Black plastic please

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

No mate, Chelt'nam.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

terrific slow buring Spiritualized clip...

I'm a Self Destructive Fool

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

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

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..