Marvin mash-ups and drink diatribes

This blog has been slacker than than a Caribbean Dancehall track. No excuses.

Was indulging in a spot of ultra-drinking with Mrs Kristal last night. We were in an establishment called The Waverley Tea Rooms and it is as grandiose as it sounds. Or is it?

This public house has ideas above its station. The fecund stench of pretentiousness permeates throughout, but has slovenly service and unclean, wobbly tables.

The wobbly table really is the enemy of the pub drinker and is inexcusable for any watering hole.

Any drinker who is not ordering the Louis Roederer Cristal 2002, which was your humble correspondent on this evening, is treated with a disdain reserved only for a gin-soaked Hitler impersonator at a bar mitzvah.

'Grace Kelly' by Mika was playing. The song's incessant refrain "why don't you like me?" really does beg the answer “Because you are a ____." (insert incredibly rude word here.)

We left soon after.

The megabevvy re-started properly in a place that didn’t treat their patrons like Tal Ben Haim on a Manchester City tour of United Arab Emirates. Although that is a poor comparison, for we wouldn’t even have been let inside the Tea Rooms in that example.

Now, on to music as there has been far too much football on this blog of late.

The concept of mash-ups, the splicing of two contrasting songs into one seamless track, can be rather hit and miss. Should a mash-up be poor it gives the impression that it is a novelty genre. When it works, it can be a dynamite combination.

‘I Heard It In ‘79’ by team9 is a thrilling fusion of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye and Smashing Pumpkins ‘1979’. It occasionally threatens to collapse, but for the most part, is resilient and vibrant. The particular revelatory element of the track is hearing how heartbreakingly vulnerable Gaye’s vocal was on the Motown classic, which was disguised by the slightly overpowering instrumentation of the original.

Making the listener realise just how good the source material is can be the true brilliance of top quality mash-up. This is most apparent on ‘Eleanor’s In My Head’ (again by team9, who on the basis of these two experiments is bordering on genius status.) a blending of The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘In My Head’ by Queens Of The Stone Age.

Kristalseventeen was never a big fan of the second track from ‘Revolver’, but set up against Josh Homme’s raging guitar riff and an absolutely banging drum track, it reveals the ingenuity of the Fab Four’s composition.

Regardless of the likelihood that it is referring to make-up, did those four boys who shook the world ever write a lyric as dark and macabre as "Wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door"? Answers on a postcard please.

Should these two masterpieces get you in the mood for more, DJ Lobsterdust has undoubtedly got the magic touch. ‘Jenny’s Superstitious’ (‘Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine’ by The Killers and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’) is completely and utterly spine tingling and gives you the illusion that the former 12 year old genius was actually in the studio with Brandon Flowers and his fellow Las Vegans. It’s that good.

Fingers crossed, the output here will be more regular for indolence is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Only a clever man messes with Keano. Jack Warner is not a clever man.

Really. Never mind what Keano is actually saying in this video, the facial hair alone is terrifying. Should you require the background to this highly entertaining skirmish, the lowdown can be found here.

Jack Warner, as well as being very silly, is also a crook. This is worth watching too.

Early retirement

Lee McCulloch has announced his retirement from international football. Immediate reaction: "'bye then."

While it is laudable of the ex-Motherwell man to denounce himself as "the most hated man in Scotland", it is somewhat risible that he finds himself worthy of such ire in the first place.

Terribly sorry Lee, but you were never that much in our thoughts. You're just another of the afflicted footballers who perceive their early retirement to be considered a seismic event.

Henrik Larsson, Alan Shearer and arguably, Paul Scholes are the only players who self-extrication from the international scene has induced real upset and at a later date, clamour for a comeback to the fold. 

Thank you for the goal at Hampden against the Ukraine and all that, but you won't be missed.

On other matters Scotland, the criticism directed at our captain Stephen McManus is valid, but it poses the question, who replaces him as skipper? There are few other realistic candidates in this blog's book. It is churlish to suggest Big Mick is only keeping the armband warm for Barry Ferguson. What is to say that Ferguson will automatically get back into the side, or even immediately back into the Rangers first eleven?

All will come out in the wash for sure. In closing, should Lee McCulloch be desirous in regaining some self-respect and respect from Scotland supporters, then he would do well not do a David Weir and come back just because of a change of manager. If ever there was a whitewashing involved in a return from retiring internationally, then Weir's way was the one that really took the biscuit.

Once you go, you're gone.