Down By Black Waterside

Listening to a lot of Bert Jansch at the moment, bought two LPs in Selectadisc this morning and am wondering what took me so long to get hold of any of his stuff...

nice clip here of him playing 'Black Waterside', which was ripped off completely by Jimmy Page on the first Zeppelin album, as 'Black Mountainside'.

I think Bert attempted, briefly, to get Zep to cough up some royalties for the liberty of stealing his arrangement, but since the song is traditional, he came out with nothing (that didn't stop Jimmy Page crediting it to himself on Led Zep 1).
In fact Jansch was taught the song by Anne Briggs, who had in turn learned it from someone else, so it all gets a bit confused. It's definitely Bert Jansch's arrangement which features on the Zep album though...and it's not the only example of them pinching tunes and claiming to have written them - they settled out of court with Willie Dixon over 'Whole Lotta Love'.

Your iPod shuffle hates you

Graham's idea, compare the random music thrown at you by iTunes...what are the first ten tracks it wants you to hear? In my experience, they are rarely what I am actually in the mood for, but here goes - Graham's first:

iPod or iTunes on shuffle - what are the first 10 tracks you get? No cheating.

Handel : Sanctus, Mass in C
Richard Thompson: The Wrong Heartbeat
Pink Floyd: The Fletcher Memorial Home
Bob & Marcia : Young Gifted and Black
Amadou & Mariam : M'Bife
Spanish Harlem: Ben E King
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros : X Ray Style
The White Stripes : The Denial Twist
Pixies : Debaser:
Transglobal Underground : Ali Mullah

And here's mine:

CCKMP - Steve Earle - one of my favourite Earle tunes...

Little Fluffy Clouds - The Orb - still sounds fresh to me, not dated

Let it Out - The Hombres - never heard this track before, it's on the Nuggets box set

Pavement Saw - Big Black - easy listening as ever

Gary and Melissa - King Missile - Jim used to have the LP, and no doubt still has

Tulip - John Fahey - skipped, rather dull

Silly Woman - Bert Jansch - more of that psyche folk gubbins

Another Brick In The Wall (part one) - Pink Floyd - the only band on mine and Graham's list!

The King of Bring - Malcolm Middleton - he was very miserable indeed at Green Man

The Busy Girl Buys Beauty - Billy Bragg - good old Mr Bragg

Turn up, tune out, drop off

I have spent the last two weekends sitting in a field in the rain, drinking beer and eating an assortment of fried food.

Let me explain - I have been attending music festivals...specifically, the Summer Sundae in Leicester, and the Green Man in Wales.

Leicester was actually very good, highlights for me were Richard Hawley (attached picture, taken by Jim), Elbow, Isobel Campbell, Brakes, Tuung, and against my expectation, the Proclaimers. Final day headliners were Belle and Sebastian, which initially seemed a bit risky to me, and I expected twee bollocks in bucketloads, but not a bit of it...they were very dancey and lively, and they were a great finale. There some great discoveries on the smaller stages too, especially Hayley Hutchinson and Truckstop Honeymoon.

Green Man is I guess a folk festival, but in the less traditional sense - more 'acoustic' than 'folk'. What does this mean...well, there are less songs about bringing in the sheaves, and more about being buried alive or turned into a hare.

The antecedants of this kind of stuff are people like Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band, and Vashti Bunyan. Current leading lights in this new 'acid folk' scene, if indeed there exists such a thing, are acts like Tuung, Espers, Eighteenth Day of May, Hawk and a Hacksaw. Occasionally, an act who is more trad than psyche (eg Alasdair Roberts) gets lumped in with the acid folk stuff, and it gets confusing...To paraphrase Ady, psychedelic folk is what happens when folk musicians abandon real ale for LSD.



So...we had three days of music in a beautiful setting in the Brecon Beacons, in the pissing rain. To be honest, a lot of the music left me rather cold, if not actually irritated; the headliners were especially uninspiring (Donovan! I mean - Donovan! He was actually far worse than even I expected, truly dismal). There were some definite highlights though, Teddy Thompson (a bit trad for this event, one suspects, but we enjoyed him), Micah P Hinson, Bert Jansch, Alasdair Roberts...and a few others. I would definitely go back, even if the bill was a bit thin the atmosphere was incredibly relaxed and friendly and the food and beer were great. I had a shower at 8am on the Saturday, and being a bit leaky brained I left my fleece hanging up in the changing rooms. Realising this 12 hours later, I went back and it was hanging on the same hook were I left it...it was that kind of festival...

I Was In The House When The House Burned Down

A few tracks which have clocked up on random selection tonight, suiting a late night Saturday last beer in the fridge kind of mood:

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) - Marvin Gaye...by far the best track off What's Going On, in my opinion

Peaches En Regalia - Frank Zappa...unclassifiable instrumental greatness from the man Frank, it was the play out music after Richard Thompson last week, which seemed strangely fitting.

Janet vs Jane and Johnny - The Fall...understated mysterious Smith crooning over repetitive guitar figure which builds menacingly...

Don't Give Me No Lip Child - Dave Berry...now, this is a stone classic, and one of the few tracks to appear on a Mojo cover disc recently which has been worth the price of admission, on a 'roots of the sex pistols' type compilation. Sneering, nasty, mod-ish RnB.

Shuffering and Shmiling pt2 - Fela Kuti..hypnotic repetitive beats from the man Mr Kuti...'I want you all to take your minds out of any musical contraption...' I could listen to this all night.

Up Above My Head - Alabama 3...audacious interpretation of the old Sister Rosetta Tharpe standard, 'you left your virus in my daughter's playstation, but you ain't got your hooks in me' fantastic stuff.

Station Approach - Elbow...this track typifies the slow burn style of Elbow, it builds and builds until it breaks into the kind of heart-bursting epic which Coldplay can only dream of. Ahem, in my view.

Original Blackboard Dub - Lee Perry... 'Calling the meek and the humble,welcome to Blackboard Jungle...'

Monkey Man - Rolling Stones...a highlight of Let It Bleed...often unjustly overlooked, in my opinion...

Bad Boy Boogie - AC/DC...dirty guitars and filthy Bon Scott lyrics

Woe Is Uh Me Bop - Captain Beefheart... still unavailable on CD, from Lick My Decals Off Baby. David Lynch must surely have seen this promo as a young man, before making Eraserhead. It will fuck with your head.

Guilty Pleasures

Q magazine has run a poll of records which we shouldn't like, but can't help adoring. Here's their top 10:

1. ELO - Livin' Thing

2. Boston - More Than A Feeling

3. S Club 7 - Don't Stop Movin'

4. 10cc - I'm Not In Love

5. Gary Glitter - Rock'n'Roll Part 2

6. Foreigner - Cold As Ice

7. Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

8. Status Quo - Whatever You Want

9. Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street

10. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive

This puts me in mind of Ady's confession on Boxing Day last year, after a heavy Christmas Day's indulgence: 'we got up on Boxing Day with no memory of getting home, and there was an ELO record on the turntable'.

To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of any of these records, apart from Boston's 'More Than A Feeling', which is a pub jukebox classic, and always made Ady feel as though he could play pool like Paul Newman - I'm not sure why.

here's a few of my personal guilty pleasures:

Teardrops - Womack and Womack
Stop the Cavalry - Jona Lewie
Saturday Night - Whigfield
Hotel California - The Eagles (I love the Eagles, never been brave enough to buy any of their LPs)
Betty Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Mickey - Toni Basil - one of the greatest pop singles EVER





and doubtless many more which I have supressed from my active memory.