The "Joe Strummer Memorial" Busking Tour

One chilly afternoon in October 2008, with a biting wind blowing, Julian Cope and Black Sheep turned up at the site of the Peterloo massacre to perform the Manchester leg of his Joe Strummer Memorial Busking Tour. Over 3 days they travelled the country, busking at "UK cultural centres" (11 of 'em according to the website) - it was advertised online a couple of days before they set of and no times were advertised, so it was very much a case of hanging around and waiting for them to show up. When they did arrive, he had a brief chat with us before starting the...err...gig. It was a pleasure to meet the great man.

I decided to capture some of it on my phone and, had my hand not turned blue with the cold wind, I'd have filmed more. Still, what you have here is fairly representative. Check out the other people's videos on Youtube for other footage of this and other venues.

Here's what the Head Heritage site had to say about the choice of venue:

"On August 16^th, 1819, the huge crowd of 80,000 people, which had gathered in Manchester’s St. Peter’s Field to protest about the price of bread due to the unfairness of the new Corn Laws, were brutally attacked by cavalry fresh from the Battle of Waterloo who’d been sent to police the situation. With over 700 injured and 15 dead, the incident became known as the Peterloo Massacre and led to the forming of the Manchester Guardian."

And here's the footage I took:

And the highlight - parts 3 and 4 are one track (I missed the first 5 or 10 minutes I'm afraid) split into two, incorporating a version of Pristeen and the legendary "face solo"...

Stills from the video are also on Flickr

Destroyer - Kaputt

Now, I know this is going to divide opinion - having saxophones, soft rock and 80s pop as reference points are likely to send many people running to the hills, or assuming that there must be an "ironic" angle to the music - but this is SUCH a good album, which adds up to so much more than it's obvious influences suggest.

Check out Bay Of Pigs' singer-songwriter take on ambient house (amongst other things), Savage Night At the Opera's 'Enola Gay' referencing guitar riff or - and you'll have to trust me on this one, as it's not on the Spotify version (it's on the vinyl or UK CD version of the album) - the stunning twenty minute The Laziest River, which threatens to turn into 'The Boys Of Summer'. about 12 minutes in.

Listen to the album on Spotify: Destroyer – Kaputt

...or have a look at the lovely video for the title track...

Song Title as Photo

...don't ask me what that means