1977 Returning
Davey Crockett is not a happy man. About as happy as Alan McGee's and Alex Ferguson's bastard offspring on father's day, he's spitting fire. No-one, it seems, is safe. Steven Dalton, he promises, will be killed. The editor of Melody Maker will be raped. David Gray will be shot. Even his biggest fans are getting on his tits and will be dealt with in a violent and, erm, quick-fire manner. Only Daphne and Celeste, with whom they apparently plan to record a hip-hop track, escape his wrath. And this is only the ninth gig of a twenty six date slog across the country. What we need, he concludes, is a Third World War. Hence his new single, the deceptively caustic '1939 Returning' (released in the middle of October), and its accompanying publicity campaign that saw the slogan spray-painted on half the walls of London, something for which they were happy to let Islamic Fundamentalists take the blame. Perhaps not the cleverest marketing campaign of recent times, but certainly one of the most fun....
Music: Powder to the people!
Most blokes have two childhood dreams. One involves walking out of the tunnel at Wembley wearing an England shirt, the other, being part of a madly successful rock band, with all the attendant buzz of sex, drugs and drink. Powder is the story of just such a dream, charting the rise of The Grams from a group of unknown, penniless Scousers to one of the most successful Indie bands in the kingdom, if not the world....
Music: Not over the moon
Ellis Peters, God rest her, has a good deal to answer for. While her Cadfael novels are well researched, agreeably written and prettily plotted, the same cannot be said for some of those who have leapt onto the "medieval mystery" band-wagon. Alys Clare's Fortune Like the Moon is a depressing example of this. It might be unfair to call it a bad book as such, but its thudding mediocrity makes it one of the more soul-destroying novels I have come across.
Fortune