Adventures of a University Finalist

Oh! Philly Cheddah Is Rich

2006-03-29T12:32:00.000+01:00

Hall & Oates - Alone Too Long
Hall & Oates - Had I Known You Better Then
Hall & Oates - Johnny Gore and the C Eaters

The Todd Rundgren Competition is now closed with two clear winners who are Maxwell Murdoc with his answer of Todd Rundgren -> Prana (collaborated together) -> Philip Glass (Prana opened for Glass recently) & Kevin Holm Hudson who said TR -> David Bowie (TR produced Shawn Cassidy's cover of 'Rebel Rebel') -> Philip Glass (made two symphonies based on Bowie's Berlin period; 'Heroes' and 'Low'). Two holes in one! Lots of you went for the Bowie connection but didn't manage quite as succinctly. Guys if you could just send me your addresses to the same e-mail address as before stating which of the two prizes on offer you'd prefer and I'll see about getting them sent out to you.
Personally, thought Philip Glass was too leftfield for this to be an easy task but was proved really rather wrong. It just goes to show how easy it is to link Todd is music’s answer to Kevin Bacon. Yet another string to the bow of the Zen Archer.
For what’s it’s worth, my personal attempt was Todd Rundgren -> Joe Jackson (co-headlined on a recent UK tour) -> Suzanne Vega (collaborated on Jackson’s ‘Heaven & Hell’) -> Philip Glass (Glass arranged the strings on Vega's '50/50 Chance').
Recently, Adventures… has been filled with moratoriums for various sacred cows: the mix tape theorist, the list maker, and the independent musician. Today, I will be continuing this little series by examining a classic case of public favoritism for certain musicians over others: 70s legends Hall & Oates. The question to be asked is why Daryl Hall was seen as the driving force behind the band whilst John Oates existed merely as an embarrassment.
This was recently dealt with Jefito in his definitive study of the duo’s work in his regular Idiot’s Guide series when he admitted to harbouring the above prejudice until ‘Marigold Sky’, their 199… album proved to be a bit of a stinker without him. That’s not to say that Oates hadn’t been creatively marginalised before that point. As early as 1973s ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’, Hall was performing solo piano ballads in ‘Laughing Boy’ and Oates did none of the lead guitar work on the album preferring to leave it to producer Chris Bond. ‘War Babies’ is so dominated by the guitar work of Todd Rundgren (if you hear the solos then it’s unmistakably the producer’s work – compare it Something/Anything’s ‘Black Maria’) that you have to wonder what Oates actually did on the album other than sing the bland opener.
Yet, Oates wrote some fantastic songs during their early pre-Voices period. ‘Camellia’ and ‘Alone Too Long’ are definite highlights on the Silver Album with the former a firm contender for my personal favourite by them. ‘If I Had Known You Better Then’ also holds its own on the incredibly strong first side of ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’ alongside the classics ‘When the Morning Comes’ and ‘She’s Gone’. Also, having seen their live concert for the Old Grey Whistle Test I can safely say that he was a consummate live performer acting with his blue collar energy working as the perfect foil to Hall’s effete Pan.
So why the hatred? Firstly, there is the omnipresent handlebar moustache which makes him look like your stereotypical 70s porn star accompanied by his studied ability to (a) not wear a shirt at all (b) wear a shirt that wasn’t patently ludicrous and showing his rogue animal chest hair or (c) match electric pink in most of his colour schemes. There’s also the basic assumption that Hall was the main creative force in the group who wrote the songs whilst Oates made saucy movies with drugged out groupies and injected cocaine into his nethers. Now, I have no idea whether either were drug users but the rock n’ roll culture of the Seventies, their acquaintance with known addicts such as Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin, and some of their output (the psychedelic rock of ‘Johnny Gore & the C Eaters’ to the bloated excesses of their late 80s records) points toward some form of abuse. Nevertheless, that speculation deserves neither to be taken as evidence of John Oates being some form of talentless deviant compared to Hall’s Aryan Soft Rock Messiah.
There is no doubt that Hall has one of the best white voices in pop. Anyone, who has sessioned for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles deserves some credit. It’s well known that he was a classically trained musician too and there’s no real doubt in my mind that he had a far greater individual talent than Oates. What my objection to is that this gap is often over exaggerated in order to attack them both individually and as a group. This had led to slow erosion of their status in the music world where trend setters have now become guilty pleasures. As a result, loving the music of Hall & Oates has become a phyrric victory with the love of the music being overpowered by this newly cultivated stigma against "soft rock". They have become synonymous with mainstream pop confections completely lacking in guile or ingenuity. Maybe it’s a tag that they deserve post ‘Big Bam Boom’ but one can’t help feeling that it’s more due to the critical of them as possessing such a one sided dynamic that they don’t deserve the acclaim.
Bands all have a tendency to suffer from this phenomenon in one way or the other. The most famous example is a certain Richard Starkey better known as Ringo Starr who is often better known for his simplistic technique and penchant for the comic rather than his solid early solo career and that apocalyptic break on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Lennon’s solo career was largely risible but that doesn’t stop saccharine atrocities such as ‘Imagine’ and half baked albums such as ‘Somewhere in New York City’ flourishing in the public psyche. When Brian Eno, the oddball, cross dresser went off to perform his art pop riot, the critics followed with some staying behind to bang on Roxy Music's door and call Brian Ferry silly names such as Brain Fart (although from what I hear the miner’s son rather deserved it). T-Rex was seen as just a vehicle for Marc Bolan’s space imp boogie until it reached the stage where it became a self-fulfilling parody in which Steve Took could no longer play Bottom. Little Feat – everyone remembers Lowell George but what about Bill Payne, Paul Barrette and the walkin’ talkin’ impregnatin' metronome that was Richie Hayward. George has become a martyr for artistic integrity whilst the others are now perceived as journeymen; shadows without his presence. Personal prejudices beget by popular misconceptions.
By the way, Adventures… celebrated its status as a music blog on March 7. Thanks to everyone who’s visited for all your support especially DVD, Jefito, SVC, Jack, Hype, FastHosts, Caz, Sully, and all my Latin American compadres.

Buy - Hall & Oates - Hall & Oates
Buy - Hall & Oates - Abandoned Luncheonette
Buy - Hall & Oates - War Babies

Schadenfreude

2006-03-17T19:17:00.000Z

The Yearning - Afterthought EP (Download, 2006)

The Yearning - Afterthought
The Yearning - The Fall

Old school review today. A small disclaimer first: this band features two of my best friends at University. They are not signed nor is the production as polished as you would expect from one that was. Nor is the music what you would necessarily expect to find here however that's not to say that I don't enjoy it.
The name is pretty horrible, I know. They rejected my brilliant suggestion of 'Bandcastle', a pun that slides over the tongue like a loose mint imperial, in favour of something that is a little too angsty and adolescent. More carving your favourite band's name in your arm with a compass than anything else. Of course, the band's name has nothing to do with the quality of their music but I just thought that particular personal grievance should be aired in case it poisoned the rest of this review.
If one were asked to attempt to pigeonhole the band's sound in general terms then mainstream indie rock would have to be the buzz word of that particularly boring conversation. The Afterthought EP veers between rather frantic anthemic rock ('Afterthought') through to inoffensive uptempo quanitly jingoistic pop ('The Fall') and ending up at Christian Rock ('Invisible Solace'). Yes, you read that last particular genre categorization correctly. So I feel that particular nugger may be the best place to start.
'Invisible Solace' is the last track on the six track strong EP. Sadly, it is also a sad victim of what I term the 'Some Girls Are Bigger than Others' syndrome. This particular syndrome involves a rather gorgeous, pastoral musical arrangement being disrupted by the lyrical constructs placed its surface. Now, this is not due to a reactionary anti-religious sentiment. I have always seen myself as a person who is pro-faith unless it reached a point where it impinges on basic moral rights and personal values. I find the conservative religious right in the US so repugnant due to its corruption of what is essentially a humanistic and altruistic doctrine into a self serving monolith bordering on fundamentalist dogma. People who can retain their strong beliefs in a benevolent higher being despite their doubts, a sentiment recently voiced by the hirsute Archbishop of Canterbury, is something to be highly praised. That is unless they're a sacred underpants wearing, wife swapping Mormon, of course. I am not Richard Dawkins; evolution, to me, is not the final answer. It is pointless to create an aggressive false dichotomy between "intelligent evolutionists" and "ignorant creationists". The lyrics are simply too downright basic and pious. The allusion to the soldier giving the old push of the spear into Jesus's side whilst he was on the Calvary cross appears to be a crude signpost that exists only to slap the listener rudely across the face as to its subject matter. It's slightly unfair to single the track out but I feel that having heard some of his solo material that he can write material so strong that it borders on the life affirming.
'The Fall', on the other hand, is probably the strongest of the six constituting of a chunky slice of a blues riff (think Freddie King with mono) collapsed in with a mix that allows the rhythm section to take a decent breath much needed after the opener, 'Afterthought', which is bogged down by trying to be a little too clever with its changes in tempo. The lyric is breezy detailing the realization that a relationship isn't working with someone whilst having the time of your life with them. It's an arch contradiction in terms which plays well with the buoyant vibe given off by the music. The song doesn't have any rough edges except when the singer attempts to go down the register during one of the pre choruses masquerading as a bridge. It shows maturity through its slickness at the same time as a youthful naivete and joie de vivre. There's also the fact that its as infectious as syphilis causing strange looks whilst you air guitar down a busy high street.
I'd put this down to the fact that the band actually seem relaxed for the only time on the record. 'Afterthought' is marred by the fact that the drums are static. There is no propulsive back beat to drive the song to the heights that it could so easily achieve. This is down either to the fact that there is no communication or basic kinship shown by the rhythm section and that the song is a little too daring, a little too early. Anthemic rock feeds on arrogance. The basic components of the song carry this off but not the performance. It's just such a shame as Ed, the male vocalist, ex-friend (or at least I think he is now since I likened what is obviously a highly personal song to sixth form poetry) and overall fantastic chap, has a great rock voice. This leads to invariable chemistry in the harmonies which are further boosted by the fact that they have such a sympathetic guitarist who is also not afraid to be an auteur. Power chords lead into Spanish flourishes that remind one of the versatility of a Beck, a Page or a Cooder. The fingerpicking on 'Invite Me Again' is just so exhilarating that it takes the song to a completely new level; a trait that I always felt applied to the Sundays. Without Gavurin's mastery of the jangle pop zeitgeist, Wheeler's pop confections would never have had the tangy bite that endeared them to so many of the floppy fringe and soft heart. Dan Hoyes, that guitarist, is the band's ace in the pack. This not due to any self-indulgent ambition but rather a sharp musical intellect married to such a self-effacing nature that he is not only able to embrace the band's basic musical ideas but to push them so far that they are completely transformed. One can imagine that not a question is asked of what he must do other than how to improve upon it. He is a perfectionist of Spector/Rundgren proportions and has the ability to see such a position through with ease. That is something really rather powerful.
This is an imperfect first release with some very welcome omens buried in the chicken bones. There is a clear sense that they know a melody when they hear one and that they are willing to push personal boundaries. However, I don't think that they push them anywhere near far enough. The constant thought that ran through my head whilst listening to the record was that this was an musical oligarchy disguised as a democracy. The bassist is clearly not valued enough either as a contributor or as a good enough musician than to be handed bum assignments. His patterns are far too basic when the guitars are allowed the wind together into textures that are fascinatingly rich in their density. Despite this, it still sounds too constrained. You expect a rasping guitar solo and then it's suddenly pulled back so that we can have an extended coda which merely constitutes of the chorus being repeated again. Maybe this is just because I've been listening to 'War Babies' by Hall & Oates which throws in so many wonderfully incongruous elements at will that it almost becomes a collage approaching the avant garde and self-destructive. Too much favour is given to the vocalists and their words when their lyrical style is still in a relatively minor stage of "I woke up this morning...." There has to some form of ambiguity; a sacrifice to archetypal symbols. If something stands in your way, you can't simply accept it. You have to change it; gouge its eyes out with your pen. 'Suzanne', 'If Ships Could Sail', 'Tangled Up in Blue': all behemoths, all aggressive and obtuse.
Of course this is a case of my forcing what are essentially highly personal values upon these poor people who just want to make their own music. I'm a hypocrite, a heathen and a liar. I think the band's songs need to be more daring and complex but also feel that they should strive toward cutting away the chaff to create tightly packed three minute pop songs. I revel in the blissful naivete whilst yearning for some narrative grit. I show admiration for their incorporation of faith values into their music but also feel that the religious aspect needs to be pegged back. I think that The Yearning are a good band that could be so much greater. It's up to them.

Post-script: It has been pointed out to me that the strong point about worship songs is often their simplicity. This is based on the logic that a worship songs entire purpose rests upon its message being communicated to the audience. This is fully understandable.

Visit - The Yearning (and download the whole EP when you join the mailing list)

Todd Is God

2006-03-14T13:08:00.000Z

XTC – The Meeting Place
Richard Hell - Time
Nazz – Open My Eyes
Little Willie John - Need Your Love So Bad

Yes, it’s competition time once again. This time we’re going to play a game that I like to call Degrees of Todd Rundgren… which is basically The Kevin Bacon Game but with Todd instead of the Velvet Oink.
For those who have been living in the gaseous swamps of Venus for the past few years testing the latest range of Curtis Armstrong ear protectors, here’s the rules. You must link the pop genius who gives the game its name to another artist of my choosing through such instances as production, live appearances, cover songs, fights and good hard shags.
For example, if I were to say Bill Withers, then you could reply Todd Rundgren -> Isley Brothers (the brothers Isley covered his torch song ‘Hello It’s Me’) -> Bill Withers (Bill appeared on their album ‘Givin’ It Back’). It’s simple when you know how.
The prize for this particular competition will be a copy of Dead! The Grim Reaper's Greatest Hits from those wonderful people at Ace Records and I also have a copy of Frank Miller’s That Yellow Bastard if anyone would prefer that instead. Pretty ace, no? The winner is the person who links Todd to the minimalist composer Phillip Glass in the least number of steps. If there’s a tie then I may just have to think of someone else to act as a tiebreaker.
It should be noted that attempts with links that I deem too tenuous (e.g. same genre, both like a frothy latte, have strange googly eyes) will be disqualified. Leave your attempts on the comments page or send them to me at t_d_williamson@yahoo.co.uk if you want to keep them secret.

Visit - Todd Rundgren
Buy - Richard Hell - Time
Buy - The Nazz - Open Our Eyes
Buy - XTC - Skylarking
Buy - Wonder Boys OST

Anatomy of a Mix Pt. 2

2006-03-09T13:03:00.000Z

The Byrds - Dolphin's Smile
Belle & Sebastien - Sukie in the Graveyard
Ron Sexsmith - Tell Me Again
Daniel Wylie - Snow Pony

Tomorrow, next Thursday… there’s not that much difference between the two is there really?
This particular post is going to be another attempt to if not kill a sacred cow then to give it a least a little bruising or maybe even a poorly hoof. This is where the fabled art of the mix tape is to be ripped out of its renaissance and forced screaming into a stuckist nightmare. Well, perhaps it doesn’t quite embrace the naivety of stuckism but rather revels in an optimistic form of nihilism (if such a construct can exist).
For a mix tape to truly succeed it must pay heed to two central principles: 1) each song must appear only on a scale of personal merit, and 2) the ideas of flow, pace, and stylistic rigour must be abandoned in favour of a chaotic model. This is a highly unpopular concept in the post-Hornby generation where the onus is largely placed on controlled dynamics, deliberate pacing, and the ultimate goal to encompass moods, themes or circumstance i.e. "Songs for a Wet Saturday Afternoon in June driving counter clockwise around the M25". Not only is it unpopular but it is also surprisingly difficult to adhere to as last week’s attempt by myself shows.
‘Sexual Funk’ was included merely due to its title adding an aesthetic danger not normally attributed to the Black Country. ‘The Wizard and the Lizard’ is not my favourite title by Gorky’s – however, it is fey and hallucinogenic in approach. There was a tendency on my part to separate genres and both the opening and closing tracks were chosen in the name of dynamics. One and a half minutes of feedback would be an incredibly brave move if placed at track 4 or 15 but not as the first track. Songs were removed, or simply forgotten, (apologies to Notorious Byrd Brothers who would have liked a bit of ‘Dolphin’s Smile’ – I’ve uploaded it in penance) due to the fatal flaw of mix makers, attempting to fit the mix to the recipient’s established tastes. So pretty much every trap that I knew about, I fell in to regardless. The mix was random only in a suitably contrived fashion.
The paragon of a mix tape based on this model would be your twenty favourite songs in the world being placed in a random generator. This leaves the burning question: where’s the romance in such a cold clinical process? Such a paragon would undesirable in the long term but if one establishes a more progressive outlook then it is clearly the most effective. Why? Preferences fluctuate. Loves are lost in order for others to take their place as circumstances change. The tape that you made two months ago has become irrelevant as ‘Sukie in the Graveyard’s Nintendo organ riff loses its lustre and Tom Waits is suddenly too "cabaret night-club" for your tastes. So you sit down and make another. Some songs will stay and others will discarded. Which sounds better: a tape that encapsulates your current state perfectly or a variety of detritus that set to looks to extensive pluralism – a tape for every conceivable eventuality.
The mistake that most people make is that when they are facing a break-up, for example, they undergo a forced and rather clunky paradigm shift whereby everything must be focused on the central event. Every song that they listen to must become about broken bodies and empty bottles. There is no desire to retain any form of optimism as songs that still hold true and dear are replaced by inferior efforts that are shaped to fit a rigid template. Rational values are diminished as emotive reaction takes hold. This is not contradictory to the tenet that preferences fluctuate. This is a case of a single event enforcing radical change rather than a steady flux. An objective approach should be pursued instead of an unfulfilling form of reactionary negativism.
To move away from atavism toward style, I’ll be brief. Just because an external set of factors has occurred, e.g. going on holiday, does not mean that every song on a mix should have the word "sun", "holiday" or "conga" in it. It’s just silly.
An interesting side note to the randomly generated mix, or at least the forms that it has taken whilst I’ve made them, is that a form that is essentially chaotic will invariably establish an ordered dynamic. Songs that on paper seems distinct will blend against expectations as they share the same key, instrumentation or style. The splash of organ found throughout one song may continue in another as a more rhythmic pulse. Arpeggios and glissandos will ebb and fade. The feather-light brushwork of an artisan builds toward a labourer’s pounding. To find order in chaos when the music you are confronted with refuses to conform or to be pinned down is one of its greatest joys. Unpredictable and aggressive shifts in approach are a supremely important commodity in an assault upon the senses and surely that’s what is the achievable goal of a mix; to affect others and to inform.
Long live the iPod shuffle you may be thinking. It is the best vessel for a random generation of songs that you enjoy. However, to come to that conclusion is to denounce form. I hate mix CDs although I must now rely upon them for comfort as I have no reliable tape decks since the arrival of my vinyl player. A mix tape is a constant sign of thoughtfulness and hard work. To make a CD one has to merely set it up for ten minutes and then go have your tea. To make a mix tape, you must sit in a highly uncomfortable position waiting for the point for an hour and half waiting for each song to reach its inevitable conclusion with fingers constantly raised like the Sword of Damacles over the pause button’s nub of a head. It is time consuming and satisfying for both parties when all is said and done.
There’s also the fact that the bugger you give it to will have to listen to the whole thing enabling the holistic vision that you have created to grab hold rather than reaching for his remote if a certain song doesn’t immediately snag their heartstrings. A mix tape is pure atavism in its desire for the complete picture whereas a mix CD is just a glorified sampler that disregards the entire basis behind the form.

Buy - Belle & Sebastien - The Life Pursuit
Buy - Ron Sexsmith - Blue Boy
Buy - The Byrds - The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Buy - Daniel Wylie - Ramshackle Beauty

Anatomy of a Mix Pt 1

2006-02-28T19:33:00.000Z

1. Gang of Four - Anthrax
2. The Durutti Column - An Act Committed
3. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - The Wizard and The Lizard
4. The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction
5. Eric Matthews - Faith in Clay
6. Elvis Costello - From A Whisper To A Scream
7. Bobby 'Blue' Bland - Ain't Nothing You Can Do
8. Prince - She Always In My Hair
9. Little Feat - Oh Atlanta
10. The Rolling Stones - Stupid Girl
11. Scritti Politti - Lover to Fall
12. Family - My Friend The Sun
13. Stereolab - Captain Easychord
14. Electric Soft Parade - Bruxellisation
15. Common - Faithful
16. Bobby Womack - So Many Sides to You
17. Tindersticks - Sexual Funk
18. The Lucksmiths - Fiction

It all begins with a full minute of screeching feedback before the 'Making Plans for Nigel' drumbeat and elastic bass. Two voices speak in alternating metres. One inhabits a nihilistic fantasy; the other the mundane. It ends with a bluegrass tinted banjo, a boy who is even more coloured by fate, and a beer left on a kitchen counter. What goes on in between these two contrasting points is a matter for discussion that will be explored further tomorrow.

The Pyrrhic Victory of Listendom

2006-02-22T18:46:00.000Z

Clem Snide - African Friend
Elvis Costello - Episode of Blonde
Roots Manuva - Sinny Sin Sins

It appears that this impromptu pseudo intellectual revolution of this PBB (petit bourgeois blog) continues. Today, it is the turn of that most evil form of music snobbery to do battle with my poison keyboard: the list.
Now "most evil form" may seem a rather strong term for a pastime that I myself have practiced in the past; see the aborted Top 10 Songs in Heaven (a poorly veiled excuse to place Tom Wait's as the piano player in Heaven's dive) and my praise for John Allison's Top 50 singles list. I believe that the most pertinent analogy to the music list is a loaded weapon; it is capable of both good and evil ends through the same simplistic means. Too much power has been placed in a general instrument of preference masquerading as an elite in an individualist's paradise. Music has long been a form in anti-conformity since Elvis wiggled his pelvis at the wrong group of Methodists.
Lists are a constant perpetuator of the media's cruellest myths. The same names are constantly recycled reflecting old prejudices and embedding new favourites. Not a month has gone past the Arctic Monkey's releasing their debut album and they are already featuring in "definitive" compendiums. The opinion of the majority is forced upon the rest of us so that it soon becomes easier to accept than innovate. This counters any argument that such exercises are productive due to their acting as a platform for discussion and debate as they can't be said to go beyond the infantile and trivial. Take for example the Guardian's current poll for their Film & Music supplement on Friday: The Top 10 Advice Songs". What in the name of Richard Gere is an "advice song"? Aren't all songs some form of advice: moral tales establishing personal values; constructive fables; protest songs that advice us against centralised forms of authority; and ultimately love songs. the ultimate purveyors of symptoms and consequences. As the area that these lists pertain to cover slowly increase from 10 to 50 to 100 and finally to 1001 they creep even further toward insignificance as scope slowly replaces expertise and logical expression.
The medium could be deemed worthwhile as a catalyst of curiosity but only when used sparingly and intelligently; something that is simply not possible within the consumerist realm that they have come to inhabit. They have even become represented in a purely market driven form (rather than critical) by the slew of sub standard compilations based around a loose theme flooding the music shops.
In regard to magazine polls, what is preferable? 25 pages of musicians embracing their childhood fantasies that they had long regressed in the form of the 100 Greatest Bruce Springsteen songs (surely a subject that needs any outright instruction) or nothing at all. Of course, we'd all have preferred something slightly more oblique and altogether more challenging: a treatise upon the correlation between the comparative rises of West Coast psychedelica and dub reggae called "Lee Perry's Strawberry Alarm Clock" but that's never going to happen when one considers the budget and time restrictions within which such publications must operate. Such page filling exercises can be tolerated but as the readers of Mojo have discovered there is a saturation point where it seems that the respective editors are operating on cruise control at the readership's expense. Surely in such cases a more personalised imprint such as that espoused by Word's "Word of Mouth" would be more appropriate as they encompass a far more varied and expressive set of tastes.
I'm certain that most would advocate 10 pages of solid journalism over an overstretched puff piece double the length. Perhaps this recent fascination with the linear design attempting to represent a glorious definity will fade to black. Hopefully, it won't come to complete negation and will instead opt for a technicolour transformation toward a multifaceted instrument that is legitimately pluralistic rather than the tyrannical rule of a self-appointed elite.
I reiterate that I myself have been prone to lapses in my stance with my mental creation of Top 5s and personal favourites but one must recognise the distinct dividing line between lists that wish to carry the tag of representative of the views of a wider demographic (where the world is black and white) and those that are just personal opinion.
In regard to the omnipresent annual music polls, as I've stated before, the criteria are just far too strict. More often than not, choices are decided by external pressures: Q must always represent the populist rock mainstream whereas Pitchfork cannot find the will to appreciate such acts veering toward the snobbish pretence of lo-fi/industrial chic. Such polls are merely mirrors of easily identifiable trends constantly signposted by all forms of the media juggernaut so why the need to wrap it all up in a pretty liitle box other than to satisfy the music buyer's customary character flaw: oneupmanship. Long was the time in my house when a cry would erupt proclaiming "I have 34 albums in the Mojo Top 100 Greatest Stratocaster albums. How many do you have?". This is a sport that has not cruel and unusual punishment upon me for some time but it still exists as your basic gauge to a person's musical cool index.
Then again all of this hyperbole may just be because I'm crap at writing the bastard things. Opinions changes. New music is created every minute. Why chain yourself to the ghosts of passion?

Buy - Clem Snide - Your Favourite Music
Buy - Elvis Costello - When I Was Cruel
Buy - Roots Manuva - Run Come Save Me

Crisis Talks in the Middle Classes

2006-02-20T19:25:00.000Z

A Girl Called Eddy - Girls Can Really Tear You Up Inside

Change of tack again. I'm now looking to move away from a platform that focuses on individual songs toward more general theses. I have found myself recently missing the opportunity to speak at length on music as a social phenomena and I think that this can be seen by my rather lacklustre prose over the last month since my return. So to begin this new revival in the fortune of Adventures... I thought I'd begin with my thoughts on what I like to term aural medicine; those songs that one reaches out for in times of hurt and crisis. This is mainly due to such a crisis moment striking me only yesterday after a particularly harsh reminder of this life's bitter truths. So there I was - a sullen silhouette stretched across the minimalist background framed by my bed sheets crying out to oligarchs, spectres and tyrants to save me from such pain and then it happened. Initially, there was a insubstantial thrum that one could have possibly mistaken for an inefficent radiator. This was soon replaced by a piano simplistically sketching an equivalent to rain drawing an elliptical pattern on the canvas of a bedroom window. Then came the recognition and words upon my lips. 'Heartache' by A Girl Called Eddy, the beautific Richard Hawley produced miserabilist. Why this particular song would appear I have no particualr idea. Maybe it was the ghost of Freud whispering in my ear. Perhaps it was a particular need for self-immolation especially when one considers that listening to her admittedly fine album leads to unwarranted stigmata travelling up your forearm. It really is the boy meets girl dynamic taken to the zero end of the Love Is.. continuum.
This of course led to dust being blown off a long neglected digipak and revelatory repetition of the opening track, 'Tears All Over Town' before a wet shave and a quick effort at progressing further through the new Ian McEwan paperback. There was also the advantage of feeling a lot less drained at the end of the exercise than I had been at the start. Now could such a rapidfire recovery have been achieved by some comfort television ('Angel' preferably pre-Fred), a good book (some Loeb/Sale Batman collaboration or some of Busiek's Astro City), or even a different song? It's an interesting question. Why did those fraternal twins representing that most flawed of democracies, the brain, decide upon a song from an album that had to be switched off whilst driving through the Peak District as it brought about images of tyres colliding with low stone walls? Why not that eternal pick-me-up of solid Kraftwerk funk, 'Love Machine'? Why not Todd Rundgren's whimsical 'Marlene'? Why not the frankly idiotic 'Smackwater Jack' by evergreen popstress Carole King? Does such an unconscious derive from personal circumstances, the form in which the crisis unfolds, or perhaps even a completely random generation. Could an extra degree of personal grief have resulted in Neko Case's 'Guided By Wire' tickling the speakers' output? I think that's what makes this particular brand of remedies: the inevitable moment of shock and awe.
Then again, I may not be the best case for this kind of activity. Songs do not stick to me like pollen as they do to other members of this species that has a penchant for savouring the hermetically sealed moment. Probably one of the most significant factors in a person's listening pleasure is past experience. For instance, the Pearl and Dean theme tune just sends synapses a poppin' for me without any movie connotations required whereas for others it no doubt brings about memories of back seat fumbles, the smell of stale popcorn and battles for arm rests. As a result, I'm sure that other people have had experiences so powerful that the external stimuli surrounding the event has sent them into never ending listening feedback loops of the same three songs playing on the jukebox in the dive where their first love broke their heart. Frankly, my rampant and unabated mission for eclecticism naturally prohibits me from becoming too attached to one single three minute assemblage of chromatic structures and chords.
So, I guess that means that I've now become a little interested in what my readership makes of the subject. Do you have a single song for rejuvenation (and if so did it come from a less than expected source)? Or is it a more haphazard process? Could it even be deemed by as precise a term as "process" at all? Emotions have long defied easy categorisation otherwise literature as an effective medium would long ago have ceased and we would have a world without such pretencious art voyeurism as 'Me and Everyone Else I Know'. Can music ultimately harness them? After last night, I'm not so sure.

Buy - A Girl Called Eddy

A Panegyric to Soothe A Troubled Soul

2006-02-10T23:12:00.000Z

Richard Thompson - Sibella
The Dons - Only Guy
The Acorn - Sent (Awake the Kraken)
Ken Stringfellow - Any Love (Cassandra et Lune)
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Honey Child What Can I Do?

Cor blimey. Another three week hiatus. Bugger. Never mind - it was all in the cause of those two central pillars of this primitive society - love and idleness. Speaking of idleness (and its lesser cousin tiredness) I'm going to keep this unfortunately brief. So I have set myself the challenge of trying to describe these wonderful songs that have deeply affected my life over the last few weeks in a dozen words or less each. Here goes:

Sibella - My throat is raw from hollering this raucous pop to my mirror.
Only Guy - Fantastic straightlaced that power pops my Candy-O cherry
Sent (Awake the Kraken) - Kelp's finest playing children's rhymes backwards listening for Satan's hidden melancholic message
Any Love (Catherine et Lune) - Already in my Top Five all time favourites and climbing
Honey Child What Can I Do? - Fuck Sinatra & Hazlewood; listen to this sugary Irish coffee instead

Well that didn't go too terribly. I raise my glass to you all and drink to the proclivities of my University days returning bringing my long forgotten muse with them. To cheap bitter and broken hearts. May the Buddah and his great prophet, Richard Gere, bless you all.

Buy - Ken Stringfellow - Soft Commands
Buy - Richard Thompson - Mock Tudor
Buy - The Acorn - Blankets EP
Buy - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Seas
Buy - The Dons - Dawn of the Dons

The Gates of Troy

2006-01-22T11:44:00.000Z

The Monkees - Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears
Squeeze - Piccadilly
The Undertones - Valentine's Treatment
The Jam - Billy Hunt (Alt. Version)
Jellyfish - Russian Hill

So finally we reach the climax of the Uni Finalist 1st Anniversary competition. Dick has been grooving to his specially formulated compilation for a couple of months now but I had until now failed on my promise to pay tribute to the bands that he cited as the greatest to appear on these fable pages on interwebness.
As usual, the obvious song choices have been summarily dismissed replaced by a forgotten pop classic, a light hearted tableau of city life, a gritty soul stomper, a critique on the emergence of self congratulatory yob culture, and a tidy Fab Four pastiche. Not exactly as snappy as the Seven Dwarves' names but I believe that those descriptions will suffice for now.
The Monkees, of course, are often regarded as a joke; an unfortunate sidenote to the advent of pop culture in the 60s with their ultra-popular television show seeking to build upon, and ultimately exploit, the formula created by Richard Lester in 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!' Such accusations are often married with idle reminders of the prescence of session muscicans on all of their pre-Headquarters albums (the fact that such logic somehow doesn't apply to 'Aja' or 'Pet Sounds' is beyond me). To give in to such useless drivel is to forget that The Monkees not only wrote and performed many songs in the pantheon of pop but could also to afford to have off cuts as infectious as 'Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears'. They had so many string to their bow that they could match Glen Campbell, The Left Banke and Love in their respective genres.
Squeeze too are often forgotten as the musical shape shifters they were in favour of the general tag of 'kitchen sink drama'. The fact that the label hasn't been bandied around since shows how unique Squeeze were but that's forgetting the point. 'Piccadilly' taken off their classic Elvis Costello produced album 'East Side Story' begins with Paul 'Don't Shoot Me, I'm Not the Worst Thing About Mike & Mechanics' Carrack's exultant piano playing pinning down its playfully up tempo melody. Glen Tillbrook's lyric has to be one of his best mixing rapid fire social observations with a sense of humour as dark as high street caff espresso. "A man behind me talks to his young lady/He's happy that she is expecting his baby/His wife won't be pleased but she's not been round lately"
The Undertones and The Jam were both misfits of the punk scene. The 'Tones subverted negatism and situationist doctrine for songs about choclate and girls whilst Paul Weller's heavy political rhetoric was disrupted by accusations of being a revivalist and a Tory Boy. The Ulster quintet are captured here at the end of their fertile creative relationship with 'Valentine's Treatment' taken from the Stax flavoured ''The Sin of Pride' album. However, having mentioned the great soul label, this particular track has more in common with the art rock soundscapes of The Associates and Scritti Politti. The guitar line shimmers, the synths build, the backing vocals evoke the synonymous 'Lexicon of Love', and Feargal flexes and trills his vocal chops. The chorus change with the O'Neills attempting to hijack the song forcing it into something altogether tighter is really quite exhilirating. The version of 'Billy Hunt' is altogether muddier with the guitar part more studied, the bass more prominent (for me Foxton's basslines are the keystone to all of the Jam's more hardline musical arrangements) but that non-existent rhyming couplet still hangs there elliptically grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
I refer to Jellyfish's 'Russian Hill' as a Beatles pastiche but, as all Jellyfish fans know, the band only had one real hero and Macca bleeds through here as strong as always. The driving element of a regular acoustic strum, gorgeously understated slide guitar, organ washes that sound like angelic air brakes - it's all 'Fool on the Hill' until 'Spilt Milk's experimental nous takes hold of the reins and the Ron Burgundy jazz flute looks to flesh out the arrangement. A populist construction turned on its head by an abstract vision: something that all of these bands have shown from the bridge of 'Smithers Jones' to the entirety of 'Head'. Good choices.

Buy - Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
Buy - The Monkees - Missing Links Vol.1
Buy - Squeeze - East Side Story
Buy - The Jam - Direction Reaction Creation
Buy - The Undertones - The Sin of Pride

The Night Owl is the Right Owl

2006-01-18T19:00:00.000Z

Owsley - Owsley (Giant Records, 1999)

Owsley - Oh No the Radio
Owsley - Zavelow House
Owsley - The Sky is Falling
Owsley - Uncle John's Farm

Here is a simple equation: a Grammy winner + lascivious pop hooks + silibant sunshine choruses + crunching power chords + crunching 4/4 drums = a fascination with the fairer sex = Owsley. So why have you never heard of him before? I can't answer that question other than to state that I got very lucky one day when flicking through AMG recommendations.
Before I went AWOL for a month, some form of discourse was developing on this site as to the quality of music broadcast through this raggy old fish n' chip newspaper of a messenger. This seems to has dried up other than some nice welcome back messages so to kick in all back into gear I propose that people enter an ad hoc competition based around these songs.
So all you have to do is state is which of the chosen selection is your favourite and why without any citation of potential influences. I want some fluent prose please, people. The winner gets a one of a kind, double CD Power Pop compilation.

Next time: A post on all 5 of Dick's Picks from the last competition. Might as well catch up finally whilst I still have the mental faculties.

Buy - Owsley - Owsley

Brand New White Mustang

2006-01-13T20:13:00.000Z

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love (Columbia, 1987)

Bruce Springsteen - Walk Like A Man
Bruce Springsteen - Brilliant Disguise

If one were to break down the Boss's 80s output it is disparate to say the least: 'The River' represents his over expansive flirtation with gritty rock n' roll; 'Nebraska' established his credentials as the godfather of lo fi; 'Born in the USA' was the multi platinum monster; and 'Tunnel of Love'... it's his best. "His best?!", you holler. The first since his debut without the legendary E Street Band? The downbeat paean to the perils of domestic strife? The one that flits between accapella and synth overkill?
Well, firstly, the album's only weakpoint is the title track that tries to incorporate a fairground atmosphere into the production when a sparser arrangement would have suited as a perfect counterbalance to the cynical lyrical undertow. That's a fantastic strike rate considering the collective strength of the eleven other tracks present especially the likes of 'Tougher Than the Rest', 'Valentine's Day', 'Cautious Man' and, arguably his finest single, 'Brilliant Disguise' which perfectly incorporates all of the album's aesthetic charms and strength. The snare snaps in a syncopated pattern, an acoustic is buried under calypso cicada clicks and whistles, country guitar licks reinforce the anthemic chorus, and an electric piano ties down the high end. Meanwhile, the lyric borrows beautifully from influences ranging from Fitzgerald's 'Tender is the Night' to Lou Christie's 'The Gypsy Cried' as accusations of a partner's underlying motives become questions of one's own values and commitment. . "God have mercy on the man/Who doubts what he's sure of"
' The River' is often found wanting due to its inability to establish a satisfactory rhythm. Moods ebb and flow with brainless filler often undercutting a more profound reach. 'Nebraska' despite its critical acclaim, wide reaching influence, and its status as my first purchase by New Jersey's finest still has a tendency to leave me cold. I'd love to be able to explain why but I myself am unsure as to the reasons behind this particular opinion. Perhaps it is a feeling that the work is richly veined by a disappointing pessimism that never pushes beyond self-pity resulting in a cookie cutter mix of imagery and frugal instrumental ambition. 'Highway Patrolman' is still my favourite Springsteen song though with its tale of conflict between two brothers on either side of the Crime and Punishment dialectic. 'Born in the USA' too often is tarred by the Brian De Palma technicolour brush with 'Glory Days' representing Springsteen at his most cloying with its stereotypical blue collarisms becoming slowly irrelevant. The title track is the most famous example of the album's inconsistencies with its perfectly honed anti-Vietnam diatribe becoming drowned by its overproduced stadium shout (the Boss's solo slide guitar version of the song is phenomenal). 'Tunnel of Love' could perhaps be said to be dated by its distinctive production that features synths and a frequent insistence on echo but that doesn't smother what is a truly brilliant meditation on the nature of man and that ultimate enigma: love.

Buy - Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love

Spiral Stairs' Bluegrass Boogie

2006-01-10T19:14:00.000Z

Pavement - Spit on a Stranger
Nickel Creek - Spit on a Stranger

It begins with a bang. A half second snippet of stoner rock - perhaps the long forgotten hybrid of 'Silver Machine' and 'Immigrant Song' for which Don Quixote and his faithful steed Rochinate searched so long. This, however, quickly dissipates replaced by a small baby gurgling 'Selling England By the Pound' and clean unobtrusive arpeggios. It is the sound of the Big Bang. It is the sound of stars collapsing into blissful entropy. It is the sound of space curling up the folds of her summer dress and dancing over the universe's edge. It is Pavement's bugle call before stepping on a rainbow to the heavens above.
Of course, due to it being Pavement who are writing their eulogy before the HMS Wowee sinks beneath the liquorice waves, 'Terror Twilight', their final album (from which 'Spit on a Stranger' is the opening track) was everything that the band had never been before: clean, precise, docile, populist. In other words, it was a sound of a group reaching a plateau and bailing out before they had a case of the Sugarloaf Mountains on their hands. 'Spit on a Stranger' is a rare entity in the lexicon of Malkmus & Co in that it's a simple unadulterated pop song. The band had created such a beast on their previous efforts in the shape of 'Shady Lanes'. Other tracks off the album such as the beautiful 'Major Leagues' and whimsical nonsense of 'Carrot Rope' amount to efforts as to the same objective. However, "Honey, I'm a prize/You're a catch/We're a perfect match/We're a perfect match/Like two bitter strangers" creates such a perfect brew of apples n' pears joy and blatant romantic nihilism accompanied by the rhythm section's laconic anti-harmonies that this song has always been a favourite.
This particular reputation is greatly enhanced by bluegrass trio Nickel Creek's take on the song from their 2002 cut 'This Side'. The threesome of Chris Thile, Sara and Sean Watkins drop the Steppenwolf feint and kick straight into the first verse with a soulful chicken fried snake of a lead vocal and a staccato mandolin chord burst. A steel acoustic fleshes out the mandolin as it flits across the song's chord progression and by the song's end this is joined by what can only be a heavily distorted fiddle which almost pushes the song into flux. The harmonies too are no longer fuelled by cheap Belgian lager but rather sour mash; from a slur to an outrageous purr. By the time everything's coloured acapella the breath is well and truly stolen from you and fed to the birds. I'd just love to see what they would do with the willfully heretical 'Folk Jam'.

Buy - Nickel Creek - This Side
Buy - Pavement - Terror Twilight

Satan Is My Master (Sunrise)

2006-01-07T22:18:00.000Z

AM/FM - When I Died In Sebastopol
Jose Gonzalez - Lovestain
Cee-Lo - All Day Love Affair
Chris Bell - Country Mom (Demo)

Oh dear. As soon as I promise a new period of creative expediency and I get struck down by a reoccurence of glandular fever - a plague that has affected me since an ill advised pursuit of leisure with a Christian at a First Year University Discotheque. By some freak of nature, I became the vessel for her multitude of sins (with the coveting and all) and since then this particular pox never seems to leave for long - placing razorblades in my throat, aches in my limbs and a strange desire to read trashy novels. Thus, my so-called comeback has been delayed by a few days. My apologies for this.
However, this small selection should go someway to sating prospective appetites with its usual shape of obscure album tracks, mixed genres, and unpopular acts all tied up by extraneous categorisation. In this Northern Hemisphere winter chill I thought that I'd be antipodean in my weather concerns and frame my selection around the god Helios and his pet Sun. The Chris Bell number is a clear prototype to Big Star's mercurial 'Watch the Sunrise', Cee-Lo is so happy that you can hear the starlings chirping around his earlobes, JGs is the only track on his brilliant new album to have the 'Finalist' No. 1 song ingredient of handclaps, and AM/FM have to be heard to be believed. Their non-instrumental tracks can often be marred by weak vocals; not a real plus when you're an acoustic folk duo dependent on the success of your harmonies. The Gonzalez AKA Bravia Boy track may seem a little too dark for the purposes of this exercise with its acoustic thrum reverberating with tinny bass tones. However, with 'Country Mom' covering the sunrise one feels that it would be unfair to not give sunset a shout in the beauty stakes; the shadow resting on the sun's golden throne.

PS: De-Fish - Sorry to upset you. Will you send you a complimetary set of travel tissues to dry your man sized tears. Oh so salty.

Buy - Jose Gonzales - Veneer
Buy - Cee-Lo Green - ...is a Soul Machine
Buy - AM/FM - Mutilate Us

Recommencement of Normal Broadcasting Hours Will Resume Soon

2006-01-01T20:16:00.000Z

Three posts in two months - what a load of old bollocks, eh? My irregular hours brought about by the Christmas period, working a plebs life in a book shop, family visits and ill health. However, my sister is now sadly leaving to return to Australia, the book shop has been replaced by a regular 9-5 slot at a law firm, my wireless connection has been repaired (by the aforementioned sibling), and £75s worth of HMV vouchers should enable a steady supply of new music. The comeback post should come on the 3rd and hopefully steady service will resume. I do realise that such nonsense has been promised before so we'll have to see. Merry Christmas to you all and Happy New Year too.

PS I sure as hell ain't getting off this crazy music blog ride just yet.

What A Muppet!

2005-11-29T12:39:00.000Z

The Joel Plaskett Emergency - Blinding Light
DB Cooper - Ram On
We Are Scientists - This Means War

3 weeks away! Who would have thought that it such a long period of torpor and blind negation would exist between this post and the epic that came before. Well, I'm sure that you're all used to it by now so I won't dwell.
It's good to be back in the arms of Adventures... again but sadly I cannot stay for this period has suddenly become very busy after a long barren spell of inactivity. However, I will briefly explain the treats that are on offer today. Joel Plaskett, the Canadian singer-songwriter, is a favourite of *sixeyes and I was lucky enough to chance upon his debut album in a Durham record store's bargain bin so I thought that I'd share the rather lovely 'Blinding Light' with you all. DB Cooper is high adrenalin power pop dredged from the Not Lame obsurities promo CD that I received in the mail this very morn. It's admittedly low quality (no doubt due to its origin on old vinyl) but iy's probably the best exponent of the genre that I've heard in some time. You should know who We Are Scientists are and if you don't then you have been taking your daily dose of YANP like you should be! 'This Means War' is the superior b-side on the UK single release of ' The Great Escape'.
DVD, don't fret, I have not forgotten my promise of five essays on your favourite artists. I just have to find an angle of approach to the group and after that it will be smooth sailing. Hopefully, I will return quicker than the last time but sadly my irratic nature is what currently masquerades for guile and charm nowadays. Toodle pip!

Visit - Not Lame Recordings
Visit - Joel Plaskett
Visit - We Are Scientists
Buy - The Joel Plaskett Emergency - Down the Khyber
Buy - We Are Scientists - With Love & Squalor

Turned Down By Sammy Davis Jr For the Last Time

2005-11-08T16:59:00.000Z

Jimmy Webb - Archive + Live (Reprise, 2005)

Jimmy Webb - Galveston
Jimmy Webb - Feet in the Sunshine
Jimmy Webb - If Ships Were Made to Sail
Jimmy Webb - My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (Live)

How quickly we humans seek change in our soggy milque toast existences. Bored by the throbbing technicality of machines and buoyed by a new found glory in letter writing I have switched to handwriting my essays. Not only will this save my poor eyes from the disease of the cathode (inasmuch transcription takes far less time than the creative process of writing) but will enable me to write in a comfy lounge chair whilst Jimmy Webb's 'PF Sloan' envelops me in magnificent surround sound. The accordion is all that more discordant and the bass sunburnt into a lazy stupour so as to enhance the listening experience.
Well I guess that having unsubtley and unfairly ridiculed the man's 'MacArthur Park' in my last post, I had to put things right in my musical feng shui by praising his songwriting genius. I, along with many other people, was originally introduced to Webb's work through Glen Campbell's glorious treatment of summer heartbreak perennials such as 'Wichita Lineman', 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix', 'Galveston' and 'Where's the Playground, Susie?' Without any sense of irony or embarrassment, I must declare that, due in no small part to Webb, Campbell's 'Capitol Years' retrospective would surely be my favourite of all time if didn't fall within that dreaded exclusory group of "Compilations". As a result, Rundgren's 'Something/Anything?' and Costello's 'This Year's Model' tag team it into submission with a few well placed rabbit punches to the kidneys and a flying elbow finisher from the top turnbuckle.
But I digress from the subject yet again. The album of Mr Webb's which is the focus of this post is the recent double CD release of 'Archive + Live', Webb's superb 1993 best-of coupled with a live recording of Webb's first concert in the UK at the Royal Albert Hall in '72. Both CDs are fantastic, not only due to Webb's being able to keep a firm grasp on his own material despite his legendary weak vocals, but also as a showcase for Webb's mainstay guitarist, Fred Tackett, who would eventually go on to become Lowell George's replacement in Little Feat. Webb himself brands Tackett's performance on the studio version of 'Galveston' as one of the finest moments in music; an opinion with which I am inclined to agree. Tackett manages to ride out the wailing storm of Zappa's 'My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama' with Stetson and handlebar moustache fully intact whilst Webb demonstrates his ability to cook up a Fats Domino white ivory jambalaya out on the bayou when he's not pleasantly plucking ballads from the sky.
It's always been a surprise to me that ebb never attempted a ludicrously ambitious concept album - perhaps on his favoured allusion of space travel (present of 'If Ships Were Made to Sail', 'The Moon's A Harsh Mistress', 'Where the Universes Are', 'Highwayman'). Note to Ben Elton: sod Rod Stewart and Queen. I want to see a West End "musical extravaganza" based on Jimmy Webb songs surrounding the adventures in space of Xang, the Alpha Centaurii electrician, before the next year is out! I, for one, would laugh and point when I saw the gaudy posters decorating the walls as I descended the Underground escalators.
At this juncture, I realise that I have yet to make a case for why, along with Diamond, Goffin & King, Newman, and Boyce & Hart, Webb is such a vital songwriter of the 60s and 70s. Well here goes: Webb is a romantic fantasist, the antithesis to solipsism, who is articulate on the subjects of both the unwelcome reality which he inhabits and the fantastic solution for which he strives, be it leaving an ungrateful lover, altering one's perception on child rearing, or departing the untamed earth for the green pastures of the nearest star. This often results in some wonderfully abstract lyrical tangents in regard to the analogous situations he concocts, with the most famous example being 'MacArthur Park's patently irregular equation of the end of an affair being the same as a cake left out in the rain. Even the simply enough named "Love Song" constructs the raw, sentimental image of love's ability to etch a vast indelible image in one's soul and "Highwayman" tracks a 19th century outlaw and his continued reincarnations before delivering the Jungian punchline that the traps of futurism will result in its replacement by the primal.
Webb's work output is contradictory in many senses - perfectly judged 2 minute ballads sit comfortably alongside overambitious 9 minute suites. West coast rock, soul, deep country, and Canuck simplicity all battle for his undivided attention resulting in his musical identity being afflicted by a benign schizophrenia. His lyrics can hinge on a single powerful image - a landscape occupied only by a continuous stretch of powerlines or Freud's prescription of cocaine for mental health problems - or several conflicting ideas such as 'PF Sloan's encompassing of the personal and political; the fictitious and the overbearing truth (something that could also be said of the anti-war 'Galveston' bridging the gap between the Civil War and Vietnam). The man can make you shimmy, sway, sag or swagger.
As an endnote, can anyone think of any other great paeans to feet other than Webb's 'Feet in the Sunshine' (pop par excellence featuring a Ms Joni Mitchell) or The Beach Boys' 'Take Good Care of Your Feet'. Suggestions of Family Guy's cruel Randy Newman pastiche 'Left Foot, Right Foot (The Apple Song)' will result in a good slapping. You've been warned. Actually speaking of warnings, it is my sad duty to state that the only lowpoint on this set is Webb's nervous attempt to reinvent the meter and phrasing of 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' resulting in a damp squib.

Buy - Jimmy Webb - Archive + Live

Bed and Breakfast Men

2005-11-04T20:47:00.000Z

Field Music - If Only the Moon Were Up
Field Music - Breakfast Song
Field Music - Got To Write A Letter
Field Music - You're So Pretty...

I have no idea how to introduce this group so I'll throw facts at you until some of them stick. 1) There are 1, 2, 3 boys in the band, two of whom are siblings; 2) They're Mackems; 3) As a result of this geographical disturbance in the force, they're pretty chummy with Maximo Park and The Futureheads; 4) The group's favourite animal is a guinea pig; 5) Peter's favourite colour is mauve; 6) They enjoy spending their Sundays in E-Z loungers, sipping Special Brew and listening to 'Walk Away Renee' on repeat; 7) Andrew once playfully ruffled Danny Baker's hair and was then promptly knocked out by Danny's unfortunately pungent vindaloo breath; 8) Dave thinks that 'Sailor Moon' is "goddamn sexy"; 9) Their new single "If Only the Moon Were Up" is out on the 21st of this month and I can't wait!; 10) Field Music rock my self-centred universe. Disclaimer: some of these facts are fiction. Ooooooooh, it's paradox time!
So now that the history is out of the way, I'd like to point out that I'm so good to you guys that I've provided a fantastic B-side. 'Breakfast Song' from the band's debut 7" "Shorter Shorter". The rest can be found on the band's debut self-titled LP which should be purchased by all and sundry. It really is nothing short of a revelation. Oh god, how I wish that I had the ability to kick my synapses into gear and fully concentrate on the task in hand but it just doesn't seem to be happening today. The only word that swirls round my head to describe the band's sound is "Wire" but that only exists within my creative mind due to the omnipresent recommendation provided by Uncut in all of the band's advertising. What I do know is that such a comparison is a fallacy at heart existing only through the existence of clean shards of guitar noise functioning together in pursuit of the melody; the ridiculous in search of the sublime if you will. Wire pursued an aesthetic that was more abstract and willingly oblique than Field Music - their agenda was centred around rebirth whereas Field Music prefer to play by the current zeitgeist's rules. For now, anyway.
Of the selection that I have chosen, 'Breakfast Song' is a personal highlight - not due to it's relative obscurity but the distillation of a story of great emotional weight into a minute and a half pop song with no relative loss in its subject's narrative strength. The intro ripples with resrticted arpeggio movements on the acoustic guitar before the narrator pleads his unheard partner to come to bed following a row so that they can exchange their problems for fleeting dreams. The pay-off line of "I'll wait until the morning, get up early and make you breakfast" comes before the gentle wave of violin, piano and snapping snare. Everything pops and crackles like bacon spitting in fat next to wide eyed yolks. If I were to have to boil it down into a one line witticism I'd have to call it "Jimmy Webb's tears falling onto a English Breakfast with all the trimmings". The aforementioned single, 'If Only the Moon Were Up', is all bends through dusty country lanes wrapped up in a Jonathan Donahue ethos. There's even an attempt at Stax brass as played on toy trumpets and percussive horse hooves cracking floorboards. Despite this, it's so catchy and undeniably melodic that if God were Kenny Rogers then it should break the Top Forty. 'Gonna Write a Letter' boasts atypical handclapping rhythms that would cause The Meters to blush, accompanied by minor piano chords (to my limited theoretical knowledge), hammered on acoustic strumming, and falsetto harmonies that leave your throat sore from bellowing along. There's some impressive Here Comes the Warm Eno tape fiddling too that would leave Tiger Mountain lying on its back, legs akimbo, hollering "Take me now!" The album's closer, 'You're So Pretty', bouncing off a similar instrumental framework but with the addition of electric guitar carefully channeling Jeff Beck's jazz fusion years, words that should be in pop songs a lot more often such as "demeanour", and an erant pixie with a triangle who's not afraid to use it. It's so pretty I could listen to it all night... and I will.

Buy - Field Music - Field Music
Visit - Field Music

The King of the Gypsies

2005-10-31T11:21:00.000Z

Edwyn Collins - Doctor Syntax (Instinct Records, 2003)

Edwyn Collins - Mine Is At
Edwyn Collins - The Beatles

Hello people. It is the day of reckoning for I have decided who will win the wonderful prize which I offered last Monday. Honourable mentions go out to all of you who actually entered. Billy Budapest: I appreciated your candour as to your hatred of Steely Dan, The Raspberries, and 10cc. Of course, I don't necessarily agree but I can understand why you see them as musically defunct in a modernising musical sphere. Big Bad Bit: Bonus points for the Loudon love! I'd also like to take this juncture to voice my appreciation for your own site - I'm particularly enamoured with your "Chin Stroker" and "Painful" tracks. These blogs should be an outlet to forewarn consumers against complete crap. KFAV: Contemporaneous choices which were refreshing (yes, I can see Dando as a childlike figure albeit one with a barely contained animus). Greg: You just couldn't contain yourself could you? This pleases me greatly. Bill P: Why must you torment me with your exploits! It's not my fault that I was not even a twinkle in the milkman's eye when Nils was bouncing on his trampoline... Fantastic choices although I'm sure you could think of a better reason to include The (English) Beat than 'Stand Down Margaret'? Marc: You got the ball rolling which was very kind of you. I noticed your inclusion of the Big O and must yet again point people toward my painfully researched Otis feature at Jefitoblog. Finally, our winner, DVD: This may seem a cop-out to you other boys but DVD's earned this award through his continuous support of this blog, the fact that he decided to write far too much on each of his choices, and his call to arms for all Monkee lovers to unite under the same Adventures... banner. The fact that none of his choices doesn't matter a jot because only two of you actually scored a single hit. For the record, I chose:

Todd Rundgren
The Isley Brothers
The Beach Boys (none of you chose them! for shame...)
Otis Redding
Loudon Wainwright III

So DVD - send me your address to t_d_williamson@yahoo.co.uk and we'll sort out the posting of your CDs. The rest of you can look forward to exhaustive posts on The Undertones, The Jam, The Monkees, Jellyfish and Squeeze. Enjoy the frothy electropop poured into a Collins glass. Same time, Same Bat-channel.

Buy - Edwyn Collins - Doctor Syntax
Visit - Edwyn Collins

107 Ain't No Lottery Number

2005-10-24T12:30:00.000+01:00

The Allman Brothers - Little Martha
The Monkees - Circle Sky (Alt. Version)

Will skip the track commentary today if you don't mind and will head straight to the nitty gritty. I had a brainwave today as to how to galvanise reader participation. Below are listed all the artists that have featured on Adventures... since it clawed itself from the primordial ooze. All you have to do is leave a comment stating your top 5 faves and, most importantly, why. For your troubles, I'll pick my favourite response and the winner's picks will get a thorough essay each with lots of lovely mp3s to accompany them. The winner will also receive an 'Adventures... Best Of' double CD with crudely drawn artwork to accompany it. Yes, I'll even pay postage to you lot overseas and will hopefully be able to include some rare bonus tracks on the CDs too.

Gene Vincent
The Lucksmiths
Glen Campbell
The Raspberries
The Knack
The (English) Beat
Steely Dan
The Lightning Seeds
Tex Perkins
Evan Dando
Crowded House
10cc
Family
Bobby Conn and the Glass Gypsies
Violent Femmes
Maximillian Hecker
All Night Radio
The Equals
The Frames
The Isley Brothers
Even
Greenfield Main
Chris Page
Detective Kalita
Andrew Vincent and the Pirates
Havana Guns
Alba Nova
Steve Poltz
The Luxury Liners
The Acorn
All Girl Summer Fun Band
Art of Fighting
Wheat
The Faces
The Small Faces
The Pearlfishers
The Paperbacks
The Autumn Defense
Richard Davies
Graham Parker and the Rumour
Showroom
The MC5
The Monkees
Todd Rundgren
Bobby "Blue" Bland
The Beach Boys
The Foxymorons
Tim Rogers and the Twin Set
Fountains of Wayne
Chris Stills
Jason Falkner
The Skatalites
G Love and the Special Sauce
The Secret Machines
Joni Mitchell
Beck
Tears For Fears
Descendents
The Flamin' Groovies
Grin
Loudon Wainwright III
Kid Creole and the Coconuts
The Miracles
Regina Spektor
Paul Westerberg
Nicolai Dunger
Sloan
Culture
Hamell On Trial
Squeeze
The Records
Jellyfish
Hal
Nick Lowe
The Triffids
Tom Waits
Mr Bungle
Lowell George
Otis Redding
The Mutton Birds
Mew
Mercury Rev
Prefab Sprout
Nick Cave
Curtis Stigers
The Jam
Guided By Voices
16 Horsepower
J Mascis and the Fog
Neu!
The Sundays
Ryan Adams
Grand Drive
The Undertones
The Seeds
Witness Uk
and... The Allman Brothers

That's 107 bands to choose from so you lot had better get crackin'. Meanwhile, I'll sit back with an English Breakfast Tea and laugh at the destruction that I have wrought or alternatively weep when no-one answers my challenge. Either way, I'll keep on plugging away at your resolve to resist my special kind of voodoo hoodoo.

Buy - The Allman Brothers - Eat A Peach
Buy - The Monkees - Missing Links Vol. 2

On the Banks of the Muddy River Douglas

2005-10-21T22:38:00.000+01:00

Grand Drive - Santa Rita
The Undertones - Here Comes The Summer (Peel Session 5.2.1979)
The Seeds - Two Fingers Pointing On You
Witness UK - Avalanche

Never in my life have I read liner notes that have quite a vitriolic hatred for the recordings that they are supposedly promoting than on the Edsel release of The Seeds' 'Future/A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues'. 'Future' is seen as the product of "ludicrously pretencious meanderings from [Sky] Saxon's psyche" and 'A Full Spoon...' is simply termed as "an aberration". Of course, knowing me, I find a significant amount of charm to The Seeds' output despite such claims. 'Two Fingers Pointing On You' is amateurish in its kitchen sink approach with parping tubas, sitars, and a merry go round middle eight. However, there's always an alluring Strychnine undercurrent to the Seeds' "flower music" dredged from the depths of their garage past. Guitars intermittently wail in the background against the enigmatic Spitalfields marching band rumblings. Someone shakes a tambourine haphazardly in its simplistic attempts to add depth to the arrangement. In concocting this strange musical formula for an organic music closer to the earth's own metronome, the Seeds would embark on a paradoxical journey. Paradoxical in the way that it encapsulated an important cultural movement without reflecting anything of import itself. It's lyrical content are weak in their literal reliance upon pointing the finger and the music comes off as rather slight. A few years later, The Rascals would tackle similar subjects with more accomplished playing, tight R n' B arrangements and, in Felix Cavaliere, would possess a vocalist who surpassed Saxon technically by a country mile. On reflection, the song may be no 'Mr Farmer' or 'Pushin' Too Hard' but its an interesting curio nonetheless and would end up appearing in Jack Nicholson's 1968 movie Psych-Out. The rippling organ riff is something to savour too.
The Undertones, like the Seeds, were a band who recorded four albums and whom, over that period of time, would end up altering their musical output significantly from Casbah Rock to mellifluous Motown soul. Of course, this meant that the band would be seen to have succumbed to over production; the "curse of the Nepalese nose flutes". 'Here Comes the Summer' came long before that period though and this particular version of the song should be of interest to all of those who've heard the original due to the smart arse Shangri-Las spoken word intro. The boys, now significantly matured, now refer to the old intro as guff but it's still very amusing with the comical attempts to replicate waves crashing on a sun dappled beach. The performance of the tune itself could be referred to as stock with no significant deviations except that little extra bit of bite provided by the live session setting. The backing vocals are bang on and once again we're left to marvel at what a great frontman Feargal was with his duffel coat and bar room vibrato. "Hey Mickey, what does 'incoherently' mean?"
Witness (or Witness UK as they're known in the States) were direct descendants of The Verve with their specialising in miserabilist anthem rock that encompassed both their Wigan roots and a smooth Midwest sound. The album from which 'Avalanche' is taken, 'Under A Sun', is a real corker barring one absolute stinker, a tacked on reference to Little Feat's 'Willin' on 'Mines', and the B-side tagged on the end. It can be picked up in record shop bargain bins and on Amazon for the price of a small latte at Starbucks. In 'Avalanche', I've cherrypicked the real highlight of the piece with its deft piano movement, the heavy delay, the constant high hat movement, the emotive chips of slide guitar, and Gerard Starkie's flawless delivery. Thankfully, the piano takes on the driving role often assigned to large scale orchestras giving the song a more personal feel to it whilst the chorus really hits home lyrically. It's a slight shame about the pompous religious overtones brought into the song's bridge for it shifts the song on to an unwelcome tangent. Sometimes, a more general lyrical construct can be sustained throughout effectively without a reliance on cumbersome additions added in a vain attempt to build a crescendo in the middle eight. It's a minor quibble but one that I feel is important to raise. Sometimes an instrumental break compromised of repeated verse chord progressions is perfectly satisfactory; otherwise a song's shape can be sacrificed in the name of filling in the gaps.
Grand Drive are pure Americana. It's a shame that they come from Camden. 'Santa Rita' is a clean cut Burrito Brothers epic drawn from their last album, 'The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count'. It's acoustic fingerpicking with the bastard son of Lanois and Eno on the decks. In other words, it sounds quite similar to something that U2 may come up with if they believed in the power of pathos. You can hear bubbles underneath the clear surface and an occasional snap of snare rippling outwards into the ether. It's ever so calm and carries on its shoulders an adulterous beauty that leaves one enraptured. Imagine the song that wafts through the bar in Paris, Texas as strangers sup from their surrogate teats and regulars brush off the dust from their regular seat encapsulating the raw landscape through which it sifts. That's 'Santa Rita'.
Final note, I've just checked my server and noticed that one of the Jam songs I uploaded, 'I Got By In Time', and The Mutton Birds tune were 0 bytes in size. Did any of you find difficulties listening to those two songs? If so, I'll upload them for the next post. As an addendum, if any of you suffer problems with any of the songs, just leave a comment and I'll deal with it pronto. Otherwise I'll never learn and you won't be able to experience first rate New Zealand pop as I intended.

Buy - Grand Drive - The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count
Buy - The Undertones - Listening In
Buy - The Seeds - Future/A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues
Buy - Witness UK - Under A Sun

Last Exit To Jacksonville

2005-10-18T10:43:00.000+01:00

Ryan Adams - The Heartbreaker Sessions (Bootleg)

Ryan Adams - Win
Ryan Adams - Caroline
Ryan Adams - Talkin' In My Sleep
Ryan Adams - West NY Serenade

To apologise for my infrequent missives of late and to continue the celebrations of last week, I thought that today I'd offer up a private treat. Around two years ago, I was severely addicted to CD bargains on eBay from the first Orange Peels LP to Sparks in their 90s intellectual techno . Amongst the purchases made during this affluent period in my life were a small collection of Ryan Adams/Whiskeytown bootlegs. Some were terrible (the inaudible quality of his 'Rock n' Roll' Tour performance in Manchester) but, more often or not, most were brilliant with the intimacy of 'Live At Foley's Cellar' and the rawness of these recordings during the sessions for his first solo album, 'Heartbreaker'. These particular sessions were stretched across 2 CDs (with only one song repeated under different names) and include measured takes on Pneumonia era Whiskeytown classics such as 'Sit and Listen to the Rain', 'Don't Wanna Know Why', and 'Bar Lights' along with unreleased gems. Whereas a lot of his material recorded with the Pinkhearts would resurface on 'Demolition' that's not the case with these beauties which is a shame for they're gathered from a particularly purple patch for Adams creatively.
'Win' is an anomaly to say the least due to its sounding more in line with his 'Rock n' Roll' era material than the more rootsy trappings of Whiskeytown. It really wouldn't sound out of place next to the likes of 'Luminol' and 'Is This It' which is probably the main reason behind it's being left on the cutting room floor. However, as a closet fan of 'Rock n' Roll', I'm a big fan of the tune as Adams clearly possesses a heart made up of melody and driving rhythm entwined in feedback capable of overriding his head. 'West NY Serenade', on the other hand, steps backward toward a Pneumonia vibe with its plaintive guitar line echoing off walls as the drums snap along the train track beat. It's the E Street Shuffle without the ostentatious wordplay or the flirtation with disaster. It's warm, comforting and safe; a space that Adams used to show a marked ability to occupy successfully.
'Talkin' In My Sleep' is a little more daring with a fuller arrangement including the bass being elevated in the mix, acoustic melding with electric, and an organ introduced to fill out the gaps left so obvious before. Adams' vocal performance is more commanding pushing toward a Dylanesque rant without becoming a mewling bore. Caitlin Cary (or someone doing an excellent substitute role) makes an appearance on backing vocals too which is a delight as you can surely guess. 'Caroline' begins almost identically to 'Ballad of Carol Lynn', the opening track on Pneumonia, but don't let that fool you. They are completely different songs except the fact that both are burdened with similar overall aesthetics. The sustained presence of a violin is found in both as is the same meandering rhythm. However, 'Ballad of Carol Lynn' never even attempted the beautiful harmonies displayed during 'Caroline's intro and chorus. The lyric is kept to a rather minimal structure and the acoustic solo is outstanding only in the sense of its ramshackle nature but this simply adds to its mantric charm. By the end, Adams has reached a Van Morrison ability to stretch monosyllabic words until they take on a new meaning and, ultimately, take on a religious reverence. Two different roads converging at the same point of non-verbal eloquence. In other words, it's a shimmering beauty almost akin to a simplified, downbeat ' Madame George'.
Sadly, the seller who offered up these has since left eBay's roster so all that there is left to do is to point you in the direction of the masterpiece that is 'Pneumonia' for more of the eclectic Mr Adams (I never liked 'Heartbreaker' as much).

Buy - Whiskeytown - Pneumonia
Buy - Ryan's latest effort 'Jacksonville City Nights'

Celebrating the Songs That Got Me Here In the First Place

2005-10-13T20:38:00.000+01:00

Guided By Voices - Much Better Mr Buckles
16 Horsepower - Clogger
J Mascis and the Fog - Does The Kiss Fit?
The Sundays - Wild Horses
Neu! - Super

Hello everybody! Went off back to Durham for a couple of days hence the lack of music. However, I have come back in the mood to celebrate my one year anniversary as a blog entity! Woo. Admittedly, the music didn't turn up until Gene Vincent shook his gimp leg in March but I'm still very proud that I've been able to stick it out. Thanks go to anyone who feels a warm feeling in their belly upon reading this sentence. You deserve the praise... or you have heartburn. You decide.
The platitudes will cease there though as I wish to get straight back to the music at hand. All of the above heavily effected my early musical development in that comforting womb which is the teenager's bedroom. Both GBV and The Sundays were very early favourites of mine back from the days of Buffy and Audiogalaxy's reign. 'Do the Collapse' was bought for a bargain price attached in a twofer with the import only 'Isolation Drills', and I spent at least six months not realising that 'Wild Horses' was originally by the Stones. Ah, youthful naivete, where art thou now in this time where knowledge is often ghastly and unwelcome? The German synth bastards that were Neu became a brief fascination of mine following a well chosen perusal of the Rough Guide of Rock and a quick dip into Audiogalaxy's deeper than indigo vaults. It never mattered that three of the songs on the album were the same one at slightly different speeds (have always wondered what Super 78 would sound like at 78 speed: short is the first word that springs to mind). 16 Horsepower first entered my life after a bargain basement trawl at the CD store near where my virgin job was situated. Following the opening of 'Clogger', I would never look back except with a shake of the head and a hand outstretched to the lyric sheet. My thoughts of J Mascis as a hero have since been relatively dashed by a viewing of the new Dinosaur Jnr and his excellent impersonation of a bloated corpse that's just been fished out of the Hudson but this song, probably the only great love song he's ever written, goes some way to redeeming such apprehensive thoughts. Feedback as a melodic enterprise was something that I would never ever understand until I first listened to 'More Light' with its title track once desribed as "armagedddon in a wind tunnel".
The beginnings of Kraftwerk, Bob Pollard twice (he's a member of The Fog), Harriet Wheeler singin' the Stones, and a Preacher who went the wrong way at Bob Johnston's crossroads; I was pretty lucky in my infancy wasn't I? Bon appetit.

Buy - Guided By Voices - Do the Collapse
Buy - 16 Horsepower - Secret South
Buy - J Mascis and the Fog - More Light
Buy - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album
Buy - Neu! - Neu! 2

The Kids Know Where It's At

2005-10-03T10:04:00.000+01:00

The Jam - In the City (Polydor, 1977)

The Jam - I Got By In Time
The Jam - Non-Stop Dancing

This is all Dickie VD's fault. Recently, whilst commenting on the Fall and Rise of the Arctic Monkeys, he compared their live show to that of those epochal "revivalist" R n' B masters, The Jam. Of course, this sent me on a huge trip back to my own musical youth of 1999 when 'Direction, Reaction, Creation' was on constant rotation to the extent where I almost began to think 'This is the Modern World' was a decent album (that naivete has since been replaced with a constant desire to box Bruce Foxton's ears for inflicting 'Don't Tell Them You're Sane' on unsuspecting publicans) and decided that 'Down In A Tube Station at Midnight' was the best pop single of the 1970s; an opinion which I stand by today. Hence, this brief sampling of hidden delights from the band's debut LP, 'In The City'. This was preferred to a run through their only live LP, 'Dig The New Breed', due to the fact that I neither possess nor have even heard a single note of that particular album. The fact that it would have engendered a cumbersome discussion attempting to compare the two bands when I possess close to zero knowledge of those pesky Yorkshire simians or their rambunctious stage routines was also a factor.
Just before I provide a quick rundown of the brace on display today, I wish to provide a small rant on a subject that always niggles at me whenever The Jam pop up in conversation. This is fair warning to you all so if you don't wish to be dragged into my own personal greivances toward musical journalism then push forward my friends to the Gates of Valhalla of the next paragraph! There will be gore, gravy and gamecock for all who wish to sample their various delights. This little niggle to which I have previously referred is the tendency of journalists to pigeonhole the band, certainly in its embryonic stages before the facelift of 'All Mod Cons', as Punk. Not that the labelling of an artist as such somehow demeans them or their music in any way but often it misses the point. Yes, Weller did attempt to convey an image of England as occupying a culture of self-imposed decay accompanied by an entrenched class divide that bordered on Marxist dialectic materialism. As a result of this, his intial lyricism was overshadowed by his love affair with London: the centre of this perceived class struggle. Both of these traits would be shared by other bands in that year of '77 with the Pistols' anthems of anti-monarchism and insurrection, The Clash's portrait of the Notting Hill Riots, The Ruts' 'Babylon's Burning' was framed by the sounds of urban chaos and Siouxsie Sioux would, like the Jam, immerse herself in historic imagery (albeit totalitarian in her case). What people tend to forget though is that punk was a faltering step toward post-modernism bordering on deconstructionism which would flourish later as post-punk. Sioux wasn't a Nazi - she once responded to a gang of skinheads appearing at her gig by walking onstage wrapped in the Star of David, called them all an extremely naughty word, and began to belt out 'Israel' - but she courted this imagery which itself had been perverted by National Socialism and turned it on its head. The Pistols' were a product of McLaren's intellectualism which sought to respark the Paris Riots' ideological war. The bands often flaunted the de rigeur inability to play their instruments, take for example Vini Reilly (who we all know can play the guitar wonderfully well) playing with The Nosebleeds in 'Ain't Bin To No Music School'. It was John Cage anti-music brought to a cruder, universal level. Whereas, Punk was post-modern, The Jam were blatantly a product of Modernism with their pure adrenaline double quick Northern Soul and appropriation of 60s Mod culture. Not to say that they were over on the other side of the spectrum in the camp of "revivalism" (a finger you can point squarely at the Lambrettas, The Merton Parkas, and even Secret Affair) with Weller himself answering such claims with a sing round his neck stating "How can I be a revivalist when I'm only eighteen?". Quite right too. As well as all this, you had Weller's constant political posturing as he sought to weave and bob through the debris kicked up by Punk's Size 12 Doc Marten boots with his statement that the band would vote Tory in the next election and the subsequent, unfortunate association with the National Front.
Well that's that done with. 'In the City' is labelled one of the greatest punk singles of all time and that I can live with. It's triumphant shout of 'Youth explosion!!!" with grindstone Rickenbacker chords and simplistic rhythm earn it such an honour but, to be honest, it has more of the early Who to it than anything else. 'I Got By In Time' is certainly not anything resembling punk with the guitar hauled back to allow the rhythm to push the song along. If you substituted Weller's Surrey snarl for Little Johnnie Taylor, Dobie Gray or Brenton Woods and kicked the tempo down two dozen beats or so and you would have something that could have proudly graced the floorboards of Wigan discos. Having said that, I love Weller's vocal on this track as he opts for a smoother delivery without losing the underlying distaste. 'Non-Stop Dancing' is pure R n' B with a choppy blues progression and Bruce Foxton raiding in with his trademark backing vocals. It's nice to include something that trades off between a pastiche of the band's musical influences and a subtle yet positive comment upon the modern culture where dancing becomes a tonic for the other ills of society. Weller's mellowed with age into what some self-aggrandising tart termed "dad rock". Check this out and hear what it was like when he was doing it for the kids.

NB: Bugger. Sorry about the lack of Non-Stop Dancing for 24 hours. Neglected to check if it had uploaded. Apologies to you all for my absent mindedness.

Buy - The Jam - In the City

Cut Your Hair

2005-09-29T12:36:00.000+01:00

Curtis Stigers - Secret Heart (Concord, 2002)

Curtis Stigers - It's So Hard Living Without You (Randy Newman)
Curtis Stigers - Hometown Blues (Steve Earle)

No, don't run away! Curtis Stigers is no longer your MOR, sub-Michael Bolton, enemy but rather your swingin' hip daddy friend. Like Top Cat but without the love of purple waistcoats. I've been trying to explain as much to my good companion in blogdom, Jefito, but he just wouldn't believe me so I've had to resort to this.
For a start, I would like to reiterate the claims of our ominpresent friend, the AMG guide, when I say that Stigers' records for Concord are not an unholy trinity of jazz, pop, and blue-eyed soul but rather a straight jazz record although more in the Harry Connick Jnr vein than Thelonious Monk. The band is balanced toward the intimate rather than any foolhardy big band gestures with a simple setup of drums, bass and piano with Stigers flexing his chops on the tenor sax for the two originals on the album, 'How Could A Man Take Such A Fall' and 'Swingin' Down at 10th and Main'. Yes, those with any trace of inductive logic will have realised that this is mainly a covers album or what people prefer to term "an album of jazz standards". However, when you find that Stigers has tackled Randy Newman (as he has done on all four of his Concord releases), Steve Earle, Ron Sexsmith and Dave Frishberg then you come to realise that this is a more exacting trawl through "The Great American Songbook" than you'd normally expect.
Take for example 'Hometown Blues' which was originally a bluesy jug band stomp that bordered on skiffle and has been reinterpretated as a swing number, keeping the high tempo and deprecating sense of humour refreshingly intact. It also highlights the strengths of Stigers who is neither an oppressive technocrat in his delivery (Michael Buble is a prime culpirt of this syndrome with his cultured, charisma free style) nor one to oversing his part and tread all over the band's toes as it were. One could never label his vocal stylings bland either for, although they may not include the vocal tics of some of the greats, Stigers seems to be occupying the same space as O.V. Wright and Sam Cooke. He clearly has a smile on his face throughout the song and it shows in a clean, nuanced, and enigmatic performance.
The delicate and respectful treatment of Randy Newman's beautiful 'Livin' Without You' (retitled on Stigers' album for some reason) is just aching with restrained passion and guile. You can see the smoke masquerading as fog in the air causing the eyes to water in pain and grief from the Guaraldi piano intro. By the time, you've reached the third line of "The subway shakes my floor", you've stopped whatever earthly distraction you were engaged in and begun to listen intently which is something that Newman with his dryness and rasping lisp of a voice has never always been able to achieve in my personal opinion. What makes me so enthusiastic about this as a record is the refusal to drag these fantastic lyrics into a melodramatic tupour but rather allow them to breathe and speak for themselves; a bold move which a lot of vocalists just don't have the guts to do. It's the equivalent to skimming stones across a lake, on a dew stained early morning, leaving behind soft ripples across the water's surface. Something has been changed but without destroying the fabric from which the artist is working. I hope that you all enjoy Stigers' lovingly constructed change of pace as much as I do.

Buy - Curtis Stigers - Secret Heart
Visit - Curtis Stigers

The Final Four: A Little Bit of Faith

2005-09-27T18:49:00.000+01:00

4. Mercury Rev - Everlasting Arm
3. Prefab Sprout - Jesse James Symphony
2. Todd Rundgren - Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel
1. Nick Cave - Into My Arms

Blimey. Here we are at the end of the series in one final spurt (ooh, you are awful but I like you)! To be honest, it's a relief since my brain was aching from agonizing over these final choices and the rash choice of the Bungle boys; I love 'em but sometimes chronological bias can be a hindrance to any such list. Sadly, I am completely and utterly wiped from my 9-6 shift at the book shop (yes, I got a job and isn't it ever so glamorous) so none of these remarkable songs are going to get the writeup that they deserve. All I'll say is that (a) 'A Wizard, A True Star' must be purchased by all of you after which you must lay down in your psychedelic pads with oversized headphones, a drug or soft drink of your choice, and an open mind; you will touch something resembling Jesus (I'm sure that it has a beard and doesn't mind the aforementioned beard being stroked whatever it is), (b) 'See You On the Other Side' is the best album that Mercury Rev have ever done , (c) 'Jordan: The Comeback' means that memories of Paddy McAloon dancing with giant hot dogs and GM vegetables should be banished forever in favour of daily worship, and (d) Nick Cave: Toto, I don't think we're in Caulfield anymore.
Finally, go to Jefitoblog to find part two of my Otis Redding Idiot's Guide. Free mp3s and ice cream for the first twenty to get there via this link!

Buy - Mercury Rev - See You On the Other Side
Buy - Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback
Buy - Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star
Buy - Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call

A Break From Our Scheduled Programming

2005-09-22T11:25:00.000+01:00

Mew - ...and the Glass Handed Kites (BMG, 2005)

Mew - The Zookeepers Boy

As promised here is a review of those lovely Danish boys Mew and their performance at the Brighton Concorde 2. As a result, I won't be going too much into the logistics of the boys' new album. That can wait for a time when I actually possess it's post-modern disco prog pop in my clammy hands. The 'Heaven' dixie shooter will recommence tomorrow hopefully.
Picture the scene: yours truly and his good friend from the old stomping ground, Saint Dominic of Horsham, are driving through the futuristic metropolis of Brighton bellowing at each other regarding acid nebulas, time signatures, the vast inadequacies posed by the freshly printed AA map, and pondering why a speed camera just flashed us when I was actually under the speed limit (promise on Sir Cliff's life). Finally, weary and parched we reach the neon boulevard by the sea, park several leagues away from the Concorde, and slowly trudge whilst discussing whether government issued photo ID cards are rquired for entry to the venue.
When we finally set foot inside the clean yet also remarkably dingy place of musical birth, we make our way to the bar to buy water and cola made from the finest virgin's blood (why they couldn't get regular Coke is beyond me - Branson, you have much to answer for in regard to your sub-par soft drinks... and the whole train hoopla too) only to be pestered by well-intentioned souls proffering scratchcards, mailing lists, and snazzy gold buttons to be placed on garments for aesthetic pleasure to one and all. After escaping the overexaggerated throng that had built around us we wondered to gaze upon the rather poor merchandise and the support band's vast array of equipment. Layered keyboards, two basses, several guitars, a Roxy Music switchboard arrangement for Eno wannabes and a rather sparse drum kit for a band that was supposed to be "prog". Having suitably admired the arrangments, we settled down as the PA blasted out 'Songs for the Deaf' from start to finish and, ultimately, were pissed off when 'Do It Again' was unwelcomely interrupted by the arrival of the mythical support band. Pure Reason Revolution are noveau darlings of the media with pleasant write ups from The Fly, The NME, and Uncut. Pure Reason Revolution represent an ironic melisma of noise. The presence of two guitars is always welcome in a band that represent themselves as progressive as one sees a rosy vision of Powell/Turner soloing pitching between the wistful melodies and bit between the teeth aluminium canters. Instead they sought to drown each other out with a cornucopia of useless effects whilst the bass rumbled at such a heart imploding frequency that this battle soon became insignificant. Innovative maybe but atonal violin spatter, Pat Benatat lookalike bassists, the lack of any audible climaxes to any of their songs and no fruity bouquets of cheesy guitar solos left this well dry of both humour and zest. The fact that they said bugger all to the audience other than hello and goodbye didn't really help this charisma charity fund in waiting.
So once PRR had plodded off following their 30 minute stint which was either a very long medley or five unformed chunks of witless experimentation hopelessly seeking for a tangible hook, we waited for Mew. Off went all the excessive equipment, up went a white screen behind the stage, and on strolled the Danish bacon. Lead singer/rhythm guitarist Jonas Bjerre is the cross between an androgynous alien and a porpoise with his angelic countenance fractured by his over large mouth and his accompanying pure diamond falsetto. The bassist Johan Wolhert, an eerie ringer for Viggo Morternsen with his 11 o'clock stubble, unkempt locks, and bandaged wrists, is the band's mouthpiece outside of the musical numbers. Lead Guitarist Bo Madsen is certainly a presence, switching between eerily still during 'Am I Wry, No?' to hyper kinetic in 'She Spider' sawing at strings arryhmically as his hair fell over his face and his body twisted into uncomfortable spasms. One of the moments of the night was his introduction of the band's new single, 'Special', as "Pornographic, y'all" in his best Star of the Confederacy voice. The drummer, Silas Graae, looks like Scott Gorham causing time to rip sevenfold giving the keyboardist a killer Phil Lynott afro. If the band had kicked into 'Rosalie', all would have been complete for Mew to destroy the world in one fell swoop. Instead, they ripped through 7 of Frengers' 10 majestic tracks hitting them all on the nose, especially 'Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed' which somehow allowed new dimensions offered by the song to enter my conscience creating a magnificent set of zirconium encrusted tweezers which Zappa and his kin would surely have been proud. That's the thing about Mew; they're a band that is simplistic in approach which seeks to become the cream of the crop by praying upon its strengths. In doing so, they become so unidentifiable because they are so individualistic. The only band that I can really compare them to are Scritti Politti. There's the enigmatic frontman with the soulful falsetto croon, the dadaist lyrical constructs, the refusal to readily identify with current trends, the recognition of the key rules governing the creation of a brilliant pop song, and the ability to bend those rules. There's also the fact that they're both so goddamn good.
The live set was tight and welcome in its reliance on songs that the band knew that the band would recognise regarding the fact that the new album isn't out until Monday here in the UK. The only songs they played off the new record were the two singles, speckled disco egg 'Special' and 'Apocalypso', the Supernaut instrumental opener of 'Circuitry of the Wolf', the J Mascis collaboration of 'Why Are You Looking Grave?', and the rainbow kissed, indigo imprint of 'The Zookeeper's Boy' which should be the successor to 'Wood Beez'. J Mascis, you say? Sadly, the bloated voice of deprivation didn't turn up but was broadcast via the mixing desk. Thankfully, he sounded as gravelly and uninterested as usual so the experience wasn't ruined. And neither are Mew, mad scientists the lot of them, still ready to force us to drink slimline tonics, read William Burroughs, and find out where the wild things really are.

Buy - Mew - ...and the Glass Handed Kites (out on the 26th of September in the UK)
Visit - Mew
Watch - Tickets for the Current UK Tour

A New Zealand Pop Outfit That Aren't Crowded House in a Top Ten!? Sacrilege!

2005-09-20T21:08:00.000+01:00

The Mutton Birds - Rain, Steam and Speed (Shhhhh! Records, 1999)

The Mutton Birds - Pulled Along By Love

Good day to you all! I have returned from pastures of peat and moss refreshed and ready to roll on the continuation of this rather pleasant series. Since I left, I have received a very welcome set of packages from both Kelp Records (containing the new Acorn and Greenfield Main albums) and Not Lame (my Clubhouse membership bundle including a snazzy purple t-shirt and 'International Pop Overthrow Vol. 8'). I'm in negotiations to set up an interview with the founder of Kelp and frontman of Greenfield Main and Rhume, Jon Bartlett, as soon as I sort out all this Skype business. I've also given my good friend Jefito the first part of my Otis Redding Complete Idiot's Guide which you can read right here. It's been a very busy couple of days.
Along with all that fuss, I've also rediscovered a lost member of my rather vast CD collection that was picked up for a ridiculously cheap price and then hidden next to Gay Dad never to be gazed on again... until the day I decided to refresh my CD changer for the long trip to Derbyshire. Hence, four days later, I was driving down the M1 back to my lovely lady's abode screaming bloody murder at the car stereo as I just couldn't remember what the blasted CD was! Richard Hawley? I didn't own any of his records! Sparklehorse? No, too vibrant! So with track 8 whirring like a demented dervish on my mental gramophone I pulled into the Leicester services, ripped open the boot door, and discovered that the tiny piece of unidentifiable alloys that had vexed me for so long was in fact the pop genius Don McGlashan and his band, The Mutton Birds.
Now I've given up album reviews for a while so that I can increase my output on Adventures... so a long discussion of the delights of 'Ascloseasthis's cooing feedback loop, the threadbare picking on the folky 'Jackie's Song', and the tearstained nostalgia of 'The Falls' will have to wait for a time when we're all gathered around a splendid fire with brandies in hand and cigars in blistered maws. Over the recent weeks, I've begun referring to certain songs as archetypes; song's with such tight structures and heart imploding melodies as to form a blueprint upon which all other substandard works attempt to build. Wire's 'Outdoor Miner' is such a song. 'Pulled Along By Love' with its economical lyric structure of A-B-A (although with some minor deviations) is a revelation where each word is judged on a its own merit. The imagery raised by McGalshan's statement that "They're buttoned up against it/All the king's horses and all the five cents" goes beyond the witnessing of a simple meeting of two people on a train platform. Metronomic tin pan drum clicks and backwards piano set out their stall as McGlashan begins to move beyond the physical in a push toward the theoretical. Are the two mother and son? Are they lovers who have been long apart? Or are they simply strangers caught in a moment; a bubble captured for all time from which they will never escape. It's a fascinatingly voyeuristic character piece that wishes to wear the mask of a romantic anthem to rival the likes of 'Put Your Arms Around Me' or ' It's Only Natural'. To be blunt, it wears that mask all too well slipping in and out of the masquerade as it pleases buoyed by its exultant chorus which seeks to espouse that life is determined not by a spiritual force but its more popular, secular alternative. That's not to call the song anti-faith in any sense; rather, it is a pure celebration of what of the greatest things in life and, as a result, is a warm musical blanket to wrap oneself in. That's something that someone can always do with even when treading carefully through the Kingdom of the Man himself. Hell, if I end up in purgatory, I'd want this song to be the one to be put on its permanent rotation system. I can't get enough of that intro that manages to maintain a balance between a Spiritualised amphetamine haze and a wholesome acoustic stomp.
Tomorrow: To be honest, I have no idea what tomorrow will bring in at number 4. However, I will hopefully have a review of my visit to see Mew at the Brighton Concorde the day after. Bring on the Scandinavian prog about zoo keepers, spiders, and creepy old men!

Buy - The Mutton Birds - Rain, Steam and Speed

Oh No.. Mike Love's Crashed The Party at Number 6!

2005-09-09T15:35:00.000+01:00

The Beach Boys - Holland (Capitol, 1973)

The Beach Boys - Only With You

Many people see The Beach Boys are this horribly misinformed dialectic of Brain, the genius, vs. the rest of the group: the cynics, the unenlightened heretics to the gradiose aesthetic that Brian so rigorously sought. This has led many to brand Mike Love as a self-righteous prick, scorn the band's Brother output (other than THOSE Van Dyke Parks collaborations), and go back to listen to Pet Sounds or Smile for the umpteenth time. Of course, Mike Love is an arrogant prick but then again so are most rock stars and they're often applauded or encouraged in their endeavours (*cough* Pete Doherty *cough*). Yeah, he was the man behind a hell of a lot of crap sometimes with my most personal grievance being that his California Saga knocked Fataar and Chaplin's superior 'We Got Love' off the Holland album into an undeserved obscurity (if you've not heard it, check pout the live cut on 'In Concert', it's a definite highlight) but too often others have been forced to share the backlash to his various follies.
People also forget that Love's defining nasal whine graces many of the band's earliest and best known hits, something that may not have happened if Brian or even Carl had taken over that particular duty. Another thing, you're prepared to do harmony on a track after just returning from a long world tour and a fireman's helmet is thrust into your hands with the earnest proclamation that it must be worn during the recording. If it was me, I'd have laughed too. Too many times people are placed on this false pedestal where they are expected be exemplary human beings in order to pursue their art. In my opinion, that's a crock and has led to alot of The Beach Boys output to be scorned due to some absurd personal vendetta against a nitwit with a gigantic ego and a unhealthy interest in the teachings of the Maharishi. How come Lennon never had to put up with this shit?
Onwards to the actual song. Co-written by Love and the group's fatalistic romantic, Dennis Wilson, with the main vocal duties handed to the group's best singer, Carl, it's probably only the third best track on the album behind the South African imposters' 'Leaving This Town' and Carl's composition, 'The Trader'. However, its lyrical kick, accompanied by Carl's immaculate performance, mean that it will always have a special importance to me. "Loved so many things/that I feel that I've only felt with you/only with you", what a kick off. I'm already getting a little blubbery so I'm going to have to turn the song off before this becomes a Defcon Four Tissue Alert. Yes, it's sentimental. Yes, it's a little bit corny. However, it also honest, direct, and just plain gorgeous with its simple piano chords and the usual trademark harmonies that he band are so well known for. Put your prejudices aside and just dive on into its cool, cool waters.
Next week: I'm goin away on the Thursday so have not yet put together a plan as to what I'll do with this series. I may take a week off to work on my Otis Guide. I may receive my Not Lame CD in the post and write about that. Also, I want to revamp the site first and the first thing that has to go is that awful header. So anyone who wants to do a new one for me with the name simply being 'Adventures..." and maybe utilising this heaven theme, send them to t_d_williamson@yahoo.co.uk and you will get a goodie bag from me filled with lots of tasty musical treats. I'll make the deadline next Sunday and if no one fancies the challenge then I'll accept my fate as one of the less beautiful blogs and get back to my writing.

Buy - The Beach Boys - Carl & the Passions/Holland
Buy - The Beach Boys - I Can Hear Music (a superior compilation of Beach Boys tracks that feature Carl as the lead)
Buy - VA - Caroline Now! (Marina Records' Beach Boys tribute album with Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake doing a magnificent take on 'Only With You'

Number 7 With A Bullet

2005-09-08T15:27:00.000+01:00

Otis Redding - Otis! The Definitive... (Rhino, 1993)

Otis Redding - Day Tripper (Live)

"Not halfway, I want you to go all the way now". And with these words, Otis Redding records the greatest Beatles cover of all time knocking that recent Live8 Sgt Pepper shambles into a wide brimmed hat. Why these words? Well it's not just the instrumentation because Clarence Carter would nick the rhythm for his own inferior cut 'Funky Street'. The horns are aggressive, the bass line tempered, and the drums propulsive but no more than other prime cuts. The Mar-Kays and The MGs (I'm not completely sure which play on this live recording but I'm leaning toward the former) were both supreme backing outfits, both rightfully recognised as legends of Southern Soul, but they're merely the foundation for the greatest soul singer of all time. Cooke was more of a cleaner proposition that the Big O with every vowel enunciated, and every note struck with a warm smile and glad tidings. Gaye could be called similar but in his metaphysical pursuit of the sexual, the id, he lost some of his power utilising his voice more as a n instrument to further the groove that he had manufactured. Gaye could be considered as the precursor to the manufactured emptiness of the standard offerings of nu-soul in its loss of priorities. Otis never searched for a mood or any form of wallpaper aesthetic. He sang from heel to crown, putting his body on the line for his music, not through hedonism or drugs but rather letting the music flow through himself as he twisted and contorted like a puppet.
Don't bother tracking down the studio cut of 'Day Tripper' off 'Complete & Unbelievable...', it sounds too polished and restrained for its own good. Here with the man is in his element he tears up the stage from the minute he opens up his mouth. The track begins with the regulation bass line tapping along with the horns working against it with a simple counter melody. The crowd are clapping innocently along in time with the beat expecting a charming by the numbers run through; relief from the rest of the Otis experience with his "knock you on your butt and rub your face in the dirt" power ballads and "dance until you get cramp in every inch of your body" dancefloor stompers. Those audience members are sorely mistaken.
At the end of the opening assault (AKA the chorus), Otis hollers "Do it NOW!!" and the horns unleash a blistering punch at his command and not even Otis' silky remonstration of "Tease you a little bit y'all" came pull them back from the threshold. They've been pushed into a rut of loud, salty blasts of air that propel the band toward the boil. At the start, it was a merely lukewarm run out but within half a minute Otis has turned them into white hot soul-diers ripping up boundaries and spitting out the pieces in sizeable chunks. Its a transformation but one that occurs continuously in sets by the man. The band begin to start at the right tempo but after Otis kicks it becomes bedlam with numerous crescendoes, constant tempo changes, nonsense adlibs, extensive Van Morrison style verbal marathons... the works.
This live version of 'Day Tripper' was my first real contact with the work of Redding, beyond standards like 'Dock of the Bay' and 'Hard to Handle', and it's been true love every since with a Jefitoblog Idiot's Guide now in the works. My favourite song by the great man is 'Pound and Hundreds' with 'Chained and Bound' and 'You One and Only Man' close follow-ups but when I'm chilling with a sloppy wet martini in the Seraphim Bar, this cut will always be the one to get my head nodding with recognition as well as my feet vibrating against the barstool's metal haunches. The Big O may have passed from this world into the Elysian Fields 38 years ago but his gentle Georgia spirit should be both remembered and revered in these trying times.
Tomorrow: Dennis & Carl team up to wilt the tulips with their delicate hymn to the finer sex. Also, thanks to Ben from The Samaritans Are Engaged for pointing out the presence of a certain Mr Waits in Dave Gilmour's Desert Island Discs selection. I always thought that Floyd should stay in the vein of 'St Tropez's elegant whimsy rather than their wretched take of progressive music but you can;t fault Gimour's tastes in music. Delicious.

Buy - Otis Redding - Otis! The Definitive...
Buy - Otis Redding - Remember Me

La Huitieme Chanson au Paradis

2005-09-07T15:14:00.000+01:00

Lowell George - Thanks I'll Eat It Here (Warner, 1979)

Lowell George - 20 Million Things

Just before he himself would push up the pretty lil' daisies, Little Feat's frontman Lowell George would release his first and only album, 'Thanks I'll Eat It Here'. The recording of this lost (and later rediscovered) classic happened during an acrimonious break between Little Feat members with various drug habits escalating and musical differences being espoused regularly. George's well of song was drier than Noel Coward's humour and he was achin' for a little time free reign with his musical friends to work things out. Richie Hayward, Little Feat's drummer, would play on the album and Fred Tackett, member of the Pure Prairie League and future Feats member, would write two cuts but that was the only involvement with the band that George would have during that period.
Lowell George could be said to be a lot like Brian Wilson; both were drugged up, obese, and stone cold geniuses. The one major difference is that Wilson has never made a half-decent solo cut whereas George's album is one of the greatest roots rock albums ever put onto vinyl up there with 'Eat A Peach', 'The Captain and Me', and even the Feats' own 'Sailin' Shoes'. The album includes four standards by peers such as Allen Toussaint, Ann Peebles, Ricki Lee Jones and Jimmy Webb (Webb's song 'Himmler's Ring' should be heard to be believed in all its musky cabaret glory), however, it is a George original that is the album's real highlight. That song is '20 Million Things', the 70s equivalent to Webb's 'Wichita Lineman' with its use of a working man's toil as an astute analogy for the pitfalls inherent to the pursuit of love; the distraction and the folly.
It begins softly with two acoustic guitar working against each other, tangling together like a langorous strain of ivy reaching toward the stars, until that wonderfully familiar creak of the collapsing wood leading into George's muffled curse. Enter a soft piano performing a slow tempo stroll and we're off toward musical heaven as George tries to give him cracked chords a workout but only finding a marked shift toward the melancholy. The guitars continues to shift and strain against their limitations continuing their delightful motif before we reach the chorus' opening call of "It comes from moment to moment/Day to day/Time just slips away" where the piano moves toward an uplifting chord sequence and the heartfelt harmonies provide a splint for George's wounded heart. I believe that the part of the song that will always have me coming back is when George finally reaches the song's core with his plea that "I have 20 million things to do/20 million things/but all I can think about is you". So simplistic yet so undeniably lovely. There are just these touches throughout the song that are so earthed in the human condition that they border on the soulfulness of Cooke, Womack and the Big O. For example, the second verse were the lyric calls for George to utter the line "That rocking chair I was supposed to fix/ well it came undid" manages to cram in so much longing, regret, and grit that I nearly always reach for the dial to move the song back ten seconds so I can hear it all over again. George can joke about his pain though for as we reach the coda's end we hear that same crash of timber accompanied with his mutter of "Oh no I did it again". It realises that such concerns are a cycle with the role of the balladeer never ending. So in honour of that I've had this song on repeat for the last twenty minutes and I'm nowhere near becoming tired of its restless beauty. I can't wait to see how it will hold up when it faces the challenge posed by eternity.
Tomorrow: The Georgian gentleman shows everyone else how to perform the Fab Four.

Buy - Lowell George - Thanks I'll Eat It Here

The Number Nine Song in Heaven (Notice a Pattern yet?)

2005-09-06T10:54:00.000+01:00

Mr Bungle - California (Slash Records, 1999)

Mr Bungle - The Air Conditioned Nightmare

Yes, I know that following the 'Girls of Porn' Mr Bungle are all going to hell. Competitions to put the most disgusting swear songs in a song as possible will do that to you. For that matter, if that whole coveting and worshipping of false idols part of the Commandments is true then I'll probably be joining them in the administration of nipple tweaking and Chinese burns. However, with this whole exercise I believe that it would be best to exercise wishful thinking.
So why Mr Bungle? Well, 'California' was probably the first record that I ever really loved when I was first getting into music six years ago and as such can be seen as catalyst for my "eclectic" modern tastes. All the songs on this album can be found on old mix tapes in some form or another due to their sheer adaptability. I'd later go on to get their all too bizarre eponymous debut and hate the thing (mainly due to the breaks between songs consisting of four minutes of Metal Machine Music feedback) but I'll always be able to come back to this Zappa-lite confection. It's truly impossible to describe how Mike Patton (lead singer of Fantomas, Tomahawk, and, of course, Faith No More) and his cohorts manage to control such a melange of styles into such a smooth set. Songs canter from loungecore through heavy metal to torch songs in under four minutes without taking a breath or missing a step.
My favourite of these exhaustive explorations of the musical psyche is 'The Air Conditioned Nightmare', a monastic journey out of Bavarian forests into the teenage wilderness of Jan & Dean's Surf City before finally riding against a silhouetted Boston skyline. There's machine gun riffs, a soft coda of native percussion and animal clucks whilst Patton croons, and an ultimate overwhelming feeling of catharsis. It's so pure in its sheer likeability with none of the instrumental quirks played for laughs or to show off a uniform studio prowess. Every touch and every note is required for the song structure creating a four minute rock operetta as far detached from the fatty excess of Queen or the coyness of early Bowie as possible. I adore it and can't imagine life without it.
Tomorrow: Amazing solo Feats as our man George finds out that his new job as a handyman ain't all that it's cracked up to be. See you then!
NB: I forgot to upload the mp3! Apologies but you must allow for the occasional screw up by yours truly. I am only flesh, blood, bile, water, and other organic matter. On a happier and less disgusting note, my sister found this delightful page of Elliott Smith Either/Or demos.

Buy - Mr Bungle - California
Visit - The Musical World of Mike Patton

The Number Ten Song in Heaven (Part 1 of 10... obviously)

2005-09-05T21:44:00.000+01:00

Tom Waits - Alice (Anti, 2002)

Tom Waits - I'm Still Here

So why the grandiose gesture of a ten part series? Well, I was getting a bit sick of doing four song blocks and that I didn't have the time or inclination to devote my time into each tune equally. Thus, I am now trying out a new period of economy SVC style to allow my creative juices to flow and my record collection to not be used up by the end of the month. Hence, the theme of my personal Top Ten songs that will be playing in Heaven when I get flattened by a diaper truck or mauled by a grizzly bear. I know that its egotistical to think that you guys care a jot about my choices since I'll be having to fight tooth, nail, mace and plank of a wood with a nail in it, for jukebox rights. The fact that God invariably gets dibs will complicate matters even further and I hear that he's a Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, and John the Baptist fan so we may be all shit be out of luck unless we get Nat King Cole to step up to the big white grand piano and play some requests.
So if the worst comes to the worst, and drunk on wine straight from the disciple's private vines we finally force Nat to crack his knuckles and let ebony and ivory glide beneath his fingertips then I'll request this Tom Waits ditty. Taken off the concept album, Alice, hidden between the drowned phlegmmy rasp of 'Reeperbahn' and the delicate sea shanty cum aquatic ballad of 'Fish and Bird' it clocks in at merely 1 minute and 49 seconds; every second of which is filled with a contained, opalescent beauty. I've chosen this forgotten gem in particular over the many other highlights of Waits' distinguished career (I consider songs such as 'Kentucky Avenue', 'Picture in a Frame', 'Frank's Wild Years', and 'Old Boyfriends' among other as superior to this tune in the all-time rankings) for personal reasons.
I will always remember that day when I came home from walking my English Bull Terrier, McGinlay, only to find not only that no one was home but I had forgotten my house key. Luckily, the side gate was open and we moseyed through it into the back garden to sit on the sun lounger and wait for my parents return. This was before the Golden Era of the Ipod so I had two irritating little earphones wedged between the hardened earwax connected to my beloved Minidisc player (he's taken a few knocks over the years and now sits forlornly in a bedside drawer waiting for the new pretender to his throne to kick the proverbial bucket). On this particular day, 'Alice' was rotating happily on the player and I had particularly enjoyed manfully skipping down the back lanes whilst 'Table Top Joe' careened off the roof tiles into the bluest of skies. I hadn't ever really gotten through the album before due to various interruptions and its difficult schizophrenic pacing. However, God obviously had a plan for me that day so that I would finally put up, shut up and listen to the entire album in all its Gestalt glory.
So we have the picture of me with sunglasses on, eyes closed, legs spread out and music playing. I'd finally twisted, turned and shimmied through 'Reeperbahn's' many pitfalls of ominous clinks and bangs accompanied by Waits' impersonation of the Mad Hatter on a cocktail of methadone and copious quantities of gin. So far, so wonderfully chaotic. One had not reckoned with that sound of the piano wafting in as light as a feather clearing the haze of my own foggy stupour before the middle eight hit knocked me off the lounger like bulldozer covered in particularly soft cushions. For the woodwinds had joined the march of the gin blossoms at the same time as Waits attempting what could easily be mistaken for a high note with his utterance of "Someone turn the lights back on/I'll love you 'til all time is gone." Now, at this point in my life I hadn't had anybody to hold in such a fashion. I had suffered my adolescent rejections and they still stung but only as much as any emotional splinter. As a result, I had no right upon this earth to feel any tears roll down my cheek as I frantically scrabbled at my glasses so that I could run my sleeve across my scarlet tinted cheeks. But that's exactly what happened. Why? I have no idea. Waits is an alchemist - turning what others see as lead into gold through the deftest and most knowing of touches. He'd be a superstar if he didn't look like a tramp or actually gave a flying rodent about such material things. Then again, if he did then he wouldn't be the man that we know and love today.
Tomorrow... I haven't decided. I'll plan it all out and then I can leave tantalising clues from whcih you can try and derive the next entry... or completely ignore as I would. FYI: The Graduate, despite his genuine hatred of most crosswords, only buys NME to find out the new clue that Trevor Hungerford has found for Cud. The man seems to have a never ending list!

Buy - Tom Waits - Alice
Visit - Tom Waits

This Vicious Cabaret

2005-09-02T11:23:00.000+01:00

The Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional (Mushroom, 1986)

The Triffids - The Seabirds
The Triffids - Estuary Bed
The Triffids - Lonely Stretch
The Triffids - Wide Open Road

Damn you Stuart Maconie and your failure to index! There I was hoping to quote your marvelously off-the-cuff comment in Cider With Roadies that started my short, sharp descent into Triffidom but you had to go and spoil it. Never mind. It's an excellent book and can still be purchased for a veritable snap (or a "billy bargain" as we term it here in The Graduate household) so we'll forgive you for your lackadaisical attitude. Love the radio show too; the Spoken Word week was a favourite with the wondrous Monster Mash of Betjeman vs. Tilt-era Scott Walker. Blood dripped from the ropes and Voltaire floated down from the ceiling like confetti.
Away from Wigan's finest though and on to Perth's. The Triffids, faves of the late John Peel ('Lonely Stretch' and 'Wide Open Road' would both turn up on sessions for the great man), were the Ladies-in-Waiting of the Australian indie rock movement of the 80s spoken in the same breath of The Go-Betweens and the Bad Seeds but with never the same level of devotion or popularity. As the Bad Seeds were driven by a singular force, in the ghoulish shape of Mr Cave, the Triffids were a vehicle for one man's experience and accompanying vision. That man was David McComb. McComb died on February 2, 1999, due to complications after an innocuous car crash furthered by heroin abuse and a consistent heart problem. He left behind an extraordinary body of work that is exemplified by the album that many call his masterpiece, 1986's 'Born Sandy Devotional'.
As soon as the album's lead-off track, 'The Seabirds' begins anyone with a vague knowledge of The Go-Betweens will recognise the instant similarity in the rawness of McComb's voice as he intones the poetry of "No foreign pair of sunglasses will ever shield you from the light that pierces your eyelids, the screaming of the gulls". Nick Cave always preferred the vaudeville where he luxuriates in the roles of the carny, the ass, the saloon pianist, the undertaker; Cave immerses himself in character, yelping screaming, and howling to the rotted ceiling with equal amounts of grief and mirth. McComb prefers to looks toward the enigma of the inner demons that search constantly for a redemption that never existed and their relationship to the landscape that surrounds them. He is not one for the culture of the individual signified by the exquisite aerial photo of the Western Australian town of Mandurah which adorns the album's cover. McComb's lyrics speak of a fictionalised truth with 'Tarrilup Bridge', the album's one possible weak moment due to the child like vocal of Jill Birt, referring to the bridge which the protagonist drives her car off to end her life, being an excellent example of the lyrics' overall feeling of isolation and nihilism being a direct result of the physical landscape which they inhabit. In the masterful 'The Seabirds', as the protagonist swims out into the Pacific to meet his death, the sun burns his skin, the sea tosses him like a rag doll, the reefs cut deep into his flesh, and the saltwater causes further pain as it penetrates his wounds mixing with his blood. In the end, all that is left is his battered body, now torn up physically as it was emotionally, lying on the beach as the gulls stare at it unwilling to end his suffering. McComb by this point is exhausted willing only to bellow a piteous judgment of "So, where were you?" as the eyes sting with big fat salty tears. It's truly a composition that should be rightfully compared with some of the finer cuts on The Boatman's Call. McComb may never have had the temerity or sheer righteous gall to sing "I don't believe in an interventionist God but I know darling that you do..." he will still come up with some wonderfully whisky-soaked gallows humour of his own when he ask the question "Are you drinking to get maudlin, or drinking to get numb?"
'Estuary Bed' is almost a precursor to 'Where the Wild Roses Grow' with its steady doomed waltz telling the elegiac tale of a final coupling as it is remembered by the tortured raconteur. The coda of "Sleep no more/Sleep is dead/Sleep no more on the estuary bed" is beautiful but equally haunting as a multitude of voices rises from the silt fading into the ether with the lull of the vibraphone. Once again, images of the personal, sneaking out of your paramour's house over the back fence, are drowned by the overbearing significance held by the surrounding environment as the salt and mud creeps in to hide the indignity of the naked young bodies so well that they are only retrievable by memory.
'Wide Open Road' is everything that an anthem should be. Max Weinberg explosions of snare, rich echoes of guitar, rumbling unexcitable bass lines, and that rebel yell of a voice that is able to voice indignity whilst remaining unearthly dignified; it is often referred to a great lost single and was memorably played on The Triffids' behalf by Paul Kelly at Mushroom Records' 25th Anniversary Concert. Having already mentioned Weinberg, it's virtually impossible not to speak of the Boss himself and how he would have approved of the metaphor of the wide open road travelled down by McComb as he searches for his beloved and the man that she left him for. Of course, at this point Springsteen was mucking around with synths (don't get me wrong I lurve 'Tunnel of Love' despite its apparent musical faults but more on that at a later date methinks) so I don't think he would have noticed his populist working class philosophy being so expertly pinched. The song speaks of the McComb's passion as he cuts away all that was dear to him, his family and friends, whilst articulating this further through the taunts of the skyline. "The sky is big and empty... I yelled my insides out at the sun". With every empty horizon comes another promise unfulfilled, a recurrent theme in the album with Helios often acting as an antagonist looking to blister the aching heart as much as the worn skin.
So as a final note, I'd like to state that this brief, scattershot overview of what is an all too deep and complex an exercise as 'Born Sandy Devotional' can never truly do it justice. Maybe I'll write a thesis on it to keep myself occupied in this period of unemployment. Meanwhile, download these songs, tape up your jaw to avoid dislocation, turn out all the lights, put on the headphones, press play, and then just bask in the soft washes of sound coming in with the tide.

Buy - The Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional
Visit - The Triffids ("Dave's Influences" is especially interesting and I may just make a McComb compilation myself)

The Pub Rocker's Lament

2005-08-31T11:04:00.000+01:00

Nick Lowe - Dig My Mood (Demon Records, 1998)

Nick Lowe - Faithless Lover
Nick Lowe - Man That I've Become
Nick Lowe - High on a Hilltop
Nick Lowe - Time I Took a Holiday

Member of Brinsley Schwartz, in house producer at Stiff Records, writer of some of the keenest pop songs in recent decades, friend and confidante of Elvis Costello... Nick Lowe can be regarded as the Lon Chaney Jnr of the New Wave movement. However, one of his many faces is often overlooked by the public: the Tony Bennett crooner crossed with Hank Williams melancholia.
From the first groan of "Faithless lover/Heartless thing/For you I'll swing/And for no other" of the album's opener, backed by Morricone tumbleweed guitar picking, it would be impossible for anyone not to expect something special from this effort. The sparsity of the arrangment on 'Faithless Lover' is a welcome change from Lowe's other production work with his time at Stiff, especially Costello's late 70s albums, often critcised for offering a suffocating mix. This would give the songs a claustrophobic and immediate feel whilst sacrificing any form of melodic subtlety. 'Dig My Mood', on the other hand, looks toward a calmer torch song style with the music echoing Lowe's new lyrical and vocal maturity with his crisp Dixie Chicken hybrid of a singing voice. People often point out the the import of the country influences in his music yet they often forget the intellectual soul behind his large proboscis: he's a man who understands that a few hummed bars of sadness can say more than a thousand words. It's an old Sam Cooke trick used to great effect amid the subtle washes of the rhythmic tide.
Listening to this album, you would more than likely expect Lowe to have decamped to Memphis, Nashville or any other such hubs of Southern Music, for months on end working together with wisened session musicians with calloused hands and cancerous tongues. The recording and mixing did take Lowe a year in the sunny locales of... St John's Wood, Wimbledon and Twickenham. To think that a man can perform a Johnny Cash pastiche such as, 'The Man That I've Become', amidst the grey of the South East suburbs of London with its favourite colours resembling that of a nasty bruise is at once both remarkable and rather fitting. It's stripped to the bone's marrow with its muted guitar flashes, hi hat chugs, and that inevitable moonshine riff pushing the song into second gear after every chorus. When I call it a Cash pastiche, I refer merely to the song's country tilt and the general subject matter for, god rest his soul, the Man in Black would never been witty or cocky enough to include such delicious couplets as "His heart is prune/When it once was a plum".
Whereas 'The Man...' is all country, 'Time I Took a Holiday' bows upon bended knee in the direction of that Mecca of songwriters, The Brill Building, in particular Messrs Goffin & King. It delights in its subtle Tapestry piano base which is cautiously admonished by delicate Cropper guitar licks, angelic accordion and wordless doo wop harmonies. It looks to rewrite Southern Soul, keeping with it the emotional power but replacing the raw edges with gilted alternatives. It's possibly the busiest composition on the entire album with its heavily textured blue eyed soul but somehow remains perfectly balanced keeping firmly away from the chest beating and heavy duty synth/organ fills of its compatriots. A fabulous song is created from the old school formula of identifying the basics needed for the song and then putting so much effort into those fundamentals so that what you end up having is a polished gem rather than a pocketful of stones.
The other day, I referred to Wire's 'Outdoor Miner' as having some form of archetypal quality to it. A song that is both new and a song that you have heard all your life in the efforts of others. 'High on a Hilltop' is such a song. Its production is yet again simplistic to an extreme with its uncomplicated drum beat, unobstrusive mahogany bass line, a soft patina of organ, pointed and direct guitar strikes, and wordless acoustic harmonies. The song is just your basic instrumental members layered in such a fashion so that they reach this wonderfully anthemic quality; both gospel-like and minimalist. This feeling is shared by the soft lamentations of Lowe as he returns the optimistic yet personal imagery of one day being far away from the city and thus in some form of peace. Ater all the work he's done in his life, who on earth would find at all meritorious to deny the man such a simplistic pleasure? Not I, that's for sure.

Buy - Nick Lowe - Dig My Mood
Visit - Nick Lowe's Official Website

Tell Me If You've Heard This One Before

2005-08-29T18:18:00.000+01:00

Various Artists - Power Pop Anthems! (Virgin, 2005)

Squeeze - Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)
The Records - Hearts In Her Eyes
Hal - Play the Hits
Jellyfish - Baby's Coming Back

Funny story. Earlier this month, I was doing my two week research stint and felt that I should find a welcome distraction to alleviate some of the mounting tension growing as a result of reading the nasty words such as "hazard", "dead", "polluted" or "corporate social responsibility". I found this in the form of 6music, the BBC's alternative digital radio station, an old love that has now been spurned in favour of my fellow music bloggers. It was a brief but joyous union that resulted in me entering Gideon Coe's 'Paintbox Jury' competition. Having doen so, I promptly buggered off to have my customary pizza scattered with various unidentifiable meat products and thought no more of it. Fast forward one week and a package from the BBC arrives containing three CDs and the customary BBC pen (a red biro with no lid on it, I shit you not). This resulted in me a-yelping and a-hollering and running around the driveway in my underwear (that's true). THe CD package consisted of the latest Turin Brakes (better than I coul possibly have hoped it to be), the new Public Enemy best-of (needs some time to grow), and Virgin's poorly named compilation package of the week, 'Power Pop Anthems'. The latter of the three is the one that I wish to speak of today and for good reason too. For I wish to ask the question that has plagued man since the early 70s: what is Power Pop?
I will admit that at the beginning I really wanted to hate this compilation. It had cash-in written all over it. Even from the packaging, it was obvious that it was just an excuse to couple together some EMI artists under a vague misnomer masquerading as an all encompassing theme just to make a mint. Well, I have to say that I'm disappointed in that respect because this album is a little too obvious at points, it includes some people who have no right to be crowned with that exclusive title of "Power Pop", it omits some important bands, and has an all too obvious bias toward New Wave. However, it is ultimately an unashameably corking set of tracks.
Power Pop is often termed as a product of the seventies with its first major exponents being Badfinger, the Raspberries and Big Star. It is often termed as a mixture between Beatles melody and the rock of the Who. The main sign of a power pop band is a heavy power chord sound that is shifted down in the mix so as to let the melody breathe. Pure power pop has a preference for embellishments from organs or piano with the chief exponents of such a sound being Ric Ocasek's new wave group, The Cars (featured on the comp with their best known number that isn't a soppy Macarthur Park souffle) and the masters of 90s power pop, Jellyfish. Queen (who sadly kick off the first CD) are NOT proponents of power pop but rather of pomp-rock. Power pop is more often than not both a blessing and a curse. Power pop bands often extinguish themselves within two or three albums due to their inability to work beyond what is essentially a limited formula. The Romantics made one good album, Jellyfish made two, Big Star made two that could possibly be termed popwer pop, and even only The Raspberries could muster four before their leader Eric Carmen descended into MOR hell on the back of Rachmaninoff. There is often an extremely intense flame at the beginning before an incredibly quick ebb into obscurity or dullness. Queen, on the other hand, were scattershot with their operatic flair, dabbling with jazz fusion, disco, the Charleston, and ultra-ironic boogie woogie. The Beach Boys were not power pop. Power Pop did not exist when 'Fun, Fun, Fun' came out - that was it's predecessor, surf pop. The Beach Boys could maybe have been termed power pop in the days of 'Carl and the Passions' but even I'd be loath to say that. Pilot were simply crap and their presence is better left undiscussed. ELO are a more forgivable indiscretion but I would rather simply term them "pop" and leave it at that. Any band that dabbles with rock n' roll pastiches so frequently as they just doesn't fit the tag. The Jam, Any Trouble, Reckless Eric amd Joe Jackson are all New Wave rather than power pop looking rather to either rougher musical textures or a complete disregard for the constant need of a delicate merseybeat chime underscored by a power chord base.
A lot of the songs on here are obvious with Wings ('Jet'), The Knack ('My Sharona'), The Undertones ('Teenage Kicks'), and The Buzzocks ('Ever Fallen in Love?') all key examples of what I dislike to call the "duh!" syndrome of compilation sequencing. What about 'Good Girls Don't', 'Admiral Halsey', 'My Perfect Cousin', and 'Lipstick'? Well, I guess the first answer would be that they don't sell compilations quite as well to the average consumer. Andy Sturmer once said that 'Jet' was the sexiest song ever written.. he also refrained from mentioning that it's one of the best pop songs ever written. These songs, as I've previously mentioned, were chosen in the usual fashion with a flamboyant mixture of the false worshippers, the popular, and the true faith. The true faith here is represented by bands like The Records, The Rubinoos. The Barracudas, The Babys, and Martha and the Muffins (stretching with that last one) who all fill that wonderfully brittle construct of 70s blue eyed boys who never quite got out the starting blocks with their bright orange V shaped telecaster, brillatine hair, vaseline teeth and adoration of the Searchers. By all rights, they should have been joined by Dwight Twilley, the Plimsouls and The Romantics along with 90s exponents such as The Rooks and the incomparable Sloan ('Action Pact' is the best power pop album of the noughties - taut, melodic and spine tingling) but you can't have everything. And everything is all that this compilation tries to give. It does so in such an adorably mediocre fashion, with its idle searching in every nook and cranny of the easily identifiable pop universe, but that's why I find it so charming. For I now posses an album with 'Friday On My Mind', 'Fire Brigade', 'It's Only Natural', 'Echo Beach', 'Going Down to Liverpool', and 'No Matter What' all of which are stone cold classics that I enjoy each time they come on the stereo. Not many albums have such an enviable strike rate.
Before I finish, I guess I should give you guys the lowdown on the tracks that I've uploaded. Hal are the new boys out of Ireland who have been surprisingly ignored by the blogosphere even when they have such a brilliant single in the form of the Edwyn Collins produced 'Play the Hits' with it's cyclical guitar hum, infectious pre chorus, and delightful high register vocals. Sunshine pop for an early summer's evening out on the sun lounger with shades, a fat novel and too much multicoloured zinc on the bridge of your nose. Jellyfish are the 90s offspring of Steely Dan with their preference for a beautifully scented rose that blossoms with colour and fragrance only to reveal sharp lyrical talons disguised as innocuous thorns. The acoustic stroll is interrupted by tinny drum snaps, hand claps, buzzing bass and Roger Manning doing his best impersonation of Garth Hudson on the organ. You dance like a mad man and then start listening to the words before retreating to the corner for a quick sob into your pint of bitter. The only song that I've heard a harmony built around the words "buy a handgun". The Records are power pop at its most wonderfully undistilled with a standard Flamin' Groovies knock off that would have made Cyril Jordan a very proud man. And if you don't know Squeeze by now then I pity you and bid that you listen to what has to be their finest hour with Tillbrook pulling exquisite couplets like rabbits out of a hat whilst the guitars ring the changes never to come.

Buy - Power Pop Anthems!

Collaboration - Captain Planet Style!

2005-08-26T17:03:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note here: Dodge at MOKB has got Luxury Liners and Foxymorons up on his site for all those poor fools who missed out first time round. He's also linked to my interview with David Dewese, the driving force behind both those bands. Even if you have them, go look anyway as it's one of the best music blogs out there. I may have another quick post tomorrow but if not I'll have something new on Monday. Peace, love and all that gubbins.

UPDATE: Whoops. Knew that I'd forgotten something. Go here and then click on 'Downloads'. Download 'Save It For Later' - an excellent Harvey Danger cover of The English Beat classic that I've previously featured on 'Adventures'. Dig that organ and pork scratchings break.

Visit - The Foxymorons
Visit - The Luxury Liners

The Basement Tapes

2005-08-25T12:48:00.000+01:00

Hamell on Trial - Choochtown (Evangeline, 1999)

Hamell on Trial - When Bobby Comes Down
Hamell on Trial - Choochtown
Hamell on Trial - The Long Drive
Hamell on Trial - Judy

Sorry folks. As much as I would love to wax lyrical on the might of Ed Hamell, I have the biggest hangover upon the planet and would very much like to wonder upstairs and lie down in front of the comforting cathode glow of the cricket. So this may be briefer than usual.
I've been a fan of Ed Hamell since I first got into music when I came into contact with "Go Fuck Yourself/Choochtown" on an Uncut cover CD. Hamell may be familiar to some of you from his regular column for the aforementioned monthly mag. Despite this admiration, I only just bought my first Hamell CD, 'Choochtown', after discovering it in a HMV bargain bin for a hideously undervalued price tag. Man, was it worth it!
"The Long Drive" is Marlowe caught in a compromising position with Capote and Kerouac. Recorded live into a boombox, it coasts along on the wings of a muted acoustic doing its Johnny C thang and a trumpet joining in for the choruses. It tells the tale of a Private Dick put on a case to find a woman who is "brilliantly doomed" stumbling into a spicy jambalaya of ashes, drug dealers and strychnine. I've personally always had a major soft spot for tunes with a cohesive narrative so this song in particular really tickles my pickle. It's a brilliant album closer thrown out on to the plate earlier than expected just for Hamell's own morbid kicks. The fact that the song is immediately followed up by the uptempo stomp of "Judy", the ultimate answer to Springsteen's "Kitty Back", makes it all the more macabre.
Actually, Hamell has a big thing for a narrative flow in his lyrics with possibly the greatest being the autobiographical "John Lennon" off 'The Chord is Mightier Than the Sword' which you simply have to hear. Ed's made it available with plenty of other album tracks, albeit very low quality (around 24k), on his web site here. Hamell even experiments with the songwriting medium with "When Bobby Comes Down" and "Choochtown" telling two sides of the same story with Bobby the guy who is "fun to hang around here when he's high, couldn't find a nicer guy, he would give you his own shirt/he starts to crash and you get hurt" whereas Chooch, the protagonist of "Choochtown", is the foul mouthed enforcer who accidently bumps into Bobby whilst on a sordid celebrity paedophile case. "When Bobby..." is a loud mouthed acoustic shout-a-long but "Choochtwon" is a completely different animal that seeks to masquerade as a lost Stones number; all incidental riffs and swagger that finally ends up with Chooch taking the song over and berating Hamell for not writing a song about him early. HEaring about the man's misadventure, I figurethat the man has a point.
Well, that's Hamell mapped out for you. But before I reach for the warm flannel to lay upon my aching brow, I just want to point you toward Will Robinson Sheff's post on Tim Hardin. 'Lenny' is a underground classic that's only available on the hard to find Tim Hardin III (aka Tim Hardin Live) or covered by that teutonic beauty and fellow lover of opiates, Nico. Read the article, download the music, but don't buy the CD unless you want stiff competition from yours truly.

Buy - Hamell on Trial - Choochtown
Visit - Hamell on Trial

Ipod Maths

2005-08-23T13:15:00.000+01:00

+ =

Regina Spektor - Ode to Divorce
Paul Westerberg - Boring Enormous
Nicolai Dunger - Hey Mama
Sloan - Chester the Molester
Culture - The International Herb

I have finally found my own special game to occupy myself whilst playing around with Maybellene (my Ipod, for the uninitiated) and her lovely shuffle function. It's the sensation that will soon be sweeping the nation! Ipod Maths! Well, it'll shuffle around my creatively dulled cerebellum for at least a week before I brand it a folly and run back to the sweet comforting bosom of the mix tape.
Ipod Maths starts with kicking your Ipod into shuffle mode and jotting down the first ten tracks to appear (which can also be used in Ipod Wars). Here's the ones that I got:

1. Joni Mitchell - In France They Kiss On Main Street
2. The Pine Club - Straightaway
3. Jason Falkner - Mr Future
4. Essex Green - Chester
5. Wire - Outdoor Miner
6. Van Morrison - Redwood Tree
7. Edna Wright - Oops There I Go Again
8. Cary Brothers - Skyway
9. Pearl Jam - Brain of J (Live)
10. Alex Chilton - Can't Seem to Make You Mine

What then happens is an arbitrary selection process pairing up each of the ten tracks until you have five pairings. I did this off the cuff looking to put together songs with disparate influences so that I could have more fun later on. Having paired up, comes the ultimate purpose of Ipod Maths: if you put these two songs together, taking in their influences, the band's background, the tempo, the lyrical content... what bastard creation would emerge. I think it's brilliant as not only do I get to pour over music lists but I also get to justify my idiotic beliefs. Mariah Carey + Lindsay Lohan = Ice Cube? Why the hell not. So without further ado, here are the pairings that I came up with to decide what I'd let you have a listen to this fine summer's day:

Joni Mitchell + Wire = Regina Spektor
Alex Chilton + Cary Brothers = Paul Westerberg
Jason Falkner + Essex Green = Sloan
Pearl Jam + Edna Wright = Culture
The Pine Club + Van Morrison = Nicolai Dunger

For starters, yes, the Falkner/Essex Green is a cop out. Pristine power pop sprinkled with a piano led ditty named 'Chester' was always going to result in Canada's finest wasn't it? I won't elaborate really other than to say firstly that The Essex Green are certainly worth investigation on their own and that I have this theory that 'Chester the Molester' was inspired directly by John Irving's 'Prayer For Owen Meany' and the narrator's cousins habit of calling their female counterpart, 'Hester the Molester'. Just an idea. Maybe it's a coincidence brought about by the wonders of rhyme.
Wonders may be abound as a result of Pearl Jam's more bruising screamathons being married to coy bubblegum soul and birthing one of roots reggae's more radical outfits, Culture. Culture take Pearl Jam's left wing populist politics and wrap it in penny whistles, horns and falsetto harmonies. Gil Scott-Heron or The Impressions would have been other possible results of this particular equation but the clincher was the fact that I not only get to mention that I saw Culture live at Womad (they were brilliant) but that I also recently purchased the essential four CD 'Frontline Box Set' which tells the story of Richard Branson's short lived Virgin reggae affiliate. I also wish to push forward the maxim of: the kookier the result, the better.
Cary Brothers/Chilton was another gimme that meant such a maxim had to be ignored because any chance to play The 'Mats or their offshoots must never be passed up. If you have a 'Mats cover and their greatest influence (so much so that they named a song after him) then it would be criminal to not instantly reach come to such a conclusion. Admittedly, anything from 'Pleased to Meet Me' would be a far more conventional choice than Westerberg's solo 2002 effort, 'Stereo/Mono' but "Boring Enormous" has everything. It has that delicious acoustic cantering rhythm which is so similar to 'Skyway' although clearly not as magical. You can no longer hear the snow crystalissing on Paul's brow but you can hear him growing older much as his idol did. He fails to recapture the heavy rock n' roll strut that Chilton carries off on "Can't Seem..." preferring to take on the role of the man has tried on such a persona before and ultimately been crushed by it. The bubble and hiss are restrained; dormant before being unleashed at a more appropriate juncture.
Joni/Wire leading to the queen of anti-folk, Regina Spektor, also has the feeling of the inevitable about it too. Now, Wire are a band who have never taken my fancy before. 'I Am the Fly' annoys the crap out of me to be perfectly frank. 'Outdoor Miner' is completely different. It is one of the only songs that I've ever heard that sounds like it's ripping strips from music history as it goes and in doing so creating a new future in the process. It's a song that you hear in so many others; a perfectly shaped Jungian archetype that gives me chills. Joni's has more than achieved the impact of "Outdoor Miner" on me but not in such a clinical way. Her songs manage to maintain a scruffier, more individualistic existence even her more poppier, jazz-lite songs such as "In France..." the opening track on what Prince would term "The greatest album of all time", 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns'. Regina occupies an earlier incarnation of Joni, around her sparser 'Blue' period, with her preference for sparse instrumentation subsidiary to Regina's voice and piano. It's all rather a case of the life of the narrator of "Last Time I Met Richard" thirty years on. Still mourning that last night in the cafe as she, like Wire, seeks to dissect an increasingly complicated musical vision to its spare parts. As a result, "Ode to Divorce" is an intoxicating concoction.
So, finally, we come to the meeting of minds between Van the Man and the Louisville art pop of The Pine Club leading to a goalkeeper turned Swedish folker. How? "Straightaway" skitters around like a cat through a side alley pakced with trashcans (introduced to me by Dodge at MOKB). All snare and stratch. "Redwood Tree", on the other hand, is Van at his most mellow filled with soft jazz percussion, acoustic cuts, and marauding soft rock piano. It's like The Band on downers accompanied by a gospel choir which just fell out the back of a van. What Dunger does is take Van's legendary scat ramble and slows it down into a belligerent honeyed drawl and mixes it up with snare and post-punk guitar uppercuts creating his onw hybird of country punk.
So there you have it: Ipod Maths. Go try it at home. You'll enjoy it much more than sunbathing in the hot sun.

Buy - Sloan - Navy Blues
Buy - Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch
Buy - Nicolai Dunger - Tranquil Isolation
Buy - Paul Westerberg/Granpaboy - Stereo/Mono
Buy - The Frontline Box Set
Buy - A 1Gb Ipod Shuffle!

How Do You Know They Women?

2005-08-19T19:56:00.000+01:00

The Miracles - City of Angels (Motown, 1975)

The Miracles - Love Machine
The Miracles - My Name Is Michael
The Miracles - Night Life
The Miracles - Ain't Nobody Straight in LA

One song about Michael Jackson before he lost his nose, a disco stomper with the most uses of the word "chick" you're ever likely to hear, the greatest outro of all time, and a classic in every sense of the word. Yes, it's the Miracles post-Smokey 1974 concept album, 'City of Angels', which can be found in its entirety on Spectrum's best of, 'Collection' (great name, eh?).
For starters, you should all know 'Love Machine'. A massive hit when it first came out the song has slap bass, Sam Clayton "ooh yeahs", hot and heavy gasps, and superb modern doo-wop harmonies. It's a flawless disco gem that can even be spoilt by Billy Griffin, the Miracles' replacement lead singer's awkward use of the metaphor of "lover as robot" nor his androgynous vocals. The requisite horns aren't even the best part of the song and that doesn't happen very often.
I adore the song but you've all probably heard it before. It's only hear for perspective and those poor fools that haven't sampled its oral delights in full. 'Love Machine (Part One)' just isn't enough! 'Ain't Nobody Straight in LA' its follow-up single, as you can probably tell from the title, was both controversial and a bit of a commercial flop. However, before I'm pelted with metaphorical rotten tomatoes for uploading it I have to make clear that in no way is the song homophobic. At least not on purpose. 'City of Angels' was a concept album on LA society and its newfound liberal culture. It covers the resurgence of Hollywood and the superstar ("My Name is Michael"), the environmental pollution ("SMOG"), freedom of expression ("Free Press"), and the emerging gay culture. It really tries to cover all the bases in terms of scope as all concept albums have a tendecy to do. If you ever doubt my assertion that the group isn't donning their intolerance hats just skip to the hilarious outro where the group begin to plan a night out only to discover that all the good clubs are gay bars. This leads to the exclamation of "You know, some of the finest women are in a gay bar... Gay people are nice people too". As long as the boys have a chance of schtupping a lady or three then they're happy bunnies. Also, to hate a song that flutters along so nicely with its Felicano Spanish guitar, gurgling synth, twittering flutes and clicking percussion just for being of its time would be a bit of a shame. The repetition of the lyrics in Spanish by the the harmony vocalists, especially considering the subject matter, makes this even more of a must hear if only for the sheer hilarity of it. It carries the torch, lit by The Coasters and carried on by the likes of Kid Creole and Prince, of creating music that is both danceable and nowhere near as po faced as any of the competition.
"Night Life" is the uptempo stomper that really should have equalled "Love Machine" in popularity. However, its doesn't quite work out. It has the horns, the exultant "doo doo bahs", and propulsive beat of its predecessor but is spoilt by Griffin's overenunciation of the song's lyric which is frankly craptacular. "Swinging cabarets" is a term that should never ever again be used in any form of pop song unless there is a large spoonful of sugar to help the bile stay down. At around 50 seconds in, we get to the prechorus and it starts rather well with Billy singin "Nightlife in the big city..." as the arrangment reaches its minicrescendo. Sadly, he decides to add "...is my cup of tea". Last time I checked The Miracles weren't The Kinks and it just doesn't come off well. I think they only used it because it rhymes with "me" but that's still no bloody excuse for it. However, the worst line has to be "If your intentions are to get a chick to share a lovely evening spell/There are several shops that carry a variety of incense." The song has been completely pussy whipped by the demands of radio. It can't even bring itself to hint at anything vulgar or when it does so it carries it off in such a horribly camp/English manner. I want to hear about trannies again! The arrangement swings like a cat though and would have caused the kids on Dexys to tear up the floorboards as they spun like whirling dervishes in sunny Wigan.
I know that I've been highly critical of the songs that I've put up but they all have a special place in my heart. "Ain't Nobody Straight..." always makes me cackle like a youthful crone, "Love Machine" makes me want to strip my undies and slide across the floor like Tom Cruise does in 'Risky Business', and "Night Life" is just too goofy to not enjoy immensely. They weren't as good after Smokey left but they could still belt out a tune if they wanted to. So I raise my glass to Warren, Clarence, Donald, James and Billy. May they boogie on down forever more.

Buy - The Miracles - Collection (so that you can blast "Night Life" out your car stereo whilst crusing through the slumberin streets of suburbia. There's much fun to be had in such pursuits!)

The King of Ze Swingers

2005-08-17T11:15:00.000+01:00

Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Off the Coast of Me (Universal Island, 2002)

Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Mister Softee
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Darrio
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - There But For the Grace of God Go I (12" Mix)
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - He's Not Such A Bad Guy After All (12" Mix)

These songs are strong competition for the grand prize of being the greatest demos masquerading as an album to ever be committed to vinyl. The debut album of the maverick Kid Creole, leader of the Michael Zilhka's rag tag band of troops representing the New York label, Ze Records, is a magnificent effort despite the fact that I've only included two tracks off the original cut. The other two, "There But For the Grace of God Go I" and "He's Not Such a Bad Guy After All" would later become disco classics when they became big hits for Machine in 1979.
Although I am normally loath to quote over writers, whilst brushing up on my knowledge of Machine, I found that Allmusic described "There But For the Grace of God Go I" as every bit as compelling as "Inner City Blues", "Freddie's Dead", and "The Message". Now that's a compliment if ever there was one. Not that you'd think of those songs for a millisecond if you listened to the Kid's original arrangment. With its subdued piano led tropical shuffle and the Coconuts, the Kid's three valkyrie backing singers, uttering comical faux-Mexican "ay yay yays" it is essentially a very light confection. This instantly shows the touch of a the Kid's status as a musical idiot savant as he seeks to mirror a playful musical side with a gritty narrative giving the song a fascinating chimera quality. Machine may have given the song structure a more claustrophobic groove but it keeps that brilliant chorus that compromises simply of the song's title chanted in a sharp Brooklyn drawl before speeding into a collision with an exasperated set of howls and crooked curses. The man even has the temerity to litter the song's instrumental guitar workout with the whistles of traffic cops and his own shout of "You're at the top of the heap/the top of the pile/the top of the low" before the song's lyrical fable ends in tragedy. In a song that at first sounded so buoyant the hum of the steel drum suddenly turns ghostly and sick. A trick has been played on the listener and this time there's no-one to comfort you with the knowledge as to how the magician pulled the proverbial wool over your eyes.
If ever you wonder why the August Darnell, the Kid's real life alter ego, gave the Coconuts equal billing with himself when they're just a glorified set of backing vocalists then you must be crazy as in every single song they shine like Tiffanys diamonds. Their greatest moment, for me, would come later on the third breakthrough album, 'Tropical Gangsters' with their caffeine drenched chatter of "Onomatopeia" throughout the band's biggest hit, "Annie I'm Not Your Daddy" but they were also given lead duties on the other Machine prototype, "He's Not Such A Bad Guy After All". Any song that begins with handclaps is always going to be something rather special but this B-Side (!!) with its spoken word introduction of "Sure he's a bad guy/but he's good bad" really delivers on its promise. It's full of funk guitar, programmed drum machines, and drawled Betty Boo vocals that attempt to smother the message of a woman forgiving her partner's domestic abuse out of dependence and naivety. It should be as harrowing as "There But For..." but this time it's all so frothy in complexion that you're giggling rather than crying. The bridge, with it's chants "I give him what he wants" supplements by ecstatic moans, doesn't help stopping the corners of the mouth from slowly upturning either. It's a classic case of the tease quickly followed by put down that leaves you exhilirated but a bit dirty at the same time.
As good as those two tracks are, the opener of the album, "Mister Softee", is a novelty that always leaves me laughing and reaching for the 'repeat' button on the stereo. It begins with a milky white Coconut sigh of "You're no good for me" leaving the piano to gambol happily along accompanied by some subdued horns toward Kid Creole who has a feather in his hat, crocodile shoes on his feet and rubber in his hand. Darnell is summed up perfectly as a musical entity when you think that Bambiesque atmosphere is crushed by his first words of "I've got a funny feeling, baby/ that tonight you want to sleep with me". This whirlwind won't even be stopped by the others attempting to restrain him with their pleas for him not to elaborate; to push for answers that no man wants to hear. From then it's all knowing double entendres about his own sexual prowess hinting at both erectile dysfunction (the title of the song for goodness sake!) and the size of his member ("Don't you make an issue over something that's as small as this"). It's all rather dreamlike with the Coconuts' insults framed by this wonderful synth effect giving them the impression of imagined slurs raging through Darnell's sexually fevered mind. By the end, he's on his knees and the listener's rolling in the aisles. As a result, listening to any of the Kid Creole albums are an exhausting affair with you either being left quietened by his hidden socio-political agenda, dry heaving from sheer mirth, or exasperated at how he manages to do it at all. He'd come off the rails later with his entry into the purgatory that comes from a life of self-parody but he should always be for this: his first steps into the New York underground music scene in his own gaudy fashion.

Buy - Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Off the Coast of Me
Visit - Kid Creole and the Coconuts

The Legacy of the HMS Birkenhead

2005-08-15T12:20:00.000+01:00

Loudon Wainwright III - History (Virgin, 1992)

Loudon Wainwright III - Men
Loudon Wainwright III - The Picture
Loudon Wainwright III - Hitting You
Loudon Wainwright III - A Father and A Son

My recent viewing material over the past week has been a steady diet of Judd Apatow's clasic (and much missed) TV series, Undeclared. I could talk at length at the brilliance of the show and my surprise at the number of Freaks and Geeks regulars who bothered to turn up. All I will say though is that the sight of Kim Kelly and Ken Miller being lovey dovey is one that I certainly wasn't quite prepared for. If you can call "crotch blocking" being lovey dovey that is.
So how does this show link to the mercurial Wainright Snr? Why because he's a recurring cat member as the lead character Steve's mid-life crisis suffering dad, Hal. And, boy, is he brilliant! Sharp, funny, natural and quick on the ball - to be honest, it's just Loudon playing himself at a slightly higher tempo without going all out wacky tobbacy. The man is clearly having fun which is, surprisingly, something that can't be said for this wonderful 90s album (except from the hilarious 'Talking New Bob Dylan'). Rather than a one note set with tongue firmly wedged in cheek, Loudon has opted for a wonderfully varied album with hand firmly on heart.
A lot of guff has gone on following Martha Wainwright's 'BMFA' and Rufus' 'Dinner at Eight', both songs that I admire despite the belief that Martha's is heavily overwrought in its "Difranco X 10" way. Talk of the Wainwright clan's familial problems have thankfully seen a new interest in its patriach which I applaud - 'A Father and A Son', for one, uses a concealed dagger to do its dirty work where Rufus uses a stiletto and Martha a clumsy sledgehammer. "Now you and me are me and you/ And it's a different ballgame though not brand new/ I don't know what all this fighting is for/I don't want to die and you want to live/It takes a little bit of take and a whole lot of give." Parenting is broken down beautifully into some kind of horrific Catch 22 that the parent ultimately understands due to the fact that "When I was your age I was a mess [too]".
The songs that I've chosen all follow this theme of family with 'Men' talking eloquently of the legacy placed upon men's shoulder by the Birkenhead with it's weary declaration of "Every man's a general/Men go off to war/The battlefield's a man's world/Cannon fodders what they're for". If the song had been around in the 60s protest era and sung by one of the folk greats like Fred Neill, Phil Ochs or Tom Rush, it would be a classic despite its overt anti-feminism. However, even though it's a child of the early 90s it's not lumbered with any over production (unlike another classic of domestic trouble, The Boss' 'Tunnel of Love') with an organic arrangement dependent on just a multi-tracked acoustic and Loudon's distinct vocal that somehow manages to go beyond his normal vocal quirks to something approaching heart aching. 'The Picture' is a wonderful ancedote, supported by guitars and a sole violin, that draws from Loudon finding a picture of himself and his sister when they were young and drawing from it what the base and true elements of having a sibling are. Eventually it gets to the couplet that that will always make me miss my own sibling however thousands of miles away she may be. Having set out the fact that siblings fight he adds "But a brother will defend her/For a sister's love is pure/Because she thinks he's wonderful/When he is not sure". Much better than a string of insults methinks.
My favourite of all these remarkable tracks though is 'Hitting You', one of his more controversial numbers about a time that he smacked Martha when she was young and how he believes that this one incident has morphed into an entity of hate and disregard. By the end, all he can do is apologise and, with that apology, take the blame for all the wrongs that he knows that he has unknowingly wrought. The lyrics transcend the ordinary subject matter through both its unerringly frank details and its thoughtful delivery creating a song that ultimately leaves you will the feeling that Loudon is a father much like any other, loving but flawed, and that Martha is a bloody motherfucking brat. So there.

Buy - Loudon Wainwright III - History
Visit - Loudon Wainright III
Visit - Undeclared

The Most Overqualified Second Guitarist in Rock

2005-08-11T20:23:00.000+01:00

Grin - The Very Best of Grin (Sony, 1999)

Grin - Moon Tears
Grin - Love or Else
Grin - Everybody's Missin' the Sun
Grin - Rusty Gun
Grin - Nobody

Never in my life did I think that I'd ever have a mouth dropping to the steering wheel, pull over to the side of the road moment when an unknown song came fizzing out of my car stereo. That thought was ended early in the morning last Sunday when 'Rusty Gun', the penultimate track on the Grin best-of thrown into my 10 disc changer as a last minute filler. Before I go on, I would like to firstly send a big shout out to Fire of Love who introduced me to the wonders of Grin. I'm a huge fan of the Boss, have listened to 'After the Goldrush' at least a thousand times, and 'Keith Don't Go' is one of my Dad's all time favourite songs. So it can be safely said that I knew who the scruffy little Grecian leprechaun known as Nils Lofgren rather well. But before 'Moon Tears' knocked me full on my arse I'd never imagined investigating Grin, Lofgren's short lived country rock power trio (later a foursome). Thank you Fire for showing me the error of my libidinous ways.
'Rusty Gun' immediately reminds me of another new favourite of mine (thanks to Cameron Crowe's trailer for Elizabethtown), 'My Father's Gun' by Tumbleweed Watchin' Tobacco Chewin' period Elton John. This is probably for several reasons: they both have the word 'gun' in the title (duh... but semantics are always a good mental primer); they're both a "I'm a little bit country..." in their instrumentation and vocal twang; and they're both steeped in melancholy follwing the death of a family member with the aforementioned gun representing a symbol of both loss and paternity. However, 'Rusty Gun' runs to only 2:21 and one verse (no chorus), lacking the sense of epic proportions that John clearly savours testing his musical chops out on. Sounds a bit crap doesn't it? Well, it's not. With it's accordion/wurlitzer carnivale feel battling against the abrupt acoustic strums and maraca clicks, it pushes along nicely with Nils putting in a strong, emotive vocal that battles against his normal reedier and waif-like verbal stylings. So we get to 1:16 as the verse ends with the intonation "He was my son/Now he's just a rusty gun". Silence falls. You think it's the end, turning your back on the snarling cur before you're shot in the back like John Wayne in 'The Cowboys'. Bang! The most accomplished, acoustic guitar solo comes chattering out of the speakers and begins to boil in keeping with the intesity of the situation. I have never heard harmonics used to better effect in my life than on this song. No, not even by Eddie Van Halen. It's like 'Runnin With the Devil' but without the high kicks, multi coloured leather pants, or Michael Anthony looking like a bit pervy (have you seen how he sticks his tongue out in the 'Jump' which, coupled with his awful lip synching makes my skin run for the hills). Pretty good for someone who's not old enough to get soused at the local dive.
'Nobody' is an old forgotten B-side, unavailable on any other CD (though that may change with the new album re-issues), so be glad that I've made it available. It bristles with professional slickness that would be eventually co-opted by guitar slingers like Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs, and J Geils. Tight, intelligent, but still poppy enough to get the shoulders bouncin' and the fingers running along air fretboards. The same could be said for 'Love or Else', another real favourite. It' essentially soft rock but without the ensuing pretensions and melodrama that often spring from that particular fountain. Maybe that was the problem with Grin's lack of any real success in their time. They were just too nice. When the chorus comes round with its demand of "Gimme gimme now baby/Love or Else" it's gotten to the point where its all become rather enjoyable. The tune's light but distinctive much like Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. 'Cept the drummer's probably even more of a womaniser than Animal if Grand Funk Railroad are to be believed. If Iggy was singing those words in his atonal drawl, I would be readying myself for a swift lie down so that I could recuperate, rather than remembering my strange attraction to Janice, the Electric Mayhem's naturalist, big lipped, pot smokin' guitar player. At this point, I should reaffirm that I think all these songs are fantastic much like I think Boz Scaggs mid 90s album ' Some Change' is a masterpiece. I'm a bit of a sook like that.
If my fandom has put you off then I recommend that you listen to the handpicked favourite of Mr Love, 'Moon Tears', by far the most supercharged number Grin ever performed. Starting with two bars of industrial sized chords it immediately plunges into Nils growling a tale of completely barking mad nonsense which I of course find dazzling. "Ask me if it's right to love another guy/First I say yes then I say why?" are the last words you'll hear before being plunged into the 'gooey gooey rich and chewy' goodness of the chorus. It has barrelhouse piano cantankerously rolling along at the fastest seppd it can muster and Joe Dante howls before another sub-ten second circuit of the verse. It's as if Lofgren is just itching with the fever to let loose with his guitar which he finally does to magnificent effect with a wonderful twin guitar solo that Wishbone Ash, the Allman Brothers and Thin Lizzy would all willingly tip their collective fedoras to.
Personally, I think Bruce should start letting Nils sing some of the songs at his shows. The things are becoming marathons so why not inroduce a nice bit of levity. Fuck ten minute versions of Sam Cooke. Hand Nils a Stratocaster, push him into the spotlight, and ask him to sing that ditty he wrote about a letter that he had to main right away to his great inspirer in the USA. Incidentally, the man himself is touring the UK soon and I'm sure that I'll be at the Shepherd's Bush Empire to see him. Anyone wanting to meet up is more than welcome to drop me a line. Disco may suck but country rock kicks derriere, mon frere.

Buy - Grin - The Very Best of...
Visit - Nils Lofgren

It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes A Loney To Bring the House Down

2005-08-08T22:36:00.001+01:00

The Flamin' Groovies - Groovies' Greatest Grooves (Sire, 1996)

The Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Action
The Flamin' Groovies - Slow Death
The Flamin' Groovies - In the USA
The Flamin' Groovies - You Tore Me Down

This is the last time I'll say this hopefully but sorry for the lack of posting. My sister has come all the way from Australia (and subsequently clicked together her ruby heels and transported herself back to Oz), I've been working the Dolly Parton, old friends have resurfaced and I've caught the mindnight train to Bedford or Chavistan as I like to affectionately call it. I have big plans for next week's posts and hopefully I'll have a week's respite to put them to work.
But on to the Groovies. They started as rock n' roll troubadours cooking up their own fetid brand of boogie from affectionate Jerry Lee rip-offs to the rhythm and blues equivalent of Tobias Funke's cut-offs. However, post-Teenage Head, they turned into the vanguard of US's answer to the British Invasion, a makeshift Dad's Army that had none of the revolutionary fizz of its UK counterpart. I love the Groovies but they never fully disguised their love of their direct ancestry, from Mitch Ryder to Bob Dylan, and as such were the masters of the musical pastiche. Like a brilliant band that you find in a run down bar in Arkansas that you mistake for covers band only to find out later that they were playing their own creations. When you stumble out into the desert night with rye in your nostrils and sticky bathroom door handle fingers you find yourself uttering under your breath, "I'm sure I heard that last song before!" The Groovies have the touch of both the unique and the strangely familiar. This is proven by their greatest song, 'Slow Death'.
The intro will melt your insides. It starts with a hot n' heavy blues guitar riff before the drumsticks start dolefully clicking the beat. It's a bleating question cut down by a vicious razor slide answer. The rhythm attempts a fight back but once again is driven down by the thimble cutter creating a crackle and drag building toward a euphoric climax. You are in bliss - listening to a perfect mess. Your eyes manage to open a little and through the slits you see the clean green of the stereo's LCD display. The song's only been going on for 25 seconds and it's one of the best things you've heard in your life. It gets even better. "I called a doctor/Holy Holy" has to be my favourite couplet of all time. Why? I have absolutely no idea but it just wants you to say ten hail marys, give yourself a quick session of self-flagellation and become a rock n' roll nun. Habit and all.
Through this nomadic desert of rambling we finally reach the song's chorus. What in all nine levels of hell is a "rongey bag o' bones". Translations will be not be greatly appreciated as I prefer the wonderous nonsense of it all. I know what it means in principle but appreciate the fact that Roy Loney isn't in the mood for a lecture on the benefits of enunciation. It just sounds so godammn cool. The crescendo finally reaches its peak as the chorus ends as a whisper turns into Munch's Scream with the repeated rambling of "It's a slow..." until the answer for ten materialised as a fibrous yelp of "DEATH!" is bellowed so hard that I'm surprised that lead singer's diaphragms have gone into shutdown attemtping to recreate its sheer animalism. We now return to the handclap induicng shuffle and apologise for the temporary loss of picture. Don't mainline morphine - it'll do you wrong in the end.
Yes, I have included three other offerings by the boys from the place you should supposedly wear flowers in your hair (though no-one told them that). All are excellent, of course, ranging from directly answering pre-Ding A Ling Berry ("In the USA") to creating this unbelievable wedge between glam and Merseybeat ("Shake Some Action"- it shoulda been a serious contender).
Before I leave I must recommend that you folks buy the compilation Yesterday's Numbers from the Camden label and this album and you'll have the definitive Groovies Desert Island Discs. Accept no substitutes... unless they're these guys.

Buy - The Flamin' Groovies - Groovies' Greatest Grooves
Buy - The Flamin' Groovies - Yesterday's Numbers (it's under three quid for god's sake and 'Heading for the Texas Border' is worth at least a grand on it's own)

I Shit In the Woods

2005-08-02T20:11:00.000+01:00

Descendents - Two Things At Once (SST Records, 1987)

Descendents - Myage
Descendents - I'm Not A Loser
Descendents - I'm Not A Punk
Descendents - Bikeage
Descendents - Hope
Descendents - Mr Bass

Is there a greater message of intent on record than the first ten seconds of 'Myage'? No there isn't. Its stubborn "fuck you" of a bassline smacks you in the face before the razor wire guitar and shotgun drums coming in to finish the job. And to think that bass riff was not only my first
to Descendents but the whole LA punk scene in general; the fertile swamp that would spit out the tar encrusted forms of Black Flag, X... actually why am I firing these off? Just go to Strange Reaction; they have the required two week US punk rock course for a bargain price of $199.99.
I could describe to you every song I've put up for you but it'd ultimately be a waste as (a) you have to hear the rumbling rhythm section to believe them, (b) the lyrics are arcane with Milo brilliantly shouting why he wants to be abear so that he can smell his paramour's "muff", calling jocks "buttfucks" who think life is too tough when daddy won't buy them a new Porsche, and just generally mouthing off that both possesses a bratty chewing gum tongue (sample lyric: "Parents/Why won't they shut up/Parents/They're so fucked up") and a sharp as a safety pin intellect. I'll just say that "Hope" is heartbreakingly beautiful that, after consumption of a barrel of exotic "watermelon sweet" dark rum at the reception, will be played at my post-wedding disco and that "Mr Bass" is so stupid that you can't help but grin imagining it emanating from the fish lips of those irritating Billy Bass.
A quick warning though. I own 'Two Things At Once' which is essentially the classic hardcore of 'Milo Goes To College' (five songs are off that release) and the EP 'Bonus Fat' (just "Mr Bass"). It cost me a bomb but I'd heard all of "Milo..." so thought that it'd be worth it. "My Dad Sucks" and "Mr Bass" (and possible "Hey Hey" if I'm being generous and mildly deaf) are the only half decent tracks off the EP with two efforts under twenty seconds and three awful efforts squirted out before the band's legendary singer, Milo Aukerman, joined. Forget "Bonus Fat" as it'll just give you heartburn... and the clap. However, later efforts by the band, especially 'Everything Sucks' and 'Enjoy!', are well worth checking out if only for the "Hope" retreads, "Wendy" and the majestic "I'm the One".
Apologies, yet again, for the absence of golden nuggets masquerading as music commentary by a man who can barely the play a note (although I do know the entire guitar solos to 'Show Me The Way' by Peter Frampton and 'Bus Stop' by The Hollies). Have been rather busy with the Womad Festival, a review of which is coming when I can be bothered but don't hold your breath as I only saw three bands, my lovely Mum's birthday celebrations, seeing my lovely lady for the first time in three weeks and starting a two week tenure researching NGOs. Phew!

Buy - Descendents - Milo Goes to College
Visit - Descendents

Yer Blues

2005-07-28T16:11:00.000+01:00

Tears For Fears - The Seeds of Love (Phonogram, 1989)

Tears For Fears - Badman's Song
Tears For Fears - Sowing the Seeds of Love
Tears For Fears - Advice For the Young at Heart

In response to my previous demi-post on Top 100 Singles of All Time, I would have to say that quite a few Tears For Fears song would be in a Spartacus style gladiatorial fight to the death to appear in the Top Ten. However, I do believe that "Sowing the Seeds of Love" would ultimately triumph with a well aimed spear to "Head Over Heels"s left kidney after giving "Closest Thing to Heaven" a good ol' fashioned kick in the crotch. Have you listened to it lately? If not, like myself until a well timed VH1 special on the duo a week or so ago, then you should go back to it. It's a fascinating piece of work that epitomises the Tears For Fears boys as endless innovators nom atter how often people have the tendency to proclaim that awful curse of "Beatles Pastiche Ahoy!" More often than not music criticism descends into a petty game of "Name the Influence" rather than doing any leg work trying to get to the heart of the song on its own merits. To me, that's not only fucking lazy but harms the industry and if they're going to do it then why not trying to pick up the subtle hints to long forgotten classics rather than just writing "Beatles" in big bold letters before swanning off for another fag break with the other sallow faced goons with the coffee coloured fingertips.
So with that edition of "What Really Grinds My Gears" over and done with, I have to say that "Sowing..." is supported by some fabulous tunes on the 'The Seeds of Love' album with "Badman's Song", "Advice For the Young at Heart", and "Year of the Knife" all stone cold classics with "Badman's Song" being remarkably close to being the highlight of the album. It was certainly a troubled production with Smith and Orlazabal firing a string of producers, including Chris Hughes (who worked on 'Songs From the Big Chair') and the legendary tag team of Langer & Winstanley, in a search for a new vibrant and all encompassing big band sound that would include Oleta Adams, a gospel singer that the Tears boys discovered one night on their mammoth tour of the US. As Orlazabal himself says of the inclusion of Adams (and I'm paraphrasing wildly here), "Here she was playing a dingy bar and could reduce the entire audience to tears whilst we were selling out stadiums... and we were crap!" She's the second half of the MOR balladic duet that kicks off the album which I personally have no time for whatsoever, "Woman in Chains", and crops up on the other cuts too with a key contribution to "Badman's Song".
In this pursuit of a psychedelic pop perfection, Tears For Fears were certainly well intentioned as they did not want to become a band stuck in a groove; a self-pitying groove at that that seemed to want to blend nihilism with catchy synth pop melodies. An intoxicating concotion no doubt (the tape of 'Songs in the Big Chair' that I had in my car for my own listening pleasure broke due to sheer overplaying) but if taken to often will begin to leave a bad taste in the mouth. They themselves contend that this turn around was intrinsically a good idea yet the execution was "pretty terrible" but I would disagree with them on that. Admittedly, despite its eight songs, the album clocks in at almost 50 minutes meaning that some songs do overstay their welcome but overall the only one I have any significant problems with is "Woman in Chains" which just seems to have aged terribly. Unlike, "Sowing the Seeds..." which kicks off with that backward sample, churning organ chords and Roland doing his best impersonation of Lowell George belting out "Tripe Face Boogie" as he can before Curt comes in with those harmony vocals in the chorus that make my colon do a quick samba with my upper intestine. It's a British take on David Byrne's getting wasted behind a factory in "And She Was" and thus, is a lot more controlled drifting toward Syd Barrett and The Move rather than Talking Heads' art-funk. Those constant synth washes are slightly off putting and the horn break reminds me a little too much of the Sgt Pepper fiasco at Live 8 but these are overshadowed by the numerous touches of brilliance elsewhere. These include the Was Not Was style production at around 2:10 that sounds like the Frog Prince kissed the princess but reverted into a moog instead of a man; the bridge beginning from 2:30 with Curt's wordless harmonies accompanied by handclaps, violins, an opera singer (a touch of genius bordering on the inclusion of one on the Token's original version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"), and that noise that just sounds like entropy; Roland's answer to Oleta's singing of the title where he hollers "Sowing love seeds!" is divine intervention in personam; Curt singing the second bridge (to be honest, this song's arrangement is so lovingly bizarre in its disparity that I don't even know whether its a verse, a bridge, or a breakdown) before Roland starts to overlap him answering with the first verse. Unbelievablely creative work that deserves a swift reappraisal.
"Advice For the Young at Heart" is a good supporting evidence for that with its 60s Havana Club marimba shimmy with green olives on the table, floral shirts on the back and cocktail umbrellas in the hair. Yet, I must urge you that if you only have space for one song on your belt buckling hard drives then I would have to say that you should plump up for "Badman's Song". You'll have heard "Sowing the Seeds..." plenty of times and "Advice..." does suffer a little from a case of the Michael McDonald blue eyed soul-givitis. "Badman's Song" begins with an improvising call and answer session between drums and piano before a shout of "1, 2, 3, 4" and then it all goes Wings with a squall of organ and strong bass line pushing toward a stadium sound. Before long it settle down to bass, drums and Roland before beginning to reascend toward the pre-chorus and the gospel harmonies led by Oleta who then takes the song by the collar swinging it into another direction as the arrangement becomes even more layered. There's Supremes style "ooh oohs", a solid guitar solo, at 5:20 it turns back to what started it off, a tough battle between piano and drums, and then a healthy prime rib cut of slide guitar provided by Robbie McIntosh, he of The Pretenders and McCartney's touring band. It's an exercise in musical multiple personality disorder with its mix of blues, gospel, and soul but that seems to be a fair assessment of albums produced by bands who want to escape their archetypal sound. They'll try anything and, as a result, it may be all over the place but that's what it makes it so fascinating.

Buy - Tears For Fears - The Seeds of Love
Visit - Tears For Fears

Fugue State Aphasiacon (No I Don't Know What That Means Either)

2005-07-28T00:09:00.000+01:00

John Allison, Sheffield's finest son (except maybe Jarvis Cocker a couple of steel workers fresh from the smokey ardour of the Working Man's Club) and creator of the finest web comics known to man, Bobbins and Scary Go Round, has compiled his personal list of The Top 100 Singles of All Time. I don't necessarily agree with the man but it's a bloody good effort. I mean he included 'Jordan the Comeback' era Prefab Sprout, Tanya Donnelly's finest hour, the commercial prostitute (well by their usual standards) era Sonic Youth's 'Sugar Kane', and TODD! The man is a legend! So go and check it out and comment him on his completion of this herculean task with both pep and sass. Touche!

The Ipod Five No. 1

2005-07-26T12:56:00.000+01:00

1. The Skatalites - James Bond Theme
2. G Love and the Special Sauce - Love
3. The Secret Machines - Light's On
4. Joni Mitchell - Black Crow
5. Beck - Black Tambourine

Hello again! Sorry about going AWOL for a couple of days but I think that I needed a bit of time to freshen up as my writing was getting extremely static and frankly a bit too maudlin for my liking despite my best efforts. So to begin this period of revitilisation I thought that I would introduce a new feature that will appear intermittently dependent on whether I have rediscovered a new musical morsel to whet your collective appetites.
This feature as you can probably tell from the oh-so-clever title of this post is related to my new and sparkly 20 gig iPod, Maybellene (yes, I have named my iPod and am not ashamed of the fact). Lifting the exact same idea used in Mark Ellen and David Hepworth's UK music/pop culture periodical, Word, all I have done is put Maybellene on shuffle, jotted down the first five songs to appear and then uploaded them for your listening pleasure. Simple idea but effective despite the fact that I had to redo it two or three times driven by sheer embarassment and disbelief that I haven't had a quick iPod purge starting with the latest Eels' effort. My cheeks are indeed flushed red with shame.
And finally we reach the songs themselves and find that we have the greatest ska band ever, smooth hip hop with jazz inflections, heavy Texan "nouveau-prog", a track off a class songwriters first experimentation with jazz, and finally, Beck. As a result, it's a mix which is clearly musically proficient from the expansion of the James Bond's famous phrasing by the Skatalites into a seven minute lesson in brilliance to Jaco Pastorius's bass playing on 'Black Crow'. Listening to 'James Bond Theme', all I can focus on is underneath the horn and jazz guitar solos are how tight the drums are with the constant work on the high hat and the flat snap of the snare. This is helped a lot by how incredibly high the drums are in the mix as if they are being treated as a creative instrument in its own right rather than a simple tapper out of the rhythm. In the process, it never goes anywhere the gargantuan follies of 'Moby Dick' and 'The Mule' which makes it all the more exhilirating in its ability to get the hips a shakin'.
'Love' reflects that attitude of endeavouring to get the most out of the simplest of arrangements as it sits on a simple beat, a continouous vocal sample of "I'm yours!", a two bar acoustic guitar motif that repeats throughout the song's entireity and a Tom Joad harmonica ghosting in and out of it all. The tempo as a result is slowed down before the sonic onslaught of the Secret Machines. I have to say that although sometime I make comments to the contrary I'm a huge fan of the "power trio" setup as they often involve the wonderful baggage of a drummer pounding his drums, the bass taking on the dirty fuzz usually left to the rhythm guitarists and a front man who not only knows what to do with his guitar, or organ as The Secret Machines sometimes revert to, but can carry a live show. There are some exceptions to this rule with BRMC being notably crap live (yes, I've seen them and the strength of the songs still wasn't enough to carry them along). A couple of weeks ago, I was sat in the college TV room with several beers inside me and another in my hand whilst watching the Glastonbury coverage on her majesty's BBC and when 'The Secret Machines' coverage came on my jaw dropped as beer slowly began to drop from my stubby on to the floor. Long jams, imprenetable fog, a stupid number of effects pedals, lank black hair hanging over the eyes, thunderous toms, fuzzy bass and the requisite pressing of fingers down the fretboard as far as they can go. They had everything! By the way, don't touch their version of 'Astral Weeks' with a barge pole. It's unremmitingly awful.
I, for one, love the interim Joni period between her folk-pop highlight, 'Court and Spark', and the nadir where her inpregnatable pretensions in 'Don Juan's Reckless Daughter' got the better of her. "The Jungle Line", "In France They Kiss on Main Street", "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow", "Coyote" and "Amelia" are all firm favourites and that says a lot when one considers her expansive career. "Black Crow" contains the requisite strums of a bizarrely tuned acoustic and Ms Mitchell's unbelievable voice that not only reaches most of the high notes but often matches this purity with expert phrasing and dirty growls when she wants to. Mitchell can howl to the sky and so can the instrumentation with Pastorius's rumbling bass matched by sparse "Telstar" guitar that becomes denser as the song progresses toward its regrettable fate. It's actually an excellent counterpoint to the previous track as it delves even further into sonic experimentation with its overlaying guitar lines that ache to mirror the black crow taking to the flight in a blue sky.
At last, we come to Beck. Well, you should have heard this song on numerous blogs a couple of months ago and, if not, I'm sure that 'Guero' sits in your CD collection like the alabaster jewel that it is. 'Black Tambourine' is my favourite track off the album funnily enough, even more that the sunshine pop of 'Girl', mainly due to its "Hissing of Summer Lawns" tribal drums placed tangled up with a travelling funk band and a group of mariachis with a love for all things percussive. Scientologist sombreros for all! I've got mine on. Have you?

Buy - The Skatalites - Ball of Fire
Buy - G Love and the Special Sauce - Philadelphonic
Buy - The Secret Machines - Now Here is Nowhere
Buy - Joni Mitchell - Hejira
Buy - Beck - Guero

Cancer Stick Smokin', Chin Dimple Sportin' Monster of Pop

2005-07-21T13:25:00.000+01:00

Jason Falkner - Can You Still Feel? (Elektra, 1999)

Jason Falkner - Holiday
Jason Falkner - Eloquence
Jason Falkner - See You Again
Jason Falkner - My Lucky Day

This writer's block is such a horrid affliction! I've been staring at this screen for about an hour contemplating a strategem with which I can effectively get across how much I love Jason Falkner and especially this, his second solo album. I managed to sneakily obtain an advance mix of his unreleased album, "Eloquence" (don't get it confused with the song off 'Can You...') and it's been on repeat on my iPod for so long that I will willingly fork out muchos doubloons when it finally arrives on import.
Falkner is known for his chimera role in the music business, producing and co-writing the raw and affecting pop found on Brendan Benson's perfect debut album, sessioning on Beck's "breaking up over a qualuude cocktail" album ' Sea Change', and playing a key role in the seminal bands, Jellyfish and The Grays. So as you can guess from that brief analysis what these track sound like: experimental power pop with a polished production and hot tamale guitar playing. He's quite the multi-instrumentalist too which helps him from ever straying anywhere near the horrors of Matthew Sweet blandness with 'See You Again' an excellent example of this. Whereas, Sweet would have settled for a basic power trio production with keyboard embellishments on what is a slow bossa nova shimmy, Falkner goes for a more stripped down arrangement with multitracked acoustic guitars, an intermittent gong, bubbling synths and the always pleasant sound of a man singing with himself.
"My Lucky Day" is a mid tempo rocker which when deconstructed to a base measurement of chord structure could be rather hideous in the wrong hands eg me and my battered acoustic. Instead, it kicks off with a vocal sample, a repetetive keyboard workout that cuts across a fuzzy set of power chords. At this point, I should mention how treated Falkner's vocal often sound. It never detracts from the songs, however, because together they form a package of studio perfection fully evidenced by the song's bridge at around 2.10 minutes (it has handclaps and "la la laaas"!). Taken out of the context of the studio and 32 track mixing desks, Falkner may not contain anywhere near as much punch. But from the evidence proffered by the 4 track demos CD I own, I highly doubt that.
Apparently, Falkner is the critic's darling. It's high time that he became the public's darling as well so that he doesn't have to play the support act to flavour of the months like the Kaiser Chiefs on his home soil. Here's to a Badfinger revival at the start of this strange new century.

Visit - Jason Falkner
Buy - Jason Falkner - Can You Still Feel?

Rewrites for the Prodigal Son

2005-07-18T16:30:00.000+01:00

Chris Stills - 100 Year Thing (Atlantic, 1998)

Chris Stills - Lucifer & Jane
Chris Stills - Voyeur
Chris Stills - Razor Blades
Chris Stills - God Won't Make You A Man

This post started like any other. First , I mentioned Chris Stills's dad, Stephen, member of 'Buffalo Springfield' and 'Crosby, Stills and Nash', provoker of the infamous 'Ray Charles is an ignorant, blind nigger' comment from Elvis Costello in THAT bar room brawl, and generally grumpy, cocaine snorting fiend. This proceeded into a comment that another rock legend's son, Ethan Johns, son of Glyn Johns (producer of Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Eric Clapton etc. etc.), who not only produces '100 Year Thing' but also plays 11 different instruments on it with his laying down the drum track on most. By the way, what the hell is an optigan? Apparently, Ethan plays it on "Razor Blades". If you spot the bugger and leave the answer in the comments then I'll give you a nice juicy lollipop or some other incentive. I've not quite decided yet.
Back to the structure, I was just about to begin my usual track by track review/breakdown/psychoanalysis when I realised that I've suddenly become entrenched in a creative rut with each post trying to break free from the cookie cutter structural restraints I place on them. So no more! I'm looking to branch outwards toward the loving arms of the unpredictable and the delights of the "absurdist simile". So I restarted the post and have thus far begun a post-modern breakdown of my own thoughts whilst writing this pantheon of blogdom.
I've started a never ending circle of constantly gazzumping myself in regards to post length with a post that doesn't result in my sitting at the computer for two hours or more is somehow not of sufficient quality. This has resulted in some rather horrific padding (Jim Belushi?) along with some stuff that I think is pretty astute if I dont mind saying so (the Brian Wilson consipracy theory). Hopefully, I'll be able to cut this down when necessary, for example when I have pretty much bugger all insight as to the artist but I really like the artist's work or when their lyrics make absolutely no sense to me and I don't want to just make completely random crap up. The "absurdist simile" is something that I must stop from becoming overexposed to a public that is not quite ready for its full power.
So finally to the Chris Stills' music. I like it a lot. Some of it sounds like Kyuss and most of it is highly accomplished folk rock. Listen to it and then buy the album for two pounds at Amazon. Now, that wasn't too hard was it?

Buy - Chris Stills - 100 Year Thing

No More Bowling Shoes

2005-07-16T00:08:00.000+01:00

Fountains of Wayne - Out of State Plates (Virgin, 2005)

Fountains of Wayne - Maureen
Fountains of Wayne - Kid Gloves
Fountains of Wayne - I'll Do the Driving
Fountains of Wayne - These Days
Fountains of Wayne - Baby I've Changed

Yes! It's finally arrived! Admittedly, the case is a bit knackered but it's here! As you can see I'm very, very, very excited about this b-sides and rarities collection even if most of the print media seem to be rather nonplussed. This is mainly due to my deep love for the Fountains... for several years now leading to my pursuit of these rare tracks either through ludicrous bidding sessions for singles on eBay and my constant failure of will to buy the Troubled Times EP because it was simply too expensive on import (I'm a wuss).
So my opinion? It's scattershot certainly but you have to understand that you're getting thirty songs for your money here. So I'll give you a breakdown: 2 humourous radio spots that are of completely no value, a jokey hidden track off a Christmas single ('Chanukah Under the Stars'), 5 covers (Jackson Browne, ELO, Britney, Aztec Camera, Bacharach/David... all of which are good or better), 2 new songs ('Maureen' and 'The Girl I Can't Forget', both of which are uptempo rockers that surpass most of the material on 'Welcome Interstate Managers' easily), 2 unreleased songs dragged from the vaults ('Half a Woman' is terrible to put no fine a point on it plodding along with this horrible faux circus instrumentation, whereas 'Small Favors' is an acoustic rocker that is definitely worth checking out especially due to its chopping Link Wray instrumental), and 19 b-sides. So, overall, I'd say that you're getting at least 20 power pop gems and I've already made a double CD Fountains... best of compilation for my lovely lady including eleven tracks off it.
As I said before, both 'Maureen' and 'The Girl I Can't Forget' are worth the price alone so that's led me to only uploading one and in doing so hopefully getting you to invest in the collection. This is mainly due to the fact that, as the boys themselves note in the liner notes, 'The Girl...' is a rewrite of an old live standard they did called 'Bowling Shoes' which I used to love and has now apparently been completely scrapped. Thus, it's a little hard to truly love 'The Girl...' so I've opted for the alternative. 'Maureen' is pure 70s power pop which nods it cap to Cheap Trick before throwing in the restraint getting down on its knees and kissing Rick Nielsen's feet. The playful synths, the driving power chords, and "Doug Fieger" vocal stutters accompanied by "uh uh uhs" (like an uptempo 'She's So Selfish' with that song's blatant chauvinism reversed). The lyrics are as wry and as sharp as usual revolving around a girl who is a little too frank about her sexual practices.
'Kid Gloves' and 'I'll Do the Driving' have been huge favourites of mine for years now and having them on celluloid is a dream come true. 'Ill Do the Driving' fully undertakes the overt sexual politics of The Knack this time lamenting a girl who is a little too out of touch for the narrator's liking with the immortal line of "We're out the jukebox plays "Jumpin' Jack Flash"/She says 'I love Johnny Cash, the man in red'. Brilliant writing that always omits a guilty laugh whenever I hear it. Of course, this narrative is accompanied by the usual brilliant arrangements that the band seem to pull out of nowhere for their slow numbers. You could call it 'All Kinds of Time Mach 1' with its propulsive drum beat high in the mix and ringing guitar lines dancing with themselves. Chris Collingwood's wife hates it. I wonder why...
'Baby I've Changed' bounces along merrily with its lolloping bass line, and soft and simple support from the drums as the snare is happily struck in an easy 4/4. This goes in hand in hand with the simplistic sentiment of the lyrics as Chris (I'm pretty sure he does all the singing) tries to win back his girls with promises that he'll listen to Sugar Ray before it descends into the ol' standard phrase repetition in the outro. To put it simply it sounds like an extended sitcom theme tune... the best sitcom theme tune I've ever heard but still. Bloody hell now that I've said that whenever I listen to that song I'll think of Jim Belushi doing slow-mo running in a horrid yellow polo shirt. Why? I don't know. My brain works that way.
On a side note, I haven't uploaded '...Baby One More Time' because I prefer the straight reading of Jackson Browne's 'These Days' which actually has decent lyrics whereas '...Baby One More Time's tune seems to have been stripped down a little too well by the band so that it verges on a rather bland novelty.

Visit - Fountains of Wayne
Buy - Fountains of Wayne - Out of State Plates

Better Than Making Pizzas and Waitin' Round to Die

2005-07-14T14:02:00.000+01:00

Tim Rogers and the Twin Set - What Rhymes with Cars and Girls? (rooArt, 1999)

Tim Rogers and the Twin Set - Happy Anniversary
Tim Rogers and the Twin Set - Hi, We're the Support Band
Tim Rogers and the Twin Set - I Left My Heart All Over the Place
Tim Rogers and the Twin Set - Arse Kickin' Lady From the North West

I met Tim Rogers once when I was a lowly peon at Feeling Fruity, an Australian juice bar, and he asked for some horrible juice with celery, carrots and various other crap that noone ever drinks out of choice. Obviously his own hangover cure. At that time, I wasn't all that big a fan of his band You Am I, legends of Australian rock that they be, but I knew that my sister was a HUGE fan. Being a nervous little rabbit of a seventeen year old, I first ascertained that I was serving the legend himself before coming out with a genuine conversational pearl that even the likes of Coward and Wilde would mutter "Wish I'd thought of that one". And it was, drum roll please maestro, "My sister's going to go mad when I tell her about this." In answer to which Tim pushed back his sunglasses and then with a face so straight that it was a vacuum of emotion he simply said "You better not tell her then", picked up his juice and sauntered off. The man is cool as fuck.
And this CD is further evidence to that conclusion. To start, the name of the album clearly riffs off Bruce Springsteen and that ironic tribute to the Boss, "Cars and Girls", by Durham's greatest poet, Paddy McAloon. I mean look at that picture of the man himself. He's wearing tight denim jeans and a scarf that seems to be slowly ending its passage to the stage floor. He's got a silly 1800s bushwhacker beard and his shirt open one button too many so that we can see a veritable enchanted forest of chest hair. And how does he look? Great! And does he have any right to? No! It's severely unfair. But rather apt in the fact that the man can continue to release the same sweaty fireball country rock, Little Feat if Lowell George had fully embraced the enigma of feedback, and it always sounds fresh and invigorating.
'What Rhymes...' is a departure from the You Am I canon as it moves rather far down the country side of the spectrum toward Caitlin Cary strings, madolins, steel guitars and accordions. This is signified by "Arse Kickin' Lady From the North West", a real rip snorter of a title that seems an instant clue that as soon as the track hits your speakers all that's going to come out is noise. Instead, you get handclaps and a banjo solo. Hmmmm. Having said that I can reel off entire song off from memory because the lyrics are just so strong with Rogers still the best lyricist to have ever come out of the country. Yes, I think he's better than Marty Donald, Charles Jenkins and Stevie Wright combined. "She came on down from the north west of town/in a '63 Holden EJ/With potato from Kentucky/and a fresh pack of luckies/and a Bowie compilation tape". He creates such an evocative narrative without ever giving away too much like all the best storytellers.
Rogers on 'Hi, We're the Support Band' details the humourous trials and tribulations of You Am I touring where they were slightly less popular than in Oz with tongue firmly in cheek and guitar firmly in hand. It's quite the skiffle stomp 'cept with better instruments than your mother's old washboard. However, two points should be made at this point: (a) Rogers isn't the best vocalist but cruises through these deficiencies without noticing descending into scat, elongation of vowels, mispronunciation for the hell of it and yelling the hell out of the high notes (hear his pronunication of "retro" and "Rambo" with the Jackie Wilson r's on this song), and (b) on the surface this song, could seem the harmless jape and the filler to pad out the album before the rain hammering against the windscreenwipers of a finale in "The Songs They Played As I Drove Away". However, it slowly descends into this lyrical funk as the backbiting headliners begin to effect our hero, along with the homesickness, shitty dressing rooms, and dickhead soundmen before the final morbid retribution found within its final line.
'Happy Anniversary' must be heard if only for the wonderful Dylanesque wordplay of "I heard you thinkin' early morning as you rub your eyes/your pretty poker face as it's staring at my roulette mind." Rogers adds so much to the song's plaintive melancholy with his rock n' roll growl, the toll of the bells, the strum of the acoustic, and finally, the steady kick of the drum as it prowls around at the top of the mix.
Yet, the clear centrepiece of this album, around which everything else merely revolves, is 'I Left My Heart All Over The Place' a song forever engraved across my heart. I mentioned Dylan before in describing Roger's verbal style but that's unfair on Rogers who is neither as infuriatingly verbose nor as wifully abstract as Mr Zimmerman. Every couplet, every nuance is a perfectly chosen emotional punch in the stomach. In doing so, it escapes the idle masochism normally associated with country, the blues and recently "emo". Surely, that must be recognised as a musical gift to be treasured even in this; the era of the singer-songwriter. Rather than continuously spouting the words "love" or "soul", like a broken Barry White doll, he has created an album that investigates the themes that such words connotate but within a framework of suburban malaise, lonely hearts radio and listening to sad songs you normally hate just because you're in full break up tilt. To dub it as simply country rock/roots would be to undermine all its strengths. As Rogers' himself says, "I think real country music tends to have a bit of melodrama and melancholy. You know, suicide, death, bestiality, and I don't hear that [in the album]". Like I said, cool as fuck.

Visit - Tim Rogers at You Am I.net
Buy - Tim Rogers and the Twin Set - What Rhymes With Cars and Girls?

Hooray! My First Junior Reporter Assignment!

2005-07-11T16:20:00.000+01:00

The Foxymorons

The Foxymorons - Hesitation Eyes
The Foxymorons - If I Had a Dartgun
The Foxymorons - The Duke of Gloucester

The Luxury Liners

The Luxury Liners - Restless
The Luxury Liners - It's You
The Luxury Liners - Think She's Coming Around

Dave Dewese, member of two of the bright sparks in the Nashville music scene, The Foxymorons and The Luxury Liners, has sent me the replies to my questions. Yes, I've actually done an interview! I'd like to thank Dave for his lovely and patient demeanour and also his musical partner in crime, Jerry, for reminding him about it. None of our exchange was changed by yours truly. Not even my longwinded questions. Or the typos. Sorry 'bout that.

ME: Did you know that Gloucester is actually pronounced phonetically as GLOSS-TER rather than GLOW-CHES-TER? Or is that all part of the song's charm? It gives it a delightful taste of naiviety that goes superbly with the song's simple drum machine clicks and tambourines. Also is that a xylophone in the song's chorus? I love it whatever it is.

DAVID: I found out the proper pronunciation a year or so later. Actually, I think Jerry's the person who told me after he visited Boston. I saw a street sign in Duncanville, Texas and I decided to write a song all about it. I think the instruments used on the song are all from my sister's Yamaha keyboard or some little hand chimes I "borrowed" from our church choir.

Both in your work for the Foxymorons and The Luxury Liners, you've developed a strange affinity with performing covers tackling Cher's Believe (which I've previously featured on Adventures... hope you don't mind about that), Xtina (though you forgot the chorus as you well know), Sonic Youth and the incomparable Dando. This will more than likely sound trite but which song was the most fun to restructure to suit your sound? My personal favourite is your cover of Centro-matic's 'If I Had a Dartgun'. I've never had a chance to sample the original but I can't think how you could have not done it justice.

Ah, thanks for featuring the Liner's Cher song. I think I do covers because I used to love collecting covers, acoustic songs, and bootlegs. I'm really excited about being in bands now and being able to put stuff out that someone might actually enjoy.

Right now I think my favorite cover interpretation is The Foxymorons version of Sonic Youth's "100%". Not sure why but I just really enjoy that one. We did a Will Johnson cover last year for Misra Records but I'm not sure what they are going to do with it.

Sorry about this but have to ask about your influences. The Lemonheads are an obvious influence on your work (to which you paid a debt with your straight cover of 'Hannah and Gabi') with 'Harvard Hands' sounding like a newly discovered outtake from the 'It's A Shame About Ray' that was undeservedly bumped in favour of 'Frank Mills'. Other people when talking about you tend to mention the Velvets and Big Star seeing you as direct descendents of those bands simpler efforts such as 'Some Kinda Love' and 'I'm in Love with a Girl'.
Sometimes when bands manage to tap into AM Radio power pop so easily that it becomes extremely hard to discover what music drives them. People tend to devolve into throwing would-be influence at the muntil something sticks. Do you even feel that you're influenced by the music that you listen to or do you rather simply enjoy it. By that I mean with bands such as De Novo Dahl, your fellow Nashville Poppers, do you merely respect songs like 'Memphis' or do you feel the urge to use those thumping toms and sparkling organ lines in a song on the next album?

Yeah, I'm pretty open about the fact that Evan Dando is my number one influence. I'm a late bloomer musically so that was the band that made the light go off for me..."Wow, I can do this!" The Lemonheads were the band I used as a blueprint when I was getting into writing and recording.

Actually, an acoustic cover song (Frying Pan) is how I discovered The Lemonheads so that reinforces my feelings about cover songs and acoustic songs.

The Lemonheads lead me to Gram Parsons and I also finally got into the Beatles around that time so that just about sums up my core style influences. It's all crammed into about a two year span. 1993-1995. I'm an early 90's grunge-era kid. Lemonheads, Gram Parsons, Sebadoh, Jayhawks, Nirvana, Beatles, Wilco, and Pavement are my foundation bands.

I'm really not inspired by Big Star even though I own their albums and appreciate them. I like the spooky version of Big Star more than the Power Pop version. I never listen to a new Luxury Liner or Foxymoron song and think, "Oh, that sounds like the bridge of a Big Star song." For whatever reason they are the band that defines the 70's power pop genre so I'm happy to be associated with Power Pop as a whole.

Living in Nashville the supposed heart of country music in America, do you ever feel that your music is influenced by country themes. I mean, Dando covered an old country death ballad 'Knoxville Girl' on ''Car Button Cloth' and sometimes the chiming guitars of the Liners do sound like early Wilco. Do you ever feel the urge to cover Dolly Parton or was the choice of Cher a direct aversion away from the queen of country to the dame of pop. Also, do you ever watch Altman's 'Nashville' for kicks?

I moved here in 1997 to start The Luxury Liners and we wanted to be "Texas Pop." Shortly after moving here we really got psycho about the Beatles though and the country twang left us. Then we got distortion pedals and the mersey beat even left. I'm pretty proud of that though. Constantly evolving an hopefully growing.

The Liners used to cover a lot of the Byrds "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" album so we've always done country stuff. We even did Gram Parson's "Luxury Liner" at several shows in 2004.

You know what, I haven't seen that movie. Shame on me.

What initially made you decide to continue your presence in both bands? I mean from your output with both I would never have said that you ever considered one as a sideproject. Due to the fact that The Foxymorons are only yourself and Jerry rather than the power trio setup of The Liners do you tend a little more toward lo-fi experimentation rather than simple song structures? From what I've heard of both bands, I felt that that was the case with The
Foxys the Olivia Tremor Control/Lennon to the Liners' Apples in Stereo/McCartney. If that makes any sense which I hope it does. I much prefer the Foxys to the Plastic Ono Band.

That's a great comparison and I'm really thankful I can be a part of two bands with those distinct influences. The Foxymorons were my first band but we didn't really do anything so it never felt like a "real" band. So I didn't really sweat it when I moved to Nashville to start The Luxury Liners. Once the Foxymorons start having long distance success it just sorta crept up on me. One day I just realized I was in two bands so I didn't really have to decide which one to pick. It was too late.

Your policy with release of mp3s is outstanding with the main page upon entering the Liners' site being filled with mp3s. I take it that you see mp3s as a positive medium for getting your music out to the public rather than infringing on your rights as an artist. On the same point, what do you think about the work of the music blogging community (be as horrible as you like I can take it)?

I love the mp3 bloggers. I wish we could get mentioned on more! I'm ALL FOR sharing *some* music on the web. We don't post our entire albums for free but we try to give away as much free stuff as possible. I'm constantly buying albums from bands that I've downloaded a song or two from and fell in love with.

Any set idea when the overdubs on the new Luxury Liners CD will be done? I need my fix of 'Fallen Star'!

Working on them again this month. Hope to have 'em done in a couple weeks. Then we'll hand them off to the mixing guy. He's already mixed six songs so we just need to turn in six more.

Do you really like doing interviews with amateurs?

I love interviews. Great job.

Buy - The Foxymorons - Hesitation Eyes
Visit - The Foxymorons
Visit - The Luxury Liners

Misunderstood

2005-07-10T23:00:00.000+01:00

The Beach Boys - Carl and the Passions "So Tough" (Capitol, 2000)

The Beach Boys - He Come Down
The Beach Boys - Marcella
The Beach Boys - Cuddle Up
The Beach Boys - Here She Comes

I have returned. Hallelujah, praise the Lord known on this feeble planet as Simon, the Spoilt Victorian Brat himself who has been a huge help in getting me back on track despite the frequent setbacks of the week. The Last Night An Mp3... boys deserve a mention too for just being righteous sons of bitches. Thanks for all the feedback and altruism, it is greatly appreciated.
So how have I chosen to rise from my horrific hibernation? Why with one of the most maligned albums ejected from the bloated magnificence that are those aryan surfer chiles ('cept Mike Love, bald bastard that he be), the Beach Boys. Did you expect anything less? And remember I've had a week's worth of muse juices built up so this one will probably be long and messy like my best works.
In 1972, post-Van Dyke Parks and "Student Demonstration Time", the Beach Boys cut an 8 track album taking its name from a previous incarnation of the group (Carl Wilson, geddit?) and adding two new members in the South African pairing of bassist Blondie Chaplin (now camping it up with the Stones' live act) and drummer Ricky Fataar (now session musician who I will love forever not only for his Beach Boys work but also his work on Boz Scaggs' 'Some Change', a permanent not-so-guilty pleasure of mine), both members of the Brother Records group, The Flame. Now let's get this straight. I own a dozen Beach Boys albums - I've listened to about half of 'Pet Sounds' once whilst 'So Tough' has probably been rotating happily on various mediums well over a hundred times. I love it with all my heart as Dr Frankenstein loved his hideous creation. It may be flawed but it has such strong character raised from its collective parts of soft rhythms, nonsenical preachings of the Maharishi, a song based on the endless repetition of a single phrase, a song about a massuese, and Daryl "The Captain and Tennille" Dragon's orchestral arrangements that are so overwrought that they almost reach Wagnerian bombast and ecstasy. To call it a mixed bag is a gross understatement but, like 'Todd' which I covered a few weeks ago, you just have to give it a try.
If I could every single song would be put up for your download but that would defeat the point so before I go on I must plead that if you find anything at all meritous in any of the songs that I offer to you then go and buy the 'So Tough/Holland' twofer. It's a fiver at HMV and relatively cheap at any internet seller mainly because most people are morons and don't value the Fataar/Chaplin years preferring to fellate Brian. Carl was a superior vocalist to Brian and, along with Dennis, a better lyricist. They deserve their dues something which is duelly provided by all of the Beach Boys' superb post-'Pet Sounds' to 'Beach Boys in Concert' output. Brian coming back for '15 Big Ones' and '... Love You' destroyed the band but no one seems to realise this and will infuriate with their blinkered fan boy antics. As that king of provoker of the pub argument, Martin Strong and his "Great" Rock Discography puts it, "After [Brian's rejoining as a full member of the band], the Beach Boys abandoned even the slightest attempt to push their own musical boundaries. Instead relying upon tired retreads of their earlier sound". The Beach Boys were like that enigma Peter Sellers, they were a chameleon; an empty shell that eventually filled beyond its capacity that like a blocked toilet resulted in the everything and everyone getting covered in old shit.
That eventual collapse isn't present here though even in a minor form. It's contained sprawl is fascinating with the selected tracks showing the diversity of musical approaches involved; there's a Traffic/Doobie Brothers rocker penned by the new members Chaplin and Fataar, "Here She Comes", my favourite, at the moment); a heavily orchestrated Dennis song that is the cornerstone in his persona as the damaged romantic poet, "Cuddle Up"; the only Brian track that is the most blatantly commercial reverting back to the harmonies of old albeit far less pristine, "Marcella"; and the opening salvo that is so good that St Etienne even named an album after it despite its completely nonsensical title, "You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone". The rest is equally marvellous including the Mike Love mystical clap trap of "He Come Down" with its white frat boy gospel chorus fronted by the ever wonderful Carl and the unbelievable bridge with Carl's emotive wordless sighs leading into handclaps that die off only to be slowly resurrected through the cure of accapella. Actually, I've decided that "He Come Down" is truely brilliant so "Mess fo Help..." has been demoted. Sarah Cracknell will be crying into her Earl Grey tea tonight that's for sure (No I won't change the previous paragraph, it interrupts my stream of consciousness style).
One down, three to go. We come to 'Marcella', the supposed standout track which I in fact feel is one of the weaker efforts only due to the strength of its opposition. Interestingly, I recently read in a magazine letters page, possibly the Word with the Boss on the cover, that the particular reader believed that Robbie Robertson must have produced the album due to the Beach Boys' abandonment of their exceptional integrated harmonies toward a more segmented dirty form of doo wop that The Band found so compelling. It's an interesting point and illustrates how much of an ugly duckling this album represents to those who worship the perfect pop vision of Phil Spector and Brian. As I've said before on this blog, I like it a little more human than that with pop perfection a commodity that I grow easily tired of if acheived by conventional means. For example, Burt Bacarach doesn't make me go gooey at the knees normally but when he made that maverick and carrier of the torch of musical chameleon, Elvis Costello, his deputy for 'Painted of Memory' I lapped it up. It's like taking the Mona Lisa and spraying a big "Fuck You" on it. Exhilirating with its deep, filthy "bom boms" and the shaking of bells at the end that sound perversely like they should be on a Chirstmas single.
"Her She Comes" is very similar to the groove of later 60s R&B outfits like Traffic and the 70s AOR boogie of Little Feat and the Doobies. At once, highly listenable but also complex and inventive. The opening salvo almost mirrors 'John Barleycorn is Dead's "Glad" before calming down toward a simple rhythm embellished by Fataar's excellent playing with its clean jazz influences. For the first two minutes or so, it could be described as quite bland but then we get to the chatning of "Rolling down the road" and it just takes off like a bird to flight. The harmonies are crisp and deliciously to the point before a return to the intro motif and the unleashing of Carl's superb guitar work. Toto, I don't think we're in the territory of "Sweet Little Sixteen" knockoffs any more. The only thing that I find frustrating about it (excepting the admittedly aged lyrics) is that it seems to be really getting into a fantastic groove and just as it fades out you can here the rhythm section absolutely tearing the crap out the surrounding landscape but then it finishes. I mean this album is famous for being so short on material that it had to steal two songs from Dennis' touted solo effort with Daryl Dragon. Why not turn "Here She Comes" into the musical beast that it so clearly aches to be? Am I the only one who thinks this? Probably.
The Dennis tune "Cuddle Up", and it's companion piece "Make It Good", are rightly highlighted by Scott McCaughney in this release's superb liner notes (their assessment of 'Holland's "Only With You' as not lighting up enough weddings is so apt that it always enters my head whenever that song comes on) as severely overlooked. For a start, "Cuddle Up" is so frank and cutting in its measured choice of words that it borders on the perverse. "To wake to find/that we're still one", I mean think about it. Dennis doesn't have the pipes that the song deserves but rather gives it a performance from the Jimmy Webb school of vocals. Just put everything you have into it despite the flaws and give some evidence for these words of love; something that will never ever happen with many perfect vocalists like Michael Buble and which shows exactly why they sound so hollow in sentiment and subesequently so grating. One utterance of "Honey/Honey/I'm in love" by the man on this record is so powerful to me that I'm actually tearful and have to take a tissue break. It is the definitive album closer and although the improvisation outro to "Here She Comes" may have suffered for this song's inclusion I wouldn't swap it for all the tea, clothes, and Game Boys in China. Nor would I swap this album. I guess I'm just crazy like that.

PS The brilliant potrait of Dennis Wilson is by Paul Willoughby and can be found along with other thrilling work at the Soma Gallery website. Paul, if you somehow find this site, my apologies for not asking you but I just had to have it.

Buy - So Tough/Holland

I've Been Wumbled!

2005-07-03T17:44:00.000+01:00

FusionXhost are officially buggers. They've sent me an e-mail telling me that it is against their policy to store mp3s on their servers and booted me out. Would have been nice if they'd said so earlier but never mind. So I offer a plea from the top of the tallest mountain in the tallest province of the tallest country. Do any of you have advice as to a good server (I don't care if I have to pay for the wretched thing)? If not, then I'll have to go on enforced hiatus.
On another note, I've taken this sudden misfortune as a sign that my new name is unlucky as well as bloody stupid so am reverting to the nice Billy Joel MOR style alternative 'The Graduate' to coincide with the fact hat I graduated two days ago and got to meet the University's chancellor; Bill Bryson. Mwahahaha. Photographic evidence of this amazing event forthcoming as soon as I sort out the server. So let's see some suggestions.

BA Baracus Ain't Got Nothing On Bobby

2005-06-29T14:33:00.000+01:00

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Anthology (Universal, 2002)

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Lead Me On
Bobby "Blue" Bland - Cry, Cry, Cry
Bobby "Blue" Bland - Farther Up the Road
Bobby "Blue" Bland - I Pity the Fool
Bobby "Blue" Bland - You've Got Bad Intentions

Hello again, my musical brethren. Despite my penchant for the epic recently, I'll try and keep this missive brief not due to lack of invective but because I ain't no expert when it comes to the blues. The fact that I refuse to pad this blog out with biographies straight from the pen of AMG and amusing anecdotes that I located via Google probably doesn't help either.
As you all know, I've been on a rather large Lester Bangs trip recently but this particular artist, Bobby "Blue" Bland, was discovered thanks to another legend of American music journalism Dave Marsh. One of the greatest presents I have ever recevied was Marsh's 'The Heart of Rock n' Soul: The Greatest 100 Hits Ever Made' and one holiday I decided in my ennui to locate every single one of those 1001. I got as far as 350 I believe before stopping but in doing so I discovered bands such as The Rascals and the Stylistics, Billy Ocean's guilty pleasure 'Get Out Of My Dreams and Into My Car', and of course, Mr Bland who has numerous entries in that mystical tome.
'Lead Me On' is the song that really got me hooked on Bland and following repeated plays on my computer I rushed to the nearest Borders and picked up his two-disc Anthology set released by Universal. 'Lead Me On', accompanied by the Sam Cooke flavoured, 'Call On Me' (with its rhythm section doing that hip shakin' tropical shuffle), shows how Bland is seen by many as the first to really bridge the gap between blues and soul. 'Lead Me On' is the ultimate torch song with its howling strings, spectral flutes and plaintive piano melody that form the perfect musical background for Bland's voice to work in. You see Bland wasn't like BB King shooting out hot buttered licks from Lucille. Bland is a crooner, plain and simple, and his work is definitely up there with the true greats like Nat King Cole with his eclecticism often tantamount that to the Bobby Darins of this world. Back to the song and we rejoin Bobby's beautific plea of "Here's my hand/here are my hands/take it darling/and I'll follow you" and the subsequent introduction of the backing singers that accompanied by the echoing acoustics give the song this wonderfully funereal texture. It's as if the man is singing in a chapel and it begs the question? Who is he singing to? Jesus? He talks of the subject of his pleas understanding loneliness and persecution in "an unfriendly land". So, rather than the usual jive talk about ex-lovers who he wants to poison or commit suicide so that he doesn't have to spare the effort ("You've Got Bad Intentions" - the most bluesy cut I've put on offer) it appears that he's venturing toward gospel and redemption. It is a truely haunting track and one of my top five favourites of all time. I myself am not a deeply religious person with a preference for the safe ground of agnosticism but, unlike so much shouting from the pulpit, this song does sometimes make me reconsider the power of faith.
'Farther Up the Road' has become a blues standard since Bobby cut the definitive version with the version that you probably all now being The Band and Eric Clapton's collaboration for 'The Last Waltz' and the ensuing blues solo duelling between Robbie Robertson and E.C. The Band's version certainly has the musical chops but I always felt that, like with almost all his stuff, it's ultimately left hollow by Clapton's gruff and mumbled vocals. Isn't the purpose of the blues to get across your own personal sense of hurt and individual injustice? I've always felt that Clapton saw it as a vehicle to show off his knowledge of pentatonic scales. I mean where is the malevolence that Bland shows as he utters those words "Now you're laughing pretty, baby". As the piano starts to hammer like chattering teeth, you just know what business Bland sees in his lover's future and so does the guitar, his confidant, as it begins this low moan in response to his verbal taunts. The man ain't lyin'.
Moving on to the inspiration to my usual non sequiteur of a title, 'I Pity the Fool'. It's your typical 12 bar blues moving along at its own pace. However, Bland is just like Sam Cooke. He can transcend the most simple of material and turn into gold. Remember some of those awful tunes that Cooke had to sing such as the jailbait lovin' 'Only Sixteen', the bland 'Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha' and the simplistic 'Win Your Love'. In anyone elses hands, they would surely (well maybe not 'Win Your Love') be mocked as either perverted or formulaic. But he turned them into flawed works of art with his unbelievable grasp of how to deliver with a perfect idea of pitch and measure. You just have to hear Bobby Bland's voice. I've heard it compared to a rasp before but I feel that's a swing and a miss. He definitely can't hear the high notes and in 'Cry, Cry, Cry' you can hear the faint trace of lisp but the way that he emotes lyrics that he didn't even right is incredible. He shouts, hisses and spits without ever losing control. Often losing control is the easiest way out
but only the true greats don't deign themselves to such easy fixes.

Post-Script: Just remembered that Sam actually wrote most of those songs; the man was a great arranger as well as one of the greatest ever singers. His lyrics sucked sometimes though. Rough meet smooth.

Buy - Bobby Bland - The Anthology

John Barleycorn Is Back and Mighty Pissed Off

2005-06-27T13:45:00.000+01:00

Wheat - Hope and Adams (Sugar Free, 1999)

Wheat - Raised Ranch Revolution
Wheat - Body Talk (Part 1)
Wheat - San Diego
Wheat - More Than You'll Ever Know
Wheat - Who's the One

Well, the new name has been decided. I am now Lightning Kingfisher. Why? Because it's a bloody stupid name in what is the start of a farcical era of job applications and subsequent rejections (although thanks to Dick for his suggestions that were mulled over but ultimately discarded). Also, it makes me sound like a Bond villain which I secretly enjoy despite loathing the Bond series as a jingoistic relic of a bygone era of chauvinism in English cinema. The man's dick should have fallen off by now too. Maybe that could be the next film's plot - James Bond fighting agains the clock to cure his debilitating syphillis so that he can get back to rutting anonymous ladies as soon as possible. Please send in prospective film titles for my amusement.
So we move from the ludicrous to the sublime with my offering of the second long player by Massachusett's Wheat. Yes, all of those who've investigated the back pages of Adventures... will know that I've already done a "post" on Wheat which in my eyes in a half-finished abomination that I have already apologised for. Don't bother finding it - all the tracks are available at their web page which also features entire live shows! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
First off, 'Raised Ranch Revolution' is one of the best tracks on one of the pantheons of indie pop. In other words, it not only rocks the casbah but adds in a bit of roll and tumble too. It begins with the usual click of snare and arching fuzz guitars until Scott begins his poetic drawl that appears to take the song's title literally; it's White Riot if only Notting Hill had been in a huff about ranch dressing. The song is a perfect example of what makes this band so amazing. The song is just under five minutes long and contains only six lines of relatively vague words that
always end up applying to any individual who listens to them. These boys have discovered the elixir of musical growth and prosperity! it may be a sham but like the great work of PT Barnum you're instantly drawn in to it never to escape until you become a lone maniac constantly shouting "They can't have used mirrors. I saw it happen!". When it finally reaches the end with its simple piano chords, it's as if its laughing at you with a victorious sneer of "That song was only three chords but didn't we make it seem like the greatest music upon the planet?". The bastards.
I mean I remember first hearing Wheat played on Triple J (Australia's head alternative music station) around five years ago and that walk home with my headphones in my ears so transfixed by the music emanating from them it was if I drifting outside by body as it plodded through suburban streets and past empty jungle gyms. Lester Bangs always said that "horrific nosie" was the music that only ever made him feel like not killing himself. Now, I certainly have never sported such nihilistic tendencies as the great man but I do feel like the "glorious noise" that emanates from this album makes feel even more alive. And surely that's something that I'd like to pass on to you, my faithful readership.
'San Diego' is another case in point with computer game bleeps on the synth before the familiar guitar sound and the words "Your love is a parking lot" as the aforementioned guitars begin to hiss and spit with noise that although atonal and disfigured somehow fits into the overall vision of the song. It mirrors an aesthetic which is anti-Spector in its belief in the quality retained by musical imperfections; such imperfections are a constant within life unlike some of pop's candyfloss confections thus making the music more vibrant in its sheer humanity. 'San Diego' also highlights the main flaw behind Wheat that would become all too apparent on their last studio effort "Per Second..."; the double edged sword that is Dave Fridmann's overproduction. It allows for the music to echo in its sparsity creating that specific Wheat sound but somehow at the same time manages to throw in too many unwanted elements. Why the strings??? Yes, they're nice but personally I would have preferred the simple synth bleeps that you can hear in the background intertwined with a simple guitar motif. As so often happens when I find myself confronted by orchestral arrangements in such music, the word "bludgeon" comes to mind. However, at 2.20 there is this absolutely bizarre synth fart that seems to go nowhere in any form of coherent direction other than all over the place. Naturally, I love it.
The good work is continued consistently throughout the album with not a single duff track and I would have included the track for which Wheat are best known 'Don't I Hold You', their most commercial offering from this release, but you can get it on their website for free. 'Don't I Hold You' isn't the best song though in my opinion with that honour going to 'Body Talk (Part One)' with a lyric that doesn't say much but what it does say is so key note perfect that it makes it a classic. The piano and acoustic guitar are slightly Dawson's Creek but the rhythm is slowed down so much and accompanied by multitracked shouts of "Right On!" following each statement of "I feel so low" that I don't ever know if I've just walked straight into a parody. The canter of the two fingered piano riff as the song builds toward its end crescendo brings you back to earth with a thud though. It's not a parody but has managed to tap into mainstream musical archetypes whilst remaining so blatantly left field in its instrumentation to an extent that is just mind-boggling. In 'Body Talk (Part Two)' they even begin to nick from the mainstream artists that went before them with "Goodybe Rosie, Queen of Corona" (a blatant steal from 'Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard'). They even begin to adopt Simon's 'Obvious Child' drumbeat for 'More Than You'll Ever Know' but drown it in so much noise that it starts to sound like Radiohead covering the Stooges. Are those drums just on a continuous tape loop? Whatever the band did, it's an intoxicating mixture.
As you can tell from my eulogising tone, Wheat are now rather defunct after legal problems with their record label led to personal differences. Their guitarist Ricky Brennan is in a new band called Duresse who don;t sound too bad from their demos. Check them out.
PS - Have just been informed that The Graduate would be a good name. Yes it would... poo. I've purchased a lovely eyepatch to go with my new persona and cannot find the receipt. Guess I will have to continue the farce at present.

Visit - Wheat Music
Visit - Duresse

This Peacock Has Flown

2005-06-24T13:19:00.000+01:00

Todd Rundgren - Todd (Bearsville, 1974)

Todd Rundgren - Heavy Metal Kids
Todd Rundgren - Everybody's Going to Heaven/King Kong Reggae
Todd Rundgren - Izzat Love?
Todd Rundgren - Sons of 1984

How did this post come to be? Well, it all stemmed from a conversation between my lovely lady and I where she asked of me if I could have one tattoo where would it be and what would it represent. After much thought and contemplation, I resolved that I would permanently scar the skin of my forearm for no aesthetic reason with the words "Todd is God" is celtic script. How cool would that be? My adoaration of things Rundgren encompassed by a single futile gesture of self-harm mirroring the man's refusal to live the easy, clean life. He is a man who has, in the eyes of many, frequently thrown away the chance of superstardom in pursuing a higher art musical art form. The peacock-esque costume whilst performing 'Hello It's Me' on Midnight Special, the accapella and bossa nova albums, the Gilbert and Sullivan covers, the flare-ups with Andy Partridge whilst Skylarking, Bebe Beull, Utopia... the man has done it all. That's probably why I have so much admiration for his work and take such pleasure in his recent comeback with the strange electro-pop album that was 'Liars'.
Why did I choose his 1974 double album that, if possible, is even more impregnable and plain difficult than his lollipop psychedelic classic 'A Wizard, A True Star'? Errrr, all my other Todd CDs are at home. Sorry, it's not very scientific but I have a deep affection for this album. Personally, I must have only listened to it once within the first year I bought it but then one day forced myself to walk round town with it on my CD walkman. The thing grows on you like a particularly brand of fungal infection. Initially irritating, it becomes a strange yet constant companion. I'll be the first to admit that it should really be listened to in one big swallow but it does have some hidden gems that can be listened independent of its Hieronymous Bosch vision. Warped evil shapes forming an eerie whole - it's almost gestalt in its construction.
But away from the horrible long words that attempt to make me seem much smarter than I actually am. Onwards to the bastions of the double album; the possible singles and the prog-metal guitar noodling! 'Izzat Love?' and 'Sons of 1984' represent the singles market, and 'Heavy Metal Kids' and 'Everybody's Going to Heaven/King Kong Reggae' the prog corner.
'Sons of 1984' was the originator of the idea of a live performance where the audience has been taught to sing the song's chorus. Ha! And you all thought that Elbow's 'Grace Under Pressure' was innovative. Also, Elbow didn't create a song filled with stomping horns and a great little piano riff. Admittedly, even Todd has admitted that the idea of crowd participation didn't quite work and probably prevented the song from being his new 'Just One Victory' but at least it doesn't descend to seeking permanence to its message by "clever" use of the word fuck. Central Park 1, Glastonbury 0. Apparently, Rundgren thought of possibly doing an entire album like this; in doing so creating a truely proletarian album. Sung by the masses for the masses. Orwell would have been proud of such a vision especially after hearing Bowie's 'Diamond Dogs' and its stultified, retro-chic 1984isms.
'Izzat Love' is comparison to 'Sons...' is relatively simple steering away from gospel textures to the blissful pop of 'Something/Anything?' and in doing so almost resembles a re-write of the King/Goffin pastiche ' I Saw the Light'. How the man manages this with just synths, drums and his own sweet as honey multi-tracked vocals is beyond me. The lyric is simple yet effective with its opening platitudes of "Izzat love, what I feel when you're in my arms?/Make me die before I do you harm". The trick seems to be a sleight of hand where the man actually means exactly what he's saying - a rarity in pop - and due to his sheer musicianship, he not only creates his feelings through his words but also his music with the featherlight chug of organ, snapping snares and brief handclaps.
Sailing on from perfect pop, we move toward scuzzy hard rock. I mean 'Heavy Metal Kids' ain't jus' bein' a smart-ass name. Punchy power chords. Check. Plodding bass. Check. Tumbling toms. Check. Electrifying blues soloing that would make Clapton and Beck both cream their collective jeans. Check. Lyrics regarding the world conservation and societal entropy with allusions to pipe bombs, Sherman Tanks and teenage rebellion. Check. Yeah, it's definitely a favourite with its shrouding of macabre content with a conventional wrapping. The guitar work is just scintillating.
Yet, 'Everybody's Going to Heaven...' manages to eclipse it in every single way with its face melting opening salvo of heavy riffing and clashing cymbals leading toward a quagmire of a slow boogie. Then Todd opens his mouth and out comes probably his best ever lyric that doesn't centre itself on the perils of the lovestruck heart. It instead shapes up as an introspective examination of a man on the precipice of depression with his ultimate conclusion that "Everybody's goin' to Heaven/'Cause already we've all been through Hell". It manages to create a song that speaks of death without ever meeting the bloated opulence of whimsy, nostalgia or nihilism - a tradition started by men such as Johnny Cash and carried on by such troubadours as Nick Cave. So here we have it. A fantastic slice of prog rock with a decent lyric to boot so what does our man Todd do. Halfway through the songs crasehes into a squelchy stab at nonsense reggae talking about "A big monkey doin; the King Kong Reggae". He ruins the song! And you know something, I absolutely love it. It's such a thrill to find an artist not afraid to not only straddle genres but to stick in the spurs and ride that buckin' bronco as best they can. Sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed but at least everyone had a good time whilst you were at it.
Next time, I might have an interview with David Dewese, member of the Nash-Pop outfits the Foxymorons and The Luxury Liners. I've sent him the questions. All he has to add are monosyllabic answers and we'll be set! Also, I;m thinking of changing my name from The Finalist. I was thinking, in honour of another of the greatest multi-instrumentalist/enigmas of all time, my monicker could be The Blogger Formerly Known As... Any opinions on this?

Buy - Todd Rundgren - Todd
Visit - Todd's Website (try and sit through the entire flash sequence... it's an education)

Everybody's Got Something to Hide 'Cept Me and Peter Tork

2005-06-22T19:56:00.000+01:00

The Monkees - The Definitive Monkees (Rhino, 2002)

The Monkees - (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone
The Monkees - For Pete's Sake
The Monkees - Randy Scouse Git
The Monkees - Words
The Monkees - Cuddly Toy

Apologies for no post on Monday. Was in Glasgow. Got my results for my entire University carrer and am pleased/vexed to announce that I received a 2:2 degree in Law with Politics at the Univeristy of Durham. This is mainly due to my spending the entire 2nd year eating pasta, playing Prince of Persia (or Burnout 2 dependent on my mood) and going out. Yes, I was an idiot then. As a result of this news I have finished off half a bottle of wine with my lovely lady and thus must seek forgiveness for the rest of this post.
Why was '(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone' covered by both the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols? Because it's the greatest garage single ever released. Fuck '96 Tears', 'Lies' and 'Stryichnine'. 'Steppin' Stone' should have been the first port of call for all the teeny boppers currently polluting the airwaves including the Cheeto-bearing Mrs Spears, Jackass-banging Mrs Simpson and the omnipresent victim of all cultural viruses infecting this gigantic stress ball known as Earth Ms Lohan. Lavigne would be included in this list but her nouveau punk chic is so unbearably grating that it is probably best not to give her fuel for her continued existence.
The other day, 'I Love Rock n' Roll' began blasting out from a revival DJ at the local discotek (sic) creating an orgy of dancing, kissing and off-key singing. Why of all songs has this been chosen as an iconic anthem with its shallow Bob Seger-lovin' bar room prejudices winking the proverbial eye at classic rock's sagnant traditions. "Put another dime in the jukebox baby"? With a quarter of the balls of the Runaways 'Cherry Bomb' and its repetitive riff destroying brain cells faster than a quart of JD, what does such an evil basilisk offer to the general public? Nothing is the answer. 'Stepping' Stone' is the antithesis to such whimsical offerings as Joan Jetts. It's sparkling organ line instantly draws you in before the band begins singing the rambunctious chorus extending "I'm" towards the realm of a Scouse growl or the mewing of a wounded sacred cow. This is an instant shout against the De Barres establishment of the groupie and the hanger-on - the most rightfully despised and loved oxymoronic institution still present within the insittutional walls of rock n' roll. The Monkees are keeping the red snapper on the table, babe, and you're going to know that straight from the off.
And that's just the intro! The body blow before the devastating molar dislodging right uppercut that is Mickey Dolenz's snarling vocal. I don't care that the Monkees were a front for a bunch of faceless session musicians to start with. Is Glen Campbell ridiculed for his partenrship with the great Jimmy Webb? No. And why? Because together they created, with Webb's simple words and Campbell's mink tongue, some of the greatest songs ever to be placed on record. The same goes for Dolenz's vocal track on this record. Boyce/Hart may have created the words but Dolenz delivers them with gusto despite his refusal to descend into comic spits and curses. It's the suburban boy gone bad and you better get out his way. When it finally get to the point when he shouts "Oh no girl not me" you've fallen in love with a song that you have no right to. It's acerbic guitar, pounding toms, and echoing backing vocals make it an essential addition to any Nuggets' themed compilation.
Peter Tork has a co-write on 'For Pete's Sake', the opening track on Side B of their third album 'Headquarters' and it is superb. Dolenz yet again contributes lead vocals and hearing it you realise how fully he encompassed the character of 'Steppin' Stone'. Now, he becomes the clean crooner within the song's pop 'My Generation' framework with its simplistic free love equation equalling freedom. It's rhetoric is simplistic but that never seems to detract from any specific element of the song. Also, placed in conjunction with the song's title, it takes on a charming form looking for a kind of understanding that it can't believe that others haven't realised. A 60's 'Do You Realise?' if you will but rather than shouting "Your eyes are beautiful! Accept the bloody compliment!" it develops into into a plea for rationality than never descends ito the illogicallity of Sir Bob (supposed purveyors of all that is good and righteous).
'Randy Scouse Git' and 'Cuddly Toy' both receive a hoozah for their psychedelic meanderings and Nilsson covers respectively showing how diverse the 'Fab Four' (I can use that term if I want. When it finally becomes trademarked THEN you can sue me) could be. From dense yet well constructed musical experimentations to child like ditties they excelled that everything. Even pseudo-scatting. The Monkees invented Americana with 'You Just May Be the One'! It may not be strictly true (it could do with a slightly stripped down arrangement) but it still sounds bloody impressive. Hands up if you want hear Calexico cover the Monkees? That's what I thought. I'd better start an internet petition.
So we come to the last song 'Words', b-side of the eternally misunderstand vitriolic blast of 'Pleasant Valley Sunday'. It's chamber-pop sensibilities create a phenomenal tune that points toward complex Wilsonian pop arrangements but never falls to twee sentimentalities bluntly hammering away at its avarice fuelled subject. Every time the title is cried in this song I get artic chills down my spine. This song deserves a hell of a lot of recognition that no one seems whant to give it because of its associations with a band that are unviersally regaled as frauds. Well, I'm saying it now. If you put this song in the blue corner and a lot of new garage tunes by bands like The Strokes and The Libertines, the ref would have to stop the fight before it even reached the second round. The dual lead vocal parts, the deep echo, the bass trembling as it is consumed with hate and fear, the shuffling drums... it is magnificent. Wait a minute, what's that? Perusing the credits I've discovered something fascinating. Tork, Dolenz, Jones and Nesmith are listed as all playing the lead parts on this song. Hahahahaha. Well maybe that's 60s pop's greatest joke (other than Nancy Sinatra's newly recovered fame based on a spare death ballad). The Monkees rocked! Learn for yourselves 'cause I'm officially spent and off to consume some Lambs Navy's best rum.

Buy - The Monkees - The Definitive...

James Taylor Marked For Death

2005-06-17T18:54:00.000+01:00

The MC5 - The Big Bang! The Best of... (Rhino, 2000)

The MC5 - I Can Only Give You Everything
The MC5 - Ramblin' Rose
The MC5 - Teenage Lust
The MC5 - The Human Being Lawnmower
The MC5 - Sister Anne
The MC5 - Skunk (Sonicly Speaking)

I've been flitting in and out of reading Lester Bangs's 'Psychotic Reactions and Carburettor Dung' recently in my post-exam haze and he is indeed one of the finest writers I've ever come across. In his drug induced mania, he shoots off on existential tangents about the injustice found within bargain bins whilst talking about the Count Five and his "pre-balling years" accompanied by his pubescent fetish for female calves when he should rightly be deconstructing 'Wild Thing' by The Troggs. It's like pure adrenaline and as such has been relegated to small doses so far but when I journey up to Glasgow this Sunday I think that I'm going to have the best train ride ever accompanied by my lightweight tome.
In reading Bangs, I found that in his search for the base level zero on which all music rests and a band that acheives the essentail goal of stripping its sound down to that "troglodyte" level that in the process he keeps coming back to two of Detroit's ancestral primiteevs; the Stooges and the MC5. Now I saw the resurrected MC5/DKT at Reading Festival last year and I must say that with Mudhoney's Mark Arm shaking his tambourine, the Bellray's Lisa Kekaula bringing the old school soul holler and Wayne Kramer just being plain cool as fuck that they were the greatest live act that I have seen and will probably ever see.
Admittedly, I haven't included my personal favourite from their set - 'Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)' with its instinctual cry of "I'm the man for ya!" that I can just imagine made the great Bangs' hair stand on end. This is due to my belief that the Kick Out the Jams version somehow doesn't do it justice. Don't get me wrong; I love the late great Rob Tyner (not to the extent to berate the existence of DKT like some small minded journalists have tended towards - yes I'm looking at you arsehole who wrote that MC5 DVD review in Mojo... hippy) but his delivery on that version bends too much toward a generic Kick Out the Jams rip-off. Something that can never be said in regard to his attempt at falsetto on 'Ramblin' Rose', a song whose chorus does full justic to the existence of the metaphor "hit by a sledgehammer". Wow, what a song.
Two of the songs here are taken off the wildly reviled, Jon "I Saw the Future of Rock n' Roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen" Landau produced sophomore effort 'Back in the USA'. At the time, it was seen far too polished and admittedly, 'Teenage Lust' does tend toward a tightened up form of British Invasion pop that I personally really dig (for example, I L-O-V-E Shake Some Action era Flamin' Groovies material). 'The Human Being Lawnmower', on the other hand, is like nothing you've heard in your life with the drums all other the place except where they should be, Fred 'Sonic' Smith and Kramer's guitar screeching out blasphemous tones intertwining like a paralytic Thin Lizzy and the bit at 1.44 where it all begins to sound like a helicopter landing in Charlie infested jungle.
As you can tell, I adore the 5 but I haven't even gotten started regarding a song whose first 5 minutes and 48 seconds should be labelled in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame under ' How to Rock Your Face Off'. When I hear it, I can just imagine Rob Tyner pacing the stage, hips shakin', afro sweat weighin down his head, until he became an uncontrollable mass of nerves pulsing at the exact frequency of the lay lines wrapping this hunk of rock we call Earth. As a result, if you do one thing download this song with its dual harmonica workout, boogie piano, "soul sister, brown sugar" backup singers and its chugging guitars that shouldn't be as jaw droppingly unbelievable as it so obviously is. Sometimes, the overly busy nature of a song that sounds like a drunken busload of musicians has been ferried into the recording studio can emanate such a vibe so succinctly that it's incomparable even by modern standards. Maybe that's why the 5, due to their inherently self-destructive nature, decided to ruin it so badly with that odd parping horn bollocks at the end. 'Skunk (Sonicly Speaking)' ain't too shabby either with its movement toward African rhythms overlaid by a goddamn brilliant guitar riff and then THAT horn breakdown. Both are key reasons to purchase the MC5's last effort before initially disbanding in 1972 - 'High Time'.

Buy - The MC5 - The Big Bang
Buy - Lester Bangs - Psychotic Reactions and Carburettor Dung

If Only I Had A Musical Brain

2005-06-15T00:27:00.000+01:00

Showroom - The World Is Too Much With Us (Independent Release, 2005)

Showroom - Clarity
Showroom - Fighting Words
Showroom - The Residence of Ben
Showroom - Paradise Misplaced
Showroom - Lonely Crowd

Indie rock is such a vague term isn't it? It alludes to angst, distorted guitars, plonking bass and a general aura of the ordinary and unexceptional. It would the modern day pub rock if bands such as the Libertines didn't continue to lift that long forgotten institutions flag aloft against all expectations. However, sometimes from this deep peat bog of laudable workmanship and its intrinsic bedfellow of blandness some fantastic bands can emerge. One of those bands are the Canadian outfit Showroom - the darlings of the fantastic institution that is Download.com.
Why is this? Well, I lay the credit mainly at the feet of their vocalist Ben Hutchinson whose unabated call to arms, even in the relatively lightweight 'Residence of Ben', turns all of the band's admittedly solid playing into stadium ready anthems. The blogosphere at the moment is rife with discussion of Coldplay and their latest effort (which I have stayed well clear of) and in doing so have forgotten that the band's music is carried by the charisma of Chris Martin. Bands such as Showroom can more than equal Coldplay's with 'Lonely Crowd' sounding like 'Clocks' but with a crunchier mix. Where bands end up on the ladder of success is all ultimately dependent on luck as much as skill and is that not why we as mp3 blogs exist? To inform people of bands worthy of their attention rather than endlessly recycling illegal streams and mp3s of bands that they already know of. Not that I don't believe in some discussion of major label acts - I especially enjoyed Scenestars' examination of X & Y - but sometimes I find some blogs increasingly grating in their refusal to dig slightly deeper. I hope that Adventures... will never be accused of becoming staid and predictable because when it is I'll probably quit.
Wow - didn't expect that diatribe to tumble out. Back to the music, 'Fighting Words' is my favourite of the bunch with its tumbling guitar intro leading the listener toward its cracking and simple drumbeat and ultimately Hutchinson's pro-Bono tribal yell. "Heel bitch" indeed. 'Residence of Ben' is on regular play as well albeit due to its relative quirkiness with its lyrics taking the form of an answer phone message and a guitar part reminiscent of vintage Marr.
Nervous Acid has called it a day. Shame as I was just beginning to really like it. Am loving the team at Last Night AN Mp3 Stole My Wife. Friday's mixed bag was superb with the macabre Mr Zevon married with the insane Mr Cope and the talismanic Mr Cole. They say hello to me too in their links and my comments as well which is always nice.

Visit - Showroom
Buy - Showroom - The World Is Too Much With Us

Rockin' the Swan and Three

2005-06-13T17:42:00.000+01:00

Graham Parker and the Rumour - Pumpin' It Out (Deleted Aussie Import)

Graham Parker - Back Door Love
Graham Parker - Problem Child
Graham Parker - White Honey
Graham Parker - Stick to Me
Graham Parker - Heat Treatment

Whilst cruising through the record shops in Newcastle the other day I managed to steer my girlfriend and I into a vinyl store where I proceeded to spend five minutes intently perusing a sinlge vinyl record sleeve. Which record you ask? Why it was Graham Parker's 1977 effort 'Stick to Me'. What an album it is too with its incendiary title track, the loose shuffle on 'The Heat in Harlem' and the playfulness of 'The New York Shuffle' whose basic boogie could have been rather flacid in a lesser band than the Rumour's hands.
Parker often becomes embroiled in comparisons with pub rock and the late 70s Canvey Island pub rock scene of Ian Dury (a wonderful songsmith in his own right) and Dr Feelgood which I find rather unfair. He creates a fantastically tight form of R & B with fluid rhythms, taut solos and an acerbic vocal style. Even nowadays, Parker continues to perforem unabated by musical changes and still sounds as fresh and important as ever.
Of the five tracks I've put up for a gander, 'Stick to Me' is definitely my favourite with 'White Honey' and 'Back Door Love' not-so-close seconds which saying a lot when you hear how wonderful 'Stick...' is. With its biting strings, electricfying chorus and pulsing horns no other song from that era will ever equal it in intensity. Listen to it right this minute and wonder why you haven't heard Parker's name before.
On a quick side note, check out Moistworks's post on EC's Armed Forces. It's fantastic.

Buy - Graham Parker and the Rumour - Stick to Me

Cardinal Davies Sings the Best Yankee Hits

2005-06-10T11:44:00.000+01:00

Richard Davies - Telegraph (Blue Rose, 1998)

Richard Davies - Cantina
Richard Davies - Papillon
Richard Davies - Main Street Electrical Parade
Richard Davies - Days to Remember

In honour of the wonderful people at Borrowed Tunes and their recent post on the brief collaborative project between Eric Matthews and Richard Davies, 'Cardinal', has led me to pull my finger out and post my one album by Richard Davies.
I actually purchased this album as a result of browsing Allmusic and discovering the link between Matthews, whose album It's Heavy in Here is a firm favourite of mine, and Davies. The fact that I only cost £1.99 sweetened the deal even more. For some reason, the album has been on low rotation since my purchasing it so I personally haven't been able to really get firm handle on it just yet. I do know that I definitely like it but am not yet sure if I can ever fall in love with it like I have done so with so many other records (I'm a record slut).
Davies's doesn't possess the honeyed vocals of Matthews nor does he attempt to hide his clear Australian twang resulting in a rather bizarre yet clearly likeable vocal style that sits uncertainly with the delightful acoustic based song structures that he can often pull out of his magic hat. For example, 'Main Street Electrical Parade' has an several acoustic picking patterns (can't quite put my finger on how many but there's definitely more than one) to drive the song which is augmented by unobtrusive slide electric and finally a bit of honky tonk piano. On the face of it, the song could have been played relatively simply on one acoustic but Davies adds to it with welcome light touches giving the arrangment that extra little something.
It is also a welcome sign that he doesn't feel the need to flesh out his songs with the simple fix of orchestral arrangements. I am ready to concede that the reliance upon strings can really turn
what would normally be a good song into a great song. However, I feel that, more often than not, orchestral arrangements are played far too heavy handed drowning the melody with noise leading into bloated monsters worthy of no-one's time. Davies pulls out a fugel horn on the album's two closing tracks, heard on 'Days to Remember', but thats as far as it goes.
'Cantina', released as a single, has to be my favourite track on the album with its propulsive drum beat (very in tone and rhythm to that of Wheat's 'World United Already' which I've previously posted) and spiralling yet controlled guitar lines. It's a real pop gem and when the vocals finally kick in you can't help but appreciate that you're listening to something worth a lot more than £1.99 + P&P. Actually, listening to 'Cantina' again as I write this, I think that this album and I have begun the start of a beautiful friendship.

Buy - Richard Davies - Telegraph

Successful Side Saddle Summer Songs AKA Alliteration is Fun!

2005-06-08T17:37:00.000+01:00

The Autumn Defense - Circles (Cooking Vinyl, 2003)

The Autumn Defense - Circles
The Autumn Defense - The Sun in California
The Autumn Defense - Why I'm Like This

The Autumn Defense - The Green Hour (Broadmoor Records, 2001)

The Autumn Defense - Long Forgotten Love
The Autumn Defense - This Kind of Day

Ok - a speed post because I have to get going to the suits and boots affair celebrating exams' end. So here goes:
The Autumn Defense... two guys... one = Wilco's bassist... Jeff Tweedy guests... described as "coma rock"/Americana... silly, silly pigeonholing... subtle acoustic landscaping... highly soothing... prefer it to the insomnia inducing alternatives (Frou Frou - I'm looking at you)... 2nd album slightly less experimental and therefore more accessible than the first... plenty of other mp3s in the 'albums' section on their great site... love every single track I've heard by them... opinions in the comments section please. And done! Another speed blog spectacular brought to you by Finalist-vision.

Visit - The Autumn Defense
Buy - The Autumn Defense - Circles

Spongebob Should Have a Starfish Hospital

2005-06-06T14:30:00.000+01:00

The Paperbacks - An Episode of Sparrows (Pshaw!, 2003)

The Paperbacks - Bridge
The Paperbacks - Plans in Advance

Canada - land of the free, the French and the most unbelievable crop of brilliant bands since dear ol' Blighty back in the 60s. Yes, The Paperbacks are Canadian and a new favourite of mine. Kudos to The Weakerthans for linking to their site (which now appears to be going through reconstructive surgery).
The two above tracks are taken of their latest effort, 'An Episode of Sparrows', but I must state before going on that the entire album is streamed on their page at New Music Canada with 'Who Will Run the Starfish Hospital' and 'The New Poverty' two firm favourites of mine. The sound that they create could be lazily branded as emo with Doug McLean (the band's major songwriter) possessing a very similar vocal style to Jimmy Eat World's Jim Adkins. However, where bands such as Jimmy... can dive off into tangents buried by vague lyrical concepts and overdriven guitars, the Paperbacks refuse to follow that path constantly staying within range of their pop sensibilities. They even find themselves upon the curiously inviting void that is twee jangle pop before pulling themselves away from the brink. Actually thinking about it they remind me of Zumpano except without the erratic nature that made that band so intoxicating. The New Pornographers may have left Zumpano's rotting corpse to fester (lovely imagery, no?) so that they could pursue its more bubblegum sensibilities but I think that The Paperbacks could well take over Zumpano's throne with a little help from their friends. And possibly some Febreze.
Been having fun post-exams so far. Won a music quiz in the city yesterday despite not recognising the intro to 'The Sunshine of my Life' which was irksome and, on my return from the aforementioned victory, we spied a mobile Cat neuteuring vehicle cum ambulance (arrgh just realised that pun!) which gave me a good chuckle. Beer festival yesterday too with much German wiesse beer and crisp Japanese lager. Yummy. More Locksley demos on You Ain't No Picasso. Ultra yum.
Next time - Wilco's bassist makes purty music not-so-much-of-a-shocker.

Visit - The Paperbacks (New Music Canada) and stream the entire album
Buy - The Paperbacks - An Episode of Sparrows

A Finalist No Longer

2005-06-02T14:24:00.000+01:00

The Pearlfishers - The Strange Underworld of the Tall Poppies (Marina Records, 2002)

The Pearlfishers - Cherry Sky
The Pearlfishers - Sugar Mountain Babies
The Pearlfishers - Banana Sandwich
The Pearlfishers - Waiting on the Flood

My Dad, for some reason beyond me, says that the first five tracks of 'Get Born' by Jet are the best opening to an album in the past ten years or so. I love him but The Pearlfishers' 'Strange Underworld...' is one of the key examples as to why he is so wrong.
Released in 1997, the debut on Marina Records by this Scottish duo has to be the perfect summer album, along with The Pernice Brothers 'The World Won't End' and The Beach Boys' 'Sunflower' to name a few. 'Strange Underworld...' is the debut by the band with two albums and a Christmas EP released since. You can check out the whole history of the band on their website. They can tell it much better than I.
The Pearlfishers are often compared to 70s acts such as The Beach Boys, The Raspberries and Todd Rundgren (they recorded a song called 'Todd is God', a favourite of mine as I share the same sentiment) and 90s power pop acts such as the legendary Jellyfish. This is mainly derived from their chiming guitars and intelligent, sweeping arrangements. As a result, their music is overpowering in its emotional impact and never stultified by too much busyness going on in the mix. The perfect example has to be 'Waiting on the Flood' with David Scott's magnificent delivery that whenever he sings the word 'love' tears immediately spring to my eyes. Scott reminds me of Danny Wilson's Gary Clark which isn;t really surprising as both are Scottish (highly recommend people check out Clark's short side project King L whose one album was superb). 'Banana Sandwich' wants to make me skip for no apparent reason which can only be a good thing unless it springs to mind at a highly embarrasing moment. 'Cherry Sky' starts off slowly with a simple plonking organ riff until joined by a loping bass line, superb vocal harmonies and horns to create a real power pop gem. The chorus is just wonderful. 'Sugar Mountain Babies', on the other hand, is a simple acoustic number supported by delicately placed strings and charming lyrical couplets such as "we were in love in the belly of summer/warmed by the honeyed wildness of the sun". I like Teenage Fanclub and Belle and Sebastian but to think that they are so ardently loved and the Pearlfishers so roundly ignored is jaw dropping. Download all these songs and fall in love with them as I've done.
By the way, had my last exam today and am enjoying a celebratory rum and coke. Yay! Check out Dodge's recent post on Cory Branan and the song 'Skateland South' - enchanting half sketches masquerading as songs with some stunning lyrical conceits. Putting your crush's name instead of yours when you reach the high score on an arcade game is such a disarmingly romantic concept that you can't help smiling. Like I've said before, sometimes all you want is something to brighten your day and both acts do just that.

Buy - The Pearlfishers - The Strange Underworld of the Tall Poppies
Visit - The Excellent Pearlfishers' Site (song explanations and everything!)

Me and Coolio Down By the Schoolyard

2005-05-30T15:17:00.000+01:00

Andrew Vincent and the Pirates - I Love the Modern Way (Kelp Records, 2004)

Andrew Vincent and the Pirates - Martha
Andrew Vincent and the Pirates - Bahamas

Andrew Vincent and the Pirates - A Short Trip with the Pirates (Kelp Records, 2003)

Andrew Vincent and the Pirates - Girlfriend's Dog
Andrew Vincent and the Pirates - Grade Four

It seems that every mp3 blog has their strange yet special favourite artists - Matt has his thing for Bishop Allen, Spike has Dwight Twilley and Senor Gainsbourg etc. etc. Now, me, I personally thought that I would always be impartial to such concerns with a wide range of musical goodies. However, my love for this man and his music has led to my running down to the college pigeonholes every day for three weeks until two days ago when the two CDs I'd ordered all the way from Canada were eventually spotted resting amongst useless society letters and flyers regarding post-exam activities *cue the evangelical organ music*. The lovely guys at Kelp even gave me a free 10th year anniversary badge and two stickers! Happiness abounds that day.
First things first, ' I Love the Modern Way' far surpasses 'A Short Trip...' as an album. Not to say that 'A Short Trip...' is bad, in fact it's a great sophomore effort, but I adore 'I Love Modern Way' like a small tiny surrogate plastic baby... which is also bald (as babies tend to be). Guitar pop doesn't get better than this with its catchy riffing, dry delivery, and sharp and intelligent lyrical witticisms. Vincent, like the Lucksmiths, has an ear for a biting yet simple lyrical construct that aptly taps into everyday life often leading to him "borrowing" from other artists such as Paul Simon ('Girlfriend's Dog), Slade ('Grade Four') and The Velvets ('Stephanie Says' off 'I Love...').
Both affairs are short and sweet with 18 tracks between them if one doesn't count the throwaway bonus track on 'A Short Trip...' but what the albums lack in quantity they make up for in quality. I would call the music 'power pop' but it lacks the normal production sheen that one associates with 'power pop' placing it more in the area of 'One Mississippi' era Brendan Benson. It's honest music with no pretensions that will leave you handclapping along in no time. Sometimes, that's all that you want and all that you'll ever need. If any of you guys think the Mr Vincent and his scruvy crew of Pirates (all two of 'em) sounds like someone that you love drop me a bell in the comments section. Would love to hear about them and hope that enjoy the pot smokin' Canadian daredevils as much as I.
My last exam is on Thursday, peeps, so am probably not going to post on Wednesday although knowing me I will do it in a panic induced fit of procrastination. Look forward to some Pearlfishers on the flip side. Note to self: stop watching 'Scrubs' all the time before you start talking gangsta and begin referring to people as "big chocolate bears".

UPDATE: Damn you Teaching Indies Kids people and your horrible knowledge and smartness! Good taste though.

Visit and Buy - Andrew Vincent and the Pirates

Those Hobbitsses Got Rhythm and Blues

2005-05-27T10:42:00.000+01:00

The Small Faces

The Small Faces - I Can't Make It
The Small Faces - Almost Grown
The Small Faces - It's Too Late
The Small Faces - Come On Children
The Small Faces - What'cha Gonna Do About It? (French EP Version)

See I promised some Small Faces for comparison purposes and hey ho let's go! All of these tracks are numbers from their Decca days and I have purposefully omitted some of their best known songs such as 'Tin Soldier', 'All or Nothing', and 'My Mind's Eye'. So have a listen to the modfathers themselves and tell me what you think.
As a postscript - why are people like John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger often in the top ten of the greatest rock n' roll singers of all time and Steve Marriott isn't? The best rating that I've ever seen the boy get was no. 98 in an old Mojo poll. That is a complete disgrace in my opinion. His tone may be your archetypal soul shout but there's a certain purity to it accompanied by impeccable phrasing that I find mindblowing. The rest of the band, as I've already said, weren't too bad either. Listen to The Small Faces, the Creation or the Move and then to the Mod Revival of the late 70s and then you'll understand why so many held the "revival"to be such a mockery.
Okay that's your lot. Am off to have a shower and wash away the hangover and cigarette smoke. Much love. Oh wait... Said the Gramophone has a pairing of Nick Drake and Homestar Runner today. Yes, they are indeed geniuses.

NOTE: Kelp Records has updated its weekly downloads. Check out the ever wonderful Jonathan by my fave Andrew Vincent and a fantastic hard rockin cut from the "a little bit country" Greenfield Main. My "girlfriend's brother's girlfriend" indeed.

Buy - The Small Faces - The Darlings of Wapping Wharf Laundrette

Five Guys Walk Into A Bar... Ouch (Pt 2)

2005-05-25T13:38:00.000+01:00

The Faces - Five Guys Walk Into A Bar (Rhino, 2004)

The Faces - Gettin' Hungry
The Faces - Around the Plynth/Gasoline Alley (Live)
The Faces - Open to Ideas
The Faces - Stay With Me (Live)
The Faces - The Stealer (Live)

First thing s first, thanks go out to Jack (not Jason as previously reported due to my being an idiot) at Revolution in the Head for highlighting the blog. At first, I was a little blase about the whole thing (as you can see from my rather um... arrogant comment) but now am eternally grateful to him. I have comments! Halle-bloody-lujah!
Speaking of comments, one anonymous commenter stated that Rod Stewart ruined the Small Faces. I've already contributed my two cents/pence to that but just to reiterate. The Small Faces were the greatest Mod band of the 60s. The Faces were the greatest rock band of the 70s. The two statements are not mutually exclusive and to say such things just because you dislike Rod Stewart is an insult to the rest of the boys especially Ronnie Lane, the main force behind both bands. Anyway, Humble Pie kinda sucked from what I've heard of them. Prove me wrong.
These tracks I've posted are all rare/live again with: 'Gettin' Hungry', a half-thought out demo representing the boys' take on a Beach Boys 'Smiley Smile' track; 'Around the Plynth' is a retread of of Rod and Ron Wood's days in the Jeff Beck Group with some ace slide guitar from Ron and unbelievable drumming by Kenney; 'Open to Ideas' is a bittersweet gem which I believe Ronnie Lane wrote that I think surpasses his better known moments in the group 'Ooh La La' and 'Debris'; 'The Stealer' covers Free (pet hate of The Pimps of Gore) to spectacular effect; and finally, if you don't know 'Stay with Me' just download it - it's a classic for a reason.
By the way, Spoilt Victorian Child has posted on Outrageous Cherry, a fave band of mine for many a year that I believe everyone should check out. Their psychedelic pop is as delightful as eating a stick of rock whilst strolling along the beach at Blackpool. However, Nouvelle Vague are hideously awful. Sorry Matt but if I ever wanted lounge covers of XTC then I'd get myself neutered.

Visit - The (Excellent) Faces Website

I'm So Excited That A Little Bit Of Pee Just Came Out

2005-05-23T11:26:00.000+01:00

The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners (Candle Records, 2005)

The Lucksmiths - Sunlight in a Jar
The Lucksmiths - Fiction

Oh my god. Is this the greatest blog post you've ever seen? Well, it is to me. The Lucksmiths are definitely in my top five favourite artists of all time since the time I first discovered them on a mix CD my sister sent me with 'The Great Dividing Range' featured on it. 'Sunlight in a Jar' is already in my top ten favourite songs accompanying 'Guess How Much I Love You' which has been in the top five for the past six months. An entire Lucksmiths gig just makes my day and answers loads of questions in my head such as "Can they possibly play 'Fiction' live?" (apparently not), "Do they play any tracks off 'A Little Distraction'?" (apparently so) and "Should I go see them next time they come over to England?"
(yes, yes AND yes - I want to be able to bop up and down like a mad Jack-in-a-Box until my tummy hurts).
The live version of Sunlight in a Jar that they plkay on the recording seems at too high a tempo for my liking but that's my only compliant. I mean Tali even starts singing 'My Heart Will Go On' (albeit briefly) before kicking into the magnificent closer 'The Year of Driving Langorously'. Thanks Bradley.
Note: The planned Faces post will be up tomorrow or Wednesday. Just now it seems like a cliffhanger of some sort but without John Lithgow's gurning.

Buy - Warmer Corners
Visit - The Lucksmiths

Five Guys Walk Into A Bar... Ouch (Pt 1)

2005-05-22T08:27:00.000+01:00

The Faces - Five Guys Walk Into A Bar (Rhino, 20004)

The Faces - Maybe I'm Amazed (Live)
The Faces - Pool Hall Richard
The Faces - Miss Judy's Farm (Live)
The Faces - You're My Girl (I Don't Want to Discuss It) (Live)
The Faces - Last Orders Please

Wahoo! My first two exams (the killer three hour mothers) are now both done and/or dusted so I can now have a bit of a relax for a few days. As a result of this great mood that I'm now in, despite the headache from the early wake-up and the fact that I hadn't had a beer in about a week and half before yesterday, I've constructed a bog standard two part series for your enjoyment.
The tracks above are all rare cuts taken off Discs 1 and 2 of the relatively new Faces box set, Five Guys Walk Into A Bar... I could give you a detailed history of the boys but (a) the box set itself is at home and (b) it would probably take a while. Let's just say that the Faces were the greatest rock band of the seventies composed of Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones from the Small Faces, Ron Wood from the Jeff Beck Group who of course is now the epitome of cool toruing in the Rolling Stones, and finally, before it all went tits up and he recorded 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?' and 'Sailing', the mighty Rod Stewart.
Start at Pool Hall Richard, a single that was unavailable until the single CD best of 'Good Boys... While They're Asleep' and then to the stomping cover of 'You're My Girl'. Screw it. It's all brilliant. They had a bar ON stage when they used to perform live. How could they not be amazing?

Buy - The Faces - Five Guys Walk Into A Bar...

Fez are Fez-tive! Exams Are Not

2005-05-18T21:01:00.000+01:00

No posts until Saturday or Sunday. Sorry but the revision has to be done for my two Law exams on Friday and Saturday where I get to discuss questions such as "If conjoined twins bought a house but only signed legal title in the name of one then which one does the better Tommy Cooper impersonation?" Let's just hope I don't write "Neither" and then proceed to bang my head against the table until an invigilator begins to smack me on the back with a ruler.
Note: Using basic HTML, I've set up a neat looking little "Now Playing" section. Woo! I am slowly learning this business and the blog is beginning to look rather pretty. I've added a Bloglines button to the bottom of the sidebar too so that you can subscribe if so inclined. If you join, you'll constitute half the readership on Bloglines who aren't myself or my sister. Go ahead. Achieve something today.

Sun Tzu's Cheerios

2005-05-16T14:09:00.000+01:00

Art of Fighting - Wires (3 Beads of Sweat, 2002)

Art of Fighting - Reasons Are All I Have Left
Art of Fighting - Give Me Tonight

Wheat - Per Second, Per Second, Per Second... Every Second (Aware, 2003)

Wheat - I Met A Girl
Wheat - World United Already (Naked Version)

Apologies, my sweet misguided brethren for the lack of a post on Friday and Wednesday's post disappearing into limbo for a short while too. It's all thanks to my heavy workload and relative incompetence.
As a result of my heavy revising, I won't keep you long with this post and shall quickly state that all of the above four tracks are fantastic and readily available off the respective bands' websites.
Art of Fighting are a quartet from Sydney who've been around for a decade and still only released two albums (watch out Blue Nile!) with their music lazily compared to Coldplay and Radiohead because they simply sound like nobody else with their gorgeous acoustic soundscapes somehow raised to another level by Ollie Browne's delicate and slight crooning.
Wheat hail from America with the two tracks off their fourth album released a few years ago.

UPDATE: Holy moly! Did I fall asleep half way through this post? Maybe some of it got deleted. I don't know! Guess that what 'Trusts & Equity' will do to you. Apologies and here's the two bands' websites accompanied by a sincere statement that both band's are compulsory listening.

Visit - Art of Fighting
Visit - Wheat

The Skater Boi, the Surfer Dude, the Power Pop Trio and their Flu Jabs

2005-05-11T11:40:00.000+01:00

The Luxury Liners

The Luxury Liners - Believe
The Luxury Liners - Fallen Star
The Luxury Liners - Blockbuster

The Acorn

The Acorn - Do You Not Yearn At All?
The Acorn - Darcy

All Girl Summer Fun Band

All Girl Summer Fun Band - Jason Lee

Lemonheads uber-fans from Nashville doing Cher covers today! Woo! Yes, 'Believe' is a cover of Cher's hideous mega-hit from a couple years back except it's quite good. A guilty pleasure. 'Fallen Star', on the other hand, is just a pure pleasure. An simple acoustic live number (not yet put on album, dagnabbit) that has nothing of the Dando about it, it's just impossible to describe how lovely it is in its simplicity. 'Blockbuster' is live and its influences are slightly more obvious but since I love that crazy crack smoking, drag wearing freakazoid Evan I love these guys too.
Dave Dewese, member of both The Luxury Liners and the Foxymorons (wonderful as well), is on Audioscrobbler and is kindly putting up with my fandom despite the fact that I didn't completely realise that he was in the bands when I first added him to my Friends list. He probably thinks I'm a stalker. I think that this exam revision is scrambling my brains. Thankfully, before he issued the restraining order, he put me on to Californian singer-songwriter Tim Bluhm. Bluhm is lead singer of Cali band, The Mother Hips (who must have made 6 or 7 albums now) and is so good that his 'Soft Adventure/Colts' album is already making its way to the shores of Ol' Blighty and into my eager little paws.
Back to Kelp Records, who I featured a while back, I feel rather stupid because I missed out what has to be their real asset ('cept the irreverent stylings of Mr Vincent and his Pirates), The Acorn. I popped on one of their tracks, 'Do You Not Yearn At All' and... wow! It relies upon repetitive guitar motifs to drive the song at the beginning but then slowly begins to build with a ghost-like guitar line appearing and the drums cantering away at a steady pace until around 2.45 where it returns to where it started for ten seconds or so before it kicks off again even more beautifully than it had before. The words 'post-rock' spring to mind but The Acorn don't seem to possess the in built self destruct button such bands tend to have where they descend either into tedious noodling or impregnatable experimentation. Having sampled 'Darcy' too, the vocalist and creative force behind the band, Rolf Klauseneur, is not only extremely talented but has a voice perfectly suited to the music in that it is rather similar to Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie. Sweet and mature but not whiny or grating like Chris Carrabba or Thom Yorke.
Speaking of magnificent voices, the man with the best voice in pop, Joe Pernice, is releasing downloads for a dollar on his website with two up at the moment, both of which I proceeded to purchase, 'The Flu' and 'Moonshot Manny'. I can understand why 'Moonshot Manny' hasn't been relased on a Pernice album due to its ode to the Red Sox slugger, Manny Ramirez, being drowned under electro squelchs, a sighing female sample, and a drum machine. It's pretty rubbish really. 'The Flu' though is superb and well worth checking out with Joe singing over a dripping tap (yes, that's not a typo surprisingly) and echoing acoustic guitar that lends to the song a fanscinatingly deep echo. It's a fantastic production. I'd post it but that would defeat the purpose of Joe uploading the song in the first place which is to raise money for Dotwell, a health services partnership of the Codman Square Health Center and Dorchester Multi-Service Center.
The All Girl Summer Fun Band track is just there for a laugh. As you will have guessed, it's a bubblegum pop song about Jason Lee, the scientologist, skater and star of the View Askew universe movies. It's not half as dirty as Pony Up!'s tribute to Matthew Modine but does have the cool line "Jason Lee doing kick flips in my dreams".
All these tracks are free on the band's websites which I highly recommend that you check out. Tim Bluhm's streaming radio is especially good as it includes tracks solo, with the Mother Hips and other side projects. The video of 'Love Has No Pride' on his site is tremendous too.

Visit - The Luxury Liners
Visit - The Foxy Morons
Visit - Tim Bluhm
Visit - The Pernice Brothers
Visit - The Acorn at Kelp Records
Visit - All Girl Summer Fun Band

Doo-Wop Doo-Wop Baby

2005-05-09T23:43:00.000+01:00

Steve Poltz - One Left Shoe (Mercury, 1998)

Steve Poltz - Impala
Steve Poltz - I Thought I Saw You Last Night
Steve Poltz - Everything About You

This post is going to be simple and sweet - both musically and writing wise. Steve Poltz is an American singer-songwriter with a unique lyrical voice that embraces humour but doesn't let his song's descend into cheap caricature who came to people's attention due to his relationship, both musically and romantically, with Jewel Kilcher, the people's poet herself.
'Impala' and 'I Thought I Saw You Last Night' are both as a result of this writing collaboration with Jewel and thus feature her unusally high pitched vocals (not usually the case I thought). 'Impala' is a personal favourite of mine due to both associations with my sister (twas a favourite of hers too) and it's strange yet strangely satisfying stream of conciousness lyrics, somewhat similar to songs like Prefab Sprout's 'Faron Young'. It's coyness is accompanied by subtle strings and nice brass riff make it almost a modern take on doo wop that make it a nice warm song to cuddle up to. 'Everything About You' is a simple acoustic song that's sweet not saccharine lyric just really appeals to any romantic's sensibilities and has you just smiling at the sentiment it carries within it. Lovely.
If you like these tracks, go to Poltz's site. He may no longer be on a major label and thankfully doesn;t seem to be associated with Jewel since she went dance pop and started getting her boobs out. The site is very nice and has some more tracks off My Left Shoe for download as well as some excellent cuts off his latest disc 'Chinese Vacation' including the title track that just makes me really laugh out loud. It seems like he was on this year's 2005 SXSW line up too so I'm glad that he's still touring and doing well.
Enjoy my brethren. Feast upon the acoustic loveliness and then maybe pick up the album. It was very cheap on Amazon UK like all good albums seem to be...

Visit - Steve Poltz
Buy - One Left Shoe

Shoegazing Is Fun If Wearing Novelty Slippers

2005-05-07T00:47:00.000+01:00

Alba Nova - Your Next Identity/The Charm Offensive EP (Unsigned, 2005)

Alba Nova - Masquerade
Alba Nova - How Dark is Dark
Alba Nova - A New Pose
Alba Nova - The Stranger and the Streetcar

A modern day Dream Pop revival on my landing by Pixies and Feeder fans? Well, as you might know from my last post, I hate placing music in boxes but I'm afraid that's what I think my mate Dan, and his band Alba Nova, have conjoured up on a budget of zero and some mixing software.
However, whereas most dream pop, such as Galaxie 500 and Slowdive, relies on allowing the song to breathe in their arrangements with minimalist guitar work covered in feedback, Alba Nova seem to be perfectionists who seek to fill gaps with acoustic guitars, cellos, violins, the works. There is none of the required ambience here tending more towards the later work of Jason Pierce with Spiritualised. Not that this is a bad thing giving their songs a rather baroque feel that is further emphasised by Guy Mankowski's (vocalist/guitarist/lyricist) sometimes overwrought and frankly verbose lyricisms.
Guy's vocal delivery suits the studio versions of the songs wonderfully and Dan Hoyes' (lead guitarist/other instruments I'm sure/songwriter/perfectionist) ethereal guitar lines match it wonderfully leading to a relationship rather similar to the Sundays' partnership of Wheeler and Gavurin (though I doubt the two will get married). Sadly, his vocals haven't quite carried over to their live performances but I'm more than sure that the dynamic that the group obviously possess means that this won't last too long. Also, where Guy sometimes falls vocally he is either saved by the stunning musical arrangements (best supported by 'Masquerade' and 'How Dark is Dark') or the lovely harmonising of Hollie Martorella (vocals/strings).
If I were to recommend any of the downloads I've been allowed to put on Adventures... (fresh off the mixing desk - thanks Dan) I'd say that 'Masquerade' and 'How Dark is Dark' are the best. The songwriting is obviously tightened with 'How Dark is Dark' not descending into pretentiousness like it could have and instead creating some simply stunning moments (for example pretty much from 3.40 to the end). 'A New Pose' is fantastic too for Hollie and Guy's vocal sparring and probably would most resemble Mojave 3 and Galaxie 500 if it were slightly looser and refrained from having the chorus (I love the chorus both lyrically and musically though so I'm not complaining). 'The Stranger and the Streetcar' is an old number with excellent acoustic riffing, if I can call it that, from Dan, bongos (kidding, apparently it's a djembe) from Tom Freeman (drummer/percussionist) and mandolin by Chris Prior (bassist/ multi-instrumentalist). The rather heavy ending is nice too.
So that's that then. The band have really transcended the limitations placed upon them and created an extremely accomplished and suprisingly polished recording. Check them out before they get signed as they should be. Now, that IS an exclusive. I feel powerful like Ming the Merciless 'cept without the beard and a hatred for Brian Blessed.

Visit - Alba Nova (the site's slightly broken at the moment despite Dan being a Computer Science student. Go figure.)

Go For Your Guns!

2005-05-04T12:46:00.000+01:00

Havana Guns - She Always Goes Down (Single on Cigarette, 2005)

Havana Guns - She Always Goes Down
Havana Guns - Sister Brother
Havana Guns - Vivan Los Angeles

Wow for the first time - Adventures... has a semi-exclusive! Of course, it will never rival Matt's discovery of The Motel Beds who I love like new born spaniel puppies - floppy ears and all. Nor will it rival my sister getting a song dedicated to her by the Lucksmiths. Harpy. But I know the Havana Guns' drummer by association. Woo!
The Havana Guns were a four piece who, like Echo and the Bunnymen, ended up sacking the drum machine due to its boozy party lifestyle and getting a real life replacement instead along with a new organ player (ooh err missus) turning them into a fabulous five piece whose debut single has got them quite the critical praise (played on BBC 6music, Winner of Unsigned Band of the Week on Xfm, play on MTV2) extending as far as that monolith of music journalism, the NME. Don't worry, Havana Guns are nothing like The 'godawful' Bravery but have rather attracted Blondie comparisons. Why is beyond me except for the fact that they have a female singer and guitars. If that are the requirements for pop similies then I'll say that they're a mix between Kraftwerk (samplers), Allan Smethurst the Singing Postman (they have lyrics), Snoop Dogg (a love of 'Gin and Juice') and The Monkees (they can carry a pop tune).
Actually, if I was to make a worthwhile comparison then I'd say that 'Vivan Los Angeles' reminds me of New Order if only for the bass line. The kick off to 'She Always Goes Down' with the organ and chopping chords smacks of something that I can't quite place but all I know is that I like it especially the keyboards on the chorus and the vocal samples in the breakdown. They may not be especially innovative but their song structures are impeccable creating music that wouldn't sound out of place featured on In The Groove. It definitely grows on you like a fungus that sings show tunes and makes you a cup of tea in the morning after a night on the town. If that makes any sense... which it doesn't except if you're me.
In short, head to their website and check out their details. At the moment, they're signed to Cigarette who don't seem to have any other bands on their roster but I am definitely looking forward to the band's second release. If you guys like it too, leave a comment so that I can tell my lovely girlfriend that I'm not lying when I say that the band are really good.
Also, apologies for the direct linking on the previous post but I thought Kelp would more than likely appreciate the traffic. Yes, I'm ever so naughty. On that note, I think I'm going to go and have some delicious lunchables.

Visit - Havana Guns

What is Kelp?

2005-05-03T00:18:00.000+01:00

Chris Page - Decided to Stay and Swim (Kelp Records, 2003)

Killing Time in the Doubt Department
She Floats Like Dizzy Sunshine

Detective Kalita (Kelp Records, 2003)
The Only Game in Town

Andrew Vincent & the Pirates - I Love the Modern Way! (Kelp Records, 2003)

One, Two, Three
Cover It Up

Greenfield Main - Barnburgers and Heartchurners (Kelp Records, 2004)

Have Mercy
Fireworks Display

No pretty picture today sadly due to it being very late and me being very tired. Instead, I wish to point you in the direction in the wonderful Canadian label, Kelp Records to whom I was semi-introduced to by Teaching the Indie Kids... and their posting of Andrew Vincent's breathtakingly innovative and hummable cover of the Beastie Boys' 'Paul Revere' with little Casio bleeps thrown in for good measure. After playing the song so much that my landing mates soon became extremely tired of its repetetive chord structure, I delved deeper trying to find merchandise and CDs by said Mr Vincent and came across this label, Kelp.
All these mp3s have been half-inched from their site and their very pretty downloads page allowing plebians such as myself to sample their many wares. They also very kindly have a seperate little sampler updated weekly on their home page leading to visits there every Monday afternoon like clockwork.
Chris Page is a singer songwriter of the sort that, unlike Messrs Falkner, and Matthews, does not believe in dense instrumentation in his songs but merely relies upon an electric guitar and lots of feedback. He gets good results too.
Andrew Vincent and his marvellous Pirates are by far the standout on the label. Maybe its due to Vincent's highly pleasing vocals or his excellent ear for an infectious melody but if I played 'One, Two, Three' in a DJ set I would put money on the dance floor being instatnly filled with promiscuous teenagers doing the Charleston (or some such dance).
However, despite my love for AV, the real spoils have to go to country boys, Greenfield Main, and their absolutely gorgeous tune 'Have Mercy'. It's so good that I am seriously considering parting with hard cash for their latest album and I'm sure that if the boys at Rough Trade heard it then it would be on 'Country Vol. 2' in a flash.
Speaking of Rough Trade, one of my gorgeous lady friend's best mates back in the Bedford ghetto is drummer for a band currently getting big ups in the alternative music press and featuring in Rough Trade shops. Which band? I'll tell you next post. Oooooooh, I'm such a tease. They're really good too.

Visit - Kelp Records

The Australian Robin Trower 'Cept Less Wanky

2005-04-29T15:22:00.000+01:00

Even - In Stereo (Rubber Records, 1996)
Even - 24 Hour Cynic

Even - Come Again (Rubber Records, 1997)
Even - No Surprises

Even - A Different High (Rubber Records, 2001)
Even - Shining Star

Even - The Street Press Years (Rubber Records, 2003)
Even - I Have Nothing

Just what the doctor ordered - Australian power trios with an obvious debt to Britpop moving towards 60's mod and psychedelica in their later albums (although I haven't heard the LP they released last year 'Free Kicks' which may just be like Jet for all I know).
'In Stereo' was their first EP and features the rather rough and enjoyably scuzzy '24 Hour Cynic'that verges on grunge. Not all that remarkable beginnings you'll agree. However, when by the time they'd reached their 2nd LP 'Come Again' they were releasing compact and accomplished power pop with the best being the single (as is often the case) 'No Surprises' with its simple and repetitive, yet enduringly catchy, riff. This format is honed and subsequently bettered on 'I Have Nothing' that I sadly don;t have any more information on due to my leaving the case at home. Oh fie on you gods of easily breakable plastic casing! Do not offer me the foul pretender - the digipak - in penance! The song is a personal favourite, by the way. Finally, we come to the rather baroque 'Shining Star' with its simple acoustic chord progression embellished by strings and Ashley Naylor's laconic vocalisations which has an especially nice instrumental break around the two minute mark. The harmonising's pretty good too.
Even may not quite be the best in the really rather fertile Australian music industry but they do show that it has a lot more depth and edge than people normally attribute it. They also have a song called 'We Are the Purple Nazz' which as a huge Todd Rundgren fan instantly endears me to them.
Right, it's a beautiful day outside and I must bid adieu to go sunbathing on the roof with my copy of Private Eye whilst listening to 80s Blondie medleys (thank you thank you thank you SVC).

Buy - Even
Visit - Even at Rubber Records

Funk Soul Cover Brother Bad Mothers

2005-04-27T12:18:00.000+01:00

The Isley Brothers - Givin' It Back (Legacy, 1997)
The Isley Brothers - Fire and Rain
The Isley Brothers - Lay Lady Lay
The Isley Brothers - Spill the Wine

What do you get when you combine an acoustic covers album with one of soul's greatest voices and his two rather talented brothers? Why, you get a 10 minute long, sex personified workout of a Dylan classic, the definitive version of one of mainstream folk's anthems (plus an amazing ethereal intro that defies any rational description beyond gibbering and pointing in random directions), and cover that manages to give the kings of the Barrios, War, a run for their money although that may be because Ronald puts in a little more effort than Eric Burdon ever did.
Givin' It Back is one of my favourite albums of all time, despite its relative brevity (7 tracks hence my not uploading any more) and when the CD finally breaks from overuse/wear and tear I will weep like a small girl with pigtails until Amazon sends me a shiny new copy. For those who know the Brothers Isley only for 'Summer Breeze', 'Shout' and Mr Big (*sigh*) checking out these tracks is a necessity. As is taking a peek at their new Isley Brothers remix album, Taken to the Next Phase, which looks very interesting and will hopefully introduce more to their pretty amazing musical journey from rock n' roll to smoooooth yet funky soul.
And for those who somehow haven't been pointed its way before, Liza at Copy, Right has the the definitive covers music blog with other nowhere close except the guilty pleasure of Coverville's Podcasts. Right, I must be off to continue grading my mp3 library on iTunes. There seem to be too many five stars but then again I have little quality control. There's an advertisement for this blog if I ever heard one...

Buy - The Isley Brothers - Givin' It Back
Visit - The Isley Brothers at Legacy Recordings

So Alan Parker Doesn't Destroy Everyone's Careers After All...

2005-04-25T12:03:00.000+01:00

The Frames - Burn the Maps (Plateau Records, 2005)
The Frames - Fake
The Frames - Ship Caught in the Bay
The Frames - Locusts

Thank you, Simon from SVC for you introduced me to my new favourite band, The Frames (along with Tegan & Sara, the Ska-Talites and Rilo Kiley). Sadly, due to my silly scruples and moral high ground I can only include tracks off the only Frames album I own - their latest offering 'Burn the Maps'. Their live album 'Set List' is on my must-buy list too though if only for the mind-blowing performances of 'God Bless Mom' and the epic 'Fitzcarraldo'.
The band is led by ex-Commitments member Glen Hansard (he plays the wiry dark haired busker turned rhythm guitarist) the Irish foursome have been compared to Snow Patrol, Coldplay and Radiohead which is easily translated into noiseniks with a pop sensibility that people mistake for mainstream far too often. According to one particularly idiotic Amazon reviewer, the album is termed as aimed at teenyboppers. Have a listen to the album closer 'Locusts' and then laugh your arse off at such tarring with a particularly large brush.
'Fake' is the "single" with the old standard of slow verse, fast chorus method that has worked so well for so many others with a lyric whose constrained nature does sadly remind me of 'Spitting Games'. 'Ship Caught in the Bay' pulls off a instrumentation quite similar to a track by the Roots with a minimalist looped backdrop followed by the song kicking into some breakbeat drums not quite worthy of ?uestlove but similar. The previously mentioned 'Locusts' is another minimalist number with acoustic guitar, ghostly feedback noises and a rather lovely piano part drifting in halfway through. Something for everybody then.
In other news, I have returned to University for my very last term. I'm not actually sure what I'm going to do with the blog's title when I get out of here. I might just change 'Uni to ex-Uni'. Yes, I am lazy. As a result of my return, in the next two months posting may be slightly irregular but not too bad hopefully. Thanks to the boys at PCL Linkdump for putting me on their Links. I am not worthy. On that self-deprecating note, ta ta for now. Look forward to some Isley Brothers next time if I can find it.

Buy - The Frames - Burn the Maps
Visit - The Frames

That'll Teach You To Be a Teetotal Vegan

2005-04-20T23:16:00.000+01:00

The Equals - First Among Equals (Ice Records, 1994)
The Equals - Viva Bobby Joe
The Equals - Police on my Back
The Equals - Honey Bee
The Equals - Diversion

Dum dum dum, Electric Avenue, gonna take you higher! Yes it's Eddy Grant's old mod-funk outfit from the 60s The Equals! Yum. To be honest, I don;t know too much about these London boys due to the otherwise brilliant double CD retrospective, First Among Equal's rather awful line-notes totalling two meagre pages focusing on Grant's post-Equals career.
Admittedly, the band were scattershot to say the least but they did have some pearls (that you'll have to track down yourselves) such as the hits 'Baby Come Back' and 'Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys' and other tracks like 'Michael and His Slipper Tree', ' Softly Softly', 'Soul Brother Clifford' and 'You Got Too Many Boyfriends'. The ones I've featured for your significant pleasure include the anthemic yet very silly hit single 'Viva Bobby Joe' with its violins that The Jam must have somehow been influenced by with songs like 'Smithers Jones'. The rasping organ parts in 'Diversion' and 'Honey Bee' accompanied by fantastic performances on the mike by Grant create two extremely enjoyable and danceable cuts. The politically charged 'Police on my Back' would later become famous when the Clash covered it on the "eclectic" 'Sandinista' and did a bloody good job of it too.
The Equals are quintessentially English, both lyrically and stylistically, yet funky too - creating a cross between the Moody Blues, the Kinks, various elements of Mod Culture and James Brown. Nice. I got into the Equals thanks to the rather good Number One Songs in Heaven. The page is here.
Oh, other news: more revision for exams (but I still find time for you aren't I sweet?), my girlfriend likes 'Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes' which leaves me elated, 'Chantilly Lace' and The Sonics are constantly on my Winamp playlist and I am very tired. I love you all as if you were my small furry ultra-dependent kin. And that's goodnight from me and that's goonight from him.

Buy - The Equals
Visit - Eddy Grant at Ice

Cliff, Eat Your Heart Out!

2005-04-18T23:45:00.000+01:00

Bobby Conn and the Glass Gypsies - The Homeland (2004, Thrill Jockey)
Bobby Conn - Relax

Rough Trade Country 1 (2003, Rough Trade)
Violent Femmes - Country Death Song

Maximillian Hecker - Rose (2003, Pias)
Maximillian Hecker - Kate Moss

All Night Radio - Spirit Stereo Frequency (2004, SubPop)
All Night Radio - Sky Bicycle (You've Been Ringing)

A treat for you to celebrate my return from a self-imposed purgatory. This strange 'menage a quatre' composes tracks taken off albums purchased extremely cheap on my hols (those Devon record stores don't know what hidden jewels they have!). Put together the four would have set me back 14 pounds with the Rough Trade double set making up half of that price.
Bobby Conn, according to Allmusic the "self-confessed antichrist", first caught my attention in the Singapore Borders through the sheer vibrancy of the album cover art on 'The Golden Age' and I was surprised to see his latest album 'The Homeland' getting a large spread in the Mojo reviews section a couple of months back. 'Relax' is political dance pop with a stunning chorus (possibly the first to feature discussions on income tax) and catchy hooks as is much of the album. The words 'Scissor Sisters' keep popping in my head for no apparent reason but that's my erratic brain processes for you.
All Night Radio are a side project coming from the highly wonderful Beachwood Sparks looking the take forward the ambient Beach Boys ouevre a little bit further with the particular track sporting lovely harmonies, luscious instrumentation and, of course, lots of bells (not sure about cow bell though). Not your usual Sub Pop release but as good as any other.
The Maximillian Hecker album was bought to join my copy of his strange debut 'Infinite Love Songs'. As of this moment, I haven't sampled all the tracks (and positively loathd 'My Love For You Is Insane') but the repetitive piano motif and sly lyricism on the opening track 'Kate Moss' are well worth sampling. I still prefer Nicolai Dunger as my European singer songwriter of choice though.
Finally, the Rough Trade compilation has been on my hit list for a long time and it didn't disappoint with gems by Steve Earle, Dave Alvin, Lincoln '65 and Calexico amongst others. It has also spurred me to check out Camper Van Beethoven after months of forgetting to do so on Soulseek. This Violent Femmes track is my favourite as it (a) showed me that they were more than their debut and (b) that country death songs are fanatastic fun especially with a nice ominous bass line.
On that note, look at the puppy! Sun, sand and songs about stalking celebs and pushing your daughter down a well. Bliss.

A Quick Announcement

2005-04-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I'm back! Secondly, my hosting's back! Thirdly, you can access all the mp3s again! Finally, I'll post some more tomorrow. Have a lovely day, y'all.

We're All Going On A... Easter Holiday!

2005-04-08T19:49:00.000+01:00

Ok, I'll keep this brief. Am frantically trying to get my hosting back. Apparently, the administrators changed servers but didn't include mine in the swap so I'm having to chase them up to do it now. Hence, the lack of any music when you do the clicking business. Sadly, am off on holiday for a week to where there is no internet so won't be able to update! Apologies to the five of you who actually visit. As the Pope once said, ciao for now.

It's Arty And It Rocks... What Should We Call It?

2005-04-04T11:49:00.000+01:00

Family - Bandstand
Family - Burlesque
Family - My Friend The Sun

Family - BBC Radio Volume 1 (1968-69)
Family - I Sing Um The Way I Feel (Live)
Family - No Mule's Fool (Live)

I promised you post-prog and here it is! Well... it's blues-rock labelled as prog but it'll have to do. I'd love to give you a long treatise surrounding the history of Family but that would require research and hard work so I'll give you a little sketch instead.
Family recorded six albums between 1968 and 1973 from the whimsical art rock of 'Music in a Doll's House' towards a more conventional blues rock sound style on their penultimate album 'Bandstand'. I've uploaded two songs off 'Bandstand', in 'Burlesque' and 'My Friend The Sun'. The first of which featuring Roger Chapman's superb gravel toned voice (a rock voice almost parallel to that of Rodgers or Stewart) and John Whitney's tight riffing whilst the second should have been a classic with its delightful lyric and pastoral acoustic musical direction.
The second duo of songs is taken off a BBC compilation with 'Sing Um...' a cover of J.B. Lenoir, unavailable on any other CD, which starts normally enough and then transforms into a beast best turned up to 11 with a rather proggy guitar run. 'No Mule's Fool' shows the musical complexity of Family and how they somehow managed to transfer it to their live act something that has to be praised.
Although, Family shared common ground with bands like Traffic (whose bassist and taker of infrequent hiatuses Dave Mason produced their debut and Family bassist Ric Grech would become a member of Traffic following Mason's permanent departure), Ten Years After and Blind Faith (Ric Grech, yet again, was a member although everyone ignores his importance in favour of Clapton, Winwood and Baker) they seem to be largely forgotten nowadays. Hopefully, these songs will change that for at least one person out there in the magical land of the intermaweb. I mean if Be Bop Deluxe can have a resurgence then why not Family?
Love, luck and lollipops to you all and may the lovely music soothe your sinful souls.

Buy - Bandstand
Buy - BBC Radio Volume 1 (1968-69)

Neanderthal Men

2005-04-01T17:19:00.000+01:00

10cc - 10cc
10cc - The Dean and I
10cc - The Original Soundtrack
10cc - Blackmail
10cc - How Dare You!
10cc - Don't Hang Up
Godley & Creme
Godley & Creme - Wedding Bells

Now we're really getting into some interesting territory with a genre not often investigated by music blogs - Dad Rock! Yes, it's the four lovable art rock scamps from Manchester, 10cc, and their wonderful brand of "We're so much cleverer than you! Nerr Nerr" pop.
Famously signed/discovered by Johnathan "kiddy fiddler" (can I say that? well I just did) King and subsequently name after the average amount of semen in a man's ejaculation. Graham Gouldman had been a songwriter for groups like the Hollies (the wonderful 'Bus Stop') and Herman's Hermits, Eric Stewart had been with Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders whilst Kevin Godley and Lol Creme would rather degoratorily be referred to as Britain's "Frank Zappa".
All of them are extremely talented multi-instrumentalists and this is immediately apparent in their complex arrangements and frequent changes in style and tempo mid-song. Both 'Don't Hang Up' and 'The Dean and I' show this in spades and as a result are in my top twenty favourite songs of all time.
The group's first four albums before Godley and Creme broke away are essential purchases with my personal favourite being their eponymous debut with its Jan and Dean/Shelley Fabares pastiche 'Johnny, Don't Do It', the hilarious infomerial 'Sand in My Face' and the song that the doo wop song, that my Dad thought was sang by a woman until he saw the band on TOTP so convincing was Lol's falsetto, 'Donna'. Past those four and you get into rather dodgy territory although there was still gold in them hills with great singles like 'Dreadlock Holiday' and 'Good Morning Judge'.
Of course, the band are best known for material off The Original Soundtrack such as 'I'm Not in Love', 'Life is a Minestrone'and the three part 'Une Nuit in Paris'. Godley and Creme also had a huge hit in 'Cry' thanks not only to its sheer wonderfulness but also one of the greatest and certainly one of the most innovative videos of all time that Michael Jackson ripped off for 'Black and White'. I didn't upload 'Cry' as I thought it may be overly familiar to some of you so instead you get the exquisite 'Wedding Bells'.
Godley and Creme as a duo are a strange entity with their debut 'Consequences' called one of the most overblown piles of prog rock bollocks upon the planet due to their utilising it as a vehicle for full use of their invention, the 'Gizmo'. Most of they're material has be reissued in twofers with Freeze Frame/Ismism a particularly good set.
Thanks Tuning for linking me, by the way, and adios for now, hombres. More post-prog next post hopefully.

Buy - 10cc - Good News: An Introduction to...

You're My Jailbait Bella Bambina

2005-03-30T19:11:00.000+01:00

Live at the Brattle Theatre
Evan Dando - Thirteen (Live)
Evan Dando - The Turnpike Down (Live)

Paul Hester Tribute
Crowded House - My Telly's Gone Bung

Wow it seems that my linkage is bringing in more sheep to my flock. Which would make me a shepherd - something that I'm more than comfortable with. I think the necessary beard and crook ensemble would suit me. Thanks Silence is a Rhythm Too and My Old Kentucky Blog - both upstanding members of the blog community.
On today's menu, we have two live delicacies from the ex-junkie drag queen of Indie, the lovely Evan Dando, both taken off his Aussie import live album, 'Live at the Brattle Theatre/Griffin Sunset EP'. The EP is a handful of acoustic country/folk covers with tips of the hat to Townes Van Vandt, John Prine and Tim Hardin. Despite its production sometimes making it sound like the man is singing in a large damp cave I enjoy it muchly and thus was disappointed to learn that I'd left it up at Uni. Damnation! The live album, on the other hand, has been a large influence on my musical learning curve despite its brevity. Let's just say that I'd never heard any Big Star or owned any Lemonheads albums before. 'Nuff said about that really.
I am rather tired after a heavy day of compiling an 27th Anniversary CD as a present for my parents and for some stupid reason decided that each track had to come from a different year that they'd been together. 1987 gave me a rather large headache and the whole reaching for CDs in far flung places strained my back. Ha! Hence, the shortnature of this post. I wish only to state that the Paul Hester post is my last word on the subject. I've said my piece and I'm sure there's a lot more people who can say more eloquent and insightful things than I about him. Oooh, I should add that you shoud all go and buy Woodface if you don't already own it and then put on 'Italian Plastic' in honour of a great songwriter (despite his disability of being a drummer).

Buy - Evan Dando - Live at the Brattle Theatre
Buy - Crowded House - Afterglow