Crocodile Cryer

The good news..............Martin Stephenson and the Daintees have a new album out, I have only heard one track, which to be honest is OK, but, you know, that band should have been as huge as the soft spot I have for them and I will bet that the album is as good as anything else you will hear this month. If you look at Stephensons blog he mentions Micheal Mara who is brilliant as you will see if you search for him on you tube. Why do brilliant songwriters and musicians like these two (and many, many others) exist only on the margins ? Their music isn't difficult, it is very accessible, but we need a degree in research methods if we want to hear it. It's a crime.

The last ok album to be overpraised was Bob Dylan and you will recall that much was made of his band sounding like a really good, tight band, as in, a proper band, not a bunch of jobbing session musicians. One of the many delights of the Plant album is the beautiful playing of the band which is much better that the Dylan lot, and they probably are jobbing Joes.

Megson has gone to Bolton and the poor bugger was booed before he even got through the door. Those Boltonians probably don't realise what a good songwriter he is!

I came across both of the above in the magazine Rock and Reel. I have become fed up with Uncuts obsession with the sixties and rock and roll behemoths, so I thought I wold give this magazine a try. It's pretty good and you get a cover CD, which has a Martin Stephenson track on it, but is pretty crap otherwise, with a strange DJ thing going on between tracks. The best thing about the magazine is that it smells exactly like a football programme. Dunno why, but I had a hot dog and bovril for tea, followed by a wagon wheel, washed down with a pint of weak piss.

Blues V Wigan tomorrow, probably a six pointer, but who cares......... when is poor old Bruce going to get his new contract?

If you're proud to be a Brummie clap your hands: Most music lovers are aware that Birmingham has a world-renowned concert hall; what's less widely known is that it has two. Symphony Hall may have the greater profile now, but when the Town Hall opened in 1834, Birmingham gained one of the first and finest symphonic halls in Europe.

A month or so back, I kept hearing a track by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on the radio, and everyone kept raving about it. The track was no better than all right and I thought, here we go, an album that doesn't happen to be utter shite gets over praised because it is made by some wrinkly old rocker. Having heard the album a few times, I was wrong, it deserves most of the praise it is receiving, it is not, as one berk said, as good as Gene Clark and Emmylou Harris though, nothing could be. Does anyone know if they were actually on the same continent when they recorded it? I hope it was a warm and intimate studio experience, it sounds like it was, but I am old and have become cynical.

I drove over 400 miles today, accompanied by the rudest, most ungrateful pair of miserable bastards that it has ever been my misfortune to do a favour for. Just thought I'd mention it.