TIGER TIGER

The full scale of the damage caused by last weeks riots is slowly becoming apparent. Somebody made off with one of my favourite pieces of public art, the carpet picture of a tiger that doubles as the sign for Budget Carpet Warehouse at the corner of Walworth Road and Penrose Street. Looting scum. 

Disco elegy courtesy of the amazing Gregg Diamond.

Bionic Boogie - Tiger Tiger(feel good for a while)

The Shaggs

Times of crisis can also be times of great innovation. Yesterday the bumbling Commissioner of the Met, Tim Goodwin, appealed to parents to help control the riots by keeping their children off the streets, no doubt with cuts to the prisons budget in mind. Meanwhile Conservative MP Jane Ellison went one better, encouraging parents to ask "tough questions about new trainers", and if necessary  'march their children to the police station'. 

So in addition to fucking you up, your mum and dad are now expected to interrogate and incarcerate you. Back in 1968 (a vintage year for riots) Austin Wiggins decided to keep his daughters off the streets by forcing them to form a band, which he named The Shaggs. 

He was  convinced by a palmreader's prediction that they were destined for super-stardom. The girls were reluctant but as Dot recalls "he was something of a disciplinarian. He was stubborn and he could be temperamental. He directed. We obeyed. Or did our best." The resulting record, which came out in 1969, has been variously described as an idiosyncratic masterpiece and the worst album ever made. 

In 1975 as they were about to record their second album Austin suffered a massive heart attack and died. The group promptly disbanded.

The Shaggs - Who Are Parents?
The Shaggs - Philosophy of the World

Disco Diamonds

Gregg Diamond - what a disco talent. He died of gastrointestinal bleeding in 1999 at the young age of 49.

I spent the weekend dancing to songs like this through a heavy fog. Both tracks are off his 1978 album Starcruisin' which is temptingly affordable on discogs.

Gregg Diamond - This Side of Midnight

Gregg Diamond - Fancy Dancer

Lets get Physical

For those amongst you who don't fancy creatine how about a spot of aerobics? Help yourself out with Olivia NJ as channeled through Fil OK in the early noughties (from Peckham with Love...)

Fil OK vs. Olivia Newton John - Lets Get Physical

Or alternatively, something a little more exotic, lose weight and learn English at the same time with the Zuiikin girls.



Yamasuki were a French pop group who released a psychedelic-Japanese-themed-concept-album in 1971, complete with screaming Samuris, clattering woodblock percussion and a slightly atonal choir of Japanese children. Ideal background music for an aerobics class, or a death cult. 

Yamasuki - Yamasuki

HATE MUSCLE

Nitzer Ebb - Join in the Chant

LOVE MUSCLE

Remember boys and girls, it's never too late in the summer to start taking creatine. Say goodbye to rainy June and July....say Hello to Hot August with a Hot Body.



Vanessa - Upside Down

Underwater Moonlight

My favourite bit of Glastonbury this year was seeing Robyn Hitchcock and his Invisible Band playing on the Spirit of 71 stage to a near invisible audience of 40-odd hippies and me through a fog of marijuana. He did a costume change halfway through, and came back wearing an almost identical shirt but with a slightly larger polka dot. I think he was trying to mess with our heads. He played lots of songs off Underwater Moonlight, love songs - like these.


The Soft Boys - Insanely Jealous

The Soft Boys - Tonight