As part of this blogging lark, one of the occupational hazards is that other bloggers will read your stuff (hopefully) and lavish praise (always nice) and bestow awards upon you (like the Oscars – oh they’re meaningless really – until you get one).
So I was very pleased to receive an award (my third! Woohoo!) from the most excellent and very talented sketch artist blogger Chuck Cottrell at Sketches From Memory. His blog is a regular source of wit and he’s prolifically funny and prolifically prolific, if that’s something anyone can be. You can check out his blog at Sketches From Memory here.
The award given is The Liebster Award. No, me neither.
The rules are that you have to answer a few questions, and pass on the award to a few other well-deserving bloggers by setting them some questions of your own. It’s like setting an exam. With stupid questions. And hopefully the recipients will come up with some entertaining answers and the world becomes a slightly happier and more fun place to live in. That’s what we’re doing here – making the world a better place. That, or it’s just a colossal waste of everyone’s time and energy. I’ll let you decide.
The questions set by Chuck were as follows:
- What are your top 5 albums of all time?
- What’s the most poisonous aspect of the current American political climate?
- If you could hang out with any figure in history how would you mess with them and attempt to alter the future?
- Who’s your favourite Doctor Who?
A good and diverse set there I think you’ll agree. Let’s tackle them in order:
1. Top Five Albums of all time.
This is something that changes over the years. If you had asked me twenty years ago I would have given you this list:
- Masters of Reality – Blue Garden
- Aerosmith – Rocks
- Tesla – Mechanical Resonance
- Kings X – Gretchen Goes To Nebraska
- The Black Crowes – $hake Your Money Maker
I found a list the other day that I wrote ten years ago. It read as follows:
- Masters of Reality – Blue Garden
- The Black Crowes – The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
- The Rolling Stone – Exile on Main Street
- Rush – Moving Pictures
- The Beatles – Revolver
And now? Today? Here’s a list for you. It might change tomorrow.
- Masters of Reality – Blue Garden
- The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
- The Beatles – Revolver
- Queens of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf
- The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
I don’t know if the insidious creep of classic artists is just a sign of age or an inevitability…. and I’ll write about the wonderful Masters of Reality all in good time.
2. What’s the most poisonous aspect of the current American political climate?
As a Brit, I get to see this as an amused bystander from afar, and the recent election was fascinating, but I enjoy reading Matt Taibi’s inflammatory reporting in Rolling Stone magazine on the Corporatocracy (his phrase) of America and many other aspects of American politics.
3. If you could hang out with any figure in history how would you mess with them and attempt to alter the future?
I might try to keep Mariah Carey’s parents forever in different countries. So they never met. Or maybe Celine Dion’s. Or Beiber’s. Oh dear, there’s too many of them isn’t there? Did I just miss the chance to rid the world of Hitler? (NB Stephen Fry’s novel Making History tackled that subject – and the result was…well I won’t spoil the ending). Otherwise talking to Malcolm Allison in 1978 and persuading him not to re-join Manchester City as manager might have saved 35 years of pain…
4. Who’s your favourite Doctor Who?
The important questions are always saved until last…
For most people their first Doctor is their favourite Doctor. Whilst I do have vague memories of John Pertwee being a time lord rather than a straw-ridden bird-scarer in Wurzel Gummidge, the first Doctor Who that made an impact upon me was Tom Baker. He generally eschewed the rather violent habits of his successor Peter Davidson (who carried a surprisingly accurate and effective cricket ball around with him to throw at Daleks and Cybermen) and instead offered potential foes a jelly baby, a never ending supply of which he carried in a scrunched up paper bag in his pocket.
(I sometimes wonder if Spinal Tap’s cricket bat wielding Manager Ian Faith was not based upon Led Zep manager Peter Grant after all, but was in fact heavily based on Davidson – this prototype cricket hooligan Doctor Who).
I recall collecting a number of Doctor Who cards that were a free gift in boxes of Weetabix (do cereals still have free gifts in them?), featuring Sarah Jane, Cybermen and some strange aquatic beasts – perhaps the less irritating fore-runners of Jar Jar Binks. For the cereal box gifts alone, Baker (Tom) gets my vote.
I’m sure that if I saw it now, of course, I’d think it was rubbish. However, can we get Christopher Lloyd to appear in an episode? I’d love to see the Tardis get 1.21 jigawatts put through it…
It now becomes my great honour to bestow a few Liebster Awards myself, so here goes:
Of the many blogs that I like to check in on here are just a few that I find especially entertaining and / or interesting:
- Mike Ladano – Mike used to work in a record shop. He has some good stories of those times. He’s also a CD collector and a completist with an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure Heavy Rock.
- Defending Axl Rose – Jason Wendleton’s entertaining and eclectic music blog which is great fun, and surprisingly lacking in Axl Rose related stuff. Jason started his blog a month or so before I did, and appears to have a similar musical taste to my own. His articles are always opinionated and entertaining.
- Hipster Approved – Working in London I am surrounded by Hipster types, and this entertaining look at that particular Fixie-and-cardigan-beardy world is always fun. Always good to keep up to speed with lovers of fixed gear bicycles and brogues.
- Kamer Tunes – Rich Kamerman likes to review an artist’s entire output in one go over a series of posts. Good stuff.
- Heavy Metal Overload – One man’s fight not to spend all his cash on records. He’s losing the battle.
So for these bloggers it is my turn to ask the questions (some of which I have asked a few of my interviewees in the past) – and for you to answer if you want to accept the award:
- Who is the worst dressed rock star and why?
- What is the most embarrassing record you own and why?
- What is the most disastrous gig you ever saw or played?
- Replace one of The Beatles with another rock or pop star (of any era) of your choice and comment on what would have happened. For example: what if Britney Spears had replaced Ringo…?
Congratulations to the winners – do check out their blogs people…
Record #122: Queen – We Are The Champions
Every record tells a story 
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