Marvin GAYE and Diana ROSS: DIANA AND MARVIN

Diana and Marvin

A Couple In Love

Drunken Vinyls: The place where we cast a fond lost look back to the years that have gone astray. The place where we hold a mirror to the soul of your disposable culture and shiver and say the words of every lie we have ever heard. The place where we grind our teeth, shake a fist at a Godless universe, point at you and say: “Look! Look what you have done! Look on your work ye mighty and despair!” The place where the only intelligent response is, “Hang on. Let me just text my mates first.”

Drunken Vinyls: The place where you listen to records, get pissed and try to have it off with your mate’s wife down the pub later.

Drunken Vinyls: The place that officially supports follically challenged weirdmeister Doctor Hilary Jones of television’s Daybreak, endorsing his attempts to appear young and tantastic, a with-it-hipster dude. Who certainly isn't thinning at a remarkable rate and attempting every which way to disguise it, no sir! He's just trying out some amazingly spiky new hair fashions. Heard today in the studio, this: - “Wow, new haircut, Doctor Hilary – you look grey-ate!”

 Hello you. How are you? Good week?

“What’s for tea, mum? What’s for tea? Jam sandwiches and cake with a beaker of milk, then wait for Dad to come home from work? Can we watch ‘Magpie’ before we do our homework? Can we go to the park and play footy? Will you and Dad take us to feed the ducks in the park?”

These were the words often heard in a household after school when there were two parents in a house. Amazingly and strange as it seems in our more tolerant times, it was quite normal for two adults to live in the same house and rear children. They would nearly always be ‘married’. That meant that they made a promise to stay together through the good times and the bad times and be responsible for any children they created if they indulged in ‘a bit of what you fancy does you good’.

Curiously, research shows that ‘married’ couples would nearly always comprise of different gender couplings. Names like Judy and Steve would be quite normal in such a relationship as opposed to the current norms of Barry and Larry or Brenda and Hilda. Books like ‘I’ve Got Two Mums’ and ‘Long Distance Parenting’ were frowned upon in those less enlightened days and the current bestseller ‘Where’s Dad?’ would almost certainly have been put on the banned list.

Cultural Reference: ‘Where’s Dad?’ published by Faber and Faber, March 2009; a children’s picture book where each page consists of thousands of miniature people dressed in striped jumpers and woolly hats in dilapidated urban settings hidden amongst which is ‘Dad’, a strange and mythical figure. The child’s challenge is to find him.

Furthermore it was absolutely unheard off for these different gender couples to take to the streets, jump up and down blowing whistles and scream “Look at us! Look at us! We’re married and we’re proud!”

We weep inside for these almost people and the secret shame of their deprived, frugal lives. Not for them the pleasure of Hip Hop Artists and Gurus named Reveal, double barrelled surnames like Wayne Smithnjones-Pdiddy or Leah-Kylie Snetterton-Walker. Their children had the misfortune of only one television in a house, books instead of game machines, sixpence a week pocket money and in bed with by half past eight. They were the forgotten generation. And for this we should pity them. Truly, the black secret at the heart of our progressive prosperity.

Setting Up Time!

Diana and Marvin; A couple in love. A love affair captured in stereo on vinyl.

They made a cracking tune called ‘Pops We Love You’. And in those days we all loved pops. Coco Pops, Lolly Pops and Top of the Pops. We didn’t care. We were mad. Mad!

Pops We Love You. What the Sam Hill was that all about, eh?

As old men we actually went to see some ‘pops’ on Saturday in Exeter. As befits our modern times they were called ‘Bondage Boys’. Well actually they might have been called ‘Boys into Bondage’, ‘Male Bondage’ or ‘Male Bonding’ but we feel absolutely certain it was something like this. To be perfectly honest we were a bit drunk at the time. And they rocked, you know? We have had severe tinnitus for six days now and sick, idle fantasies about the tanned female bass player and her tight vocal harmonies.

Upon exiting the venue or ‘gig’ as I believe some of you call it (we usually take gig to mean some sort of rowing boat), we were accosted by a thirteen year old yoof in a hooded pullover who said “I is a rappah, bruv, I is got X factah, yoh, I is go on stage, give me moo-lah.”

We slapped him. We think he liked it because one of his mates filmed it and said “Yoh, bruv, LOL, whoop, you is ‘appy slappy.”

Upon hearing this, he fell to his knees, outstretched his hands in supplication and cried in anguish. “Why the devil came you between us? A scratch. A mere scratch! But tis enough! Ask for me tomorrow and you will find me a grave man! You have made worms meat of me!!!”

Stopping briefly to congratulate him on his excellent free stylee rapping, and thus inspired, we rushed towards the nearest petrol station with a minimart looking for a bomb, a stone to shiver down the glass. We turned our jackets backwards, sticking our arms through the sleeves to approximate the hooded experience and marched, grimly fiendish, through the doors.

“Do you have beer and pork pies, bruv? We is a rappah mon, we is got moo-lah, whoop whoop.” We cried.

They only had Guinness. And Twix bars. Urgh. We hate Guinness and Twix. We now do repent us of our fury that we did chuck our cans out of the car window.

Now – then - was it just a coincidence that the very next day, at D.V.H.Q. (location near Tracey Island alongside that suspicious hollowed out volcano) this irritating incident happened? An illiterate looking yoof dressed in an ill fitting cheap suit and holding a plastic clipboard upon which were notes he was clearly having trouble deciphering knocked at our door. “Yoh brov, like I is loft inspector stylee. I no battyman, dude. LOL. I want cavitee insulate yoh loft mon. Freestylee bruv.”

We raised our eyebrows sceptically. “Card?”

“No mon, you is asking for card, like, yeah, yeah, I unnerstand you proof, me freestylee cavitee loft inspector broh. You luk at me like dat agen you is gonna get sum licks, yea? Cool. I enter?”

We slapped him. It was a merciful act.

Still, the absolute turd on the waterpipe this week was listening to overpaid sports personalities of the year going on strike. First it was Andy Murray with his impotent threats to down tools and cause a racket by staying on the bench. It wasn’t so much the bench warming we objected to but the tedious way he expressed himself in interviews on our radio. Doesn’t that man have vocal chords for Christ sake? Now we hear that Argentinian super hero, Carlos Tevez, refused to put on his boots and play for ten minutes in the league of Champions. Suspended for the next two weeks and under threat of being finished at City, his lawyers issued an immediate cover story. He had – it seems – been misunderstood. His boots were made for walking. All the way back to Argentina. If he’s looking for another strike partner we can no other suggestion make but Andy Murray.

Former boss Alan Pardew, poured lotion on the wounds of a hurt nation. With infinite wisdom born of a lifetime quite near to some football pitches he was on hand to make sense of the situation: “I can see Carlos Tevez playing for City again. Football is like that. You can never foresee what might happen next.”

Of course he didn’t specify which City.

Diana and Marvin: What’s the Story?

Diana Ross had a long and chequered career. Quite literally. In her early life she earned a reasonable living playing speed draughts (In the US known as checkers). An interesting game, it is played on a board with black and white squares placed equidistantly across in a north-south and east-west direction with red and black circular pieces. Each player takes it in turns to move in a northerly or north easterly direction, piling up the pieces into a vertical column, sometimes known as a stack. Once each stack is a foot or so high, the player must then balance carefully atop, face his opponent and attempt to stab the other’s eyes out with a fork.

But life as a champion eye stabber had its drawbacks and Diana longed for a change of direction. As she wandered disconsolately across the Blue Ridged Mountains of Virginia, she came, by chance, across the 1994 soccer ball world cup. It was an epiphany. “I have always loved the 1994 soccer ball world cup,” she sighed. “If only I could score a penalty for America in the opening ceremony whilst singing my most favourite song ‘We come Together like a Chain Reaction’ that would be like a dream come true to me, that would.”

In a pouf, Diana saw that her fairy godmother was there from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ although she had renamed it ‘The Wiz’. “You SHALL kick the ball, Diana,” cried The Wiz. And so it came to pass. Well, it came from a pass on the left wing to her feet. She shoots! And do you know what happened next, dear Future-Kind?

As for Marvin Gaye, he had a simply terrible life spending his every waking hour denying to the world that he was actually gay. It was just his misfortune to be given a really suggestive surname. Every week he tried changing it, to keep the showbiz mystique but lose the tag: Marvin Fag, Marvin Poof and, indeed, Marvin Marmite were brave attempts – but the scandal simply worsened. This record was his last ditch attempt to show the world that they were wrong.

It was either this or jumping up and down blowing whistles, you know.

THE NOT QUITE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRUNKEN VINYLS

1. Thou shalt play both sides of the record in their entirety
2. Thou shalt drink one can of Fosters or its alcohol equivalent per song
3. Thou shalt record ramblings as they occur to thee for the duration of the running time
4. Thou shalt edit out the swearing the next day
5. Thou shalt not suffer a Blueberry user to live

Are we all set up and ready? Okay, Future-kind, hoist up your skirts and off we go!

Side one

"You Are Everything" 

Ok - nice and loud – we are really and genuinely looking forward to this slice of magic. This is better than aural sex – ahahaha. Can you dig it listener. On the vinyl it sounds so good, like hot chocolate. Almost immediately, the sighs subside and the descending piano chords herald Diva Diana – the melody is sublime. She sees a man – he looks like her lover (ex lover?) – she calls out – but…it isn’t him! The hoi-polloi should be tied to their seats and have this force fed to them over and over and over. They should have it smashed into their ears until they bleed. There’s a lesson in those them words.

Slight suggestion during the fade that the two might be a little competitive over who can emote the best – but we’ll let that go. Simply, simply great. Oh mercy. Mercy me.

"Love Twins"

Now this electric piano and bass sounds like Stevie Wonder on ‘Boogie On Reggae Woman’ if you know that one – but hey – love twins. Let’s be love twins. They want to be love twins – you know what/ I think Mick Hucknall was paying a lot of attention to this LP when he wrote his meisterwork ‘Stars’ Anyway, this track is spellbinding, it is a major to minor duet which descends and soars appropriately, oh and then the instrumental break – you smile involuntarily. I wish Stevie Wonder had played it.

"Don't Knock My Love"

Have you noticed how each title is about love and togetherness? This is cool – all up-tempo and grintastic brass, electric pianoforte and tight harmony. Just adore us, Los Paranoias. Don’t knock it? We ain’t knocking it, we love it!

"You're a Special Part of Me"

Well, this one is soaring close harmony and very slow. As simple as a nursery rhyme – this is all about love and how each to the other is a part of the other – very symbiotic. In a case like this, if these two were cast asunder they would surely die for each has something the other needs and vice versa.

"Pledging My Love"

Okay, by this time, and taking our pledge to drink a new drink each track - pledging our love of drink, if you will – as you do too dear hearts, we are a little sozzled. But not so pished as to hope that this song is not about the furniture polish called Pledge. Useful accoutrement but strange name. Pledge – furniture polish. Why Pledge? Has it something to do with Wedge? As in a wedge of wood or the golf club wedge? Quite honestly we don’t care. We will, dear Future-Kind write immediately to find out to the makers of Pledge to find out. Just for you.

Side two

"Just Say, Just Say"

This one begins with a lazy horizontal line – and some close harmony. But just when you think it’s safe to go into the garden to water the lawn, it soars upward and there’s grintastic bass.

"Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)"

Quite frankly, we were so scared we wet the bed nightly when Alvin Stardust became the Green Cross Code Man - with the emphasis on cross, very cross. "Stop Look Listen," he would scowl whilst pointing at the traffic menacingly. OO that’s lovely. Seven rum and cokes in are we now. He was always extremely cross with his comedy robot Mental Mickey too, which was in no way a cheap cash in on the popular Star Wars movie which was all the craze at that time. It was the way he pointed his be-ringed finger at the traffic and said “Coo coo I do love you. Will you cross the road with me too? If you do my dreams will come true. Cross the road  my coo coo choo”  Later on he graduated on to the age of the trains and told us about clunk click every trip. But that might be an allusion to hairy twatflake Noel Lee Travis. We can’t be sure.

"I'm falling in Love with You" 

We may have thrown three cans in the road last Saturday. Not good. Allegedly. 

"My Mistake (Was to Love You)" 

It is never a mistake to fall in love. However we have loved and lost so many times now that we despair. But the message on this record is clear. You’ve got to fight for your love and try to make it last as long as you can. What kind of message is this you stupid seventies hippies? It’s much better to have children, get divorced, remarry, get divorced again and then any accidental offspring get the bonus of a cool hyphenated surname!

"Include Me in Your Life"

Darling darling darling – was used by Blondie for In The Flesh – a lovely finish to a superlative record – we loved it tonight and can think of no other answer but we were amazed and know not what to do.

So ... Tonight: What lessons have we learnt?

We have learnt that spiky punk rock haircuts look natural at a Bondage Boys gig but sit less well on top of an aging 50 year old Doctor. We have certainly learnt to never trust a hip hop cavity wall and loft insulator in a Bon Marche suit. And finally, hold on to your love because it’ll never get better than this.