The slightly prententious title to this week’s piece is not me trying to come across all earnest – it’s actually a lyric from the Arctic Monkeys song Anyways (which you can listen to below).
I’ll be honest, I have been finding things a bit difficult recently. My anxiety remains, thankfully, at arm’s length but it is its ugly brother depression that’s been gathering in a cloud over me.
That voice inside my head has been getting louder. ‘You’re useless’. ‘No one likes you’. ‘God, you’re such a loner’. I’ve been trying to use the techniques I was taught during my CBT sessions to shut that voice out, but it’s been difficult. Things came to a head on Sunday when work felt like an almost impossible task. I wasn’t fit for human consumption. I hid myself away in the kiosk. On the positive side, with some help, I got through it and was much better on Monday and Tuesday. But it can be jarring to think that the darkness can encroach at any moment. You’re never safe from it.
So much for Project Happy, eh? Well, anyway, that can wait for now. The best thing I can do is look after myself right now and tackle it again when I’m feeling brighter.
A book I recommend: I don’t read a lot of fiction but recently I’ve been engrossed in Danny Wallace’s 2012 novel Charlotte Street. I found it in a charity shop. The protagonist, Jason, sees a girl drop what she was carrying onto the pavement while she’s getting into a taxi and stops to help pick her things up. They exchange a lingering smile, then the taxi drives away. But Jason doesn’t notice that he’s still holding something of hers – a disposable camera. And from there an obsession begins!
A song I’m into: Stockport indie band Blossoms released their new single this week, a collaboration with Jungle called ‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?’ – the video for it features Everton manager Sean Dyche. Yep. I’ve been playing it on repeat since it came out and constantly have the chorus stuck in my head. Listen below!
If you’ve made it this far, thanks very much for reading and I’ll see you again soon.
I was there when Arctic Monkeys – more than a band to me – played on my football team’s pitch. Two of my worlds, two very different worlds, colliding. I’ve been to Carrow Road hundreds of times. I have had my season ticket at Norwich for fifteen years. But instead of watching the Canaries, to see Alex Turner, Matt Helders, Jamie Cook and Nick O’Malley perform in front of the Barclay, was a surreal experience and a dream come true.
Those guys aren’t just the producers of some great rock and roll songs for me. They changed my life. There I was in 2014, lost, my dad had just passed away. Discovering the Arctics, albeit I was late to the party, gave me a new obsession to lose myself in. Those songs brought me out of my shell and made me more confident. They changed the way I dressed, the way I had my hair cut. Watching their live shows on YouTube, the band became heroes to me because they were everything I wasn’t – successful, comfortable in their own skins, incredibly talented and able to make everything seem so effortless. I wanted to be like Alex Turner.
I saw Arctic Monkeys in the flesh for the first time five years ago, at Sheffield Arena. They were touring their 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino and I stood in awe as they put on a show for their hometown crowd. It was everything I hoped it would be – loud, stylish and immaculately delivered. Of course, I had always wished that they would come to my hometown but felt it unlikely. Norwich doesn’t have much in the way of large venues for gigs. The Arctics have played at The LCR at the UEA, but that was way back in February 2006. I was 13 at the time and too much of a terrible square to be aware of them. In the years since, they have gone on to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and it seemed they had simply outgrown little old Norwich.
Imagine my delight, then, when last September I was alerted to the news that the UK leg of the tour for the new album The Car wouldn’t be at indoor arenas in the autumn, as I had expected, but at stadiums in the summer – and Carrow Road was one of them!
Of course, I simply had to be there, and it was a tense morning when the tickets went on sale. I was in bed with four devices ready to go. I knew this gig would sell out fast. But I managed it.
Cut to yesterday morning. I woke up, home alone in Dereham as my mum and step-dad are away on holiday, with a mixture of nerves and excitement. Excitement, of course, because I was going to see my favourite band in the flesh! But also nerves because – what if something went wrong? What if I didn’t get there on time? What if I missed the biggest night of my year? A month or so ago, these thoughts would have triggered full-on trembling anxiety in me, but now I’m on medication to manage my mental health and I believe that is what helped me to remain on the right side of rational.
Arctic Monkeys played in Norwich for the first time since 2006
Last summer, when I went to The Killers gig at Carrow Road – the success of which I think partly convinced the Arctics that Norwich would work for them – I had parked my car on the roof of the Rose Lane multi-storey. It was a good location close to the ground, but I feared I would be there all night, such were the queues of traffic trying to get out at the end. I wanted to get there and back in a less stressful manner this time. I noticed a Facebook post by Konectbus, advertising the extra services they were putting on between Thickthorn Park & Ride and Norwich Bus Station especially for the gig. I decided that this was the way to go. Thickthorn was the right side of the city for me to get there and back easily, and the bus would be cheaper and less hampered by traffic as it could obviously use the bus lane on Newmarket Road.
Ever cautious, in the knowledge that the first support act would be on at 6.40pm, I left the house at 3pm. I mean, there are probably people coming from Mexico who put less planning into their trip. Everything went very smoothly, and I was in the city and walking towards Carrow Road by 4pm. I thought about killing some time by popping in to see my old workmates at Queens Road, but didn’t. Instead, I headed straight for the ground and the fan village, where there were a plethora of food and drinks stalls as well as merchandise stalls. I would have liked a t-shirt, a memento of the evening, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay £35 for one. They must have made a fortune, though, as I saw so many people wearing them. They did look stylish, it has to be said, but I just couldn’t pay that amount.
Over the course of the evening, it did strike me that I wished I had someone to share the experience with. All around me, there were couples, groups of mates – and I was alone. But, as Mark Corrigan once said in an episode of Peep Show, ‘you’re never alone with a phone’ so I spent quite a lot of time staring at mine, so other people didn’t pity me.
The doors opened just after 5pm and I went straight inside. On being pointed towards my seat, my heart sank – I couldn’t see the stage! My sheer desire just to be there had meant back in September I’d taken the first ticket offered to me on the website. I didn’t consider the possibility that my view of the stage would be impeded.
My original and less than ideal view of the stage
I kept telling myself, ‘alright, this isn’t ideal, but at least you’re here. You can see the screens, and you’ll be in amongst the atmosphere’. I had made my peace with the situation when a steward approached me, with the words ‘senior supervisor’ on the back of his hi-vis jacket. He said, ‘you can’t see anything there, follow me’. He took me up the stairs right to the back of the South Stand, through a door into what appeared to be a staff area of Carrow Road, into another concourse and up some more stairs where it turned out I was in the tier above and to the left of where I was originally. He pointed me to a seat and handed me a ticket. Clearly, these were the few tickets that had not been sold, and thus the seats would be empty. When I realised the view I would have, straight on with a great view of the stage as well as the screens, I was incredibly grateful to this kindly steward.
My view once I had been moved by a kindly steward
I have never minded sitting and waiting for a gig to begin. There’s something about watching the place fill up, the roadies setting up the stage, the atmosphere building and the anticipation rising that I enjoy. Eventually, 6.40pm came and with it The Mysterines, the first support act. I always feel when going to a gig that it’s important to support the support, as often they are up-and-coming artists being given a bit of exposure by the more illustrious headline act. Sometimes, you can find some new music to explore in a support act – when I went to see Blossoms at the LCR in the winter, they were supported by an excellent young singer called Brooke Combe.
The Mysterines come from Liverpool and the Wirral, released their debut album just last year and are fronted by the energetic and charismatic Lia Metcalfe. They delivered a short but strong set and are definitely ones to watch. A female-led alternative rock band is always worth a listen. If Arctic Monkeys like them enough to ask them to tour with them, they must be good.
Lia Metcalfe and The Mysterines get the evening underway
The best way I can describe the weather last night: bloody freezing. The warm and sunny weather the rest of the country has been enjoying doesn’t seem to have reached the east yet, so the temperature dropped as the blanket of white cloud that had been in situ for several days remained draped over the stadium. Between the two support acts, I found myself actually shivering, so felt I had to abandon my frugal nature and went and bought a coffee and a hot sausage roll. They did the job and warmed me up enough to see me through the rest of the evening.
The Hives seemed a slightly unusual choice of support act for the Arctics. Far from being an up-and-coming group, The Hives – who hail from Sweden – released their first album in 1997 and have sold more than 750,000 records. I was aware of their biggest hits, such as Hate To Say I Told You So and Tick Tick Boom, but their music had always been a bit loud for me.
The Hives rock Carrow Road
On stage at Carrow Road, however, it became clear that The Hives are a phenomenal live act. The lead singer, Pelle Almqvist, is an incredible performer and interacted with the crowd like nothing I’d ever seen before. This particular exchange really made me laugh:
Almqvist: Do you love the Arctic Monkeys!? Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH! Almqvist: Do you want to hear a song by the Arctic Monkeys!? Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH! Almqvist: That’s cool. Here’s another one by The Hives.
Brilliant.
The crowd were well and truly warmed up by the time The Hives had finished, expressing their gratitude to the Arctics for taking them with them.
At last, as day turned to night, it was time for the main event. The sound of Barry White’s I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More Babe gave way to the entrance of Arctic Monkeys. Huge cheers greeted the first sight of Sheffield’s finest.
There’s a slightly annoying discourse around the Arctics these days. There are fans from when they first started out, as an indie rock band playing songs about nights out, and fans who know them because of the 2013 behemoth AM, who haven’t seemed able to get their heads around the band’s evolution in sound. There is some snottiness towards their newer stuff, but I love it all – and last year’s The Car contains some of their best work. Big Ideas, in particular, is an absolutely beautiful song. The fact is, the Arctics would have faded away long ago if they had still been thrashing around on guitars like spotty teenagers. It’s because of their exploration of new genres, use of new instruments, and desire to be different that has maintained their position as one of Britain’s most relevant and vital bands.
The band’s set took in six of their seven studio albums
So the question was – what balance would they strike between the old and the new? Well, they kicked off with the first track from their very first album, The View From The Afternoon. Then it was guaranteed crowd-pleaser Brianstorm, AM track Snap Out Of It, Crying Lightning from 2009’s Humbug, another one from Favourite Worst Nightmare in Teddy Picker, then my favourite Arctics song Cornerstone. Six songs in, four albums picked from, but none from the most recent couple.
The Bowie-esque Four Out Of Five, reworked for this tour, marked the first appearance of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino before an extended intro to AM favourite Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? The brooding Arabella was then followed by the first track from The Car, Sculptures Of Anything Goes. The dark arm-waver Pretty Visitors brought another one from Humbug to the show before they played the original version of 2007’s Fluorescent Adolescent. I can’t remember the last time they played that in its original form – in Sheffield in 2018, Turner only played half of it on the piano – but it was very well received by the crowd. The gorgeous closer to The Car, Perfect Sense, was next before the thunderous Do I Wanna Know?, surely a candidate for one of the great live songs.
When the tour began in Bristol last week, the Arctics surprised us all by opening with the original version of Mardy Bum from their first album. In recent years, it’s a song they have hardly played live at all, and at Glastonbury in 2013 they played an acoustic version backed by an orchestra. Many of us probably thought we’d never hear the guitar version again, but here it was, to the delight of everyone in the ground. There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, the opening track to The Car, was followed by fan favourite 505 and then another one from The Car, Body Paint, was given an extended, full on rock outro to see the band off the stage.
Arctic Monkeys said ‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’ and there it was
There was only a brief interlude before they returned for an encore, comprising the John Cooper Clarke inspired I Wanna Be Yours, the Arctics’ biggest song of all I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, and the last song of the night R U Mine?
A huge ovation, and they were gone. My favourite band had smashed it. They came, they saw and they conquered Carrow Road. Just as they had in 2018, Joe Cocker’s version of With a Little Help From My Friends accompanied the crowd filing out of the stadium. I made my way back to the bus station, where Konectbus had put on extra buses to ferry people back to Thickthorn Park & Ride. I had a seat on the bus, which wasn’t crowded at all, it didn’t get stuck in traffic and I had a smooth journey back to Dereham in the car, home by 11.30pm.
How did it compare to the 2018 gig I went to in Sheffield? Well, not only has the shaved head Alex Turner was sporting back then been replaced by an unkempt mass of hair, the fact that it was an outdoor event rather than indoors in an arena made the lighting really stand out. Looking to my left, I could see the majestic Norwich cathedral lit up in the night’s sky. The band also seem to have gone a bit further back to their roots – they had previously considered their old songs difficult to play any more, claiming it was as if they were doing karaoke of them. In 2018 it seemed very unlikely that we’d hear the original versions of Fluorescent Adolescent and Mardy Bum again.
Arctic Monkeys will now go home to Sheffield, where they will play two big homecoming shows at Hillsborough Park. The tour will then take in Swansea, Southampton, three nights at the Emirates Stadium in London, Malahide Castle in Dublin and then Glasgow on 25th June. On Friday 23rd,in between the Ireland and Scotland dates, the band will headline Glastonbury for the third time.
Those are all huge shows, but the fact remains that the Arctics came to Norwich. It might never happen again, but those that were there will never forget it. I know I won’t.
Videos
The crowd hold lights in the air as Arctic Monkeys perform Perfect Sense
The band performed a reworked version of Four Out Of Five
The Hives did a superb job of getting the crowd going
In the game of cricket, a century is a significant milestone. Compiling one hundred runs with the bat is very difficult to do and the greats of the game are measured against each other by how many centuries they made. Sadly, despite it being my favourite sport, I have never been good enough at it to get anywhere near 50, let alone 100.
I have made a century of a different kind, though. This post, the one you’re currently reading, is the 100th I’ve made on my blog! When I started it I was 17 and coming towards the end of sixth form, which feels a very long time ago now. Often several months have passed between entries, but it has always been there as a place to write when I’ve wanted to get something out there. The vast majority of them have been almost entirely ignored, which is par for the course, but a few have unexpectedly gained traction.
To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back over the previous 99 posts and pick out a few that mean a lot to me. Yes, I know it is self-indulgent, but my name is literally at the top. I’m not forcing you to be here!
The post that started this blog off was a piece of football writing. This was five years before I began writing a regular column for the Eastern Daily Press but it has always been sports journalism that has interested me. Published on 15th March 2010, it strikes me that the style of my writing has not actually changed that much. I think it has just developed to be a bit looser – that first post comes across as a tad uptight (not unlike me really!) and while I appear to be quite happy to express my opinion on the injury David Beckham had suffered playing for AC Milan, putting not only his participation in the 2010 World Cup but also his entire England career at risk, I get the feeling I’m trying too hard to sound like I write for The Guardian. I’ve definitely developed my writing so I can adapt to whatever publication I’m writing for.
A couple of things about this piece: Beckham never played for England again. My choice to replace him, James Milner, did indeed go to the World Cup that year but (spoiler alert) it did not go well for England and they were knocked out by Germany in the Last 16 – that match that contained Frank Lampard’s ghost goal, hastening the introduction of goalline technology. I also note that my radio station of choice back in 2010 was BBC Radio Norfolk. Not long after this I discovered Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and my life changed. Why, oh why, did I not get into that sort of thing sooner!?
I have written about it in various places before, but my dad died in 2014. Six years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 69. On 22nd May 2015, I wrote this piece about wearing my dad’s old Norwich City shirt to the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Dad was a lifelong Norwich fan and when my mum and dad split up the main thing we did together was go to Carrow Road with our season tickets. To this day I sit in the same seat, but I sit alone, with my dad’s to my left now taken by somebody else. In May 2015, Norwich had made it to the play-off final, having beaten arch rivals I***ich Town in the semi-finals, and were one game away from promotion to the Premier League. 40,000 Norwich fans made to the trip to London for the occasion, me included. I thought it would be fitting to wear dad’s shirt in his honour on the day.
My dad in his room in his care home, a Canary from beginning to end.
Having shared the story on social media, it proved popular and gained the attention of a journalist from the EDP, who contacted me to write up the story for the paper. I can’t seem to find the article on their website, but I promise you it happened. Norwich beat Middlesbrough 2-0 and made it to the top flight.
I picked this one because I like the way the writing flows and because I’ve plenty of use of this piece over the seven years since I wrote it. Wes Hoolahan, a diminutive Irishman, was my favourite Norwich City player for most of the decade he spent at the club. Full of skill, he could always make something happen and was there at some really good moments for Norwich. I was inspired to write this after he was the star in a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in the Premier League. He was 33 at the time and I felt I wanted to write about him while he was still around.
Wes Hoolahan
I was able to bring this back out again when Hoolahan announced he was leaving Norwich in 2018. It got a fair number of readers and is a piece I’m pretty pleased with.
Looking back, I was churning out writing pretty well in 2015. I’d had the successes of the dad’s shirt at Wembley story, Hoolahan and I’d also been chosen to write for the EDP’s new Fan Zone page. In October of that year, I went up to Durham to visit my former landlady, who was working there at the time. She set me a photo treasure hunt challenge – she gave me a list of things that I had to find and take photographs of. This was a great way to explore a city I didn’t know very well. As you can see from the post, I completed the task. This was my first real foray into personal blogging, something that I’ve done more of since and it has always proved reasonably popular – much to my surprise, as I’ve always felt I’m incredibly boring!
2015 again and another attempt at personal blogging. The dinosar sculptures in Crystal Palace Park in South London had always fascinated me and I had read loads about them but I had not visited them until December 2015. I spent one of the days I’d got off work to visit them and I blogged about my trip. I have been to see the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs several times since.
A two-parter. In October 2017, I made a solo (’twas ever thus) trip to London to watch Norwich City play Arsenal in a League Cup match at the Emirates Stadium. I blogged about the trip, with the first part being all about the football match and the second part being about my walk along a disused railway line the following day. Reading it you can tell I enjoyed myself and it makes me want to do something like this again.
When I’m on social media, I’ve never been able to resist arguing with people when I see them posting overtly racist, sexist or homophobic material. Basically, I will call out the arseholes. People tell me the solution is to ignore it, but I haven’t managed it yet. I just continue calling them out until I need to take a break from social media completely to get my head together.
Bored with seeing women-fearing blokey blokes taking every opportunity to be disparaging about women’s sport, I wrote this piece in 2019. I don’t claim to fight the feminist fight on behalf of women, I’m just a guy that likes sport and I don’t care whether those participating have willies or not. I wrote this so I could link to it when I was arguing with one of these blokey blokes, rather than having to write the same arguments out every time. It feels more relevant than ever now, with the England women’s football team becoming European champions last year.
This was the first time I had written about music and my love for Arctic Monkeys. The band changed my life when I discovered them, far later than everyone else had. They changed my hair style, they changed the clothes I wore, the way I saw music as an art form. I wrote this piece about the album they had released in 2018, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and according to my stats it still gets occasional views from the many Monkeys fans around the world. I enjoyed writing it so much that I have since written about their other six albums: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck It And See (2011), AM (2013) and The Car (2022).
On the face of it, this is just another piece of personal blogging about walking 14 miles – Aylsham to North Walsham and back again – with my friend Katie. But when I read it back, I realised that it was actually about as gushing as I’ve ever been with the written word. It is really about friendship, and how the little gang that had taken me in when I’d been so alone (Katie, Megan and Sarah) had made such a difference to my life. Little did we know that the pandemic was just around the corner and our lives would change so much.
The pandemic was a strange time, wasn’t it? It all happened so quickly, and while it felt like it dragged on, it feels like a lifetime ago now. As supermarket staff, we were actually given letters to show to the police should we be pulled over and asked why we were out and about. Extraordinary stuff. And can anyone remember when Sainsbury’s was only open to NHS staff for an hour every morning, and they would play Captain Tom Moore’s charity version of You’ll Never Walk Alone over the PA system!? Strange times. Anyway, in April 2020 I decided to write about the things I was doing, watching and playing to get myself through lockdown. I think in years to come I’ll be glad I did this – it’ll be a sort of record of that (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime event.
A piece I wrote about an afternoon spent sifting through some of the many comics I keep in a box under my bed. Not much to say about it, but it got a decent number of readers and people seemed to like it.
I don’t think I would have written this piece if I hadn’t done the comics one first. Last March, I went to a shop on the Dereham to Fakenham road called Corners (now defunct) and found this football magazine from 1964. I picked out some interesting things from it, most of which were along the lines of ‘weren’t things different back then?’.
I was full of angst about turning 30. I find it easier to write than I do to speak, so I blogged about it. Basically, I was about to hit that milestone and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I am glad I wrote this. Turns out, being 30 feels very much like being 29, but this did me good. I later chose 30 songs that had been the soundtrack to my 30 years and blogged about that too.
If I was a musician, this one would be described as my biggest hit to date. Last September, I went to London for a couple of days with my mum, her other half and their two friends. The hotel we stayed in was so awful it was actually funny. I have just checked the stats and 213 people have read this so far – that’s a lot, considering I usually get 10 pairs of eyes on something I’ve written if I’m lucky. This encouraged me to document my own life instead of writing about sport the whole time. A rule I stick to is never to construct situations purely for the benefit of the blog – like the way people on TikTok (bah) who go to places only to show off to their followers. I simply go somewhere, enjoy myself, take a few photos and spend a while writing about it when I get home. It seems to work.
Finally, my attempt to get into the festive spirit. This piece about my memories of Christmas as a child seemed to strike a chord with people, who were reminded of cherished moments from the past themselves by reading it. I loved that I was able to do that for them. Some I hadn’t heard from in years got in touch to say they enjoyed it, which was a really lovely way to round off the year.
There we have it then, my picks of the 99 posts I have written for this blog to date. I have pretty much decided that making a living out of writing isn’t going to happen, but I still get enough enjoyment out of it that I will carry it on as a hobby regardless. So, here’s to many more posts on this blog. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.
If you have any thoughts about the posts I’ve shown you here, do feel free to leave a comment under this post or contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
Friday 21st October. A package lands on the doormat. Could it be? The previous day’s postal workers’ strike had put doubt in my mind. It was the right size and shape. All the signs were good. I opened it. YES! It is!
The new Arctic Monkeys album!
Me, excitedly showing off my copy of the new Arctic Monkeys album
Yes, I know I could get it on Spotify or Apple Music, but I always like to own things that are important to me in a physical form if I can. Maybe, as someone born in 1992, I’m part of the last generation that doesn’t automatically go digital with everything. The CD will live in my car, appropriately enough given its title.
This will be my ‘review’ of The Car, the seventh studio album to be released by Arctic Monkeys. Just don’t expect it to be an impartial review. In case you’re not already aware, I LOVE Arctic Monkeys. I mean, look at the photo above! I’m wearing an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt, I’m holding an Arctic Monkeys album and on the wall (my bedroom wall) behind me are framed prints of each of their previous albums and their track listings. It sounds like a cliché, but Arctic Monkeys have been the soundtrack to a large part of my life. The lyrics speak to me. Their songs have helped me through tough times and accompanied me at high points. I’ve been to The Grapes in Sheffield, the pub where they played their first gig, and I have also seen them play live in their home city. I even had my photo taken next to an Arctic Monkeys-themed elephant sculpture (evidence provided below).
With the Arctic Monkeys elephant sculpture, Sheffield city centre, July 2016
The last decade has seen us fans have to wait a long while for new material from our heroes. After the phenomenally successful album AM was released in 2013, there was a near five year wait until its follow-up Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino arrived in 2018. The tour for that album came to an end in the spring of 2019, and the now familiar silence from the Monkeys began. We did get a pandemic treat in the form of a live album, Live At The Royal Albert Hall – a recording of a 2018 concert released in December 2020 with all the proceeds going to charity – but otherwise the band were on hiatus.
In August 2021, reports that Arctic Monkeys had been recording at Butley Priory in Suffolk made the NME. The band had enjoyed the experience of all living and recording together under one roof on their previous album when they used La Frette studios just outside Paris to put their sci-fi inspired masterpiece together, so it was not unexpected to hear that they’d taken over what is essentially a wedding venue for their next record. Butley Priory’s website referred to hearing “the double bass, drums and piano wafting out of the open double doors”, indicating that this album would likely be as light on heavy guitar as their last.
Then, the trail went cold again. In November last year, an announcement was made that Arctic Monkeys would be playing a small number of shows in Europe in August 2022, starting in Istanbul, Turkey. The months passed, that first date came and we still had no new music. Some people were even questioning if the band would actually be performing in Istanbul. YouTube footage confirmed that they definitely did, and served up a selection of hits with no new songs. They continued to do this on subsequent tour dates until 23rd August, when they played I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am for the first time. At last, we had an idea of what the seventh album might sound like.
A day later, the lid was finally lifted. The new album would be called ‘The Car’ and it would be released on 21st October. I pre-ordered my copy on CD immediately. The track listing was also released, with ten songs. Click on the title of one to hear it:
Unlike the last album, which had no singles released from it at all in the build up, we did get to enjoy some of the songs from The Car before 21st October. As 29th August became the 30th, I was eagerly awaiting the release of There’d Better Be A Mirrorball (click here to read something I wrote about it a while ago). Going by the title alone, I was expecting something with a kind of 70s groove, but it is actually a wonderfully concise break up song. Frontman Alex Turner has addressed the end of a relationship before, but in Do Me A Favour from 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare he did it in a far more aggressive way. In Mirrorball, he’s approaching it in a more mature manner. The song actually turned out to be extremely indicative of what the rest of the album would be like – Turner would reveal in interviews that the brooding intro to Mirrorball opened his eyes to the direction this new material was going in, and the theme of a break up or a goodbye runs throughout the album.
I Ain’t Quite Where I Am gets as close to the groove I was expecting from Mirrorball with its guitars, then Sculptures Of Anything Goes is a gorgeous tune that contains these lyrics:
Puncturing your bubble of relatability With your horrible new sound Baby, those mixed messages ain’t what they used to be
Sculptures of Anything Goes
I wonder if that might be aimed at the ‘fans’ of the band who felt isolated by the direction the Monkeys went in with TBH&C. Those complaints have always annoyed me. The first Arctic Monkeys album was released in 2006, when they were still teenagers. The tales of nights out in Sheffield would sound ridiculous now they are closing in on 40. The band have grown up, and so have their music. I doubt they would have remained relevant for as long as they have had they tried to replicate their first album time after time, and if they had done that they’d look as ridiculous as Green Day.
The Car isn’t an album of songs that you can dance to, but I would argue that it is never its intention. I put it on in my car and I am transported to another world – these songs take me somewhere, away from the stress and anxiety I feel most of the time. While it felt like it took a couple of listens to the previous album to go through a sort of ‘wall of understanding’, the effect of The Car was instant – by the end of my first play-through I was hooked. I’ve listened to little else in the last week and I am nowhere near being remotely bored by any of these songs.
It strikes me that this album contains no filler at all. Usually at least one song will be one you don’t remember too much about and don’t come back to after a while, but The Car is incredibly strong throughout. The closest it gets to filler is Jet Skis On The Moat, but even that contains a catchy chorus with the lines:
Is there somethin’ on your mind Or are you just happy to sit there and watch while the paint job dries?
Jet Skis On The Moat
Body Paint was the second single to be released. Its repeated chant of “still a trace of body paint, on your arms and on your legs and on your face” towards the end is guaranteed to be belted out by crowds for years to come and we’ve just discovered that it sounds bloody amazing live:
The use of strings on this album blows me away. They never feel like they are fighting with the rockier aspects of the tunes, the band has managed to pull off making them sound like they complement each other. The title track, The Car, sounds wonderfully cinematic thanks to its use of strings.
My personal favourite song on the album is the epic Big Ideas. These lines are a fantastic contemplation on the act of songwriting:
I had big ideas, the band were so excited The kind you’d rather not share over the phone But now, the orchestra’s got us all surrounded And I cannot for the life of me remember how they go
Big Ideas
The instrumental at the end is simply beautiful. Arctic Monkeys had actually convened much earlier than the Butley Prior sessions of summer 2021 to attempt to record some new material, pre-pandemic, and everything they did then ended up on the cutting room floor – everything apart from Hello You, the most upbeat tune on the record. We are then introduced to a mysterious character called Mr Schwartz, who we are told is “stayin’ strong for the crew”. Finally, a wondrous way to close an album, Perfect Sense tells us:
If that’s what it takes to say goodnight Then that’s what it takes
Perfect Sense
You’re not inside the world of The Car for long – the album is over and done with in about 35 minutes. But boy, have I loved being inside that world. Yes, I know I’m a massive Monkeys fan and that this would have had to have been a really poor album for me to say anything else but, truly, I think it is a masterpiece. Its overtones of farewells have got some fans wondering whether this is the band signing off after 17 years at the top, but I really hope that isn’t the case. This is a band who have more stories to tell, more avenues to explore. I’m going to see them at Carrow Road, the home of my beloved Norwich City Football Club, in June next year and I couldn’t be more excited.
My favourite band, Arctic Monkeys, released their first new material in more than four years this week.
There’d Better Be A Mirrorball is the first single to be released from their new album, The Car, which is out on 21st October.
The Sheffield band spent some time recording last summer at the 14th century Butley Priory in Suffolk. People there said: “Being serenaded while watering and weeding the garden, listening to the double bass, drums and piano wafting out of the open double doors, was pretty nice.”
I’ve been playing the new song on repeat since it was released, and when I haven’t it has been running through my mind like a particularly voracious earworm. The word I would use to describe it is sumptuous – there are so many layers to enjoy. Alex Turner’s voice sounds better than ever, deep and brooding, with the strings giving it Bond theme vibes. Lyrically, it’s a break up song; I’ve heard it described as “Mardy Bum for grown ups”. Here are my favourite lines:
Arctic Monkeys played their first gig since 2019 in Istanbul, Turkey at the beginning of August and made their way across Europe performing mainly at festivals before headlining Reading + Leeds Festival last weekend. You can see highlights of their set here.
The photos above are just a snapshot of my bedroom, which since being redecorated recently has become something of an Arctic Monkeys shrine. Now you’ve seen those, you’ll hopefully understand that for me the release of new music from them is like Christmas. I already know what will be the soundtrack to my autumn.
I’ll be 30 on 25th August – despite my protestations about not being done with my 20s yet. Anyway, the other night I made a playlist of songs that hold memories for me in my life so far. These are not necessarily favourites (I haven’t listened to Cher for a while, I have to say), but ones that take me back to a particular time and place. I hope you find a song you really like here, and look out for the links that look like this – clicking on them will give some extra information about what I’m banging on about.
SNAP! – Rhythm Is A Dancer
The number one single in the UK on the day I was born, 25th August 1992.
Scatman John – Scatman (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop)
My mum won a hifi system in a radio competition, the kind that would have been way out of our price range, and somehow it ended up in my bedroom. I remember listening to this song on it and being fascinated by it.
Cher – Believe
Brings back memories of being driven around Norwich by my mum with this blasting out very loudly.
Cartoons – Witch Doctor
Hearing it now, this song is completely ridiculous – but I can definitely remember hearing it at home, where we had it on CD. Some people had Abbey Road… I think it sounds a bit like Scatman John in terms of playing around with mouth sounds, so there could be a link there.
Dario G – Carnaval de Paris
Originally released for the 1998 World Cup, though I have no memory of that tournament (2002 was the first one I can recall). This was actually used by Sky Sports as the theme tune to their Premier League coverage in the early 2000s, and that’s where I remember it from.
Heather Small – Proud
We all sang in this in the school hall on our last day at Norman First in July 2000. Corny? Yes. Memorable? Definitely.
U2 – Beautiful Day
You’ll notice a trend of songs I remember from being theme tunes to TV shows. This was what ITV used for their highlights programme The Premiership, when they briefly held the rights away from the BBC’s Match of the Day in the early 2000s.
MIKA – Grace Kelly
A massive hit in 2007, this seemed to be on the radio every morning on the way to school. I was surprised to see MIKA turn up as one of the hosts of this year’s Eurovision – I’d not heard a peep from him for years.
The Killers – Read My Mind
I remember listening to this a lot when I was at sixth form – 2008 to 2010. Seeing The Killers perform it live at Carrow Road in June this year was a special moment.
Arctic Monkeys – Brianstorm
There will be a lot of Arctic Monkeys on this list – after all, they’re my favourite band. The first album of theirs I actually owned on CD was their second, Favourite Worst Nightmare. This song was track one.
Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
Their first single and the Arctic Monkeys song I reckon most people will have heard of.
Alex Turner – Piledriver Waltz
My Arctic Monkeys obsession led to me discovering Submarine, which is my favourite film. Arctics frontman Alex Turner did the soundtrack and this is my favourite song from it.
Arctic Monkeys – Black Treacle
Reminds me of driving backwards and forwards between Norfolk and Essex when I was at university. This is from their 2011 album Suck It and See.
Pulp – Do You Remember The First Time?
I can’t remember the first time I heard this song but it always stops me in my tracks when I hear it. Makes me feel nostalgic and sentimental. It’s between this and Babies for my favourite Pulp song.
Arctic Monkeys – Cornerstone
Probably my favourite of all Arctic Monkeys songs and one that reminds me of an unrequited love.
Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough
Was played a lot at Carrow Road during the years Paul Lambert was manager (2009 to 2012). Some of the happiest and most successful times Norwich City have had in my lifetime.
Grandaddy – A.M. 180
The theme tune to Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, a programme I have seen many, many times over and still go back to now and again.
Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta
The theme tune to Peep Show. I first saw the sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb in a Media Studies lesson at school, oddly enough, but I loved it and have seen every episode more times than is healthy.
Morning Runner – Gone Up In Flames
Another TV theme tune – this one is from The Inbetweeners. The sitcom about four lads and their time at sixth form was broadcast exactly when I was at sixth form myself and, I can tell you, it was very realistic.
The Wombats – Anti-D
I spent a fair bit of time as a uni student being miserable – this song was released around that time and I can remember listening to it in my more self-indulgent moments in the room I rented in a lady’s house a short walk from the college.
Cage The Elephant – Shake Me Down
Another song I can remember hearing a lot during my time at uni.
Underworld – Caliban’s Dream
I watched every minute of the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics and can remember being spellbound by this song. They were a great Olympics and they happened just a month or so after my mum and I moved to a little terraced house in Dereham. Happy times.
Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know?
From the fifth Arctic Monkeys albumAM, released in 2013. An absolute banger – I saw them live in their native Sheffield in 2018 and this sounded amazing.
Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks
For a little while, I taught my friend to drive in the empty Sainsbury’s car park after work on a Sunday. Our musical tastes were very different. This is one of the only songs we both liked so we played it a lot while she was driving around.
Arctic Monkeys – One Point Perspective
Arctic Monkeys finally released a new album in 2018, their first for five years. This masterpiece is my favourite track from it.
Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends
As I mentioned before, I saw Arctic Monkeys live at Sheffield Arena in 2018. This song was played over the speakers just after the gig had finished and the audience were filing out. It reminds me of the complete euphoria of seeing my favourite band in the flesh for the first time.
Talking Heads – Take Me to the River
A more recent memory, I can recall driving around listening to this song, just driving for the hell of it and lost in thought.
Blossoms – Your Girlfriend
I first heard Blossoms in 2016, when their single Charlemagne was played a lot on Radio X. I really got into them when I heard this song for the first time, sitting in my car at work during my lunch break a few years ago. They are now one of my favourite bands and I’ve got tickets to see them live in Norwich this November.
The Rolling Stones – She’s A Rainbow
During the first Covid lockdown, the Wednesday night trip to the pub was replaced by drinks and music in the living room. This song was one of the highlights.
If you’ve got this far, thanks very much! This was just a bit of fun for myself really. If you want to carry these songs around with you, I put them in a Spotify playlist.
There was a lot riding on the fourth studio album from Arctic Monkeys. 2009’s Humbug had seen the band adopt a daring new sound that divided fans, a big departure from the record breaking debut and the follow up that capitalised on its incredible success. The next effort was pivotal – would they blend everything they’d learned into a hit record, or alienate the people that had made them popular in the first place once and for all?
In the gap between the Arctics’ third and fourth albums, frontman Alex Turner wrote and recorded six original songs for the soundtrack to Submarine, a film directed by Richard Ayoade – known as Moss from The I.T. Crowd – who had been behind the videos for Arctic Monkeys songs Fluorescent Adolescent and Cornerstone. I was made aware of it by Turner’s involvement but I loved the style, the story and the performances and it has become my favourite film.
By 2010, Turner was living in New York with his then-girlfriend, the TV presenter and model Alexa Chung. It was there that he wrote most of the twelve songs that would make up the fourth Arctic Monkeys album. In Los Angeles, the band recorded live takes of each track – a different process to Humbug, where they used overdubbing.
As for the title? It could have been The Rain-Shaped Shimmer Trap, inspired by the ‘colourful’ names often given to guitar fuzz pedals. According to drummer Matt Helders, ‘it were genuinely gonna be Thriller for, about… a week’. Eventually, they settled on the title of the album’s eleventh track to label the entire record: Suck It and See was born.
The rather sparse cover of Suck It and See – some American retailers found the title offensive and covered it with a sticker
Released on 6th June 2011, more than 82,000 copies of Suck It and See were sold in its first week, comfortably knocking Lady Gaga off the top of the albums chart and giving the Arctics another number one. The songs are much less dark than those on Humbug, the band returning to a more accessible pop sound – Q magazine described it as ‘the sound of a band drawing back the curtains and letting the sunshine in’. They remained unafraid of trying something new, however.
The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala was the first Arctic Monkeys song I ever heard played over the PA system in a football ground, a sign of how mainstream this album was. Brick by Brick featured Matt Helders on vocals, with Turner only belting out the chorus. Some songs were inspired by such innocuous moments as someone telling Turner in the studio ‘don’t sit down, ’cause I’ve moved your chair’. Piledriver Waltz was written for the Submarine soundtrack and was re-recorded with the full band for the album.
Turner’s insightful lyrics are still very much part of the package. On All My Own Stunts, he sings ‘Been watching cowboy films on gloomy afternoons/Tinting the solitude’, a possible reference to the long days in New York waiting for his girlfriend to come home. The excellent Love Is a Laserquest contains my favourite lyrics on the album:
And do you still think love is a laserquest?
Or do you take it all more seriously?
I've tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I've had
But you're always busy being make-believe
And do you look into the mirror to remind yourself you're there?
Or have somebody's goodnight kisses got that covered?
When I'm not being honest, I pretend that you were just some lover
Matt Helders has a lot to thank Suck It and See for – it was while recording the video for the title track that he met model Breana McDow. The couple had a daughter in 2015 and were married in 2016, though sadly divorced in 2019.
Matt Helders and Breana McDow became a couple after shooting this video together
Suck It and See was another important step for the Arctic Monkeys after Humbug, and paved the way for the huge success of AM that followed.
Many would have been tempted to stick to the formula that had brought such huge success, releasing a rinse-and-repeat third album to please the masses. Not Arctic Monkeys.
After a whirlwind period in which the Sheffield band’s first two albums had been released within fifteen months of each other, there was more of a gap between 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare and its follow up. The front man, Alex Turner, recorded with his side project The Last Shadow Puppets – the resulting album, The Age of the Understatement, also went to number one.
The four members of Arctic Monkeys had first met Josh Homme while playing the support act for his band, American rock outfit Queens of the Stone Age, in Houston. The idea of working together was mooted and in late 2008 they began making music with Homme in his recording studio near Los Angeles. They then continued to work in another studio in the Mojave Desert – about as far away from suburban Sheffield as it is possible to imagine.
Ten tracks, all written by Turner as usual, but this time the lyrics were more abstract and instead of just guitars and drums those lyrics were accompanied by keyboards, xylophones, glockenspiels and shakers.
I won’t go into detail about each song, but here a couple of things I want to say: Fire and the Thud was written about Turner’s then-girlfriend Alexa Chung, and Cornerstone contains my favourite lyrics in the entire Monkeys canon.
Tell me, where’s your hiding place?
I’m worried I’ll forget your face
And I’ve asked everyone
I’m beginning to think I imagined you all along
Cornerstone by Arctic Monkeys
Humbug was released in the UK on 24th August 2009, which was not just the day before my 17th birthday but also five days before Arctic Monkeys headlined Reading Festival with a set that included seven of the new album’s ten tracks. They were almost unrecognisable from the band that had performed on the same stage just three years earlier – the hair was longer, the guitars louder, the mood darker.
Arctic Monkeys headlining Reading Festival in 2009
As such a major departure from their earlier work, it took some fans time to get their heads around Humbug but it was another number one album for the band and is now seen as something of a gateway for them – a record that allowed them to break out of the image of cheeky indie lads and into bona fide rock stars. It paved the way for AM, the album that broke America, and the other-worldly Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
Yes, I’m well aware that I’m biased (I’ve listened to Arctic Monkeys nearly every day for years), but I urge you to give this album a listen.
Yes, I’m writing about Arctic Monkeys again. To go with my pieces on their first, second and sixth albums, I am going to take you track-by-track through the record that cracked America for the four-piece from Sheffield.
One of the things I admire so much about Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Nick O’Malley and Matt Helders is how they have evolved over time. They have never been afraid to go in a completely different direction and, to them, making the same music over and over again is a crime. Listen to their first hit single, 2005’s I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, and One Point Perspective, my favourite track from the 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and you can scarcely believe that the two songs were written and recorded by the same band.
By the time AM was released on 9th September 2013, Arctic Monkeys had transformed from the scruffy indie kids in baggy jeans they were when they started out to rockers with slicked-back hair and leather jackets. The music had gone through a similar process.
In an interview with BBC Radio 1 at the time of release, frontman Alex Turner said:
“…it feels like this record is exactly where we should be right now. So it felt right to just initial it.”
AM was born – with more than a nod to VU, released in 1985 by the Velvet Underground.
The album’s opening track Do I Wanna Know? features what I consider to be one of the great guitar riffs. If you happen to be walking somewhere listening to it through headphones, I promise that you will feel approximately 94% cooler than you really are. The song is about unrequited love, how difficult it is to move on when you’ve been obsessed with someone and ponders whether the narrator really wants to know ‘if this feeling flows both ways’ or not.
Another reason why this band means so much to me is that I really identify with the lyrics. There’s a line in the song – ‘maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new’ – that completely nails how I’ve felt in the past, in a way that I hadn’t been able to figure out for myself up to that point. Do I Wanna Know? was the first Arctic Monkeys song to make the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US and was the opener to every gig the band played when touring the album. If you’re a fan of Peaky Blinders you might recognise it too.
The band wanted to make a record that sounded good in a car and after that strong start they follow it up with R U Mine?, which sounds a bit like an up-tempo version of Do I Wanna Know?. The rapidly delivered lyrics are about missing the object of your desires and having a sincere feeling that every moment spent without them is wasted. The video for the song won the NME award for Best Video:
The award winning video for R U Mine?
One For The Road is the first example on the album of the continuing influence of Josh Homme on Arctic Monkeys. The frontman of Queens of the Stone Age first worked with the Monkeys on their third album Humbug and has been close to them ever since. In this song, you get the sense that Homme – who features on vocals – is moving their sound away from their native Sheffield and towards a kind of Americana. This was not a popular move among some of the fans but, for me, it’s really good if done well – which it is here.
“And when she needs to shelter from reality she takes a dip in my daydreams”
— Lyric from Arabella
Alex Turner would introduce a performance of the fourth track from the album by informing the crowd ‘I want to tell you about a girl called Arabella!’. The lyrics are poetic, full of metaphors and a sign of how Turner’s songwriting has matured from, as he put it, ‘pointing at things and talking about them’ to speaking more from within. The song is essentially all about how awesome the aforementioned Arabella is.
I Want It All and Mad Sounds are as close as this album gets to filler – very listenable songs, both achieve the aim of sounding great in the car – but just not particularly ground breaking. Between those tracks sits No. 1 Party Anthem, the obligatory ‘slow’ number on the album. I’m not sure why, but it feels to me like a bit of a tribute to the band’s debut single I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. It contains some cracking lyrics too, my favourite being ‘It’s not like I’m falling in love, I just want you to do me no good/And you look like you could’. The performance of it at Reading festival in 2014 was a highlight of their set.
No. 1 Party Anthem live at Reading Festival in 2014
Take in Fireside for its tale of how love can be unpredictable, the much-covered Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? for its story of frustration and try to get over that special someone with Snap Out Of It.
Knee Socks is another song featuring the voice of Josh Homme, which might explain why I’ve always found it very similar to One For The Road.
Most people would agree that Arctic Monkeys is a terrible name for a band. The story goes that it was guitarist Jamie Cook who came up with it but they were always looking to change it, until the performance poet John Cooper Clarke was apparently the first person to say he actually liked it. Clarke had always been a hero of Alex Turner’s, which isn’t surprising what with his proficiency with language, and performed at the Sheffield bar Turner was working in one night. Turner plucked up the courage to tell Clarke about the band he was part of and Clarke said ‘that’s a name I can imagine in the hit parade!’. The name has stuck ever since, and one of Clarke’s poems was slightly tweaked to turn it into the closing song on AM.
I Wanna Be Yours, with its quirky lyrics including ‘let me be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust’, seems the perfect way to finish off the record – it’s a love song, but one that’s down to earth and not too mushy. And for a brooding, confident album there seems no better ending.
I have mentioned before that films aren’t really my thing. I’m not quite sure why that is. I struggle to suspend my disbelief for 90+ minutes and therefore find it difficult to feel involved in a film (but then I can do that no problem with a TV series), and while the big explosions and huge fight scenes might entertain a lot of people they tend to bore me. Michael Owen gets a lot of stick for feeling this way, but I’m totally with him.
As a result of this, I have seen a very short list of films so far. I was taken to the cinema as a child, mostly to see Disney animations as I recall, but you could name a huge number of ‘classics’ that I’ve never seen a single second of. I saw Blade Runner for the first time last year – purely because it was set in November 2019 and it was appropriately geeky in my eyes to watch it in November 2019. To be honest, I didn’t really see what the fuss was all about.
My favourite film is one that a lot of people probably haven’t heard of. It was released in 2011, following a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. It’s called Submarine.
Submarine trailer
Submarine is not about submarines. The film is based on a novel by Joe Dunthorne, who wrote most of it while at the University of East Anglia doing a creative writing degree. I read the book after seeing the film and thoroughly enjoyed it – the big screen adaptation stayed remarkably true to the source material, and Dunthorne’s writing style was very readable.
The focus of Submarine is a 15-year-old boy, Oliver Tate, who is something of an outsider. No wonder I can relate to the character. You see, when I was at school there was usually one girl a year that I was completely besotted with. But I never told any of them – I never even tried to speak to them at all. I preferred to admire from afar. Oliver seems to take a similar approach, but plans his attempt to get together with the object of his desires, Jordana Bevan, with military precision.
Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige) and Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) in Submarine
I don’t want to spoil it, I want you to go and watch it, so I won’t go too far into the story but it centres around Oliver and Jordana’s relationship, Oliver’s fears that his mother is having an affair, and Oliver’s reaction to a crisis in Jordana’s family. There are poignant moments but also some very funny ones (‘My mother is worried I have mental problems. I found a book about teenage paranoid delusions during a routine search of my parents’ bedroom.’)
The title is derived from a line in the book, a love letter Oliver sends Jordana, in which he states ‘you are the only person that I would allow to be shrunken down to a microscopic size and swim inside me in a tiny submersible machine’.
Richard Ayoade, who you may know as Moss from The IT Crowd, directed the film and did a fantastic job at rooting it in the book’s 1980s setting. I think it’s the feeling Ayoade creates that seals the deal for me in making this my favourite film.
Richard Ayoade directed the film
So, will you have heard of any of the cast? Well, Oliver is played by Craig Roberts, who first appeared in the kids’ TV show The Story of Tracey Beaker and also turned up in one of the later episodes of Skins. Noah Taylor, who plays Oliver’s father, has been in Game of Thrones and Peaky Blinders, his mother (Sally Hawkins) starred in The Shape of Water, and Jordana’s mother is played by Melanie Walters, best known for playing Stacey’s mum Gwen in Gavin & Stacey.
Submarine often pops up on streaming platforms, though at the time of writing is only available for rental or purchase. Click here for places to get it.
LEE PAYNE 