound. J Todd, on the other hand, is the fusion that would have fissioned had Parliament collaborated with Kraftwerk in 1975. My funkatronic favourite from this list. As for Flying Lotus, it’s a kaleidoscopic collision of TV theme tunes and film set soundscapes. The Avengers meet The Professionals for A Few Dollars More. As for the noise of Hudson Mohawke, well, it sounds like nothing less than a Red Indian lost in the middle of a modern metropolis (I saw one once on the night of 4th January, 1981, but he was walking very determinedly towards Leeds railway station). And all of this under the beat of electronica. It’s a far cry from beautiful Röyksopp. But I’m giving you another slice of the future. Go hear it! And don't bother me for a week or so. The builders are in. And The Quinq is learning Norwegian.

markgriffiths@idealconsulting.co.uk

Everything is new

Who was that at Glastonbury with the exploding firework tits? Who was that at Glastonbury with the 50s pantie-girdle and precious little else? Who cares? Seen it all before. Who was that at Glastonbury with the hip-jiving music that sounded like Robert Smith snogging Brandon Flowers? Why, it was Jack Peñate, the best gig at the festival by far. Jack Peñate is 25 today, half my age, yet with considerably more than twice as much going for him. Jack Peñate was born in Blackheath, London, 1984, a few months after I stopped living there. But it was nothing to do with me. Jack Peñate is the grandson of Mervyn Peake, who wrote Gormenghast. My long lost friend, Mark Eason, liked Gormenghast, but I don’t know what he’d make of Jack Peñate. How can someone so sensitive and so talented share the same birthday as Joey Barton. No matter. For, Jack has the best body-jerk dancing style that I’ve seen since my long, lost friend, Max Jingoff, back in Bradford in the late 70s. For me, it’s great to discover that something new can be done with simple guitar, bass, drum and voice. I had thought that, when Japan moved the guitar out of the equation with their 1980 LP, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, that we were done with that particular stringed instrument (which looks so silly on girls – not that some of the girl-led bands at Glastonbury realised). Henceforth, I thought we’d be looking to keyboards and voice, or drum and bass. I was not wrong, though only half right. Robert Fripp has made the guitar sound like an orchestra playing in a cathedral. With everyone else it’s more or less a banjo. With Jack Peñate, everything is different. I know the guitar is there and it looks great round his neck, knocking against those hips. But the main instrument is the voice. I thought I’d heard it somewhere before and I have. Perhaps in a forest, or when killing an arab. Maybe Saturday night 10.15, sitting in the kitchen sink. But I know that everything will be alright. This is a guy who can write about anything because he can talk about death and dying. I haven’t been as excited about a singer-songwriter since the emergence of Elvis Costello. With Jack Peñate, everything is new. Out of the womb/And into the tomb. Indeed.

markgriffiths@idealconsulting.co.uk