Hofmeister Advertisement, 28th November 1987

Further proof that Hofmeister Lager definitely wasn’t deliberately marketed to under age drinkers. I mean just because George the Bear is pictured with party balloons, clutching a Virgin megastore bag and blowing a streamer it’s just CO-INCIDENTAL! Ten years later you could flog 2-4-1 vodka Hooch lemonades and no one gave a shit. Thankfully, these days it seems like some of us have finally grown-up.

Best thing I’ve seen this week is this fantastic (and growing) Flickr set of scanned in Smash Hits. 1979-1980 there so far but looks like it’s being done chronologically so one to keep checking back on. I’ve thought about doing this with AMP over the years (gosh years! plural) and this convinces me I should.

Jonh Wilde interviews Public Enemy, 28th November 1987

Jonh Wilde interviews Public Enemy, 28th November 1987. Photos by Andy Catlin.

Good to hear from Kulkarni regarding this issue in the comments. Here’s the interview that “utterly changed [his] life forever”. Hope it stirs happy memories.

Public Enemy on the cover of Melody Maker, 28th November 1987

Public Enemy on the cover of Melody Maker, 28th November 1987 in response to another request that came through. Photo by Andy Catlin

And so here’s the first post since the BBC announced the planned closure of 6Music. Who knows if it’ll happen or not but I’ll be one of the many to be sad to see it go if Thompson does pull the plug. I often sit scanning to Freak Zone on the iPlayer – why not add to the sites traffic by taking a listen too – I guarantee you’ll hear something new and incredible.

Over at the continually amazing Quietus, Luke Turner nails the situation completely and drew my attention to this revelatory Information Is Beautiful graphic breaking down the BBC’s annual budget across major categories. To summarise, in terms of cash spent; Norton, Robinson & fucking Clarkeson = 6Music. And really; £2m for 3 days of Jo Whiley et al driving everyone absolutely fucking mental at Glastonbury, that’s a fucking disgrace! Only a fraction of the bands are actually filmed and then the footage can only be shown on iPlayer 7 days due to rights issues – how is that value for money? It was all very different not so long ago and much the better for it.

EDIT: Worth drawing everyone’s attention to this link from the comment left by Matt

Good points about 6Music. Why not tell the BBC this (I have) via their consultation survey? The more who do so, the more likely the station will be spared the axe. https://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/departments/bbc/bbc-strategy-review/consultation/intro

Ian Gittins reviews Street Fighting Years by Simple Minds, 6th May 1989

This for http://twitter.com/poohugh

What does it sound like? Like this

Chris Roberts reviews Disintergration, 6th May 1989

Quite a sniffy review for Disintergration. I always thought this was the last really decent album The Cure made.

Steve Sutherland interviews Dinosaur Jr. and Robert Smith, 6th May 1989

Steve Sutherland interviews Dinosaur Jr. and Robert Smith, 6th May 1989. Photos by Tom Sheehan.

David Stubbs reviews the singles of the week, 6th May 1989

Stubbs is, as always, very good value in these reviews. Interesting to note Stubbs take on the Motown resurections of Sam Brown. One can only wonder what Mr. Agreeable would have thought of Amy Winehouse. It would be great if I could compile Spotify playlists for all the tracks featured in these singles of the week review posts but sadly it’s really hard to find more than 50% of the tracks featured. That said, given Stubbs reviews of most of the records here, maybe that’s a good thing? Well I’ve grabbed what I can so judge for yourself (if you have Spotify) here’s the Singles of the week, 6th May 1989 playlist. Yes, the Robert Palmer track is fucking dreadful.

p.s. I’ve got that Telescopes single on 12″

p.p.s. I saw It Bites live around ’87 and the 16 year old me was very impressed by the guitar skills of the singer *hangs head in shame*