Star For A Week (Dino), Harley. Performed with Cockney Rebel in Utrecht, already in the public domain of YouTube. You can see in that profile, the lion-heart. The emotion, the feeling and the playing. It just works...




Just watching and listening again this afternoon, has reminded me of when I first really got into pop music as a youth. This has re-emerged through thinking about Steve's words on Marc. 'Mirror Freak', written by Steve in 1972, was around Marc & T Rex's zenith of success.

The thing that started me off, obsessively following TOTP's and the scene:
'Brauny' and I are standing outside his house at the top of our 1960's low density bungalow avenue and Buzz Gee arrives in his transit (at that point we're not even teenagers) - opens door, his 8 track, is playing, 'Get It On' (Bolan, 1971). It sounded so good on the 8 track, very 'bass-y'. I didn't have my own money then, and so I asked Mum to buy the single for me, and after, there was no going back.

Sweet were great. Power pop, but also versatile. However, once Judy Teen was seen and heard (and the year before that, Streetlife, Roxy), I was completely on board the ship of stylish, clever, sophisticated, melodious, pop. Happy days, indeed.

“Let me die in eight-time” (Harley, within Death Trip, 1973)

“You've got to walk and talk in four-four time” (Weller, within Strange Town, 1979)


Viewpoint/ a fan’s opinion (I listen to both of them, at least part of every week of my own mature life and have done for years):

HARLEY and WELLER really do like what they do. It’s their lifetime goal (from youth/early adulthood). Harley desires it to last for his lifetime (?) and Weller desires or states it (for him) as important as walking and talking (?) We are attracted to such songs and the personas of our favourite artists/musicians/performers.

This is deeply (unconsciously) relevant, I feel, to ‘Star for a Week (Dino)’, Harley, 1992.

Relevant to both of the views of Freud, S, (1856-1939) and Jung, C (1875-1961). The idea of ‘alternative reality’ (actually Freud referred to it as 'a new kind of reality' ) that can be sublimated and expressed by creatives - Anna Freud's (1895-1982) collection of 'The Essentials of Psycho-analysis', Vintage Classics, London refers - I have the 2005 edition - from the former and the formation of individual ‘persona’, from the latter.

MUSIC, is within the fabric of our physiology and mind. The sound of the spheres and the beating of hearts.

HIP (once again), like the current trajectory of the Mael brothers / Sparks. I have heard (via Twitter) that their current album is No.1 in the physical UK album charts and No.7 (electronically, for the want of a covering term). I’ve just added ‘All That’, to my playlist, from that album - The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte (2023). This is about reaching their audience, and like Steve Harley, Ron and Russell Mael, et al, this includes not just fans that were there at the beginning, but those new to the sounds, words and experience, at some stage along the road…