I remember talking excitedly at school about Are Friends Electric the next dau at school but I don't remember getting particularly excited about Cars. Hey I hadn't actually read Philip K. Dick. Never mind J.G. Ballard. This made waves in Chicago. It's alright I s'pose.
Tinariwen are back. Hoggar their first album in three is hitting racks near you and it's a treat from the off. I find it difficult to write about music like this without resorting to cliches about desert suns and lips of dunes and stuff rising, The record is coiled and relentlessly atmospheric and thick with flavour and majesty.. Write your own poems.
Change and peoples approaches and responses to it is one of the most fascinating subjects. Particularly when applied to Bohemians like The Monochrome Set.. Who surely advocate risk but stick to their essential palate record in record out.
But as the man said if it ain't broke.... (you do the rest). Lotus Charm is a glassful or two of your very favourite things. Absinthe without the hangover. Herman's Hermits are still together. The Prisoner has been comissioned for another season and Sean Connery is forever shaken and not stirred. A marvellous record
History needs rewriting . They're at it in terms of the history book it seems so why nit music history. The first two Ride albums and that glorious set of EPs. Talk about living a glorious youth. The guitars sound messianic, the whole sense of the record feels like the Christian Crusade. A sense that we're riding into battle with the sun on our shoulders. Of course I'm being fanciful. That's what blogs are for.
We all of us hunt for signs. And find them in the most unexpected places. And they help us orient ourself.. Stay on the prescribed path. Avoid steering into ditches. Driving into trees !
It's coming up to St. Patrick's Day. A special anniversary for me. 22 years ago I met an important person to me. On St Patrick's Day. In an Irish Pub in Katowice . It was the start of a really special story. We met up again last September in Dublin for her 48th Birthday and in advance of my 60th. Discovered a special city together. Drained a few pints of Kilkenneys. Chatted about where we'd gone and where we hoped we were going. It was a fabulous, memorable experience..
Now I'm thinking of Ireland again. Listening to Seamus Fogerty's Ships while my bath runs. It's pure Ireland in the magical sense. Modern Irish Folk. Veined with religious, literary and historical reference points. But also a sense of the mythical land. And there are plenty of modern references. Ut maintains a sense if 2026 It's a deep dive. A special record.
We're all ships. Cast adruft in different seas. Heading towards the same eventual destination in different ports. That's the one thing we all know is inevitable but we try to detain ourselves from that realisation. But determined to make merry as best we can in the meantime. Here's a fine record which may detain you and persuade you to return.
Life is not about work. We may kid ourselves that it is but I'd maintain it isn't really. We can only hope that we get to do something meaningful and worthwhile and that we do it well in return for our dollar. But life us about the spaces between. The spaces where we get to live and try to become ourselves,
This is a record that does nothing if not exist within the spaces in between. Judy Henske was a tall blousy singer who lives into her songs with joy and contagious gusto. This a transportative record.
A film not quite any other. The soundtrack makes every effort to replicate a waking dream.
Halifax' finest Orielles are back with a fourth album Only You Left which finds them again heading off to distant shores once more. They don't like the conventional. If this leads to slightly inconclusive junctures occasionally you cant but commend their modus vivendi.
And as if by magic. Next in line after a record where Gruff Rhys guests. It's Super Furry Animals. Their records are always a land of enchantment and respite.
Irreparable Parables by Andrew Wasylyk. A Scottish composer and arranger. A record sleeve emblazoned in birdlife. A record moored in collaboration and poetry and dream . I sat back at my desk and listened through to the whole record watching the street outside.
Wasylyk works with Stuart Murdoch. Gruff Rhys. The usual Indie Royalty. This is a record which recognises and celebrates an alternative universe. A world where magic still exists. On the cool Clay Pipe label no less,
Records like this exert a strange hold on me and have an invigorating effect on me while they're on the turntable. It begs a lot of questions. Why is the album sleeve so pink.. What became of the chap on the left. Leaning on the painting of the lady painting the mandolin, and why is he gazing shiftily at the camera. What exactly are the band referring to when they talk about their mojo ? Is it working yet? Probably not .
With a band like The Shadows of Knight their mojo is never working. They have to complain about something. They are all 18 to 20. The age of Punk Complaint . Or at least they were when they made the record in 1966. They are Chicago High School graduates oddly. At least they were. But School's Out forever here. They are Out of Sight !''
I'm spring cleaning. It's time....Kate Bush takes me back to the Seventies and feels like having the doors thrown wide to the meadows of the past, the present and the future all at once. I discovered that a friend from school had died today . It shocked me because he was a brave friend who I knew had experienced terrible difficulties but maintained the joy along with manifesting the pain and what news like this awakens in you is a realisation that you are alive and have a responsibility to live.
Listening to Kate Bush helps. She's a life force , Like Bowie, Like The Beatles. Like R.E.M. for me specifically. Like the sun coming out. You just know that something good is going to happen. With Kate Bush at core there's essence. The joy of being alive.
Another day. Another Euro. Bibi Club are a Canadian Pop Duo operating in French to a large degree though not exclusively. Latest album Amaro has a fractured intensity that lit up my Mercredi..
Apparently they explore the Liminal Spaces between the here and beyond. It's a response to the passing if lived ones. Letting the days go by. Another recommendation from Starbuck, Darren Jones Meilleure Ami pour It Starts With a Birthstone. Merci Beaucoup Starbuck. Encroyable.
Genesis called their albums all kind of wonderful things and made all kinds of incredibly inventive, groundbreaking music. Then for their twelfth album in 1983 they played it largely safe. Called the record Genesis. Made a lot of money, Well done Genesis.
The album that's been on permanent rotation all day. It's my mother's ninety first birthday and I'm also doing a massive spring clean having taught my online classes . This record takes me back . To Katowice, Poland where I first bought it on CD just after it came out.
It's an innovative and celebrated record if course. Given that it's entirely composed of samples/ Oveer 3,500 in all. All f which naturally had to be credited, But there's no need to worry yourself with the painful processes behind that anymore than it pays to think of the creative details of Mirph or Wallace & Grimit when watching them.
It's poetry in motion frankly. A record that can easily be listened to on loop because it's not like Astral Weeks or Rubber Soul in that it's best surrendered to rather than broken down into individual moments. .
Move on with the year? Well that's certainly the plan. Onto March and Spring and the lengthening days and the Easter season. Today we have precisely that Move On With The Year the debut album from Alice Costelloe and a veritable peach. Thanks once more to Darren Jones for directing me here.
Reading through the accompanying blurb there seems to be a certain heft and marketing expectation behind the release of the record . It struck me as a very 2026 sounding record. Innocence, awe. Wide eyed millennial wonder. It reminded me of Aldous Harding who will be along before long with her new album on May 8th. In the meantime this will more than do.
'Did I tell you my dad had a heart attack .... my mama took the money and put his ashes in the garbage can...'
I'm finding I'm reading less but it doesn't really matter as I'm listening to more music as it provides the same service is your discernible. Take The Delines new album The Set Up. It's the great American Novel in potted form; Carver, Steinbeck, Scott Fitzgerald laid out before you like a tablecloth at the breakfast table. Whisky & Rye. The struggle, the strife.
There are so many lines and moments that stop you in your tracks. The pain and the purity. A fine record to start the week. We may not get to see as much if the world as we'd like to. But records like this make us feel as if we have,
I didn't really know who John Lennon was when he was shot in 1980. Paul McCartney was The Beatles I thought. I was a late developer. I've pieced things together over the next 45 years . Now I listen to Shaved Fish and I'm struck by the bravery mostly..
These are bold statements. The things people don't like about Lennon, he doesn't like about himself and he's quite upfront but his failings. You think he's overrated. He's john Lennon. It's brutal perhaps. But he's John Lennin. Who are you?
'I want to move away from those who stare at screens all day.'
I come back from church bearing daffodils, What better moment to listen to the new Morrissey album Make Up Is a Lie. So I fix myself a cup of tea. Take a seat at my desk . And off we go.
He's certainly in fine voice the incorrigible old ham. The album has been written off as self pitying , Come on folks this is Morrissey. What were you expecting ? Altruism? It's only the second track and he's off to Paris to the garret of the poet apparently.
He seems to have a bee in his bonnet about his right to spout nonsense and be outraged. About the fire at Notre Dame now which he implies is an inflammation that was not accident. Shock ! Horror! I think he might be implying that it might just be something slightly more sinister.
Is he Still Ill. It seems the jury may still be out ! Where is your punctured bicycle on 'that hillside desolate' prey Stephen Patrick ! Kindly stick to what you know
He's actually in rude form vocally but looking for outrage as ever and his is not a flag that I'd choose to align myself behind anymore. Hand In Glove maybe but not this bunch of old cobblers.. What Morrissey lacks is clearly what he's lacked since 1986. Johnny Marr.
There's an uninspired cover of Roxy's Amazona coming round the bend next . Discerning listeners are referred to the original. This is pallid at best. I skip the guitar histrionics and move on to Headache which promptly gives me one... apart from the line 'with this headache I thee wed!' which makes me laugh. But,. Next !!!
Boulevard takes its time. Morrissey can still pen a good line and knows it. He throws up in an icy bathroom just off said boulevard. Oh please. No, that's no good either !
What Morrissey does, he does better than anyone else. But let's face it he's done it much better than he does it here. 'We have the stars!' Mozza wails. You're welcome to them pal ! We want The Smiths !!!
Four songs left and I'm not flinching. But my hopes aren't high. Kerching, Kerching is negligible stuff about saving the hedgehog. A little boy who only thinks about joy. Oh. It's another vegetarian thing. Is it Meat Is Murder. No I'm afraid it isn't !!!
Lester Bangs. My ears prick up. I love Lester Bangs. But the lyrics aren't up to much. And the tune's a dirge. 'So sad for the universe!' You said it Mozza..
Many Icebergs Below. Morrissey's Down The Ten Bells with his quill. Are we done yet. We must be done. Morrissey is sinking merlots and awaiting Rousseau. This is truly rolling out the barrel so you can scrape it with a runcible spoon !
Make Up Is A Lie brings down the curtain with The Monsters of Pig Alley. It's reasonably poignant. Morrissey has at least saved the best until last. It's the most likeable thing here. Almost elegaic.
But in short this is a pretty dreadful album trading on the man's name and former glories. Morrissey is never a man to be entirely written off. Hard as he tries himself.. He's trying incredibly hard here. I think I should put these daffodils in water.
'UB40 get a decent live review from Sean O'Hagen who is a journalist of serious heft and authority. 'There's something about UB40 that seys them apart; live in stage before a highly partisan youthfil audience of dreads, baldheads suburban couples , casuals and herbsmen, The warmth and positive feelings that emanate from the group ar enough to melt all cynicism.'
' 'We're looking through your windows.'
I didn't know. We none of us knew what an extraordinary time and place we were born into and experiencing. It only hits me passing the anniversaries and thinking back. Listening to the extraordinary records that came out during those years and letting them carry back like virtual persian carpets travelling in space and time back to those days and times . The past is a foreign country as they say. They do differently there. . .
My family moved down to South West London in Spring of 1975 . We'd come back it Englsnd, to Nottingham three short years earlier, from Rhodesia where I was born. I call it Zimbabwe now because I found I want to leave the conversation whenever I meet someone who refers to use the colonial name.
Nottingham had been idyllic. For me at least. A tree lined primary school pathway lined with trees which I recall in constant blossom. Classes, schoolmates and experiences which I still remember with vivid clarity and rose tinted rhapsodic hue. Roald Dahl, and Glam. Kiddies Parties and first romance. The glow of happy childhood.
This continued in Richmond. The stop at the end of the district line which Virginia Woolf had considered the back of beyond but was actually a forty five minute underground ride from the very centre of London. There were seven of us.
The evening we arrived in London we walked to a restaurant in Richmond High Street and splashed out on a Chinese meal to celebrate the opening of a new chapter on our lives. Effectively now we were as good as Cockneys. Extras in a west End rendition of I'm Getting Married In The Morning, Consider Yourself, or Roll Out The Barrel.
I had a couple of wonderful years of further idyll in Richmond. A walk up Church Road in Richmond. Past the squats and over the ride. Up Mount Ararat and left into Vineyard and the Infant Primary School. The scrum of a playground. Teeming classrooms.
But now I look back and I'm glad I went to Grey Court. Rather than the train ride into London and Latymer Private School in Hammersmith which some of my classmates and their parents opted for. Partly because in the nostalgic glow fifty years on of the soundtrack we experienced between 1977 and 1982. Pop Music had been great in Britain since 1957. But I'm happy with the house I was posted in.
The Happy House. Siouxsie & The Banshees..With The Cure the bands that I feel describes the experience of growing up in Suburban London better than any other. Before or indeed since. The childhood games. The rituals . The fear. Of mental homes and all kinds The guitars..
Most of all The Make Up. The girls in the play ground at Grey Court went for the Sioux approach right across the board from memory. Perhaps they were scared themselves but it didn't come across. It was in itself inspiring and fantastic and still is fifty years on.
In 1979 John McKay and Kenny Morris walked out on the band in the most dramatic circumstances imaginable and put a huge question mark over their long term plausibility. Bur Sioux, Severin and the management team held the line. Drafted in Robert Smith as an immediate replacement and then brought in two major league replacements in Budgie and John McGeoch.
Kaleidoscope is a holding, transitional record. Some things work. Some don't. The best things I'd say are the singles Happy House and Christine which glow with nocturnal luminosity fifty five year later. Two of the greatest statements about madness ever to grace the Top Thirty. The rest takes me back to my teenage state. Not I imagine thinking about what was coming next. The state of grace that is 14.
' It was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor.' David Bowie Five Years
If David Bowie places himself in a tradition it's the Bowie one. Someone who's involved in music because they wish to make an artistic statement above all else. Actor is certainly that, A glacial record that understands the tradition where it wishes to place itself..
I was in two minds for today's Song(s) and Album(s) of the day because it's generally the latter these days on It Starts With a Birthstone. Should I share my thoughts on Make Up Is a Lie, The latest chapter in Morrissey's increasingly unhinged and self indulgent musical narrative. He has opinions and he will not be silenced it seems.
That can wait I decided, for another day. Instead I decided Michael Ian Cummings, another suggestion from the ever reliable Darren Jones. An Art Rock album called Godzilla from the ashes of New York band Skaters. that's much to my liking.
There's a certain sadness here. A sense of life and experience receding in the rear view mirror but something exciting appearing round the next bend. Keep your foot pressed on the pedal. This is rather lovely. We're into the day.
