FOX by FOX
Let us take you back – Future-kind - to an earlier, happier and more innocent time. It is 1979. A time before Blueberries, Hip Hop Artists called Reveal, Political Correctness and Downloads; a time that many of us remember with great affectation.
A sophisticated, romantic night in with the ‘trouble and strife’, ‘her indoors’ or even ‘naughty Norma’ consisted of sumptuous fare: Tinned North Sea shrimps in brine, tipped lovingly into glass dishes are now swimming in liberal lashings of crimson Rose Marie sauce, whilst, in the kitchenette, a boil in the bag Vesta chow mein for two simmers softly on the hob as the complimentary crispy noodles – five each and one for the dog – splutter in the chip pan. Then, to follow, a delicious dessert of Bird’s Eye super mousse scooped out of the plastic tubs and served with wafers and dream topping. Wash down with a schooner of Liebfraumilch, whilst all the time watching the latest edition of ‘Play Your Cards Right’ with Bruce Forsyth. Look! Here come those dolly dealers now. “Higher! Higher! Lower Lower! Oh! Oh!” It could still be a good night if you’d played your cards right - it’s up the apples and pears and straight into the loaf of bread for a little bit of what you fancy. Does you good, of course it does. Feeling nostalgic?
Well don’t let us try to convince you. ‘Strictly Come Bonkers’ supremo himself, Bruce Forsyth, our guest tonight, reminisces about those happy times:
“Good game, good game. There was me, Jimmy ‘Tarby’ Tarbuck, Bernard ‘what’s racist about that’ Manning and Dick ‘OO you are awful’ Emery – we called him ‘Paper’ – along with Peters and Lee out of Crossroads. We’d crouch around the candles during the power cuts and when the lights came back on we’d say “Nice to see you, to see you nice!!” How we laughed. And when the lights went off again, we’d dance around the candles like cavemen with spears all over my kitchen diner – well Peters had to be a bit careful at this point although, to be fair, he didn’t really notice – chanting “Generate! Generate! Let’s meet the eight we’re going to generate!” Sometimes we’d set fire to Zippy out of Rainbow and throw him at The Chuckle Brothers. When it was all over, we’d push Lee onto the hostess trolley, spin her around the room violently and get her to sing ‘Welcome Home’ for a bit whilst force feeding her with leftover North Sea shrimps, afterwards congratulating her with, “Didn’t she do well?!!” Nowadays, you see, people don’t realise that The Generation Game was inspired by our ways of passing time during the strikes, you see? Lovely.”
Yes, Brucie was masterful in his endorsements of the super seventies. As he was often wont to say - “Is your mum a super mum? Stork margarine helps a good mum become a super mum.” He would then dance about with a hoover shaking powder everywhere and consent to being tied to a tree whilst some singing children, dressed as red injuns, taunted him with Fruit Pastilles.
And nowadays? Nowadays, friends, a dinner for two almost always consists of your missus on the sofa gazing vacantly at Downton Abbey, fiddling with a laptop whilst all her mates keep texting every two minutes about her secret lover on Facebook.
The seventies signalled the death knell of vinyl records, of course, and that’s where we come in. Let’s go back there now, shall we? Shall we promenade together, you and us, one last time? Oh, go on. Get out your turntables and amps, find the recording and – Let’s Play!
THE NOT QUITE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRUNKEN VINYLS
- Thou shalt play both sides of the record in their entirety
- Thou shalt drink one can of Fosters or its alcohol equivalent per song
- Thou shalt record ramblings as they occur to thee for the duration of the running time
- Thou shalt edit out the swearing the next day
- Thou shalt not suffer a Blueberry user to live
SETTING UP TIME!
This week we were very amused here at DeeVees to listen to Nick Clegg’s inspirational speech about Kendall ’s Mint Cake at the Liberal Party Conference. We remember with fondness Neil ‘Windbag’ Kinnock crying “Oh Yay! Oh Yay!” like a demented town crier whose bell has been painfully and forcefully inserted somewhere rude (well up the arse, really) by a disconsolate public. “Oh Yay! Oh Yay! OOOOOH YAAAAY!” But Nick ‘I agree with Nick’ Clegg stood on the stage, commanding the proscenium arch like a colossus, his party in tatters, his reputation ruined and seized the initiative to send out a tsunami of optimism to his followers thus: “And me? Me? I gave French President Piere LePeepee a bar of Kendall Mint Cake!”
We were fascinated to note a new word gaining currency amongst the cognoscenti this week. The word – it is RESILIENCE. Oh it’s everywhere. Resilience this, resilience that! Perpetrated by the neo trick cyclists, we all need resilience, people, you heard it here first! Britain
Personally we prefer lager.
Interestingly, or possibly not, word coining is a phenomenon that we here at DeeVees have often noticed in these fickle modern times. A word becomes popular and then, like an unloved puppy, is dumped into the lake of language by a feckless public. We give you – for example – the word eponymous, once fashionably everywhere but now replaced by the lazier ‘self titled’ – much easier to pronounce but not quite as beautiful.
Finished setting up and bored? Then try our tricky ten minute teaser crossword whilst we connect the last cables and crack a couple more cans of lager.
And talking of lager; a final observation. Yesterday we were – intrigued – whilst driving to work as we were detained for some minutes, at a quarter past seven in the morning, at the roundabout if you please - as four members of the public meandered listlessly across the road in front of us. The foremost clutched a can of Carlsberg Special Brew in his hand whilst he pushed his offspring uncertainly and inconsiderately in front of the traffic in a less than roadworthy buggy. He seemed to be enjoying himself anyway.
We applaud his efforts here at Drunken Vinyls and would invite him over, put fear he might lose his sickness benefits if asked to put the needle on the record.
FOX
By FOX
Eponymous Album
(or ‘self titled’, if it pleases you)
WHAT’S THE STORY?
Noosha Fox. Sultry, sexy and with a great line in sibilance, she dominated the charts during the super soaraway seventies. Whilst Bruce Forsyth did not sing on her eponymous debut LP ‘Fox by Fox’. She was aware of him. In later life she admitted as much: “I was aware of him but did not approach him to sing on the album.”
Much of the subject matter of imaginatively titled LP ‘Fox by Fox’ is the occult, magic or voodoo. This was because Noosha had been watching Thames TV series ‘Ace of Wands’, wrapped in her picnic blanket, in between the power blackouts. Looking at lead character Tarot, whom she quite fancied, with his pet owl ‘Hooter’, not to mention a fox, she breathed ‘He’s Got Magic’ and lo, side two was off and running. As you listen, see if you can follow her themes – juggling with balls, letters, magic moments and babies. No wonder a generation of boys have poor eyesight.
Lead off single from the self-titled LP ‘Fox by Fox’ was the catchy ‘Imagine Me Imagine You’. All longing sighs, breathy vocals and ‘too-lang-a-langs’, it helped many a teenage boy pass the long lonely bedroom nights of power cuts during the ‘Winter of Discontent’ as they crammed eager ears against transistor radios tuned into Radio Luxembourg 208. This song also helped launch the careers of tribute artists the Bay Shitty Rollers – who’s ‘Shang-a-Lang’ was not a rip off by any means - and later was not, in any way, reworked by Dexy’s Midnight Runners as part of the tribute hit ‘Jackie Wilson Said’.
Foxy Noosha Fox. I’m in heaven when you sing. Let the music do the talking, let the fingers do the walking. Only you can.
Here we go!!
Side 1
Love Letters
Oh – ‘tis a bit crackly my dears. Sultry voice and the piano right up in the mix. Not at all subtle. Rancid mouthorgan straight out of ‘The Searchers’ staring John Wayne. Bloody vinyl, eh? There was a skip – now THAT was a skip – now we have a moog synthesiser that sounds as though it came from rancid hit Pepper Box by The Peppers – when I was a kid there was this place called Wigan Casino and nearly every hit in the hit parade related to Wigan bloody Casino. There was ‘Footsie Yeah!’ by Wigan’s Chosen Few – as you might guess there weren’t many of them – thank God – for Queen Mab had been with them, THEN there was a really poor track called ‘Skiing in the Snow’ by Wigan’s Ovation – they were knobs – you had to pretend to use ski sticks whilst you were dancing around your handbag but I’m sure Brucie would have loved them.
Imagine Me Imagine You
We’re on WKD tonight, the orange variety. WKD. Stupid name, stupid adverts. Add some port and you’ve got a ‘Cheeky Vimto’ which we once had in Wolverhampton with some delightful Arsenal fans. They were most charming prior to the game and - of course Cesc Fabregas scored about twenty goals. This is a lovely song. Cesc would approve. Imagine me imagine you inside each other’s eyes – what? Is that the best we could hope for? I wish it could be something hotter, though. Bugger – I keep imagine Wigan’s Ovation thrusting fake ski sticks hither and thither on Top of the Pops. I’m sure we can get out of this reverie with effort. Christ! It’s bloody Pepper Box now.
The Juggler
Pop’s a funny thing, though. Too-lang-a-lang-too-lang. It sounds great when you hear it, poor when you write it. Okay we’ve landed on track three and it’s a stinker. He’s a juggler by day, he’s a juggler by night – I can only hope there’s some sexual innuendo in there somewhere. OOOOO! She just said ‘Tie me down.’ As any fule no – that’s naughty! Nope – this is very poor.
Patient Tigers
‘Ace of Wands’ scared us shitless when we were kids. What the bloody hell is she wittering on about now? Patient tigers? This is a piano ballad in ¾ waltz time. We might deliberately and violently push the stylus on past this one. We now repent us of our fury that we did mock Sheena Easton last week. Tiresome. In extremis.
Only You Can
When we were in the Royal Navy we knew a chap called Skinner with a mighty chin and beak like nose who was more than fond of Wigan Casino. His trousers (for he did wear big trousers) had three buttons at the cummerbund and when he danced he was on the floor, down, as though it were physical jerks, kicking his heels upwards like a demented Russian doing a barynya. Forever etched on our memory is he as he danced to ‘Sky High’ by Jigsaw. Now the song. Good. Yes. Not bad, this one, even if Noosha keeps sniffing as though she was in need of some Vicks Sinex. Nice middle eight as the synth tries its best to be psychedelic. More like it, Fox, this is where it’s at. Ironic since the next track is actually called ‘The More’. We have GREAT HOPE. We really do.
The More
Crap.
Side Two
Spirit
Side two begins with some funky bass lines – and breathy vocals. If you ignore – and why wouldn’t you – the lyrics, this is more promising start than Side 1. The tune changes tempo – and the always welcome brass section sound their horn - ooer – and look – a change of key too. This is much better. Don’t know what the feck she’s going on about – but the best song so far by a country mile. Whatever that means.
He’s Got Magic
YEEEES! – very glam rock. Oh we like this. The ecstatometer is rising ALL the time. Plonk plink plonk goes the bass while he’s got magic and he can make you drunk even without wine. Obviously at DeeVee we can’t endorse the notion of getting drunk WITHOUT wine, nevertheless we will join you Noosh for some magic, some too-la-la, and – well - who knows? The evening is just beginning. Pepper Box by the Peppers is well and truly banished. AND – a false ending! Waddya know?
Pisces Babies
Well an unpromising title to be sure, but – hey – a nice Santana-esque bosanova groove - tell you what, they saved all the best tunes for side two! Oh no, Noosha, we don’t want no spiritual leaders, we want the groove.
Love Ship
I wonder who sexy Suzy 2000 actually is? Why is she following us on TWITTER and what does she want? Phone you, you say? For sex? Over the phone? Is that even possible? Interesting – how would it be accomplished and what would you actually do? Good ladies, please do tell us. I’ll bet it’s something to do with mobile phones, arranging a rendezvous with men of easy persuasion somewhere in a lay-by just off the M69 near Coventry
Red Letter Day
A string quartet heralds the close of this patchy LP – very Eleanor Rigby – and I’ll tell you something for nothing, I need a better copy – really crackly. I’ll give it a lick like Debbie Harry and no doubt it’ll be okay. I was right about Ace of Wands, though, she’s whingeing on about bloody magicians, owls and hooters again. The record is stuck. Maybe we’ll die as the record sticks and be found by the police to an endless chorus of ‘red letter day eh, red letter day eh’. Oh. Black thought. Not good. Still, this way the record lasts forever until six tons of burning space debris hits us – one in three thousand chance of that, you know.
Great track, though – red letter day indeed.
Side Two – fabulous.
So, Future-kind - have we actually learnt anything today from listening to Noosha Fox? Let’s have a drink and think about it. Hmmm.
Yes. Yes we have. And it goes like this. You are more likely to be hit from space by a sleeping satellite than you are to find love in a lay-by south of Coventry Wigan , be sure to take your ski sticks.
Goodnight and God Bless!
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