| Author | Message | ||
     Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 830 Registered: 05-2005 |
No, this isn't about the last song. Oh, ok. One comment. Paul, time to call it a day on live performance before you need a wheelchair! You mad me feel ancient just looking at YOU! Anyway, what really got me enthused and AMAZED was hearing Enola Gaye, Going Underground and Pretty Vacant entering the ears and minds of 2 Billion people world wide. But why did we have to have Firestarter? Now it will take another 6 months to get it out of my head. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 4757 Registered: 05-2005 |
Was it Weller playing Going Underground Geoff, or was the song just played over images of tube trains or something? | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 831 Registered: 05-2005 |
Just the music, and not in the "going to retro nightclubs' act either - in it's own right. He must have been chuffed though! Pity he didn't get the gig... but the Arctic Monkeys did with a lacklustre "Come Together" - a song that really isn't about people getting together at all! A very strange choice!! | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 393 Registered: 02-2007 |
Punk music to celebrate Olympics? wtf | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 619 Registered: 10-2006 |
It was wonderful to hear Going Underground again, what a great single. A missed chance to have Mike Oldfield live instead of Weller. The Italians I watched the ceremony with were full of praise for how it pushed a panoramic proletarian view of English culture and the importance it gave to popular music. Congrats to Danny Boyle, anyway. | ||
| andreas Member Username: Andreas Post Number: 1018 Registered: 04-2006 |
does NHS means National Health Swings? :-) | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1109 Registered: 08-2004 |
The opening ceremony was a celebration of working class achievements & multi-culturism over royalty & the upper echelons of society. It pissed off the racists & social climbers beautifully. It was also a big "Up yours!" to the present government who are taking the NHS apart piece by piece. Therefore more representative of East London, which is as spot on as it should be. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1664 Registered: 08-2006 |
I'm wondering what the British folks around these parts thought of the vignette with Daniel Craig and the Queen. I thought it was terrific, classy and cheeky, both. It was great how they mic'ed the crowd, so you could hear the collective gasp when the white-haired lady at the desk turned around and was, in fact, Her Majesty. | ||
| C Gull Member Username: C_gull Post Number: 194 Registered: 05-2005 |
I don't ever remember a mass event like this being so universally praised both at home and from what I have read in the press abroad. It was brilliant. Pretty Vacant with the words projected on stadium - who would have thought it! So many highlights but I would be amazed if there was anyone who did not both laugh and cry during the ceremony. | ||
| peter ward Member Username: Peter_ward Post Number: 181 Registered: 06-2005 |
F**k Buttons as the opening track, no one could have guessed? These things are usually yawnfests and I can't sit through them but I was kept captivated the whole way through, fantastic stuff. | ||
| cosmo vitelli Member Username: Cosmo Post Number: 504 Registered: 05-2005 |
Sorry to p**s on the fireworks (and I realise I am in a minority) but I thought the whole thing was a gigantic,ridiculous bore and a a colossal waste of money. The music being cool was the only positive I can think of. The obscene nature of expenditure cancels any impact and poisons any politics for me | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1934 Registered: 10-2008 |
Well said James, I couldn't bring myself to watch it. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 620 Registered: 10-2006 |
Oh, I know, the money should have gone to feed the starving and house the homeless, but it never does, does it? And they did get Sir Paul for a quid. I suppose they could have had a wee lad in dungarees waving a sparkler and saying "And now... the Olympics!" If only they'd chosen Ken Loach instead... | ||
| cosmo vitelli Member Username: Cosmo Post Number: 505 Registered: 05-2005 |
sounds like a good idea Stuart, plus a dog barking along to the Olympic theme or push the boat out and have two dogs. Two dogs in a boat barking along to the Olympic theme? and spend Ł27 million flooding the stadium to float it on | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1935 Registered: 10-2008 |
Be honest, would anybody really be jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth if there was no opening cermony? Well apart from the freeloaders of course. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 394 Registered: 02-2007 |
Yeh i wasnt going to say anything but..... to celebrate the industrial revolution based as it was on the misery of working people, slavery, and the rape of the colonies for resources nearly made me puke on my vegemite sandwich. I turned the tellie off at that point and apparently missed the selling of the Olympic dream with punk music. Punk = Coke = MacDonalds. Sorry for being so contrary. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3001 Registered: 03-2005 |
I didn't see the opening ceremony because I don't have a television. I did try to see it on youtube but my broadband connection kept cutting out so I gave up. But I think of it like this: We Anglophones all have some very ugly pasts to acknowledge: the global racism and exploitation of the working classes by the British, the genocide of the indigenous people by the Australians and the similar genocide of the indigenous people by the United States plus slavery to spice up the pot. And, in the case of the good old U S of A, a continued pace of global homicide in the name of our "strategic national interests" even as I write this entry. I like to think of the U.K. as having to a large degree come out at the other end of that long and dark tunnel. The Empire is now long gone and the only thing that remains for the Brits is to make a decent place and way of life for themselves, drawing a truly cosmopolitan advantage from the folks from the former colonies who've decided to cast their lot with the new U.K.. I won't live long enough to see something similar for the U.S. but I fervently hope that it happens. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 4764 Registered: 05-2005 |
I didn't see it (I went out for a run while it was on). Though football is not that far behind music in a list of things I love, and though I also love rugby, most other sports bore me utterly. I love swimming, but have no interest watching other people swim, especially when one of the Australian swimmers committed a crime that I believe should have seen him jailed. Instead he got to go to the Olympics. I cheered aloud when I heard on the radio that he lost. And twice more when I heard it again on later broadcasts. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1936 Registered: 10-2008 |
I'm with you Padraig. Apart from football, and especially Celtic who I love equally with music, I have absolutely no interest in any other sports. My Olympic viewing so far consists of watching 30 mins of the mens football match between GB and Senegal. I'm surprised I even tolerated 30 mins, it was turgid. If I see any more footage from the Olympics it will be by accident, or on a news programme. | ||
| cosmo vitelli Member Username: Cosmo Post Number: 506 Registered: 05-2005 |
Different argument there boys, I am a big sports fan, mad on rugby and cricket and both my boys play basketball so have developed a love for that too. I have been really enjoying the swimming,cycling and rowing, cant get excited about most of the other sports apart from the athletics and then only the track events. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2477 Registered: 10-2004 |
I absolutely detest all competitive team sports. In America, most people who like and or play sports are asshole jocks, and when I was growing up there was a vast divide between the jocks and the artier subcultures who listened to the very music we discuss on this message board, and the two rarely ever converged. What I find fascinating is that it seems like that distinction or divide never existed in the UK: it's like football is the one thing that unites everyone from Mark E. Smith or Ian Curtis to idiot/violent hooligan fans, and doesn't divide them like it often does in the US. In America, some people like me - as they grew up and got older - came to appreciate or enjoy sports (indeed, it's even become trendy for hipsters to kind of like baseball), but for me there is still way too much cognitive dissonance around it, and even hearing people discuss soccer/football makes me want to throw up! Seriously, where I grew up, jocks were scarcely more enlightened than Klan members or rednecks, and they harassed me and my friends ceaselessly, so it was a point of pride to separate ourselves from them and that whole culture. As for the Olympics, I find some of the non-team events kind of interesting, like swimming or cycling, for example, possibly because I'm so anti-social! But I still don't feel overly compelled to watch them. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1937 Registered: 10-2008 |
Aah, but Jeff now that you have moved to civilised Europe you will surely fall in love with football (who the hell invented that word soccer? -grrr.) Its fairly big in Central Europe as a sport. "Cognitive dissonance" sounds like a very MES thing to say!!, and yes agree that our more interesting UK musicians are big football fans. Ian McCulloch is a massive Liverpool fan and even Morrissey was a Manchester UTD fan, although now he apparently likes West Ham who are a East London team whose fans have a (probably now redundant) reputation for hooliganism which seemed to appeal to Morrissey for some bizarre reason. And as I type this Ian Mac is crooning Rescue on the radio!! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 4766 Registered: 05-2005 |
Kevin, "soccer" comes from England! To distinguish the two footballs in the early days, one was known as Rugby Football and the other as Association Football (this is why some teams to this day have AFC after their names). The latter was often written as Assoc. Football and this was shortened to soccer. So blame the English! I don't mind the term soccer though, as it's what I grew up calling it, in order to distinguish it from our indigenous Gaelic Football. I should point out that as well as football and rugby I also enjoy baseball (but not in a trendy hipster way Jeff - I've been a Red Sox fan since I lived in Boston in 1989/90), American football and, on occasions when Ireland is trashing a test nation such as England or Pakistan, cricket. If Morrissey is making out to be a West Ham fan I'm sure it's because of his fascination with east London's gangster history. Many of those gangsters were Hammers fans. I can just hear Mark E. Smith singing "Cognitive dissonance-ah" in my head! Well spotted Kevin! Jeff, Kevin is right. You need to find a football team to follow. How about K Slovan Bratislava? If you don't find a team I'm going to get all unenlightened on you. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2478 Registered: 10-2004 |
Ha! I'd get more pleasure out of repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall! But then, doing that might actually enable me to get into the sport. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3002 Registered: 03-2005 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Jn1UvS8 GM I have to say I grew up in an environment very much like Jeff's. Music people and sport people were absolutely mutually exclusive. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1938 Registered: 10-2008 |
This may be stereotyping on a grand scale, but aren't the jocks (if I understand the term correctly)that Jeff speaks of the types that like "rawk" music, and over long guitar and drum solos, and crap country music, and Journey and poodle haired crap like G n Roses? | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3004 Registered: 03-2005 |
Now perhaps, but definitely not when I was in school. There was no overlap between music people and sports people at all. And now, apropos of absolutely nothing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI1BCAUhB lU&feature=related | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2479 Registered: 10-2004 |
Kevin, no, jocks were really clean cut muscular athletic types, often times the most popular kids in school. They were casual music fans, at most, and usually listened to whatever was in the top 40. Think varsity jackets, super short haircuts, and lots of testosterone; guys who look like they could join the marines and who dated the cheerleader types. They would physically assault or verbally taunt anyone not part of their milieu, and routinely call people like me and my friends "fag" because we had funny hair and wore different clothes. They tended to be conservative and reactionary, and typically not the sharpest tools in the shed. I'm probably overgeneralizing, but this is just to give you a picture of the kinds of people I've always associated with organized sports. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1939 Registered: 10-2008 |
Well, you live and learn. I just assumed jocks were the type I described above. Does anybody know why these clean cut types were called jocks then? Again, I may be getting this wrong, would the look that Dexy's adopted for Dont Stand Me Down be described as jocks? | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2480 Registered: 10-2004 |
Well, the basic definition of a jock is an athlete/sports enthusiast who typically acts out in a macho or aggressive way. The Dexy's look on the original Don't Stand me Down cover was modeled after accountants. Unless you're talking about the "Director's Cut" reissue (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en /c/c1/Dexys_Midnight_Runners_Don%27t_Sta nd_Me_Down_Director%27s_Cut.jpg) which has them wearing ivy league jackets and dressing like preppies. The line between preppies and jocks could certainly blur, but I don't think that's what Dexy's were going for. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 4769 Registered: 05-2005 |
You just beat me to the punch Jeff. I was going to say that the preppy look was more of a university thing. I remember one night in Palo Alto (the only time I was ever there) seeing a man and woman who looked like they'd just stepped out of a "How to look preppy" catalogue. I thought they must have been doing it ironically, but then realised they weeren't. He even had a white sweater over his back, with the sleeves over his shoulders and crossed at the front. I'm sure their names were Chip and Buffy. I wouldn't have thought there was a whole lot of jock/preppy crossover though? Doesn't the word jock come from jockstrap? It's perfect! Americans are very good at naming things, unlike cockneys, for instance, with their moronic rhyming slang. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1940 Registered: 10-2008 |
Yeah, the Directors Cut was the look I was meaning. It can only be a matter of time before jocks become prevalent in the UK if they arent already, given how much our youth look to America. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 4771 Registered: 05-2005 |
Rockalizer Baby is great Randy! | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3005 Registered: 03-2005 |
Yes, "jocks" are named after jockstraps, more politely known as "athletic supporters." I agree with Padraig, jocks and preppies were different people. Preppies were wimpy, bloodless questionable sorts; possibly fags. They were people like Mitt Romney with the very essential difference that they drank. Oh, and when I went to school the drinkers and the stoners were in two separate camps. It wasn't until years later that I learned the joys of blending the two. My perception is that modern young jocks probably do listen to music, often of the sort Kevin identified. That's because the outlaw aspect of pop music is long gone. But not in the 1970s when I was in high school. Queen and Bowie and T-Rex were for fags. Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell were for communist hippies. Black Sabbath and Aerosmith were for druggies. Reggae was for communist hippy druggies. James Taylor was for chicks. Jocks might have liked Chicago and Blood,Sweat and Tears since their horn sections made them sound vaguely like the school marching band. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2481 Registered: 10-2004 |
Padraig - you've been to Palo Alto? Ha! You got to see some genuine Stanford preppies. Preppies were named as such because they were from the "college prep" crowd, the kids from families with money who were destined to go to university after high school. However, there were preppies at my high school who could be kind of asshole-ish *and* athletic, but instead of football or baseball, they were into track or tennis. And there were hardcore jocks who kind of looked preppie-ish, but maybe that was just because it was the 80s and the preppie look kind of dictated what all of the popular kids wore (the popular kids were usually the "star" football players and their female cheerleading counterparts). So, that is why I said there was a point where the line between preppies and jocks could blur at times. But ultimately, preppies got into universities because of their academic performance, whereas jocks got in on football and baseball scholarships. When I was in high school in the late 80s/early 90s, jocks were actually starting to listen to Metallica, which I thought was kind of weird. But it seemed to suit their unchecked aggression, yet at the same time wasn't "out there" enough to be considered too weird or socially unacceptable. They also liked stuff like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Janes Addiction, Dave Matthews Band, and I suspect today they probably like Coldplay. For the most part jocks were drinkers. A really really awful story: back in high school, this girl who was a good friend of mine had a younger brother who was a jock. One weekend when the parents were out of town, he threw a party at their place and invited all of his jock friends. As my friend was getting ready to leave (she was a goth so this was not her scene), several of her brother's so called friends pinned her down and gang-raped her, one of whom was like this star football playing homecoming king. My friend was obviously traumatized, but I still remember her cracking a joke about how she got to "sleep" with the most popular guy in school who all the other girls dreamed about. I could fill a novel with jock horror stories, but this one is certainly the worst. Anyway, yeah, jocks... | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2482 Registered: 10-2004 |
All of this raises the question, are there not jocks, at least as we tend to view them in the US, in the UK or Europe? | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2417 Registered: 01-2005 |
I detested those jock bands in the 70's. To this day I heave yet to buy anthing from Aerosmith, although I did buy the first two Sabbath albums but quickly lost interest in the druggy bands. And the Journey and Foreigner type bands were just terrible. | ||
| TROU Member Username: Trou Post Number: 309 Registered: 05-2005 |
I was a real big fan of Aerosmith (at least until the release of Never Mind the Bollocks), so please be kind with them.. Black Sabbath,AC-DC, and all these heavy metal bands were the enemy at the time! | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2485 Registered: 10-2004 |
I wonder if any jocks actually ever listened to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_Jams,_ Volume_1 | ||
| cosmo vitelli Member Username: Cosmo Post Number: 510 Registered: 05-2005 |
I hid my love for sport in my youth as I did not want to associate or be associated with meathead 'jocks' or thick football fans. Although I still have no love for football (too much cheating from the players and aggression or violence from the fans) it was 'cool' people from bands I liked professing a love for it that brought me out of the sporting closet. Both my sons are excellent basketball players (my eldest son plays professional ball) and both have excellent taste in music and proper manners and respect for all people. They could both be considered 'jocks' by activity but not by action. I am with Doug Stanhope who says the world is only split in to two different types of people - dicks and non-dicks. |