Tuesday, September 10, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 256 Lambrettas - Beat Boys in The Jet Age
Not essential. Mods at the fag end f the Mod Revival in 1983. The songs were good and the ties and suits were sharp but onlt full on revivalists get very excited about this in 2024 surely.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,816 Son Volt - Trace
Before Wilco there was Son Volt. A purer Cosmic Country place.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 106 Personal Trainer - Still Willing
A Pessimist is Never Disappointed, (the first site listed on the Blogroll to the right hand side of this page), has been a go to place for me for many years, and continues to prove so.
This morning it's guided me to Personal Trainer a Dutch Inide band based in Amsterdam. Their latest album Still Willing is steadfast Indie product, just out on the ever reliable Bella Union label.
The record does feel like product rather than a record of artistic desiderum that' needs to be '. That doesn't make it any less commendable.It's very well put tigether nuanced producton every level.
The band are a good time septet. Pavement is the most obvious comparison point which will tell you all you need to know about its ramshackle, cute charm.
This kept me company between five and six this morning until my bath was ready to run. I'm grateful to it and will be back.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,851 knitting
knitting, Toronto's finest young guitar shape throwing Young Turks have just released their debut album. Some Kind Of Heaven. It's an excellent record and a bracing start to a Tuesday morning.
Grounded on a love of sinuous, twisting Eighties and Nineties guitar melody. Pixies, Sonic Youth. Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
There's something intriguing about this winding, gnarly sound. A flirt with pain. A hint of danger. Excess. kntting are young but know exactly to do with their needles. This is a daring start. I imagine they'd be ones to catch live.
Monday, September 9, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 257 Scott Walker - Climate Of Hunter
I love Scott Walker. But I found Climate Of Hunter hard work this morning. It's plagyed by that clinical 80s production and artful detachment that gets rather wearing after a few tracks.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,817 Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
Kurt Vile does a very similar thing on each succeeding record . Nowt wrong with that. The finest artists work on the premise of variation on a theme. Anyhow it certainly appeals to me. Guitar driven streams of consciousness meandering.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 107 Travis - LA Times
I always liked Travis. Essentially I think because lead singer Fran Healy was an introvert. That's how I see myself. You can sense it in his songwriting. He's an unusual one. In an industry of exteoverts and showboaters he and his band fly the flag for those that prefer to look within.
LA Times is their tenth album. It's not too different from their first three albums in texture and shape . The one they made their reputation on and established their craft. There's is a simple formula. Belle & Sebastian with the quirks ironed out and an eye on the charts,
The somgs are crafted and unfurl at their own assured pace. They're everyman anthems for the quiet thinker in front of the stage. The album is as good as their early recirds but will get less attention because that's the way the Pop World is. It's off elsehwere in search of the new.
But Healy and his bandmates Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne and Neil Primeose are skilled artisans. I've been appreciating it a lot over the past few days and thinking about where I've been in the trwenty five years since The Man Who came out.
It was 1999 and I was off to Catania, Italy. It was a wonderful year in my life and I listened to The Man Who a lot while I was there. Teaching in a Language School. Living with Sicilian students. Writing my crap, unneeded novel.
I've recently rediscovered it and I'm preparing myself to head back to Catania at the end of September where I'll celbrate my 59th birthday and hook up with old friends again. I imagine I'll listen to LA Times while I'm there. Like The Man Who it strikes me as a grower. It's worth staying with. One of its closing tracks Naked In New York goes straight into their canon. There's plenty else here for anyone else who has ever cared for the band.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,850 Okay Kaya
Another week. Another journey. This one starts with Okay Kaya. Her fourth album has what Oh My God - That's So Me has much to recommend it. A cool step in its stride.
Saying rhat, the Bio on Spotify doesn't really do the artist favours particularly. Apparently she's 'an artist at the peak of ambivalent lyrical mastery.' You mean the words are good. Well they are actually but deserve better than this.
What I was reinded of mostly while the record unfolded was Weyes Blood. Oh My God - That's So Me has some of the wistful nostalgia for an age you may not have lived but still yearn for. This is a rather lovely, beguiling record.
Sunday, September 8, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 257 Van Morrison - Common One
Virtually every Van Morrison album has something goin for it. And that something is usually Van. This is mud period Van. His great work was probably mostly behind him. But he's Van Morrison so had plenty of interest in the bank.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,818 The Offspring - Americana
The Offspring frankly are pretty hard work 35 years on. I found them pretty hard work first time round. I iagined they used the term Punk to describe themselves. But they sounded like Grunge for the masses. In dreadlocks, beach shorts and tatoos. With irritating ska thythms chucked into the mix in case you weren't irritated enough aready.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 108 Astrid Sonne - Great Doubt
Astrid Sonne is a Danish composer and viola player currently living in London. Her latest record Great Doubt has a cover shot of her face. She has a nice smile and is wearing a plain gold earring.
The album is avant gard and probably won't be heard by many people. The kind who might listen and persevere will probably be prone to this kind of stuff already and more than likely have some Laurie Anderson, Yoko One and Post Punk records from back in the day when it was genuinely Post Punk.
I found this a cool lesson sat listening in the dining room of my parents house. As my dear mother cooked us all a lovely meal.I thought it was great. The meal and the record. As I listened later on in the evening, weirder and more wonderful still. My current favourite off the wall Danish viola player.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,849 Beeef
What's your Beef? Nice of you to ask. Well actually at the moment my beef us Beeef Allston, MA's finest. Their new album is an uncomplocated Indie breeze.
It made me think of Jonathan Richman's masterpiece Roadrunner. Out on the modern highway with the radio on. Guitars ringing like bells.
Not reinventing.wheels. But wheels work fine after all. Think Real Estate,Think La's. A straight talking Pavement. Mighty fine.
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,818 Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II
Delightfully quirky and deteminedly eccentruc modern art pop dreaming.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 258 Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now
Strange kismet, I'm preparing myself to go to Teddington for a school reunion today.Seeing people who I haven't seen for over forty years. Back to the future. Psychedelic Furs oddly hailed from Teddungton themselves. A still idlyllic suburb on the commuter belt. South West London.
Forever Now, and that's a great album title and great way of approaching life if you can take was the Furs third album came out in 1982, the year I left my secondary school and moved to college and off into life. As you must if you have any sense.
It's a good Art Pop album. The Furs were un transition at this point themselves. From Cult trendies towards the American market. MTV and the open road. This is a fine set of songs. Velvet Underground for the masses. Good lyrics. Bowie moves. Bowie always casts a shadow on Richard Butler. He cast a shadow on plenty. Lots of echoes of Beatles twisted lyrics too.The lyrics and sentiments stand up.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 109 Rose Hotel - Pawn Surrender
Sometimes it's a good idea to just follow a thread. This is the third Song Of The Day in a row from a list that Darren Jones sent me a few days back. I've come to trust his judgement and tastes. Here's another record worth cupping an ear to..
Rose Hotel is an Atlanta, Georgia based songer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jodran Reynolds and a Pawn Surrender is her latest record. It's a warm immersive, emotive album that encourages surrender. I listened to it initially in a state of distraction trying to read something else. Eventually I found it demanded my full attention.
This is familiar territory musically. But sometimes we seek the familiar. Rose Hotel is not a million mles from artists like Pearl Stone, Rosali and Liz Phair. this is a recommendation rather than a criticism. A warm, emotive recotd that presses for a greater sacrifice than a pawn surrender.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,848 Nale Sinephro
A good way to start what could prove an interesting day. Nale Sinephro's Endlessness. A cool looking lady with an afro. A set of musical tracks of inspired Modern Jazz freeform meanderings. Not a bad way to start any day frankly.
Not the kind of thing I listened to when I was twelve. In a while I'll get dressed and prepare to head for South West London where I'm going to attend a school reunion later, But things change. Memory and dealing with it inevitably stirs up a whole nest of memories and emotions and you couldn't choose a better record to set you in a restful frame of mind for the journey.
The Coletranes John and Alice are the two guiding touchstones that apply most immediately here. This is inspired and one to return to. Plonk the virtual needle down anywhere on thus meandering but at once highly structured spiritual wandering and you'll find yourself carried away.
Friday, September 6, 2024
Songs About People # 1,408 Rip Torn
May or may not be about the superlative actor. But it's a superlative song from the superlative new M J Lenderman record and holds the ground for me until I get round to writing about that in a while.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 259 Hunters & Collectors - Human Frailty
Somewhere between the Austalian Talking Heads and Nits. This is a remarkable, engaged and questing album/
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,819 Tom Waits - Heartattack & Vine
I've been thinking about the past a lot this week with one thing and another. I won't bother you wuth a blow by blow account. I'm sure you've got stuff to do today. In the words of the late, great and sorely lamented Grant McLennan. 'If you spend your time looking behind you. You don't see what's up front. '
Well, quite. But still what's the point of doing things if you're not going to look back and think about them once in a while. The finest musical week of my entire life, and I suspect we can put a wrap on that one, was in Autumn 1985 during my first term at university.
I came to see Tom Waits and R.E.M. playing at great London venues at a point when it was possible to see superlative music artistes like these without too much actual expense or some kind of media scrum.
Both Tom and R.E.M. were pretty much in their pomp and both were among the finest artists that the twentieth century produced for reasons I won't bother to justify at any length here.
There were definite comparisons between the two. Both were touring in upport of fine albums that ruminated deeply on the past andwondered if they were altogether over. Rain Digs in Tom's case. Fables of the Reconstruction in R.E.M's. I'm happy just to exist within the pages of these two fantsatic records but both had plenty more to offer.
I knew all of R.E.M's recorded work better than I knew most of the people I knew at this pont. I was an ingenue where Tom was concerned. I knew Swordfishtrombones and I knew Rain Dogs. The rest has come since. You might as well start with Heartattack & Vine. The man is the finest storyteller. If you have any instincts to tell a story properly, study at his knee first.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 110 Snowy Band - Age Difference
If in doubt on It Starts, turn to Starbuck. AKA Darren Jones, first mate to this blog and faithful guide. To steer us into calmer waters from the eye of the storm. Into port for the weekend, Another excellent tip.
This morning. The Snowy Band. Not the most inspiring band name perhaps. But persevere. Because the record itself, their latest album Age Difference, is a still a gem of the most valuable kind and no mistake.
A Melbourne band. I'm always pleased to tumble across another one of those. In the words of a review I tracked down ' each song ambles through big themes like religiosity , existentialism, fear of regret, time and love.'
This is dappled, nuanced stuff. Textured. Like meeting a whole new set of people one evening from the other side of the world and realising you might have known them your whole life. You have so much in common. Thanks Darren. Another pearl.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,847 Boston Manor
A parlour game for the likes of me who concern myself with things lke this. Take a new release at random iff the album of new releases. Take a look at a photo of a band you're not familiar with. Tr to anticipate what they'll sound like. Listen to the record to see whether you're right. Well it keeps me happy. It beats trainspotting,
So today Boston Manor and their new album Sundiver. My thoughts. They're from Boston. Emo and metal I thought. Stageloghts. Stagediving. I wasn;t far wrong. It was OK. But not for me. Generic Too shouty. I felt. A few songs were enough. I've got lessons this morning. What else have I got?
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Duster - In Dreams
Duster seem to be becoming a bigger and bigger splash in the alternative lake. A quiet, and atmospheric trio from San Jose, California that have been fairly consistent regulars since the band formed in 1996.
They have an album Stratosphere that achieved fairly solid cult status which I would expect to grow in the coming decades. They reformed a few years ago and are now released a new album In Dreams which I expect will only serve to consolidate their standing.
Dreams is the apposite word here. Each song sounds like a dream of a different colour. There is range, mystery and depth that indicates it's an album that has staying power and will nag at you and encourage you to come back and try to work out what it is about the thing that makes you want to return to it. Like many of the best records. A question mark hangs.I've got a good feeling about this. I'll give it nine.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 260 Terrence Trent D'Arby - Introducing the Hardline According To Terrence Trent D'Arby
Today I've spent a few hours in a time machine. First an early morning trip to the late Nineties with the Beta Band. And now, after an online lesson, and doing some shopping for my mother I'm having an out of body experience with Introducing the Hardline According To Terrence Trent D'Arby. Or Sananda Maitreya as Terrence prefers to be called these days.
This is a true Back to the Future experience for the likes of me. Introducing the Hardline was the true frontline rank of cool in my first year at university. Terrence had the look, the moves, the talent and the songs. Nobody has any right to the talent and songs that man had.
I bought the NME religiously and was not averse to sneaking a look at my honey's copy of The Face when she wasn't looking. I did buy the album as both of these publications practically ordered me to. The music wasn't really my thing at that point in time. Literate boys with Rickenbackers. Or Fender Telecasters, was more to my liking then. But I was learning, and fast.
The others I hung out with in my accomodation block at Fifer's Lane had no such reservations. They had the look; the polo neck sweaters, the Denim 501s, the regulation Doctor Martins. Scott Crilla cords too if you will, according to something I heard from a very good friend from those days earlier on today.
I thought they were a bunch of fashion victims frankly although I loved them all at first sight and we had a wonderful time for three terms before I decided what I really wanted was my honey and practically moved in with her early on in the second year. That's not the whole story I'm afraid to say. But it's all you're getting here. It's my story so I have every write to tell it my way.
But listening today, almost forty years on Introducing the Hardline is clearly as cool as it gets and doesn't age a day even if the rest of us do. If The Picture of Dorian Grey were an album, this might as well be it. It's absolute state of the art Soul Pop panache and bravado of the highest order. 'Sign a Name Across My Heart. I want you to be my baby...'
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,820 The Beta Band - The Three EPs
Yes. What a special treat to take me from nine to ten , The Beta Band and their first three EP's were a wonderful gift in the late Nineties when they came along. Utterly from the blue. Rare moments of utterly inspired Magpie pick and mix genuis.Std Barrett and John Lennon would have loved this. John Cale did. That man knows a good thing when he sees it. Noel Gallagher. Put down your guirar and prostrate yourself before the genuis of the Beta Band.You truly are not worthy. I could write more. Much more. But I have lessons to plan.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 111 The Drin - Elude The Touch
The dark streets of Cincinnati, Ohio spawn an unholy monstrous noise. Jesus & Mary Chain meet early Pere Ubu in a messy bar in the midnight hour.
Latest album Elude The Touch stakes an instant claim for Outsider Boho Classic status. Dylan McCartney formerly of Mardou has been around the block a few times and he's earned his stripes in shades and leathers.Feater boas/
This is a record which buzzes hums and drones the nonconformist gospels. A fantastic counterculture scripture .that I'll namedrop again as the days grow shorter in my rundown for 2024.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,846 Seefeel
Seefeel are a name that I associate with Melody Maker and the late Eighties and early Nineties. I used to buy NME and Melody Maker most weeks. Even though I would consider myself promarily and NME reader, it's the writing of the Melody Maker writers that I remember most from this period.
They were more ambitious than the NME witers for the most part. Post Structuralists and prone to pretention, but also funny and with quirkt raaste. They ficused largely on bands like Seefeel who were never going to bother the charts as they were essentially ambient in nature but made interesting records.
Seefeel have come back together and put out an interesting six track EP called Everythung Squared. I don't suppose that it will trouble the charts either, I imagine that thought never enters the heads of Seefeel members. Good for them. There are more important things than being in the charts. I very much enjoyed listening to it this morning. It set me up well for the day.
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 261 Eric B & Rakim -Paid In Full
Full on razor sharp early Hip Hop classic. The edge doesn't dull.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,821 David Bowie - Heathen
There's actually something rather marvellous about this, though I've never listened to this before. This man was David Bowie. Who are you?
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 112 Winter McQuinn - Move To The Trees
'A shady lane. Everybody wants one.'
Do you want a shady lane? Everybody wants one.The shadiest and most alluring lane I can direct you towards right now is Move To The Trees the latest album by Winter McQunn.
Winter McQuinn ? No me neither. But it's just the kind of nom de guerre you want for a record like this. With a sleeve like the one it has. With an animated image of Mr McQuinn in an autumn sweater. Crouched under a blanket. A cat on keyboards and a guitar with hands.
Just what the doctor ordered. Another stellar artist from Melbourne, Australia. Another wonderful album to soundtrack your Friday breakfast.
McQuinn has a track record. Formerly in Sunfruits and Jade Imagine. He keeps things simple. These are songs awash with birdsing and dappled sunlight.
The record itself. Midway between a slightly happier Elliott and some early Seventies troubadour. Take your pick Move To The Trees sprouts peaches. A lovely record.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,845 Trystwch Y Fenywod
What better record to listen to as the days shorten and shadows lengthen than a witchy Welsh folk reocrd from gowned sirens in long dresses.
Trystwch Y Fenywod's eponymous debut. In a Gweeno vein. Morgan Le Fay's spectre. Trystwch Y Fenywod have a deft touch and an intrinsic feel for this stuff. Shall we take a trip?
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 262 The Jesus & Mary Chain - Automatic
I'm quite taken by Jesus & Mary Chain at the moment. Their latest record surprised me. It was surprisingly great. They have meoirs out which look interesting. They're playing near me later in the year. Might go along.
Automatic is an ironic, double edged title I guess. Conveyor belt. ff hey go. Off down the road. 'Wheels rolling back to what I know.' Consumate songwriters.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 114 Las Nubes - Tormentas Malsanas
My new favoyrute band part blah, blah, blah. Miami, Florida crackers Las Nubes and their latest Tormentas Malsanas are here to Rock Your World !
Comung on like the Hispanic Deals on acid, Las Mubes frontline Ale Campos and Cuci Amador throw fabulous Rock shapes from starting gun to finishing tape here. It;s divertida para toda la familia.
Breeders at their best is the most immediate comparison point uf Kim and Kelley hd been born al sur de la frontera. Caramba! This is some joyous alternative rock noise.
There's something thrillingly affurmatuve about what's on show here. It's a riotous feast and no mistake. It might remind you of others but theirs is the name to make sure you remember. Recuerda que lo esuchaste aqui. .
Song(s) of the Day # 3,844 GospelBeach
Gentle easy going Californian guitar music that harks back to The Beach Boys and The Byrds and Power Pop on a golden album called Wiggle Your Fingers.
This is preducated on the notion of an eternal Californian summer. Mullholland Drive. It's not the best record of this sort ever made. That's Pet Sounds surely. But it's cool.
Driving down the highway with the wind pinning back your hair. Listening to The Doors or The Byrds. Wearing shades. Heading to the beach.
The singer sounds like Tom Petty. These guys have a Beechwood Sparks connection. Put your shades on. Head to the beach.
Monday, September 2, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 263 The Blue Nile - A Walk Across The Rooftops
Blue Nile made a mark on a number of the best friends I made during my first year at university. They weren't the guys that lived in my corridor who were my first port of call for excited discussions about the music we were currently listening to. But occasionally I would bump into Clare and Paul who housed in other blocks and they would often be babbling excitedy about Blue Nile.
I wasn't ever completel slain by the band personally. There's an air of slightly cold austerity, almost hauteur about the music that they make that never completely won me over and still doesn't. That doesn't mean I have anything but the greatest respect for what they do. Their albums and singles were some of the defining records of the Eighties.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 115 Rasco - Dmaot
'Sun sea and surf rock converge with dreamy hypnagogic pop on 'Dmaot' the enchanting sophomore album by the guitar wielding vocal harmonising trio Rasco.'
Increasingly I find, steering this blog, that it's sometimes best to let band written Spotify biogs do the hard graft for you. Rasco hail from Jerusalem, hardly the most tranquil spot in the world right now, but you wouldn't know it from a cursory exposure to Dmaot. Frankly this is a record that sounds as if it was made in The Garden of Eden.
Truly lovely harmonising of the sort which first became prominent from '65 to '67. Inspired chord changes and an appreciation of soft focus interrogations of the loving qualities of Leftfield Pop Music. Another excellent find pushed by way by Darren Jones. Cheers Darren. Enchantment.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,843 Laurie Anderson
Pop and Rock music can and does aspire to the status of high art. This is not a high faluting, pretentious or nonsensical statement. The artist and musicians that I celebrate most highly on It Starts wish most to make that kind of splash. To be 'not just another drop in the ocean.'
Laurie Anderson almost had a Number One single in the UK with Oh Superman in 1981. A seven minute single so deeply unusual, prescient, unsettling and frankly moving that people are still talking about it and what it felt like coming out of daytime radio sandwiched between Spandau Ballet and Adam & The Ants.
Forty years and mire on her latest album Amelia is a celebration of a bygone age and a phenomenal bygone achievement that still inspires . Amelia Earhart's flighted circummavigation of the world in 1937. It's a serene and rather beautiful 35 minute ride.
Captivating. Sublie. As with Oh Superman, Anderson's assured authoritative voice pilots the experience. You are passing the equator. Bobbing up and down in air streams. Surrender to the experience. June 8th Dakar. A wonderful start to my week. You can't beat artistic vision.
Sunday, September 1, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 264 Malcolm McLaren - Duck Rock
There's something quite seedy and offputting about Malcolm McLaren. When I saw Nick Kent give a talk about him the day he died, he descibed Malcolm as a pimp. Not without reason. Nevertheless, there's something wonderful about this album.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,823 Paul Simon - The Rhythm of the Saints
It's Paul Simon. So to my mind it's wonderful. You get an hour here Lucky world.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 116 Girls In Synthesis - Sublimation
I was going to see Girls In Synthesis on Friday Night. Playing in Zerox with No Teeth on Newcastle Quayside. I decided against it. I'd been out the previous night at Lubber Fiend discovering a whole new world. Lifestyle, life and economuc decisions. You can't go to them all. You have to leave some things to the young.
So instead I'm listening to their latest album Sublimation on a Monday morning. As I prepare for the working day. I'm fortunate in that it doesn't feel like work and I'm looking forward to my lessons. I like what I do.And Sublimation makes a good soundtrack as I make my way towards 9.15.
It has a sheer cliff pictured in black and white on the album cover. It reminds me of how and why I devoured The Outsider and Nausea when I was 18. Why I was so ready for Crocodiles and Unknown Pleasures when I got there. Slightly after the actual event of their actual release.
This is a familiar record. It reminds me of all that edgy music that was around when I was a teenager. The Cure particularly. The Cure were great. 'Running towards nothing. Again and again....' Girls In Synthesis are a London based trio who have a similar itch they seem unable to scratch, 'Help ! I think I might be an existentialist....'
This is fed by the irritation and unease that being brought out in England still seem to bring out. Perhaps it's nothing to do with being English. Perhaps its an age thing. Or a mindset thing . In any case I'm slightly regretful that I didn't get to see them on Friday But I'm happy to have got to know them just now. 'Into the Trees...'
Song(s) of the Day # 3,842 Emumclaw
Yeah Emumclaw. Emumclaw Rock !You probably have heard it elsewhere but if you haven't sit up and pay attention, Emumclaw are here to save Rock & Roll and not a moment too soon.
Of course I'm overstating the case. There are no end of absolutely terrific Rock & Roll bands around. Everywhere. But still. In a week when we are being told that Oasis are reforming for a mammoth cash in on their vastly overstated legacy it feels a relief on a Saturday afternoon to be listening to Emuclaw's Home In Another Life.
The record was in my Top Twenty album for the year with twenty munutes. Let me count the ways I love Emumclaw . The lead singer has that J Mascis 'I'm a snotty brat but kinda loveable' snarl. The band have clearly been reared on Sonic Youth records. Nothing wrong with that. In fact it should be prescribed.They also have that Replacements thing. The 'I drink far more than is probably good for me. But It's sometimes just fun' sctick. They have a track called I'm Scared I'll End Up Alone and another called I Still Feel Bad about Masturbation. That will all more than do.
Emenclaw is a city in Washington State. But I'm never going to go there. Now it's just a band I want to listen to. Why not listen to this. You might concur. They're bloody great,
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