101 Essential Rock Records # 27 The Jimi Hendrix Exprience - Are You Experienced?

 

'inestimable importance. A key pivot...'

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,641 Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - One Side Fits All

 

Roy Ayers 1940=2025

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 78 New Order - Low Life

 

It must have been critically difficult for the guys in New Order. Their friend and the band leader had killed himself. They needed to find themselves a new language, new visions. they did so. The sound of New Order was sometimes rather austere. But that was a strength as well as a limitation.

Low-Life has a picture of the drummer on the front cover . A picture of the other members of the band elsewhere. Cool black and white. Art. The lyrics are awkward. The vocals uncertain. But there are some great tunes here. Some great spirit. Like a troop of ragged soldiers, regrouping about the banner around their fallen captain's body,  

Song(s) of the Day # 4,024 Edith Frost

 

'Whats there with the man on the train. Who stands there with the hands in his pockets. And won't even hold on to the rail.'

Ecith Frost's latest album In Space strikes me as the kind of thing which David Lynch might have endorsed. It's a warm, strange record which I appreciated greatly when I played it on my TV set yesterday  at the end of a long and slightly frustrating day, struggling with the vagaries of Internet Banking. Trust me. You don't need to know anything else about that particular skirmish.

Never mind about that though because I was charmed by the magical spell  woven here in forty minutes. The great love affairs are often about mystery and wonder.  In Space seemed intuitively aware of this approach and poetry,

Texas born Frost According to Uncut Magazine is ' a cult country chanteuse.' . This was right down my cul de sac before I even started listening to the record. By the end I was magnetised. Fabelhaft !!!!

  

Orange Juice

 

101 Essential Rock Records # 26 Grateful Dead - Grateful Dead

 

Fast, loud and rooted in as many conventions as it breaks

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,642 Father John Misty - Fear Fun

 

More calming vibes from Father John Misty. The Post Modern Elton John. But taller. With a beard.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 79 Spacemen Three - Playing With Fire

 

'Spacemen Three were disintegrating. Constructed at arm's length. It sounds like a unified sci fi drone pop vision.'

Song(s) of the Day # 4,023 Martha & The Muffins

 

                                                 'Echo beach. Far away in time...'

Memories, What's the best thing to do with them? Learn from them I'd say. Go forward with them, Not let them hurt you. Cripple you. Define you. Life's not easy. Did you expect it to be. Look at the world. Some of the most powerful people in the world right now strike me as some of the unhappiest, the most conflicted and most troubled people I can think of. Why take it out on the rest of us. You bastards !!!

There's no easy cure to the problems of life. I wish there were..Never trust people who think they have the answers.Just live.  Get on with it. Try to enjoy it. There's plenty to enjoy. Perhaps you're not looking in the right places. 'Make a cup of tea. Put a record on.'

A few months ago I went to a school reunion meal. In Teddington where I grew up. I met some fantastic people. Some of whom I hadn't seen for over forty years. I've got to know a couple of them better since. We exchange texts about our lives. Exchange ideas. A good way of using the past. I'm planning more reunions of different kinds as I approach sixty later this year, It feels like a good way to occupy myself. 

On the way to the reunion I explored the streets where I'd been a teenager. Teddington is still lovely. A garden suburb. Serene and still. Bushy Park.Teddington Lock. I went to have a look at the house where I lived. A building which has so many fundamental memories for me. Happy and sad. Some traumatic actually. It's not difficult for me to go there now. It's great.

I went to the library. Libraries are important places. Libraries gave and give us power. It hadn't changed. As one of the people who I met up with again that evening said 'It still smells the same.' I'm not sure I can verify that. I think years of smoking have dulled my sense of smell. But I know what she meant. Just going in there again  was a Proustian moment. Going back somewhere is always full of Proustian moments. That's what I like about going back. It helps reconnect me with who I am. 

I crossed the road from the library and went to look for the independent book shop. Near to the church. And the cornershop that was always open on Sundays. Where I went sometimes to get provisions for myself and my parents. There weren't many shops open on Sundays. There are more now. Is that an improvement. I'm not sure. Not because I'm particularly religious I hasten to add. But do things need to be open all the time? This isn't America. It's not as if going with that approach has done them much good anyway.  

The independent book shop wasn't there anymore of course. Waterstone's has swept all before it in the last couple of decades. There's a very nice Waterstone's in Teddington High Street now. Armchairs to sit in and read books. But where the independent  bookshop used to be, where I bought Birdsong and Fatherland, In that space there's an Independent Record Shop now. Roan Records. In the same building. Of course. Vinyl is making its great comeback. Vinyl is best..I'm determined on that. Make your case for MP3s if you wish. I won't be convinced. Vinyl's the thing. It was one of the reasons I started writing this blog.Why I still write it twelve years on. 

I went inside Roan Records and had a chat with the young guy behind the counter. He came to work at the shop from further out in the suburbs. Virginia Waters. Something like that. I always have a slight dread of some of those satelite town names I confess. Godalming. Guildford. Surbiton. A chill of horror goes down my spine. Or up it. Whichever you prefer. Up and down if you like !!! I have a slight fear of the provincial. Still. I like to live in cities though I've gone off London, I'm glad I grew up in Richmond and Teddington though. Close enough to the action. Even though I didn't always take full advantage of it when I was young. 

I looked for a record to buy, I like to buy records as an investment in memory. To think about what I was doing and what I was going through when I bought them. Experiences pour from the grooves when I listen to them again.In Roan Records that late summer afternoon, not very long ago,  I found the ideal record. 

Sometimes records just jump out of the racks at you while you're browsing and an acquisition is inevitable. You feel like you have no choice. Any committed record buyer will understand what I'm talking about. No act of purchase means as much to me. Some buy property. Some clothes. Some food. I am first and foremost a buyer of records. Someone who haunts record shops. With other sad blokes!

The album I bought was Metro Music the first album from Canadian One Hit Wonders Martha & The Muffins.  Fairly cheap I'm sure. Less than a tenner. That's another factor in memorable record purchases. You feel like you're committing a crime. Jean Genet and Patti Smith would understand. And approve.

It made sense for me to buy this record in Teddington. It reminded me of a girl I'd met, who lived there not far from me when I was at College in Twickenham when I was 17. I went on a trip to the former Soviet Union in September 1983. She did too. We sat in a large ballroom in a Trade Union hotel in Moscow with others. Drinking more vodka and orange than was strictly good for us. While a bad band played bad sets which inevitably climaxed with bad versions of The Birdie Song. There's no such thing as a good version of The Birdie Song. I knew at the time that she was interested in me but nothing really happened. You don't get a clear breakdown of details here I'm afraid.  No incriminating details. That's between me and her. Far away in time. 

She liked this record and was quite right to. It's a great album best known for its Top Ten single. Echo Beach. 'My job is very boring. I'm an office clerk.' Pronounced 'Clurk... ; Many of us have boring jobs but live exciting inner lives. Echo Beach is a song about escape from mundanity.  A song about memory. A wonderful riff and emotion.

But there's plenty more about Metro Music to recommend it. Not least its cover. It's a picture of an old style city map. Remember those? Before your smartphone got attached to your wrist. We managed OK.  We were completely fine. Trust me.

Metro Music is a record about youth and vitality and trying not to lose either. It's of its age. New Wave and the end of the Seventies and the beginning of the Eighties. An age of paranoia and suspicion. But also great music, The Cold War. 

We have a new war brewing it seems. A new age of paranoia and suspicion. But it won't be like the old wars..In some ways it feels like it's started already. Turn on the news if you don't believe me.  There are wars already . Everywhere.  Anger. Confusion.  Building up to one great inferno.  But it's a new inferno. It looks like this will be a strange one. Blow hot and cold. Now those guys seem to have decided they're on the same side and plan to go to war together against the rest of us. Like I said. Bastards . Make no mistake. Criminals.

That's not strictly a new. approach. War is always a crime against humanity. Look at Hitler and Stalin V Warsaw in 1945? Look at virtually any war. I would list them. But this is primarily intended as a post about Martha & The Muffins. Not war. I come in peace.

If you do want to know more though there are plenty of places to look. Plenty of witnesses to ask.  Ask Berthold Brecht. Ask bloody Bono if you have to. How long. How long will we sing this song ?. Try again Bono. Try to sing in tune this time ! Bono's not a criminal. Let's be fair. Just a criminally bad singer. Anyhow. I diagnose Metro Music as the first part of the cure for all this.   Put it on. Dance around your living room. 'Enjoy Yourself. It's later than you think'. Oh no! That was someone else.     

101 Essential Rock Records # 25 The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico

 

                                                    'The godparents of punk and alternative rock.'

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,643 Charles Mingus - Let My Children Hear Music

 

There are worse things to do if you have an hour to kill than put your headphones on, sit at your desk and listen to a Charlie Mingus album. Pretty much any album.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 80 The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms

 

'on Crazy Rhythms The Feelies perfected underground nerd indue before it was 'a thing'. The band with perpetual nervousness.' ,

Song(s) of the Day # 4,022 Nyron Higor

 

A Brazilian musician with a cool afro and moustache.Nyron Higor is a multi instramentalist, composer and singer, born in Maceio, Alagoas. A samba inflected album of mood pieces. A nice start to the day. A record that makes you feel like you're drifting on a pool in shades. 

This eponymous debut focus on posiivity and soul. Birds are tweeting on several tracks, the sound of the Amazon. The occasional harmonising of singing voices. Music as escape release and harmony.  

Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 38 Philles Records

 

If you love glorious pop music that reflects an era and believe its best served within a backdrop of melodrama, exuberance, energy and great songs, then Philles records has to be the textbook record label.

101 Essential Rock Records # 24 Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow

 

'I think Surrealistic Pillow is real good. It had a vibe. That's the one that does it for me.' Neil Young

My current reading matter, (Shakey, the definitive biography of Neil Young), has me thinking of San Francisco, Haight Ashbury and 1967 at the minute. Yesterday I reviewed the wonderful, eponymous Moby Grape album and today I've moved on to Surrealistic Pillow perhaps the definitive West Coast document for that Summer of Love LSD moment.

It still stands up, far and away the best thing these players produced throughout their long careers. Very much of its time, yet still a rewarding, educational and soothing listen over half a century on. By terms calming, touching and inspiring, a reminder of a time when the counter culture very clearly actually existed and it was about much, much more than just the music.

Perhaps all of that idealism was slightly misplaced. With hindsight we can see the pile up of bodies, drugs casualties, stalled revolutions, and explosive violence of the months and years that followed. The comedown. Surrealistic Pillow imagines a quite different succession of events where the garden is sustained and flourishes.

It puts forward a proposition of an alternative lifestyle to the one offered by 'The Man' and Nine to Five, but it's by no means a naive record. Airplane's second album, their first had sold modestly and they'd since replaced their lead singer Signe Anderson and brought in a new drummer. The arrival of Grace Slick and particularly the two songs she bought with her from her previous band, The Great Society, made all the difference.

Those two songs stand apart and in some ways they're not typical of the record, though when they arrive they don't jar either. Really, they're both about full on unrestrained attack and the rest of the record is considerable more quirky and eccentric than that. 

On Somebody To Love and White Rabbit, Slick is allowed off the leash to devastating and highly commercial effect, but elsewhere she's mediated by the much gentler tones of Marty Balin and Paul Kantner to produce a three pronged attack that's really fundamental to why this album is still so listenable, even now that many of its sentiments seem as distant as The Flood.

There are eleven songs here, and although their moods and structures are vastly diverse, they all convey a similar assured intent. Slick, Balin and Kanter are augmented by Jorma Kaukonen's acidic, almost oriental guitar psychedelics and a driving ryhthm section, (drummer Spencer Dryden is crucial), that underpins matters throughout.

In many ways this comes across as Coffee House Punk. It certainly calls for a revolution in terms of thinking at least. 'Feed your head' indeed. But if Somebody To Love and White Rabbit take no prisoners, elsewhere proceedings are more concessionary and obscure. There are a number of genuine love songs here and The Airplane come across as willing to compromise and accept constraint. So you get You're My Best Friend,  Today  and Comin' Back To Me, which have as much in common with Simon & Garfunkel and Mamas & Papas as they do with Jimi Hendrix or The Who.These are altogether quite lovely songs, full of utopian fuelled energy.

But the band are always capable of putting their foot on the pedal too. 3/5 of a Mile in 20 Seconds has plenty of the fervent raga of the time, the same kind of messianic fire that powered So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star and Mr. Soul, a reminder that there was a wicked war raging in Vietnam all along and that it made the Love and Peace contingency righteously angry and rightly so.

Both exotic and approachable, Surrealistic Pillow meanders along its course to beautiful effect. A wonderfully well named record and one that sums up a time, place and attitude as well as any I can think of. A deserved commercial success, it stayed in the US Charts for over a year. Many probably bought it on the back of the hit singles and found much else going on besides.This still holds as a statement, even though those times are long gone.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,644 Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions

 

This feels like an important record to me. Not in the same way as Astral Weeks, Forever Changes or What's Going On perhaps but in its smaller way it's a ground-breaking and pioneering album. They weren't completely alone. Galaxie 500, in their slightly more leftfield manner, were slowing down independent music at the same time giving it space and blazing their own quiet trail, I'd never heard anything quite like this when it came out in 1989. It had been recorded a year and a half or so before in Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity on 27th November 1987 on a two-track recording with the band huddled around a single mic. It's a beautiful, breathy and intimate record

 

 

It's altogether a gentle document. Cowboy Junkies, neither cowboys nor junkies to the best of my knowledge, had an innate understanding of the music they were steeped in. The record consisted of five covers and five band originals. The music does sound drugged to the extent that everything is slowed to a waltz and unwinds at almost funereal pace. There's much talk about loss, loneliness and despair, but there's such warmth, love and devotion in the way they get their songs across that it's a consistently uplifting experience to listen to it.

 

  

The fact that the band are Canadians is no accident in terms of how the record sounds. There are echoes of Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and The Band in the way that their perspective on the American traditions they draw on is somehow always that of outsiders. The fact that three of their members are siblings, Margo, Michael and Peter Timmins also infuses it with an easy glow of  warm familiarity.

 

It's played on traditional instruments. There's harmonica, mandolin, fiddle, bottleneck slide guitar and accordion in addition to guitar, drums and bass. Margo Timmin's voice is a key instrument in itself, she's sensitive to the traditions they're drawing on, rooted in Country, Blues, Folk and Jazz. The record is not quite any of those things, it edges towards Rock music but it's not quite the Rock and Roll that you're used to. It shares many of the hallmarks of what came to be called Americana in time, but that genre barely existed at that point in time. You can hear echoes of the record in hundreds of records that have come out since though I'd be surprised if many of the musicians on them would openly cite Cowboy Junkies as a prime inspiration. They were a band mainly involved in an act of restoration which went against the grain of much of the music being made in the Eighties and deserve kudos for it.

 

 

The band originals slot in seamlessly with the much more famous covers they sit amongst. They cover Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Lou Reed and Patsy Cline classics but they're no faithful retreads. Each song is reinvented. They slow the songs down to their own speed and make them their own. There's a sense that they're embarked on a long, arduous journey but are sure that they will reach their destination.

 

The record is soaked in melancholy but the determined performance, melodic confidence and loving texture each track is wrapped in ensure it's not a particularly depressing or dirge like one. As I said, it's primarily an act of restoration. Lou Reed was delighted in their version of Loaded's, Sweet Jane, particularly as they recorded the ' heavenly wine and roses' verse that he had so resented being omitted from that record in the first place. He declared it his favourite version of the song. During this verse the album really takes flight and it's perhaps the finest moment on a very fine album.

 

 

But really, it's a finely judged record from start to finish. It's intimate and there's a loving feel to the arrangements as if it matters greatly to the band that they get it right. It's to their credit that they do because they're involved in  a fine balancing act. They're in the business of casting a spell, the easiest thing of all to break if they took a wrong step. It would be easy for the songs to topple over into maudlin introspection or muso jamming. The band have sufficient new wave sensibility, and yes I do think some of this is there, to ensure each song doesn't outstay its welcome. Some songs make it to the five minute mark but none overruns to six and I think somehow this is key. No one song is allowed to become more important than any other. So it remains a whole. A unified statement. 

 

 

It must be clear by this point that I'm wholly in favour of the record and am stretching sinews in the  lazy manner it encourages to make its case. I was feeling slightly fraught when I started to write this about an hour ago and its songs have eased me towards a restful state. Perhaps this gin and tonic is helping too. But there's a slow, languid grace that still draws me in and helps me appreciate it twenty five years on from when I first bought and listened to it.

 

 It wasn't typical of the records I bought at the time which were generally more upbeat and played at a considerably more urgent pace. I haven't slid particularly towards Americana and the albums and bands that picked up its cue in the preceding decades though I appreciate them. This record is still something of a one off in my collection. I took the next Cowboy Junkies record, The Caution Horses back to the shop after a couple of plays the following year although I regret that moment.

 

 

The band helped nudge me towards Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings and further towards Lou and for that I'm grateful. It's something of a pity that their fine version of Blue Moon, recorded at about the same time doesn't grace this record. Listening to The Trinity Session this evening took me back to the year I discovered it which wasn't the happiest in my life but the record itself is not self-pitying nor encouraging of that response nor is it locked in any particular time or space. In fact the opposite. It has a healing power, no doubt encouraged by the surroundings it was recorded in.  Cowboy Junkies may never have made a record that resonated so deeply or gave them quite the same limelight but for me, this is enough. Play it at night.

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 81 Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight

 

he final album from Robyn Hitchcock's whimsical satirists, I was directed this way by Peter Buck's fulsome praise in early interviews . Reacting to comments that his style was heavily influenced by the Burds. He protested that it really came from this record really. 

The guitar sounds on Underwater Moonlight certainly came from The Brds, The off the wall weirdness came from Syd Barrett, But Hitchcock and the others always had their own thing. They weren't as far away from Punk as they claimed. There's vertainly a fair bit of anger and rebellion here. In among the chiming melody and Hilaire Belloc and Lewis Caroll. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,021 Mirrored Daughters

 

Mirrored Daughters. Another fascinating band name An eponymous album with a wonderful sound and an intriguing album sleeve. A medieval stained glass design. A great album to listen to last thing on Sunday night, Lo Fi Folk Pop. Members of Firestations The Leaf Library and Marlody.

It's a gentle, soothing record. Warm. Emotional A little bit of melody. A little bit of harmony. A sense of history. A little bit of magic. A nice thing to listen to at the end of one week. And post at the beginning of another as we head towards Easter. Thanks once more Darren Jones for the suggestion. I like this. It sounds rather Christmassy to my ears . It's never too soon for Christmas.   . 

101 Essential Rock Records # 23 The Doors - The Doors

 

A provocative album. Dense with ideas and atmosphere.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,645 The Jayhawks - Tomorrow The Green Grass

 

Smooth and lovelorn Americana

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 82 The Jam - Sound Effects

 

An incredibly emotional, passionate but also eloquent record. Also one where Weller spreads his palatte further than he had done previously. Rick Buckler passed a few days ago and Weller's response was warm and compassionate. For a fallen. comrade in arms. This album is thirty five years long and it's vital. Start to finish. 

What I Did Last Night - Parastatic at The Star & Shadow

                     

                 'a quarrel in a far off country. Between people of whom we know nothing.' 

Neville Chamberlain 1938. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time. To describe the brewing conflict between Germany and Czechoslovakia. Now the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

'I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore !' Lots of highly stressed American Citizens. Network, 1976 

* this is seriously long and probably rambling piece. So prepare yourself or don't bother. There's plenty of more interesting and better stuff to read. By contrast with other pieces like this that I've written on here, much of this was actually written on the day I'm writing about. You know. Like a diary ! I'll try to follow that way of doing things for future gigs I go to and write about on here. I've got any number coming up in the next few weeks and months.

We live in extraordinary times. There seems to be no avoiding that. Early on Friday evening I woke from the sofa after a long day teaching online and doing paperwork. I went over to my laptop, turned to the news and prompted by that watched probably the most remarkable TV I've ever seen. A clip with eerie reminders of the living past.

A Ukranian president visiting the White House in search for a peace deal for a war torn and vast land. To be met by an American president and vice president who proceeded to enact an odd tag wrestling ritual. One setting the other up to slam dunk their bewildered guest. All the while demanding that he say 'Thank You' for what they were doing to him and his homeland while he attempted to keep his temper and maintain a feasible future for his country. 

After a bit of anguished back and forth he proceeded  to rush to his waiting car and head back to the airport and from there to London. A President and remarkably his host shouting after him 'Come back, when you're ready for peace !'  Before he left, he asked what seemed to me to be a reasonable question of the Vice President at a certain point 'Have you ever been to The Ukraine.' It was clear the Vice President hadn't but still felt entitled to speak on behalf of it regardless,  It's a vast territory The Ukraine. Approximately the size of Mainland Europe. 

I called my mum. Made myself some tea, Texted friends and family. Listened to some music. Scrawled through social media. Then went to bed, I woke up the next day, Came downstairs. I was still rather in shock. I put a Simon & Garfunkel record on.Thought a bit about Marshall McLuhan and Network. Trial by and on television, Wondered why everything had to be on television. Wasn't this pretty serious? Why were people starting to shout about World War Three? Not finding answers to these questions I made a cup of tea and went to run the bath,

                           'Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again...' 

I don't really have normal days anymore. I'm happy with that. It's the weekend. Though to be honest I don't distinguish between weekdays and weekends anymore. I'm self employed. Teaching German business people online from Monday to Friday,  Something I like doing and which doesn't really feel like work if I'm honest. It's a process I enjoy and learn from as well as getting paid. I've been teaching for almost thirty five years now. I hope I know what I'm doing.

 This also allows me to go to the cinema or to gigs during the week if I want to without disturbing my rhythm. I've got another gig today. Simon & Garfunkel seems like a great way day to start the day. The sun is rising. Simon & Garfunkel provide a calming narrative. But don't kid yourself. Their's were confusing, violent times. Just as ours are. But music can provide the best escape I'm finding. Narratives to lose yourself in. A compass. A map.. 

It's March. I realise eventually. So money will have gone out of my bank account today. Never mind. Some more will be going in in about a weeks time from now. I'm not obliged to go out with the tin just yet. Or take my Atlantic Boxset, a prized asset to the record shop across the road. I hope I never do. That was a present.  Take a deep breath as a good friend advised me recently. Good advice..  

On the turntable Simon & Garfunkel give way to ELO's Greatest Hits. One Side has an opening track called Evil Woman . Side B starts with Sweet Talking Woman. I prefer the sound of the Side B Woman I must say.  But I'm a slave to narrative so I go for Mrs Evil first ! Turn To Stone turns up midway through Side A and I proceed to listen to it any number of times as I make my way though the morning. Fantastic song from The Electric Sound Orchestra. Those guys had great hair. And great tunes ! 

I have my bath. Good. Personal hygiene matters. To other people and to myself. I have some of my best ideas in the bath. This time for my lessons on Monday. How to interrupt. Politely and less politely. Should I show the meeting at The White House to my students. No probably not. Just post a link to it . They can look at it if they want to. How to make a point and how not to make it. The importance of respect and conceding sometimes. Trying to reach a consensus. Hidden agendas.

I come out and put Mr Blue Sky on. ''It's a Beautiful New Day.'I look at the heavens from my desk window. It looks like it is. I get dressed and pack my durable M&S shopping bag. The one with great carrots on it. I'm going to my Fitness Centre which is five minutes from my flat. In the Royal Station Hotel. Where Queen Victoria stayed the night. And Kurt Cobain. But not together apparently. Though everything is up for grabs these days. In this Post Truth world. You decide. 

I put on another record and go upstairs and dress. Clean pants and socks. I reach inside my t shirt draw and unwrap a black one. Richard Nixon bowling at The White House. .This seems apt. I wonder if the bowling alley is still there in The White House and Donald rolls a few to warm up for his day of global misdirection and acquiring wealth and fame. A wrecking ball more like with that guy. In a room with wall to wall mirrors. King In Mirrors.  

I'm playing The Colorblind James Experience debut album from the mid Eighties. Considering a Move to Memphis. Classic American leftfield Indie. I wonder if Donald likes their work. I doubt it somehow.. They didn't sell any records. Take the Skinheads Bowling Donald. No. Camper Van Beethoven didn't sell any records either. Both bands were to good for popular acceptance,  Too good for Donald.

I nip across to Beatbox Records. Sam of No Teeth. We chat. We agree. On music and politics. We generally do. I like chatting to Sam. I buy some milk and head to the pool. Adam is at the desk. I ask him if he thinks Donald Trump is a Russian spy. He's unwilling to commit himself either way. Sensible lad Adam. I mention The Godfather. He said he hasn't seen it. I recommend it as the best way to understand the world. I'm an optimist but life has taught me to be a realist too.

I go to the sauna. I had a bit of a turn a few weeks ago after spending too much time in there for a few months during my stints at The Fitness Centre. My blood pressure had been too high and I think I pushed it too much. But I've had the necessary check ups and it's important that I start going back. Just need to change my routine. 

Chris is in the sauna when I go in . It's always nice to see Chris. He's a good bloke. Smart. The person I've known longest from this place, We compare notes. On the best circuit routine. On politics. On the football. Which for both of us really means Newcastle United. We agree on all three. And on The Godfather. I'm a teacher. I return to the same subject matter. I know it can make me dull and irritating. Hey put in a complaint against me. You won't be the first. Or the last. We bid each other farewell and I'm off home. Feeling better for my forty five minutes. 

I listen to I Am by Earth Wind & Fire while I warm my quiche. Now there's a band. Slick musicianship. Hey. I like and venerate The Velvet Underground. But I can't play them all the time. Boogie Wonderland. Star. Ask your local Indie band to take a shot at those two. I warrant they won't have the chops. I imagine the result would be pretty embarassing really.

After I Am comes Simple Minds Sons & Fascination. I'm beginning to feel good. Cocky even. I've taken exercise and I'm going to see a great band, Parastatic at The Star & Shadow Cooperative a couple of miles away from where I'm sitting. I went to see Mattiel on Tuesday night. By the end of the gig I was tired and left early. Let's see where we go, how we do tonight.

When I listened to and reviewed Parastatic's latest record Concrete Reborn on here the other day it reminded me of a few things. This Simple Minds album particularly. A record I bought when I was 18 and loved. I first bought New Gold Dream when it came out and worked my way backwards from there.

I resolve to play a few other records Concrete Reborn reminded me of. Pylon's Gyrate. Life Without Buildings. So I go to the sofa and soak up the sound. Seeing Out The Angels. It's impossible to explain to people younger than me how good Simple Minds were. Before they decided misguidedly to follow the highway that U2 were laying and became seriously bombastic and naff as they became huge. Oh Jim. Oh Charlie. It didn't have to be that way. 

In the end I don't bother with Pylon and Life Without Buildings but put on Fear of a Black Planet. instead. Still quite an extraordinary album 35 years on. It and Public Enemy are just something else frankly. There's so much going on. 

By the time I get Oscar Peterson on I'm relaxed. Sometimes you just find yourself things to worry and fret about. Or at least I tend to. Neurotic is perhaps a term that could be applied. I have my moments. I'm my mother's son. It's my mum's fault !!!

As the light fails I put on The Cure's Faith. The Cure are always a good band to listen to as the light fails. Al, one of the guys who works with Sam in Beatbox said some interesting things about The Cure and how the public perception of them has changed over the last couple of decades. How they've risen to the pantheon. With The Beatles and Bowie. This wasn't something you'd have anticipated in The Eighties. The music press were quite mean to them and Robert Smith in particular. Respect to them. Good luck. Faith just sounds MASSIVE this afternoon.

From MASSIVE to Massive Attack. I work out my route. I have a couple of hours to kill. I channel flick and watch some political analysis and then suddenly I see the news that David Johanson has died. The last of The Dolls. Time to pause and send a text to the friend I saw them with. Put on Lonely Planet Boy. I love pretty much everything about that band, but that seems the song to listen to right now.  It must have felt lonely sometimes to be the last Doll.

And then I'm ready to go....

Now is the post script. The actual event I'm writing this post about. It's Sunday morning. I've had my bath and I'm listening to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.On the chair beside me I have a copy of Parastatic's's Concrete Reborn which I'll listen to as I dress and eat my breakfast before going to church.

It was a great evening. I left  just after six and came back after eleven. I forgot about that ridiculous melodrama of such global import whuch enacted itself out in the White House in Washington on Friday night. For the most part. There was some back and forth on social media with friends of mine who were processing what they'd seen. For the most part I just enjoyed the moment.

I left my flat and walked down to Newcastle Central Station. The night felt glossy. That's an adjective I like. To describe a pleasant evening. When it's not cold and there's a sense of anticipation. Almost hanging in the air. People around you are heading off to their own destinations. To enjoy their own Saturday nights.

I took a taxi to the Star & Shadow. I had been planning to take a bus, Expand my geographical awareness of the city I've been living in for fifteen years. But I couldn't find the bus stop. So I parked myself in the back of a taxi and got driven there by a really friendly and forthcoming Pakistani taxi driver who has lived in Newcastle for many years.

We talked. Or to be more strictly accurate, he talked to me. About his life. His two marriages. His six kids. What they're doing with their lives. His relationship with his homeland. About how he has property in Oxford but prefers it here. About when he will clock off this evening.

He did ask me about my life. He was a nice man. When we drive up to The Star & Shadow Cinema, he pointed out the bus stop opposite where I would be able to take my bus home. I thanked him and exited the taxi and went into The Star & Shadow. 

It's a great place. I saw Subway Sect playing at the former venue, many, many moons ago but it's the first time I've been to their new venue. I immediately felt at hime. Safe. My name was on the guestlist. I only saw one person I knew during the evening but I felt as if I was among friends that I didn't know. But the fact that I didn't know them was mere detail.

There was an Anarchist Bookshelf in the small library at the back of the large foyer and cafe area laid out with a comfortable set of tables and chairs. A wall socket where I charged my smartphone. 'Well I am just a modern guy.'  I like to have my smartphone fully charged.

I spend much of the evening in the lobby. I like to sit down these days. I don't like to stand up all evening if I can avoid it. Anyway the lobby area of The Star & Shadow is enough of an evening for me.People Watching  David Johansen has passedand now  I feel like Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell in New York in the early Seventies 'We were like spies...' 

Anyway, you're never alone in 2025. You have your smartphone for company these days. I speak to the friendly lads at the merch stall. They're in a band too. Supported Parastatic last night. I tell them who they remind me of. Simple Minds when they were great. Pylon. Life Without Buildings. They nod. They know the names if not the music. You have access to everything these days. It was much harder work  'When I was a lad...'

Late Girl who later sings with Parastatic is first. She has a slide show where the moon is constantly rising over concrete skylines. It reminds me of Koyaanisqatsi the Philip Glass soundtracked film about modern existence.

Next come Watchers who are a highly emotional and full on local guitar band. The singer opens his lungs and emotes. I wonder for a moment whether I am witnessing U2 supporting Simple Minds in 1980. They were better than that. But a little bombastic for my tastes. In the last song the singer begins to chant as the guitars crash and burn around him. Final mantra. 'I need to spend more time with those that I love.'  He chants that for ages.. . Fair enough mate. That's a great idea. But he wails it as an ongoing act of hypnosis to such a degree that I'm slightly relieved when they finally put down their instruments and troop off. I trust to track these people down and spend more time with them. Some quality time .

Parastatic do everything that I hope they will. A female singer spouting Futurists tracts. Marinetti.Walter Benjamin. Le Corbusier. Never mind that. Kraftwerk and Neu! Simple Minds and Pylon. Sculpture and Function.A backdrop of sculpture rising and crashing down. A motorik machine drummer. Bearded guitarists and keyboardist. Programme Operators. With their pocket calculators. Showroom dummies. They're just terrific. I must buy the album.

I've bought the record. I'm off into the night to catch my bus. The last thing I hear is a very excitable young man shouting 'That was really good!'  I agree wholeheartedly mate. One last thought. If you want to be happy in the present and look foward to the future. Try to learn from the past. If you want to be a TV star go on television. If you want to be president. Try to act like one occasionally     

Song(s) of the Day # 4,020 Cloakroom

Cloakroom. Good name for a band.  Last Leg of the Table. Good name for an album. Good minimal cover. In the tradition of Factory Records perhaps or Magazine's The Correct Use of Soap. And it's a very good record too. One that uses the excellent term 'stoner emo' to decribe a sound that slips across genres at will. A very good start to March on It Starts after a brief cul de sac flirtation with The Stylistics and memories of my distant youth yesrerday morning.

This is by turns introvered then quietly explosive. The vocals are muffled. The guitars are distorted. It's a pot coming to the boil. Simmering. Sometimes the ones that stare at their trainers are the ones to watch. Cloakroom come from Michigan City Indiana and make it sound like somewhere you need to go. This was recorded at Steve Albini's Electrical Studios in Chicago. Put your coat in the cloakroom. Take a seat in the living room and take a listen to this. It burns with a quiet melodic, intensity. 

David Johansen 1950 - 2025

 

It Starts With a Birthstone - Songs For February

 

It Starts With a Birthstone - Albums for February

 

March

 

When Does The Mind-Bending Start ? - The Life & Times of The World of Twist # 5 Tom Tom Club

 

Not very much happens for 25 pages. It's not always the best organised memoirs. World of Twist have formed properly and are playing gigs. They move base from Sheffield to Manchester. They seem to be a band that are interested in the concept as much as the roduct. They discuss their ideal band together and decide that David Hemery the Olympic hurdling Gold winning medalist would make a great drummer for some reason. 

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,646 Slayer - South of Heaven

 

WELL IT'S A DIRTY JOB BIT SOMEONE'S GOT TO DO IT !!!' Listen to a Slayer album? You must be joking ! It's got a song called Seasons In The Abyss on it. I'm sirry. I'm in a hurry. And a good mood.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 83 Bruce Springsteen -The River

 

Here comes Bruce Springsteen to cheer us up. Or at least console us. With his songs. What a nice man ! Some of them defiant. Some of them a bit sad. But they're songs that never give up. I'll give them that. They're about endeavour. Hard toil. Enduring. Waiting for the weekend. Some of them have good tunes. Sometimes they're a bit too American for my liking. I don't know what a 'turnpike' is. 

They're about girls called Sherry. Who the Boss insists on calling Sherry Darling. I've never met anybody called Sherry. This Sherry sounds very nice I must say. I imagine her wearing a checked blouse and blue jeans. And I'll bet she has great teeth ! . Sorry Normski ! Will this do? The record's  alright I suppose !  

Song(s) of the Day # 4,019 The Stylistics

 

The Stylistics have not been major players on It Starts With a Birthstone down the years. I've been too busy going on and on and on. Day after day. Year after year, About how much I like R.E.M. Particularly their early work. Back in the days when nobody had the slightest idea what Michael Stipe was singing. Never mind what he was actually going on about. Well done Michael. Way to go.

When not rattling on about those guys, occasionally I try to get people to listen to Marquee Moon. Forever Changes and Big Star. Or bands from Indiana who sound like Pavement. If they were no good. Well it's something to do !

Anyway I know I've been remiss. But now it's time, It's finally time for It Starts With a Birthstone belatedly to shine the spotlight on Philadelphia's The Stylistics. For services to high pitched falsetto harmony singing in the early Seventies. Cool backing vocals. And graceful, fluid dance routines, Come on down guys. The stage is yours, Try not to trip over your flares.

In the early Seventiea. I was a young boy. Living in Nottingham,  where my family had just relocated from Zimbabwe,  then named Rhodesia. Looking back it feels like the land that time forgot. It didn't feel like it at the time I assure you. Simple joys. Conkers. Football cards. Portable black and white TV. Could England make it to the 1974 World Cup? As it turned out they couldn't Tomaszewski. Bloody Jan Tomaszewski. Brian Clough might have called him a clown. But he was a very good shot stopper.

The Internet hadn't even been invented yet. It's difficult to credit it I know. The world was actually in colour. Don't believe everything you read on X Twitter. Or while we're here, anything that Elon Musk might have you believe, That blokes a wrong 'un. Isn't he South African. Why does he keep making that odd salute and posting the things he does? Is he trying to start wars? Why ? War's a crime Elon. Haven't you heard. 

We also had Glam Rock. It was great. Let's not talk about Gary Glitter But David Bowie was sensational. Roxy Music. Wizzard. And my own personal favourites Chicory Tip. I had a flexidisc. There was more to that band than Son Of My Father. Take it from me. They had loads of great numbers those guys.

But secretly without knowing it. The Westen World was secretly waiting for The Stylistics. And from about 1972 they came along to make our dreams come true, On Top Of The Pops of course.On Thursday night,  Everybody watched Top of the Pops in those days Even when Jimmy Saville was presenting. He just seemed like some barmy old bloke. How little we knew.  

It felt like The Stylistics were on Top of the Pops every week . Singing love songs. Going up the singles charts every week. .As an eight year old it seemed weird and slightly wet. But now fifty years on I finally have a Stylistics album. 1976's Fabulous. I've been listening to it over the past couple of days and it is fabulous. Or at least pretty good. Sweet Soul Music out of the city that at the time was the Capital of the World for this kind of stuff.

That band had 12 consecutive R & B Top Ten Hits in the States. All of them produced by Thom Bell.On Avco initially. Then they swopped around in terms of record labels. But the hits and awards kept coming. History has been recrafted in a neat narrative to say that we were all waiting for the arrival of Punk Rock, Glen Matlock to leave the Sex Pistols so Sid could join and start spitting at people and snarling so punk could become Punk and we could be free.

Or else. A vision of Bob Geldof sitting angrily on a sofa somewhere gazing at his TV screen and thinking that what the world needed was Rat Trap. A watered down comic strip version of Born To Run. Set in Dublin, Not New Jersey,

It's too neat a narrative actually.To say one is superior to the other.  I've got time in my life for The Stylistics and the Boomtown Rats. Why does one have to be better or even preferable. They both have their place.They're both still touring of course. Check the schedules. Go see both if you can afford it. That's 2025 for you. 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,647 Paul McCartney - Chaos & Creation in the Backyard

 

Late Macca ?!? We#re not talking Picasso here. Middle of the road chuggers. The man can still hit the high notes when required.

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 84 Pet Shop Boys - Please

 

Not Actually though it looks a bit like it. This is their first and has West End Girls. The pieces are all in place but they developed it further. But their voice is in place from the off. If you want to understand England in the Eighties, listen to The Smiths and then The Pet Shop Boys.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,018 Chris Eckman

                      

                              'Wars are won. By those who quit. And leave dreams undone.'

I often post the covers of Uncut Magazine and Mojo Magazine on social media with some kind of puzzled personal response. I still buy both on a monthly basis, I post puzzled comments because the deeply conservative and repetitive market positioning and approach of Uncut and Mojo strikes me as odd.

What I'm talking about mostly is their cover stars and the photos the respective magazines choose on a monthl  basis. Dad's Rock & Roll Army. Isn't Rock & Roll supposed to be about youth. Not any more apparently.It's for Grannies and Grandpas. Keith Richard with his new teeth again. Macca looking slightly bewildered. Dave Gilmour positively furious. Probably with Roger Waters I imagine. Have they hand another tiff nurse.  Put Mr Gilmour in one corner and Mr Waters in the other. 

I generally don't bother to read the article inside which refers to the cover star(s) of any particular. issue,Hey, I'm a Go Betweens and Pale Saints fan. The cover star is not generally why I buy the magazine. I do so despite it. Paul Weller looking like he's left Woking and become a commanche. Jeff Tweedy with an expression on his face which makes you wonder whether he's mislaid his medication again.

It all seems slightly odd to me. Rock & Roll becomes unfirm and slightly confused. The original generation are the ones that must be venerated. The Sixties people. I guess the magazines know their readership. It makes you wonder for the long term future of both. My social media posts are generally greeted by comments from disillusioned ex-readers who have stopped buying the magazines. The covers are always the same. The magazines are too expensive. There are too many ads. They're boring. 

It's not my experience or perception, .I'm not bothered about splashing out slghtly. I think they're lovingly compiled, beautifully presented and well written. Music remains my main driving passion and I want to be directed towards records that I wouldn't otherwise hear. On a regular basis. I trust Uncut and Mojo's editorial judgement and musical taste and direction. They lead me to stuff. Today they led me to Uncut's February Record of The Month, The Land We Know The Best by Chris Eckman.

The Land We Know The Best is very much the kind of record you expect Uncut to laud and Chris Eckman is the kind of musician you'd expect them to praise. Slow and  sensitive singer songwriting Americana stuff from a well read bloke. Something to listen to while you're making your way through a John Steinbeck or Hemmingway novel and seeing if you can afford to make a roadtrip on Route 66 or a pilgrimage to Memphis next year.

These are not things I'm likely to do. And so I'm not really the kind of music fan that's going to be  sufficiently engaged to find this record quite as thrilling as Uncut staffers do. It's alright, It certainly wiles away an hour with headphones on at on my keyboard on a Thursday night. But appreciative as I am of Uncut's nudge towards this  record it's not really for me long term.There is no Velvet Underground influence here that I could identify. Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy are more prominent forefathers to the songs here.. It's a record I admire rather than love though I'm pleased I've heard it. .

 

Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 37 Philadelphia International Records

 

Philadelphia International Records hail from a time when record labels sounded more like an airport or                                                                                hotel chain.