EXHIBIT F, THE REPORTER SAID.....

I got a whole bundle of books for Xmas, mostly about music or football, and its going to take me months to get through them all.

One of them is Storage Stories, which was published in May 2010. Here's what it says on the back of the book:-

Where do old pop stars go to die? They go to work in self-storage, where they meet interesting people and make new friends. Friends who look like French movie star Juliette Binoche and others who look like weirdly bearded paedophiles and perform horrific surgery procedures on themselves.

They meet interesting people like Michael Stipe - not the rock singer from Athens Georgia, just a coincidence - and other assorted bubblewrap fetishists, wooden statues that come to life at night to play arcade games and a homicidal computer named HAL.

Storage Stories reads like the autobiography of a man discovering what it's like to be famous and yet no longer successful. A man who finds true friendship and love in the dusty world of a failing self-storage company. A man who is ether a fantastic storyteller or a big fat liar and certainly a not a very good artist. It is a darkly comic fictional autobiographical novel and collection of short stories told in words and pictures. Full of Juliette Binoche look-alikes, self-surgery enthusiasts and bubblewrap fetishists. It will make you laugh and cry and if nothing else finally solves the mystery of what happened to all those missing boybands.

And it's writen by Jim-Bob, formerly one half of 80s/90s indie legends Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Cant wait to start it.....

Carter USM were a duo I adored. Saw them umpteen times and they never let me down. Sure they were a bit of a one-trick pony, but it was a particularly energetic, entertaining and thought-provoking pony. Not too many bands have taken chilling tales of violence and abuse into the higher echelons of the pop charts:-

mp3 : Carter USM - After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)

Exhibit F, the reporters said
loved you to death after the watershed
Between the Open University and closedown
you were dead

He'd warmed your cockles with his magic tricks
glasses, bottles, bottles, filter tips
John Player Special
Number 666

Exhibit G from the family firm
his bride to be taking twisted turns
To give you French kisses
and Chinese burns

You see, she'd had a skinful and she couldn't stop
like a pitbull in a china shop
And all the King's social workers, the ghurkas and the cops
somehow
couldn't love you back to life again now

A black eye for a black eye, a chipped tooth for a chipped tooth
a fraction of a half life some housework and some home truths
And nothing but the home truth

And it's goodbye Ruby Tuesday
Come home you silly cow
We've baked a cake and your friends are waiting
and David Icke says he'd like to show us how
to love you back to life again now

A #11 hit in October 1991, this was the duo's second biggest selling single. It was one that earned them no money though, thanks to the antics of lawyers associated with the Rolling Stones who objected to the lifting of a couple of lines from Ruby Tuesday.

Most Carter USM singles had excellent b-sides as well as an obligatory cover, which was sometimes inspiring and sometimes dull as dishwater. This single was no different except the cover fell somewhere inbetween as being neither inspring nor dull.....:-

mp3 : Carter USM - The 90s Revival
mp3 : Carter USM - A Nation Of Shoplifters
mp3 : Carter USM - This Is How It Feels

Here's the promo:-



Happy Listening