Hey kids, it's been a bit tricky keeping this blog page updated when all the music club is really happening on the facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/RegalMusicClub

So sorry if anyone is following this page, there's been a bucketful of meetings since the last posts.

The next meeting is on Wed 25th September, theme is Paul Weller in all his incarnations. Angry Young Jam, friend of the Cappuccino Kid and now the Modfather.

5th June 2013 at 7.30 pm for a night of protest songs. Protest and popular song have always gone hand in hand - whether an attack on parliament such as the 17th Century "The World Turned Upside Down", the subversive silk of Sam Cook singing "A Change is Going To Come" or Jessie J's upfront attack on materialistic music culture in "Price Tag". What are you rebelling against, Johnny? "Whaddaya got?".

Laura Lee's "Womens Love Rights" album in 1972 was a strident blast across the bows of all the Superflys, Shafts, and Black Moses Isaac Hayes-esque performers who were dominating funk and soul at the time. Tracks such as "Wedlock is a Padlo...ck", "Crumbs Off the Table" and "Womens Love Rghts" might sound a little lyrically clunky today but at the time were very influencial in the US feminist movement. This track, "Rip Off", is on the one hand less dogmatic and more a remedy against the doggish (as the original poster notes below) but gives a good idea of her style.

Laura Lee "Rip Off"

22nd May for best/worst album cover night. This is guaranteed to be a lot of laughs, with room for debate. What is the best sleeve of all time? How do you define "best" anyway? Huh?

Next meeting: 8 May 2013

Spies, lies, and the rest at James Bond/Secret Agent songs night on the 8th May. Pick your favourite Bond theme or go undercover and steal a song from somewhere else. Meanwhile check out the seriously cool Johnny Rivers blasting through the theme to "Secret Agent" which is what the Patrick McGoohan series "Danger Man" was called in the USA. Now, does anyone want a fight over whether John Drake was Number Six?

Next Meeting: 24th April

On the 24th April the music club welcomes author and singer/songwriter James Allan to talk about his book "Musicians Eat Cakes - Connections, Coincidences and Similarities in the lives and deaths of pop and rock musicians". I think you will agree that sounds right up our street (we also eat cakes). To supplement his talk I thought we could have a think about songs which mention other musicians, there might be time to play a couple. "American Pie" is a good example of what I have in mind, but there are quite a few others out there, further thoughts to follow.

Wednesday 27th March for best concert/worst concert night. What makes a great concert? Intimate setting or stadium? Faithful reproduction or radical interpetation of material? What is the best gig you've seen? And the worst? What was the concert in history you wished you had been at? Pitch in with your stories, hear others, maybe perform a song that brings it all back. Lots of opportunities for chat, bit of a laugh, bit of debate. Doors open at half seven, no support, £2 including refreshments.

It's Kate Bush night at the Regal Music Club on the 13th March. Rolling the ball to you.

In 1986 Kate Bush released a new single to promote her Whole Story greatest hits album. I say promote, what she presented was a brilliant but extremely unsettling song with an even more unsettling video which was only shown in full on late night TV and in which she appears for a few seconds. Number 23 with a bullet.
 

 
Possibly stung by the failure of TOTP to play her terrifying video for Experiment 4, Kate then made an appearance on the otherwise grim early evening Wogan chat show on BBC 1 with a fantastic and semi theatrical mimed performance.

"The Whole Story" album in itself has to be one of the most poorly named albums in pop history, containing as it does a total of 12 singles, one of which is the above, and another is "new vocal" version of Wuthering Heights, thereby removing the actual track which first made such an impact on the nation's conciousness. No room for the hit singles "Hammer Horror", "Them Heavy People", "December Will Be Magic Again", "The Big Sky" or any album tracks at all. being released right on the cusp of CDs beginning their ascent perhaps makes it look more stingy than it was. Then again, it is still the only best of collection, or indeed any kind of complilation, available which is a bit of a crime, and that goes doubly so for video and film releases, nothing since the video casette which doubled the Whole Story album.