Ice In The Cider

The smell of whiskey burning

2011-11-12T19:12:00.001Z

It's been a busy couple of weeks for live music, Thursday night was Steve Earle at the Irish Centre in Leeds.

It galls me to report that the first time I saw Steve Earle was with Jim in 1987, when we were 19. I still have the ticket. That was before his (that's the artist, not Jim) jailing for heroin / crack / firearms offences, after which - for me - his songwriting really took off and he recorded a sequence of fantastically immediate records which mixed bluegrass, folk, country and psychedelia. In all honesty I have lost track of his recent albums but I was looking forward to seeing him play with a band for the first time since at Cambridge Corn Exchange which must have been about 10 years ago.

The Irish Centre is a terrific venue, intimate and atmospheric, and I was struck by the fact that Elaine and I were clearly younger than most of the audience - I guess the audience has aged with Mr Earle. He has a crack band with him at the moment, including a terrific guitar player called Chris Masterson , as well as his current wife (the uxorious Mr Earle has been married seven times), Alison Moorer.

It's odd - the first half dozen tunes were unfamiliar to me, presumably being drawn from the later albums, but after 30 minutes or so he played 'My Old Friend The Blues', which I found very moving for reasons which escape me right now. It's not a tune which has hitherto made me misty-eyed in any way, but something about it on Thursday made me come over all emotional.

Friday night we scarfed a quick curry after work and beetled off to see Ewan McLennan, at the Grove in Leeds; apparently one of the oldest folk clubs in the country. The Grove is a perfect pub - a bit grubby, but very friendly and with fantastic beer. It has a warm fug of conviviality, and the atmosphere in the back room for the gig was very jovial.

We booked Ewan for the Gate To Southwell Folk Festival three years ago, he was so good we invited him straight back; he's a terrific singer and a very good guitarist, he reminds me of Dick Gaughan. At a time when politically motivated singers and musicians are hard to find, Ewan is combining his own excellent songwriting with a refreshing choice of covers, whilst nailing his political colours to the mast in a way that few of his contemporaries seem to be doing. More power to him.

Reformation, Post TLC

2011-11-06T17:11:00.001Z

Mere days after attending the worst gig of the year at the hands of The Fall, last night we witnessed the same band perform indisputably the best gig of the year, at York Fibbers.

Where Wednesday's incarnation was drunkenly shambolic and horribly off the pace, last night was focused, punchy, and thrilling. It is doubtless infuriating that Mark E Smith can turn himself on and off at the cost of his loyal audience's goodwill and patience, but last night The Fall delivered a breathless set of driving garage rock which gripped from the start.

Having been let down so miserably in Leeds earlier in the week, expectations were admittedly low but it would have counted as a terrific gig whatever the preconceptions. Reformation was a particular standout but there were also ripping versions of Nate, Psykick Dancehall, and Strychnine.

Prog, Strangeness and Charm

2011-11-05T07:57:00.007Z

I've been buying up quite a bit of old vinyl this year, mostly from the splendid market at Tynemouth station, where there are usually a couple of record stalls worthy of a good browse. Cheap too, £3-4 usually for a reasonably well looked after LP. I've picked up copies of albums by Kate Bush, Frank Zappa, Yes, Genesis, Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, Jelly Roll Morton, and best of all Alex Glasgow. Should have perhaps anticipated that, being in the North East. There were a lot of old Lindisfarne and Tygers of Pan Tang albums too, if anyone's interested...

Anyway, it did strike me as ironic that a couple of these LPs were replacements for copies which I had owned and then ditched or sold as a stupid and callow youth. During a gradual period of musical revisionism, I persuaded myself to disown certain records by artists of the Prog Rock genre - which I am now busily reacquiring in Oxfam shops and market stalls across the land. There were a few records I hung onto during this musical Night Of The Long Knives - all my Pink Floyd stuff, a couple of Jethro Tull albums, and the Genesis live album from 1973. Other works by ELP, Marillion, Yes etc were handed over in a shame faced fashion to those arbiters of musical coolness on the counter at Selectadisc, where they were exchanged for a few quid to be spent on whatever C86 release was out that week.

It's not only vinyl copies of these previously rejected records which I have been buying again; I recently ordered from Amazon a double expanded CD of Hawkwind's marvellous Space Ritual. It's terrific stuff, maybe you have to be in the mood, but they were doing very similar things to German groups who became far more feted than themselves, in the cosmic / space rock genre. Or indeed Spacemen 3, who came a few years later and did a similar churning two chord drone with obvious debt to Hawkwind. I saw them at Hull Adelphi in the late 80's and a remember thinking 'hang on, these are just like Hawkwind!'

It's a truth universally acknowledged, in this house anyway, that a lot of the prog bands were huge influences on punk. Van Der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, Yes, and some of the more angular underground stuff too. Then there's the prog / folk crossover which is all sorts of cool these days but has been found to be equally risible down the ages; Comus and Roy Harper spring to mind, along with anyone who thought it was a good idea to keep playing for longer than three and a half minutes and to tinker with song structure, arrangement and instrumentation and lyrical influence.

I haven't undergone a wholesale rehabilitation; I'm not about to put aside three hours to listen to an ELP box set, or to make an apology for Tales From Topographic Oceans, but I have enjoyed revisiting a lot of this kind of stuff recently, with the benefit of a few years distance from the indie Year Zero when I turned my back on almost all of it. In a year when King Crimson have turned up in sample form on a Kanye West record and been covered by The Unthanks, maybe the prog rehabilitation is complete.

Paranoia Man In Cheap Shit Room

2011-11-03T19:58:00.003Z

I took myself to see The Fall last night, in a basement venue within the student union at Leeds University. I have been to gigs on my own before, once in 1984 to see Marillion, and once in the 90's to see Dick Gaughan, but this was the first time for a good while.

Last time out, only 18 months ago, The Fall were serviceable: not a classic night, but they were OK, entertaining. The two occasions before that they were terrific - mesmerising even. Loud, repetitious, exciting. Last night was a far less edifying spectacle, Smith appearing to be completely pissed and barely capable of grasping the mic stand. The current band is tight and energetic, and reports of the new 'Ersatz GB' album are largely enthusiastic. A pity then that the live performance last night was so depressingly shambolic.

Still, Jamesie and I are off to York to see them on Saturday night, so maybe we will witness something different again.

The next paycheck and the next little drink

2008-12-13T16:13:00.007Z

Belated account of recent gig attendance...

At the fag end of October, Clive and I attended the Islington Academy for the reunion of The Godfathers; sharp suited out of date psychedelic RnB south London types. I last saw them at Rock City at least 20 years ago, it was a cracking night. Mr Norman and I were anxious that they would be able to live up to their reputation now they must be in their late 40's, early 50's. Last year the Only Ones made a fairly convincing stab at a comeback, and have since disappeared again, and it remains to be seen whether this reunion is doomed to a similarly short lived fate.

Happily, the Godathers rocked as loud and hard as the old days, and they did seem fairly well preserved too - the odd paunch and balding pate, but which of us is untouched by the passing of time? They did all the old favourites, This Damn Nation, I Want Everything, and my personal highlight Walking Talking Johnny Cash Blues. A ripping night out, and I hope the renaissance continues for a proper tour.

Next outing was to Troxy in east London in the company of Graham and the Helster to see Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Splendid venue - a slightly jaded art deco bingo hall, very much suited to the stylings of Mr Cave. After enduring 20 odd minutes of what was very convincingly one of the most grindingly terrible support bands I have ever seen, we repaired to the merchandise stand and purchased a Nick cave tea towel, embroidered with the lyrics to The Mercy Seat. One of the less predictable merchandising opportunities, along with my Primal Scream 'Kill All Hippies' coffee mug.

Anyway...the gig was terrific, the atmosphere was good, enlivened by many drunken Australians. They played the pick of the new album, though nothing from the Grinderman incarnation, which was a little disappointing but I did see them do the whole album at ATP last year. They finished with Stagger Lee, a fantastic night.

Next up was last Friday's testifying with the Alabama 3 in Leeds Academy. Refreshed and energised by one or two libations in the pubs of Leeds, I was looking forward to this gig very much...and after loitering about at the sidelines I found myself making a bid for the front when they struck up 'Cocaine Killed My Community'. Even though the Mountain of Love was missing, the sound was great, the Reverend was behaving himself, and it was another splendid evening's devotions, even if they didn't play Mao Tse Tung Said.

Money doesn't talk, it swears

2008-10-06T20:17:00.003+01:00

I called into HMV in Mansfield at lunchtime today to pick up the latest installment of Dylan's Bootleg Series.

Collating outtakes, unreleased versions, and live tracks from the period covering Oh Mercy and Modern Times, there are some great tracks. The double CD was £15 - there is a 3 disc set costing something like £90, which seems somewhat excessive - more annoyingly it seems not to have turned up on the torrent sites yet. There are few artists whose latest offering I will go out of my way to buy on the day of release, but Dylan is one.

The cynical pricing of the full set is
depressing, and I doubt I'll be alone in combing the net for a dodgy download version in the coming days.

I've also ordered the new LP by Neil Halstead, on the strength of the terrific tracks to be heard on his MySpace.

Via the generous folks at eMusic, I have been busy downloading - paid for! - albums by The Bug, TV On The Radio (didn't get on so well with that one), Steinski and Bomb The Bass - yet another album featuring Mark Lanegan, the man must never have a day off.

Give me convenience or give me death

2008-09-20T10:57:00.002+01:00

iTunes has been upgraded and now features a gizmo called - with characteristic understatement - Genius. This allows the user to select a tune, click a button, and be presented with what is allegedly a playlist of similar songs by similar artists, in a similar genre. This works pretty well, and I have already created a few playlists which have dragged out forgotten pearls from the darker corners of my iTunes library...Cold Blooded Old Times by Smog being one of them.

This morning, I hit 'Boys Are Back In Town' by Thin Lizzy, and the Genius device felt it necessary to include Toni Basil's 'Mickey' amongst more predictable fayre from Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Led Zep, etc. Now, I have been a big fan of Mickey more or less since it came out, but I am mystified at how it could be slotted beside hairier and noisier tunes like Immigrant Song.

There are certain artists it seems to have a particular fondness for - Fleet Foxes are thrown up time and again, making me wonder if a less random element of selection is at work...

In The Night Garden

2008-08-21T21:26:00.006+01:00

Not been sleeping too well lately - toothache. I got to thinking about what I might include on a soothing soporific night time play list. Nothing that's just ambient floating synths, but lullaby type tunes which would help subdue screaming dental nerves. Turns out it's also a mighty good selection to ease the fevered brain before starting a working day.

Let me walk you through my dreamy sleepy night garden...

1. Let It Flow - Spiritualized

Narco dreams ahoy! Nice repetition, and away we float.

2. Ghosts Of Saturday Night - Tom Waits

This is from the boozy piano balladeering days, before he reinvented himself as a skronky amalgam of Howlin Wolf and Capt Beefheart. Beautiful lyrics, though I'm still trying to work out what 'Adam and Eve on a log' are...you can sink 'em down straight...

3. Lull III A Minor Place - Rachel Unthank and the Winterset

A brief interlude during the Bairns album, appropriated from Will Oldham

4. Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath

This one is wedged somewhere in the middle of the Paranoid album, which also included Iron Man and War Pigs. This track is very far removed from the riffarama for which Sabbath are justly renowned. Almost lounge jazz in fact, with a woozy treated Ozzy vocal. Like, mellow...

5. Night Bus - Burial

A dark and rainy ride on the last bus home.

6. It's A Fine Day - Jane

I dug this up on a Cherry Red records compilation, but I do have the original 7" single downstairs. Yes it's twee, but I've always been fond of it, lyrics about not sitting in fields...

7. Untitled I - Calexico

From the soundtrack to Dead Man's Shoes

A bit sinister, this one.

8. Afterlight - Clayhill

Cheating now, this one is also taken from the aforementioned soundtrack. I really love Gavin Clarke's voice, from the Sunhouse record up to Keys To The Kingdom from last year's UNKLE album.

9. Trouble Will Soon Be Over - Blind Willie Johnson

'Christ is my burden bearer, he's my only friend'...not sure why I thought this would be good bed time listening, but it's one of Blind Willie's less bone chilling numbers, and the sentiment that 'trouble soon be over, sorrow will have an end' is a comforting one as we head towards:

10. Harp For My Sweetheart - Archie Bronson Outfit

Less a lullaby, more a bloody billet doux. 'Nine cold crimes in the night'...

11. Horizons - Genesis

Immediately precedes Supper's Ready on the Foxtrot album, a track which I would have liked to have included on this playlist were it not 23 minutes long.

12. Go Your Way - Anne Briggs

Stark English folk, another break up song.

13. John Wayne Gacey - Sufjan Stevens

Hmm..this one won't give anyone sweet dreams.

14. I Keep Havin' These Dreams - Micah P Hinson

From his new record, adding some fiddle and strings to the mournful baritone and precise finger picking. Like Gavin Clarke, a splendid voice which deserves to be more widely heard. Given the funereal nature of much of his material, it probably won't be.

15. This Side Of The Blue - Joanna Newsom

Still gorgeous, despite being stuck over a mobile phone ad.

16. Acid Food - Mogwai

A gentle meditation with a country twang, and even lyrics!

17. I - Aphex Twin

OK, I lied about the ambient swooshing

18. George - John Metcalfe

From the Late Junction compilation, every track of which was an undiscovered treat when I first heard it.

19. Couldn't Love You More - John Martyn

20. Day Is Done - Nick Drake

Two 70's classics to send us off into the arms of Morpheus

Steal a car to drive you home

2008-08-06T20:35:00.003+01:00

Teenage Fanclub's LP Grand Prix was overshadowed on its release by What's The Story (Morning Glory) by their more boisterous label mates Oasis. Both bands were happily and avowedly in thrall to influences from the 60's and 70's, but it's the Fanclub who I return to again and again.

Fuzzy guitars, perfect choruses featuring gorgeous harmonies - splendid tunes, and not a dud on what for my money is the best album ever released on Creation. Their breakthrough LP was Bandwagonesque, which music journos liked to compare to Big Star, and which undoubtedly has the stamp of Alex Chilton running through it, but the first influence that came to me when I got my 7" of What You Do To Me home was Neil Young. The rambling, scuzzy, melodic guitar lines sounded right off Ragged Glory (another fabulous guitar album), and one of the best tracks on Grand Prix is named Neil Jung.

Grand Prix sounded instantly classic when it appeared at the height of Britpop, fighting for attention with releases like the aforementioned Oasis album, and others from Supergrass, Elastica, and PJ Harvey. Play it alongside chumps like the Kooks, Razorlight, and all the other indie boy chancers cluttering up the charts these days and it sounds impossibly exciting.

Left of The Dial

2008-07-14T20:20:00.003+01:00

Tonight's album is Let It Be by The Replacements. I've had this cd for a few years, and to be honest I haven't played it much, until recently when I was reading about the band in the excellent Our Band Could Be Your Life, by Michael Azerrad. This book is a terrific account of the US hardcore punk underground scene, 1981-1991. There are chapters on Black Flag, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Minor Threat, Big Black, it's a fantastic read. It really sent me back to a lot of albums which I haven't played for a long time, including this one here by the Replacements.

Let It Be contains at least two bona fide classic songs which make it worth hearing for them alone - I Will Dare, and Unsatisfied. The Replacements played a sloppy, liquored up rock n roll, and along with Husker Du were a big influence on a lot of power pop bands which came after them, and who watered down their sound into a more commercially palatable brew. Original guitarist Bob Stinson is dead, his brother Tommy is in Guns n Roses, and what Paul Westerburg is up to I don't know. Let It Be has some brilliantly aching songs about being young, drunk and mixed up, sung in Westerburg's raw and ragged yowl.

When I Take My Medication...

2008-07-08T21:06:00.003+01:00

Pure Phase - the second LP by Spiritualized, about whom I have eulogised several times already. Coming between Laser Guided Melodies, and Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, Pure Phase makes good use of bluesy, repetitious space rock, with constant allusions to very heavy drugs....quelle surprise.

Interviews with Jason Pierce tended to focus on 'are all the songs about smack?', pretty much until he nearly died of double pneumonia between finishing the recording and the release of Songs In A&E. He always claimed that the songs he sang did not necessarily depict his own lifestyle, and would get very shirty when people surmised that lines like 'When I wake up in the morning I take my medication / and spend the rest of the day waiting for it to wear off' might suggest that he spent a lot of time lolling around doing heroin. Hmmm...Jason, I think you protest too much.

He could have been mainlining Ovaltine for all I care, as long as he puts out records as gorgeously intoxicating as this.

My Wife Died in 1970

2008-07-06T22:09:00.004+01:00

Proving that the CD selection on this blog truly is random, we find ourselves debating John Shuttleworth Live.

As I hope you are aware, John is a versatile singer songwriter from Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He lives with his wife Mary, his son Darren, and his daughter Karen. He's managed by his next door neighbour and sole agent, Ken Worthington.

This live cd features some of his finest songs to date, and some of my personal favourites: Modern Man, Save The Whale (its hump, its fins, its tail), and Shopkeepers in The North, to name but three. John's material focusses mainly on confectionary, shopping, DIY, his Austin Ambassador Y Reg, his family, showbusiness and the environment. John's best tunes often feature the Fun Rhythm, which goes down especially well in old people's homes and hospices.

To give you a feel for the treats in store, here's John with an early classic, Incident On The Snake Pass.

Up Front and Down Low

2008-07-05T12:23:00.003+01:00

Teddy Thompson's third album, a clutch of classic country cover versions. A lot of people turn queasy at the thought of country music, assuming it to be rhinestone-studded kitchy bollocks about truck driving and divorce. These people are Wrong. Country music is great.

If you do feel uneasy about song titles like Walking The Floor Over You, I'm Left, Your'e Right, She's Gone, or indeed the promising sounding The Last Word In Lonesome Is Me (sadly not included on this album) then Teddy Thompson might be a good place to start. His version of George Jones' She Still Thinks I Care is splendid:

Radio One, you stole my gal...

2008-07-04T23:26:00.007+01:00

...but I love you just the same!

There's not much left to say about Hendrix which hasn't already been said. This compilation of live BBC sessions is a terrific introduction to the man's music, including an hilarious Radio One jingle and plenty of cover versions, from Muddy Waters to The Beatles, Howlin' Wolf, and Lieber and Stoller. For someone who took popular music to places it had never been before, Hendrix was not slow to recognise his influences, most famously during this clip from the Lulu show in 1969, with his tribute to the recently disbanded Cream.

Alex B bought this album before me, when we were living in Hull, where there were two Hendrix tribute bands before the whole tribute band thing took off.

Hendrix's guitar appeared to be an extension of his body; music just seemed to drop off him. I don't have any of the origianl albums, just an old cassette of the singles ond B sides, and this CD of BBC sessions, but to me that's the essential Hendrix, and even though I might only hear him once every couple of years, it's always electrifying. No one has come near to redefining the sound of the guitar the way he did.

In my rock 'n' Rolls Royce with the sun roof down

2008-07-03T20:02:00.004+01:00

Tonight's random selection is courtesy of Jim - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, by AC/DC.

I think this is their second or third album, depends on whether you count an early compilation which came out in Australia...either way, it's classic AC/DC - sleazy Bon Scott lyrics over gritty Angus Young riffs. To misquote Dr Johnson - a man who is tired of AC/DC is tired of life...

There is no Bon Scott era DC album which is not worth owning. I think my favourite is Powerage, which has an edge of melancholy alongside the smut, and the lyrics are fantastic. Only Chuck Berry has written better songs about cars, girls and drinking. The first two Brian Johnson LPs are also good, especially Back In Black, but to be honest they have been pretty mediocre since then. Which isn't to say that I would pass up the chance to see them live; and with a new LP on the way maybe I'll get the chance.

Dirty Deeds has a mixture of schoolboy sexism (Big Balls was not a serious contender for an Ivor Novello award), hard riffing rock (Rocker, Problem Child) and the sublime Ride On, which is unlike anything else they recorded, a soulful slow blues. Would love it if they had made a whole LP of this kind of stuff.

The Stone Roses

2008-06-30T23:12:00.003+01:00

Tonight's randomized selection is the Stone Roses. I remember being in the Admiral Rodney (a pub, not a sailor) aged about 19 and a friend of Dan's was back from his first term at Manchester Uni, and he was raving about a band called the Stone Roses, who were going to be huge, etc etc yawn...and so it came to pass.

I was ambivalent about them until Fool's Gold came out; I bought the 12" and then belatedly bought the album, looking forward to their new stuff which if FG was anything to go by would be funky and rocking...

As any fule kno, the much mooted 'new stuff' took 5 years to emerge, and turned out to be a fairly passable Led Zep LP which betrayed the cocaine ingestion of its creators almost as blatantly as Black Sabbath Vol 4.

Never saw them live, perhaps a mixed blessing, given that Ian Brown's pitch is notoriously unreliable, but Ady saw them a couple of times and said they were great.

Someone once said of Rod Sewart, 'never was such a great talent pissed up the wall on such rotten material', (or words to that effect), and it's tempting to cast a similar accusation at the door of the Stone Roses - only Mani went on to anything really worthwhile, anchoring Primal Scream.

Listening to the debut album again, there are undoubted moments of greatness (and plagiarism - ironic that Mani should eventually join the band who's Velocity Girl was ripped on She Bangs The Drums) but there were albums around at the time which I still prefer - by The La's, Shack, and Happy Mondays.

I may be hungry, but I sure ain't weird

2008-06-29T15:37:00.004+01:00

Taking a random dive into the murky waters of my cd collection, the Helster came up with Safe As Milk, by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Released in 1967, and featuring a young Ry Cooder on guitar...

Clive bought me this album for my birthday one year, and whilst it took a little while to clutch it to my bosom, it's now one of my favourite Beefheart albums, and an interesting record to compare with other 1967 releases more typical of the prevailing flower power times - Piper At The Gates of Dawn, or Sgt Pepper, for example.

On the terrific opener, Sho Nuff 'N' Yes I do, the good Captain (Don Van Vliet to his mum) claims to have been 'born in the desert, came on up from New Orleans'....and then the band crashes in, led by Cooder's slashing slide guitar...

It's marvellous stomping electric R'nB, with heavy influences of Howlin Wolf, Elmore James, and Muddy Waters. Some people are frightened away from Beefheart by the skronk and honk of Trout Mask Replica, but Safe As Milk is a pretty conventional blues rock album - well, conventional in Beefheartian terms anyway...

Beefheart retired to paint in the Mojave desert in the 80's, but in recent years members of the Magic Band reconvened to play some of his old tunes. I saw them twice, at the Rescue Rooms, the first occasion being one of the finest gigs I have been to - the band were just sensational, and clearly relished the chance to play this frenzied, crack tempo music for folks like us who missed out first time round.

Take Me To The Other Side

2008-05-28T22:48:00.004+01:00

Spent the bank holiday weekend amongst the 'haircut kids on the indie rock underground', at the Dot To Dot festival at various venues in Nottingham. I was mainly interested in seeing Spiritualized, so anything else half decent was a bonus. To be honest, there didn't seem to be a great deal on which actually was half decent - I wasn't bothered about Dirty Pretty Things or The Holloways, and Saul Williams was disappointing because of the unintelligibility of his lyrics. Great headdress though...

The Shortwave Set were OK, but since they arrived late they only had time for about 15 mins. Time came for the main event themselves, and I was hoping that the dodgy sound which marred the otherwise excellent Two Gallants would be sorted out for Spiritualized, but it wasn't great to be honest.

I enjoyed them, especially when they decided to crank it out with Come Together and Take Me To The Other Side. The set list was a strange choice too - heavily weighted with tracks from the unremarkable 'Amazing Grace' album, and criminally there was only one song from 'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space'.

There were a few tunes from the new LP 'Songs in A&E', which is lining up to be my favourite album of the year so far, and certainly the best Spz album since 'Ladies and Gentlemen...'

Too Much Too Soon

2008-04-27T18:53:00.002+01:00

The New York Dolls. I first heard them on some old TV compilation of 70's clips, lumped together with The Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, the old CBGBs NYC punk thing. There's a famous clip of them lurching through Jet Boy on the Old Grey Whistle Test, after which Bob Harris sniggers 'Mock rock!', after a shambolic performance during which any of the band looked likely to trip over their high heels and crash into the camera man.

At face value, it's curious as to why the Dolls are held in such high regard compared to some of their contemporaries. Their sound is not a million miles away from the glam rock of The Sweet, T Rex, Slade, or the Glitter Band; bands which shared their sartorial flamboyance and chant-a-long choruses. David Johannson and Johnny Thunders came on like Mick and Keith let loose in a charity shop after emptying their big sister's make up box. The cover of the debut LP is just brilliant, they look like a bunch of elderly pre-op transexuals after a night on the town...

There's a fantastic documentary about bass player Arthur Kane, and the reunion of the New York Dolls which was brought about by Morrissey's Meltdown festival in 2004, and Robyn Hitchcock's song NY Doll is a very affecting tribute.

The haircut kids on the indie rock underground

2008-04-13T20:15:00.004+01:00

The Helster and I are back from a weekend in Cambridge, where we saw the Broken Family Band play a ridiculously intimate gig at the very friendly Portland Arms. The 'gig room' is a very small annexe of the pub which would make the Basement at Rock City seem like Wembley Stadium. Support was from John Smith, who rose above his nondescript nomenclature to woo us with some John Martyn / Tim Buckley-esque acoustic stylings, including a cracking cover of No One Knows by Queens Of The Stone Age.

Anyway, the BFB's were bloody fantastic - plenty of new tracks from the as yet unrecorded new record, and the proximity of band and audience made it feel as the we were in their front room being treated to a few new tunes. And I think it was a first for me to attend a gig where the lead guitarist left the stage for a pee, returned with beers for his colleagues, in time to join in with a solo at just the right beat. Go and see them!

Life is very long, when you're lonely

2008-04-07T19:45:00.003+01:00

By the time The Queen Is Dead came out, I'd cottoned on to the Smiths. At first, I took a look at Morrissey on the Top Of The Tops and declared him a gawky twit who couldn't sing.

It was Johnny Marr who made it click for me, his guitars came from somewhere around Roger McGuinn and Keith Richards, but sounded so original. It was easy to brand the Smiths as purveyors of miserable bedsit doom and gloom - this was to overlook the humour of tracks like Frankly Mr Shankly, and the lyrics of the title track of The Queen Is Dead.

Of all Morrissey's 'cover stars' from the Smiths records, this one is my favourite - Alain Delon from some French film or other, I'm sure you could look it up if you are that interested. He looks about ready to feel 'the soil falling over my head'...

Another lost pleasure of vinyl was those little messages which were sometimes etched into the run out grooves - my copy of The Queen Is Dead says 'Them was rotten days...'

There's kerosene around

2008-04-02T20:44:00.004+01:00

I never owned the vinyl version of Atomizer by Big Black, but I've a got CD version which includes the most of LP plus a couple of 12" singles. Great cover, a shame they didn't reproduce it on the CD, which is called Rich Man's Eight Track. The charming legend on the inside booklet reads something like 'you dumb pussies can all suck our cocks'. I bought it in a second hand record shop on Newland Ave in Hull, where the proprietor would take advantage of a north facing shop front by placing seed trays in the window alongside the old Status Quo and Gillan albums.

Atomizer is in no way an easy listening record, but it contains at least three electrifying tracks which make it worth the price of admission: Jordan Minnesota, Kerosene, and Bazooka Joe. I would love to have seen them live, I don't know if they ever came to the UK, but a double bill of Big Black and Husker Du would have been terrific.

Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell

2008-03-26T22:09:00.003Z

Thought I'd kick off what will inevitably be a series of fatuous reflections on my favourite album covers with a dissertation on Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges.

The cover photo was taken by Mick Rock, famous for his images of Bowie, Syd Barrett, and Lou Reed.

The first time I encountered this record was through a Woolworth's advert sometime in the 1970's or 80's. It featured a family Christmas scene, the kids were ripping open their gifts, and a wholesome looking 15 year old unwrapped an LP sized package to reveal James Osterberg and his dead-eyed gaze, leaning on the mic stand in what is now an iconic pose. This was perhaps 10 years after the LP's original release, so we can only assume that Woolworth's advertising department employed someone who cared rather more about degenerate rock n roll than they did about shifting units for Woolies. I went through a phase of assuming that I had imagined this advert until meeting Clive, who had the same memory. Unless we are both deluded - a possibility - then it must have happened...

Raw Power was something of a comeback for Iggy, who had crawled away bleeding from the original Stooges with no record deal and a satchel full of mental health issues and drug problems. Bowie produced the LP in London, and the famously abrasive, slashing guitar was played by James Williamson - one of rock's great lost architects.

Iggy looks as though he wants to steal your drugs and fuck your sister, and let's face it kids - this is what we want from our rock stars. Since rock and roll became a career choice, we are stuck with the dreary likes of Chris Martin and James Blunt, and Iggy himself heads off for the panto circuit with the reformed Stooges. We shall not see his like again.

You Didn't Ask About The Broken Family Band

2008-03-01T08:07:00.003Z

The Helster and I have booked tickets to the Broken Family Band in Cambridge in April, it's a Friday night and we'll stay for the weekend. It's not often that we both get excited about the same band, but we're really looking forward to this.

Monday sees a clutch of interesting new releases this year, for me anyway. There's the new Nick Cave, Billy Bragg, and Malcolm Middleton. The Cave record is getting raves everywhere, and I'm intrigued to see if he can improve on Abattoir Blues. have to say I wasn't immediately won over by the single.

The Middleton LP is a mini album of a few originals and three cover versions, including an old Madonna tune. It will be worth getting hold of just for Blue Plastic Bags, and Total Belief, two new songs which he was working on when I saw him last year. I know he's a miserable sod, but there's a deep vein of self deprecating humour in the lyrics, and he's a hugely under-rated guitarist. He's coming to Nottingham in April, solo I think, another gig to look forward to.

I've been delving into Malc's history and listening to some Arab Strap too. Those are some grubby records...

Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid

2007-12-31T11:47:00.000Z

A belated post about The Pogues gig at Brixton Academy the other week, in the company of Mr Cook and Mr Ward. The three of us last went to a Pogues gig together on St Patrick's Day 1988 - pause here for deep breath and morose reflection on the passage of time etc...

Last year, Graham and I saw the band at Nottingham Arena. Despite having a good night out and enjoying the gig, the venue is terrible, and we decided to skip it this year in favour of the vastly more atmospheric Brixton Academy. Meeting Jim in the Trinity Arms for a lengthy warm up of pints of London Pride, we made our slightly unsteady way to the venue.

There's an inevitable anxiety when waiting for the Pogues to come onstage; will MacGowan be capable? Apparently the Nottingham gig was ropey, largely because of our man being 'excessively refreshed'. Tonight, he was on terrific form (insert the word 'relatively', if of cynical bent), and kept up the pace admirably. Phil Chevron was missed, but MacGowan sang a creditable version of Thousands Are Sailing (albeit with lyric sheet in hand), which is always a highlight of Pogues shows.

Graham made his customary excursion 'down the front', and despite losing a shoe in the ensuing melee, was relieved to have it handed back to him by a considerate fellow reveller.

Twenty years on from that first gig MacGowan is now 50, and although showing an increasingly portly decay, it would be unwise to bet against him being back next year.

Flight of the Conchords

2007-12-16T21:12:00.000Z

ATP - The Nightmare Before Christmas

2007-12-16T14:20:00.000Z

This time last week I was at Butlins in Minehead, listening to an Australian experimentalist grind mechanical throbs and drones from a guitar and a laptop. Just the job for blowing away the cobwebs from Saturday night spent skanking to the Jah Shaka Soundsystem til the small hours...

It was a good weekend - Portishead played their first gig for 10 years, the old stuff sounded immaculate, and the new material sounds good, especially the closing krautrocky, repetitive number.

Saw Malcolm Middleton for the fourth time this year, he was terrific, his new stuff also sounds very good.

My main disappointment of the weekend was Julian Cope, I was really looking forward to seeing him, but his set was dreary metal by numbers, just boring.

A Hawk and a Hacksaw were fantastic - at one point they formed a procession through the audience with drum, trumpet, huge football rattle type device...since I had seen them in Nottm the week before, I nipped upstairs to see GZA who was on at the same time. I didn't stay long, the sound was rubbish and it was basically a large man in a track suit shouting unintelligibly (apart from the odd 'Motherfucka!') over background beats.

Aphex Twin played on Saturday and Sunday, starting at 1.30am, which is something of a challenge for old dogs like me, but we made it in time to see the man himself standing in front of a bank of machinery, churning out increasingly frantic techno...

Other bands we saw over the weekend - Seasick Steve, who was just as great as he was at Green Man, Black Mountain, John Cooper Clarke, The Heads (who deafened me) and OM, and doubtless others which I will recall later, a great weekend.
photos by Jim.

Being Human for a while

2007-11-26T17:58:00.000Z

Ady and I went to one of the gigs of the year last night, Rachel Unthank and the Winterset at the Maze in Nottingham. Saw them earlier this year at Green Man, but they only had a half hour slot, so it was great to see them do two 45 mins sets last night.

The Maze was hushed, and the sound was terrific. The Winterset's songs are often very stark, both in terms of arrangement and subject matter, but they are very good at breaking the tension between numbers and there was a lot of banter. Couldn't help observing that Becky Unthank must have been the youngest person in the room by quite a distance...

They played most of The Bairns, plus a few from Cruel Sister, and the cover of today I Am A Boy, which was OK but not as good as their own material, or their cover of Sea Song by Robert Wyatt.

So Ady and I had two or three beers, said hi to Rachel and Belinda, (I bought a copy of her EP), and I reckon it was the best gig in Nottm this year since Robyn Hitchcock in January...
(photo by Jim, from the Reading gig)

More pointless list bollocks

2007-11-20T19:02:00.000Z

The Guardian is currently running a list of the '1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die'.

They claim to have listed not the Greatest Albums in The World Ever, but a list of interesting and often over looked classics which steers clear of the usual suspects like revolver, Pet Sounds, etc. There's a lot of bollocks on there, for instance I think I can quite happily reach the grave without crossing paths with the Girls Aloud album, but it is quite a good cross-genre list, with plenty of jazz, reggae, and 'world music'.

Anyway, I got to thinking about which 10 LPs I might advise someone to hear before they go south for good... It's a bit like Desert island Discs, where they give you the collected works of Shakespeare, and the Bible - on my list you have already got the collected works of Bob, The Beatles, the Stones etc. Maybe you don't want them, I'll let you swap them for the collected works of Throbbing Gristle, or whoever...

So in no particular order:

1. Micah P Hinson and the Gospel of Progress - a refreshing and dark take on the old singer songwriter schtick.
2. Teenage Fanclub -Grand Prix . Brilliant guitars and songs, feelgood stuff never outstaying its welcome.
3. AC/DC - Powerage. Great riffs and great lyrics - the best songs about cars and girls since Chuck Berry.
4. Henry's Dream - Nick Cave. The one that got me into Mr Cave. 'Papa Won't Leave You Henry' is a great 'track one side one'...
5. Dub Gone Crazy - Various Artists (mostly with King Tubby) the best dub album money can buy...
6. The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God. One of the top 3 albums of the 80's...coming up three's boys...
7. Mississippi John Hurt - The 1928 Sessions. I used to work in a pub where they played this record to clear people out after last orders...
8. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones. Not many other early 80's albums sounded like this rambunctious collection of sea shanties, laments and random gargles.
9. John Prine - his first album, blue collar American poetry. Springsteen could only dream of being this good.
10. Johnny Cash at San Quentin. This one is in the Grauniad list, but never mind...every home should have one!

I guess that's rather a lot of blokes with guitars, but there you go...

Black plastic please

2007-11-10T18:52:00.000Z

I went shopping for vinyl yesterday.

It's surprising how much stuff is available on the old format, rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated. By the time I left Virgin eight years ago, vinyl was pretty much stiff in terms of LPs, but 12 singles were going strong and were hailed as being the 'saviour of vinyl'. In the meantime, 7 inch singles have become trendy, and various reissue lables like Simply Vinyl have sprung up to cater for what seems to be quite a healthy market in classic LPs on ye olde black plastic. Added to which, plenty of new releases are given a run in the LP format, eg the Arctic Monkeys. And it's not your imagination or wishful thinking - vinyl sounds better. Certainly miles better than mp3 - the sound quality of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' download was shoddy (hard to gripe though, I only paid £1 after all...).

Walking upstairs in Selectadisc, you are surrounded by racks of vinyl of every category, new and secondhand. I had a nose through the new release section and picked out the new Burial album and the new Iron & Wine ('Carousel' is a definite track of the year). On Ady's advice I sought out Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works', which is deleted on CD but happily available in remastered form on double LP.

It felt absurdly good to leave the shop with a weighty 12 inch size carrier bag in my hand...the magic of picture inner sleeves, lyric sheets, textured covers etc all came back- LPs ar just so much more satisfying in every way, and I feel a bit of a twat for sticking to CDs for so long when I have a perfectly serviceable turntable gathering dust, and a shop like Selectadisc on my doorstep.

I Wanna see my Freaks

2007-11-10T11:00:00.000Z

Out to see the Acid Mothers Temple last night in Birmingham with Ady and Mick. They usually play the Social, but have skipped Nottingham on this tour, so we drove over to the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, a good pub with a decent sized room upstairs, good sound too, and the expected 98% male audience...

AMT are a band of hirsute Japanese gentlemen who make an absurdly psychedelic racket which Ady and I first encountered about 5 years ago at the Social - we saw the poster for the gig, thought it looked ridiculous, and decided to go. It turned out that Julian Cope had come along for the ride, apparently he is a big AMT fan, and during the encore he loomed about the stage in an orange jacket and green leggings, just happy to be joining in the general cacophony. It was a good night, we had no expectations and the band were terrific - very loud and repetitive, with songs interspersed with throat singing, which broke up the relentless guitars.

Last night they were OK, certainly not as good as that first time, but still entertaining.

Sometimes these words just don't have to be said

2007-10-28T23:26:00.000Z

Out tonight for The Wedding Present, at Rock City. The gig was centered around a full rendition of George Best, which is 20 years old this year, making me feel very old indeed.

However I was in good company, the audience comprised 75% similarly aging ex-indie boys (some of whom had bribed their wives / partners to accompany them), hoping for a glimpse of the old Gedge guitar shredding magic. Some of these late thirties / early forties gentlemen actually had a stab at crowd surfing, to the obvious alarm of the Rock City security staff, who had to grab and land them. I almost felt sorry for them, although sympathising with Rock City bouncers is a bit like feeling sorry for the Tonton Macoute.

The band were great, I think Gedge is the only original member, but the guitars sounded as manic as the old days, and they whizzed through George Best in what seemed like half an hour. I'm sure Getting Nowhere Fast was on the original vinyl version of the album? DG claimed this wasn't the case and hence it wasn't played, which would be my only gripe with the gig. I suppose he should know...

My Favourite Dress was terrific, and Kennedy and Flying Saucer also stood out...

It's been a long long time since I played any of the old stuff, but it surprised me how I instantly knew all the words to many of the songs... clearly they are stashed away in the part of my brain reserved for guitar-based indie pop songs about breaking up with girls.

How long Mr Gedge can get away with this kind of stuff remains to be seen - his subject material is very adolescent, and he must be well into his 40's by now, but tonight it was great hear those songs and those guitars, despite the shameless nostalgia.

Andy Penco's Flat

2007-10-27T15:24:00.000+01:00

I have listened to a lot of music in Andy's flat. I have also drunk a lot of wine there, and talked a lot of nonsense. I have discovered many great tunes while nursing a glass of red on his sofa - Soulsavers, Underworld, Dan Reeder, Hamell on Trial, Bellowhead come to mind, but there have been so many. I've slept on the same sofa after some great gigs - Alabama 3, Primal Scream, etc .

So Mr Penco's pad is a musical landmark in my life, which I am commemorating here with a virtual tour of the premises, for the edification of the uninitiated.

The sofa

The Kitchen

The multimedia facility

Hat wearing at the flat is more or less compulsory, usually after eating, when the second or third bottle has been opened. Andy has a wide selection to choose from, and is pictured below in a particularly stylish number:

Red wine, good music, and an assortment of cheeses and hats.

Hometown Blues

2007-10-22T19:35:00.001+01:00

A couple of weeks ago there was an Emmylou Harris night on BBC4, and this evening I finally got around to catching up with it. One of the programs was a compilation of clips of ELH at the BBC down the years, and it included a clip which I hadn't seen since it was first broadcast. Steve Earle, fresh from rehab, duetting with Emmylou on 'Goodbye'.

Earle was fairly fresh from rehab at the time, and about to enter a purple patch which lasted for the next 7 or 8 years (his last LP is rather dull, but Train a Comin and Feel Alright are blinders) and Emmylou had covered the song on her Wrecking Ball album.

I remember watching the show at the time, shocked by the pudgy and greasy Earle, who last time we saw him was lean and long haired, very different. I saw him live two or three times very soon afterwards and he was magnetic. Then a couple of years ago I saw Emmylou Harris at the Concert Hall in Nottingham, she was wonderful, and her band was fantastic. Never let people tell you that country music is made by rednecks and truck drivers...not all of it anyway.

Dread At The Controls

2007-10-04T22:06:00.000+01:00

Two tracks tonight on the headphones at an unhealthy volume.

First off - and I hope you will bear with me on this - 'Supper's Ready' by Genesis. I first heard this track on the Friday Rock Show countdown of the best rock tracks ever, I think it came in at number 5 or 6...anyway, it's from the LP 'Foxtrot', and is born of the most fragrant purple prose prog rock, but I absolutely love it; it's funny and original and perhaps more influential than we care to admit.

Other tracks in the Friday Rock Show countdown included ...pause for deep breath...Stargazer by Rainbow, Child in Time and Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple, Stairway To Heaven by Led Zep, Shine on You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd, Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and maybe Whole Lotts Rosie by AC/DC.

My second tune of the evening is very very different - Uptown Top Ranking, by Althea and Donna. A one hit wonder...not heard of before or since, Althea was 17 and Donna was 18 when they were number 1, and what a bloody infectious fantastic tune it is! See me in my heels and ting...

And that's it for me tonight, just a couple of great tunes I wanted to shout about..

Gonna be a Revival tonight

2007-09-27T22:46:00.000+01:00

A late addition for one of the albums of the year - The Soulsavers, featuring Mark Lanegan, 'It's not how far you fall, it's how you land'. (which sounds like a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to me...).

The opening song is a contender for classic 'track one side one' status - Revival, featuring Lanegan and gospel singers over beats and programming, terrific stuff. Dunno how this record escaped my notice, but Andy dug it out during my weekend at Penco Towers and I was very taken with it...a great version of the Stones' 'No Expectations' too.

The new PJ Harvey record sounds intersting - she's chucked out the guitars and has dressed in white and sat in front of the piano...lazy music journos are calling it her 'Boatman's Call', the single 'When Under Ether' is lovely. Also trying out the Thurston Moore solo record ahead of his appearance at ATP - a lot more 'musical' than one might be entitled to expect - lots of acoustic guitars in the John Fahey / Bert Jansch style, and a surprisingly melodic album.

Lovin' men, lovin' women, lovin' all God's creatures...

2007-09-20T20:54:00.000+01:00

Well maybe I was being a little hasty about the new Alabama 3 record...it has definitely grown on me in the last week or so, and I'm sure by the time I listen to it with over at Penco Towers on Saturday night it will have the status of a classic (helped by two or three bottles of red and some good strong cheese). Sure there are some dud tunes, but the good certainly outweighs the indifferent. Holy Blood might find it's way into my 2007 best of..

Doesn't look as though many of the music mags or broadsheets have bothered to review it, but they are perhaps busy showering ill-deserved plaudits on the new Babyshambles record.

Rockin with Rita

2007-09-17T19:31:00.000+01:00

No mate, Chelt'nam.

2007-09-12T18:07:00.000+01:00

Bought a few cds this week...a mixed bag.

Monday was pretty exciting as the new Alabama 3 record was released. The new stuff they played live in July had sounded great, but the record is underwhelming. I did say that about the last few albums, and they inevitable grew on me, so I hope the same will happen with M.O.R. A lot of it sounds like very mediocre Rolling Stones, there's less wit and too much of Larry Love's 60 B&H a day growling vocals. I'll stick with it, might improve when I am disequilibriated.

About as far removed from Alabama 3 as it would be possible to imagine are Amiina, who are four Icelandic ladies who, judging by their LP sleeve, are very keen on knitting. They've played previously with Sigur Ros, about whom I know very little, but this record is terrific - a late night listen.

Then there's the recent Ted Chippington box set, on a recommendation from Graham...four CDs of walking down the road meeting blokes. I remember Ted being played on the Peel show in the 80's, and his single 'Rockin With Rita', which as far as I can tell isn't on this box...Taking deadpan mundanity to new levels...

Tracks of the Year

2007-09-07T22:16:00.000+01:00

I guess it's time to start thinking about what tunes may be appearing on the this year's best of CDs...I have been compiling a long list for a while now, which points to the likes of Malcolm Middleton, LCD Soundsystem, Rachel Unthank, Findlay Brown, Fujiya & Miyagi, Richard Thompson, The Fall, Von Sudenfed, Modest Mouse, Gallows...and others unnamed making the final selection.

It's been a shit year for gigs in Nottingham. I don't think I've been to Rock City since Bonnie Prince Billy in January, and the last time I was at the Rescue Rooms must have been Robyn Hitchock (one of the gigs of the year) very soon afterwards. There are one or two things worth seeing over the next few weeks - Broken Family Band, Alabama 3, Rachel Unthank, but it has to go down as a very dry year for Nottm gigs...

Happy Days Are Here Again

2007-08-28T14:59:00.000+01:00

Time for the annual festival update...Summer Sundae and Green Man.

Summer Sundae was first up, a couple of weeks ago in Leicester. Have to say that the headliners did not exactly get me over excited before the event, the Magic Numbers I have always thought to be over sugared and lacking in bite, and The Divine Comedy are just irritating and smug.

There was a lot to enjoy though, especially The Broken Family Band, Low, John Cooper Clarke, and Fujiya & Miyagi, who were fantastic. They are very obviously influenced by Kraftwerk, Neu!, Talking Heads etc, giving them fluid basslines and quirky vocals and dare I say it making them very danceable. Ahem. Many things are just about excusable at a festival, one of these is 39 year old white men hopping about to electropop which may otherwise be shameful to do outside the home.

Sunday night was closed by Spiritualized Acoustic Mainlines, who were almost as good as at ATP earlier this year. An odd choice to close the outdoor part of the weekend though, songs about redemption through drugs accompanied by a string quartet did not really get the kids jumping, but I enjoyed them.

Malcolm Middleton was really good on the Saturday afternoon, although I did get into a minor altercation with a pinhead in a trilby who was talking loudly with his back to the stage. I asked him if he could have his conversation elsewhere, and he took exception to this, but did bugger off eventually.

Green Man was the following week, and was on a larger scale than the previous year. There were a lot more electric guitar bands than in 2006, encompassing post rock (Fridge) droney psychedelia (Six Organs of Admittance) and Sabbathy sludgecore (Dead Meadow). This was interspersed with more traditional stuff like Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, John Renbourn, Alasdair Roberts (disappointing - he seems to have ditched the stark solo arrangements on his new record, which is somewhat over produced).

Although we saw them both the previous week in Leicester, The Broken Family Band and Malcolm M were excellent, and Joanna Newsom was magic on the opening night.

I was sceptical about Seasick Steve, thinking that he would be just another white blues revivalist, but he worked the crowd better than anyone all weekend, he was bloody good actually. Rowdy and stomping slide blues in the John Lee Hooker / Lightnin Hopkins style. Jim and I are of course a bit mardy about the sudden popularity of this kind of stuff, because we have been listening to it since we were 17, but that's just rock snob elitism I guess...

Now We Are Ten

2007-08-07T00:09:00.000+01:00

This week's Freak Zone had an interview with Julian Cope, a couple of tunes from his new LP, and a few songs from Japanese bands as featured in his new book Japrocksampler. JC is one of those people who I dabble around; I like the idea of him more than his actual records, although stuff like The Great Dominions, Passionate Friend, Reynard The Fox etc are great songs by anyone's standards. He's a very genial cove; he once came to do a signing when I was at Virgin (I forget what for) and he insisted on brushing his teeth before going to meet his public...

Anyway, the tracks played from his new LP sounded OK, though not necessarily enough to make me dash out and by it. I have bought a few cds over the last week though: Cruel Sister by Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, and Now We Are Ten, which is a Trunk Records sampler (and a bargain at £4). Both are good, the latter is full of unexpected treats from Brit jazz and acid folk to cheesey ad music and weird library and soundtrack pieces. Best listened to late at night with a glass in hand, and definitely the most unexpectedly delightful compilation I've bought since the Late Junction cd a few years ago - they really need to get around to putting out a sequel to that.

Other tunes rattling around my head at the moment range from some excellent stuff on the Fujiyami & Miyagi myspace site, looking forward to them at Summer Sundae, and the Modest Mouse LP, which has taken a while to grow on me but now feels like one of my favourite albums of the year, and not just because it has provided gainful employment for Johnny Marr.

I'm still waiting for delivery of a mad old classic psych folk LP which I ordered on eBay the other week - 'First Utterance' by Comus. Demented stuff. There's a streaming version of Song To Comus on the Wire website at the moment...they would go down an absolute storm at the Green Man festival which is now only a couple of weeks away.

It Felt Just Like Sunday on Saturday Afternoon

2007-07-28T23:27:00.000+01:00

I love John Prine. He's a terrific lyricist and a great songwriter...his songs are often heartbreaking but never sentimental or maudlin. He's bloody funny actually, and very truthful. He looks like a benevolent chipmunk...

A few Youtube highlights from the great man, who as far as I'm concerned should be so much more lauded than he is...

1. Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, with Nanci Griffith.

2. In Spite Of Ourselves - with Iris Dement

3. Hello In There

4. Angel From Montgomery

5. Paradise / Donald & Lydia

I remember you in Hemlock Grove in 1956

2007-07-23T22:53:00.000+01:00

Watched 'Performance' on DVD last night, for only the second time after watching it with Ady and a four pack of John Smiths sometime around 1985.

What a demented film...the first half is a fairly straightforward London gangster schtick, followed by Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg floating around in their pants eating mushrooms and messing with James Fox's head. The soundtrack is brilliant, I have always loved 'Memo From Turner', a great lost Stones single with some brilliant Ry Cooder guitar, but I couldn't remember the sequence when it turns up in the film.

So...I got to thinking about my top 10 favourite film soundtracks, which I guess rather predictably are almost identical to my top 10 films, but maybe that tells us something about what I look for in a good movie..

1. Paris Texas - Ry Cooder. I didn't realise this until yesterday, but the soundtrack to Performance features a rudimentary version of 'Dark Was the Night', which Cooder later used as the musical thread for the Paris Texas OST, much copied ever since.

2. Mo Better Blues - Brandford Marsalis. Not a great film, but some splendid music...most Spike Lee movies have terrific music, Do The Right Thing coming a very close second to this.

3. Repo Man - Black Flag, Iggy Pop, The Plugz, Circle Jerks. A perfect marriage of sound and vision!

4. The Big Lebowski - various. Features a tremendous latin version of Hotel California, and should be renowned for giving unfashionable mid period Bob Dylan some much needed exposure via The Man In Me.

5. The Last Picture Show - old time country. Helped me to see the light, where Hank Williams was concerned.

6. The Blues Brothers - all sorts, but especially John Lee Hooker. Worth it for the Hooker track alone, but some great stuff from Sam and Dave and Aretha too.

7. Withnail and I. If only for the Hendrix-accompanied driving home sequence...'I'm making time...!'

8. Manhatten / A Clockwork Orange / 2001 a Space Oddysey - the music for these films had obviously been written way before they were directed, but it's hard to imagine Woody / Alex / Hal 9000 with different accompaniment.

9. Eraserhead - only joking. the soundtrack is one of the scariest things about it...

10. The Wicker Man - 'on that tree there was a branch, and on that branch there was a twig...' etc...

11. This Is Spinal Tap. My favourite track? Hard to say...but 'Sex Farm' has a sensitive lyric...'hosing down your barn door....don't you see my silo risin' high?'

Sweet Pretty Country Acid House Music

2007-07-11T21:56:00.000+01:00

And so to St Albans, last Friday, for an evening in the company of Alabama 3.

I hoofed it down on the train straight from work, and met up with Jim and Graham at the Lower Red Lion for a few pre-gig beers.

The venue was not in any sense sold out - lots of room to move, and a fairly reserved crowd, at first. For the first time in perhaps a decade I found myself 'down the front', and I had a splendid time, the new material sounded terific, the band looked great in their new white safari suits, and it was good to see the Revered D Wayne Love playing a more active role than on recent tours when he seemed content to puff on a Tony Soprano cigar and weave about the stage mugging for the audience. His wife now features as an occasional singer, complementing the excellent Devlin Love.

Looking forward to testifying again in Sept / Oct...

thanks to Jim for the pic (one of 750 taken on the night...)

Next stop Mogwai and Malcolm Middelton tomorrow night outdoors in that London. It's a non stop whirl of gig going, let me tell you...

You Know I've Been Thinking About Not Coming Down

2007-07-08T03:30:00.001+01:00

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Rds8m7GMA

terrific slow buring Spiritualized clip...

I'm a Self Destructive Fool

2007-07-05T19:08:00.000+01:00

I am a big fan of Loudon Wainwright III.

Tonight, the iPod machine hit upon 'Swimming Song', which is one of my favourites of his, but one I hadn't heard for ages...

I think the first time I heard Loudon - or 'Loud' to his mum - was when Jim and I were hiking in Derbyshire. We were holed up in a pub in a village somewhere on the outskirts of Matlock, too weary to walk the last few miles into town, in the ceaseless rain. It seemed that we had missed the last bus out of the village, and we were facing a dreary trudge into Matlock. We were half heartedly hitchhiking on the road out of the village, when a guy in an estate car pulled up and offered us a lift into town. He was playing some whiny voiced bloke on the tape machine, and on enquiry we were advised that we were listening to the great LW3. We struck up a rapport with our driver, who insisted on dropping us at the Matlock youth hostel, and waiting outside until it was clear that they had spare beds. A true gentleman.

Saw Loudon in concert not too long after that, with Jim and Dan at the Concert Hall in Nottingham. He's great live - songs which can seem earnest and maudlin on record are transformed into hilarious monologues on the stage - When I'm At Your House being a memorable example.

At certain points during the concert Wainwright would produce a yello slip of paper from his shirt breast pocket, consult it momentarily, then fold it and replace it. I assumed that it was his set list, or the lyrics to a new song, but I later read an interview where he claimed that it was a note from his analyst (LW3 is notoriously neurotic). Apparently the message was 'You are a good person! You're doing a great job!' I'm thinking of taking something similar to work with me...

1.  This summer I went swimming,
   This summer I might have drowned
   But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
   And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.

2.  This summer I swam in the ocean,
   And I swam in a swimming pool,
   Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes,
   I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool.

3.  This summer I swam in a public place
   And a resevoir, to boot,
   At the latter I was informal,
   At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.

4.  This summer I did the backstroke
   And you know that's not all
   I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
   And the old Australian crawl, the old Australian crawl.

5.  This summer I did swan dives
   And jackknifes for you all
   And once when you weren't looking
   I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.

Pass Me My Pipe and Slippers

2007-07-03T21:42:00.000+01:00

The latest issue of Mojo was on the doorstep for me tonight, and what a cavalcade of fun it is.

In a fit of pique, which has turned out to be quite justified, I cancelled my subscription last month. I was fed up with endless retread articles on classic rock acts, and crappy 'tribute' cds.

Turns out I had paid up for the next three issues, so I continue to be offered articles on tired old eighties cash cows like The Police, who are featured heavily in the latest issue. What a tired and humourless bunch of old hacks they were.
Then we get page after page devoted to Genesis (the boring Phil Collins fronted version, who have also recently reformed to their bank managers' glee). Then more wistful bobbins about Jeff Buckley, a piece on Frank Sinatra, an interview with Yoko Ono, and I was searching for anything remotely connected to the 21st century. Then I found it - the album of the month...is Interpol.

It's enough to make an old man reach for the NME...

Film legend Dennis Hopper, 71, introduced Lily Allen

2007-07-01T23:40:00.000+01:00

BBC1 devoted itself to mind freezing tedium all day yesterday - nothing new in that, except it was unbroken coverage of the lachrymose Diana 'tribute' concert which slouched on and on and bloody on for what seemed like a month.

Bryan Ferry was introduced by...Boris Becker and John McEnroe. Gibbering over one another about him making records for 35 years, wearing nice clothes, liking 'the laydeeez', etc etc. Even worse - Lily Allen was introduced by Dennis Hopper..who must be feeling very, very ashamed...after a long controversial and often squalid career, this was surely the nadir..

We have a remedy

2007-06-29T23:15:00.000+01:00

'A Quick One While He's Away', live in 1968, the year of my birth, it still takes some beating.

DANG! DANG! DANG! DANG!

Try to imagine any flaky group like the bloody Kooks or bastard Pete Feckin Doherty having the imagination and energy and wit and to knock off something as breathlessly exciting as this...

Orchestra Of Wolves

2007-06-20T23:33:00.000+01:00

Apparently Kerrang! and the NME have been hyping this lot for a while now, and they have been picked up by Warners, with their debut LP being reissued with extra tracks this week.

Sounds great to me, and I imagine they are fantastic live...terrific crunching bass and guitars, and unexpectedly catchy tunes, buried under all that bluster.

Makes a good contrast to all that sensitive acid folk I have been listening to this week...

This is a sad fuckin song...

2007-06-19T22:51:00.000+01:00

...we'll be lucky if I don't BUST OUT CRYIN!

So begins 'Squirrel Song' by Shellac, from an album a few years back.

There's a new Shellac LP out this week apparently, and as Ady rightly surmises, it quite likely sounds like most of the Shellac LPs which came before it...

'This isn't some kind of metaphor...Goddam...this is REAL!'

Poor old Steve Albini, it must be so exhausting being so aggrieved and so angry.

The World Is Expanding As the Universe Shrinks

2007-06-15T20:31:00.000+01:00

A few quick links to some items of interest. At least, they are interesting to me - you, dear reader, must decide for yourself.

First up, from the Mogwai website, via Graham's blog, is Iggy Pop with that 'Punk Rock' speech...I just love this.

Next - there's a new LP imminent from the Broken Family Band - looking forward to seeing them at the Summer Sundae this year, and they have been decent enough to post a full track from the album on their website.

Two new Lps which I picked up today - the new Nick Lowe album, and the one by Meg Baird, singer from Espers.

Move over Rover, and let Jimi take over

2007-06-06T22:39:00.001+01:00

Been watching the Seven Ages of Rock on BBC2 on Saturaday nights, or more often than not, downloaded from the tinternet.

The first episode was terrific - using Hendrix as a narrative thread to trace the birth and development of what we now know as 'rock' music. Some great clips, some insightful commentary, it was a very good programme.

The most recent two editions have been less satisfying, in fact the whole idea of 'Seven Ages of Rock' seems a bit flimsy. The episode dedicated to 'art rock' flitted between the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music and Bowie, without supplying a coherent theory about where they came from, who they influenced, and what exactly they had in common. I would have thought that Pink Floyd might have sat more comfortably int the Stadium Rock episode.

'Seven Ages of Rock' seems to imply a chronological theory of the development of rock music, but the episodes have a distinct overlap which would appear to undermine this theory. There were events happening in the punk episode which were concurrent with those happening in the art rock episode, and for me the idea behind the series seems a lot less convincing than 'Dancing In The Street', which was procduced by the same folks 14 years ago - in fact some of the interview footage used in this series is lifted from DITS.

The latter series made many interesting insights into the - dare I say it - socio-political history of popular music, especially observations around attitudes towards race and class. For instance, the impact on black American artists of the British Invasion of the mid 60's, and the successful cover versions by white artists of songs written by black groups who were subsequently sidelined by acts more palatable to a conservative white American market.

Seven Ages of Rock doesn't appear to make such insights, and is more preoccupied with a linear account of how Hendrix paved the way for Bowie, then the Pistols, with a random episode about Heavy Metal thrown in, followed by an apparently redundant feature on Stadium Rock, then hey presto a tidy finish with Britpop - job done. All seems a bit convenient really, although there has been some undoubtedly great footage used so far.

Yeah, this is the Killer speakin'

2007-06-01T22:16:00.001+01:00

here's one I made earlier, just look at the madness in his eyes...

Not sure about that beard, makes him look a bit like like Eric Clapton.

SHAKE BABY, SHAKE!

A voice that stinks of whiskey

2007-05-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

It must have been fantastic to see Alex Harvey in his pomp!

I know very little about Jacques Brel, but I love the cover versions of his songs by Scott Walker, Bowie, and the aforementioned Mr Harvey amngst many others.

'Next' is wonderfully filthy, a hilarious cautionary tale to take to one's grubby bosom...

A Sailor's Life

2007-05-29T16:14:00.000+01:00

There's a new Richard Thompson LP out, and Graham has already aired his views about it on his blog.

I think, after one listen, I go along with Mr Ward - some good tracks, but the album is rather too long. Dad's Gonna Kill Me still stands out (and I only just learned that 'Dad' = Bagdhad, duh...) but there are some tunes which pad the LP out unnecessarily. Great guitar playing though, so it's rather hard to complain.

I'm now convinced that RT deliberately clads his records in the worst sleeves he can imagine. It's no accident of design, it's a wilful act of self sabotage. This has persisted for as long as I have been buying his records, since Amnesia in 1988. The first Thompson LP I heard was Shoot Out The Lights, which I borrowed on vinyl from Southwell library a very long time ago. That one is relatively inoffensive, although RT does look rather too jovial on the cover, considering the gloom and doom contained within.

A quick run down then, of Richard Thompson's worst album sleeves, starting with
1.Amnesia.

This one is reminiscent of the sort of conceptual nincompoopery which adorned Marillion album covers in the 80's. A random male is having a shave, whilst who should appear in the mirror but our man in a jester's outfit, juggling. Very hard to understand the relevance of this image...a good record though, Turning of The Tide was covered by Thompson fan Bob Mould.

2. You? Me? Us?
I don't know what's going on here. Just a random cut-up mess. Who does he delegate these things to? Makes no difference which record label he's on, the sleeves are still enough to bring on a migraine.

3. Mock Tudor

Not the most iconic image ever used for an LP sleeve - an old fashioned push and pull lawn mower, with (headless) father and son looking on in awe as it self-propels itself across an immaculate English Country Garden. Lord help us, what a useless image.

4. Bringing us up to date - Sweet Warrior

Oh my throbbing peepers. This one is from the inner sleeve, I suppose we should be grateful that it wasn't used for the front cover. A genius guitar player he may be, an oil painting he is not. Especially not when daubed in camouflage paint and with a tin hat stuck on his head - although I have to say this might in fact be an improvement on the otherwise ever present beret.

You been drinking brew for breakfast

2007-05-27T17:56:00.000+01:00

Lots of stuff about Joe Strummer at the moment, to go with the documentary 'The Future Is Unwritten' and the recent biography.

I saw him twice, once years ago on a dodgy 'Rock Against the Rich' tour, and then at Cambridge the year he died. The RATR thing was at Rock City in something like 1987 or 1988. I went with Jim and his mate from the egg factory, a guy called Robert who had a bedsit in Carrington, near where I ended up living with Clive for a couple of years. I remember making our way into town from Robert's one roomed abode, stopping at the Nag's Head and various other Mansfield Road pubs on the way to the gig.

The event was 'organised' by Class War; I think there were three groups including Strummer, one of whom was a very decent reggae band, I can't remember their name. Strummer was terrific, he played loads of old Clash songs, and 'If I Should Fall From Grace' by the Pogues - which I guess dates the gig as around the time that LP came out, and before he joined the band as a stand-in front man, covering for one of MacGowan's bouts of 'nervous exhaustion'.

I've blethered on about the Cambridge experience already on this blog, but let's just say that at the time, soaking wet, frustrated by camping stools, rugs, assorted other obstacles to navigating the site, Jim and I were of the firm belief that the event required the Cleansing Fire of Punk Rock, and Strummer was the man to provide it. A lot of old Cambridge punks materialised on the Saturday evening for a taste of sweaty nostalgia, and for a while it seemed as though leather jackets might outnumber beards and sandals. Fair play to the festival organisers though, booking Joe Strummer was I guess quite a brave move, but I think Cambridge has often experimented with acts outside the sphere of what most of us define as 'folk music' - Nick Cave, for instance.

Anyway. Strummer was by most accounts a genial man who was generous with his time - we saw him strolling around the Cambridge site, taking it all in and chatting to people. He was making some good solo records too, after a few years hopping between acting jobs and soundtrack work. Global A Go Go is well worth a pop if you haven't heard it. I've got London Calling on at the moment - a glorious, glorious record, thrilling tunes like Clampdown, Hateful, Death Or Glory...becomes just another story.

Strangely, I became more bookish

2007-05-24T23:15:00.000+01:00

I first saw Iggy Pop on Ady's 21st birthday, at Rock City in 1988. No one was too interested in hearing anything from his most recent LP, which at that time I guess was 'Blah Blah Blah'. Iggy's always good value - he leaps around the stage like a man a third of his age, and there's always the possibility that he will treat the audience by dropping his pants and desporting his by now rather droopy buttocks.

Strange that a man whose body which is elsewhere incredibly well toned and fit, should have a gluteous maximus which has dropped several feet since the glory days of the Stooges. Well, that's age and gravity at work I guess.

Anyway, my point in question is the quality of one of Iggy's later LPs, Avenue B.

Much of this album is spoken word; from 'No Shit' through to 'She Called Me Daddy'. Iggy has a great American voice; resonant and authentic, rarely recorded better than on this overlooked album.

Trouble Every Day

2007-05-21T07:58:00.001+01:00

Rock hard r'n'b & social commentary from FZ, stripped of the knowingly ironic lyrics for which he is better known.

Blow your harmonica, son!

Those first few LPs with the Mothers are peerless: witty and scabrous lyrics, tremendous geetars, and a wide palette of musical influences from avant skronk jazz to the sweetest doo-wop.

Seems odd to me that Zappa's music was often so sophisticated that it was beyond the ken of a large section of his audience, who nevertheless found much to enjoy in the schoolyard scatology of his lyrical subject matter.

I know what I'm talking about here, because the Zappa stuff which first appealed to me Jim and Ady was Joe's Garage (sex with machines, pliant Catholic girls) and 'Bobby Brown', 'Dinah Moe Hum', 'Dirty Love', and other trouser-orientated material...

It's sometimes hard to avoid the conclusion that Zappa's entire career was an extended pisstake of his audience as well as the wider American public. As an example, one of his most popular concert tunes was 'Titties and Beer', superficially a celebration of, well, breasts and and beer, but actually an adaptation of Stravinsky's 'L'histoire du Soldat'.

The least you can say of Zappa is that he was his own man, he did whatever the fuck he wanted, whether that was a four minute throwaway song about 'the Jazz Discharge Party Hats' or a triple album of guitar solos ('Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar' - Jim bought it on vinyl!)

He created a genre of his own, no one makes records which sound like Zappa except hisself...

Take a case of white-out; you might need it one day

2007-05-13T11:52:00.000+01:00

Being neither a parent nor much given to expending energy on housework or diy, I spend an inordinate amout of time pissing about on iTunes when I should be doing something more constructive.

Yesterday I set up a playlist of favourite tunes by under-appreciated artists - typical rock snob elitism. I did this after hearing a documentary on radio 4 which featured a few clips of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. I borrowed an Alex Harvey LP from the library years ago, and loved it, but saw hardly any mention of the man until Tommy Vance announced his death on the Friday Rock Show. I was galled to learn yesterday that this was in 1982 - 25 years ago. Anyway, before I drift into 'where did it all go and where will it all end', here's a few of my 'they should be massive!' choices:

Spring Rain - The Go-Betweens. I first heard this on the soundtrack to Something Wild, then years later when I was living with Clive and he had the LP. Lovely guitars.

'Cause I Said So - The Godfathers. Saw them at Rock City a long time ago, they have long since split. They came on like a cross between boom chicka Johnny Cash and Dr Feelgood hard edged r'n'b. They were incredible live, but their LPs often sounded thin in comparison. Dunno what happened to them...

Take Stuff From Work - King Missile. OK, there's no kind of universe where King Missile could ever have been noticed beyond a few plays on Peel, which is where Jim and I heard them 20 years ago. This tune is basically a list of items which can be easily removed from the workplace, thus saving the listener the expense of buying eg desks, pens, pencils, even 'a case of white out'. Silly but fun, and ending with the rousing finale:

It's your duty as an oppressed worker to steal from your exploiters.
 It's gonna be an outstanding day.
 Take stuff from work.
 And goof off on the company time.
 I wrote this at work.
 They're paying me to write about stuff I steal from them.
 Life is good.

how can you resist?

Rude Bwoy - LLoyd Hemmings. No idea who this guy was, but I taped the track from Kershaw in the 80's and have loved it ever since. A King Tubby production. Having googled Hemmings it appears that the tune is avaible on 7" Jamican import for £2.99 - bargain!

Where Were You? - The Mekons. From Leeds, and still going strong in some form or another. Main Mekon Jon Langford, is one of the less celebrated customers of Cynthia Plastercaster. I think these days they are more of a country / Americana outfit, rather than the DIY punk of this track.

Sorry You're Sick - Ted Hawkins. For Andy Kershaw listeners in the 1980s, Ted Hawkins was the bees knees, such a terrific voice. A shame that it all ended so depressingly.

Our Town - Iris Dement. A voice which may well be an acquired taste, and sounds straight out of The Old Weird America. Mentioned in a few entries earlier, Graham and Jim and I saw her at Cambridge, memorably duetting with John Prine. Even Clive enjoyed Our Town, and he is not given to esoteric sounding female country singers.

I Live For Buzz - The Swingin' Neckbreakers. This is from an LP which Clive brought back from a trip to the US, a tremendous rock and roll album...the band turned up on The Sopranos in Season 3 or 4, playing at Adriana's nightclub.

loads more too, including The Colorblind James Experience, The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Jake Thackray, Andy Capp, Reigning Sound, The Replacements, Dory Previn, Warren Zevon - overlooked and under-appreciated all...

Fall Motel!

2007-05-09T23:07:00.000+01:00

Cast a weary eye over the new video from the Fall

MES dancing - something else I thought I would never see...

We're all fucked up on the booze and the drugs

2007-05-09T20:26:00.000+01:00

A couple of quick joyful things this evening.

Firstly, the Broken Family Band, sounding like they from someplace in Texas, actually they from the wild west of Cambridge. Wherever they hail from, they make a mighty fine racket, and The Booze and The Drugs from the LP 'Balls' is just the ticket.

Second up - more MES madness, this time featuring as Our Lord Jesus Christ in blasphemous BBC3 drama Ideal. It's the first time I've seen JC represented by a 50 year old Mancunian speed freak wearing a black leather jacket, puffing a B&H.

even more thrills - the new single by the White Stripes, mixing up prog rock lunacy with crazy ass Detroit garage geetars. Best thing they've done for a good few seasons...

All Tomorrow's Parties

2007-05-07T17:57:00.000+01:00

It was a great weekend. Jamesie, Grant and I started with a couple of pints in the beer garden of the Swinging Shillelagh - Butlins' overpoweringly green and leprechaun bedecked Irish theme bar. After inhaling the complimentary shortbread biscuits generously offered in our chalet, we set off to explore the site.

The main stage at ATP is within a permament marquee, ringed with the likes of Burger King, Pizza Hut, and assorted amusement arcade type devices - it takes a bit of getting used to but the sound was very good, the bogs weren't far away and there was real ale in the 'Sun and Moon' traditional pub. There are two other venues on site, more used to hosting the likes of Bucks Fizz and Banarama - we delighted in the huge SHOWTIME! sign on the wall on the way in the the Centre Stage. The carpet was stickier even than Rock City, and the smell of spilled beer was ever present, so we felt quite at home.

40 minutes after the time they were due on stage, there was no sign of The Only Ones, and I was convinced that they were blowing out ther first gig in 26 years. Not to worry though, they did eventually lurch onstage, including legendary drug hoover Peter Perrett; a man so emaciated and smack-ravaged that he appeared to be little more than a skeleton in a T Shirt. They were terrific though, and I'll be off to see them at Rock City next month. One of the least expected rock reunions for sure...

A Saturday highlight was Spiritualized Acoustic Mainline, who were wonderful - stripped down songs with strings and gospel singers and electric piano. J Spaceman seems in excellent health and his voice was stronger than on any of the previous occasions I've seen them. It will be a crime if this line up of the band don't release a cd, in the meantime I'm enjoying a live bootleg of the show they did at St Mary's church in Nottm last year.

Mr Cave was superb, crashing into West Country Girl at the start of a Bad Seeds best of set, then a short intermission and the whole of the Grinderman LP. Bobby Gillespie had turned up to bash the drums and sing, and he was introduced by his new employer as 'Bobby Gillespie from the Jesus and Mary Chain', which prompted a guy behind me to say 'well that's wrong, he's in Primal Scream'. Young people, tsk tsk they know nothing - back to rock n roll high school with you.

My favourite of the weekend had to be Joanna Newsom, she was stunning. She did my favourites from Ys, the version of Sawdust and Diamnds was breathtaking. Bill Callahan in contrast was dull - I nipped out for more Cave action on the main stage, as he was headlining on Sunday too. It occured to me at the time that many of the headline acts are reformed heroin addicts who are making the best music of their career despite cleaning up - so often it seems to be the other way round.

Anyway, ATP was a great weekend, I'll definitely go again, although I will blend in better if I grow a beard for the occasion. When taking requests from the crown, Cave said 'you Sir, with the beard', which raised a laugh as every other bloke there was sporting facial hair of one flavour or another.
And thanks to Jim for the pics..

Running Order Squabble Fest

2007-04-27T07:09:00.000+01:00

I'm heading off to Butlins this weekend, in about half an hour in fact.

Not for the crazy golf or the knobbly knees competition, but for All Tomorrow's Parties.

Three days of black clad miserable Australians, led by Nick Cave, The Dirty Three, Einsturzende Neubaten (who cancelled Rock City last night - doesn't bode well..) and the more sprightly Joanna Newsom, who is the act I'm especially looking forward to. Adding the legendary 'I can't believe they are still alive, let alone appearing on stage' The Only Ones, and the acoustic Spiritualized, it should be a cracking weekend.

And if the entertainment palls, there's always the chance for a quick dip in the sub tropical paradise or a brisk stroll up Minehead beach.

'No dry ice? No dry ice? Hey Jason, they've got no dry ice'

Into The Purple Valley

2007-04-16T22:32:00.000+01:00

Two LPs have dominated tonight's listening; 'Into The Purple Valley', by Ry Cooder, and 'Handful Of Earth', by Dick Gaughan.

Ry Cooder seems to me to be an unsung giant of guitar music. I bought this LP when I was 17 or 18, from Way Ahead records on Hurts Yard in Nottingham. Most of the tracks are cover versions of songs by folks like Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, etc. Cooder is maybe more famous these days for being the instigator of the Buena Vista Social Club, as well as his soundtrack for Paris Texas, but he paid his dues playing guitar alongside Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal, and in the 'Sticky Fingers' era Rolling Stones. Not to mention one of the great lost Stones singles, 'Memo From Turner' from the soundtrack to Performance.

Cooder has claimed that Keith Richards pinched his signature guitar tuning, and based subsequent Stones albums around his sound, although the Keef countered that Cooder himself learned various tunings and techniques from the likes of Rev Gary Davis and was therefore hardly in a position to claim originality.

Either way, Into The Purple Valley is a terrific LP, some great slide guitar - Vigilante Man being the highlight for me.

Gaughan, on the other hand, is the man who prompted Andy Kershaw to exclaim 'I thought The Redskins were radical until I discovered Dick Gaughan'.

Famously, Handful Of Earth was voted the best folk album of the 1980's by readers of Folk Roots, on the strength of tracks like 'World Turned Upside Down' (covered by Billy Bragg) and 'Worker's Song'.

Jim and I once went to see him at the Old Vic, not a vintage evening, but great to see the man in close quarters. There were two ladies at the bar loudly discussing topics unrelated to socialist folk music. After the next convenient tune, Jim leaned over to them and said 'Could you talk a bit more loudly? I can still hear Dick Gaughan'.

Did the trick...

I Got a Razor

2007-04-11T20:57:00.000+01:00

Willie Dixon is best known as a writer of hit blues songs for the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf, as well as being the double bass player in Muddy's electric band in Chicago - he also played on some of Chuck Berry's early records. Led Zeppelin ripped off his 'You Need Love' for a track on their second album, later adapted as the theme tune for Top Of The Pops...Willie won a royalty credit in an out of court settlement almost 20 years later.

I'm a lot less familiar with his own recordings, but this track from the soundtrack to Deadwood is fantastic, walking bass and braggadocio spoken word vocal accompanied by Memphis Slim on the Old Joanna...

Also on the wheels of steel tonight - late period Captain Beefheart, specifically the albums featuring Gary Lucas on the guitar. Ice Cream For Crow - Floppy Boot Stomp! - and Doc At The Radar Station, which includes Hot Head.

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks

2007-04-10T18:59:00.000+01:00

Much of this Brian Eno LP sounds very familiar, it must have been used on loads of films, documentaries, adverts, etc although the only one I would have been able to name is Deep Blue Day from the Trainspotting soundtrack.

Previously the only Eno stuff I have heard was Music For Airports, so ambient as to be barely musical, and Here Come The Warm Jets, which is pretty much a straightforward rock LP (with vocals!) recorded shortly after he left Roxy Music. Apollo makes for unsettling listening, and I guess in the right, or wrong, circumstance sit could be downright terrifying. I'd love to see the NASA documentary which it was devised to accompany, I would imagine it would be a perfect marriage of sound and vision.

There there my dear

2007-04-02T22:17:00.000+01:00

It's 1980; I'm listening to Axe Attack with Ady, enjoying the delights of Motorhead, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and, er, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush...

Meanwhile, Dexy's Midnight Runners have released 'Searching For the Young Soul Rebels', and a nation of indie kids is dressing in donkey jackets and beanie hats, hooting along with Kevin Rowland to 'Geno' and 'Seven Days'...

What a terrific LP that is! It does slightly shame me to think I was immune to anything other than NWOBHM rock at the time, but I have belatedly been enjoying this record almost every day since I picked it up last week, after reading the great review in Fear of Music. Hearing music as passionate as this is a refreshing alternative to the jaded, careerist pap which passes fro chart music in 2007.

UnAmerican Activities

2007-03-14T22:21:00.000Z

forgot to mention, there's a great Randy Newman download to be had through iTunes:
'A Few Words in Defense of Our Country', see him playing it on youtube here.

'the end of an empire is messy at best, and this empire's ending, just like all the rest...'

Give a philosophy student a glass of limeade

2007-03-14T19:28:00.000Z

A quick round-up of the sounds of the hour here at Welch Acres. I've been poking around Selectadisc and Fopp this month, harvesting a mixed crop of records both old and new, ...let me tell you about them, friends:

It could be the fact that I have started a new job, or alternatively just general encroaching decrepitude, but I seem to be retiring to bed earlier and earlier these days - the plus side of which is taking a few cds with me to accompany a little late night reading. At the moment I am retiring with mid-period David Bowie - Station to Station and Low; and Kraftwerk - especially Trans Europe Express.

I'm not totally mired in the pre punk mid 1970's though, I have actually been buying a few new records too. Malcolm Middelton, who'll be at the Social this time next week, and the Gossip. Although I downloaded it ages ago, I did the decent thing and bought the Grinderman album, which despite a terrible sleeve is terrific stuff.

Malcolm M is not quite as good as the last LP, but still reliably miserable and self-pitying (sample song title - 'death love depression love death'). I haven't made me mind up yet about the Gossip, though any band fronted by a huge lesbian in a metallic blue catsuit has to be worth some kind of scrutiny, and the single 'Standing In The Way Of Control' was fantastic.

Since I started reading 'Fear Of Music' by Gary Mulholland I've also been digging out old stuff like Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Metal Box by PiL, and The Correct Use of Soap by Magazine. The book is very good, easily as good as the preceding 'This Is Uncool', and it's been a real inspiration to rediscover records which I thought would be gathering dust for a good few seasons to come.

BTW, good sounding new Richard Thompson tune on his website, from forthcoming LP out in May

I'm in with the In Crowd

2007-03-14T19:13:00.000Z

Another last minute gig last night, in the company of Mr Hewitt as his plus one for Bryan Ferry at the Concert Hall. It was really very odd, the audience was largely made up of fifty-something groovers, with ladies being in the majority. Ferry has a new album out, of insipid Bob Dylan covers. Some sounded ok - Gates of Eden, Positively 4th Street, but most were unremarkable. He did do some great versions of his solo stuff though - Stick Together, etc, and his band were great. I had to look twice to recognise Chris Spedding on guitar, he is greyer and paunchier than in his Motorbikin' days..

So it was pretty bizarre to see the place erupt as they broke into Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, the cheesey 1972 piss-taking version. Almost everyone was on their feet - even me and Sean - all the way up to the second tier. I did feel something of an imposter, and I have always disliked that version of the song, but it was hard not to get carried along with it.

Tell you what though, I would have been a little cheesed off if I had paid the £45 ticket price...

'Only water passes my lips, only beer passes my throat'

2007-03-08T17:42:00.000Z

so says Mr Mark E Smith, who rolled up to be interviewed on 6 Music this week, listen again if the fancy takes you here. I think he's probably mad. Mad, and pissed.

Out to a gig last night, the first since Bonnie Prince Billy I think, it was James Yorkston at the Social. Felt a bit sorry for him actually, as there were only 35 people there at the most, but it's not that long since he was last here, and Spiers and Boden were up the road so I guess that was a bit of competition.

What was especially exciting was that the famous Bob was there; Bob from 20 yrs back in the Jangle Club at the old Vic, and from most years at WOMAD, and many folk / roots gigs in Nottm. Not even sure if Bob is his real name, but it's always strangely reassuring to see that he's still going strong. Never spoken to the bloke, I think it would spoil the magic somehow...

A modicum of challenge and danger

2007-03-01T18:01:00.000Z

I know shoving up random You Tube clips is rather a lazy way of running a blog, but this here clip of good ol' Uncle Bill Burroughs is just terrific...his voice is so splendid, that long drawling 'til the bare lies shiiiiine through..' is wonderful!

Notebooks out, plagiarists

2007-03-01T00:03:00.000Z

apologies for the delay between posts, and the brevity of this rather paltry effort.

just to say that Mark E Smith of the mighty Fall gruppe, has a few words for you here

If 6 was 9

2007-02-14T19:25:00.000Z

Listening to a lot of Hendrix at the moment, not sure why. I've had odds and sods of his for years, on dodgy old tapes mostly, but I've never heard the original albums all the way through.

I think he's another of those artists who it's easy to think that because you've heard all the hits so many times, there's no need to stick on a Hendrix CD at home, because it's all been absorbed by osmosis - but when something like 'If 6 Was 9' crops up on the soundtrack to a film (is it Easy Rider?) then once again you are knocked out by the guitar. Heard 'Little Wing' tonight for the first time in ages, I think I last heard it on a double live album which I lent Mike Slats in 1990 and have not seen since.

I used to have a book called Encyclopoedia Metallica, which I bought at the Virgin Megastore on Commercial Road in Portsmouth. (I bought 'Sonic Attack' by Hawkwind on the same visit). This work of metal scholarship contended that the whole genre of heavy rock commenced with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Cream. They played massively amplified blues rock, but I guess there were other founding fathers like the MC5 and the Stooges, but I'm not going to start that debate.

Anyway, according the the Encyclopoedia Metallica, these two giants at the top of the metal family tree spawned Deep Purple, Led Zep and Black Sabbath, who in turn begat Judas Priest and UFO, who then sired the NWOBHM bands like Iron Maiden and Saxon. Simple! the whole story of Metal in three or four generations!

I wish I still had that book, there was a great photo of one of the dudes from Lynyrd Skynyrd looking particularly stupid, which made me and Ady laugh. There was a forward 'written' by Biff Byford from Saxon (once a guest lecturer at Newark tech, fact fans), where he urged the reader to 'Keep The Faith!', ie to listen only to true Metal. Ady and I kept this up for a little while until the Velvet Underground and the Doors appeared, courtesy of Southwell record library, and suddenly metal seemed a bit limiting...

Post Reformation TLC

2007-02-12T21:23:00.000Z

A brighter than usual start to the working week - there's a new Fall LP out today. Picked it up in Selectadisc and am on my second trot through it on headphones, safely out of the way of the Helster, who is not a fan...

On the strength of the first couple of listens, it's not as good as 'Fall Heads Roll' or 'The Real New Fall LP' (MES is getting very self-referential in his old age - one of the tracks on this album is called 'Fall Sound'), but it still rocks in the right places.

It's too bloody long though - there's 10 minutes of drivel called Das Boat which must have taken as long to write as it did to record, and one or two other inconsequential tunes which add little to the overall effect, but I guess that's what Fall LPs are supposed to be like...

It's tempting to believe the rumour on the excellent Fall fansite that the 'TLC' in the album title stands for 'treacherous lying cunts', in reference to MES's erstwhile guitarist/bassist/drummer, who quit on him mid-tour in the US last year, apparently tiring of his lager and sulphate shenanigans and habitual bad behaviour, including assaulting a member of the support act with a banana -the 'systematic abuse' described on the closing track, perhaps...

Something I learned today

2007-02-07T23:12:00.000Z

the late lamented Husker Du

Kerosene around

2007-02-01T22:48:00.000Z

First day of Feb, and with it, my first alcohol since new year's day.

Despite being sober for January, I managed to get out to a few gigs - Robyn Hitchcock, Ginger, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, and the Supersuckers.

Gig-going without beer is weird - and cheap - but these four were all great nights out. I would have fancied a few beers with the Supersuckers though; pretty much everyone else in the place (Fibbers in York) was trashed.

Bonnie Prince B was excellent, far better than I expected, much more rocking and less maudlin strumming than I feared. I like the new LP, but I'm not too familiar with his other stuff, and apart from a couple of covers I knew none of the tunes from the first hour of the set. Sign of a good gig, you have not heard the material before, but you are grinning to yourself thinking 'this is bloody good'...

So I'm sipping on a warm ale, got Big Black on the headphones, it's good to be back..

Pissing In A River

2007-01-24T18:18:00.000Z

I am a big fan of the Rough Trade Shops 'Counter Culture' annual compilations. Or at least, I became a fan after Graham alerted to me to them...They are 2 CD compilations of the RT shop staff's favourite tracks of the year, and whilst there are a few mainstream-ish tunes on them, it's mostly pretty leftfield stuff across a lot of different genres.

For this year, they have issued Counter culture 1976 to accompany 2006, and my cds arrived yesterday. Most of the tracks from 2006 are new to me, and I do like a lot of them, but in comparison with the 1976 disc, which includes The Ramones, Candi Staton, The Saints, Dennis Brown, Patti Smith, Nick Lowe -they seem rather forgettable. Not that I remember any of that stuff - in 1976 I was 8 years old and under attack from the ladybird swarm that descended that summer, and it was well before I even thought of buying any records - 'Everybody Wants To Be A Cat' was where it was at for me in those days...

Just Like Money

2007-01-23T18:46:00.000Z

The Jesus and Mary Chain are 'reforming' to play some enormo-festival in California in the Spring. Seems a shame, but I guess they have bills to pay same as all of us. Cult recognition and lasting influence on music across a generation is all fine and dandy, but cash money is still the bottom line, so it's hard to blame them. Still prefer to remember them from their Psychocandy incarnation though...

Best of the 2006 best ofs

2007-01-21T19:01:00.000Z

With only one to come in (yes I know I have lots to send out, I'm working on it!), as of today these are the most popular LPs of 2006, culled from those which had a minimumof 3 tracks chosen from them on this year's best of CDRs. Does that make sense,?? either way, these are they:

bob dylan		5
Primal Scream		5
Belle and Sebastian		4
Fratellis		4
jarvis cocker		4
mogwai		4
muse		4
arctic monkeys		3
comets on fire		3
CSS		3
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan		3
joanna newsom		3
raconteurs		3
seth lakeman		3
sufjan stevens		3

the 4 Mogwai tracks are all different - the four Muse tracks are all the same (Knights of Cydonia)...

and no, it's not a fix fix that Dylan came top...

Going to a go-go

2007-01-21T18:12:00.000Z

Today's Observer Music Monthly has a feature about 25 of 'the best gigs ever'. Of the gigs listed, I would love to have seen the Velvet Underground in NYC in 1966, or Elvis in 1975, or the Pistols and the Clash in their heyday. I would be less enthused by Oasis or Jay Z, but I bet Roxy Music in '73 were good fun. Stephen Merchant reckons that Springsteen was so good, he didn't once get up foir a piss during the gig. If this is the measure of a top night out, then I am lost for words...

Anyway, with a heavy sigh and a depressing sense of inevitablility, here's my random 'off -the -top of- my -head' list of my top 10 gigs:

1. The Pogues, Brixton, 1988
2. Kraftwerk, Leicester, 1992
3. Colorblind James Experience, Hull, 1989
4. Steve Earle, Harlesden, 200?
5. Iggy Pop, Nottingham, 1988
6. Alabama 3, Birmingham, 2001
7. The Fall, Nottingham, 2005
8. The White Stripes, Nottingham 2001
9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Manchester, 2005
10. Beck, Nottingham, 1997

well that's just a random spurt of the first classics which come to mind././ the Ramones were great, although well past their best, Richard Thompson has never disappointed, plus Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream, Micah P Hinson, oh and about a thousand more...

Crappo The Clown

2007-01-21T16:03:00.000Z

A great title, the first track on Malcolm Middleton's first LP. He really is a miserable bastard, but I do like his records and the way he combines the bleakest of lyrics with uplifting tunes. Not that they are all uplifting - some are bloody depressing, but that's OK too.

Anyway, there's a new LP out in Feb, and the two tracks on his MySpace sound excellent.

In Spite Of Ourselves

2007-01-12T23:10:00.000Z

I haven't seen this since I was in the audience. It was the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2003, it rained and rained, Jim contracted a bizarre chest infection only allieviated by whisky, and it was magic to see John Prine. Joe Strummer was there too, it was the year he died. He used what they call 'very strong language', as I recall.

It seemed then that we had an almost unremittingly bad time - the mud got tedious, and a very complacent and stubbornly seated audience was infuriating. We would charge over to a particular tent to see someone (it was a great line up that year, Eliza C, Bragg, Be Good Tanyas, etc) only to be foiled by a bunch of bastards on picnic blankets and camping chairs stuck in the way. But, the music and the beer were brilliant, and I would like to go back soon...with a blanket and a camping chair of course. On Sunday morning they broadcast the Archers omnibus across the campsite and festival arena...it's that kind of event..

Cortez The Killer

2007-01-11T22:31:00.000Z

More Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Zuma this time. I have this on vinyl, but I saw it in Fopp today for a fiver, and thought why not. Apparently he has no memory of recording 'Barstool Blues', which makes it similar to Status Quo's 'Mystery Song' - they were so coked up, allegedly, that they couldn't remember recording that one either, hence the title...

And I would say that there's where the resemblance ends...Zuma has plenty of grungey strung out guitars, especially on 'Cortez The Killer', and a great side one track one in 'Don't Cry No Tears'.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

2007-01-10T20:37:00.000Z

Listening to a lot of Neil Young and Robyn Hitchcock at the moment.

Saw Hitchcock at the Rescue Rooms last Saturday night, a terrific gig, he has Peter Buck out of REM in the band at the moment, so there was a lot of Rickenbacker 12 string Byrds-ish chiming guitars, it was brilliant. It helps that Hitchcock's new LP is so good, easily his best for a long time. We didn't see them, but Michael Stipe and Mike Mills out of REM were in the audience. They must have been hiding, because the place wasn't full, and the Rescue Rooms is hardly the Albert hall.

As for Neil Young, I've picked up the Live At The Fillmore 1970 cd, which has all those fantastic rambling guitar solos which last for 12 minutes and then start all over again. This got me into Tonight's The Night, long held to be a bleak and strung out heartbreaker of an album. I don't know about that; but the songs are great, and the guitars sound incredible.

Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?

2006-12-25T00:02:00.000Z

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an' they gave me a lethal dose.
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

shelter from the storm

Let There Be Rock

2006-12-18T19:00:00.000Z

24 year old harp playing singer songwriter geniuses are one thing, but when there's some rocking that needs to be done, AC/DC take some beating.

sawdust and diamonds

2006-12-17T22:12:00.000Z

there's been a lot of slavering from the broadsheet music journos over this LP by Joanna Newsom.
It's all deserved, it's a fantastic record. Very long, wordy songs, trilled by a startlingly peculiar voice which is just the right side of horrendous tweeness. I'm not describing it very well - again, but it's one of the best lps I've picked up this year.
Which I probably wouldn't have done had Alex and Anna not picked tracks from it on their own 'best of' cds...

things have changed

2006-12-16T02:01:00.000Z

I've been walking forty miles of bad road
If the bible is right, the world will explode
I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much

You can't win with a losing hand
People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Lend me ten pounds, I'll buy you a drink

2006-12-15T11:47:00.000Z

The Pogues were in Nottingham last night, and I went with Graham. They were terrific, even in a crappy old shed like the Nottm Arena, which is hardly a patch on the Brixton Academy (St Patricks Day 1988) for atmosphere. Most of the band are now bald and trim and teetotal, apparently, and perhaps as a consequence they play fantastically. MacGowan is still a wreck, but (largely) comprehensible for most of the time. At one stage he had to be reminded which tune was next, but with a few trips off stage for a refreshing light ale, he was relatively sprightly.

The setlist on this 'reunion' tour is full of old stuff from the first three albums, including tracks from Red Roses For Me which I have never heard live before, alongside favourites like Body of an American, Bottle of Smoke, and the Sickbed of Cúchulainn. There was a lachrymose version of Fairytale of New York to end with, resulting in Mr Ward getting a thorough dousing of fake snow, and some concerned enquiries in the pub after the gig...

You add it up, it brings you down

2006-12-13T21:32:00.000Z

very much enjoying the 2006 discs which have come in so far. loads of stuff I would never have heard, or even heard of .

for instance: Peter Bjorn and John, 15 minutes of strangely compelling drone rock from some guys called Om, the new LP by Six Organs of Admittance, CSS, Tuung, Grizzly Bear, and the best track title so far this year - 'our operators are masturbating' by Dr Octagon.

the Grauniad has compiled a chart of charts from the mags and websites, finding Hot Chip to be the LP of the year. Not had a single track from it yet on the compilations...but I liked the sound of the Burial album, might take a punt on it in Selectadisc tomorrow.

best of all though - 'One Track Lover', by Dr Lucien Sanchez

I've only got three bullets and there's four of Motley Crue

2006-12-05T22:37:00.000Z

...thus spake Nigel Blackwell

Rough Trade shop albums of the year, of which I have only a few.

I score better with the Mojo top 50, which I guess tells us rather a lot about which particular record buying demographic I fall into...ie a tired old middle class white man.

This album sounds great, it's cropping up in a lot of the end of the year lists, and it's the first one that I have thought 'bugger, I wish I'd put that on my cd'. I have downloaded it, but I'll swing by Selectadisc tomorrow.

meanwhile, Q has got the Killer's LP listed as the 5th best album released this year...it's one of the most hatefully shallow and soulless records I've ever heard.

That Midlake LP is growing on me, slightly.

No Depression In Heaven

2006-12-04T22:39:00.000Z

This is a great compilation. I don't need Bobby Gillespie to tell me how great the Carter Family are (or rather, were), but there are some fantastic records on these two cds - from dodgy homemade punk to sparse trad folk, to NY coffee shop blues, avant garde noise wankery, C86 jangling, and many other sub genres too elitist and high falutin' to go into here. Three tracks in, and the Rezillos 'I Can't Stand My Baby', bumps up to 'Xerox' by Adam and the Ants...when he was cool, before the girls got hold of him...and then one of the tracks that kicked off hip hop.

it was a pretty good year

2006-12-03T20:49:00.000Z

a few 2006 cds are in , and already I'm thinking 'Bugger. Mine is going to look very tame compared to this lot'.
Running the whole gamut of white boys with electric guitars to white boys with acoustic guitars, and back again, my selection suddenly feels rather shit. oh well it's too late now, and discovering great new tunes is the whole point I guess.

Life's all pain. Pain, gloom and misery

2006-11-29T23:32:00.000Z

well, if you are uncomfortable with themes such as abandonment, addiction, deceit, sexual obsession, betrayal, disease, infanticide and death; you may find little amusement in my 2006 hit parade. Typical example - The Cruel Mother, by Alasdair Roberts. Came out last year, but I'm trying to get away with it as it's been one of my LPs of 2006.

But don't despair - shoe-horned into the fag end of the cd is a jolly Shuttleworth track to make sure we finish with a smile.

Well it's 1969 OK

2006-11-26T09:56:00.000Z

compiling a cd of more than a dozen bona fide great records has not been easy this year.

Consider the same task in 1969 - the headache then would be which tracks to leave out. I spent a few minutes this morning setting upa 1969 playlist on iTunes, and here's what my end of year best of might have looked like - when I was one year old...

(I picked 1969 pretty much at random, because that was the year the King crimson album in the below post was released).

1. The Stooges - 1969
2. MC5 - Kick Out The Jams
3. Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown
4. Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young and Crazy Horse
5. Pinball Wizard - The Who
6. I Want To Take You Higher - Sly and the Family Stone
7. Nick Drake - Day Is Done
8. Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #1
9. Buzzin' Fly - Tim Buckley
10. Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Cleawater Revival
11. Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
12. Come Together - Beatles
13. Son of a Preacher man - Dusty Springfield
14. Lay Lady Lay - Bob Dylan
15. Matty Groves - Fairport Convention
16. Live Injection - The Upsetters
17. San Quentin - Johnny Cash
18. Moonlight on Vermont - Capt Beefheart

and we could go on...it's a long list of classic records across loads of genres, even with below par LPs by Dylan and the Beatles, both of which seem like stone classics compared to 2006 releases.
it also gives a lie to the notion that the '60's were done and dusted by '69 - everyone was either dead or on smack, 'they're selling hippy wigs in Woolworths' etc. but by the above evidence it was a bleedin vintage year, the like of which will never be seen again.

The Prog doctor will see you now

2006-11-24T21:42:00.000Z

A strange evening, I've been listening to a lot of dodgy old prog rock. On a whim, I downloaded In The Court Of The Crimson King - I don't think I have ever heard it all the way through, although Ady used to have it on vinyl, and I remember '21st Century Schizoid Man', which is a tremendous track, and probably worthy of inclusion in that track one side one list from the other week.

Now I think about it, Ady's vinyl version was a double LP, with Larks' Tongues In Aspic, and one of the LPs seemed to be a random Status Quo album, which found its way there by mistake. I don't think I'm making this up...

Anyway, ITCOTCK is a really good record. The lyrics are bobbins, but the guitar playing is terrific.

Come Out To Show Them

2006-11-14T23:12:00.000Z

ok, this is a quick one...the last track randomly selected for me before retiring tonight turns out to be Come Out, by Steve Reich. This is a tape loop, a recording which Reich made in 1966, the details of which are here.
It's one of the oddest things I have ever heard, (on headphones it is almost hypnotic - a voice saying 'come out to show them' repeatedly, at different speeds, going in and out of phase, echoing over itself, coherent then incoherent, yes it sounds wanky if you describe it in words, but try listening to it) according to iTunes, it is categorized as 'pop'. This record is as far removed from pop as it is possible to get...