the sound of music

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in the mad rush to get this week's show recorded and thus the more challenging job of actually getting into your minds, i forgot to mention the fa cup final. it's fourteen years since everton were last in a final and since then the nature of the game has changed so much. the fa cup in itself is contantly being held-up, scrutinised and shown to have been devalued by those with an interest in more lucrative matters.


for me the fa cup is still a fantastic cup competition, and while it doesn't have the allure of playing barcelona or juventus every few weeks, for the other 88 clubs in english football it is still a mountain worth climbing. because it's there. everton's route to the final this year has been enough to swell your heart, having taken on liverpool, boro, villa, the other shite and the mighty macclesfield town, we find ourselves on the cusp of a monumental day.


to win the fa cup this season would be a massive vindication of eevrything david moyes has done for the club. his epithet about 'the people's club' has seemed to ring true in recent weeks, everywhere the buzz has been electric, evertonians basking in the full glory of truly worthwhile season. i'm fully aware that if you can afford the luxury of champions' league success then the fa cup final may seem a minor distraction, what it means to a club like everton and their........diehard supporters is the first real opportunity to lay our hands on some much deserved silverware. if awards were dished out for effort and enthusiasm then everton, and in turn their fanatical supporters would be teetering on the top of a league of their own. we are where we are through hard work, dilligence and eye-popping management skills and if we had the sort of bread that gets fittered away on garbage at the top end of the prem, then who knows where and when we would be.


last week i posted an interview with mr. moyes on facebook which prompted an horrific slanging match between 'bitter' lfc-wallahs and meself, i don't want this to happen here. let's just allow us as hard-working, genuinely put-upon supporters to have our moment in the sunshine. win or lose it means a lot to us as evertonians. but to win, that would put the icing and the cherry on the cake.


don't take my word for it, here's what some friends and family said...

"This is massive for us. Despite the obscene amounts of finance pumped into the game these days Everton and their fans have proved beyond all doubt this season that a pile of passion can still prove itself to be worth WELL more than a pile of money." - Mr Weezle Weezler.


"for david moyes to win manager of the year for a third time without actually laying is hands on any silver is a monumental feat for both club and manager. we don't man city's trillions we just need a bit more to be able to compete. we'll use this saturday as a springboard for something much greater. but then, can you imagine anything greater than this? COYB" - Captain Cumberland -the blue & white kid.




"As yet an other febrile and pulsating season reaches Its' inevitable mind shuddering climax and the hyperbole machine of fate starts spitting copper bolts...now is surely the right time to take stock of Everton's performances this term as pissed up befuddled journalists used to say (will this do? Etc).
After a summer of watching spaces and coyly making overtures towards the likes of Joao Moutinho and Stephane M'Bbia, the blues belatedly broke the club's transfer record on Maroune Fellaini a gangly Afroed Belgian who had impressed against our lovable neighbours in a "Champions" League outing in August for Standard Liege who then promptly dumped Everton out of the UEFA cup, early doors as they say.

The Mexican Stand Off of Moyes’ contract wrangle in the autumn dovetailed with some poor results for the blues which featured such highlights as home tonkings from the likes of Blackburn (Twice!) Portsmouth and Roffa's champions elect.

Later in the autumn following on from a spirited 1-1 draw to Man Utd, injuries began to spasmodically hinder the manager’s selection plans. Firstly Yakubu and Vaughan then Saha and subsequently Arteta all fell by the wayside as Jagielka was thankfully now playing next to a revitalised Joleon Lescott, who seemed to score a dramatic late equaliser versus the Villa before that Ashley Young joined the likes of Garrincha, Pele and Maradona in the pantheon of football greats by slotting in at the death for the much fancied Midlanders.

A siege mentality was adopted following the harrowing Villa game, which proved to be the catalyst for an inspired run of away victories augmented by a corking last !0 minute cameo from Balsa boy Louis Saha versus the former Thames Ironworks.

The injury to Joseph Yobo cemented the pairing of Lescott and Jagielka and enabled the partnership between the scary voiced Steven Pienaar and former Camberwick Green left back Leighton Baines to flourish as did Everton’s home form post Christmas.

The FA cup run started with a professional display against those plucky silk men Macclesfield town and has included to date: 2 games against LPL, and seismic clashes against Villa and er.. Boro before THAT semi against galactic champions Man Utd and their flaccid penalty kicks
So Everton find them selves cast as underdogs pitted against that Nouveau Riche Behemoth that is the current incarnation of Chelsea in Saturday’s FA cup final (coverage starts with Cup Final pages from Ceefax at 4.50 am).

The Blues have exceeded expectations all season and have held the expensively assembled Londoners twice already this season. There is no shortage of confidence in the team at the minute and victory would surely be the glace cherry on what has been an exceedingly good season for The Toffees all round.
Hang on!

It’s getting far too hot for cake metaphors as the late Richard Harris may have said if he was still with us. Madames et Monsieurs.

Let the vinegar strokes commence."

-our tone -a sage for our times, knows his onions.


this week: we shall dare to dream.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.


dream scene.....george harrison.
sound.....james
fences.....phoenix.
life's a beach.....studio.
ice cream man.....the clover
goin' against your mind.....built to spill.
friendship train.....gladts knight & the pips.
private armies.....vivien goldman.
angel eyes (extended remix).....roxy music.
in fine style.....dennis alcapone.
say you don't mind.....denny laine.
back-street.....edwin starr.
dot org green consumer.....diamond watch wrists.


the plan was hatched beneath the light of a forty-watt bulb by mr bernard and dragged kicking and screaming into the daylight by weezle weezler. EVERTON FOR THE CUP.

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i have on occassion known to be wrong, i know you might find that hard to believe but it does show that i am human and feel the same things as you mere mortals. again, apparently the specials are the hottest ticket in town, they are not as i said a bunch of fiftysomething geezers shuffling around the stage like trenchfoot victims. they are instead spritely fortysomethings with all the energy and zeal of an amphetamine convert. again, it just goes to show how wrong you can be.


i draw these conclusions based on what? and following a long train journey today this is the theory i came up with: watching musicians from my youth perform their greatest hits for oodles of cash irks me because it reminds me of my own mortality and how utterly short a time we have on the carpet that flows beneath us. because we only have a finite amount of time and space in which to coloour our canvas accordingly you must tirelessly strive for new experiences and watching the heroes of your youth whoring themselves in middle-age is counter to this untried and not b=very well thought through point of view. or something.


on the other side of the coin, alternative tv are playing in london this saturday (look to the stars for details) and i would have very much like to have been there. so once more my half-cocked theory falls to the ground.



but i would say that, wouldn't i?


this week: star trek, maybe. imax, maybe. star trek + imax= copmplete winner.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.


wading through a ventilator.....the soft boys.
weekend condition (scotty coats & wes the mess mix).....free blood
do yourself a favor.....stevie wonder.
the northern song.....the superimposers.
aftermath (single version).....cowboys international.
that's the way god planned it.....billy preston.
what's up now, man?.....hockey.
angel baby.....rosie & the originals.
my favourite game.....the cardigans.
box of rain.....the grateful dead.
marcus garvey.....big youth.
the visitors.....abba.
roll, bus roll.....jeffrey lewis & the junkyard.
live from the opium den (david holmes main mix).....justin warfield.

if you are reading this early friday, i apologise for the brevity of this text. it's been a busy week and i haven't had a chance to write anything at all. i will pad it out over the weekend and make my salient point somewhat more coherent.


thanks for your patience and support. x


abandoned on a disused bomb-site by bernie connor. picked up, re-assembled and loved back to life by the weezler.

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this much i don't know............ut!

as i write, the toaster has blown up.

when i was 14 i loved 10cc. and the who. odd choices.

click, clack. click, click, click. clack. click clack.

i have on ocassions relaxed in the safety of my own delusions.

after years of analysis by people only marginally more intelligent than myself it has been decided in a rather arbitrary way that 'i saw her standing there' by the beatles IS the best track one, side one ever. think about it.


i'm not quite me dad but technology has me on the ropes at times. the last seven days have been a challenge, to be honest. it freaks the living shit out of me when things don't work, being me there's only so many things i can do. once i get past the overwhelming desire to curl up into a ball and cry, my next port of call is to break whatever it is that isn't doing what it should be. in the case of my computer, it's an expensive piece of digital hardware that people other than meself rely on, so that's out of the question.


the birds feeding at my living room window are becoming some of my best friends. we have a robin this week. previously there were just tits. this does not make me st. francis of assisi.

last week when i was in london i discovered that trafalgar square has two fountains. can you believe that? i have no idea where the other one came from.

i truly believe that ritchie manic is alive and well and living in australia. i also believe ritchie manic is dead and not living at all.


if we are all going to hell in a hand-cart i wanna be hanging off the front as it begins its descent.

i once for a fleeting momeny thought 'cars' by gary numan was a 'boss tune'. i soon realised the error of my ways and reverted to my 'numan is evil' stance where i remain to this day. thank god.

i can see for miles. and miles. and miles. and miles.

if sir david charnock rushes to my rescue he shall be dubbed the king of the internet by her majesty the queen.

don't forget to leave comments, they prove invaluable when i need my ego massaging.



this week: how can a man take such hard times and live.

WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

rock 'n' roll/nightclubbing.....the human league.
1517.....the whitest boy alive.
i'm gonna make you mine.....the shadows of knight.
cheating and lying.....the silvertones.
frankenstein.....brain donor.
007, a fantasy bond theme.....barry adamson.
sho' nuff (got a good thing).....jj jackson.
action packed.....ronnie dee.
midnight rabbit.....golden bug.
take your soul.....the sahara all-stars of jos.
pandora's golden heebie-jeebies.....the association.
walked all night.....charlie booker.
septeber gurls.....big star.
electric bird.....georges vert.
low spark of high-heel boys.....traffic.


torn up into confetti sized pices and cast to the wind by bernie connor, hurriedly picked up and re-assembled with all the love, due care and attention of a new parent by the weezle. vootie!

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every week i struggle to find interesting things to say on this page (you might beg to differ). i make mental notes of everything that passes through my head from wednesday to tuesday hoping to deliver THAT piece of earth shattering text you've been waiting for all your life. by tuesday it's fair enough to assume that i've completely forgotten everything i ever wanted to say and that wonderful piece of insightful, informative text gives way to the insane ramblings of a madman. turned up to eleven. again.

start all over again.

our imminent collective death from swine-flu looks like it could be fun, nothing like a good pandemic to frighten the world's population into blind panic, alarm and despondency, giving way to more traditional paranoia and fear. the distance from mexico to merrie england is negligible as the germ flies and we could all be tucked-up in the advanced stages of rigor-mortis before the last blossom has fallen from the trees. and a sthe world health organisation creaks under the sheer weight of a terrified planet desperate for their dwindling fix of anti-viral 'stuff', far away from the shores of lake geneva we know of a thing so beautiful and pure, so life altering and the only thing on this earth to rid us of 99% germs AND all known diseases. brothers and sisters, stand in line and roll up your sleeve. you are about to be dosed with......THE SOUND OF MUSIC. form an orderly queue. but keep away from people.


the sound of music WILL keep us alive. don't die just yet, there's so much more to come.



this week: my heart goes out to phil jagielka and his crushing injury. may he return a million times the warrior he was this time last week.

WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

sock it to me baby!.....mitch ryder & the detroit wheels.
alcoholics unanimous.....art brut.
eleven.....oasis (omar-s & shadow ray).
get up and boogie.....silver convention.
i can't stand it.....the specials.
i don't want to talk about it.....crazy horse.
disco devil.....lee perry
japanese punk.....the rotters.
genesis.....goth-trad.
new face in hell.....the fall.
yer gonna need somebody on yer bond.....captain beefheart & his magic band.
blackout.....l'il louis & the world.


can't really do any thing about the track listing now, the genie's out the bottle now and you can't keep everyone happy, so i'll just please meself. i didn't want a track listing in the first place, but if i took it away now it would confuse the shit out of y'all. you'll just have to sort it out amongst yourselves. so there. x


and so it goes..............and so forth.

made by bernie connor. produced with due care and attention by the weezle.

Download this episode (76 min)   

one of the things that irks me, you and everybody we know is the way culturally important things get hijacked by those who weren't there and feel the urge to illuminate themselves in a much brighter light. in the last year or so some class one bollocks has been written and said about the liverpool nightclub eric's, a sewer infested cellar that itself shone with all the energy of a 40 watt bulb in the late 70's.


in the rush to proclaim proximity to pete burns or ian broudie, self-styled social commentators put themselves at the epicentre of the blast, moments after detonation in the melee of liverpool's year zero, all smoking and fried. i find it breathtaking that this goes on, for me eric's was a rather unpleasant at times nightclub where the pistols and the clash played for buttons and much later in history became the social and cultural phenomenon we worship today. what gets overlooked nearly every time is the role that probe records played in liverpool's year zero. probe really was the siren that called the wayward and the restless towards the rocks of punk, a freak show of unimaginable proportions played out every day in the public theatre with a different cast and support crew.

those believers who were way too young for even the eric's matinee found solace and kindred spirit up the steps and into the scary beyond.....


and then there's this: check this out, if probe had not been there i would not be having this conversation with you. if geoff davies -the true, unsung catalyst of liverpool music- had never opened probe in 1971 the whole musical landscape and education of liverpool might have been radically different. somebody else may have come along and opened an independent record shop at some time -which other people much later did- but it was the attitude of the staff and availabilty of obscure music which did for probe.


we have geoff to thank for an awful lot, he is possibly the most influntial figure in liverpool music by sheer virtue of the fact he opened that shop and worked tirelessly to turn on young impressionable heads to the most wondrous music ever made at that time. think about it, without probe the dark ages of the 70's would have been a great deal darker, the musical landscape a little more insular. i'm deadly serious about this, geoff should be recognised by the city burghers as the man who did it, fuck the beatles, merseybeat and all that, it ceased to be liverpool music the day they all signed to emi. liverpool loves honoring those who don't even deserve to be talked about, no marks who feather their own nest, geoff davies is a true liverpool legend, someone whom we all owe a debt of gratitude in some way or other.


when probe conveniently moved to its central premises in button st in 1976 it heralded in the new age where it worked in tandem with eric's, being the city's sole supplier of the radical new music that was going on just around the corner. its influence cannot be understated, i met an awful lot of the people i still call friends flicking through the racks in probe, indeed a lot of the people i know who will be reading these words will have first made my acquaintance in there. and of course, the best thing about it is that it was a record shop, in an age when a record shop could have that dramatic and positive effect on young people's lives. it seems inconceivable now, in an age where parcel force delivers everything we buy and record shops don't seem to exist at all any more. one by one they tumble like archaic dominoes, some of the biggest names in independent music retail have fallen in the last year, yet probe remains open, probably due to some pact with satan or his off-line equivalent. maybe the reason that it remains open is that the city just can't let go of the most influential musical institution it ever had.


say your own personal thanks to geoff and his legacy. visit www.probeplus.co.uk buy stuff and leave him a lovely message.


this week: i imploded at the finishing line. weezle almost died laughing.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

born for a purpose.....dr. alimantado.
shopping bag.....clinic.
when i was young.....eric burdon & the animals.
beasley street.....john cooper clarke.
always like this....bombay bicycle club.
hurt by love.....inez & charlie foxx.
the love i lost.....theo parrish.
chapter 8 seashore and horizon.....cornelius.
inaugural trams.....suoer furry animals.
oui oui.....pulsallama.
vision's the first.....high places.
music for my mother.....funkadelic.
tricky tricky.....royksopp.
soul power.....derek martin.


left in the garden as an ugly frog by bernie connor and turned into a handsome prince by sir weezle the gallant. x