How does a band that comes to fame at a certain age appealing primarily to people of a similar age as them last the course. Take the Undertones and Positive Touch. They could always write sings and play. Now they found nuance and moved away lyrically frim a largely hormonal rush. Discovered Soul and Dexys and Orange Juice. Maintained the joy and humour. (less of a factor on The Sin of Pride, the record which broke them).
Here they really embraced the experiment. Were content to be out of synch. They broadened their palate and range of harmonies and finally sang about the Troubles. Theirs and the part of the world they hailed from. This is a gorgeous textured and incredubly colourful record. Almost dayglo. I can't think of another album which sounds quite like it.
I have double standards. At heart I'm an NME reader. I like the Stranglers so tirn a blind eye to their callous misogyny and thugushness. But I'm not so forgiving to Duran Duran.Hungry Like The Wolf.'A character who hunts women. Charming !' I suppose the tune's alright.
The kind of album that is born to be mythologised and sounds wonderfully mythical from its opening notes. Rochdale's finest. I expect. Appreciated by John Peel and Julian Cope. Featured on Peel's famed Dandelion Records. Listening now feels ike duscovering a new colour.
This is their second album and has a mystery and no little wzzened, gothic ork majesty. Dark, craft and learned. This is news to me. Today is the first time I've heard the record . It won't be the last.
'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. A long way from home...'
The first thing we feel in life is the act of separation. And from there begins the eternal search for meaning, Some of us fare better than others. But we all remain confused. Despite our protestations to the contrary.
Ask Californians Sweetwater if you don't believe me. The band that were set to open Woodstock in 1969 but were delayed by traffic so Richie Havens stood in and took their slot in history. Sweetwater I imagine are largely forgotten. .Except by those like me who obsess over this fundamental stuff.
History records that Sweetwater were taken to the festival by helicopter and performed their set after Swami Satchudinanda's Invocation. They were paid $3,500 fir their efforts. But I imagine it didn't go very far. There were rather a lot of them. Pushing double figures.
Their debut album, named Sweetwater was the only one to chart nationally. I listened to it this morning. It went down smoothly with bath and breakfast. It's perfectly of its times. Santana Lite. 'What's wrong in our school. Politicians are blowing their cool. Over they who refuse to abide by the rules. What's wrong at the zoo. The animals sense all our fears showing though.'
It's a cool and educative listen. How little things change. A wonderful reminder of times that were definitely not innocent ones but were well served by music like this which sountdracked them. And what to be frank has changed. A man who was then dodging the draft is now leading the charge into the next set of conflagrations. Like all great generals. Frim the rear.. Have a great day !
The chart continues to descend through albums which I don't know, which is exactly the kind of chart I'm most enthralled by. . July was an Ealing based psyche band and this is their debut album frim 1968. It struck me as slightly run of the mill initually. Psychedelia of the Hole in My Shoe strain. But it's a grower as perfectly amiable. And then opens up in Crying is fir Writers particularly tp gentle epiphany. I'm sold. Also highly collectable naturally.
An OST for a documentary about the life of Jack Johnson the boxer. Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Herbie Hancock feature .It's funky as.... and sounds ready to blow at any moment.
Scotland have a dream . To get knocked out at the group stage apparently. This featured Johm Gordon Sinclair from Gregory's Girl. A film whuch described my life at that point in time pretty well .
Charm, an almost forgotten art. And evident in spades on For Sale the latest offering from New Rochelle guitar and keyboard duo Frog. it's a gentle syncopated record that takes its time and chooses its byroads.It seems indebted wonderfully to Jonathan Richman and Andrew Gold. Takes its time. As we should all try to do.
Blondue were not exactly 'washed up' in 1982. But they'd pretty much run out of road and were sensible enough to realise it. The Hunter was the first album you didn't really need to own. Except perhaps. for its wonderful cover. It reached Number Ten in Belgium only. Time perhaps to go..
Another day, another Stephen Malkmus album in the inbox. Can I think of anything new to say ? Probably nit. But here we go....
I've just played This Is It by The Strokes and loved it completely so Malkmus is a logical next stop. Lets face it Stephen Malkmus could have been in The Strokes. He;s good looking, loves himself and his work is deeply referential. This is Post Rock. So clever that you can't hope to keep up. So lay back and enjoy.
I guess the ultimate goal is to term temporary freedom into permanent freedom. With that in mind I left my phone charging in the socket next to my bed a couple of hours ago and left my flat and wandered down to Newcastle Quayside. A ten minute walk downhill from where I live. I found a record stall on the edge if the Tyne that I've frequented over the almost eighteen years I've lived in Newcastle. I had a brief chat with the stall owner; a friendly bearded fellow who remembered me too.
We chatted about this and that and I bought a copy of Trespass by Genesus which seemed reasonably priced. He popped in a splendid purple sleeve which reminded me if the Hazlenut Caramel's from Quality Street. We bade each other farewelland I made my way up Grey Street, called by some the finest street in Europe. It certainly seemed so this afternoon , I felt unencumbered without my phone. Noticed the phenomenal quality of the Georgian architecture. Observed the faces of the people I passed. Speculated on them. The great mystery; other people.
19th April 2026. There's never a bad time to take a new step. Make a new resolution. Some time without my phone on a daily basis if I can. Who knows how far I'll get. As for Trespass, I like it, I care for Gabriel's Genesis more and mire as I make my way into my sixties
It's April 2026. It's a Sunday. I've just listened to Matching Mole frim 1972 which still oddly, with all it's quaintness still sounds like the future. And a rather comforting one with all the idiosyncrasy that we cherish in humanity and existence. Let's see how Workingman's Dead from 1970 fares.
First of all it's playing on my television set. How's that for Psychedelics? How far we've come. Or have we ?. I immediately warm to it. It's warm and I sense a campsite fire. A sense of community where you're more than welcome .Always room for one more. So find yourself a seat. I imagine a bowl of broth. This is gentle and loving stuff. A great set of songs
It's 2026. And every other record it seems is an imaginary soundtrack. We seem to be being asked to gi and live in some kund of permanent fantasy existence. It's certainly inviting. Well if you can't beat them you might as well join them, So here's today's serving and its another fine record.. Peaches and cream. With breakfast. What are your doctor's orders?
Adrian Younge is an Emmy award winning self taught musician whose work apparently 'defies the digital tide.'If this means his current offering Younge recal Golden Age of Soul classics like Trouble Man and Hot Buttered Soul then I'll have a serving of that !
For those who have immaculately kept bookshelves and know their Cheever from their Coover. Tracing the great American arc. The way any life could go either way.
A malevolent, dark record im every way . Reflecting the journey The Stooges were going through and the times. Incredibly wired and frantic. Ar tunes deeply aggressive. At others deeply confused. Not easy listening. You probably have a good idea if what you think about this already. Not one for the cowering masses. Or for those who like being told what to do.....
Saturday. The Day for Fun according to my father. Still in slumber in the bedroom above the living room where I'm writing this. I've got a trip across country from my parent's hpme to my own In Newcastle. Meaning I'll miss Record Store Day in all probability. A day that means very little to me personally. I'm not that kind of collector.
I looked through the list yeaterday evening and there was just one record whuch piqued my interest and I might ask after early next week when I do the rounds of the Newcastle record stores I frequent. Badfinge'rs third album. On Apple. No Dice.
Badfinger are like The Raspberries and Big Star. Teenage Fanclub, Super Furry Animals and Belle & Sebastian. Forever in The Beatles and their contemporaries slipstream but with a flow well worth following for its own twists and turns..Fir its own magic. No Dice has much to recommend it. I'd like a copy and the original vinyl release is pitched too prohibitively in terms of cost. North of four hundred pounds.
But it's something to covet, It has a great cover. A great set of songs. Wonderful playing. Vocals and harmonies and song structures than genuinely emote and ache. Bring back the times. Only records can do that for me. 'No Matter What you are.....'
The classic collecter's item. A real opportunity to invite your pals round and strpke your chins as it spins. As for letting satan in your life. It's probably slightly inadvisable.Now dosy do your partner. Atmosphere aplenty.
Everybidy things that their tumes were the best. I'm no different but would say that this Top 40 from my times, just as I was preparing for O Levels and the exit to the wider world is a persuasive case for 1982.'See her eyes they are bright tonight, See the stars coming out tonight. See the moon looking down tonight. Ss how they light your way tonight. '
A leisurely wind down to the weekend. Woo, Clive and Mark Ives phenomenal Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Goung Wrong an extraordinary slice of New Age whimsy and drift that feels like you're falling into a blissful space.
The Ives Brothers have been creating music since the 1970's apparently but if this is your entre to theit music then you may want to seek out more. In the meantime this collage is a drop of pure and constantly surprising beauty
An old skool collaboration in many respects. With the rapping rhythms and tone of early NAS and the vague gangster dread of those times but leavened by cool samples, melodic flourishes, tight beats and the constant ability to surprise.
I don't really listen to much that might be labelled Hip Hop these days so am in no position to judge whether it's in rude health or not really.Very few records seem to appear that really grab my attention and make me think I must play, them but this one certainly did.
Producer Danger Mouse and rapper Black Thought are neither of them actually new kids on the block. Far from it. Black Thought made his name as MC of The Roots who have been putting out records since the early Nineties, while Danger Mouse has been a producer of note for a broad range of artisits from Jay Z to Beck and Damon Albarn. No spring chickens then.
But on latest collaboration Cheat Codes they make Hip Hop's broad legacy work for them. This is something of an instant classic. Put it on and it will give you the instant shivers in the way that Illmatic, De La Soul is Dead or Liquid Swords might do.
One of the albums off the year then. One of the best records of this type I've heard for some time. A lyrical free wheeling treasure that improves on every listen.
'One of the most emotional records ever made.' apparently. It's certainly pretty damned good one I'd say.It's sometimes difficult to articulate to any degree to a record that you listen to a lot and appreciate and understand the cultural significance of when they don't particular have a visceral tug for you personally. Some of Joni's do. This always puts me in a restful state whuch is more than enough. Different songs and lines stand out on different hearings,.The vulnerability and candidness are astonishing.
The best way to be drawn unto a new record I find is to hear it first time in a record shop.Yesterday I wandered into Canterbury after a long day teaching. I made my way down St Margarey's Lane and poppped in at Vinylstore Jr to see my pal Nick making last minute preparations for Record Store Day. He had the new Squarepusher album Kammerkonzert on his turntable.
It sounded great and now it sounds great again as I'm listening to it in my parent's living room as the evening draws to a close.. Punchy, Jazzy exercises that might surprise those who associate Tim Jenkinson with more obviously 'Street' exercises from way back when . This is a thrilling record
Associates were hysterical genius. Like overdosing on helium. It was incredible at the time to have songs like this in the charts. Sometimes it takes forty years to begin to realise just how remarkable they actually were.,
A slightly geeky but highly eloquent Swedish man named Jonas Samuelsson starts a YouTube countdown of his favourite records and I'll hitch a ride which will take us to summer. He's incredibly eclectic and this should be a proper education. What I like about him most is that he doesn't talk about himself but focises his energy entirely upin the record he is focusing on. . Almost no Soul, Metal or Funk apparently but we start with something fairly Soulful and certainly visionary.. He says this is primarily about the envronment it creates.
Big Black were pretty confrontational and aggressive. They require certain level of endurance and determination. I lasted a couple of tracks. Until it sounded like someone drilling in my head.
Space. The final frontier. You can put this on and cast yourself in a Science fiction film of your choosing and drift into oblivion in the best way imaginable.
Influencers? Are you hip to this.. Dead Finks fourth New Plastic Abyss strident agitation of the most vigorous kind. A coat of many colours. The Scars meet Rats On Rafts. Wumderbar !!! Hysteria is back in vogue. See them in Leipzig, Berlin, Prague and Munich in April and May. New Favourite Band Number Blah, blah, blah.
Spandau Ballet. Cheeky chappies! The Kemp Brothers actually played for Melchester Rovers for a while in the Eighties in one of the more remarkable twists of the modern football narrative. I wondered whether Instinction was the Spandau single I actually quite liked until I listened to it again yesterday and everything that really irritated me about the band came back.. Like a dose of something ghastly contract in Tunisia..
The funkiness. The hats. The wardrobes in general. The lyrics. The obligatory sax solo in every song because they had a sax player. The relentless narcissism. The drumming.. The videos. Tony Hadley. Spandau Ballet were truly the pits !!!!
I'll never know what Aerosmith felt like in the mid Seventies. I was too young and they were too ... American. Listening to Pump now, which I was aware of when it came out and relatively grown up it sounds like an attempt to cash in. Fair enough but I've never like guitar solos which make you screw up your face as an involuntarily gesture. Straight to MTV . That band were always on MTV..
I'm sorry but this is patently ridiculous and all of the stuff that I like is really good.!That's why I have written a blog for so long. I won't be persuaded.
If in doubt, go down to the underground. Black Beach reignite the conflagration first lit in the early Eighties by the likes of Minor Threat, Mission of Burma, Black Flag, et al in the early eighties on Mail Thief. It's all incredibly authentic.
I took time out of new music largely between about 2004 and 2014 when I felt I should start paying attention a little bit more given that I started writing this blog. This strikes me as one of the best albums I mussed during that fallow period.
A rather wonderful record from earlier on this year that I haven't written about yet. Tragic Magic. Folk Dreaming from Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore. It sounds pretty much like the first album you put on when you get to the jukebox heaven . Whatever or wherever that is .
A strange anomaly of my youth. There was all of this Rock & Roll crap in the charts. Not like the originals. Reliving the late Fifties, and indeed the early Sixties would have been great. But dreadful covers or songs that sounded like they were with anachronistic, clothing haircuts and dancing. Knock yourself out Rocky Sharp & The Replays.
Battles. are the kind of band that I started making an effort with when I first arrived back in England in 2008 and settled in Newcastle and thought I at least needed to make an effort with to attempt to organise myself and catch up with to some degree.
It was sometimes.. err 'a battle' This is frantic, frenetic but not unpleasant clutter and change. Up and down the scales. Happy percussive turbulence.
