It was the perfect end to a perfect day – barring Aston Villa’s late equalizer and a truly embarrassing piece of anti-journalism by Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail, which must have encouraged many to join the Blue Union march outside Goodison Park. Martin Wellington, New Zealand! It’s been a while since I saw an FA Vase game – used to go to my local team in Kent as well as supporting a team from the other end of the country (not a current Premier League team I hasten to add!) Not sure if the 6Music session is just etched into my brain now but I kind of prefer the session versions in every instance, particular for Tommy Walsh.

And then Geoff Davies, the godfather of Merseyside’s independent music scene, walked over and gave me a present. Oh except WSC, which plops faithfully every month, but often gets left by the door in its plastic wrapper for weeks these days. I really should cancel, but it would feel like a betrayal after a quarter of a decade) no 85 is their first entry on the top 100 albums since 1987 and whilst many many more retailers are linked to the charts since the 80’s(when it was around 200 shops) I’d be suprised if the ones bought straight from Probe would be included in the chart figures.

Women's V-Neck T-Shirts

Oh, by the way, Two Fat Feet, not only did I dislike “Blade Runner”, I thought “Inception” was a pile of fertiliser. For those that like quizzes, the walk on music (Nice one Cyril) was the first recoding by which well known drummer ? He’s still going strong 50 years later and I’m a big fan of his current band. I don’t think many others on here will be though. (Answer available on Google) The HMHB Data Retrieval System has been updated with the Llangollen setlist and links to all the videos I could find. The whole gig’s there (more or less) from McTavish plus 11 from the angles Lee & Jane, Andy (IB) and Julian Cwalinski were watching from. Many thanks to all of you. likely to leave many either puzzled or even disturbed, but its refreshing unwillingness to compromise and wholly original way with words should further their case as one of the U.K. music scene’s alternative national treasures.”– Jon O’Brien on AllMusic

I had a fairly anal moment recently while looking at the “Satisfying the bloodlust…” graphic. I’m a bit of a typographic and graphics nerd and while the poster’s great (and I wanted the t-shirt, but it’s not available in my size – you can guess why), it bothered me that the fonts weren’t quite right, and the graphics weren’t the *actual* road sign ones. So I’ve done a version that is, as near as dammit… (It’s only there cos I can’t upload it here).

Women's Round-Neck T-Shirts

Perhaps surprising to see a Youtube video for ‘Fun Day in the Park’ already? Recognise the bloke-who-made-it’s face from last week’s gig. Respect. The opening lines to ‘Take the Skinheads Bowling’ proved a bit of a minefield, but the marshmallow/pillow verse (not to be confused with the “bosom for a pillow” chorus in the definitely-covered ‘Brimful of Asha’ by the definitely-from-Wolverhampton Cornershop) was once again a triumph. Was it for this the campervan was brought on? With tongue firmly in cheek, we could have called it a ‘concept album’ if it wasn’t (as Nigel would self-deprecatingly have it) the same concept as the entire career: moaning.

Are you OK for bags?” asked Nigel before the opening song, A Lilac Harry Quinn. Neil’s intro to Awkward Sean was from The Beverley Hillbillies. This great band has such rich and varied reference points. Wow wow wow. Fantastic show, and a blast hanging out with y’all pre- and post-gig. Camper van Beethoven has a lot of personal meaning for me, I felt like I was 20 years old again when Nigel sang the opening lines of TtSB.

Letters Sent (334)

HMHB’s walk-on music was Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto Number One. This was the first classical album to sell a million copies, according to Tony. There will be a gold disc on a wall somewhere. “We were going to walk on to Abba’s The Way Old Friends Do,” noted Nigel. “But The Hitchers finished with Mamma Mia”. Tony shouted to Nigel that Tchaikovsky was paranoid about his head falling off. “There is no punchline to that?” replied Nigel, “I feel sorry for the blighter.” Oh, the irony. Driving home earlier and, just as ‘Excavating Rita’ came on, I espied ‘our’ Betaware Man sitting on a bench, in the rain, reading the Sunday paper. Couldn’t resist winding the window down to advise him that I was still his number one fan. He just looked surprised, though, like the front of an Anglia. Another band meeting was taking place outside the venue, at which Neil let us know that he’d passed the tunes for three new songs on to Nigel, and was just waiting for the words to be attached. I did love the LP right away, and it has only grown richer since, particularly “Leeuwarden”, “Fix It” and “Bad Wools”.