The Flaming Lips 'She Don't Use Jelly'

Some wonderful indie-rock nonsense from Oklahoma's Flaming Lips for your Sunday enjoyment, concerning a girl who spreads vaseline on toast, a guy who sneezes into magazines and a woman who washes her hair using tangerines. The band's own website says 'It's a happy little ditty about strange people and their individual idiosynchrasies... with crunching but still harmonious noise', and I can't describe it any better than that.

Tonights World Cup final? I'm not sure I care that much. The Netherlands are effective and not in the habit of losing. Van Bommel seems to be setting some kind of record for committing fouls and getting away with it, while the undoubtedly talented Robben draws as many fouls as possible and rolls over a lot. Espagna play lots of very nice little passing triangles, have the most talented strikers in Europe, and struggle to win every game One-Nil. Neither are exactly setting my heart racing with anticipation. Who knows, maybe we'll get a Four-Three classic.

She Don't Use Jelly.mp3

Wild Billy Childish and The Blackhands 'Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler?'

So, with my tongue firmly in my cheek and Mr. Wild Billy Childish doing whatever he fancies doing, in celebration of today's game here is the Dad's Army theme done garage rock style by the bard of Chatham.

'We are the boys who will stop your little game
We are the boys who will make you think again'.

Time to deliver Wayne.

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler (Asda Advert - Dad's Army Theme).mp3

La Dusseldorf 'Rheinita'

England play Germany tomorrow. This opens several can of worms, from Twentieth Century history to always losing at penalties. Two World Wars and One World Cup. Don't mention the war. Achtung, surrender. Dambusters. Stuart Pearce. And so on. Most of it seems to be in fairly good humour now, especially since England's travelling support go to watch football and have a good time, rather than take part in racist/anti-Irish songs and seeing who can fling plastic chairs furthest across foreign plazas at riot police while being sprayed with the water cannon, and half murdering anyone foreign. The German media seem to have accepted our obsession with them, the war and football, and can smile benignly, especially as they usually hold the upper hand on the pitch when it counts.

This is La Dusseldorf's Rheinita, one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I've heard. Formed by one half of Neu! Klaus Dinger and released in 1978, David Bowie called them 'the sound of the Eighties'. If only more of the music of the 80s had turned out like this. Attention krautrock sceptics- this does not sound like your idea of krautrock. This is perfection spread over seven minutes thirty eight seconds. This has more in common with the production of disco, the attitude of punk and the feel and anything goes spirit of acid house and dance music. I can't recommend it enough. Typical Germans eh?

Rheinita.mp3

Can 'I Want More'

Can made many wonderful records in the 1970s, but none of them other than this one got them on Top Of The Pops, in 1976, when it reached number 26. Strange days. The guitar riff is also one of the inspirations for The Smiths How Soon Is Now, as Johnny Marr revealed on a documentary last year, which I guess shows how wide his tastes were, not neccessarily obvious at the time. There was an excellent krautrock documentary on BBC4 last year as well, where the West German music scene came across as the most fertile and exciting place to be . It had the two blokes out of Faust taping themselves playing bits of metal with wide eyed joy, surely the most bohemian pair still living out their 60s/70s idealism.

In a World Cup related link, one of the best (unintentional?) bits of commentary on a football match occured at a tournament in the 90s/early 2000s, I forget which, featuring the German midfielder Stefan Kuntz. The Germans pick the ball up and come out of defence- 'Here come the Germans...Kuntz'. Not an opinion I share, but very funny nonetheless.

03 I Want More.wma