Got any grapes?

A duck walks into a store and asks the cashier, “Got any grapes?”

The cashier says, “No, we don’t sell grapes.”

The next day, the duck comes back and asks again, “Got any grapes?”

The cashier, getting annoyed, says, “No! We don’t sell grapes.”

The third day, the duck returns and asks, “Got any grapes?”

The cashier, frustrated, says, “If you come in here one more time asking for grapes, I’m going to nail your beak to the floor.”

The next day, the duck walks in and asks, “Got any nails?”

The cashier, confused, says, “No …”

“Got any grapes?”

Monday 30 September 2024, 971 views

Love Is All – The Beatles song that never was

Reddit and Threads are full of engagement bait – it’s what keeps them going – but that doesn’t stop me having a good scroll of both of them every day.

One question I read last night got me thinking. “What is the most Beatles-y track you can think of that the Beatles didn’t record?”

The answers had lots of great tunes which fit the bill – Sowing The Seeds Of Love by Tears For Fears is still a favourite of mine, and lots of XTC/Dukes of Stratosphear songs too. There were also 100s of terrible suggestions too.

And there was this one unheralded comment too – “I always find it interesting that when people call something ‘Beatlesque’ they often refer to the psychedelic sound that they did for 6 months in 1967.” Yes, exactly that! That’s what everyone’s thinking of here, including me.

No one suggested the winning answer. I was suddenly transported back 50 years in time and in my mind I was watching a cartoon full of animals singing along to a song called “Love Is All”, which had such a big “All You Need Is Love” vibe I’m surprised lawyers weren’t involved. But what was it?

I thought it might have “ugly bug ball” in its lyrics, but it wasn’t the Burl Ives song. I spent over an hour Googling “70s song sounds like Beatles psychedelic animated video” – which mostly got me Beatles cartoons.

I was just about to give up when I actually found it. Luckily the song was called “Love Is All” – not an easy title to search for. But it does have its own Wikipedia page, and it popped up, way down in my search list.

This is the track in question. It will be well known to people outside the UK – but I can’t imagine too many Brits will know it. Here it is:

I could picture and hear this very clearly, so if you’d told me “I think it’s the bass player from Deep Purple, with Ronnie James Dio singing” when I was looking, I would have said “nah” and moved on. But it is.

Roger Glover left Deep Purple in 1973. I was never particularly into them, but I had a friend who made me a mixtape in 6th form and he put Lazy on there. I played that track a lot – it was from 1972, during Glover’s time with the band.

Also, I played guitar in my teens and everyone who played guitar knew the first seven chords to Smoke On The Water (but not much else).

In 1974 Glover released his first solo album, “The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast” – so that’s where I got the ugly bug ball thing from (the butterfly ball is in the lyrics to Love Is All). The song does indeed feature lead vocals by Ronnie James Dio, just before he joined Rainbow as their lead singer.

The single didn’t chart in the UK, but became an unexpected number one hit song in the Netherlands and Belgium, no doubt driven by the video (it certainly got my attention as a five year old). A few years later it also went top 10 in Australia.

Antenne 2 in France adpoted it as their go to track when they had technical difficulties too, so I’m sure that added millions to its audience.

I wonder how much this song informed my music tastes throughout my life. I’ve got a big soft spot for brass sections in rock songs – I’m still a big fan of most Britpop, and that 6 months of 1967 music too – I spent most of yesterday at home on my own playing XTC albums.

So that’s one mystery cleared up – I just need to find the song they used to play on BRT’s Radio World in the 80s, and I’ll die a happy man.

Bryan Thomas published a great in-depth feature on the song and album on the now-defunct Nightflight website on 10 July 2015. Because the internet is only “someone else’s computer”, I’ve reproduced it here – so it can live on until my own website bites the dust, sometime in the next 500 years!

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Ronnie James Dio — he was born Ronald James Padavona on July 10, 1942, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and died on May 16, 2010 — and we think it’s fair to say that most of his fans know about his powerful vocals for the many bands he fronted (Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and Heaven & Hell), but here’s one you may not know about or may have forgotten.
“Love is All” accompanied this nearly-psychedelic animated short, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast, made by the Halas & Batchelor company, which aired on “Night Flight” back in the 80s (also, “The Electric Company,” “The Great Space Coaster” and various other children’s shows on the Nickelodeon channel).

The ambitious film (directed by Lee Mishkin) and the concept album were all based on the work of famed illustrator Alan Aldridge, who had created these fabulous animated drawings in the calm of his rural Norfolk studio, in eastern England, in the region known as East Anglia along the North Sea. Aldridge’s work ended up in a popular 1973 children’s book, with text by poet William Plomer, all of it based on the famous 1807 poem by William Roscoe, one of history’s first abolitionists, and telling the story of a party for insects and other small animals (that’s Dio singing the part of the frog).

Alan Aldridge in 1971

Aldridge had been a rising young star in the 1960s and part of swinging London’s commercial graphics scene. He’d had no formal training but ended up having much success with his work, which appeared in magazines, on the covers of books, advertisements, record sleeves and posters.

In 1968, at the age of 25, he left his job at Penguin Books, where he’d been the art director for their fiction list, and opened up his own design studio, and it’s from that point on that he began making connections with the music business, and working with a lot of the famous bands, mostly British hard rock and psychedelic bands, doing all kinds of psychedelic airbrush work for their LP covers.

He also was a creative consultant to the Beatles’ Apple company, designing the covers to two best-selling volumes of their Illustrated Lyrics, and he worked with all of the big British rock bands, including The Who, The Rolling Stones, Cream and he also produced a poster for Andy Warhol’s film Chelsea Girls.

After the Beatles split and his work with Apple came to an end, Aldridge began focusing on working on illustrating children’s books, initially inspired by the illustrations that Sir John Tenniel had done for Lewis Carroll’s books. Alridge had read that Tenniel had been unable to draw “a wasp in a wig,” and he accepted that as a challenge, thereafter discovering the 1807 classic The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast, which was considered the first British children’s book to eschew moral instruction.

The book — a kind of anthropomorphized animal fantasy for children — showed creatures having a ball, and Aldridge combined both his love of contemporary British rock and psychedelia to create his illustrations. He spent the next year drawing the twenty-eight illustrations which were collected in the book, deciding on a main character for each page, working with airbrush artist Harry Willock, who colored in Aldridge’s penciled drawings.

His publisher, Tom Maschler, who wrote a memoir about his time spent at Jonathan Cape, the legendary children’s book publisher, said about Aldridge’s work that it was a “cornerstone of a new graphic revolution.” Maschler initially put Aldridge in touch with poet John Betjeman, recently named Poet Laureate (Alridge’s first choice had been W.H. Auden, who declined), and they worked together for awhile, but Betjeman was unable to finish the work, and so it fell to William Plomer, a poet and novelist who was a reader for Jonathan Cape, to complete the work, which greatly expanded and altered the text from the original 1807 poem, focusing more on the animals’ preparations for the ball.

Plomer was 70 years old at the time and as such made for an unlikely pairing with the younger man Aldridge, but nevertheless their finished work, which also featured notes by wildlife expert Richard Fitter on every animal depicted in the drawings, was a huge success, published in September 1973. The Sunday Times ran a huge 12-page feature for it, putting the book on the front cover of its magazine (Aldridge had done many, many illustrations for the paper in the sixties, as was treated by the Times staff as one of their own).

The book became something of a modern-era children’s book publishing phenomenon, with more than 25,000 of the first edition selling out in just three days. Over the course of the first year there were multiple pressings of it, selling upwards of 700,000 copies. (Sadly, Plomer died on the day of the book’s launch, never knowing what a success he’d become as a best-selling author).

The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast won the 1973 Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award from 1973, and spawned two sequels, The Peacock Party and Lion’s Cavalcade, and many other subsequent spin-offs and homages.

The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast was then originally conceived as a solo project for Deep Purple’s keyboardist Jon Lord in 1974, and was only to be produced by his bandmate and bassist Roger Glover, who had recently left Deep Purple. The project originated with Glover when he was approached by Aldridge to do an album and possibly an animated film, which would need music, but Lord ended up being too busy with the band and Glover then took over the project, and it ended up being his first solo album.

Glover recruited Dio and many other lead vocalists to sing the songs, including David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, who would both also sing for Deep Purple at different points in the band’s history, not to mention session stars Eddie Hardin and Tony Ashton, soul singer Jimmy Helms, Roxy Music’s Eddie Jobson and John Gustafson, and three quarters of funk-rock band Fancy.

There was also a subsequent live rock opera, staged in both 1974 and 1975, the latter of which, staged on October 16, 1975, at Royal Albert Hall, featured aforementioned members of the band Deep Purple, Twiggy, black folk singer and musical performer Al Matthews (who was probably best known as “Sgt. Apone” in the movie Aliens), and it was narrated by Vincent Price.

Ronnie James Dio was also supposed to perform at this one-off concert staging but his commitments to Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow made him unavailable — his replacement Ian Gillan was drafted in at the last minute and received a standing ovation on his entrance, since Gillan had not performed since leaving Deep Purple in 1973. The live concert was filmed and released in 1976. Dio did eventually get to perform the song at the Royal Albert Hall in 1999 as the guest of Deep Purple.

Aldridge, meanwhile, went on in 1975 to design the cover for Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy album, and was going to make an animated film from that album as well — we’re imagining it would have been a kind of Yellow Submarine animated film for the 70s — but the idea was later dropped.

He did, however, illustrate a book of Bernie Taupin’s lyrics, and did the illustrations for another children’s book, The Ship’s Cat, written by Watership Down author Richard Adams, followed by another ambitious project, Phantasia, a kind of autobiography in verse and illustration. Although he continued to work for years as a script technician, diverting his creative output away from illustration, he is still recognized mainly for The Butterfly Ball, which remains his most cherished work.

“Love Is All” proved to be so successful that it was released as a single that it was a minor UK hit but did well in European countries (#1 in the Netherlands!), and it enjoyed some unexpected success in France, where the newly launched second TV channel Antenne 2 used it as a fill-in every time it experienced “technical difficulties.”

In the 1980s, the song was aired on Australian music show “Countdown” (1974–1987), where it ended up in the Top 10 four years after it was recorded.

More recently, in 2006, “Love is All” was used by the Dutch political party CDA in its election advertisements for the 2006 Dutch General Election.

In 2008, the Design Museum in London hosted an exhibit by legendary artist Alan Aldridge, complete with opening night festivities.

Thursday 5 September 2024, 3588 views

Dagelijkse Misère – new self-titled album

Every now and then I come across a band who produce some fantastic music but there seems to be very little recognition of their talents.

None more so than Dagelijkse Misère, a Dutch band featuring members of Iskaa and the Red Cars, who I wrote about a couple of years ago.

I played Desire on my radio show recently, and they got in touch to say they’d released a self-titled album under the new Dagelijkse Misère name in June this year.

I’ve been playing this album a LOT since I found it. Lots of 90s influenced alternative rock with a little post rock thrown in, but not too much to spoil the mix.

And they also have a song called “On A Leash” – and they’re not the first Dutch singer to sign those words over a banging tune. (Clue: this link)

Hard to pick a favourite as all seven songs are pretty strong. Today I’d go for Eyes, Zozo and Pretty Angels.

No social media, no Discogs entries, no blog posts, except this one now! Here’s the album if you have Spotify:

Thursday 1 August 2024, 6540 views

As far as melon scratchers go, this is a honey doodle

A little bit of football news doing the rounds this morning …

Cobblers boss Jon Brady has spoken of his delight at securing the season-long signing of Fulham midfielder Matt Dibley-Dias, beating off competition from a clutch of other EFL clubs.

The 20-year-old is highly-rated at Craven Cottage, captaining the club’s Under-21 side last season, and he will now spend the next 12 months at Sixfields as he takes the next steps in his football career.

Dibley-Dias, who has been an unused substitute for Fulham in … wait, what? I defy you not to say his name in Ned Flanders’ voice …

You only live once. Give me a white wine spritzer!

Friday 26 July 2024, 6985 views

Like Father, Like Son

Trevor Horn has been telling a story at gigs recently about one of his daughter’s old classmates. She attended the same private school as one of Boris Johnson’s sons.

The two kids were friendly, but it was still a bit of a surprise for Trevor when he came home one day to find Boris’s son not just in his house, but in Trevor’s bedroom. Lying on his bed.

Mercifully, he was clothed and Trevor’s daughter was nowhere to be seen – but Trevor still turfed him out.

The following week at the school gates, Trevor went over to Boris to mention this bizarre little intrusion. He said, “Your son was in my house last week.”

To which Boris simply replied, “You didn’t give him any drugs, did you?”

I did not know there was a video for this. Drama is a fantastic Yes album – one of my favourites in a very strong field – and I used to think it was so weird that Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes came in to replace Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman, mainly because at that time I just thought they were bubblegum pop artists.

Thursday 18 July 2024, 7638 views

Bikini Beach Band, Stoke Newington

A last minute decision to go out and do something on New Year’s Eve. OK, I’m happy watching repeats of Father Ted, but not everyone in my household feels the same.

Plus of course me and Mrs Red Penguin love the Bikini Beach Band. We first caught them live in 1995 supporting My Life Story at the Jazz Cafe, where they played a cover of MLS’s Motorcade, a track which appeared on their 1998 album The Bikini Beach Band Leave Home. They also supported the band on a comeback show in 2006 and I’ve caught them live five times in all, not least of course at Mrs RP’s 40th birthday party a few years back.

We didn’t get a chance to say hello, we waltzed in and out and were back home in time to not watch Jools Holland or a Rick Astley live concert on BBC1/BBC2.

Sunday 31 December 2023, 26485 views

Pacifica, House of Women – Academy 2, Islington

Back in the 90s, most of my favourite bands where what you heard on the radio or found in record shows. Mostly British and American, and occasionally something from Europe, but not very often.

Now thanks to the stupid internet, I have a whole load of favourite bands from around the world who are unlikely to ever tour the UK. One exception thankfully is Pacifica. They’re a duo from Buenos Aires and released their debut album, Freak Scene, in September, although I feel like it’s been out 3 years given the amount I have played it. It’s my favourite album of the year and that’s quite an achievement since 2023 was a Blur comeback year.

They started as an “Instagram band” playing Strokes covers. For me the Strokes peaked with their first single, and thankfully Pacifica have many more good ones than that. Great live performance and looked like they had a lot of fun. Hard to believe that an Argentinian duo could get such a great reaction in the UK too, especially with the xenophobia of the last few years, but I guess if you love good music you’re not going to be a brainless internet idiot.

Support was from House of Women who were OK but a little bit too heavy/stoner rock for my ears. I’d have loved them in the early 2000s.

Setlist:
• Misled
• Digital Clock
• Hotel Bar
• Premature Rejection
• Let Me Have This (Unreleased Song)
• Take On Me (a‐ha cover)
• Away
• Anita
• Don’t Blame Me (Unreleased Song)
• Closer
• Fantasies
• Change Your Mind
• Silent Affection

  Encore:

• With or Without You

Sunday 10 December 2023, 26101 views

Fonda 500, Bugeye, Hurtling, Colossus – Amersham Arms, New Cross

With my possible move away from Essex looming I won’t be able to make any last minute decisions to go and see gigs like this any more, unless they’re playing an hour or so from my new place (spoiler: they won’t), so it was indeed very much a last minute decision to drive down the A2 for my first gig in New Cross since 1996. It’s an easy drive from Basildon too – just 45 minutes going there, longer coming home. I can’t remember seeing quite so many diversionless road closures for “roadworks” in one evening but that’s another story …

I was really going on the strength of Hurtling and Bugeye, two bands I’ve seen before – weirdly, at the same venue in Bishop’s Stortford on different days, a venue I’d only been to on those two occasions. But I made sure to get there in time for the first act as I’d heard Colossus were good, and they were indeed – a very charismatic and slightly crazy frontman who had a “two microphone” thing going on which I didn’t understand, but it was a great set all the same.

Hurtling were up next, nowhere near as crazy but sounding massive thanks to Jen Macro’s awesome guitarwork.

Bugeye were the standout in a very good evening for me. I don’t understand why this band aren’t bigger – great stage presence and big infectious tunes. I spoke to a couple of the band afterwards and told them they need to play more gigs!

Headliners Fonda 500 are just about to call it a day, having been around since the 90s. This was their last London gig and I’m a bit disappointed I’ve only just discovered them – been enjoying playing their albums on Spotify since this show. Really hard to categorise too – a mix of The Fall, Stereolab, Saint Etienne, Art Brut and lots more.

I’ve put up a ton more photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/s9rTmPUR5MVSdPjU8

Thursday 26 October 2023, 32229 views

Snow Coats, Toodles and the Hectic Pity – Signature Brew, Haggerston

The second date I caught on the current tour – got there nice and early this time. I’d interviewed lead singer Anouk earlier in the day for the radio, so got a chance to say hello to her before the show. The set was slightly longer than Monday’s, and I got to see Toodles and the Hectic Pity in support too. Looking forward to more new music from them whenever that’s coming!

Wednesday 27 September 2023, 32085 views

Snow Coats – Tunbridge Wells Forum

The “before” and “after” gig posters:

The first of two Snow Coats gigs this week. They’re a band from Arnhem in the Netherlands and I have assumed they aren’t going to be playing too many random gigs in the UK. I’m still absolutely loving their album “If it wasn’t me, I would’ve called it funny” which came out in September last year, so I wasn’t going to pass up the chance of catching them live.

Except I almost did tonight. I found out just before leaving home that this gig, planned for the Sussex Arms, and the one in the Forum “hadn’t sold too well” so the venues decided to merge the two shows. Instead of headlining, Snow Coats were first on at the Forum instead, so if I hadn’t been trying to find out stage times I would have missed them, something I wouldn’t have called funny. As it was, I headed down just in time and caught a fantastic set from them. Looking forward to Wednesday now!

Setlist:
• Punching Bag
• Chevy
• OK ok (Sue)
• Anyway
• Amber
• Dreaming In The Car
• Dinosaur
• Marie

Monday 25 September 2023, 31714 views