I likes me a bit of Chromatics. o this will take me from 11.00 to my 11.30 in a freezing flat. New Wave Retro Pop out of Portland Oregon.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 183 Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard Of Oz
I;m not listening to this crap !
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 35 Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan - Your Community Hub
The latest Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan record sounds much like previous installments on this remarkable set of musical conceits and journeys have.
This is not so much a development as a refinement,. Variations on a theme. Records that sound like a member of Kraftwerk's dreams if the member of Kraftwerk had been raised in Lancashire in the fifties and Sixties rather than the Ruhr gebeit.
I hope this series runs and runs. I'm not going to compare this with previous Warrington- Runcorn records. That would be missing the point. Anither excellent exercise in atmosphere.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,91 # 3,920 Green Child
Nothing immediate on the horizon. So I'll tuck into the fish that Darren Jone , AKA Starbuck, brought to his Captains table a couple of das back as the sun was setting on the watery horizon at the Peqod's brow.
This morning's fishy treat. And its immediately something to tuck into and no mistake.Green Child's Look Familiar. Warm and bubbly.Sensual. 'Lush analog synths'
Vocals reminiscent of Jane Weaver breaking in and out of the mix. Jane Weaver joins OMD Splendid. A life on the ocean waves, More Starbucks more ! Extra grog rations,
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 184 The Creatures - Boomerang
Siouxsie and Budgie's ryhthmic, percussive love affair.. A bit claustrophobic for me after a while. But impressive for sure.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,746 Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music ... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop
I rather enjoyed listening to this. Between my lessons. It takes Nevermind an runs with it towards large arenas and quite right too. Not everyone got to see Nirvana STP wasn't a shabby second best.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 36 Amelia Coburn - Between The Moon & The Milkman
Browsing through the postings in social media yesterday afternoon, I came upon one from Shinding which directed me to Amelia Coburn. A remarkable young artist with a distinctive Northern brogue and a vivid and thrilling vision.
Listen to her debut album Between The Moon & The Milkman. I did yesterday..First drawn in by the Shindig prod to a couple of tracks. Later in the same evening. not convinced by a Netflix film that had toyed with my affections but not won me over I went back to my desk, put my headphones back on and dove deeper into the album.
It's a fascinating record and she's a brilliant artist. She plays a ukulele and let's face it, this has hardly been an in vogue musical instrument since George Formby put his own down several decades ago and probably was hardly all the rage even back then.
Coburn's a performer with a touching emotive voice with thoughtful intonation patterns. This is a record that an enormous amount of wor./ Care and love are key ingredients. I love stumbling across artistic endeavours such as this one, I get the impression that she knows her Jacques Brel and her Jake Thakray. Her Disney and Hollywood musicals.. Her Scott Walker. David Bowie and Edith Piaf. Also crucially herself.
She knows what she loves. She has her own guiding stars. But she's not for a moment overawed by them. This is a fantastic first step on what could be a Fantastic Voyage . It will be wonderful watching wherever she goes next. In the meantime this is one of the most exceptional and inspiring records I've heard this year,
Song(s) of the Day # 3,91 # 3,919 Euphoria Again
'A man needs a maid' wailed Neil Young in the song of the same name on the evergreen Harvest Back in 1972. Fine song. But the sentiment. Are you sure Neil ? What you mean someone to shop an dcook and clean after you. And then perhaps lie back and think of Tennessee. Stretch her legs when you're so inclined. It seems clear he hadn't been reading Susan Sontag, Joan Didion,. Germaine Greer. Or Simone De Beauvoir. Let's put it that way.
But sometimes the Captain of a blog like It Starts needs a Mate. First Mate Starbucks aka Darren Jones in this case. He turns up just when he's needed on the Captain's Table with a fishy on a litte dishy for my Song(s) of the Day. I'm most grateful.
In a world that's gone mad for ticking boxes Euphoria Again's Waiting On Time To Fly ticks all of the ones I'll need this Tuesday morning as the sun rises in the Newcastle heavens and I make my way towards my half eight with Dussledorf businesspeople.
Gentle Americana with a yearning heart and a dreaming consciousness. Songs that ache and tremble with soul and heart. Thanks Darren Another winner.
Monday, November 18, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,747 Perfume Genius - Too Bright
Perfume Genius consistently says what it says on the tin. All you can ask of a modern artiste !
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 37 Joan As Police Woman - Lemons, Limes & Orchids
'I know you got soul ! If you didn't you wouldn't be in here.' Joan As Police Woman got soul, Alwys have done. Latest album Lemons, Limes & Orchids. is only the latest evidence.
.
Jan Wasser has an original sctick. She doesn't hark back to Dylan. Or Joni. Or Beatles. Tim Buckley perhaps. But primarily we're talking Stax and Funk. Al Green. War. Labelle. Soul sirens.
Lemons, Limes & Orchids unwraps with languid grace. Like waking up in the morning with a sensual body on the sheets to embrace and cherish. Lips to kiss. It's altigether wondrous. It has wings. And it flas them to wonderful effect.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,918 The Painted Ceilings
Yeah! The Painted Ceilings. What a nice way to start the week.Their debut gambit,Maybe There's a Difference a seven song mini album sets out its stall with a song called You're 23 !
I don't know how to tell you Painted Ceilings but I'm not. I'm fast approaching 60. But I feel like I'm 23 sometimes. And I know what I like.
I like this. Urgent melodic indie guitar from New Brighton that feels like it knows its Orange Juice. Irs Modern Lovers. It's Beatles. This will do. Infinity and beyond. Well New Brighton at the very least.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 185 The Clash - Combat Rock
Ooh I like Combat Rock. But then I like The C;ash. They weren't huge at my secondary school. The Stranglers I remember. My best friend at Secondaty School said they were huge at Latymer.
A great bloke I knew said the Dickies were preferable to the Clash. He knew a lot about life. Less about music.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,748 The Beach Boys - Friends
This came out in 1968 and sunk like a stone commercially. Failing to get anyway near The Billboard Top 100. It fared far better in the UK. It's a brief, melancholic and excellent record that I imagine obsessive fans of the band adore.This needs tempering with the realisation that soothing as this all is nothing on here would have made it onto Pet Sounds in all likelihood.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 186 XTC - Black Sea
One of the first albums I bought. An indicatorof me being to discover my own taste. I still think Black Sea is great. Looking back to The Kinks. And forwards to Blur.
So much going on. On every track. It's Pop. But awkward geeky Pop by a buch of oiks from Swindon. We live in a different world and it's difficult not to get a little dewy eyed and nostalgic listening to this now.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 38Jake Xerxes Fussell - When I'm Called
Jake Xerxes Fussell is one of the finest old school folk practitioners there is. Reared in Georgia and working out of North Carolina his work is unfailingly spare and heartfelt.
Never more so than in this year's offering When I'm Called.. It took me from half six to half seven this morning with languid grace and dignity,
This kind of music takes you out of yourself and makes you feel a part of something greater than yourself. It has a serene beauty. You couldn't really want anything more than what albums like this offer.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,918 The Lost Notes
I don't generally like this time of year. It's cold and dark it's a time of year that reminds me of people I love who have died. And generally I experience money difficulties. moments of loneliness and tend to feel rather bleak in one way or another. But this year I'm feeling different as November winds down to December. This year I'm feeling positive and hopeful and full of energy and fight.
No better way to spend the remaining days as we count down to Christmas and 2025 than scooping up albums I've missed. The Lost Notes Good Luck Shoes is frankly rather Mumford & Sons lite and I never could stand that band. So I only got as far as the second song nefore I decided. 'This is fairly frightful and went on to something that was more to my taste. Still, it was alright I suppose. If you like that sort of tat. Onwards and upwards!
Saturday, November 16, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 187 The Television Personalities - The Painted Word
The Television Personalities had a particular vision which endures. Mental health and furs.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,749 Elastica- Elastica
I still have enormousfun with Elastica's Elastica and always will. It's the sound of being young and shameless. Shameless in its plagiarism. Flawless in its taste and spite. These aren't love songs as such but sum up the times they were written, recorded and released perfectly.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 39 Fievel Is Glauque - Rong Wieicknes
Ihaven't been gigging tis year as much as I would have liked owing to monetary and working concuderations. But I have been to The Lubber Fiend a fantastic new cooperative venue just aroud the corner from me a coulple of times.
I managed to catch Fievel Is Glauque there a couple of months back. One of my most treasured discoveries of recent years.
Descibed by Uncut Magazine as a fascinating curveball. Second album Rong Wieicknes is precisely that. A transatantic duo Zach Ohullups and Ma Clement who shuttle from Brussels to New York and draw on Classical Jazz and Avant Garde sources.
This is a playful, souffle lite concoction. There's a lot of thought behind this in the same way that there always was with emotional and musical forbears. Stereolab and Broadcast. I have a Fievel Is Glauque t shirt from that night. I think I need to wash and wear it again.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,917 Wallice
A slight lie in after a rare night out with a good friend. The sun is open in the Newcastle heavens and my bath is run. Wallice's The Jester playing on my headphones as I prepare myself for it.
It's a very 2024 product. Self examination and emotions. A young woman with a pout and long plaits. One that may find it difficult to differntate itself from the pack. But essentially likeable.
Friday, November 15, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 188 Killing Joke - What's This For !
A post from last year about this record.
As general as Christmas approaches, there are musical departures to sour the mood and make us reflect. Just yeaterday Shane MacGowan. A few days back Geordie Walker of Killing Joke. A mighty musician and a mighty loss.
It was one of those deaths that made me think of my secondary school, forty years and more back now, and its rituals and practices. It's foibles. I went to a reasonable sized comprehensive called Grey Court in Petersham in South West London. An unremarkable place in most ways but the portal to crucial, personal memories.
As we moved up towards the fifth year the students of my year, and the boys particularly used to write the names of the artists and the bands they liked on their bags and pencil cases. I remember certain bands tallying highly. Cramps, Rezillos, DEVO were greatly liked. Killing Joke seeme to be rated and listened to more than anyone.
I didn't listen to them. I wasn't a John Peel listener crucially and primarily focused on what was in the charts an on Top of the Pops until I was in the fourth year and started to be fascinated by Echo & the Bunnymen who were still an underground concern largely at this point though not much discussed by my yearmates in Grey Court in the corridors or plaugrounds or celebrated on pencil or school bags.
Prompted by the news of Walker's death and the sad reaction of a schoolmate of mine for whom they'd meant a lot at the time, I listened to The Joke's second album What's This For! earlier this week. It's impressive first of all. Ritualistic, fierce and primitive. A set of pagan rites as much as songs; a set of circles around a campfire, all driven onward by Geordie's echoey and driving guitars.
Killing Edge were never the easiest of bands to listen to. They recollect the nihilistic and anarchistic spirits of their times as well as anybody, of squats and marches, and would naturally appeal to the teenage boys that we were. It was around the time when you might think of reading Lord of The Flies.There's something almost fascistic and scary about its intensity.
Good as Killing Joke and Walker were it's still not really my thing. I'm glad the playground is far behind. Secondary School was never something I enjoyed. Ultimately I think I found the peer pressure which was king there stifling and claustrophobic. I was glad when I could leave in 1982 and start to develop my own tastes and interests. Construct my own identity Still Killing Joke offer powerful reminders of those times and What's This For! is a fascinating and impressive record.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 40 Laura Marling - Patterns in Repeat
Laura Marling to my mind is excellent. Consistently excellent. She works on the Folk Seam. Tended by the likes of Nick Drake, John Martyn and most obviously Joni Mitchell , which is the consistent, inevitable reference point.
She also sprinkles in the modern. She talks about aging, relationships. Sensitively, lovingly. Patterns in Repeat is another great Laura Marling album. Good for the soul.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,917 Mud Whale
It's mid November. It;s grey outside my window. Never mind Mud Whale are here to save us from misery with their melodic Grunge Lite album Humans Pretending To Be Human
To give them their full name Mud Whale are a Cleveland Emo Grung quartet. This album will not change your world. But there are worse ways of spending thirty one minutes of your life.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 41 Bananagun - Why is the Colour of the Sky?
Why is the Colour of the Sky? Why indeed.Bananagun Australian furry freaks and Afrobeat enthusiasts are back. And that's always going to be something to celebrate,
This takes off wheer ehe band left off with 2020's The True Story of Bananagun. It might as well have been 1967 frankly. Because this is where this beauty and crazed intensity first springs from.
There's a joyous utopian energy here which cannot be stilled. A glorious thiry five minute and ten song run. The second dawning of the Age of Aqyarius. And not a moment too soon.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,916 Robin Guthrie
Tobin Guthrie's new album Astoria comes across as ambient classical music for elevators, Awash with synths and melody. I confess I didn't stay for too long.
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 190 John Hiatt - Bring The Family
Not the kind of record I went for in 1987. It felt too old for me and I'm afraid it still does as I make my way towards sixty.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 42 The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick - The Illiad & The Odyssey & The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick
The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick. A stone cold Existentialist classic novel from 1970 by Austrian writer Peter Handke. About an unhappy disolute man who commits murder and then spends the rest of the book seeking to escape from himself and his lack of remorse. Without success. I told you it was Existentialist .. The kind of thing I tracked down and latched onto hungrily as a teenager undergoing the process of construction of who and what I was.
An equally fine early Will Wenders arthouse movie. And now fifty years an more on an excellent Philidelphia band of Indie misfits and today's Song(s) of the Day. The kind of proud statement of individuality and desire that always jumps out at aging would be bohemian oddballs like me.
Six fellow travellers from the city of brotherly love setting out on their journey. Their second album The Illiad & The Odyssey & The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick shines forth with the hungry vision of youth. The moment when you're devouring these classics for the first time. Discovering love. Making those friendships and alliances that will keep you secure and safe for the rest of your journey. Shaping your soul.
Listening to this first thing on a bright April morning with the sun streamung through my windows makes me glad to be alive and pleased I made my way on the road I chose when I was 16. That I.found my way to The Go Betweens and Television. Carson McCullers and Graham Greene. Camus and Sartre. Satie and Debussy. Oliver Postgate and Roald Dahl. Hal Ashby and Gustav Klimt. The girls I fell for and the friendships I forged.
The Illiad & The Odyssey & The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick is a record from a band that instinctively understands the small joys of these choices and this act of formation.These people are born bohemians. This is a fantastic record and a fresh love
Song(s) of the Day # 3,915 Bananagun
Why is the Colour of the Sky? Why indeed.Bananagun Australian furry freaks and Afrobeat enthusiasts are back. And that's always going to be something to celebrate,
This takes off wheer ehe band left off with 2020's The True Story of Bananagun. It might as well have been 1967 frankly. Because this is where this beauty and crazed intensity first springs from.
There's a joyous utopian energy here which cannot be stilled. A glorious thiry five minute and ten song run. The second dawning of the Age of Aqyarius. And not a moment too soon.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 191 Husker Du - Flip Your Wig
Flip Your Wig found Husker Du on a major label. You wouldn't have known it, Apart frim a slightly cleaner production they remained consistent to their trajectory and values,
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 43 Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - Loophole
Mick Head seems to be enjoying a surprising but well deserved curtain call of late. As someone who's always appreciated and sometimes been blown away by his work since he first emerged with Pale Fountains in the end days of Eric's it's a gratifying thing to witness.
Head has always been a talent to note and enjoy. Personally I've sometimes found him a little too in thrall to the past. That of his heroes. Arthur Lee's :Love, Simon & Garfunkel, The Byrds. I love that tradition too, so I'm not about to complain but I've never thought it entirely healthy to immerse yourself so utterly in times which have gone by. Look at Morrissey. You lose track of the here and now and your pursuit becomes an exercise in nostalgia and can sometimes lose its way. Those who peddle in this too staunchly are not always reliable witnesses.
This seems to be a particularly Scouse tendency and prediliction. Head is not alone. There are plenty of Liverpudlian fellow travellers. Lippy types. McCulloch, The Coral, Bill Ryder Jones, Lee Mavers. Head has always been probably the mist restrained and artistically inclined of these. Intent as much in his legacy as his present and his past. A painter at the easel at the port or the bay. Beret cocked, False moustache. Paintbrush at an angle.
He's painted another minor masterpiece in Loophole latest record with the Red Elastic Band.It's one of his best records I'd say and will get his fanbase swooning in the aisles.It's an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' exercise. Mistly he hits bullsetes.The quality contril is very high. Sometimes the steals are a bit blatant. The Human Race filches Lou Reed's Hangin Round lock stock an barrel. But what did Oscar say about imitation.The man knows what he likes and plenty of others will love this too. Good luck to the man. Well done too. I imagine he's enjoting this. .
Song(s) of the Day # 3,914 Dialup Ghost
Six on Tuesday morning. Bath had. Lessons planned. An hour to kill before heading to the fitness centre. Just time to listen though to First Mate Darren 'Starbuck' Jones latest tip. May You Live Forever in Cowboy Heaven'. From Nashville's finest Dialup Ghost.
Just my cup of sick if you'll pardon the expression. From the sleeve of skeletal gun toting desperadoes onwards. .American Bohemian Weirdo Expressionism for forty minutes. My run down charts are full of these kind of nutty statements these days and may the well never run dry.
Thes people can't really sing and the playing is basic but consistently heartfelt and utterly committed. Som emight tellyou that love is allyou do. Ifficial rundowns might consistently tell you that Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are in terms of the new conformity of grief and despair. Here is another record
Monday, November 11, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 192 Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
My best friend and I hung around in out college days with a less than sympathetic type. I wouldn't remotely know where to start with that guy and his list of teenage crimes. Not a sympathetic sort. Let's put it that way.
But he had a car. And when you're a teenager you're nothing if not opportunistic.Cerainly my best friend and I were We should be slightly ashamed of ourselves but of course we're not.
We all loved Talking Heads. How could you not. The less than sympathetic type drove us up to London one Friday night lto one of the Scalas famous all night bills. He feel asleep in the seat between us. Woke up in the middle of Stop Making Sense and told us that it had stopped making sense. Oh how we laughed. The fim and album are of course wondrous in every way.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,753 Whitney - Light Upon The Lake
No not that Whitney. Gentle Indie Soulful fragility out of Chicago.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 44 Ducks Ltd - Harms Way
'Raindrops on Roses and whiskers on kittens'. Byrds fringes. Leather trousers and Chelsea Boots. These are a few of my own personal things.
It's perfectly clear that the C 86 Dream that I experienced in my eatly twenties is one that will not die. There are any number of bands in San Fransisco who adhere with religious and limp wristed devotion to its commandments and principles.
If that's not enough to whet your appetite Toronto based Indue based collective Ducks Ltd's .Harms Way might scatter your skittles. Right up my drippy Indie Schmindie Cul de Sac.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,913 Our Girl
Late in the day today. Three lessons taught online from half eight til half one.An hour and a half at the fitness centre. Then a shop for Garibaldi biscuits and more and I'm back at my desk with cup of tea and said biscuits. Tucking in. The sun set already in the Newcastle heavens.
Our Girl's The Good Kind tick my boxes in a Monday afternoon in a world I'm finding increasingly tick box giverned. Recirded at Rockfield Studio's with John Parish at the mixing desk their second album feels spacier and more considered than before.
Silky glossy and quietly confident. Dreamy. They're a London three piece and they harness a rich melodic sound. This took me from five to six with consummate grace.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 193 Big Audio Dynamite - Big Audio Dynamite
Still a nice record to put on once in a while.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,754 Godspeed You ! Black Emperor- F#A#
Every now and then Godspeed You ! Black Emperor come along to remind us that it's the end of the world as we know it, and they feelcrap. It's a dirty job but I suppose someone's got to do it.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 45 BMX Bandits - Dreamers On The Run
It's apt that I've fallen under the sell of Dreamers On The Run, the latest album by The BMX Bandits this morning.I've just come back from a short holiday break in Glasgow this week. It's the city the Bandits mecurial leader and visionary Duglas T. Stewart is most readily associated with. A place where the musical scenes and sensibility he was a mover and shaker within still looms large.
Dreamers On The Run is in every respect a tribute and addition to the seam of music which Stewart emreged from at the end of the Eighties. The sleeve of the album here depicts him in bearded reverie, and serves up reminders of visionary mavericks of the Sixiues. Scott Walker, Dion, Van Dyke Parkes and Del Shannon spring to mind.
The record does not shame comparisons such as these. A Naive Art album in the tradition of The Modern Lovers, Jad Fair, Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian and The Delgados, it's an LP of continual childlike wonder and beauty.
Not for all tastes perhaps. Best enjoyed and appreciated if you have wimpy C-86 blood flowing through your veins. I'm a man of such DNA and this was an excellent start to my Friday morning. It's surely Stewart's masterpiece. I imagine he's incredibly pleased with this, and with very good reason. Dream on Duglas. You fragile pearl. .
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