A Bad Day for the Faithful - by Joey Sarajevo
Well, it’s been a little whiles longer than the last of my missives than I intended, mainly because I’ve been really fucking busy and have thus had better things to do than entertain you, my non-existent readership – something which also means that, yet again, you’re going to have to put up with a rather vague and disconnected ramble on everything that’s been happening round casa Sarajevo for the last couple of weeks. Like you care.
Fuck it, let’s get on with things:
Number One (and hence the title of the piece): If there’s a better live act than The Infadels about at the moment, then I haven’t heard ‘em. Long time readers will remember me raving about their performance at V two years back, and had I ever actually got around to doing the Glastonbury piece this year you’d have heard a lot more. Fortunately, their gig at Cardiff Barfly last week provides me with another opportunity to big up the best London band since… ooh, the Libertines, at least.
Late-period Clash are probably the best comparison for the Infadels spiky punk-ska-acid house blend, a sultry pressure cooker of dance beats and urban paranoia - perfect music to spend an evening totally mashed out of your skull squinting at the barman performing Tom-Cruise-in-Cocktail-esque stunts with a vodka bottle to (sorry, that’s probably a bit over-specific). Of course, this probably means they’ll never get anywhere, since the only way to make money out of being influenced by The Clash is to miss the point entirely and form Rancid.
Fucking Americans. Check the band out if you get the chance, they’re aces.
Number Two: Remember me bigging up Gruff Rhys’ DJ set in The Hit Parade a while back? The album that whole shindig was intended to promote – Welsh Rare Beat – is out now on Finders Keepers Records. OK, so Welsh-language political prog-folk probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I can’t personally get enough of it at the moment to the extent that, for the first time in the seven years I’ve been ensconced in Cymru, I’ve found myself deliberately watching Welsh programming on S4C. I’ll be putting coal on me chips next, mark my words.
Number Three: Jermaine Jenas and his constant fucking interviews since he signed for Spurs. Stop going on about how good we are/are going to be and start actually playing a bit, wouldja?
Number Four: Anyone see Tory leadership ‘hopeful’ David Cameron revealing how he voted in Pop Idol in The News Of The World on Sunday? In the immortal words of Ryan Adams “what a total penis sausage that guy is”. See also: the paper’s interview with Frank Bruno, which conveniently glosses over their sister publication The Sun’s ‘Bonkers Bruno Locked Up’ headline a couple of years back. Cunts. Having said that the ‘X-Factor Lesbian Orgy’ piece (not quite as good as it sounds) and problem page photo story (best poorly-acted sex scene EVAH!) just about justified the 80p.
Well here's a semi-naked hottie to keep you interested
Number Five: Don’t know if there are any other Independent readers out their who had to put up with that pompous twat James Lawton’s ramblings in the back pages, but his spectacularly ill-judged ‘Sack Sven’ piece on Monday receives a righteous kicking here. Most of my gripes with the pretensious windbag are addressed therein, although I’d like to point out a few more salient facts:
a) Neither Terry Venables nor Guss Hiddinck (his favoured replacements for Eriksson) had to negotiate a qualifying campaign for the tournaments for which he praises them (Euro ’96, World Cup ’02)
b) None of the other ‘major’ European nations have had an easy ride to the Finals either.
c) Who cares that David Beckham got sent off? We still won and in any case it’s easier now to get red-carded than it used to be – Wales would probably have won the World Cup in ’58 had John Charles (possibly the only Welshmen still revered by bothJuventus and Torino fans - Liam) not been crippled by the entire Hungarian team kicking him repeatedly every time he got anywhere near the ball (or the pitch, actually).
d) Ericsson may have a more talented squad than, say, Hoddle did in ’98, but the talent is concentrated in fewer positions (Centre Half, attacking Central Midfield, Centre Forward). Too many of the best England players are either duplicating each other or being forced to play out of position when hacks like Lawton demand their inclusion in a squad.
e) After the first Ashes Test this summer, Lawton called for Duncan Fletcher to be replaced by Steve Waugh. Odd how he shut the fuck up about that bright idea after we kicked Aussie ass.
Ok, England have been pretty dire recently – I was at the Wales game, remember? But if memory serves me this is the first time in a while we’ve qualified for five straight major championships in a row for quite some time – possibly ever.
Anyway, that’s me outta material again… hopefully Liam’s chucked a nice picture of a scantily-clad lady in again to make up for it.
Laters potatas.