Turn up, tune out, drop off

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

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

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

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

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



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

I Was In The House When The House Burned Down

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guilty Pleasures

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

1. ELO - Livin' Thing

2. Boston - More Than A Feeling

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

4. 10cc - I'm Not In Love

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

6. Foreigner - Cold As Ice

7. Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

8. Status Quo - Whatever You Want

9. Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street

10. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive

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

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

here's a few of my personal guilty pleasures:

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





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

50 Albums that changed the world

The reliably egregious Observer music monthly has gone listy again, and for once my blood isn't boiling...

I'm with Graham on this:

"For once, one of those list thingies that didn't have me swearing or throwing the publication to the floor. OK, I can think of a few omissions - Psychocandy for one - but this mostly had me nodding sagely. Which is how one should spend a Sunday afternoon. "

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1821230,00.html

I would pick Revolver over Sgt Pepper - maybe, but at least they have got the right Dylan LP for once.

Oh to be in England.

The passing of Syd Barrett sent me back to songs which could only have come out of England, or at least, the British Isles.

Barrett was one of the first people to avoid singing in some kind of quasi American mid Atlantic accent - I doubt that it even occurred to him to do so. This affectation was adopted by David Bowie and many others.

Those songs on Piper At The Gates of Dawn (before his mental state got the better of him) are impossibly English, and for me are far more 'psychedelic' than anything on Sgt Pepper (which was being recorded in the studio next door at the same time).

Syd Barrett's earlier songs had a childhood whimsy about them which stopped just short of being irritatingly twee (except maybe for Bike, with the mouse called Gerald, who hasn't got a house but he's a good mouse). It comes out of Lewis Carrol, and (obviously) The Wind In The Willows, and a weird old Arcadian dreaminess which sounds like nothing else in rock.

As he got more and more ill, the songs become increasingly hard to listen to, and I can't take much of the solo albums at all, they are just too deranged and broken.

Anyway, all this set me off on a playlist of quintessentially English tunes, sung by English voices and far removed from the American R&B which kicked things off in the first place. Hence we have the Only Ones, with Peter Perrett singing ever so nicely about heroin again, and Ian Dury, Nick Drake, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, the Kinks, Small Faces, Shack, Bert Jansch, Fairport Convention, Linda Thompson, etc...

more suggestions are welcome!

Run to the hills children, the end is Nigh

More evidence of the creeping death of civilization and all that's good and pure and true:

There's a new Vodaphone advert doing the rounds on TV at the moment, featuring the Only Ones' 'Another Girl, Another Planet'. This has depressed me greatly...whenever a wonderful record is stuck on some grubby advert it is another reason to be miserable .

Ady pointed out the irony of this song, which is blatantly about heroin, being used to advertise a cell phone network. As he says, 'chatting is not at the top of your priorities when you are on heroin'.

Dance, critters! When I say dance!

Two of the best gigs I have ever been to were at the Adelphi club in Hull, featuring the Colorblind James Experience. These guys turned up on the Peel show, with their most 'famous' song, Considering a Move To Memphis (the full and glorious lyrics to which are found here.)

Colorblind James hisself was a heavy set gentleman who played vibes and sang, there was also guitar, bass, drums and horns - they were a kind of rootsy polka dance band, self proclaimed 'rowdy dancehall jive'. And they were unbelievable on both nights...this must have been in 1988 or 1989. At the second night, after the band shambled back for another encore I was shouting for a track called, 'Hey Bernadette', and they actually played it...the only time to this day that this has happened to me.

You're so beautiful, but you gotta die someday

Last weekend I was cooking, and I prepared myself a CD of short, loud, punkish songs to keep me on my toes while I was titting around with filo pastry and assorted other accoutrements of middle class foody-ism.

In amongst the Buzzcocks, Ramones, Big Black and Husker Du, I included a tune by Big Joe Turner called 'Roll 'Em Pete', which is just a fantastic rockin' boogie woogie barrelhouse blues...belted out by Joe, accompanied by his trusty sidekick Pete Johnson on the old Joanna. It rocks like a bastard, and Big Joe clearly gets so carried away by the whole thing (and, one suspects, he may have had two or three gin and juices during the session), that he sort of loses himself half way through the track, and when Pete's belting piano section tails out, all he is capable of is growling 'yes yes, yes yes, I KNOW! Well... Alright then!' over and over again. Pure rock n roll...

Kick it for me James!

This old town is filled with sin,
It'll swallow you in
If you've got some money to burn.
Take it home right away,
You've got three years to pay
But Satan is waiting his turn

And now it's time for a grim German football song

The internet is a marvellous thing, it really is.

This evening I have been listening to an mp3 of John Peel, filling in for Jakki Brambles on lunchtime Radio One in 1993. The great man started the show with 'Lost in Music' - not the Sister Sledge version, oh no, but The Fall...'of course that's the b-side of the new single 'Why Are People Grudgeful' says Peel. The typical Jakki Brambles listener stares at the radio and prays that the next tune will be Simply Red. Sadly for them, it's Jimi Hendrix, from a Peel session in 1967, a cracking version of the Beatles' 'Day Tripper'.

This is followed by 10 minutes of German happy hardcore, giving way to George Michael, and you can hear the sighs of relief up and down the land.

Peel then announces the daily 'PJ Harvey slot', at which point '50 ft Queenie' crashes in, sounding twice as loud as anything else on the programme. By now, a few disgruntled faxes are beginning to appear, one of which apparently reads 'John Peel, please stop'.

No chance of that however, as dancehall reggae seques into old time piano blues, German oom pah, more hardcore bleeping and whooshing, and the occasional foray into the Radio One playlist (seems very odd to hear Peel announcing Jamiroquai and Madonna...)

We shall never see his like again.

Death Disco

So farewell then , TOTP... I remember when pre-sainthood Bob Geldof ripped up pictures of Olivia Newton John and John Travolta when Rat Trap finally made it to number 1 in 1978...and various other memorable appearances, which escape me now.

Graham sent this link, which must have startled the more conservative viewers in 1979...

Then was America, we went there

poster for a recent Fall show in Los Angeles, which took my fancy...

Get Pissed, Destroy

Where to begin, where to begin...

The new national number one record, the nation's favourite, is called 'I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in my Hair)' by Sandi Thom, the lyrics of which go something like this:

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late to a world that doesn’t care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

I'm struggling to keep a grip on my sanity / temper here. On how many levels does this record offend me?

On the advice of Graham, I recently watched the Don Letts film 'Punk:Attitude', which was very entertaining and included a quote from James Chance of the Contortions: 'Originally, 'punk' meant a guy in prison who got fucked up the ass...and that's still what it means to people in prison'.

Are you going to tell that to Sandi Thom...or shall I?

Pop Will Eat Itself

Yet more 'Best Album Ever' poll arguments...

According to NME readers (I used to count myself an NME reader, after the Kerrang years, before the Mojo years...) the best album of all time is Definitely Maybe by Oasis. Other predictable candidates in the top 20 are Radiohead, the Stone Roses, The Smiths, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles.

Whilst it's in no way my choice for best album, I would rather a loud guitar record was voted top than some whiny Radiohead dribble, or the patchy and over-praised Stone Roses, which often comes top in these kinds of polls.

Oasis had their faults, which became more and more unavoidable as they got more famous and the cocaine kicked in, but there are some great tunes on Definitely Maybe, and it served as a vivid antidote to more critically lauded 'britpop' bands like Blur and Suede; bands which wore equally retro influences on their sleeves, Ray Davies and David Bowie in particular.

The 'Beatles rip-off' accusations chucked at Oasis were often valid, but they were equally in thrall to the Sex Pistols, T Rex, Slade, Stone Roses, etc. The piled up guitars which crash in at the start of Definitely Maybe could have been swept off the studio floor from the Never Mind The Bollocks sessions...and let's not forget that the Pistols had their own musical antecedants in The Who, Small Faces, Stooges, NY Dolls, Alice Cooper and more.

Originality in rock music these days is hard to find, and when it does show up, it's rarely going to set the charts on fire. Noel Gallagher was never slow to talk about the bands that went before him and influenced his songwriting -the copyright lawyers at Creation were often kept pretty busy- and his lyrics were usually terribly banal, but none of that stops me from enjoying Definitely Maybe for what it is, a cranked up guitar party record.

The older guys really got it all worked out

I watched 'Gimme Shelter' last night, terrific film, and one of the few chances to see footage of Gram Parsons.

Here's another, of the Flying Burrito Brothers titting around on a boat, singing 'Older Guys', with Gram wearing a foul check jacket and a very ill-advised hat.

And while we're at it, 'Sticky Fingers' is a blinding album...and the intro to 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking' is bleedin' marvellous! after the first dirty, ragged guitar line, a cry of 'yeah!' is heard in the background, Jagger presumably...

'Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y'all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive'

Jagger just about gets away with that 'Y'all'...

Charlie's good tonight, inee?

Blind Man, Have Mercy On Me

Farewell to this land's cheerless marshes

Iggy, Bowie and Lou at play, sometime in the 70's, after a few shandies. This picture has graced the wall of Clive's front room for a few years now - and a mighty fine addition to the decor it was too.

Sadly, Clive's tenure in at Norman Towers has come to an end - this weekend he moves out for good, and he bequeathes this charming print to whoever wants to claim it, most likely Shuggie or Sherwood Dave...there comes a time in a young man's life when wall-sized prints of decadent rock stars in their cups just don't cut it with the ladies, and sadly we have reached such a time...

Coles Corner - Richard Hawley

This is a terrific record, a real slow burner which just gets better and better with each listen.

I had it on the ipod on the train home from Newark last night - I was full of wine, it was raining, it was late, it really suited the mood.

I was listening to it again on the way home from work tonight, and the final track segued brilliantly into Robert Johnson's Come On In My Kitchen..

Living After Midnight

Hey Girls!

Apparently, according to someone I used to work with and who now 'works' at Q Magazine, women are buying more music these days than men.

50 Quid Bloke has been superceded by the kind of switched on modern gal who is downloading music on mp3, or mp-she, if you will...and quelle horreur :

'For the first time, more women are reading are reading metal magazine Kerrang! than men'

Now, this I find particularly surprising...in a previous life I was an avid Kerrang reader; in fact I bought the first issue (and the following 70 or so) which featured Angus Young on the front cover, and the likes of Rose Tattoo, ZZ Top (who barely anyone in the UK had heard of then) and Rainbow within it's glossy pages. That's Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - not Bungle, George and Zippy...

In the olden days, Kerrang would regularly feature metal bands in photo spreads with nude ladies, in a distinctly un-PC context. One memorable issue had a centrepread with Rob Halford of Judas Priest with the current Penthouse Pet of the Year - (whose name was Cheryl, if I remember correctly...)
Rob Halford is gay - very gay. Looking back now at all the leather straps and caps and so on, it seems odd that we never suspected this at the time, but I guess photo shoots with Penthouse Pets served to perpetuate the 'Metal's Not Gay' myth...

I guess Kerrang has left such diversions behind, and there are no more pictures of Motorhead desporting with top heavy groupies on a garage forecourt in Wrexham (which I remember well from one woeful issue).

The Years Roll By Like Sweet Little Days

Everyone's favourite raddled ex-junkie grandad, Sir Keith Richards is out of hospital following brain surgery. The report quotes his publicist using the word 'cockamamie', which is just lovely. This word should be used more often, in my admittedly rather stupid opinion.

Went to see Black Mountain last week at the Rescue Rooms, not many folks there, and most of those were hairy blokes. Good gig though, sludgey riffs abounding.

The NME has published a reader's list of their favourite 'rock heroes'...the list is so depressingly crap that I don't know where to begin... Suffice to say that being either dead or addicted to heroin seems to make the grade with kids these days.

Having said that, many of my 'rock heroes', have been known to ride the white horse to Smackfordshire on occasion...there's Keith of course, Dylan, Gram Parsons, Pete Townsend, the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Tim Buckley, Alabama 3, Dee Dee Ramone, and not forgetting everyone's favourite sociopath - 'whoops where's my trousers' GG Allin.

Who's Matt Bellamy anyway?


Top 20 Rock Heroes
1 Kurt Cobain
2 Pete Doherty
3 Morrissey
4 Liam Gallagher
5 Carl Barat
6 Thom Yorke
7 Noel Gallagher
8 David Bowie
9 Ian Brown
10 Ian Curtis
11 Richey Edwards
12 Jack White
13 Joe Strummer
14 Matt Bellamy
15 Axl Rose
16 Bob Dylan
17 Julian Casablancas
18 John Lennon
19 Elliott Smith
20 Alex Kapranos

Blues Like Showers Of Rain

Favourite Albums of the last 12 years

First off, the word is 'favourite', not 'best'...that's just my distinction.

Mojo magazine celebrated it's recent 12th birthday issue with a run down of writer's top Mojo 100 Modern Classics; LPs released during the magazine's lifetime, ie since 1994. The full line up is at the foot of this post.

Some debate has ensued amongst the Cider readership about the merits of the included records, and those which might have been in the 100 but were overlooked.
These are a few of the albums preferred by us middle class guitar playing white boy fans:

Graham:

Eliza Carthy & the Kings of Calicutt
Lambchop – Nixon (can’t believe that wasn’t in the list)
Steve Earle – El Corazon
Alabama 3 – Exile on Coldharbour Lane
Buena Vista Social Club

Andy P:

Alabama 3 - Exile....& Power in the Blood

Leftfield - Leftism
Nick Lowe - Dig My Mood
Paul Weller - Wild Wood

Mr Love Pants.

Road To Rouen.

You Are The Quarry (most important to have him back)

Tinariwen.

R.L.Burnside

Alex:

Suede - Dog Man Star

Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis

Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin

Radiohead - personally I like Amnesiac.....really!

The Verve - Northern Soul

Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass - Passages (would put this in the top 5 if it was a wee bit younger!)

The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps,

Me:

Alabama 3 - Exile On Coldharbour Lane

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs

Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues

Nick Lowe - The Convincer

Johnny Cash - Solitary Man

Steve Earle - I Feel Alright

Leftfield - Leftism

1. Jeff Buckley – Grace
2. Johnny Cash – American Recordings
3. Radiohead – Ok Computer
4. Bob Dylan – Time Out Of Mind
5. Oasis – Definitely Maybe
6. The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
7. Radiohead – Kid A
8. The White Stripes – Elephant
9. Nirvana – Mtv Unplugged In New York
10. Beck – Odelay
11. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – The Boatmans Call
12. Spritualized – Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space
13. Nirvana – In Utero
14. Massive Attack – Mezzanine
15. Bob Dylan – Love And Theft
16. Radiohead – The Bends
17. Johnny Cash – American III – Solitary Man
18. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix
19. Dj Shadow – Endtroducing
20. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – I See Darkness
21. Tom Waits – Mule Variations
22. Outcast – Speakerboxx/The Love Inside
23. Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club
24. Elliott Smith – Either/Or
25. P.J. Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
26. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
27. Air - Moon Safari
28. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
29. Madonna – Ray Of Light
30. Mercury Rev – Deserters Songs
31. Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels On Gravel Road
32. Beck – Mutations
33. The Strokes – Is This It
34. Soloman Burke – Don’t Give Up On Me
35. Portishead – Dummy
36. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
37. Brian Wilson – Smile
38. Belle & Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister
39. Pulp – Different Class
40. P.J. Harvey – To Bring You My Love
41. Elvis Costello And The Imposters – The Delivery Man
42. Jimmy Page & Robert Plant – No Quarter – Unledded
43. Antonym And The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now
44. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around The World
45. Kate Bush – Aerial
46. Supergrass – In It For The Money
47. Queens Of The Stonage – Rated R
48. Bruce Springsteen – Devils And Dust
49. Gillian Welch – Time (The Reinventor)
50. Blur – Blur
51. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
52. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
53. Bjork – Post
54. Bastie Boys – Ill Communication
55. The Beta Band – The 3 Ep’s
56. Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
57. The Libertines – Up The Bracket
58. R.E.M – New Adventures In Hi-Fi
59. Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs
60. Arcade Fire – Funeral
61. Oasis – (What’s The Story) Morning Glory
62. Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The Wu-Tang
63. Morrissey – Vauxhall And I
64. Tortoise – Millions Now Living Will Never Die
65. Primal Scream – Xtrmntr
66. Neil Young And Crazy Horse – Sleeps With Angels
67. Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
68. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange
69. Aimee Mann – Lost In Space
70. Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjan
71. Al Green – I Can’t Stop
72. Blur – Parklife
73. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues – The Lyre Of Orpheus
74. Nora Jones – Come Away With Me
75. The Verve – A Northern Soul
76. Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost Of Tom Joad
77. Tricky – Maxinquaye
78. Eminem – The Marshall Mathers Lp
79. Tinariwen – The Radio Tisdas Sessions
80. Guide By Voices – Bee Thousand
81. Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible
82. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
83. The Prodigy – Songs For The Jilted Generation
84. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind
85. Salif Keita – Moffou
86. Paul Weller – Stanley Road
87. The Jayhawks – Sound Of Lies
88. R.L. Burnside – A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey
89. Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Californiacation
90. Maria Mckee – Life Is Sweet
91. Boards Of Canada – Music Has The Right To Children
92. Manu Chao – Clandestine
93. System Of A Down – Toxicity
94. Michael Head And The Strands – The Magical World Of The Strands
95. Rufus Wainwright – Poses
96. Underworld – Second Toughest In The Infants
97. D’angelo – Brown Sugar
98. Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
99. Sizzla – Black Woman And Child
100. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head

The Decline of Civilization, part 58

A poll by dreary music channel VH1 has revealed that the nation's favourite pop lyrics are by U2, from their song 'One'. I like the Johnny Cash version of this record, which is rather less pious than the original.

I dunno, but I would have hoped that there was room for some Dylan in the list. Apparently the Pogues were in there somewhere, so that's some consolation. One would also hope that Ray Davies, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Townsend, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and many others would be there too. Not bleeding Coldplay.

Sometimes a light don't shine

[At the police station I was told ‘Prison? or rehabilitation?’
I said it really didn’t matter, so I chose the latter
And after 47 days with electrodes in my head, I was nearly dead
Then they said I was fine
So I went outside, within five minutes contemplated another taxi ride,
back to the place where I used to score before.
I guess rehabilitation goes walking out the door]

Even the most casual visitor to this blog will assume that I have a passing affection for
Alabama 3.

I have all the albums, which I never tire of hearing. I have seen them 4 or 5 times live, some of those gigs being among the best I have ever seen. I buy the new records on the day of release, which I can't say about anyone else. I spend wasted hours searching eBay for deleted 12 inch singles, and I exchange dodgy bootlegs with similarly afflicted friends.

Sign of a great record - it will bear repeated listening over many years and will still seem fresh on the 100th play. This is the measure of Exile on Coldharbour Lane, and if you don't already own this record, then have a word with yourself.

Mr D Wayne Love:

When you woke up this morning, everything was gone.
By half past ten your head was going ding-dong
ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
like some voice trying to tell you there was something you should know.
Last night you was flying but today you're so low
Ain't it times like these that make you wonder if you'll ever know
the meaning of things as they appear to the others;
wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.
Don't you wish you didn't function, wish you didn't think
beyond the next paycheck and the next little drink?
Well you do, so make up your mind to go on
'cos when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.

Alone, Jealous and Stoned

I've been neglecting this blog for a while, but I've been busy, out and about at various gigs.

Last Monday was Ginger and the Sonic Circus, him out of the Wildhearts, with a 9 piece band playing his solo double LP. Old style rawk n roll with a country twang ...they were v good. Then a couple of days after that it was Seth Lakeman, who was terrific - good to see some folk at the Rescue Rooms.

Tonight it was Secret Machines - kind of Spiritualized, shoegazey drone with a motorik krauty beat - fantastic. Still loads of pricks sending two page text messages to their friends, oblivious to the happenings on stage.

Anway, there are more gigs in Nottm at the moment and coming up than I can ever remember...it's been at least one a week for a while now. Coming up - Jim Reid, Shack, Teddy Thompson, Black Mountain, the Lords, and dahn the smoke Pharoah Sanders, for some original avant garde jazz skronking...and Primal Scream in Wolves in a couple of weeks...

strange things happening every day

Listening to lots of the good Sister recently, she knocks seven bells out of that geetar.

those who have served

farewell Ivor Cutler, Ali Farka Toure, and The Reverend Charlie Jackson - all in the same week.

I once went to see Ali Farka Toure at the Old Vic in Nottingham, on a double bill with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with a girlfriend whose dad insisted she was home by 11.

I knew I was in for a disappointing evening when AFT came on stage a little after 10, giving me a mere 20 mins or so to enjoy his desert blues before having to turn tail for the suburbs.

Baby, Let Me Lay It On You

Off out tonight to see a blues slide guitar player, called Charlie Parr. Nothing too unusual about that, I have been going out to see blues slide guitar players for the last 20 years. This guy was playing at the Social in Nottingham, a venue which caters predominantly for the younger hipster crowd, more used to modern indie rock stylings, as opposed to pre-war delta blues.

So, the venue was a third full, of people younger than me nodding and bopping away to this bearded geezer doing his best to recreate the sounds of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Blind Willie McTell, amongst others. Couldn't help but feel that if this character had been booked at the Running Horse, there would have been perhaps an equivalent number of old geezers in attendance, collectively thinking 'this boy is OK, but he's no Lightnin Hopkins'. Choice of venue makes a big difference to the fashionable credibility of the performer in question. I never went to a blues gig to meet girls, but my 19 year old self might have done quite well tonight...

Smoke Black Mountain

This is a good album for anyone who has an idle wonder about what a jam session between Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and Can might sound like. After a long spell in Brian Wilson's dope tent.
Sludgey, repetitive Sabbath riffs (a good thing!) abound. The bloke in charge works at a needle exchange facility in Vancouver, and 'Black Mountain' refers to a large pile of herbally extracted recreational compounds. Not that you could tell from the stench emanating from the record...
Another recent album worth hearing, the collaboration between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, 'Ballad of Broken Seas'.



She is ex-Belle and Sebastien (no, that didn't set my pulse racing either) and he is ex-Screaming Trees most recently observed lending sinister growls to Queens of the Stone Age.
Other records whiling away my time at the moment, Eighteenth Day of May (mp3 downloads from their website), plenty of Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and John Fahey, and twenty years too late 'Your Love' by Frankie Knuckles.

Station Approach

Went to see Elbow at Rock City last Wednesday - I'm not their biggest fan but Helen is very keen, so I got us tickets. They were very good - and I enjoyed the gig, but I was pissed off by the number of people just blatantly talking over the music or dicking around on their mobile phones, sending text messages etc.
This I don't understand - when I'm at a gig, I'm watching the band, I'm not thinking of sending a bleeding text message to someone, or starting a conversation with my neighbour about tonight's episode of Eastenders.
Young people today have either a) no attention span or b) no access to the kind of bands/acts that demand 100% attention at the expense of all other waking thought...which is pretty sad to see either way you look at it.
Enough old bastard moaning...I know, I know, it was all so much better in my day...

Bob Dylan is cool - official

This startled me - the annual NME 'who's cool in rock' list has Mr Bob Dylan at number 9.

Bob's cooler than Ian Brown! And a bunch of other guys (hmmm...it's nearly all men...well done non-sexist NME) I've never heard of!

1. (New) Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys)
2. (New) Liam Gallagher (Oasis)
3. (New) Kanye West
4. (New) Antony (Antony and The Johnsons)
5. (9) Brandon Flowers (The Killers)
6. (17) Devendra Banhart
7. (=1) Pete Doherty (Babyshambles)
8. (New) Jemina Pearl (Be Your Own Pet)
9. (New) Bob Dylan
10. (=1) Carl Barat (Dirty Pretty Things)
11. (New) Ian Brown
12. (New) Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz)
13. (New) Ryan Jarman (The Cribs)
14. (New) Julian Casablancas (The Strokes)
15. (New) Ninja (Go! Team)
16. (New) Paul Epworth
17. (New) Billie Jo (Green Day)
18. (New) Tom Atkin (The Paddingtons)
19. (New) Henry Harrison (The Mystery Jets)
20. (New) Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance)

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

The Helster and I met for a drink after work yesterday, and as so often happens, she accused me - harshly but accurately - of being a 'deaf bastard'. (a congenital wax problem that I suffer with nobility and great patience).
I responded, inevitably, with 'What?'.
I received a punch in the ribs and 'That joke isn't funny anymore' from the Helster. I proceeded to say that there could be a song in this, I felt strange compulsion to grow a quiff and stuff daffodils down my trousers, wear a big hearing aid, and claim to be celibate whilst in fact being as gay as a tree. (ie to be Morrissey).
So, anyway we arrive at Langtry's for a beer, and what song is playing as we sit down? 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' by the Smiths...

Gigs a go go

A couple of gigs last week, of the sit down variety...for a welcome change for my tired old bones. There's only so much beer spillage and toe treading and general shoving around at places like Rock City that one can put up with.
Anyway, Monday was John Cale at de Montfort Hall; only about half full but a good night out. He kicked off with Venus In Furs, and was backed a band of lads who must have been a third of his age.
Better still was Nick Cave at the Conert Hall in Nottm - in the middle of the front row...which was exciting. I was worried that it would be a very sedate evening of gentle piano balladry, but from the off it was rowdy and clattering, a fantastic night. Terrific versions of The Mercy Seat and Abattoir Blues amongst others, and I got to shake the great man's hand. Shame about that moustache though...

Zen Arcade

Went to see Bob Mould last night, at the Rescue Rooms. He was much better than I expected; since it was billed as 'an acoustic evening' I was afraid it might be a bit intense and po faced, but it seems that these days Bob has come to terms with his Husker Du past, and happily straps on an Stratocaster to blast away through 'Celebrated Summer' etc.

There was a great moment when he stopped the show to berate a twit in the crowd who was talking loudly to his mate, with his back to the stage. Fat Bob (who is actually rather trim these days) asked this fool how much he had paid for his ticket, and since he was preferring to have a loud conversation during the previous song, would he rather have his money back? The bloke said no, and apparently shut up for the rest of the gig. Bob's blog is here, and includes a good story about being let through without a work visa at Heathrow by an immigration officer who was a lifelong Husker Du fan.

The Brakes

Now this lot are great - 16 tracks on an album that lasts 29 minutes...and covers of tunes by Johnny Cash and the Jesus and Mary Chain...

Rough Trade

This year's Rough Trade compilation is out on the 24 January...pre order on their website, and receive a free 4 track EP.

Their top 100 albums of 2005 are listed here.

Hex Enduction Hour

There are twelve people in the world
The rest are paste

GROTESQUE (AFTER THE GRAMME)

Wireless enthusiast intercepts government secret radio band and
uncovers secrets and scandals of deceitful type proportions.

Aghast goes next door to his neighbor, secretly excited, as
aforementioned was a hunter whom radio enthusiast wanted
friendship and favor of.

A new face in hell

Nearly a new face in hell!

A muscular, thick-skinned, slit-eyed neighbor is at the table
poisoned just thirty seconds before by parties who knew of
wireless operator's forthcoming revelation.

A new face in hell!

A prickly line of sweat covers enthusiast's forehead as the
realization hits him that the same government him and his now
dead neighbor voted for and backed and talked of on cream porches
have tricked him into their war against the people who enthusiast
and dead hunter would have wished torture on. A servant of
government walks in and arrests wireless fan in
kitchen for murder of his neighbor

A new face in hell!

I stole away and cried

Willie Nelson does a nice version of Dylan's 'He Was A Friend Of Mine' on the closing credits to Brokeback Mountain...

Maximo Park

What have the monthly music mags got against this group? One of the best albums of the year, nominated for the Mercury music award, constantly on MTV2 - and the grown ups mags completely overlooked it in their end of year summaries, often in preference to pish like Hard Fi.

The NME stuck A Certain Trigger somewhere in their top 20, elsewhere it was totally ignored. The risible Observer music monthly (hardly a teenybobber periodical) showed up the oversight when they ran a 'reader's best of' alongside their own top 100 - readers voted Maximo Park 14th best of the year, whilst it was nowhere to be seen in the writers list.

You know what though, if REM had released Reckoning this year it would have beaten everything. A pity they didn't quit ten years ago, the later albums are so leaden compared to this.

I work in hotel, all gilt and flash.

Well, the CDR best of the year compilations are pretty much all in, apart from a few stragglers. Looks like Arcade Fire and Gorillaz were the top albums of the year, there were 5 different tracks picked from each one. Other favourites were The Fall, White Stripes (albeit the same track chosen 4 different times - My Doorbell), Arctic Monkeys, LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers, Elbow, The Tears, amongst others.

In the sales I picked up the Children of Nuggets box set, a compilation of the (very) loosely defined 'second psychedelic era'. What this means is a bunch of songs from 1976 - 1994, featuring jangly guitar bands with paisley shirts and pointy shoes. Apart from that, I've been listening to Reckoning by REM (every single track of which could well belong on the Nuggets box set), Achtung Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit, and Quadrophenia by the Who.

In the Kingdom of the Bland...

...James Blunt is King.

Well, according to Mr HMV anyway, who has done his usual trawl of the end of the year 'best of' lists from the mags and papers, compiled a 'best of the best ofs' list, and compared it to the top ten best selling records of the year. Here's how they rank:

Critics Top 10

1 The Arcade Fire: Funeral
2 Gorillaz: Demon Days
3 Kanye West: Late Registration
4 Sufjan Stevens: Illinoise
5 Elbow: Leaders of the Free World
6 Antony & The Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now
7 The White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan
8 Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better
9 Kaiser Chiefs: Employment
10 MIA: Arular

Top Selling Albums of 2005:

1 James Blunt: Back to Bedlam
2 Coldplay: X & Y
3 Robbie Williams: Intensive Care
4 Kaiser Chiefs: Employment
5 Westlife: Face to Face
6 Gorillaz: Demon Days
7 KT Tunstall: Eye to the Telescope
8 Eminem: Curtain Call - The Hits
9 Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway
10 Katie Melua: Piece by Piece

For my own two pence, I think the critics have been over generous to Franz Ferdinand and the White Stripes, who seem to become more toothless with each release. Overlooked LP of the year is A Certain Trigger by Maximo Park, which has had the most play in this house - or maybe it's just the only one that me and the Helster can agree on. The Elbow LP is great, and we are hoping to see them at Rock City in the new year. And who is Kelly Clarkson anyway??

Miss Otis Regrets

Neu!

I downloaded this LP, the first album by Neu! about a year ago, and have listened to it on and off without paying it much attention beyond the opening track Hallogallo. I've played it all the way throught twice tonight, and it's bloody fantastic. Much of what is passed off as Krautrock is very very tiresome, but Neu are out on their own. Must have been great to see them live.

elsewhere, the mags are trotting out yet more best of 2005 music lists, and it seems to be a toss up in the main between Anthony and The Johnson, Gorillaz, and Arcade Fire. I've tried with Anthony, but I just don't get it, I've heard a lot of the Gorillaz LP on the 2005 cdrs, likewise Arcade Fire, sounding good.

A few tracks sticking out for me which I had missed this year so far but which have turned up on the cds from Graham and Jim - 'I Burn Today' from Frank Black's solo LP, and 'The Well' from the Smog album. will have to pick up both records in the new year when I have some spare cash.

The Heavy Heavy Monster Sound

Went to see Madness on Monday night, at Rock City. Part of the 25th anniversary of the country's stickiest shit hole, apparently.

They were tremendous, it was bedlam, and they did all the old stuff. Not many bands had a better run of singles, and they weren't all Baggy Trousers jolly-ups either - loads of Madness songs are very dark and bleak, which is of course fine by me.

The sax player, name escapes me, climbed to the top of the PA , but down his horn, and made as if he was about to leap into a suddenly wary crowd. There's no way he's going to jump, no way - oh look - he's jumped. I thought he would have broken his spine and taken out a few aging mods with him, but no, apparently he was fairly unscathed, and eventually reappeared on stage more or less intact.

'You Call Glastonbury 'Glasto'...

...you'd like to go there one day.
When they've put up the gun towers
to keep the hippies away'.

Anyway - that's off the new Half Man Half Bisuit lp, Achtung Bono. Still doing it for me, 20 years on.

Those best of the year lists are starting to pop up in the mags, and a depressing quantity of them are dribbling hyperbole all over the Magic Numbers. Grown men reduced to tears at gigs, well crafted tunesmithery etc etc. Over-rated bland out toss I'm afraid.

We're already dead, but not yet in the ground

Saw John Cale on 'later' the other night, bashing away as if his life depended on it. He's 63 or something. I hadn't heard any of his solo stuff, apart from Songs For Drella with Lou Reed, and the Bill Bragg cover version of Fear (Is A Man's Best Friend). Anyway, bought the new one on spec, and it's pretty good - especially 'Perfect', which he did on Later. Better is the album 'Fear' from 1974, which I downloaded but will pick up from Selectadisc.

Angry old man shouting and beating the fuck out of a geetar, just the job at the moment.

best of 2005 cd is finished - wedding present, cale, fall, arctic monkeys, stones, malc middleton, martha wainwright, sufjan stevens, cuban boys, blind boys of alabama, x-press2, alabama 3, maximo park. i think that's about it...

Lucifer Over Lancashire

This is very odd, there's a BBC football programme on something called BBCi (some kind of sub-ether wave band as far as I can tell) which is broadcast on Saturday afternoons for people who care rather too much about football. Anyway, bless them, they got Mark E Smith in to read the classified football results last week. If you have more bandwidth than sense, you can watch him in action here.

The same link has a clip from the recent channel 4 prog about John Peel's record box, with some more good Fall stuff. MES is quoted as saying 'you should never meet your heroes', whilst Billy Bragg is of the opinion that 'you should never meet Mark E Smith'.

A Creature Void of Form

Just back from seeing Dylan at Nottingham Arena. I'd heard that the venue wasn't quite as soulless and alienating as most other stadium gigs, but this proved not to be the case - it's a shed.

Anyway, Dylan was on tremendous form, his band these days are pretty much a straight up Blues / R'n'B / Swing band, and some of the interpretations of older tunes were majestic - there was a fantastic slow blues version of It's Alright Ma, and a mesmerising Blind Willie McTell. Times like this, the band sounds a lot like the Bad Seeds - a good thing.

It's best to approach Dylan live with a healthy scepticism and a readiness to be disappointed; on the evidence of tonight he was on his best behaviour, appeared to be enjoying himself, and even gave a straight version of Like A Rolling Stone full of feeling and (almost) all the right notes.

Maybe it was all down to a first time in Nottingham, wanting to impress, and a willingness to play up to the recent hype around the No Direction Home documentary and the paperback version of the Chronicles...either way, a night to remember.

set list:

1.	Maggie's Farm
2.	The Times They Are A-Changin'
3.	Lonesome Day Blues
4.	Love Minus Zero/No Limit
5.	It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
6.	Under The Red Sky
7.	Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
8.	Blind Willie McTell
9.	Highway 61 Revisited
10.	John Brown (acoustic)
11.	Floater (Too Much To Ask)
12.	Honest With Me
13.	Masters Of War
14.	Summer Days
	(encore)
15.	Like A Rolling Stone
16.	All Along The Watchtower

Sacrifice Is Going On Tonight

Apparently, 2005 is the 25th anniversary of NWOBHM.



You don't need me to explain what NWOBHM is, do you? The New Wave of British Heavy Metal, as typified by bands like Saxon, Iron Maiden (especially the pre-Bruce Dickinson line up) Girlschool, Motorhead, Diamond Head, etc etc

Now, some of these bands were inexcusably terrible. Some of the records are bloody good though! In a very silly way, maybe, with a lot of songs about motorbikes, denim, leather, living after midnight and touching each other's bottoms etc...tunes like Running Free, Breaking The Law (YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIIIIKE!!) Please Don't Touch, Wheels of Steel...
Amazingly, lots of these bands are still about, schlepping around Europe on the metal nostalgia circuit, and good luck to them say I.

Twisted

"For whatever reason you refuse to feel this space we're in,
to know its insanity, really know it,
whatever your particular anaesthetic is,
that you hold on to so desperately,
the thing I mean that makes you think you know who you are,
whatever that thing is you allow to keep you sane,
your ace in the hole,
the pscyhe that keeps you from trying to guess at what your pimp has in store for you,
whatever keeps you from screaming out at this very moment in absolute and sheer horror,
whatever you fuck your brain with,
whatever that is,
whatever that is,
it's a lie.
It's a lie."

alabama3

albums of the year

just picking over the tracks that might end up on my best of 2005 CDR...

It's been a year of good tunes featuring on otherwise disappointing albums, eg Teenage Fanclub, Beck. Plus, having become an iPod owner this year, I am losing the discipline to sit and listen to one LP from start to finish. The tempation is to skip about between favourite tracks, without devoting the time to properly get inside a whole record.

Anyway, my cdr will eventually feature the likes of The Fall (there's a surprise), Malcolm Middleton, Maximo Park, Martha Wainwright, Sufjan Stevens, Elbow, Seth Lakeman , Alabama 3, Arctic Monkeys, etc etc many other too tedious to list.

Last year, judging by most people's final 'best of 2004' cdrs, the most popular LPs were by Nick Cave, Morrissey, and Franz Ferdinand...it'll be interesting to see if anyone runs away with it this year.

Gut of the Quantifier

The Fall were good - not as blinding as earlier this year at the same venue , but still good. I think that's partly because in March I would have been impressed if MES had lasted longer than 10 mins, such was the man's reputation at the time, but the band is young and plays very tight garage R'n'R...good stuff.

Another English eccentric, Ray Davies...I am enjoying the Kinks 'Village Green Preservation Society' which I've never heard before. I only have one Kinks LP which isn't a 'greatest hits' which is pretty shameful really as I reckon RD to be, on his day, the equal of Lennon and McCartney and Townsend in the Greatest English Songwriter stakes.

Ears still ringing from the Fall, I laid off the iPod today...

Well it's lonesome in this old town...

...everybody puts me down..

Out to see the Fall tomorrow night, hoping that Smith doesn't implode with whisky and bile as he apparently has been doing on a few nights of the current tour. He's gone and cancelled most of the remaining provincial gigs except Nottm and Wolves -burning out already?

Started the Peel biography this weekend, you can hear him speaking each line...very good and very funny, but incredibly sad - he clearly was expecting to live a bit longer than the end of the next sentence.

Strolling Bones

Not heard the new album yet, and to be honest the sensible reaction to a new Stones record is a weary shrug of the shoulders, and a safe assumption that it will be a a bucket of bollocks.

However - opening track is a blinder, and I only know this because I saw it on young person's beat network MTV2. 'Rough Justice', not quite as dirty as Stray Cat Blues from 30 odd years ago (no WAY you could get away with lyrics like that these days) but still pretty sleazy. A pretty tune, and a charming sentiment.

Mick Jagger is 91.

Double Albums - why?

With the new Kate Bush (you wait 12 years for an album, and when it arrives - it's a double) record on the horizon, time to reflect on the truly essential double LPs which wouldn't have been better honed down to a single - here's Graham:

I honestly find it hard to think of a double album which wouldn't have been better off editted onto one disc (with the possible exception of Quadrophenia and the Wall - but they're operatic so maybe they can be let off). Even London Calling - when was the last time I actually got as far as Train in Vain?

I would weigh in for 'Exile on Main Street' and the White Album as being worthy of 2 discs, though I am scratching my head to think of any others...'Blonde On Blonde', 'Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus'...

I would love to say 'Zen Arcade' and 'Warehouse:Songs and Stories', both by Husker Du, but to be honest I just don't have the stamina for more than side one of each. If we are allowing live albums, I'm having 'It's Too Late To Stop Now' by Van Morrison, and Queen Live Killers (which apparently isn't very 'live' at all...but it's good fun.

Kids Today

The Arctic Monkeys, new single out now pop pickers.

Does it for me. So much hype around this band, but on the strength of this record (which I bought! From Mr iTunes!) it seems deserved.

Sometimes A Light Don't Shine

Saw the Alabama 3 in Wolverhampton last night, good venue and a marvellous gig which saw me go 'down the front' for the first time in at least a decade.

Tour diary from the Spirit Of Love in today's Independent.

50 Bands To See Before You Die

More no brainer list nonsense - this time from Q magazine, via this Wikipedia article.

I've seen 10 out of the 50, which bearing in mind several are DJs (hmm, stretching the concept of 'band') and several others are dead, I reckon is not too bad. Out of the Top 10, I've seen Kraftwerk, the Pogues and The Fall. Would love to have seen AC/DC or The Who...

Dutch Peel show online

I can't remember how I happened upon this, but it's a show from 1986 which Peel did for a Dutch radio station - the first 5 mins are in Dutch, the rest is the man himself and some great records (Husker Du's version of Ticket To Ride?). Click 'uur1' on the page, it's streaming audio.

I Can Hear The Grass Grow

Still thrilling to the breathless rush of Fall Heads Roll.

Meanwhile, in other news, I have hacked the dvd player to play multiregion discs...meaning that I can finally order Dylan's 'Don't Look Back' on dvd, unaccountably unavailable in this country.

Album of the Year

Hard to imagine anyone besting Fall Heads Roll as LP of the year - it's bleedin demented and rocks out like the olden days. Picked it up during my lunch hour - a tenner from Selectadisc! - the gigs will be terrific. Maybe the version of Blindness is not quite as unhinged as the Peel sessions version...but the version of I Can Hear The Grass Grow is much better - SAVAGE!

Fall Heads Roll

New album out on tomorrow, contains the epic Blindness, the best thing they have ever done.





I can't get my eyes checked
My blues eyes can't get checked
I'm only one leg
I said to poster, "When's the curfew over?
I said, "Blind man, have mercy on me."
I said, "Blind man, have mercy on me."
Blind man have mercy on me
Oh Great One I am a mere receptacle
The egg tester for your sandlewood and over asserted roots

In dark green
Blind man have mercy on me
I got a metal leg - truth
Flat is the evil of Calvary and cavalry

and if you can make any sense of that, you're a better man than me...

Witness The Pitness

MC Pitman - sorry to go on, but this bloke is bloody hilarious.

'brother, let's do this right -first we'll drink tea, and then we'll fight'.

he's mentioned in Wikipedia, it seems shock horror that he may not in fact be a real miner.

Not this old rubbish again

BBC 6 Music have asked their listeners to nominate the most over-rated albums ever made...and these are the lucky winners.

1. Nirvana - Nevermind

2. Coldplay - X&Y

3. The Libertines - The Libertines

4. Oasis - Definitely Maybe

5. U2 - The Joshua Tree

6. Radiohead - OK Computer

7. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

8. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

9. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks

10. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

Now, whilst I am more than happy to see Radiohead and the bleeding Libertines on there, and Coldplay of course, the rest of the records on this list are classics of one sort or another. Except for U2. The Queen Is Dead is one of the best records ever made by anyone, as is Pet Sounds. Sgt Pepper is ok I suppose, but it wouldn't distress me if I never heard Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds ever again. Suede - overrated almost beyond reason. A good guitar player, that's about it. Prince - a couple of good singles over 10 years ago, the rest is bobbins. Almost anything that ever won the Mercury Music Prize - a hallmark of over-ratedness.

meanwhile, this guy is a genius.

I used to care, but things have changed

The Independent has listed the top 20 Dylan albums, as part of the current Zim frenzy ahead of the Scorsese documentaries next week. Hard to argue with, but difficult to rank - Blonde On Blonde is usually voted top, but I can't decide between Highway 61 and Bringing It All Back Home. The latter was the first Dylan album I owned - I bought it on cassette from a second hand shop in Portsmouth. At the time (age 16) I was graduating from heavy rock and the likes of Pink Floyd, the Doors, etc etc. To hear a line like

' Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.'

was just electrifying. Certainly more so than, say, Ummagumma. About which I'll say no more.

Anyway, plenty of Dylan gubbins going on at the Indie, including the boy Kershaw talking about the 'Judas!' accuser at the Free Trade Hall in 1966.

I was a miner

I once met Billy Bragg at a signing in Selectadisc. He was very genial as I remember, and he was concerned that because he only had a black felt tip pen, his signature on the black sleeve of the Days Like These EP I had just bought would be pratically invisible. You can just about see it, if you angle the record to the light and squint.

The only other signed record I own is Something Else by The Kinks. Ray Davies did a book signing at Virgin when I was in charge of the book dept, and he cheerfully agreed to sign Kinks paraphernalia as well as his autobiography. Apparently he was suffering from a particularly bad ear infection at the time, and this formed the basis of my one and only conversation with a song writing legend:

Me: 'How's the ear Ray?'
Ray: 'Not too bad thanks.'

The Heavy Metal Umlaut

I stumbled across this waste of cyberspace today through a link on the 6 Music website: a history of the umlaut in Metal (those two dots over the second 'o' in Motorhead, for example.

Apparently, "The umlaut in Motörhead was contributed by the graphic designer of the band's first album cover. In the words of Lemmy, Motörhead's front man: "I only put it in there to look mean."

Motorhead are the obvious umlaut users, but here are many more - Blue Öyster Cult, Spinal Tap (the umlaut is over a consonant- nice!), Amon Duul, Husker Du (although I think their umlaut is actually legit, and anyway they aren't metal).

It also includes this terrific exhortation from an old Hawkwind album (which to my shame I still own...)

"TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEA̋D"

Motely Crue - there's another...

A Day In The Life

Q magazine has printed a list of their top ten british songs of all time:

1. A Day In The Life - The Beatles

2. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks

3. Wonderwall - Oasis

4. God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols

5. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

6. My Generation - The Who

7. Angels - Robbie Williams

8. Life on Mars? - David Bowie

9. Sympathy For The Devil - Rolling Stones

10. Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack

it's voted by a panel of 'industry experts' rather than the likes of you and me.

The Kinks need to be in any list of quintessentially English acts, andWaterloo Sunset is one of my favourites. A Day In The Life is very English, but we could equally choose other Beatles tunes like In My Life, or Paperback Writer, or almost anything from Revolver or Rubber Soul.

Wonderwall has been lambasted elsewhere on this blog, and I'll say nothing about Robbie Williams, but it's good to see Unfinished Sympathy on there - that's a timeless, classic record.

Two possible omissions spring to mind straight away - Ian Dury (pretty much anything by him, but let's say Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick) and Common People by Pulp. I would have thought Pink Floyd were another archetypal British group, and there could also be some two tone ska on the list, eg Baggy Trousers by Madness or Ghost Town by The Specials.

What about Kate Bush? Wuthering Heights is another record which owes nothing to the 12 bar American R&B heritage and could only have come out of this country.

There really should be some Smiths on there too...The Queen Is Dead:

"I said Charles, don't you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your Mother's bridal veil ?"

Seven Songs By Sunset

John Shuttleworth's finest hour.

I Am a Bird Now

Anthony and the Johnsons won the Mercury Music Award, watched by me and the Helster in something of an alcohol and pizza induced fog.

I've tried with the album, admittedly not very hard, but I haven't really clasped it to my bosom as such. We were rooting for Maximo Park, but it seems that white boys with guitars are currently persona non grata down at Mercury Towers.

But, if a 6 foot 4 cross-dressing ex-choirboy can win, then there strikes a blow for diversity.

No Direction Home

Everything's going Bobular - the soundtrack to the Scorsese doc is out today (and it's great), then the film over two weekends at the end of the month, then the man himself in November.

The soundtrack has some terrific stuff - 'Maggie's Farm' at Newport in 1965, which apparently drove Pete Seegar so demented he picked up an axe, and ran amok in the crowd, slaughtering beatniks at every turn. Those are ELECTRIC INSTRUMENTS! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!

'It Takes a Lot To Laugh' appears in speeded up (in every sense) incarnation, and there's a lovely tune called I Was Young When I Left Home which I'd never heard of before.

There are alternate versions of two of my favourites - 'Don't Think Twice', and 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue' - not better than the originals, but sufficiently different to be fascinating in a way that many other artists' outtakes and studio floor sweepings are not. For one thing - Dylan is clearly still writing lyrics while recording early versions of some songs - Tombstone Blues and Baby Blue are both abbreviated compared to the versions we already know.

The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

Shake 'em On Down

RL Burnside, RIP. Saw him at the Maze a few years back, he was tremendous. Why use 3 chords, when two or even one will do?

Got this from the bbc website:

"After growing up in the Mississippi Delta, Burnside moved north to Chicago in the 1940s, but came back south after his father and two brothers were killed in the city.

He returned to a country living, and served six months in jail after shooting a man Burnside said was trying to turn him out of his home.

"It was between him and the Lord, him dyin'," Burnside remarked in a 2002 New Yorker article.

"I just shot him in the head."

I got two heads

D. Wayne left the hospital
After being operated on
Couldn't walk, couldn’t even talk
When they asked his story, he had to get out both his hands
So he signed this song to me
I hope you understand

I got two heads
I'm gonna bang my heads together
I got one leg
I'm gonna hop to heaven’s door
I got three eyes
I'm gonna pluck one out for Jesus
And I ain’t gonna have no troubles anymore

The Daily Telegraph Guide To Punk

'Britain's Best Selling Quality Daily' has finally decided to publish a guide to what the kids call 'punk rock'.

Some good choices - Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, and some bobbins - Generation X, Killing Joke. And no mention of any of the American bands which kicked things off - Ramones, NY Dolls, Television etc.

So for no reason other than pointless male list mania, I include my own personal punk top 10. Hey readers! why not do the same?

1. The Ruts - Babylon's Burning - this is the best 'getting ready to go out and drink beer' record ever made. The bass player Segs is now in Alabama 3, singer Malcolm Owen OD'd, which was careless.

2. The Sex Pistols - Bodies - the scariest intro of any song ever, and some great swearing. 'Fuck this and fuck that, fuck it all and fuck her fucking brat' full glorious lyrics here.

3. Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?

4. The Clash - I Fought The Law - cover version, the original was by one of Buddy Holly's Crickets. Best bit is the 6 rim shots on the line 'robbing people with a BANG BANG BANG six gun!'

5. The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet

6. The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop -hey ho! let's go!

7. Television - Marquee Moon. 10 minutes of guitars and cadillacs and graveyards.

8. Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army. a dead ringer for the king of Belgium.

9. Jilted John - Jilted John - where John Shuttleworth started....

10. Ian Dury and the Blockheads - What A Waste.

Ex-Bay City Roller in Drugs Shame

Well apart from Pete Bleedin' Doherty there are few enough decent sex and drugs and rock n roll scandals in these Coldplay times, so it's good to see some hot cocaine action from Bay City Roller heart throb Les McKeown.

Apparently dear old Les has been rumbled for masterminding a rather crap cocaine scam...good grief, can a man not be left alone to make a living? The bbc website helpfully points out that 'The Bay City Rollers shot to fame with hits such as Bye Bye Baby and Shang-A-Lang in the 1970s.'

Burst Noel

I don't know what's happened to me -I've bought another cd, the third in two weeks. Malcolm Middleton, ex Arab Strap, a band about whichI know nothing, a miserabilist classic. One of the top 3 lps of the year so far...
He was at the Summer Sundae at de Montfort hall this weekend just gone - I missed him, but caught Patti Smith and The Wedding Present and Jackie Leven and The Earlies, all of whom were terrific, and what a great festival...

Blow it out of your ass, needle dick

some recent albums which I've actually paid for - drastic I know.
Seth Lakeman - the token folkie at this year's Mercury Music awards. Recorded in his brother's kitchen. Fiddles at the ready...
Micah P Hinson - The Baby And The Satellite...lo-fi predecessor to the second best album of last year.
...and an illegal pre-release download of the new Elbow cd, Leaders Of The Free World...sounds fantastic, includes potential track of the year Station Approach.

in other news...retro pie-eaters the Magic Numbers have stormed off Top of The Pops, on the suspicion that Richard 'Snowblind' Bacon accused them of being fat. Apparently, what he said was they come from ' a fat melting pot of talent'. Well, it got them more publicity than a TOTP appearance would have achieved...

Coming up - Patti Smith live at Summer Sundae - the Fall and Alabama 3 returning to Notts for the second time in a year...

last night, the Muffin Men - Zappa tribute at Rock City, featuring bona fide ex-Mother Of Invention Jimmy Carl Black - older than my dad, apparently.

freak out!