Ted profile picture

Ted

What about Magna Carta...Did she die in vain? Tony Hancock

About Me

The singer and writer of the songs with The Music Lovers.
Stylish hermit. OT (with developmentally disabled adults). I don't eat fast food. I don't wear Gap, ON. A&F or BR, dakshiki's or kilts. I don't own an i-pod. I now wear sunglasses. I have both inferiority and superiority complexes. I'm a bloody good dancer. I am very bad at math. I have a terrible habit of deliberately aggravating those who bore me. I loathe wilful amateurs. The very notion of Burning Man flings me into apoplexy. I am stubborn and wilful, but when I love, I love utterly, be it a friend, a cat, a song, a lover. I have a masterplan... honestly.

My Interests

Music, Womankind, Singing, Clothes, BCFC, Cats, Balti's, Sunshine, Love, Boxing, Mexico, laughing, Greece, Clothes, Cinema, Grape Nuts, Military History esp Napoleonic Wars, Dexy's, Dancing, Chimay, walking long distances in the city/hiking in the country, clothes, Mongolian Beef, friends, guitars, sleeping, Pre-Christian England, 'diamond geezers,' uh, clothes!

I'd like to meet:

Ron Mael, Little Edie, Elizabeth Taylor, Terence Stamp (again), Valerie Harper, Mary-Louise Parker (" "), Dirk Bogarde, Judy Garland, Genevieve Bujold (circa 1972), myself in the dark.

Music:

The Music Lovers, Laura Nyro, The Fall, Sparks, Tim Hardin , Disco, Judee Sill, New York Dolls, Roxy Music, Slapp Happy, Girl Groups, Judy Garland, David Bowie (doh!), Shannon Miller, The Lilac Time (1st record),Richard Hell & the Voidoids, The Minks, TSOP, Swell Maps, Richard Buckner, Marvin Gaye, Cult Figures, Dusty Springfield, X Ray Spex, The Congos, T Rex, Love, Drive-By-Truckers, Rocksteady, The Sonics, Serge Gainsbourg, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Mary Margaret O'Hara, The Nervous Kind, Orange Juice, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Poppy and the Jezebels, The Heptones, Baby Bird, Kevin Ayers, Lee Perry productions, Nick Drake, The Only Ones, John Cale, The Slits, Free, Fairport Convention, The Shins, Rockabilly, John Martyn, Thin Lizzy, Leonard Cohen, The Kinks, Showtunes and Musicals, Mink DeVille, Scott Walker, The Associates...

Movies:

The Mother and the Whore, Lancelot Du Lac, Long Goodbye (Altman version), King of Marvin Gardens, Cutters Way, Tokyo Story, Mikey and Nicky, The Lacemaker, Withnail and I, The Fallen Idol, The Soft Skin, Purple Noon, Wytchfinder General, Bitter Victory, Rushmore, Love is the Devil, Claire's Knee, I know where I'm going, Bubble Boy, Performance, John Casavettes, especially 'Husbands.'

Television:

Don't own a telly, but - RHODA, Match of the Day, Fawlty Towers, The Double Deckers, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, Dog-Shows, Tommy Cooper, Football, boxing... WEEDS and The Wire on DVD.

Books:

David Goodis, Charles Willeford, Andre Gide, Jean Genet, Vera Brittain, Primo Levi, Nick Tosches, Evelyn Waugh, Wyndham Lewis, BS Johnson, George Orwell, David Howarth, Stevie Smith, TS Eliot. Peter Ackroyd, Military History, NME 1970-80 - Nick Kent, CSM, Bangs, Mick Farren etc.

Heroes:

The 19 year-old Laura Nyro, Kevin Rowland, Russell and Ron, John Cassavetes, David Bowie, Stevie Smith, Charles Dickens, B S Johnson, Margaret and Leslie, Anthony Wedgewood Benn.

My Blog

Cafe Van Kleef: Hope

Last night The Music Lovers played three sets at the Cafe Van Kleef in Oakland. It's longest set I've played in a good 7 years. 29 songs, extemporising, dancing; essentially just putting a lot of stro...
Posted by Ted on Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:07:00 PST

Maine

I just went out to Brunswick Maine and played a show with my dear friend Paul (founding member of The 'Lovers) and a lovely chap called Dan on bass. The festival was a benefit for Tucker Stilley - a f...
Posted by Ted on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:08:00 PST

The Secret Small Heath: Coming soon...

The full unexpurgated story of wayward teenagers brought up in the greatest neighborhood on earth, circa 1975. Hookers, communes, blues and Blues, 6 button waist-bands, 'sex' and barathea blazers.Soon...
Posted by Ted on Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:02:00 PST

Getting it and getting it wrong

I love Big Star but I dislike most of the bands that present a watered-down approximation of their sound while ignoring the spirit, the soul. Big Star are one of the great soul bands of all time. I be...
Posted by Ted on Sat, 24 Feb 2007 11:08:00 PST

Townes and Tim et al. Death and Destiny

Townes Van Zant and Tim Hardin.The former is eulogised, feted, mythologised... The latter regarded as a footnote.Townes: a trustafarian drunk who squeezed out 3 or 4 decent songs out over inumerable r...
Posted by Ted on Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:04:00 PST

No 'heroes,' but perhaps one...

Kevin Rowland from Dexy's Midnight Runners.I saw Kevin as a adolescent at Barbarellas in Birmingham at a 'Punk Rock All-dayer' - He played in a 'punk' band The Killjoys - they had this great song call...
Posted by Ted on Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:50:00 PST

I hate Beck

Yes, I hate Beck. I hate his phony-ass soul-less white-boy art-funk, his cryptic faux-folk, and his blank Scientology stare. Who the hell buys these god-awful records? It's like the Emperors new cloth...
Posted by Ted on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:31:00 PST

Draft 2 - It was a pretty good year.

2007 - I am no nearer 'knowing who I am' and I couldn't care bloody less. Anyway, without further ado -Some Good Things about 20061. Welcoming Ping Chu into The Music Lovers2. Visiting Cinemateque Fra...
Posted by Ted on Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:42:00 PST

Please buy this record now...

The Rhino Girl-Groups Box Set.The best present I have ever received... You need no work of philosophy, no self-improvement works, no LRon. All human life and experience can be found on this record: In...
Posted by Ted on Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:11:00 PST

Zach Braff and the Death of America

Is Zach Braff the Antoine Doinel of the Starbucks generation? Cod-prefundity from a man with eyes of utter unconcern... An 'everyman' of 'outsiders' - a shit cypher. Everything that's wrong right now ...
Posted by Ted on Fri, 27 Oct 2006 01:05:00 PST