Crawfish

When I was a kid and to this day I have taken a pretty dim view of my brother's choice in music, it's pish. He has a Boyzone cd for christ's sake!

As  a teenager I used to dream about going in and taking a 50 pence piece to his Chris De Burgh collection, If I had to to endure Patricia The Stripper or A (fucking) Spaceman Came Travelling through the Gyprock and Anaglypta once I must have heard them a thousand times. I never carried out the vandalism I thought about but the little git did do the very same thing to my Crass, Christ The Album which I only realised years later as it is not the sort of album that anybody in their right mind would play on a regular basis.

Anyway, another of my brother's favourites from a very young age was Elvis and as somebody trying to live up to the ideals of punk all I had was disdain for the man in rhinestones and sideboards that were a mile out. I remember every time an Elvis Presley film came on the telly we had to watch it.  It was usually a bank holiday weekend or Boxing day that these delights were shown on the telly in the 70s and there was always something better on STV, like Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger but we had to bloody watch Elvis. I fucking hated these films, even then I knew that the acting was crap, the stories were all the same,  Elvis sees girl, Elvis gets girl, Elvis pisses girl off but at the end always ends up with girl again, oh and Elvis sings a lot of shitty songs.

But there was one song from one film that always stuck in my mind as it wasn't shitty and Elvis didn't look like a twat when he sang it but looked like probably the coolest pesron I had ever seen in my life and was singing one of the most amazing, if brief songs that I had ever heard. Although being a self respecting punk and metal fan it was more than my life was worth to admit to liking this or anything by the King.

Years later, I realised just what I had been missing with my embargo in Presley's music when a friend gave me a loan of his copy of The Sun Sessions albums and I listened without prejudice to the boy from Tupelo.

However I still can not watch GI Blues and every time I hear Wooden Heart (my brother used to play it repeatedly) I want to set fire to wooden toys.

So here is mine and Joe Strummer's favourite Elvis tune, with more than a little help from Kitty White.

E P - Crawfish

And here is the scene from the film

Good Rockin' Tonight

Tonight is Rockabilly night around these parts. The brothel creepers have been polished, the bowling shirt ironed and the quiff that I have tried to cultivate for the past few months will hopefully stay in place for the duration.

Now just the food to prepare. I think that it may be quite a good night.

Elvis - Good Rockin' Tonight

Dad, did Elvis die on the toilet?

First posted on 20/01/2009

"Dad, did Elvis die on the toilet?", this is how I was greeted by my 5 year old when picking him up from school the other week. "J said that he did and it was because he took drugs and ate too many cheeseburgers, her dad told her that!" he explained.

What do you do? So I told him that it was true and that Elvis was a very troubled man at the time, to which he replied "maybe he shouldn't have gone to MicDonals (sic) as much." I now believe that my son is much less likely to become a maccy dees junkie, which can only be a good thing.

Elvis - Crawfish (Pilooski edit)

Am I Really Such A Sadsack? Part Two

Back to Shrevie's rant in Diner.

When he starts to tell Beth that the records need to be filed in alphabetical order and according to genre, I have to whole heartedly agree but there are conditions in my sad little world.

Firstly, all of the vinyl albums, cds, 7" and cd singles are only alphabetised and filed by year, they are not split according to genre, well not any more,  any way.

The 12 inch singles are split into 2 catagories, there is the dance music, all post 1986, house, techno and the myriad of sub genres that exist and then there are all the rest. The all the rest section are as the albums and the cds. The dance twelves are where it gets tricky, they are all sorted like the rest but also some are grouped together by label and others according to producer. The Weatherall section taking up a bit of room.

When I first moved in with L, the first priority was to organise the music.The vinyl was easy, as it had all moved with me. The cds were where it got difficult, as far as I could see there was no methodology to the filing,  in fact, there didn't even seem to be a designated area to house the cds.

This had to be rectified,  But I also hit another snag,  there were certain cds that needed to be, how to put it,  quarantined. There was no way that Michael Bolton was snuggling up next to Eric Bogle or Curtis Stigers getting a whiff of credability by being next to SLF. There were about half a dozen of these offending discs which were quietly placed in a drawer in the hope that they would not be missed.

I felt quite proud when I was finished at my achievement.

A couple of weeks later L said to me "where are the Elvis cds?"

"Under P of course,  where else would they be "I answered.

"E, after all there is only one Elvis" came the witty retort.

I just shook my head and pointed to the cds.

L picked out the one she wanted and while placing the cd in the tray muttered something like I can't find a bloody thing since you decided to organise the cds. Which is a comment that I have heard more than once over the intervening years.

I don't understand the problem, music needs to filed in some sort of order, if not the next stop would be anarchy.  I will not even get started on the leaving records/discs out of their covers or I would bore the ones who've stuck it out this far to death.

So there you go, the case for the prosecution and it is hard to disagree with the sadsack tag.

Elvis Presley - Crawfish

Elvis Presley - Only The Strong Survive

Dad, did Elvis die on the toilet?

"Dad, did Elvis die on the toilet?", this is how I was greeted by my 5 year old when picking him up from school the other week. "J said that he did and it was because he took drugs and ate too many cheeseburgers, her dad told her that!" he explained.

What do you do? So I told him that it was true and that Elvis was a very troubled man at the time, to which he replied "maybe he shouldn't have gone to MacDonals (sic) as much." I now believe that my son is much less likely to become a maccy dees junkie, which can only be a good thing.

Elvis - Crawfish (Pilooski edit)
Elvis - Long Black Limousine