250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 49 Long Ryders - Native Sons

 

In my first year at university it was much more common for people to come up to university accommodation with a record player than a television set. We had our heads screwed on in 1985. There was a communal set where you could go and catch I Claudius reruns or Citizen Kane if it was showing on one of the terrestrial channels. 

There was a mature student in our block who had a colour set where you could go and watch a football match. But from memory football wasn't a particular priority at university. There were more interesting thngs. More important things.Like being young,

 I got into an important relationship in my second term with a beautiful Chinese Malaysian girl. She had a Singaporean friend with a colour TV on the ground floor on campus. It was the World Cup in Mexico in the Summer term,. The Hand of God, Mundial. 

Min and I snuggled down  under the duvet and watched games. But we both far more interested in the snuggling than the outcome of the match. People forget. When you settle down to the 9 to 5 and start yo chip away at your mortgage and the binge watch and the ninety minutes takes over and somehow stretches out to actually mean more than The Bronte Sisters and Scorsese and Astral Weeks. 

What means more than these things. A legalised war on a field of grass. Not to me it doesn't.I can watch a match of footbal and enjoy it as much as the next person but essentially these days for me mostly it boils down to jumping up and down when your team scores. .  .

Back in my home block one of the girls upstairs had a record player. She lent me Hoodoo Gurus, Stoneage Roses and Long Riders Native Sons. Both debut albums, both slightly retro tecords  in different ways but entres. Signposts to all kinds if great music . Nuggets, CBGBs, Australian pioneers from ; Buffalo Springsteen, Byrds and Gram from Native Sons.

I saw Long Ryders in my first year. They were supported by That Petrol Emotion who had come from the ashes of The Undertones and seemed a natural broadening of that palate. Both band seemed like  primer courses. Get out of the venue get a bus into town. Go to a record shop. Find out where they came from . Form a band or write a book. Listening to Native Sons now it thinks Punk is a great thing. It thinks C & W is a great thing. It thinks the British Invasion is a great thing. It's forty years old and it's a pretty great thing too. Form that band. Write that book.

   

1979 Top 40 - # 16 Madness

 

It's interesting watching this . Where Madness came from. They were from London . Camden Town. I was from London too. Growing up in Richmond and Petersham. Kew, Kingston and Twickenham. St Margarets, Strawberry Hill and Teddington, But I was innocent and protected.

Madness here already sound versed in life and the big city. They knew their stuff. Ska and The Sixties. Punk and Reggae. Old school Music Hall. They kept their edge and never forgot where they came from. At school it just seemed like a bit of fun. A conversation point on Friday morning on the bus. In the playground 'Did you see their video on Top of the Pops? ' But they clearly deserved and deserve a lot more respect than that.. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,328 Buck Meek

 

Buck Meek new album The Mirror.has a strangely retro cover . He's looking over his shoulder, clasping a chainmail fence. It's all strangely Pat Benatar or The Cars. The album itself also seems oddly disorientated. Ynmoored. Perhaps he is. Unmoored from Big Thief who he usually anchors on guitar.

It's a lovely record anyhow. Very 2026 Hippie. Bug Thief are highly Hippie these days. That's why they're greatly loved I imagine. The Mirror. has precious little connection with Benatar and Cars apart from its sleeve.

But it's a fine recird. I'm not sure how the Big Thief surviving trio do it but I'm glad they do. Buck Meek here is Floating In Space. And frankly it suits hum. .   

MC5

 

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 15 Miles Davis Quintet

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,439 Boredoms - Vision Creation Sunshine

 

If you're looking for Ambient, Psychedelic Noiserock you may like to start here.

1979 Top 40 - # 17 Cliff Richard

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 234 Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull

 

Album title of the day. The album's pretty imposing too, 'Glacial Spaghetti Western.'

Song(s) of the Day # 4,327 Nothing

 

It's Monday . We steam into Spring, What have I got for you. Well?!? Nothing,.A Philadelphia band. Their fifth album  A Short History of Decay. Trust me. Sweet things sometimes come in unprepossessing packages. This is Shoegaze, meets Grunge meets Sufjan Stevens it would seem. And it's frequently lovely in many respects. 

This record drifts into the sombre, desolate places that late Beatles, My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins and Elliott Smith records do, It's a sensational record and covers a lot of ground.  

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 14 Herbie Fields Band With Rubberlegs Williams

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,440 Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage

On Bluenote. Released in 1965. A concept of sorts aiming to replicate aquatic passage. I'm not sure I'd realise but certainly plain sailing.

 

1986 Singles # 1 The Triffids

 

This song means a lot to me. It says a lot about life and how to live it if you can. If you dare,. About the desolation that exists within us all potentially The wildness hat beats in our chest and can lead us off the path onto the wildnerness and the darkness if we don't keep an eye on our compass and the stars and the track ahead of you.

It's by the Triffids, a band who walked their own path with a determined and loping tread. Who I discovered on 1985 and aligned myself to in 1985, the ear when they released their great album Born Sandy Devotional and when I saw them. In Northern London (Islington I suspect), towards the end of a glorious summer. As glorious a summer as I've lived,

I was in love and Wide Open Road is the song I associate mostly with the feeling of the love curdling and dying in the ears which followed. My impotence, jealousy and rage. How love and jealousy can burn in your chest and consume you with rage, confusion and anguish. This is what great songs do and in my lifetime songs will never come much finer or have greater meaning to me..

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 235 Tom Waits - Blood Money

 

Tom Waits is a bit like a London double decker bus in some respects. You wait around for a couple of hours for one and three of them come along at once. And they all look and soud and smell the same. And splutter off gasping and coughing. And you wonder if they'll  ever going to get to their destination. This one sounds alright. But I'll get off when I get to my stop . And leave Blood Money  to it.

Blancmange

 

1979 Top 40 - # 18 The Crusaders

 

I didn't really recognise a really good song. A really good singer. Ot  really good musicianship. When I was 13. That's something you need years for. I have them now. 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 50 Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

 

I was at a loose end last night. It was raining out. It's always raining out these days it seems. Something was happening in Iran. But I couldn't face that. So I did something I've never done. In all my sixty years so it's probably about time. I put on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and listened to all four sides of it. All ninety minutes.

It's an old brother's record. My older brother Michael to be precise. I inherited a pile of them from him. Led Zep. Black Sabbath. Springsteen and Genesis. I turned down the chance of Jethro Tull and Queen.But I like Genesis partuclarly Gabriel era Genesis. And I enjoyed The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway a lot. In fact it was a revelation.

It's too long I'd say. Would anyone disagree . But it's a narrative about essential things. Identity. The creative instinct. Surveillance. Control. You can follow the lyrics if you want. Genesis is made up of a group of extraordinary musicians. But I found myself most impressed and astonished by Tony Banks bank of organs and keyboards which made a claim to be lead instruments for much of the record.

Spellbound by the journer I did some research afterwards Fascinating. It wasn't a road to Damascus experience I'd maintain.. I'll return to my meat and potatoes. My Velvet Underground and Marvin Gaye. My R.E.M. and Smiths. But I'll pit on The Lamb at least once a year I expect, I've got an enormous amoynt of respect for it and where it came from now. 

March

 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,326 Mitski

 

Everybody they say, wants to be a cat. Certainly Mitski it appears judging by the cover of Nothing's About To Happen To Me her latest album which charmed the socks off me;yesterday afternoon and is soing the same this morniing as I rise on Sunday;

It's her eighth album. Sober reflections on loneliness and delusion, And trying to find your phone.First workd problems and means of escape. Finding spaces of ease and rest on between the noise and disturbance. 

This feels like  a country cousin to Weyes Blood's recent excursions. Respite from the onslaught from the ceaseless storm in easeful nostalgia. 

It does so. Explains the anger and finds resolution and humour . It's another marvellous record in a year where they're popping up like meerkats in the silken desert sand, 

Gang of Four

 

Neil Sedaka 1939 -2026

 

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 13 Miles Davis - Maids of Cadiz

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,441 Donovan - Sunshine Superman

 

A Donovan album from 1966 with a wonderful cover and a lush texture. It's a lustrous record frankly. It takes you there. Donovan is making like a turtle and diving fot your pearls in the sea. Then he's bringing gold apples. A veritable feast unfurls.

Plenty mock Donovan . Dylan mocked hum brutally at the time. But this is one of those 'How beautiful to be young and alive for that golden dawn records.

. 

1986 Singles # 2 The Smiths

 

Like anyone who went to unoversity in the Mid Eighties Yhe Smiths furnish me with enough memories to write a book. To furnish a mansion. There has been no band like them. Before or since. They say something about the human condition and spirit at its best and also sometimes at its worst. . This song chimes with me particularly.

.  

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 236 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz

 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs do their Electro Post Punk shriek and scream thing to wonderful effect ! 'Off With Their Heads !'

1979 Top 40 - # 19 Bill Lovelace

 

There were always tunes like this in the Top 40 and it always seemed like a good idea. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,325 Gorillaz

 

I'm rising on Satirday mornong and taking to a Tibetan mountain top to listen to... erm... The Mountain ... the latest album by Gorillaz. They've been around for 25 years now And this feels like it. A relax into late middle age record. A set of comfy cushions..

Damon Albarn... It's hard to knock the man. He's spread his wings since  his Parklife years, headed off for the Global Horizon. This album is haunted by the past. Most notably here,  loss of Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's fathers. The ultimate loss of innocence.

This record sounds like what it need to. A celebration of all the contradictions and conflicts of life . The reluctance to let go of youth and the inevtable  drift into the void. It's a marvellous record frankly. Give it a listen. Embrace Spring !

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 12 Cannonball Adderley

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,442 The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

 

I generally bristle slightly before listening to a record that's related in any way to Jack White/ I don't particulalrly like him I confess and am not particularly grounded in the tradition he draws on or the scenarios he dabbles in, In this case what if Free or Led Zep had formed thirty years.on, If that's your bag, This is your album.

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 51 Big Country - The Crossing

 

I liked Big Country well eniugh at the time as a 17 and 18 when The Crossing and the initial singles came out. I liked the tunes, the shirts, the guitars the genuine sentiments.It just seemed like positive, admirable stuff TBH.  Big Country fitted in with the construction of identity that was going on within myself. Taking place in books, films and records. A construction of identity.The person I wanted to be. I still want to be that person.

Big Countryfitted in wuth R.E.M., The Smiths, The Go Betweens, Triffids, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Prefab Sprout and so on.  And the reworking back to the Velvet Underground, Doors, Byrds and so forth that was going on within me from there. I didn't actually buy The Crossing until relatively recently. 

 But I listened to the record last night after listening through to a podcast about the sad story of Stuart Adamson the band's guiding light. And I realisde exactly what a vision the album is. How good it is. It's almost a mythic record tol isten to now. Young men placing themselves in a huge landscape and exploring and nailing exactly what that means an dhow others can relate and identify with that,  How the album was  clearly a fundamental statement to Adamson as a differentiating declaration from The Skids and Richard Jobson his foil and the fronttwo  of The Skids, the Dunfermline Punk band he'd first come to prominence in.,

The Crossing is a set of songs that stand very much within theur tume and place. The messianic and inspiring lighters aloft wave of guitar bands that was rising at thet point in time; U2, Simple Minds, Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs. But there's something incredibly stirring  about The Crossing and one that's also underpinned with sadness that's actually recognisable within the melodies,massed vocals guitars, drums and lyrics of the record itself that brackets Adamson and his sad, eventual destiny as a Caledonian cousin of Ian Curtis, Adruan Borland and Bily McKenzie.A depressed celebrant.    

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 237 Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft

 

 Super Furry Animals  approach every album as the artform should be approached. As if they're plotting out before you a new planet in your solar system. Somewhere you haven't visited before. This is one where you find yourself wondering about the source of oxygen and how the inhabitants procreate as the third sun starts its rise in the southern heavens.

1979 Top 40 - # 20 Dave Edmunds

 

This is a good one. Dave Edmunds seemed like nothing less than a hip Uncle to me and  he churned out loads of groovy, rockin' 45a with catchy tunes and rockin' ryhthms. All power to your elbow Uncle Davy !

Song(s) of the Day # 4,324 Bill Callahan

 

It's coming up to the end of February . Spring is on its way. Bill Callahan is 'driving through the dark. Arriving in the rain.' To sing hs songs again and again,

Why Do Men Sing? Why indeed. Bill is here to tell us om latest record and I imagine this will keep me engaged with new album Days of 58 as I make my way across the morning.

Bill Callahan is a droll troubadour and he sticks to his script as the clock ticks. 'He laughs in the face of death'. Just as it should be. This will syrely tick the boxes for those for whom previous Smog and Callahan excursions have ticked boxes. It's important to not treat your lifeboat like a yacht. Well done Bill. I'm aboard!

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 11 Miles Davis Allstars

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,443 Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night

 

If there was ever a man who knew his way to The Heart of Saturday Night Tom was he, 

1979 Top 40 - # 21 Sad Cafe

 

Even at thirteen I sensed instinctively that Sad Cafe were just beyond the pale. The name. The photoshots. They were everything you didn't want to grow up to be, It's a song that should be put down.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 238 Death Cab For Cutie - Plans

 

From a Vegas Water Taxi to a Death Cab For Cutie one. We all have to make our way through life. To pay the bills. Death Cab For Cutie make it sound like a rather bland passage for the most part although sometimes the sun peeks from behind the clouds.. Monochrome Shins. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,323 Vegas Water Taxi

 

Long time Caller, First Time Listener. Vegas Water Taxi ..An album that immediately heralds itself as coming from a familiar  place and goes out to a designated audience. For people with Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian and Big Star albums in their record collection.

They concern themselves with Thirty Something Concerns. Which seem to be the same as Thirty Something Concerns always have been. 

Vegas Water Taxi are East Country slackers who don't wish to surprise, disappoint or innovate frankly. This is an instantly familiar album that feels like you're being beckoned onto a marshmallow sofa.  

Rough Trade

 

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 10 Lee Konitz Sextet

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 239 Diefenbach - Set & Drift

 

Get ahead of your cooler than cool friends. Listen to this,Cool Danish Indie that finds a beautiful poetic space,

1979 Top 40 - # 22 Al Hudson & The Partners

 

I haven't heard this since 1979. Now I have . It's good to be alive !

Song(s) of the Day # 4,322 Annabelle Chairlegs

 

Waking Up with Annabelle Chairlegs. Well actually it's getting on to three in the afternoon and I've already done half a days work but it's a charming experience nonetheless. I can recommend it highly if you ever have the opportunity,

The lady in question works out of Austin , Texas in a vein which would be familiar to those prone to Kim Deal. I.e. anyone with an ounce of sense. Fabulous stuff !!!

1979 Top 40 - # 23 Johnny Mathis

 

Johnny ventures onto the dancefloor.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,444 Iron Maiden - The Killers

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 240 His Name is Alive - Some Day My Blues Will Cover This Earth

 

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 9 Michel Legrand

 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,321 Lucid Express

 

Lush it seems did not gaze in vain. For here are Lucid Express Hong Kong's finest  all these years on. Tremelo pedals afflutter, Instant Comfort is an album you have heard on many an occasion but it's a good one so once more to the breach dear shoegazers. Once more. 

100 Miles - Mojo Magazine # 8 Miles Davis

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,445 Little Richard - Little Richard

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 241 Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

 

The kind of album that Uncut syaffers paper their walls with. But that's no slyr. Rather a recommendation. I've just made myself a cup of tea and cut myself a slice of Madeira Cake and lead back in my desk chair as if it's a long hot bath to luxuriate in this. Sometimes the bills can wait.