THE KNIGHTS WHO SAY "NI!"

Listen to THE KNIGHTS WHO SAY "NI!" by Monty Python.

A bit of fun for a Sunday night.

YEAH!

Listen to Yeah! by Cosmic Rhythm Society.

Jason dropping in.

Not much is known about Cosmic Rhythm Society. I've heard rumours that they are an extended fictional front of "Consumer Recreation Services" from David Fincher's 1997 film "The Game". Wiki ominously describes the film:

As the lines between the banker's real life and the game become more and more uncertain, there are hints of a larger conspiracy.

They seem to have been a percussion trio - but witnesses of their playing days have been hard to find......some have mysteriously disappeared. The National Trust cobbled together oblique references from the internet and "personal communications" to suggest that CRS cut a debut album with Festival/Mushroom records in 2000, yet no copies of the album exist.

Garbled ramblings appeared for a while on the net with the words "Bang On", "five six seven eight eleven" and a cryptic reference to a "furious golden egg" (was this an easter egg in itself?).... but these, too, swiftly vanished - even from google's own indexes.

Maybe The Game continues. An elaborate triple-twisting hoax. All I know is that this track is absolutely bang on. One of the finest pieces of percussive mayhem I've ever heard. Don't ask me how I came to get a hold of it. But if you could tell me more about these 3, I'd like to know.

Photo: CRS Headquarters? Time and Place unknown.

THANKFUL N' THOUGHTFUL

Listen to THANKFUL N' THOUGHTFUL by Sly and the Family Stone.

One of the best offerings from "Fresh." Enough said. Can I haz turkee, etc.

Photo: New York detail (4).

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BE MYSELF

Listen to THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BE MYSELF by Maceo and All The King's Men.

Maceo Parker, his hot hot James Brown backing band, covering one of Sly's funkiest offerings, what more can you ask for? To all of you, safe travels and Happy Thanksgiving!



Photo: New York detail (3).

THE THANKS WE GET

Listen to THE THANKS WE GET by Junior Byles.

One thing about these "themed" weeks is you get to pick songs you might not otherwise pick. I've always loved Junior Byles, but if I had a free hand to pick any of his sides, it might not be--probably wouldn't be--this one.

The Thanks We Get is a Black Ark production, which means it's likely to be awesome, but also it might be pretty weird. In that regard this is a typical Lee Perry offering. The oddest feature of all is that Lee has his young son Omar toasting over the top of Junior Byles's vocals. And "toasting" is a pretty generous description of what's going on! At one point little Omar just kinda babbles "Poppa! Poppa! Poppa!" squarely in the middle of the mix. It's kinda cute, kinda annoying, just like Double Dutch Bus, but even stranger.

Photo: New York detail (2).

THANK YOU...

Listen to THANK YOU... by Sveti.

No prizes for the theme of the songs this week. First off is an offering from Sveti's release "Where I Come From," which we mentioned earlier this year. Our friend Marko is rightfully proud of this record and has been touring it hard all year. A couple of us caught him Saturday night in the neighborhood and the band sounded great, and Marko was as gonzo as ever.

It was a long day Saturday. First, drinking out of grief, then out of celebration, and finally because the Blue Note requires it. As a result I took a short nap just before Sveti's last song, then nearly got lost on the five minute walk home....



Photo: New York detail (1).

THE FLOWERS AND THE WINE

Listen to THE FLOWERS AND THE WINE by Pete Atkin.

John again. I have no idea who Pete Atkin is, honestly. I stumbled across a mention of his albums as *very* British and thought “that’s for me then”. But *very* British means just that: *very*. Not, say, Nick Drake British, who made great tunes and just happened to be British as well. No, *very* British means something else entirely that I couldn’t adequately explain, and Pete Atkin seems to speak this voice… which is odd, because his lyrics were penned by an Australian, Clive James. Must not fall far from the tree.

Anyway, Pete and Clive had a good thing going for a time in the 70s, with a 6-album partnership on RCA and a solid following. When that ebbed, Pete tried his luck as a carpenter, before ending back up in showbiz in the radio production side of things. He even provided one of the voices for a “Wallace and Gromit” character. Oh, and as a freelance radio producer he churned out a 216-part (!) history of Britain which took 14 months to broadcast. *Very* British indeed.


Photo: snow.

THERE IS NO MORE TO SAY

Listen to THERE IS NO MORE TO SAY by The Millennium.

Unfortunately, due to real life constraints, I don't have time to do a long write-up about, and thereby at least attempt to do justice to, the awesomeness of The Millennium.

Check back in the comments later for more detailed discussion, perhaps, but basically I'm firmly of the opinion that this album is the best 60s California pop record ("'Pet Sounds" for buddhist paranoiacs'") you haven't ever heard of. Think about that.

Photo: Neighborhood bracing (4).

SELF-ANALYSIS

Listen to SELF-ANALYSIS by The Smoke.

Today's song is a return performance by The Smoke, a group first featured in one of John's posts from this summer. John's song, Cowboys and Indians, was the archetypal album opening mini-epic. My song is the "track three" ballad, the one with the best pop hooks. Also, like Cowboys and Indians, it's a Beach Boys fan letter, which gets you most of the way on to this blog at least.

Plus it's very Freudian, you know.

Here's a little biographical detail about Michael Lloyd (who wrote, recorded, and produced the album) that John didn't get to:

At the tender age of 20, Lloyd was appointed vice-president of MGM by Mike Curb and his first production job, Lou Rawls's Natural Man, won a Grammy. After that he turned out hits for teen sensations like The Osmonds and Shaun Cassidy, later producing Belinda Carlisle, Barry Manilow and, most lucratively, the multi-million selling soundtrack to Dirty Dancing.

That's a story of realized ambition if I've ever read one.

Photo: Neighborhood bracing (3).

SIXTH AVENUE STROLL

Listen to SIXTH AVENUE STROLL by Twinn Connexion.

This one will definitely divide opinion. Actually, maybe that's too optimistic. You all may hate it!

But I like it, in a stuck-in-your-head sort of way. You couldn't dream up a more Carnaby Street Austin Powers sort of jam, the only thing is that these guys were from...Montana (!)

I like to imagine they came to New York on a school trip to see the Rockettes or something, and decided that the Avenue of the Americas was the most far our street in the world. Even though it's probably about some street in Canada where they shot a moose. It would make as much sense as the lyrics, to be fair.

Oh, and do check out the album cover.

Photo: Neighborhood bracing (2).

SHE'S MY GIRL

Listen to SHE'S MY GIRL by The Turtles.

Today's song is by The Turtles, so this is the second appearance by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (i.e., Flo & Eddie) on the blog in a week.

When I first started thinking about what to write for this song a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I was very interested in the "girl" in the song. One thing that's evolved in pop music since the sixties, I'm willing to argue, is fewer of these possessory types of songs, where the man claims the woman as property. I just don't think boys think of girls in quite the same way they might have 40 years ago. How well do you think that one holds up?

Anyway, it's taking me away from the point I was starting to make. I was interested in the girl in the song because I think her fate is a lot worse than you might think just casually listening to the song. Is he saying he killed the girl? "She's my girl / I took her away last night." That was really what I thought when I was listening to it. And I'm not the only one to make a "murder ballad" connection:

My favorite thing about pop music is the means by which some artists attempt -- either consciously or unintentionally -- to subvert its sugary idealogical [sic] simplicity. "She's My Girl" by the Turtles is a great example of such a subversive song. It hints at being a murder ballad in the vein of antique Americana, while maintaining the pretense of contemporary pop fluff.

I do think there is some of that here, though a pop song is sometimes (usually) just a pop song. Before we leave it for now, have a look at the promo video, which just doesn't get any more 1967.

Photo: Neighborhood bracing (1).

THE 21st CENTURY

Listen to THE 21st CENTURY by Andrew Vladeck.

We interrupt our usual weekend break to bring you some great news. Andrew Vladeck is rolling out some product, and it sounds great!

First Andrew has an EP, called "The Magnet," out now on End Up Records. As Andrew and Amy and I go way back, I've gotten to hear quite a few versions of these recordings (not to mention the songs themselves), and I can tell you that he's put a hell of a lot of work into the mixes. The fear when you pour so much into something is that the finished product sounds tight, overworked, and lifeless. (This was the specific fear I had for this record, in fact.) But Andrew's got good taste and he got good people to help him put it together. It sounds superb: fun, loose, confident, open... just as it should be.

The only one I hadn't heard before is the one I'm sharing with you now, an acoustic version of The 21st Century, which once upon a time was a huge, over-the-top, set closing sort of song. This version is just Andrew & his banjo.

If you want to hear more, you can download a couple more at the End Up Records site, and the blogs will be digging into it. Most importantly, Andrew's throwing a release party in a couple of weeks at Mercury Lounge. November 25, to be exact. You can RSVP on Facebook.

I'll leave this up a little bit before getting back to the usual guff sometime Monday afternoon.

Photo: Welcome to Vladeck Houses. (By the way, I'm trying out something new that I think I'll keep, by loading up these photos on to Flickr instead of my own server. That should take some pressure off the latter plus if you click through the photo you can go to its own Flickr page and all that stuff.)

WHITE WINTER HYMNAL and MYKONOS

Listen to WHITE WINTER HYMNAL by Fleet Foxes.
Listen to MYKONOS by Fleet Foxes.

Jason dropping in.

The only reason I haven't posted about Fleet Foxes before is because I thought I already had.

I saw them live at The Empire in Shepherds Bush (London) on Monday and was trying to remember which of their songs I'd posted here before. I think that the combined memory of writing about Brian Wilson and The Shins made me think I'd covered the Fleet.....but I hadn't. And I should've.

It was the second best gig I've seen of 2008 (nothing could top Ace Frehley at the Astoria) and their "debut" album (there's a self-titled CD-R from 2006 of which only 200 copies were made....and its good - but not as good as their "official" debut) is currently one of metacritic's top 10 albums of 2008.

I've also been chopping and changing about which song to put up. I say "song" because my first of two posted tracks, "White Winter Hymnal", was never under question. Immediately glorious and untouchable. Not even a song, but a harmonic refrain of an anti-funeral-dirge.

The choice for the second song was much harder: "He Doesn't Know Why", "Your Protector", "Blue Ridge Mountains" and "Drops In The River" were all front-runners at some point.

I don't know about you, but the only way I can sort through the thousand-or-so tracks I try and absorb each month, is to rate them on the pod. One star gets deleted. Two stars get kept on the hard-drive for minor connection or history. Four stars make it to the pod and I won't listen to less after its rated. Five stars make the special list. And three stars? They inhabit that middle ground of being tracks I don't want to lose but ones that will only be listened to for a reason (if at all).

And the Fleet Foxes' debut album is unique to me because every song is 4 stars or above.....with one exception (strangely, the opening track). The whole album is that special blend of drawing you in at first listen as well as growing over the months afterwards. Tom Wilway describes it well at DrownedInSound:

The Fleet Foxes sound is pleasantly enjoyable at first but only after a number of listens does the dense harmonic sound, with its plethora of interesting instrumentation and vocals firing off in every direction, start to become engrained

They marry the Beach Boys with Crosby, Stills and Nash.... in a pastoral chapel ..... that smells of mulled wine....and candles...and 20 strangers.... that want to sing random cascading choral harmonies....with a few goats....and a mandolin....where the dress code says only: "wool and irony".

And here's a tip: if, like me, you only give songs a chance for the first minute, keep listening through these. They change - just like it does in my (finally!!!) selected second track, "Mykonos", from their "Sun Giant" EP. (Go on, Fleet. Tell me this isn't 2 separate songs that you jammed together!). The 2nd-half of this is worth hanging out for.

I'm going out with a stumble. I found this on YouTube. Two young Swedish girls - called "First Aid Kit", out in "the forest" covering the Fleet's "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song". Originally I thought this was a hoax....the guitar and vocals seemed too evenly balanced for an outdoor recording - until they laughed. They're only 15 and 17!!! - remind me of Pooka - watch:



Photo: ZELL AM SEE, AUSTRIA, 2008. Taken by Jason Bryant.

REFLECTIONS

Listen to REFLECTIONS by Peppermint Trolley Company.

Hello Thursday readers! Any of you remember the Brady Bunch? Fine, but how much Brady Bunch trivia do you know? Here's one for you. From Season Two until it got cancelled and began its syndicated zombie life, the Brady Bunch theme song was performed by all of the cast members. For the first season, however, it was performed by a group from outside San Bernadino called the Peppermint Trolley Company.

Check out the youtube. It's very bubble gum, just like the 'Company's big hit, Baby You Come Rollin' Across My Mind.

Today's song, Reflections, is moody (there's that word again) enough to be considered psychedelic. And don't take my word for it, take the word of Sir Psych, who included this song on his first "Sir Psych Presents" compilation. Most of you probably don't know who Sir Psych is. I don't either, except he's a blogger with an unbelievable collection of late 60s obscurities, and everything I've gotten from him has been worth hearing. I highly recommend checking out the blog.

Jason will be here tomorrow, with a couple of songs you may or may not have heard at your local Starbucks. I'll be back on Monday, unless I can get Liverpool to lose this weekend, in which case I'll post some Barbra Streisand for you.

Photo: Car fire on First Avenue (4).

You'll Never Walk Alone (But You'll Lose to Tottenham) (Again)

Listen to YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE by The Five Blind Boys of Alabama.

Oh dear. I'll be the last person to say that the League Cup is important (for Arsenal it's a special case, since we have our youth team out, which is fun for Arsenal fans because they're good, but it's only possibly because the League Cup doesn't actually count), but it's got to hurt a little to see such an abject performance. (To be fair, they did win the second half... )

KEEP IT WARM

Listen to KEEP IT WARM by Flo & Eddie.

Today's selection is a bit of a rough fit for "psych pop." In truth, it's "meta psych pop." I'm not stretching when I say this, as you'll discover when you listen to it. Almost every line and musical phrase in 1976's Keep It Warm is an allusion or reference to the previous ten years of musical history.

For those of you who aren't deeply familiar with the writers of the Strawberry Shortcake theme song, Flo & Eddie are Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. Kayman and Volman were members of the Turtles, who had a million hits in the 60s you recognize but don't know. They then joined up with Frank Zappa, and sang back-up on T-Rex's "Electric Warrior." So, a long and interesting career.

Keep It Warm is a curdled classic, having as much in common with Steely Dan at their most cynical as it does with incense or peppermints. But I love it too much not to get it up on the blog at the earliest convenient opportunity.

Photo: Car fire on First Avenue (3).

TRAVELIN' IN THE DARK

Listen to TRAVELIN' IN THE DARK by Bo Grumpus.

I've long since given up thinking that a music blog would be some kind of community where people show up and debate a particular song or the issues of the day. I think the lurker/commenter ratio is just too high for a low traffic blog. As long as I'm the one calling the tune, that's usually fine. But occasionally you do get a song where you wonder what people think of it. Is Travelin' In The Dark a really good, atmospheric, robust song and performance, or is it not? I've been listening to this one for more than a year and I can't really decide.

Bo Grumpus was a group out of Cambridge that taken under the wing of Felix Pappalardi (who would be producing Cream around this time), and it's mainly his production I can't figure. There are some expensive, cinematic flourishes here and there. Good, or too obvious? Hot or not?

Part of it is Pappalardi. You can't trust him. Cream was a good, interesting, band, but occasionally exhibited some appalling taste. And then Pappalardi went to Mountain! Talk about a tacky group. I love Mississippi Queen as much as anyone, but Mountain did a cover of today's song (which Pappalardi said was closer to his original vision), and it is possibly the most awful thing I've ever heard.

Photo: Car fire on First Avenue (2).

PIPE DREAM

Listen to PIPE DREAM by Chad and Jeremy.

Earlier in the year, the blog went on at some length about post-1967 Kinks. One of the things about the Kinks is that they really suffered commercially for zagging so dramatically against the prevailing post-Peppers pop psych in 1967 and 1968. It turns out that they were just ahead of the trend in many ways, and by 1968 and 1969 the music scene had long gotten Sgt Pepper's out of its system. However, someone forgot to tell Chad & Jeremy...

Chad and Jeremy might be at the opposite end of the spectrum from Ray and Dave. Similar to the Kinks, Chad and Jeremy's biggest hits came at the beginning of their career, but the similarities stop there. Chad and Jeremy were seen as a pair of upper class twits, and their career never really took off after the brilliance of Yesterday's Gone and A Summer Song (reading how thoroughly the music magazines mercilessly mocked Jeremy's Eton education makes you realize anew how stupid this country's discourse about "class warfare" can be.)

Anyway, the chaps hung around, and had decent recording contracts, so their albums sound pretty good, even if they can be a little wrong-headed. Pipe Dream is from 1968, and I have no doubt it sounded a little dated even then. Dated it may be, but it's still a classy piece of recording, with great harmonies, produced by Gary Usher, and it is accordingly a psych pop favorite of mine.

Photo: Car fire on First Avenue (1).

MORNING OF MY LIFE & SWEET GINGERBREAD MAN

Listen to MORNING OF MY LIFE and SWEET GINGERBREAD MAN by Marian Montgomery.

John back again and today I’m towing singer Marian Montgomery's barge – low jazz bridge, everybody down!

I came across her Marian in the Morning record on one of those blogs that, bless them, dig and dig for vinyl goodies. Anyway, despite the hisses and jumps from the vinyl, it sounded nice to my ears: a confident singer handling light pop material. Sure, I could do without the James Taylor "You've Got A Friend" cover, but the tenor of the album had me prompting the blog-worthy question: is she the Lady Scott? After all, she was an American who found success after moving to England and ended up settling down there.

Well…. maybe not Lady Scott 1-4, but certainly Lady Scott Stretch/We Had It All. Less Brel, more Webb. The orchestrations done by her husband Laurie Holloway (whoa! skip intro! skip intro! wait, is that Macca?) are tempting and 60’s inventive for 1972, but whereas they set up the songs on a pedestal, Marian seems to sing right past them. Self-righteous karaoke. She’s tough like that, this Lady Scott. True, I’m dealing with an n=1 album sample size, but this is the internet! Speaking of the internet, it’s Friday – log off and have a good weekend!

Photo: tree.

IT JUST SUITS ME

Listen to IT JUST SUITS ME by Bessie Jones, Hobart Jones, and Group.

Faburn DeFrantz had laid his best cards on the table and the message was clear: Take Bill Garrett or we will do everything we can to embarrass Herman Wells and Indiana University over segregation in basketball.

The president needed to buy time. He fell back on his often-used tactic of feigning ignorance and surprise, "Chief, I don't know of any formal barrier to a Negro's playing basketball here. I'm surprised to hear that. I can tell you without hesitation that Bill Garrett can come here as a student if he has the grades. But I can't order Coach McCracken to play somebody. Only the coach can decide who's good enough."

Defrantz saw his opening. "So...Herman...if Bill Garrett comes to IU, and he's good enough to play basketball on McCracken's team, he can play here. Is that what you're telling me?"

***

McCracken's face reddened. Despite Wells's heads-up, he had expected blunt confrontation. He was caught off guard. The president had said he would back McCracken completely if the coach decided Garrett could make his team. Wells had, in a stroke, taken away McCracken's defenses and given him support.

In the silence DeFrantz and his colleagues waited, avoided any hint of impatience.

McCracken started slowly. He wasn't sure how to address DeFrantz, so he avoided using his name. "I never promised any boy he could play."

No answer.

"We've used up our basketball scholarships for this year. And it's awfully late."

Still silence. Sympathetic nods.

"But if he's here on campus...

"And making his grades...

"And he shows he can take the training and the discipline...

"And get along with the other players...

"And not react if the fans give him hell, which they might do..."

Long pause. DeFrantz kept his eyes on McCracken's, his expression encouraging, nodding slightly at each statement.

"And if he shows he can play well enough..."

Defrantz bolted out of his seat, grabbed McCracken's hand in both of his hands and pumped it vigorously. He knew victory when he heard it. "God bless you, Coach McCracken! You are doing the right thing! That's wonderful! They're gonna remember you for this, Coach!"

McCracken managed a weak smile. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Photo: Shoreditch mural (4).

UNION

Listen to UNION by Bessie Jones and Group B.

George W. McLaurin had long before earned his master's degree and in 1948 applied to the graduate school of the University of Oklahoma to earn his doctorate in education.

But there was a catch, as McLaurin discovered soon after returning to the state court in November to demand and win immediate admission to the state university. He became a fully matriculated graduate student of the University of Oklahoma, all right, but in accordance with the legislature's hurry-up revision of the state laws, all such instruction of colored students was to be done "on a segregated basis" within the university. And so sixty-eight-year-old
George McLaurin was made to sit at a desk by himself in an anteroom outside the regular classrooms where his coursework was given.

***

Before McLaurin was heard by the Justices in April 1950, Oklahoma modified the ordeal it had imposed on its least-likely-to-succeed student. McLaurin was now admitted to the classroom with white students. But his seat was surrounded by a railing marked "Reserved for Colored." Nauseated by the spectacle, white students tore the sign down until officials settled for assigning McLaurin to an unmarked row set aside for him and any other colored student who might enroll in quest of similar humiliation. They also let McLaurin onto the main floor of the library, but restricted him to his own table. And they let him eat in the cafeteria at the same time as whites, but still at his own place, which became endearingly known to McLaurin and his sympathizers as "The Jug." Such restrictions, Oklahoma contended in its brief to the Court, were merely nominal. They were necessary if the university was to conform to the state's separate-but-equal laws.

Photo: Shoreditch mural (3).

YONDER COME DAY

Listen to YONDER COME DAY by Bessie Smith.

Public education, a new but increasingly popular government function, was the most critical target of the racial attack.

Whites had chafed at the notion of black education as long as Africans had been imported to the United States. Instruction of slaves was illegal in the antebellum South. After emancipation, government-collected property taxes were used to open new schools for all children. Whites gawked at the schools opened for blacks during Reconstruction--even the crude one-teacher variants that predominated in the region. Per pupil spending on education for black children and white children was essentially identical, leading to widespread resentment among whites--especially in the cotton plantation regions where whites owned the vast majority of land and paid nearly all of the taxes, but were enormously outnumbered by African Americans in population. That "white taxes" were spent on education of black children, rather than solely their own, was infuriating.

***

As the popularity of state-funded free public schools surged, the friction caused by black education grew. The number of white children attending public schools in Alabama raced from 91,202 to 159,671 between the 1870s and late 1880s. At the same time, the number of black pupils increased from 54,595 to 98,919. But the amount of funding spent for every student was declining, and attempts to raise taxes were doomed.

In the legislative session of 1892, white leaders simply changed the law so that school taxes were no longer distributed in equal per pupil allotments. ... The effect on blacks was catastrophic. Overnight, white schools came to receive the vast majority of all funds for education. In one predominantly African American county, the total budget for black teachers' salaries in 1891 was $6,545--in approximate parity with what was being spent per student at white schools in the county. After turning over control to local officials, black teacher salaries were slashed. ... Forty years later, the total salaries for teachers instructing 8,483 black children in the county had risen negligibly to just over $8,000. The budget for white teachers, with fewer than 2,000 pupils, had climbed by a factor of 30, to nearly $60,000.

Photo: Shoreditch mural (2).

THE TITANIC

Listen to THE TITANIC by Bessie Jones, the Sea Island Singers, and Hobart Smith.

With the fall of Savannah, and the alarming news in the late spring of 1779 that Sir Henry Clinton would be sailing south with an army of eight thousand men, the argument about arming blacks suddenly became less philosophical and more strategic. . . .[The] planters in the South Carolina low country were in a bind. The state was having trouble filling its militia ranks precisely because adult whites were needed on the plantations to guard against the likelihood of slave insurrections and mass flight. . . .Even so, with a number of his own slaves gone to the British or taken by them, Washington was worried about the possibility of an escalating armed-slave race, each side outbidding the other.

Yet on the 29th of March Congress authorized the raising of 3,000 able-bodied blacks in Georgia and South Carolina, to be commanded by white officers. . . .This would have been a revolution indeed, and at a stroke would have disposed of British accusations of hypocrisy. But it was precisely because . . . "such a measure will produce the Emancipation of a number of those wretches and lay a foundation for the Abolition of slavery" a huge loophole was included. In view of the "inconveniences" that the measure would cause the two Southern states, they would reserve the ultimate power to judge its practicality. The bitter conflict between North and South that would poison the new republic was there from the very start.

The outcome was predictable. When the black regiment was debated in the South Carolina House of Representatives at the end of August 1779 it managed to secure just twelve votes out of about seventy-two, even with the British virtually at the gates. "It was received with horror by the planters."

[By spring 1780, black pilots found British frigates a way over the sandbank guarding Charleston harbor.]

Governor Rutledge . . . made an offer of South Carolina's neutrality for the duration of the war in return for the preservation of the social order, meaning slaveholding society. In May the American garrison surrendered, delivering to the British more than five thousand prisoners.

Photo: Shoreditch mural (1).

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE (BUT YOU'LL LOSE TO TOTTENHAM)

Listen to YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE by Thomas Lang.

I'm playing a weak hand here, considering how tits up our season is going at the same time. But, duty calls, and not even we could manage to lose to Tottenham this week. So, let's have some more hilarity about Liverpool being legitimate title contenders, please!