Tag Archives: Alex

Happy Martyr – One Square Mile | Music Review

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Happy Martyr rapper Alex Lusty is the greatest musician of all time. Move over Cobain, Marshall, Blackwell, Doughman et al. Lusty wrote the greatest lyric of all time in his previous outfit Frigid Vinegar when he sang “you’ll always come 2nd to football and music” on ‘How Cheap is Your Love’. Never has another human being been able to express my ethos in life quite as well as Mr Lusty. Since Frigid Vinegar and that release, back in 1999, Mr Lusty’s been a busy boy releasing music with 7 different bands, including this, a collaboration with Boz Boorer, formerly of The Polecats and now working with former Smiths miserablist Morrissey.

Happy Marty’s sound is an eclectic mix of hip hop, rap, punk and rockabilly that sounds like it should be the soundtrack to This Is England.

 

 

Opening track is classic Lusty, displaying every side of him including his achilles heel of lust and passion. It’s all love and romance and Lusty snarls the lyrics with anger and regret. Delightful. Rusty Nail is in a similar vein, with a beautiful guitar track and Lusty’s spitting lyrics. If you like good, interesting, thought-provoking lyrics then this is for you. The album continues in a similar mould and if there’s one criticism is that it gets a bit formulaic and samey with the songs morphing into one long stream of strummed guitars and rapped poems.

I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed the record though, it’s stunning. It’s just to get some more airtime on my iPod it could do with a bit more variety. The band certainly have it in their sound; ‘It Never Rains But It Pours’ hints at similarities with Mike Skinner, only less dull and more interesting. They also have ‘Old Skool’, the band’s final number. It’s a fun sing-along garage rock number with it’s refrain of “there’s no fool like an old fool and I am strictly old skool”. More variety wouldn’t go amiss but it’s enjoyable. Boorer’s guitar playing is enjoyable and Lusty’s tragi-comedy lyrics keep the listener entertained.

It’s a good album, not great. Hard to live up to things when you’re the greatest ever though. I’ll await the next HM record with excitement, though. “Ladies and gentlemen form an orderly queue – I might just be the right man for you” sings Lusty on ‘This Small Town’. Indeed, you’ll do for me.

Amy Winehouse Was 'Physical Wreck' – Death Leaves A Trail Of Grief And Denials

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Amy Winehouse’s grieving mother has said that the singer was “a physical wreck” the day before she died and that her minders had to help her down the stairs. Janis, who suffers from MS, added that Amy was “completely out of it.”

The singer was apparently having weekly health check-ups and her doctor visited her 24 hours before her death but had ‘no concerns.” Her bodyguard, Andrew Morris, also checked on her in the morning, but when he returned in the afternoon, she had died.

After her funeral on Tuesday, Winehouse’s father gave fans her clothes, leaving one fan wearing a vest the singer owned. It also emerged that she was in the process of adopting a poor, 10-year-old, St Lucian girl.

Since the singer’s death, tributes have flooded in, and her family released a statement saying: “Our family has been left bereft by the loss of Amy, a wonderful daughter, sister, niece. She leaves a gaping hole in our lives. We are coming together to remember her and we would appreciate some privacy and space at this terrible time.”

Amy’s phone was apparently “routinely” hacked by members of the press, as were Winehouse’s parents, brother Alex and ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, according to investigative journalist Charles Lavery.

Talking about the troubled Londoner’s attendance at rehabilitation centres, a source told Lavery: “The press knew where she would be, who would be there, what time, at any given time.

“They were able to be there too, to befriend her and actively encourage her, as if they had arrived by chance. That made better copy and, more importantly, better photos for the snappers both inside and waiting outside.

Ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil said that losing Winehouse has left him “inconsolable”, while Fielder-Civil’s mother hit out at critics who said he was responsible for the singer’s untimely, saying he had nothing to do with it.

Amy joins the ’27 Club’ – a list of famous rock stars who died at the same age  – which also includes Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Brian Jones.