The Verve were a band that sounded quite apart for quite a while. They followed the trail and aspired to the scale of Funkadelic, Can, Led Zep. William These were not common reference points.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 56 MC 5 - Kick Out The Jams
Though Kick OutThe Jams sometimes comes off as loose and unstructured, there's no denying its heavy horsepower and heaping dose of attutude.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,076 Fib
Don't tell Fibs. All right I won't. Fib are Fab. The latest morsel brought to the Captain's Table on It Starts by Darren Jones, AKA First Mate Starbuck . Fib strut their stuff on latest record Heavy Lifting, and very bracing it all is too.
Out of Portland, Oregon, never a bad start. Very dare I say it Pop Post Punk . Not a million miles from the base station Omni operate out of Portland, Oregon. Never a bad thing. It's often a sign of angular, quizzical enquiry.
That's certainly the case here. Each track is a new area of investigation. Heavy Lifting is easy listening for the Indie inclined. Thanks again Darren !
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 24 Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
' 'I've lost just what it takes. To be honest,,,'
I'm off on a roadtrip in a couple of days. Down South. Well, I live in Newcastle. Roadtrips generally entail going South for me. Seeing a number of important friends and catching up. Culminating in a short stay in a Cornish village with an interesting guy I haven't seem in almost forty years. The guy who lived in the room opposite mine in the corridor. First year at university. September 1985 to June 1986.
My first year at university is an interesting one. I've long thought of it is as the great unwritten novel of the Eighties. What happened then and what happened next. I'm not brave enough or foolish enough to write it. I don't have time or energy. Or drive to do so. Maybe I'll leave it to James the fellow I'm going to visit. He's a great writer. Or Rod. Or Ben. The other guys who had the rooms next to ours. A long way back in the mists of time. A corridor like no other in my memory banks.
The four of us. Rod, Ben, James and I bonded in that incredible, unrepeatable way you only do when you're young. Rushing into life with your arms wide apart. Making mistakes wherever you go. Speaking too loud. Searching for love. That search never ends .Nor should it.
We went to lectures. Sized up girls in our different ways. Tried to impress them though really we weren't too impressive. Spoke too loud. Drank too much. Then at the end of most days we returned to Rod's room. He boiled his silver kettle and dispensed tea and coffee.
An indelible image in my memory banks. That kettle. Vapour rising from its spout. And we listened to records together and babbled. We tried to impress each other. But I wonder if really we were hoping to impress and convince ourselves first and foremost.And we listened to and talked about records. About life.
The Velvet Underground, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, The Smiths. Lloyd Cole. Crystal Gale. The Undertones. Talking Heads. The records call back to me. Across mists of time. Incredible thing memories. Magical! Like something from a film.
And then there was Prefab Sprout. Steve McQueen. It was good, different, and people recognised that it stood apart somehow. It came out that year and made an impression. It feels like a central record to that golden span of months.My first months at university. Going out into the world.
I'm listening to Steve McQueen now. It's a record that grows in my consciousness and imagination over the years. I confess I found it a bit wet at the time. What did I know. Someone asked me recently 'Spotify, what more do you need?' No you need the records. I insist.
Spotify has no soul. Records have compressed soul. Compressed lived experience. The memory of your former selves. The time you spent with others in the different chapters of your life. . The people you listened to music with. Sometimes kissed while listening to a particular song. Lay down with in sheets and blankets. And drifted into blissful sleep in one another's arms as the music played. This stuff matters. And we should venerate it.
Steve McQueen is a marvellous record which asks the questions that matter . The ones we can never answer, no matter how hard we try. The ones about Love. I've been listening to the record while I've been writing this. Sometimes there is no substitute for this experience. The best way to listen to a record is to give it your undivided attention. This specifically applies to the albims that are most central and fundamental to you. Allowing your imagination and memories to roam.
Monday, April 28, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 55 Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin
'barelled full bore towards pedal-steel,Peterbilts and sagebrush laments.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 25 Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life In The Bush of Ghosts
A remarkable record. Not quite like any other in my record in my collection. Which is all you can really ask for in an album. You never learn this record, But it surprises and enthrals you every time.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,592 Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
Life is too short to listen to mid career Coldplay albums.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,075 Ubiquious Meh !
My alarm has rung, I'm rudely awakened and sat at my desk. A song is set to a Polish lady, a new and surprising but welcome ritual in my life. My lesson is planned, my bath is run. I find myself wuth time. Time ro listen to Ubiquitous Meh !
Plymouth's finest ! We can't all be The Beatles ,Jacquel Brel. Best not to try,Ubiquitous Meh ! Do';t even try. They'd be happy with a session with Mark Ratcliffe. Or Marc Riley.
I'm sure it would great ! And I'd certainly listen to it. Certainly judging by their latest release. Oddville. Seven songs but it hardly qualifies as an album. Given that it's fourteen minutes long.
Parped organ, massed chanting. Cheerful engaged vocals. Positive sentiments. Nothing more complicated thn it needs to be . The spirit of John Peel. W're off. Into the coming dawn.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 54 Les Zeppelin - Led Zeppellin
'Clearly a shot-heard-round-the-world-record.'
Richard Hell - I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp # 8 Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Hell. A restless soul. Parts company with Hearbreakers and finally sets up his own gig. Tracks down Bob Quine, his foil, and the man who dragged the Viodoids out of the ordinary. There's a touching several page portrait of the irascible man, and despite Hell's darker insticts, it's clearly fuelled with love for the man.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,593 Robert Plant & Alison Kraus - Raising Sand
Something I feel I ought to like rather than actually liking. Sorry Bob.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 26 ABC -The Lexicon Of Love
'Me I go from one extreme to another.'
A man with a pretty girl in his arms. Swooning. In a suit. Firing a gun. Fry ! Martin Fry. 1982. Those were the days. I was in my last year at Secondary School. My best subject was always English. I had the best teacher. Dai Pring. A Welshman with red hair and a cool moustache. Funny. He made our lessons an event. But he taught us too. Got us to read the books..Encouraged us to think. Not all teachers do.
I sat next to my best friend. Then and now. Philip. I'm going to see him on Thursday..Behind us were Nicky Purslow and David O'Connor. Banter. Innocence. We thought we knew it all but we knew nothing. Nicky loved The Beatles. Kept his thoughts to himself ., But always funny.
David was a Scouser. Almost unintelligible to our South London Middle Class ears. I seem to recall him saying his dad had been a friend of Lennon's . He was a clown. But loveable. A good heart.
Everybody watched Top of the Pops. Every week. Then talked about it in class the day afterwards. It was the days before a thousand channels but nothing on. ABC seemed to be on every other week. Ridiculous, orchestrated dance routines. Martin's slick patter into the camera.
David did the routine to a tee on a Friday morning. Curled his hair up into a quiff and did Martin's rap in English class on Friday afternoon.. You didn't think in terms of weekend in those days. Life was one continuous blur. 'Who broke my heart... you did, you did... Shoot that poison arrow...'
Song(s) of the Day # 4,074 Pere Ubu
ART ROCK !!! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR !!! Well plenty frankly. And David Thomas is a pretty good place to start. . He was lead singer of Pere Ubu. The Cleveland noise assault. Who made and released their debut album The Modern Dance in 1978. One of the albums that genuinely changed me.When I came upon it a few years later. When I needed change. And direction.
On Friday, hearing the news of Thomas' passing I listened to it. Now I'm going to listen to it again. Not the kind of record I generally go for first thing. But I suspect it's going to energise me. Here we go. 'I'm gonna make a deal with you girl !!!'
Thomas or Crocus Behemoth was hardly a conventional Rock & Roll figure. Quite the opposite . If he turned up at the door brandishing a bunch of flowers, any right minded girl would surely have slammed the door in his face. But the interesting girls, the ones worth romancing are actually searching for guys like Thomas. The ones worth holding out for.. And pledging your emblem to. Planting your flag in their sand.
Pere Ubu and Television were bands that changed me. Tom Verlaine. Richard Hell. Richard Lloyd. Thomas, Allen Ravenstein. Lonely Planet Boys. And Peter Laughner. Just as Hell is the ghost that haunts Marquee Moon, so the restless spirit of Laughner stalks the restless urban wasteland of The Modern Dance. And makes it somehow different from anything they produced thereafter. You only produce one debut album of course. And Marquee Moon and The Modern Dance are as indelible statements as Rock & Roll has or will produce.They stand apart.
Thomas is a remarkable figure. Perhaps the outstanding figure in Rock history who bridges the great Rock & Roll impulses. To rock and to make a lasting statement. His message, like Television's is a simple one. Be yourself ! And some said they weren't Punk.
Saturday, April 26, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 53 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country
For an artist who later had to defend himself against charges of plgiarism, John Fogerty was anything but a trend follower.Bayou Country is the one that broke Creedence.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,594 William Basinski - The Distintegration Loops I
An ambient rather wonderful space.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 27 Michael Jackson -Thriller
At this remove it's quite impossible to extract this record and its driving artist from it's cultural, sexual and abusive context, That doesn't stop it being any less extraordinary. Michael Jackson like Prince and all the great artists understand what we wanted from our Pop Artists. An experience and sound that took us to another universe.
.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,073 Deerhoof
The sun is up. I've had a lie in amd my bath. Nothing pressing today apart from a little paperwork. There's time to listen to Noble & Godlike in Ruin.
Thus us a band that have certainly carved out their own niche down the years. Active since 1997. San Francisci via Tokyo, there's is a truly playful, delightful sound. 'Mixing vibrant melodies noise and an experimental spirit into utterly distinctive music.'
Noble & Godlike in Ruin is dizzying. Like the reference point that race through my head while listening to. Can, Sonic Youth, any number of fantastic Japanese bands. Stereolab, Dee Lite, The Velvet Underground. Take your pick. They're all here in spades.
Friday, April 25, 2025
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 28 Prince & The Revolution - Parade
Prince was everywhere when I went to university. Quite right too. He's undeniable. I've gone through periods when I listen to him less. Whever I listen to him I find myself slightly lost in awe. The impression the man cleary wanted to make. He understands the funtamental quality of the truly great Pop artist. That they should sound as if they're from a dofferent galaxy.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,072 Sunflower Bean
'Hey Baby , I like your lips...'
Almost ten years ago. It feels like a different lifetime. Life is like that. Anyhow, 2016. I got heavily into Sunflower Bean for a couple of seasons. Saw them playing a small club nearby to me and listened to their debut album Human Ceremony. A lot !
Ten years later Sunflower Bean are on the circuit. Still the same line up . A threepiece. A Grunge drummer. Some distant nephew of Dave Grohl. A guitarist with a Dylan Wild Mercury Sound rug cut. A glam punky lady in fishnets taking most of the vocal duties. A not disimilar sound. Perhaps a bit more mainstream. Less Sonic Youth. Closer to a fuzzy Fleetwood Mac. Everyone seems to move a bit Fleetwood Mac with time.It's the Millennial Shift.
New album Mortal Primetime is decorative. Without being startling, in the way Human Ceremony seemed to me at the time. It's often the way. We grow up and that means the tug of the suburbs. I give this 7.8. Hey... Pitchfork !!!
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,596 Bill Evans Trio - Sunday at The Village Vanguard
Sunday. 1961. This sounds like the place to be.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 29 Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Beastue Boys were sometimes a bit too shouty for me. Hey, they're 'shouty' . Get used to it fella. This of course has some golden moments and aura and will take me to nine like a Whacky Races Medal Contender. .
Song(s) of the Day # 4,071 Domino Kirke
The Most Familiar Star by Domino Kirke An alluring record that I discovered yesterday evening and have been playing since as we work our way into Donnerstag and towards the end of April. Domino is UK born and New York based and is apparently singer, songwriter, producer and doula.
Yes I have no idea what doula means either frankly. In any case this is a rather lovely and arresting album. Otherworldly , Provocative. I like records with character and mystery that encourage interaction and engagement, response from the listener and this certainly did that for me on my last day in Canterbury for a while before heading back to Newcastle this evening.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Richard Hell - I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp # 7 The Heartbreakers
'Being a rock and roll musician was like being a pimp.It was about making youmg girls want to pay money to be near you.'
Hell goes out with Roberta Bayley the Rock photographer. She has pretty breasts apparently Verlaine paints him out of the Televisionn picture once and for all. Hell leavesthe band and teams up with Johnny Thunders, Walter Lure and Jerry Nolean to form the Heartbreakers. A heroin collective.'Catch them while they're still alive.'
Hell is still doing junk fairly often. He teams up with Dee Dee Ramone and they write Chinese Rocks the ultimate junk anthem. He teams up with Sabel Starr. He's living the life. He digresses for a few pages about the famous women he slept with. Hell insists he doesn't believe in love. Rather chemistry.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,597 Bush - Sixteen Stone
The British commercial response to Grunge. It was neglogible though spirited. Clearly in the slipstream of Nirvana and Peal Jam. But without the spark. Meat and potatoes before the main course. It sold well.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 30 New Order - Technique
I bought this when it came out. As I was comin towards graduation. I didn't play it much and I still don't. Ibiza and the Balearic Dance Scene and the accompanying parephanelia never had much appeal to me. Ut's fine as a sountrack to getting dressed and getting ready for work, but then and now says little to me about my life. Like the snob I am, I prefer their early work.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,070 Cumulus
One of the interesting things about doing a blog like this. Getting my Song(s) of the Day from different sources. Is comparing what is getting recognition generally to what I come across purely by chance and takes my fancy. And how so often I prefer the latter.
Cumulus We've Got It All. is a case in point. It operates in the same groind as boygenius. Sensitive strummed reflection on the state of play in midern existence. But while much of that leaves me cold, and often slightly irritated. I find this instantly preferable to mych of what Lucy, Phoebe and Julien come up with.
This is a genre, a trope of music that flirts at times with the bland. But generally I warmed to We've Got It All. It's sincere and crafted, and carried me from six to seven on my way to my lessons in pleasant reflection. Sometimes that's what you want and require.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Richard Hell - I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp # 6 Television
The Neon Boys become Television. Hell documents their ascent. They discover and play CBGB's and it soon becomes the place to be for the demimonde of conoisseurs. Hell and Verlaine's friendship withers s Verlaine's ego balloons. But for a year they are the finest band in the world and their legend endures 50 years on. The CGBS legend blossoms.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,598 Fall Out Boy - From Under The Cork Tree.
Green Day's, Ungainly Emo nephew ! Last thing I need.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 31 Paul Simon - Graceland
;These are the days of miracle and wonder...'
I didn't buy Graceland when it came out and I haven't listened to it much since. I've got plenty of time for Paul Simon and appreciate his stuff plenty. He's a master and has made an indelible mark on the culture in any number of ways. He's a master.
But listening through to this record, well as it sold, it leaves me somewhat cold. It seems like an excercise to me and lacks the authority he deploys elsewhere. Yes. It feels like culture appropriation. Cheerful and fluid as its jigs are. It leaves a taste in my mouth. Cultural tourism.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,069 MIEN
Mien - a person's appearance or manner, especilly as an indication of their manner or mood.
We're living in an age of cut and past, Everything is available. First exhibit for the prosecution MIEN.and their eponymous album. An exercise in Psychedelic exploration in the manner of Stereolan, Broadcadst, Krautrock, Pram and Vanishing Twin.
MIEN rattles along on familiar but bracing rails like a commuter train carrying a set of workers from the lungs of the city into the urban centre before belching them out to scurry off towards their offices and workspaces. Their places of study..
This draws on established tropes but I know what I like . This music always speaks to me. I'm happy to endirse its values and efforts. Easter is over. Back to the treadmill.
Monday, April 21, 2025
Richard Hell - I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp # 5 Richard Hell & The Voidoids
This I'd say is the essential 25 pages of the book and more than that. 25 pages that are essential for anyone with a feeling for and taste for Rock & Roll. Hell outlines how his and Verlaine's friendship worked and how they recast themselves and collaborated. Shaped their identities and personas. Their unfluences. The way they wrote. Together and separately. The New York music and literary scenes. The other players. The Dolls. Patti Smith. Terry Ork. The way the they coalesced and directed themselves. Towards CBGB's and the New York Punk scene that we know they are hurtling toward. It's seamless, inspired writing.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,599 Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
You expect me to listen to this. And apply irrational critucal judgement. It's not going to happen.'
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 32 David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Bowie greets the Eighties.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,068 Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto
Woke up. It was an Easter Monday and the first thing that I listened to... was a record that made me think of Can, and Vitmain C in particular. That weird fuggy Kosmische fug. Woven in the early Seventies, but some spells last. You know the story of Sleeping Beauty.
Little Barrie and Malcolm Catto's Electric War, draws unahamedly on the mythic narratives of Rock & Roll. Mass hypnosis. The two sport insectoid wraparound Suicide shades. The music is by turns languid and wired. Funky and Soulful. You know where this comes from. You know what they say. If it ain'tbroke, why fix it...
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,600 The Voidz - Virtue
Virtue is a patience, Julian Cablancas moonlughts. :Likeable.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 33 Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man
A Leonard Cohen album. With slightly questionable Eighties production.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,067 quickly quickly
Graham Johnson is drawn to the comforts of melody and noise . 'How the two conspire in tension tonally and atonally. Stirring up in memory and mood.' Quickly quickly's Bandcamp page continues in this slightly preposterous vein. For several paragraphs.
What you get with I Heard a Noise us a slightly cutesy emotional Indie album. In the Sufjan Stevens family tree. Portland, Oregon chapter. Perfectly amical listen but not enough to move from ordinary to extraordinary.. From winsome whine to sublime. Still, I'd certainly recommend this if you're looking to soundtrack your preparation for afternoon tea. It grows. And enchants.
Saturday, April 19, 2025
Song(s) of the Day # 4,066 Beirut
Easter Saturday and I'm sitting in the living room at my sister's in Becenham. A cup of tea in front of me. Headphones on. I'm going into London in a couple of hours to meet a very special person from my past. Meet her daughter or the first time and go and eat tea and cake wuth them. Life is a celebration and demands to be feasted upon.
I'm listening to Beirut's new record, A Study Of Losses. It sounds like other Beirut records but you wouldn't really want it otherwise. Zach Condon, the driving motor at the engine room of thus band has a special understanding of poignancy and gentility. A feeling for Folk Traditionals. Eternal emotions and rituals.. Fragility, Poignance, Culture. It's another beautuful record. Adhere to your values.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 34 The Cure - The Head On The Door
Listening to The Head On The Door in Beckenham. It feels apt. Bowie, Siouxsie, The Bromley Contingent ald hailed from the same part of the country. The part I'm suttin in now. The East London Garden Suburbs. Fresh Air and Space. Gloomy Avenues.
At the time The Head On The Door and The Cure and I no longer seemed meant for each other. This is where we parted country. I was coming into my twenties and felt grown up. The Cure felt like youner sister music. How little I knew. I'm staying with my younger sister now, About to head into London where all these people headed. The alternative was getting stuck.
Now The Head On The Door makes sense. Macabre but efforless Pop Mastery. A band emerging from darkness into the light of Daytime Radio. Top of the Pops and magazine covers. Where they belonged. Into the pantheon.
Friday, April 18, 2025
Richard Hell - I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp # 4 Velvet Underground
New York Bohemianism as the Sixties become the Seventies and Hell and Verlaune shift towards the heart of the culture. Hell drops names but does so with justification and authority.. He was there.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,602 Elliott Smith - Roman Candle
Elliott Smith spoke of a certai anguish. But also of emotional integrity and dark poetry.
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