January 2011

Retro iPhone Cover

I have to laugh at this. I was glad to get rid of my brick a longggg time ago but it seems it has returned to haunt.

For people that weren’t lucky(?) enough to experience the size of mobile phones in the 80s (I’ll leave the exorbitant running costs for another post), the mobilephone massif has created a cover/case for your iPhone. It’s not truely comparable to the bricks of yesteryear, but it’s the closest you will get to one (that actually still works).

iPhone cover brick

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Big Audio Dynamite to reform

Mick Jones, co-founder of Big Audio (with Don Letts) in 1985, has told the BBC that the band is reforming. They will be touring the UK in March and USA in April which is exiting news for B.A.D fans, and to a degree Clash fans too.

Even though the band itself did not stop in 1988, the original line up certainly did. But for the tour, Jones returns with co-songwriter and sample master Don Letts, drummer Greg Roberts, bassist Leo Williams, and keyboardist Dan Donovan.

Big Audio Dynamite lasted for five years and released four albums. Their biggest hit was the number one ‘Rush’ in 1991. While there is no talk of a new album yet, it is still early days and one can only hope.

The band have announced the following tour dates:

Tue 29 March O2 Academy, Liverpool
Wed 30 March O2 ABC, Glasgow
Thu 31 March O2 Academy, Newcastle upon Tyne
Sat 02 April O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Sun 03 April O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Wed 06 April Rock City, Nottingham
Thu 07 April O2 Academy, Leeds
Fri 08 April Manchester Academy (University), Manchester
Sat 09 April O2 Academy, Bristol
Sat 16 April The Coachella Festival, USA

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80s songs about horses

There were a lot of different themes in the 80s – whether they be fashion, movies or in music. And in music, horses were a popular thing to sing about. Here are three that I can remember and still like.

Wild Horses – Gino Vanelli
This catchy tune was released in 1987, and reached #55 in the US top 100 but #7 in Canada (where Gino was born). The song earnt Vanelli the Juno Award for Recording Engineer of the Year (which he incidentally shared with his brother that year).

The clip is in black and white and features a sexy female playing the harmonica. And no, I have no idea what her name is – in fact I don’t know the names of the other band members either (can someone help me?).

I know I said the tune is catchy, but when you look at the lyrics ……. well I’ll let you make up your own mind. Weird.

As the sun goes down on the Arizona plain
And the wind whistles by like a runaway train
Hey hey hey it’s a beautiful thing
Well it’s me and you and a flatbed truck
My heart kicking over like a whitetail buck
Hey hey hey in the middle of spring

You can cut me deep
You can cut me down
You can cut me loose
Don’t you know it’s okay
You can kick and scream
You can slap my face
You can set my wheels on a high speed chase
Hey no matter what you do

Wild horses could not drag me away from you
Wild horses could not drag me away from you

As the sky falls down from the midnight blue
Spittin’ like bullets on a hot tin roof
Hey hey hey it’s a beautiful sound
Well it’s me and you in a flatbed truck
In a foot of mud just my luck
Hey hey hey a hundred miles out of town

You can call me a fool
You can call me blind
You can call it quits
Can’t hear a word you say
Cause if I had you once
I’m gonna have you twice
I’m gonna follow my heart instead of good advice
Hey no matter what you do

Wild horses could not drag me away from you
Wild horses could not drag me away from you

Watch the video clip on YouTube.

Wild Horses – Nik Kershaw
Not one of Nik’s more popular songs (he had far better), but this one was released in 1984 on ‘The Riddle’. The Riddle reached UK #8, U.S #113, AUS #39.

Laid Back – White Horse
I love this song. Laidback were a Danish band, and released this song in 1983. White Horse was a dance track with a repetitive, memorable bassline and ambiguous, drug and/or sex-themed lyrics (“white horse” being slang for heroin) that became popular in US clubs. It spent three weeks at number one on Billboard’s National Disco Action charts. White Horse ’89 was released in (have a guess) 1989 by Laidback’s label but it did not have the success of the original.

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