Mott The Hoople Hammersmith Apollo review: Madam Miaow ligs backstage

Curious how the significant places of one's childhood that once seemed vast appear so much smaller when you visit them years later. Last night (Monday 5th October), the Hammersmith's Apollo looked minuscule compared with the days when it was called the Odeon and I queued all night to get front row tickets for David Bowie and his Spiders From Mars.

Spider-in-Chief, blond bombshell and guitar supremo, Mick Ronson, was the ghost absent from the feast at last night's Mott The Hoople reunion gig, the penultimate in this run. I'd last seen Mott's Ian Hunter at the Odeon/Apollo in the 1970s when he was teamed up with Ronno, a match made in heaven for glamrock kiddies mourning the loss of Ziggy Stardust and still resistant to the Thin White Duke. But it never made the hoped-for sales impact, contracts clashed, and the project fizzled out.

Tragically, Ronson's liver went into meltdown in the early 1990s and he died of The Big C before his career as a producer had a chance to go stratospheric.

Ronson sort of made an appearance in the form of his daughter, Lisa, brought on to provide backing vocals along with Hunter's daughter who looked like a chip off the old block in her halo of platinum hair and shades.

The band played a set that thrilled hardcore Mott fans and kept them on their feet throughout in a packed auditorium. Tough on this junior admirer whose back was killing her and had to sit down for most of it. But what got me bopping along was when they reached the poppier favourites — All the Way From Memphis, Roll Away The Stone, and that glorious hit written by Bowie, All The Young Dudes. Note that Ian (a lively 70) has Billy rapping "about his suicide, how he'd kick it in the head when was ninety-five," and not twenty-five any more. Tee, hee!

Afterwards, off to the obligatory lig in the pint-sized VIP bar once Suzi Fussey, Ronson's widow and inventor of the Bowie Ziggy mullet, heroically mustered purple wrist bands for Charles Shaar Murray and myself, there to down a sophisticated plastic mug of cider while a host of 70s and 80s stars paid homage to Mott. I jostled for liquid refreshment with Madness's Suggs (sorry about banging into your bum, Suggs), Spandau's Gary Kemp, old friends Gene Loves Jezebel's James Stevenson and Patti Palladin, and Glen Matlock who supported the band that evening, plus an assortment of half recognised faces. All snapped by Mainman stalwart and Bowie in-house photographer, Leee Black Childers.

It was like being a kid again. Thanks, Mott The Hoople, for a great night.

UPDATE: There's a petition to get Mick Ronson into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio, as they've just opened up a new category for Side Man. Of course, Mick was to David Bowie what Keef Richards was to Jagger, as well as working with many other well know musicians. So do please sign.

Mott The Hoople Hammersmith Apollo review: Madam Miaow ligs backstage

Curious how the significant places of one's childhood that once seemed vast appear so much smaller when you visit them years later. Last night (Monday 5th October), the Hammersmith's Apollo looked minuscule compared with the days when it was called the Odeon and I queued all night to get front row tickets for David Bowie and his Spiders From Mars.

Spider-in-Chief, blond bombshell and guitar supremo, Mick Ronson, was the ghost absent from the feast at last night's Mott The Hoople reunion gig, the penultimate in this run. I'd last seen Mott's Ian Hunter at the Odeon/Apollo in the 1970s when he was teamed up with Ronno, a match made in heaven for glamrock kiddies mourning the loss of Ziggy Stardust and still resistant to the Thin White Duke. But it never made the hoped-for sales impact, contracts clashed, and the project fizzled out.

Tragically, Ronson's liver went into meltdown in the early 1990s and he died of The Big C before his career as a producer had a chance to go stratospheric.

Ronson sort of made an appearance in the form of his daughter, Lisa, brought on to provide backing vocals along with Hunter's daughter who looked like a chip off the old block in her halo of platinum hair and shades.

The band played a set that thrilled hardcore Mott fans and kept them on their feet throughout in a packed auditorium. Tough on this junior admirer whose back was killing her and had to sit down for most of it. But what got me bopping along was when they reached the poppier favourites — All the Way From Memphis, Roll Away The Stone, and that glorious hit written by Bowie, All The Young Dudes. Note that Ian (a lively 70) has Billy rapping "about his suicide, how he'd kick it in the head when was ninety-five," and not twenty-five any more. Tee, hee!

Afterwards, off to the obligatory lig in the pint-sized VIP bar once Suzi Fussey, Ronson's widow and inventor of the Bowie Ziggy mullet, heroically mustered purple wrist bands for Charles Shaar Murray and myself, there to down a sophisticated plastic mug of cider while a host of 70s and 80s stars paid homage to Mott. I jostled for liquid refreshment with Madness's Suggs (sorry about banging into your bum, Suggs), Spandau's Gary Kemp, old friends Gene Loves Jezebel's James Stevenson and Patti Palladin, and Glen Matlock who supported the band that evening, plus an assortment of half recognised faces. All snapped by Mainman stalwart and Bowie in-house photographer, Leee Black Childers.

It was like being a kid again. Thanks, Mott The Hoople, for a great night.

UPDATE: There's a petition to get Mick Ronson into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio, as they've just opened up a new category for Side Man. Of course, Mick was to David Bowie what Keef Richards was to Jagger, as well as working with many other well know musicians. So do please sign.

Is Confucius the Chinese Way Of Life? Madam Miaow in debate

Looks like I'm speaking at this on Wednesday. Here's hoping the good dinner and drink don't make me too sleepy to crackle like a spitfire. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Or is it dance like a hefferlump, sting like a tree?

The Meridian Society Dinner-Debate
Date: Wednesday, 7^th October 2009
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Ah King Restaurant, 31-33 Bloomsbury Way, London, WC1A 2SA.

The Motion: This House believes Confucianism is the Chinese way of life.

Words will fly! So come listen and have your say!

Mainspeaker for the motion: Jenny Hao, medical student at Imperial College.

Mainspeaker against the motion: Anna Chen, actress 'Anna May Wong Must Die!'.

Meridian Society, SACU and Dimsum Members: £12

Non-members: £15

RSVP to themeridiansociety@gmail.com ASAP to reserve your place and send your cheque made out to “The Meridian Society” to 59A St Thomas Drive, Pinner, Middlesex, HA5 4SX.

Happy 60th Birthday China: Madam Miaow on the Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Radio 2

So there I am, sandwiched between Georges Galloway and Monbiot (sounds positively Sheridanesque, Richard Brinsley, not the other guy) sending birthday greetings to the People's Republic of China on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show. They wanted it kept short, around a minute, and in the form of a birthday card with achievements, hopes and fears, etc.

You can listen for seven days here. Scroll halfway along, it's an hour in.

For those unable to tune in, here's mine.

Happy Birthday, China

Happy 60^th birthday, People’s Republic of China. Only another twelve years and you’ll have lasted longer than your Big Brother, the Soviet Union.

Well done. You used to be a decrepit old famine-ridden imperial order, the punchbag of every colonial bully, forcing you to take their opium and biting off chunks of you willy-nilly. But now you’re set to become the world’s Number One superpower. Talk about going from a 10 stone weakling to Charles Atlas. See what a good diet can do for you?

But watch out you don’t go down the same road that they did and DON’T forget your socialist beginnings. The creation of 6,000 billionaires in a decade — mostly the children of the state bureaucrats who once ran the public assets now owned by the Little Emperors — is NOT a good sign. I hope you’re keeping tabs on that.

They say you’re the biggest polluter in the world but you’re still less per capita than the US and other G8 economies. And we invented the Industrial Revolution, after all, belching out carbon emissions for 160 years with no let-up in sight.

So quit smoking or at least change to filter tips. Show the world you have the will, the ingenuity and the means to triumph where we’ve failed, and shame us all into catching up.

A last word — it’ s no good sticking your fingers in your ears and going “La, la, la, la, la, can’t hear you,” whenever anyone tells something you don’t want to hear. It’s not big and it’s not clever.

With 4,000 years of civilisation behind you and a good dose of enlightenment philosophers like Marx to pep you up, we expect you to be the ideal synthesis of all that’s best in World thought.

Don’t let us down. And I hope you’ll be kinder to us than we were to you.

Many happy returns.

Love,

Anna

x 

Happy 60th Birthday China: Madam Miaow on the Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Radio 2

So there I am, sandwiched between Georges Galloway and Monbiot (sounds positively Sheridanesque, Richard Brinsley, not the other guy) sending birthday greetings to the People's Republic of China on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show. They wanted it kept short, around a minute, and in the form of a birthday card with achievements, hopes and fears, etc.

You can listen for seven days here. Scroll halfway along, it's an hour in.

For those unable to tune in, here's mine.

Happy Birthday, China

Happy 60^th birthday, People’s Republic of China. Only another twelve years and you’ll have lasted longer than your Big Brother, the Soviet Union.

Well done. You used to be a decrepit old famine-ridden imperial order, the punchbag of every colonial bully, forcing you to take their opium and biting off chunks of you willy-nilly. But now you’re set to become the world’s Number One superpower. Talk about going from a 10 stone weakling to Charles Atlas. See what a good diet can do for you?

But watch out you don’t go down the same road that they did and DON’T forget your socialist beginnings. The creation of 6,000 billionaires in a decade — mostly the children of the state bureaucrats who once ran the public assets now owned by the Little Emperors — is NOT a good sign. I hope you’re keeping tabs on that.

They say you’re the biggest polluter in the world but you’re still less per capita than the US and other G8 economies. And we invented the Industrial Revolution, after all, belching out carbon emissions for 160 years with no let-up in sight.

So quit smoking or at least change to filter tips. Show the world you have the will, the ingenuity and the means to triumph where we’ve failed, and shame us all into catching up.

A last word — it’ s no good sticking your fingers in your ears and going “La, la, la, la, la, can’t hear you,” whenever anyone tells something you don’t want to hear. It’s not big and it’s not clever.

With 4,000 years of civilisation behind you and a good dose of enlightenment philosophers like Marx to pep you up, we expect you to be the ideal synthesis of all that’s best in World thought.

Don’t let us down. And I hope you’ll be kinder to us than we were to you.

Many happy returns.

Love,

Anna

x 

Honest Scrap Awards: yippee! More blog appreciation

Back from Cornwall and a virtual signal black hole to find Willis at Old and In The Way has been kind enough to have given me an Honest Scrap award. (Yes, it does sound like "honest crap" when said fast.)

Willis blogs from across the pond and hails from a generation for whom I have the greatest respect — 1960s hippies who had plenty to fight for. Hard-hearted would-be tuff-nuts who say they hate hippies should remember that many of these guys were in the thick of some real struggles; civil rights, segregation and the Vietnam war.

This blog being firmly opposed to deregulation, I'm pleased to see that rules is rules:
1. You must brag about the award.
2. You must include the name of the blogger who gave you the award and link back to that blogger.
3. You must choose a minimum of seven blogs that you find brilliant in content or design (not sure how I fell through the cracks on this one!)
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with this award.
5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

My seven favoured blogs:

1)  Harpy Marx. No surprise here, or any of my first three choices. Harpy is a committed leftie who refuses to check in her brain at the door and continues to be a thorn in the side for her Labour Party associates and their rightward drift. Terrific on both political and cultural matters, she's also a fine photographer, documenting current protests by ordinary people.

2)  Splintered Sunrise. This Northern Ireland-based blogger is perhaps stylistically the best writer on the left. Sensitive and choc-full of brainy goodness, he wields a shiv where so many on the left go at it with a baseball bat. More arch than Marlene Dietrich's eyebrows.

3)  Slacker Chic. Mrs M goes from strength to strength entertaining us with her caustic wit and imaginative turns of phrase at her showbiz and fashion blog.  She's now writing a book about her experience as an army wife with a husband in Afghanistan and wondering what the hell the war's for. Read it here.

4)  My mate Steve has just started the St Ives Cornwall blog having been running his informative One St Ives website for a couple of years or more. It's been amusing watching everyone else down there treat the internet like it was the monolith at the beginning of Kubrik's 2001: A Space Oddysey and they were all our simian ancestors. I think they're catching on at last. His blog is the best website covering St Ives and has been a must-read during the recent St Ives Arts Festival.

5)  Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan before he was sacked for blowing the whistle  on the unsavoury habits of our friend and ally in charge over there. He says he has seen the heroin factories next to army bases in Afghanistan that cast doubt on whether this war is really about drugs as claimed by the Western powers. Oh, did I mention he was sacked?

6) China Smack describes itself as carrying hot internet stories, pictures and videos of China – a popular tabloid look at the Waking Dragon. When you've had enough of midget grooms and "crazy haircuts" sported by the yoot, you can always try China Labour Bulletin for heavier fare. Plus brilliant China stories at East West North South blog. The inclusion of these alone probably guarantee I fall foul of the Great Firewall. Burn, baby, burn!

7) Lastly, Christina Martin, hilarious stand-up comic, and the first and, for all I know, the only woman to write for Viz. Sadly, I'm recommending her to you just as she announces her last Viz blog. Smart and always has something intelligent to say about religion and other social matters such as disability.

Ker-rist! It's half one in the morning and I still have to write out my life story, according to the award rules. Sorry, being a lifelong rebel I'm closing down for the night and getting some kip.

One honest thing — I miss my cat Trotsky. Second honest thing, if a Certain Person doesn't stop snoring I may have to do to him what I did to my cat.

G'night, all.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...